John 15 (Twenty-four) Who is the Holy Spirit?

Good day

For as long as it takes we are going to study the gospel of John chapters fourteen to seventeen. Some of it will be what I have already written and some will be new. Therefore it may sometimes appear that I leave off in the middle of a topic to be continued, since I have reached my daily word count limit.

To pick up the topic, you may need to read the one or two postings preceding this one.

Today we conclude chapter fifteen of the gospel of John.

“When the Counsellor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father, he will testify about me. And you also must testify, for you have been with me from the beginning,” (John 15:26, 27).

We all know that Jesus is talking here about the Holy Spirit. Many of us have heard of the Holy Spirit and many of us have even been filled or baptised by the Holy Spirit. To some of us the Holy Spirit is someone we only heard about because our churches do not put much emphasis on Him, whilst to some He is linked to a loud and emotional experience. But who is this Holy Spirit? Why is He so important? Why did the Lord say in Matthew 12:31: “And so I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven?” The name of Jesus gets blasphemed on a daily basis and so the name of God, but you hardly hear blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.

Let us look carefully at the passage above. He is called the Counsellor. Who was Jesus while He was on the earth? Was He not the Prophet and Teacher and in the end the Lamb to be slaughtered? The purpose of His existence in relation to humans is one of suffering for our sake, something which He still has to bear when you think of how much He gets blasphemed, mocked and persecuted. As the Son of God He had to and still has to be tough and strong to persevere in the destiny that was put upon Him. He is the King for we read: “Jesus came to them and said, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me,’” (Matthew 28:18) and “‘As surely as I live,’ says the Lord, ‘every knee will bow before me; every tongue will confess to God’” (Romans 14:11). As King He is the ruler - the strong one, able to handle the onslaughts He receives.

The Holy Spirit, however, is the Counsellor. What do you think is the character of a counsellor? Is a counsellor not supposed to be gentle and understanding? The Holy Spirit as Counsellor took over from Jesus, not as mediator, but as support, advisor, empowerment and buddy of those who love the Lord. He literally is the One who comes alongside to help. He therefore needs to be soft, vulnerable, tender, sympathetic and gentle in order to comfort those who are vulnerable.

The second important thing we see in our passage is that the Spirit of truth goes out from the Father, and the way I understand it is that He actually is representative of the Father's Spirit, in effect is the Father’s Spirit, which actually makes Him very special, a person of high respect. This is why anybody who blasphemes against Him will not be forgiven. God will not tolerate anybody who bullies someone so gentle and caring.

Lastly what is His job? He will testify about Jesus. We on our own cannot testify about Jesus, simply because we do not know Him. We have never seen Him nor experienced Him as a person. The disciples did, which is why Jesus encouraged them in our passage to testify about Him. However, the only way the disciples that came after them, which include us, can testify about Jesus is through revelation that we have received from the Counsellor, the Holy Spirit. Let us therefore see and experience the Holy Spirit for who He is - soft, gentle, vulnerable and easily grieved because for Him to sympathise (empathise) with us, He needs to be like that.

What a wonderful God we serve. Let us praise his name!

Lord, I submit to the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

Thank you Lord that your Word went out from your mouth, via your servant’s pen, and it will not return to you empty, but will accomplish what you desire and achieve the purpose for which you sent it.

Please pass this on if you think others may benefit by it.