Pentecost According to John 14 (I)

"Philip said to him, ‘Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.’ 9 Jesus said to him, ‘Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, “Show us the Father”? 10 Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works. 11 Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves. 12 Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. 13 I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 If in my name you ask me*for anything, I will do it. 15 ‘If you love me, you will keep* my commandments. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you for ever. 17 This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in* you.....25 ‘I have said these things to you while I am still with you. 26 But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you. 27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid."

Introduction--John and The Spirit

John emphasizes different things than Luke in his account of the coming and work of the Holy Spirit. In Luke-Acts the stress is on the "visual" work of the Holy Spirit in empowering disciples to speak the truth and do works of wonder. I say "visual" because Luke, alone among the Evangelists, mentions the Spirit's descent on Jesus "in a bodily form" at his baptism (3:22) and also provides the very memorable image of tongues of fire distributed to the disciples on Pentecost (Acts 2:3). In John, however, the Spirit has a more complex task. The Spirit functions as a combination of a reminder or prompt, a truth-teller, a teacher and a sort of advocate for the disciples when needing counsel or defense. The word "comforter" to describe the Holy Spirit has an impressive pedigree--going back to Wycliffe's translation of John 14:6 in the 1380s, but the use of "comforter" in the 14th century is different from the way we would use the term today. That is, the word "comforter" is derived from the Latin confortare, which means to "strenghten with" (fortis is strength or strong). Thus, our 21st century understanding of "comfort," which we associate with anything from a nice hug to a bag of chocolate ("comfort food") really doesn't capture the essence even of the Wycliffe's use of the word.

Let's look at the Greek. The Greek word used by John to describe the Spirit is parakletos, literally "one called beside" another. In I John 2:1 Jesus is called the parakletos, and in the context of that letter the best translation of the word is "Advocate" or "Intercessor." Jesus says in John that he will send "another parakletos" (14:16), which suggests that there is already a model of the parakletos in front of the disciples. The Greek word translated "another" is allos. There are two Greek words for "other" or "another," allos and heteros. Ever since the time of JB Lightfoot, a great English-language New Testament commentator in the late 19th century, English-language scholars have tried to make the distinction between the two words as follows: allos means another "of the same kind," while heteros means another "of a different kind." Most modern scholars think that this difference is overly rigid, and that it can't be defended for the Gospel of John.

But Jesus' words in John 14:16 that he would give "another parakletos" and John's identification of Jesus as a parakletos for us in I John 2:1 leads to the natural suggestion that the first paraklete, the first guide, counselor, defender, prompt, etc. was Jesus himself. Thus, the fullness of John's picture of the Spirit is explained by the fullness of his picture of Jesus. John's Spirit is thus a much more developed concept than in Luke Acts; it is a concept as broad and as powerful as the portrait of Christ himself.

The Spirit in Context in the Gospel of John

As I have shown in previous essays on John 13-17, John wants us to understand these fives chapters as ever more intimate words about Christ, Christ's relationship to the Father and ours to him. Here is the flow of chs. 13-15. In John 13 Jesus gives us an example and a command. The example is to be a servant and the command is to love one another. But in ch. 14 and 15 he "ups" the stakes, because he begins to speak in terms not of action but of knowledge. What is striking about this section of the Gospel of John is that it moves from action to knowledge and not vice-versa. Almost every exposition of Christian ethics, and almost every preacher I have heard, will stress how ethics flows from knowledge. That is, we love, because he first loved us.

This is well and good as a general principle, but it doesn't really reflect the flow of these significant middle chapters of the Gospel of John. Here we begin with action (servanthood) and end with understanding. In fact, this is the way that most of life works. As parents we teach our children to be polite, for example, before they know why or how politeness and civility adds to the strength of a life and a civilization. We teach children to learn how to calculate simple mathematical problems before they learn the theory of math (if they or we ever do!). We are committed to instructing our children in the "right thing," before they even know why it is right. The same can be argued about the Gospel fo John. Only after Jesus tells the disciples how to be a servant, and demonstrates that to them does he bring them into the realms of intimacy and knowledge which He shares with the Father and that we can share with them. Chapter 14, then, is a crucial transitional chapter between the action of 13 and the vine/branches image of 15. Thus, be ready for lessons on intimacy and interconnetedness in John 14.

Three themes from the text for the morning will conclude my thoughts.

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