John 14:25

Two things Christ here comforts his disciples with: -

I. That they should be under the tuition of his Spirit, Joh 14:25, Joh 14:26, where we may observe,

1. The reflection Christ would have them make upon the instructions he had given them: These things have I spoken unto you (referring to all the good lessons he had taught them, since they entered themselves into his school), being yet present with you. This intimates, (1.) That what he had said he did not retract nor unsay, but ratify it, or stand to it. What he had spoken he had spoken, and would abide by it. (2.) That he had improved the opportunity of his bodily presence with them to the utmost: "As long as I have been yet present with them, you know I have lost no time." Note, When our teachers are about to be removed from us we should call to mind what they have spoken, being yet present with us.

2. The encouragement given them to expect another teacher, and that Christ would find out a way of speaking to them after his departure from them, Joh 14:26. He had told them before that the Father would give them this other comforter (Joh 14:16), and here he returns to speak of it again; for as the promise of the Messiah had been, so the promise of the Spirit now was, the consolation of Israel. Two things he here tells them further concerning the sending of the Holy Ghost: -

(1.) On whose account he should be sent: "The Father will send him in my name; that is, for my sake, at my special instance and request:" or, "as my agent and representative." He came in his Father's name, as his ambassador: the Spirit comes in his name, as resident in his absence, to carry on his undertaking, and to ripen things for his second coming. Hence he is called the Spirit of Christ, for he pleads his cause, and does his work.

(2.) On what errand he should be sent; two things he shall do: - [1.] He shall teach you all things, as a Spirit of wisdom and revelation Christ was a teacher to his disciples; if he leave them now that they have made so little proficiency, what will become of them? Why, the Spirit shall teach them, shall be their standing tutor. He shall teach them all things necessary for them either to learn themselves, or to teach others. For those that would teach the things of God must first themselves be taught of God; this is the Spirit's work. See Isa 59:21. [2.] He shall bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you. Many a good lesson Christ had taught them, which they had forgotten, and which would be to seek when they had occasion for it. Many things they did not retain the remembrance of, because they did not rightly understand the meaning of them. The Spirit shall not teach them a new gospel, but bring to their minds that which they had been taught, by leading them into the understanding of it. The apostles were all of them to preach, and some of them to write, the things that Jesus did and taught, to transmit them to distant nations and future ages; now, if they had been left to themselves herein, some needful things might have been forgotten, others misrepresented, through the treachery of their memories; therefore the Spirit is promised to enable them truly to relate and record what Christ said unto them. And to all the saints the Spirit of grace is given to be a remembrancer, and to him by faith and prayer we should commit the keeping of what we hear and know.

II. That they should be under the influence of his peace (Joh 14:27): Peace I leave with you. When Christ was about to leave the world he made his will. His soul he committed to his Father; his body he bequeathed to Joseph, to be decently interred; his clothes fell to the soldiers; his mother he left to the care of John: but what should he leave to his poor disciples, that had left all for him? Silver and gold he had none; but he left them that which was infinitely better, his peace. "I leave you, but I leave my peace with you. I not only give you a title to it, but put you in possession of it." He did not part in anger, but in love; for this was his farewell, Peace I leave with you, as a dying father leaves portions to his children; and this is a worthy portion. Observe,

1. The legacy that is here bequeathed Peace, my peace. Peace is put for all good, and Christ has left us all needful good, all that is really and truly good, as all the purchased promised good. Peace is put for reconciliation and love; the peace bequeathed is peace with God, peace with one another; peace in our own bosoms seems to be especially meant; a tranquillity of mind arising from a sense of our justification before God. It is the counterpart of our pardons, and the composure of our minds. This Christ calls his peace, for he is himself our peace, Eph 2:14. It is the peace he purchased for us and preached to us, and on which the angels congratulated men at his birth, Luk 2:14.

2. To whom this legacy is bequeathed: "To you, my disciples and followers, that will be exposed to trouble, and have need of peace; to you that are the sons of peace, and are qualified to receive it." This legacy was left to them as the representatives of the church, to them and their successors, to them and all true Christians in all ages.

