THE FUNCTION OF THE PARACLETE
‘He shall glorify Me: for He shall take of Mine, and shall declare it unto you.’
John 16:14. (R.V.)
These promises have not passed away. They remain as true now, as capable of fulfilment now, as when they were first uttered.
Let us try to realise what this teaching of the Holy Spirit means, or ought to mean, to us at the present day. It is on the one hand a continuation of the teaching of Jesus. From another point of view it is in a sense a development, a fresh interpretation of the teaching of Jesus.
I. A continuation.—The Holy Spirit, being the Vicar of Christ, cannot teach anything that is opposed to the teaching of Christ. On this point our Lord’s language is quite definite and unmistakable. ‘He shall bear witness unto Me.’ ‘He shall glorify Me: for He shall take of Mine, and shall declare it unto you.’ ‘He shall guide you into all the truth: for He shall not speak from Himself; but what things soever He shall hear, these shall He speak.’ The message of the Holy Spirit proceeds ultimately from the Father and the Son. It is not within His province to give an entirely new revelation to mankind. He does not speak from Himself. The lines of Christ’s revelation of Himself and of the Father have been settled once for all. Any teaching that contradicts the direct, the explicit, the undeniable teaching of Jesus Christ cannot be the teaching of the Holy Spirit. No development of Christianity is permissible that involves this contradiction. So far, then, as the main outlines of the Christian Creed are concerned, the voice of the Holy Spirit must be in the strictest sense a continuation and a carrying-on of the teaching of the Gospel.
II. The teaching of the Holy Spirit within certain limits develops, reinterprets, readjusts for each successive generation the teaching which Jesus gave while He was on earth.—Our Lord recognised very clearly that His teaching of His first disciples could not be absolutely complete and final. Take, for instance, the words: ‘I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.’ The full development of the principles of His teaching and the application of those principles in detail, could not be communicated to the Apostles without putting on them a burden which they were unable to bear. They would not have understood what He meant. In Christ’s training of the Apostles He always kept that difficulty in view. Suppose that He had told Peter, at the time of his call in Galilee, that the Gentiles eventually would have a share in the Kingdom of God. Such a statement, if made in those early days, Peter would probably have been unable to bear. It would have confused and unsettled him; it might have ended in his leaving his Master. Peter had to be led on gradually till the force of circumstances and changed conditions compelled him to see the need of admitting Gentile converts. Then a new light burst on him, and he was able to reinterpret his Master’s sayings in this wider sense. That is a typical example of the development which results from the teaching of the Spirit. So it has been in each successive age of Christendom. Each generation has had its own needs and problems to face, and has gone back afresh to the words of Christ, and found in them a new light and helpfulness. No doubt at times there has been misinterpretation of what our Lord meant. No doubt there have been periods of stagnation and corruption in the Church, when the voice of the Spirit has been more or less stifled. But that is only what Christ foresaw. There were to be false Christs; and because iniquity was to abound, the love of the many would wax cold.
III. No doubt, too, the voice of the Spirit’s teaching has not always been distinct and unmistakable.—Different branches of the Church have interpreted some of the words of their Master in different and even in antagonistic ways. And this, too, was not wholly unexpected by Christ, for ‘in His Father’s house there are many mansions.’ But if we take a broad view of the course of Church history, is it not true that men in age after age have honestly endeavoured to put a fresh interpretation on the words of Christ, in order to meet the difficulties of their time, and by doing so have placed themselves under the guidance of the Holy Spirit? Christ’s revelation of Himself must differ in different generations, because, as He foresaw, it must be suited to the character and the conditions of each generation in turn. Only so could it last for all time. It would long ago have become a dead thing if it had been merely a cut-and-dried system of doctrines and precepts. It lives, because the ever-renewed teaching and guiding of the Spirit continually supply it with fresh life and growth.
‘He shall glorify Me: for He shall take of Mine, and shall declare it unto you.’ Our Lord in these words seems to contemplate the Holy Spirit as selecting from time to time some portion of His teaching, and developing it and emphasising it, so as to make it more real than it has hitherto been, and more fitted to give enlightenment to men’s changing doubts and difficulties. Can anything be of greater interest and value to us nowadays than this conception of the work of the Paraclete?
Rev. Dr. H. G. Woods.
Illustration
‘Suppose that we did not possess the Gospel according to John; how much vaguer our knowledge would be! We should still, indeed, have the description of the day of Pentecost; we should still have the promise of Jesus that the Father in heaven will give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him; we should still have St. Paul’s account of the work of the Holy Spirit, of the fruits of the Spirit, of life in the Spirit. But how great would be our loss if we did not possess that last discourse before the Passion, in which the writer of the Fourth Gospel has enshrined the memory (or call it, if you will, the tradition) of his Master’s teaching about the relation of the Holy Spirit to Himself and to His Church! As we think it over we cannot but feel how full of interest and of spiritual insight is the account there given of that mysterious Personality, Whom the Father was to send in Christ’s Name. As is well known, “Comforter” is a mistranslation. The Greek term “Paraclete” denotes properly the Advocate, the Counsel, Whom each follower of Christ can call in, to stand by him, to find words for him, to give him helpful suggestions, to plead for him, to act for him, in the great trial and contest, which is continually going on, and which will go on until the final Day of Judgment, between Satan and the human soul.’