The Spirit of Truth
We are to consult God's written Word regularly,
asking the Holy Spirit to illuminate our minds
to understand and applying scriptural truth.
Here's Gene:
While Jesus was there in the upper room
following the foot washing experience
and teaching them to love one another,
He made a very direct reference to the Holy Spirit.
Now these men were very confused
at this point in time.
Because Jesus added to their confusion,
and their insecurities, and their anxiety
when He said: I'm going to go away.
I'm going to prepare a place for you.
But I will come again to receive you unto Myself.
But in the midst of their anxiety,
Jesus made reference to the Spirit of Truth.
And we see this in John chapter 14,
verse 15. Jesus said:
If you love me, you will keep my commands. ....
And of course, He had just talked to
them about a new commandment.
The new commandment was to
love one another as He had loved them.
And then Jesus, to reassure them, says this:
...And I will ask the Father, and he will give you
another Counselor to be with you forever.
He is the Spirit of Truth.
Now this was a whole new concept to them.
They didn't even understand at
this point in time, totally who Jesus was.
Let alone the whole concept of the Holy Spirit.
The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
But Jesus little by little is bringing them
into a knowledge of the truth.
So He introduces them now to the Holy Spirit,
which He calls the Spirit of Truth.
And that's a very important way
in which Jesus described the Spirit.
The Spirit of Truth.
And He's going to repeat that
throughout this passage of Scripture.
Calling this Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth.
We have another reference when you
go down to verse 25, here in John 14.
Again this is what Jesus said about the Spirit of Truth:
I have spoken these things to you
while I remain with you. ...
And of course Jesus was still with them. But He said:
...the Counselor, the Holy Spirit,
whom the Father will send in my name,
will teach you all things and remind you
of everything I've told you.
Now keep in mind, this is the upper room.
Judas is gone.
Eleven men are sitting there,
reclining there, still confused,
embarrassed because of what happened
when Jesus washed their feet.
And sitting there, imagine was a man
by the name Matthew.
And as he reclined at the table,
pulling on his beard maybe and scratching his head.
He was trying to think: What is Jesus talking about?
When the Spirit of Truth come,
He's going to teach us all things.
He's going to remind us everything that
Jesus has taught us over the last three years.
Well he doesn't comprehend this at this moment
but let me just fast forward you about thirty years.
And somewhere in the New Testament world,
Matthew has been ministering--is ministering.
I don't know whether it happened
in the middle of the night.
I don't know what happened while
he was having lunch.
I don't know what happened, specifically.
When it happened. How it happened.
But somehow he was influenced to roll out
his scroll and take his pen and begin to inscribe:
Blessed are the poor in Spirit for the
kingdom of heaven is theirs.
Wow! He remembered those words.
About 33 years ago, Jesus said that
on the Mount of Beatitudes.
And then he was inspired to write:
Blessed are those who mourn
for they will be comforted.
And in that moment or time, he went on
to record all the Beatitudes that he
had heard on the Mount of Beatitudes.
Probably 33 years or so before.
And he went on to record the
whole Gospel of Matthew. See this is what Jesus
was talking about to the apostles.
He will teach you all things when He comes--
this Spirit of Truth. He will remind you of
everything that I have told you.
Well Jesus is not finished because
He goes on in John 15:26 and He says:
When the Counselor comes...
And at this point in time, they'd left the
upper room and they were heading towards
the Kidron Valley if you read the context.
And Jesus may have stopped.
They had flickering torches and there
was a lot of fear in the air because they
were out to kill Jesus--the enemies of Jesus.
And Jesus stopped evidently and He says:
When the Counselor comes,
the one I will send to you from the Father--
the Spirit of truth...
Again He calls Him the Spirit of truth:
...who proceeds from the Father--
he will testify about me.
Now I can imagine John--who's standing next to Jesus.
Because he was from a human point of view,
the disciple Jesus loved. Very close friend.
And maybe in the darkness and by the light
of those torches, He looked into John's eyes
when He made this statement:
He'll testify about me. Imagine.
Now fast forward 60 years later,
approximately--somewhere in the
New Testament world.
John may be in Ephesus because
we know he was in Ephesus.
He's now 90 years old.
And he's inspired to pick up his quill.
Roll out this scroll. And begin to record.
Now get what he recorded:
In the beginning was the Word.
And the Word was with God.
And the Word was God.
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.
And we beheld His glory.
He's reflecting now 60 years later
on what Jesus said. Standing there,
perhaps by the temple in the darkness.
Heading towards the Kidron Valley
and the Garden of Gethsemane.
And he remembered these words:
When he comes, he will testify about me.
And what's the whole purpose of the
Gospel of John as we've seen?
To testify about Jesus Christ and who He really is.
And see, this is the marvelous story of
the way in which God gave us the
inspired Word of God.
And it goes back in the New Testament
situation to what happened there in the upper room.