3. In what manner it is left: Not as the world giveth, give I unto you. That is, (1.) "I do not compliment you with Peace be unto you; no, it is not a mere formality, but a real blessing." (2.) "The peace I give is of such a nature that the smiles of the world cannot give it, nor the frowns of the world take it away." Or, (3.) "The gifts I give to you are not such as this world gives to its children and votaries, to whom it is kind." The world's gifts concern only the body and time; Christ's gifts enrich the soul for eternity: the world gives lying vanities, and that which will cheat us; Christ gives substantial blessings, which will never fail us: the world gives and takes; Christ gives a good part that shall never be taken away. (4.) The peace which Christ gives is infinitely more valuable than that which the world gives. The world's peace begins in ignorance, consists with sin, and ends in endless troubles; Christ's peace begins in grace, consists with no allowed sin, and ends at length in everlasting peace. As is the difference between a killing lethargy and a reviving refreshing sleep, such is the difference between Christ's peace and the world's.

4. What use they should make of it: Let not your heart be troubled, for any evils past or present, neither let it be afraid of any evil to come. Note, Those that are interested in the covenant of grace, and entitled to the peace which Christ gives, ought not to yield to overwhelming griefs and fears. This comes in here as the conclusion of the whole matter; he had said (Joh 14:1), Let not your heart be troubled, and here he repeats it as that for which he had now given sufficient reason.

Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Joh_14:25-26

These things have I spoken unto you

The mission of the Holy Spirit

I.

ITS DISTINCTION FROM THAT OF JESUS CHRIST. Both Christ and the Spirit were sent by the Father, and were sent to teach; but they differed in respect of

1. Character. Christ had been sent in the Fathers name as the Fathers representative; the Spirit was come in Christs name as Christs representative.

2. Purpose. Christ had been sent to furnish men with an objective image of God; the Spirit to give an inward apprehension of the same.

3. Duration. Christ came for a season; the Spirit forever.

4. Results. Christs mission was imperfectly realized so far as it related to the enlightenment of men; that of the Spirit would attain complete success both in instructing and sanctifying.

II. ITS FULFILMENT IS THE CASE OF CHRISTS APOSTLES.

1. Scripture illumination. A wonderful light began to shine on the Old Testament, which enabled them to see its references to Christ which had previously been hidden (cf. Psa_16:8-11 with Act_2:25-28; Psa_110:1 with Act_2:34; Psa_2:1-2 with Ac Psa_2:7 with Act_13:33; Amo_9:11 with Ac Zec_9:9 with Joh_12:16)

.

2. Quickened recollection. A lively recollection of forgotten words of Jesus began to show itself. Examples: Joh_2:22; Luk_24:8; Act_11:16; Act_20:35. In particular, Christs utterances concerning His relation with the Father (Joh_8:28).

3. Further revelation. A gradual disclosure of truths which had been concealed in Christs teaching but not developed as, e.g., the doctrines of

(1) His Divinity (Act_1:36).

(2) His atoning death (Act_3:19).

(3) His exclusive Mediatorship (Act_4:12).

(4) Justification by faith (Act_13:39; Rom_1:16-17; Rom_3:21-26; Rom_5:1).

(5) The Catholicity of the New Testament Church (Act_11:17; Rom_1:6-7; Rom_2:11; Gal_6:15; Eph_2:14-16). In short, out of this flowed the New Testament.

III. ITS RELATION TO THE GENERAL BODY OF BELIEVERS.

1. Negatively. It does not warrant the expectation that new revelations will be imparted to either the Church or individual--a pretension advanced by Rome, which places tradition on a level with the writings of apostles.

2. Positively. Christs language implies that the Church and the individual have today, as the apostles had, a Teacher qualified to lead them into all religious truth (1Jn_2:20).

Learn:

1. The high esteem in which the Holy Spirit should be held as the Fathers Commissioner, the Saviours Expositor, the apostles Remembrancer, the Churchs Teacher, the saints Comforter.

2. The great confidence which should be placed in the Holy Spirit, possessing as He does the two-fold stamp and seal of the Father and the Son.

