“I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you. Yet a little while and the world sees me no more, but you see me. Because I live, you will live as well. In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me and I in you”.
For it is Jesus Himself Who will come to them. If we say (sometimes rather glibly) ‘by His Spirit' we should recognise that in the Spirit both Jesus and the Father do really come to them. The Father is active everywhere, Jesus upholds all things by His powerful word, and by Him all things hold together. The coming of the Spirit is all-inclusive of the Godhead.
It is true that very soon He will be wrenched from them and they will be desolate. And to the world it will seem to be the end of Him. As far as the world will be concerned He will have gone for good. But it will not be so for the Apostles and for His people. He will come to them in their desolation. They will not be left unprotected and with no one to watch over them, (literally ‘as orphans').
This means more than just the resurrection appearances, although it includes them. For through His resurrection they will receive resurrection life, life from Him. They will have even deeper life through the Spirit. Then they will fully know that He is in the Father as He has said. But even more they will know that He has come to them and is in them and that they are in Him. The closeness of His relationship with the Father will echo the relationship they will have with Him. Something of this comes out in the experience of Stephen. Even as the stones struck him and he fell to the ground he was so conscious of the presence of Jesus that he who had been all his life taught to pray to God cried, ‘Lord Jesus, receive my spirit' (Acts 7:59).
So through His resurrection and the coming of His Spirit in new measure (for they already enjoyed His Spirit in some measure), they will have their eyes fully opened to Who He is, and fully opened to the wonder of their oneness with Him, and of His indwelling within them. This wonderful promise is of new life now, as well as a promise of life in the age to come.