One other statement that Jesus said in
John 16:13 as they're continuing
perhaps to descend into the Kidron Valley.
When the spirit of truth comes...
See, three or four times He calls the Holy Spirit
the Spirit of truth.
...he will guide you into all the truth.
For he will not speak on his own,
but he will speak whatever he hears.
He will also declare to you what is to come.
And John doesn't realize that about 65 years later,
he's going to be out on the Isle of Patmos
where Jesus actually appears to him and said:
John, pick up your quill and write.
Record the things that are and the things to come.
And he wrote the book of Revelation.
Which was the fulfillment of what Jesus
promised 65 years ago, approximately.
When Jesus said: the Holy Spirit will
declare to you men--and John
particularly--what is to come.
So it's a marvelous story of Jesus
introducing them to the Holy Spirit.
Now we know what happened.
Jesus died. Rose again. Ascended.
And what happened in Jerusalem
on the day of Pentecost?
This came true--began to come true
when the Holy Spirit came.
Remember there was this loud noise
like a mighty wind throughout Jerusalem.
Thousands of people were there for a fifty-day
celebration leading up to the feast of Pentecost.
The Last Supper. And they're there.
And people rush to where that sound came from.
They saw 11 men. Men of Galilee standing there.
And they looked and it was like tongues of fire
sitting on their heads in the midst of
this mighty rushing wind.
And Peter gets up to explain
what happened. Notice :
When this sound occurred,
a crowd came together and was confused
because each one heard them speaking
in his own language.
...Now the men that were speaking
all these languages of the people who'd
come from all over the Roman world
were the 11 apostles. Because they were
all men of Galilee. And we read:
...They were astounded and amazed...
That is the people:
...were astounded and amazed, saying,
"Look, aren't all [those] who are speaking Galileans?"
And it's important that we understand
that it was those 11 men that
were speaking those languages. The apostles.
When the Holy Spirit came. And enabled them
to communicate the gospel in all
these different languages.
And Peter got up to explain.
Peter of course is just beginning to
experience this himself and to understand it.
And we read in Acts 2:41:
So those who accepted his message
were baptized, and that day about
three thousand people were added to them.
They devoted themselves to [what?]
the apostles' teaching, to the fellowship,
to the breaking of bread, and to prayer.
You see, Jesus said: When the Spirit of truth
has come, He will remind you
of everything I've told you.
It happened. We see it in the Gospels.
He will bring to you, not only
remembrance of what I've taught you,
He will guide you into all truth.
He will give you the truth. And what happened?
The apostles first spoke the truth as Peter did.
And then they wrote.
And in essence, what we have in our
New Testament is the apostles' teaching.
The apostles' teaching. Including the
apostle Paul who just before he died
wrote these words in his last letter
to Timothy when he said:
All Scripture [Timothy] is inspired
by God and is profitable for teaching,
for rebuking, for correcting, for training
in righteousness, so the man of God
may be complete, equipped for every good work.
The Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth,
inspired the authors of the New Testament
to give us the New Testament--
the new covenant.
And it came from the Spirit of truth who
came upon the apostles, enabling them
to carry out the Great Commission.
But let's remember that though the Holy Spirit--
now get this--performed a unique ministry
through the authors of Scripture, the apostles.
We must remember that Jesus promised,
regarding the indwelling Holy Spirit,
is to all believers. All believers.
And Paul made this clear in his letter
to the Corinthians. Notice what he wrote:
For we were all baptized by one Spirit...
This not talking about water baptism.
This is talking about the Spirit of God
being placed in each of our hearts.
For we are all baptized by one spirit
into one body--whether Jews or Greeks,
whether slaves are free--and we were
all given one Spirit to drink.
And there he alludes to the metaphor "living water."
As he said to the woman at the well:
that will spring up to eternal life.
So here's a conclusion. Since the Holy Spirit
supernaturally authored the Scriptures
through human instruments.
And we've seen how that happened.
Certainly the one who dwells within
each one of us personally, as a body corporately,
will illuminate our minds
to understand and apply God's truth.
If God inspired these men to write the
truth through the Holy Spirit, certainly the
Holy Spirit will open our minds and
our hearts to understand what is recorded.
So consequently, we have this Principle,
which I call the Spirit of Truth:
We are to consult God's written Word regularly,
asking the Holy Spirit to illuminate our minds
to understand and apply scriptural truth.
And here's a question for application:
What advantages do believers today
have over believers in John's day?
What are you holding in your hands?
You're holding the whole Bible--all 66 books.
God's gift to us.
And that gives us a great advantage. The question is:
Do we really appreciate this gift?
Not only the gift of Scripture but the gift
of the Holy Spirit to help us
to understand the Scriptures. What a gift.
Let's remember that God sent the Spirit
to give us the Scriptures but also
to come into our lives to help us
to understand this marvelous revelation from God.