The surprising way God can live in us – John 14-16, Part 2

We evangelical Christians are known for teaching children to “ask Jesus into their heart.” From an adult perspective, it’s an odd phrase. Yet there is something to it, as we will see in today’s post.

After teaching his disciples that if they love him, they will obey him, which might feel like a tall task, Jesus says that he will help them. More specifically, he is sending someone to help one. Who is he sending? Jesus tells them in John 14, verses 16-21,

“And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever—the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them.”

So we’re not alone.  We have an advocate to help us.  Our advocate is the Holy Spirit.  But who is the Holy Spirit, and how is the Spirit our advocate?  What does Jesus mean?

First of all, we are not Unitarians.  Unitarians believe there is just God.  We are Trinitarians, meaning that we believe God exists as three persons, Father, Son and Spirit.  All equal.  One is not higher than the others.  We do not believe that God the Father is more powerful or above Jesus and the Spirit.  They are totally equal.  A passage like this is very Trinitarian in nature.  Father, Son and Spirit all mentioned as equals. 

What do we read about God from the Bible?  We read quite a lot about God as Father, leading us to sometimes jokingly call him “the big man upstairs.”  In our hearts and minds we can go beyond what the Bible teaches about God, conceiving God as a man with a beard who is the Father of Jesus.  Yet, Father God, to us, seems to be God, and thus we have a respect for him.  We can envision him, and we pray to him. 

Then there is Jesus.  We read a lot about Jesus in the Bible, and we watch movies and TV shows dramatizing the life of Jesus.  Because Jesus is God who took on human flesh, he is very easy to connect with.  Even if we’re just reading the stories about his life or studying his teachings in the Bible, we can feel close to him.

But the Spirit?  What we read in the Bible is a Spirit who moves in mysterious ways. A Spirit who is invisible.  Sometimes we can feel the Spirit is not very communicative, if at all.  We read that the Spirit lives with us, that our bodies are the temple of the Spirit, but what does that even mean? Are we supposed to feel something?  Often we can think, “I don’t feel anything.” 

We sometimes hear people talking about how the Spirit said this to them and the Spirit said that.  We can hear stories or watch videos of people speaking on tongues or being slain in the Spirit, and we can feel extremely uncomfortable about that.  We wonder, “Is it real?  Can’t be, can it?  It seems fake.  And why would God want us to do any of that stuff?” 

Then we read about the work of the Spirit in the Bible, especially in the book of Acts, which tells the story of the first Christians and how they lived the mission of Jesus, inviting people across the Roman Empire to follow Jesus.  In Acts chapter 2, the Spirit first comes upon them as a rushing wind, as tongues of flame alight on their heads, empowering the disciples to speak in other languages.  It can seem bizarre.  Wind?  Fire?  Other languages?  We Word-centered Christians tend to be very suspicious of those expressions of faith.  Many of us would rather read, study, memorize, teach and preach the Bible.  The Spirit is wild, scary, confusing.

But here Jesus says that he will give us the Spirit to be our…well…actually, what is Jesus talking about?  The word he uses is translated many ways.  The NIV 1984 uses “Counselor.”  The NAS and ESV use “Helper.”  The NRSV and NLT use “Advocate”.  The King James uses “Comforter.”  While these words are similar, they all have a slightly different nuance.

The Greek word is paraclete which is defined as “one who helps, by consoling, encouraging, or mediating on behalf of—Helper, Encourager, Mediator.”  (Louw & Nida, 141)

Think about those words: Helper, Encourager, Consoler, Mediator.  Each describes the Spirit as actively involved in our lives.  The Spirit is relational, communicative, supporting us.  

The Spirit is the Spirit of Truth, Jesus says, who dwells with us and in us.  When Jesus says in verse 20 that we are in him, and he is in us, he is referring to the work of the Spirit in our lives.    Because Jesus and the Spirit are equally God, Jesus lives in us by the Spirit.

Also notice how Jesus bookends this teaching with love and obedience.  In verse 15, and again in verse 21.  In both of the those verses, Jesus says we demonstrate our love for him by keeping his commands.  Now he says that both the Father loves us and he, Jesus, loves us.  Because he loves us, he will manifest himself to us, which means that he is present with us.  His presence will be with us because his Spirit will be with us and in us.

If you are one of the disciples sitting there, you could be thinking, “Jesus, you just told us that you are going to leave us, and now you are saying that you will be present with us?  You are contradicting yourself!”   But Jesus is not contradicting himself.  Yes, he is leaving, but in his place he is sending the Spirit to be with us, to live in us.  He will be present with us by his Spirit.  But also, when we obey his commands, we actually make Jesus visible to the world around us.  His teaching comes alive in us and to others.    

Do you see how deeply connected our Trinitarian God wants to be with us?  And do you see how this desire for connection is based in God’s love for us?  God in us, loving us.  Filled with God the Spirit, we respond back in loving obedience. 

This discussion has one of Jesus’ disciples thinking.  Judas.  Not the bad Judas.  He asks in verse 22, “But, Lord, why do you intend to show yourself to us and not to the world?”  Good question, especially when we think about the mission of God to bless the whole world.  Or maybe Judas misunderstands Jesus.  So Jesus clears things up, and we’ll learn how in the next post.

Photo by DESIGNECOLOGIST on Unsplash