The Work of the Comforter
I. Many, perhaps, cannot understand how the condition of Christians now is better than that of the disciples when our Lord was upon earth; how the Comforter, whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth Him not, neither knoweth Him, can be a greater blessing than the visible presence of Jesus Christ in the flesh. Yet if we look at the character of the apostles, we shall see that our Lord's words were exactly true. It was expedient for them that He should go away, because while He was with them their faith often wavered, and their hearts were more often turned to earthly things than to heavenly; but when He went from them, and the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, visited them in His room, they were led into all truth and their whole minds were renewed by that spiritual baptism, so as to be fit for the kingdom of God. That Comforter is now ever working in the hearts of Christ's true servants, and therefore to them, as was promised, Christ still manifests Himself. Though now they see Him not, yet believing, they rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory; a far happier state than theirs who saw Him and yet did not believe in Him.
II. To feel the burden of our captivity is not the same thing as to be free from it; to love God in our better mind, or, as St. Paul calls it, "according to the inward man," is not the same thing as to walk according to that love and show it forth in our lives and actions. So that though we may now believe, yet if the hour cometh when we shall be scattered every man to his own, assuredly we cannot reckon ourselves as belonging to that flock of the good Shepherd, who hear His voice, and also follow Him whithersoever He goeth, so that they may never go astray from the fold. We must attain to the Spirit of life which is in Christ Jesus; the Spirit of God must abide in us and change us into His own image, that we may be delivered from sin and the flesh, and serve them no more at all.
T. Arnold, Sermons,vol. i., p. 246.
References: John 16:31-33. W. Roberts, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xii., p. 171.