3. The sincere gratitude with which the Holy Spirit should be welcomed, since without His assistance the revealed Christ cannot be understood. (T. Whitelaw, D. D.)

The Teacher Spirit

I. THE PROMISED TEACHER.

1. The Comforter means literally one who is called to the side of another, primarily for the purpose of being his representative in some legal process; and, more widely, for any purpose of help, encouragement, and strength.

2. This comforting and strengthening office of the Spirit is brought into immediate connection with the conception of Him as a Teacher. That is to say, the best strength that God can give us is by the firm grasp and the growing clearness of understanding of the truths which are wrapped up in Christ.

3. This Divine Teacher is the Holy Ghost. We might have expected, as indeed we find in another context, the Spirit of Truth as appropriate in connection with the office of teaching. But there is the profound lesson for us in this, that, side by side with the thought of illumination, there lies the thought of purity built upon consecration.

(1) There is no real knowledge of Christ and His truth without purity of heart. The man who has no ear can never understand music. The man who has no eye for beauty can never be brought to bow his spirit before some gem of art. The scholars in Christs school have to come there with clean hands and clean hearts.

(2) On the other hand, the truest motives for purity are found in that great word which is meant much rather to make us good than to make us wise. So, in this designation of the teaching Spirit as holy, there lie lessons for two classes. All fanatical professions of possessing Divine illumination which are not warranted by purity of life are lies or self-delusion. And, on the other hand, cold-blooded intellectualism will never force the locks of the palace of Divine truth, but they that come there must have clean hands and a pure heart.

4. The Holy Ghost is sent by God in Christs name.

(1) He acts as Christs Representative; just as Christ comes in the Fathers name and acts as His Representative.

(2) He has, for the basis of His mission, and the sphere in which He acts, the recorded facts of Christs life and death, these and none other.

5. This Messenger is a Person. He. They tell us that the doctrine of the Trinity is not in the New Testament. The word is not, but the thing is. In this verse we have the Father, the Son, and the Spirit brought into such close and indissoluble union as is only vindicated from the charge of blasphemy by the belief in the divinity of each. That Divine Spirit is more than an influence. He shall teach, and He can be grieved by evil and sin.

II. THE LESSON.

1. Christ is the lesson book.

2. The significance of this lesson book, the history of our Lord, cannot be unfolded all at once. The world and the Church received Christ, as it were, in the dark; and, like some man that has got a precious gift into his hands as the morning was dawning, each fresh moment that passed revealed as the light grew new beauties and new preciousness in the thing possessed. Christs words are inexhaustible, and the Spirits teaching is to unveil more and more the infinite significance that lies in the apparently least significant of them.

3. If this be our Lords meaning here, He plainly anticipated that after His departure there should be a development of Christian doctrine. The earlier disciples had only a very partial grasp of Christs nature. They knew next to nothing of the great doctrine of sacrifice; about His resurrection; that He was going back to heaven; of the spirituality or universality of His kingdom. None of these things were in their mind. They had all been in germ in His words. And after he was gone, there came over them a breath of the teaching Spirit, and the unintelligible flashed up into significance.

4. If Jesus Christ and the deep understanding of Him be the true lesson of the Divine Spirit, then real progress consists, not in getting beyond Christ, but in getting more fully into Him. I hope I believe In the continuous advance of Christian thought as joyfully as any man, but my notion of it--and Christs notion of it--is to get more and more into His heart, and to find within Him, and not away from Him, all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. All other teachers words become feeble by age, as their persons become wrapped in oblivion; but the progress of the Church consists in absorbing more and more of Christ, in understanding Him better, and becoming more and more moulded by His influence.

III. THE SCHOLARS.

1. The apostles, in all this conversation, stand as the representatives of the Church. For this very Evangelist refers to this promise, when he says, addressing all his Asiatic brethren, Ye have an unction from the Holy One, and know all things. And, again, The unction which ye have of Him abideth with you, and ye need not that any man should teach you. So, then, every believing soul has this Divine Spirit for His Teacher.

