John 14:8-17 (25-27) Commentary

Though many of us return to Acts 2 for Pentecost, writing these gospel commentaries for the last number of years has made me appreciate the work of the Holy Spirit that much more. I mean, don’t get me wrong, flaming tongues are pretty cool to imagine—and a friend of mine once made a pretty rocking hat for her children’s sermon that I still think about each year. But how John tells us Jesus talked about the Holy Spirit is quite powerful in its own right. Perhaps a fair bit more subtle than flaming tongues, but again, isn’t that the way of God, ready to be found in the big and the small?

Jesus has just told the disciples that he is going away but that he is preparing a place for them, and that he is the way, the truth, and the life for all who want to go to the Father. Likewise, Jesus has promised his beloveds that because they know him, they have also known the Father—in fact, they have seen the Father. This prompts Philip to request that Jesus show them the Father.

Jesus explains that knowing one of them is just like knowing the other. They are close in their companionship and purpose—so close that Jesus describes the Father as dwelling in him. In fact, it’s the same sort of way that Paul will talk about Christ and the Spirit dwelling in us. Jesus tells them that they can believe this to be true because they can look at what he’s done while he has been with them: they will see the Father’s purposes and power written all over what’s happened.

Jesus has come alongside humanity to show us God, and now, he promises that another will come alongside humanity and be in his beloveds. Because of this other companion, they will continue in Jesus’s way of doing the will of the Father, full of glory. Jesus is saying to us that we can only understand and know the Holy Spirit if we know and understand the unity of the other two persons of the trinity: Father and Son. In trinitarian theology, the Holy Spirit is often thought of as this bond of love between the Father and Son.

And notice how Jesus describes the Holy Spirit as “another Advocate, to be with you forever.” The purposes and bond of love among the Father and Son is what led to Christ’s incarnation in the first place; it is also the reason they send the Spirit to us: God is our Advocate, the one who comes alongside us, no matter which person of the Trinity it is.

The Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth, is the way of our abiding with God; the Spirit will be in us, not just alongside us. The Spirit is in us, united to us, the way that the Father and the Son are united to one another. And if this is so, then this close bond with the Spirit of truth becomes our guide in life just as Jesus pursued the will of the one with whom he was united.

And because the Spirit of truth becomes the guiding light for those in whom the Spirit dwells, the world cannot receive the Spirit. They refuse to see the Spirit of truth alongside them, tapping them on the shoulder and calling them to repentance. Those people and systems and structures and practices that do not want to be bent to the beauty of obedience shaped for the common good, the ones who measure the cost-benefit analysis in ungodly ways, the ones who prefer to play with the truth for their own gain, they show that they do not know or understand the loveliness of our triune God.

But if we can see it in Jesus, if we can see the Holy Spirit alongside us as God changes our paths, if we can know and understand real truth when we are confronted by it, if we can call upon the Lord to help us do the things that he would have us do, then we too can know the presence of God within us.

Textual Point

Most often, the description/name paracletos in verse 15 is translated as “Advocate.” It’s literal meaning is “one called alongside,” as it is a participle made up of the preposition para (beside, by, near) and the verb kaleō (to call). It truly is a lovely description of the Holy Spirit: the one who comes to be our companion on the Jesus Way.

Illustration Idea

I recently heard about the cost of being polite in a conversation with systems like OpenAI. According to Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, every time someone types “please” and “thank you” to the machines adds up, big time. Altman estimated that it’s cost the company tens of millions of dollars in electricity costs, but that it’s money “well spent.”

But here’s the thing. That’s how the “world sees” and why people caught up in such superficial stuff can’t see the real promptings of the Holy Spirit. As much as the company might want you to believe it, those tens of millions of dollars aren’t an altruistic cash loss, it’s a convenient distraction. Because, along with other key resources like water for cooling the data centers and rare minerals to build the computers, those dollars are paying for electricity very likely being generated by fossil fuels, which are increasing greenhouse gas emissions. There’s still hope for change, but it will take people becoming more thoughtful and less motivated by superficial niceties like how great it is that people are typing please and thank you. It will take people seeing that the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth, and God the Father and Jesus the Son, are in the works of creation care, in the call to steward our resources and to consider the needs of others around the world, and that just because we can do something, doesn’t mean we ought.