2. But let us not forget that the early teaching is the standard. As to the first disciples the office of the Divine Spirit was to bring before them the deep significancs of their Masters life and words, so to us the office of the teaching Spirit is to bring to our minds the deep significance of the record of what they learned from Him. If a man think himself to be spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord. Conclusion:

(1) Let this great promise fill us with shame. What slow scholars we are! How little we have learnt! How we have let passion, prejudice, the babble of mens tongues, anybody and everybody take the office of teaching us Gods truth, instead of waiting before Him and letting His Spirit teach us! When for the time we ought to be teachers, have need that one teach us which be the first principles of the oracles of Christ.

(2) Let it fill us with desire, diligence, and calm hope. They tell us that Christianity is effete. Have we got all out of Jesus Christ that is in Him? Is the process that has been going on for all these centuries going to stop now? Ah! depend upon it the new problems of this generation will find their solution where the old problems of past generations have found theirs, and the old commandment of the old Christ will be the new commandment of the new Christ. Foolish men both on the Christian and on the anti-Christian side stand and point to the western sky and say, The Sun is setting. But that which sank in the west rises fresh and bright in the east for a new day. Jesus Christ is the Christ for all the ages and for every soul, and the world will only learn more and more of His inexhaustible fulness. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)

The teaching of the Holy Ghost

I. WHAT THE HOLY SPIRIT TEACHES US. He teaches Gods people

1. All that they do.

(1) There are some things which you and I can do naturally without any teaching. Who ever taught a child to cry? But you and I could not cry of ourselves till we had received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.

(2) Children have to be taught to speak. We, too, are taught to speak. We have none of us learned, as yet, the whole vocabulary of Canaan. No man can say that Jesus is the Christ but by the Holy Ghost? Those first words which we ever used as Christians--God be merciful to me a sinner, were taught us by the Holy Spirit; and that song which we shall sing before the throne will be His last lesson.

(3) Gods people are taught to walk and act by Him. It is not in man that walketh to direct his steps. To stray is natural; to keep the path of right is spiritual.

(4) So with the higher efforts. The preaching of the gospel, when it be done aright, is only accomplished through the power of the Holy Spirit. So is it with sacred song. The wings with which I mount towards the skies in sacred harmony and joy are Thy wings, O Holy Dove! The fire with which my spirit flames at times of hallowed consecration is the flame of the Spirit!

2. All they know. We may learn very much from the Word of God morally and mentally, but spiritual things are only to be spiritually discerned.

(1) He reproves us of sin. No man knows the exceeding sinfulness of sin, but by the Holy Ghost.

(2) Next the Spirit teaches us the total ruin, depravity, and helplessness of self.

(3) The character of God. Gods goodness and omnipotence are clearly manifested in the works of creation; but where do I read of His grace, mercy, or justice? These are only revealed to us in this precious Book, and so that we cannot know them until the Spirit opens our eyes to perceive them.

(4) Jesus Christ. It is the Holy Ghost who manifests the Saviour to us in the glory of His person; the love of His heart, the power of His arm, the preciousness of His blood, and the prevalence of His plea.

(5) Our adoption. Indeed, all the privileges of the new covenant, beginning from regeneration, unto the abundant entrance into the kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is the teaching of the Holy Spirit, and especially that last point, for eye hath not seen, etc.

II. THE METHODS BY WHICH THE HOLY SPIRIT TEACHES.

1. He excites interest in the mind. He shows them that these things have a personal bearing upon their souls present and eternal welfare.

2. He gives to the man a teachable spirit. There be men who will not learn. Teach them by little and little, and they say--Do you think I am a child? Tell them a great deal at once, and they say--You have not, the power to make me comprehend! The Holy Spirit makes a man willing to learn in any shape.

3. He sets truth in a clear light. How hard it is sometimes to state a fact which you perfectly understand yourself, in such a way that another man may see it. It is like the telescope; there are many persons who, when they walk into an observatory and put their eye to the glass, expecting to see the rings of Saturn, have said, I can see nothing at all; a piece of glass, and a grain or two of dust is all I can see! But, says the astronomer, I can see Saturn in all his glory. Why cannot you? Because the focus does not suit the strangers eye. By a little skill the focus can be altered so that the observer may be able to see what he could not see before. Now the Holy Spirit always gives the right focus to every truth. He sheds a light so strong and forcible upon the Word, that the spirit says, Now I see it and understand it.

4. He enlightens the understanding. Tie marvellous, too, how the Holy Ghost does teach men who seem as if they never could learn. I know some brethren whose opinion I would not take in anything worldly on any account. But those men have a deeper, truer, and more experimental knowledge of the Word of God than many who preach it, because the Holy Spirit never tried to teach them grammar, and never meant to teach them business, but He has taught them the Word of God, and they understand it. But I have perceived, also, that when the Spirit has enlarged the understanding to receive Bible truth, that understanding becomes more capable of receiving other truth.

5. He refreshes the memory. He shall bring all things to your remembrance.

6. He makes us feel its effect. You may try to teach a child the meaning of the term sweetness; but words will not avail, give him some honey and he will never forget it. So the Holy Spirit does not only tell us of Christs love; He sheds it abroad in the heart.

III. THE CHARACTERISTICS AND NATURE OF THE HOLY SPIRITS TEACHING. The Holy Ghost teaches

1. Sovereignly. He teaches whom He wills, when He wills, as He wills.

2. Effectually. He never failed to make us learn yet.

3. Infallibly. We teach you errors through want of caution, over zeal, and the weakness of our own mind.

4. Continually. Whom once He teaches, He never leaves till He has completed their education. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

The Teacher of the Church

I. OUR NEED OF SUCH A TEACHER. It is not enough to assume the necessity of the teaching of the Holy Ghost. All experience shows that an outward revelation of truth is inadequate. Our knowledge is always in advance of our inward conformity to it or our practical compliance with it. But even when men seem to receive and believe the truth, we must not always assume that they really understand it, or that they need no more light than it brings along with it in order to discern the fulness of its meaning. By nature man does not so easily apprehend spiritual truth.

II. THE NATURE OF HIS TEACHING.

1. As a Teacher, His work is in reality a continuation of the prophetical office of Christ. Jesus is the great Teacher; but the Holy Ghost is His representative on earth during His personal absence from His Church on earth. Thus we are reminded that the substance of His teaching was not a new revelation, distinct from that which had been already afforded, but an extension, completion, and application of that which had been given by Jesus Christ as His own words clearly show. He was not to speak of Himself, because He was not the Saviour in the exact sense of that word. The Holy Ghost was further to bring all things to the remembrance of the disciples of Christ which He had spoken to them. The words of the Son of God contained the germ of all Christian truth. But His work was not to be a mere helping of the memory.

2. And this work of teaching is carried on now in the Church of Christ by the Holy Ghost as truly as it was in the days of the apostles. The Holy Ghost no longer teaches us in the same manner in which He taught those who waited for His advent. No cloven tongues as of fire rest upon us who preach, or upon you who hear.

(1) He teaches us now by the Word which He inspired the apostles to write.

(2) So also, He teaches by the instrumentality of the Christian ministry Eph_4:8; Eph_4:11-12).

(3) But the Holy Ghost also teaches us by inward illumination. He speaks to our hearts by His own personal influence, and casts the rays of His enlightening grace into the darkest recesses of our spirits.

(4) And, ought we not to add, He gives us this teaching, whether with reference to things human or to things Divine, whether for our natural or our spiritual life, in answer to prayer. He is an infallible Teacher; and there is no other but He. He is an ever-present Teacher.

III. Finally, let me notice TWO ERRORS LYING IN QUITE OPPOSITE DIRECTIONS, WHICH ARE COMMITTED WITH REFERENCE TO THE TEACHING OF THE HOLY GHOST.

1. The first is the error of those who profess to seek and receive the teaching of the Holy Ghost while they reject the means.

2. An error no less common, among you to whom I speak perhaps even more common, is the fault of those who forget the agency of the Holy Ghost in the use of the means of grace. (W. R. Clark, M. A.)

And bring all things to your remembrance

The Holy Ghost a Remembrancer

I. THE HOLY GHOST TEACHES US, IN A GREAT MEASURE, NOT AT THE MOMENT, BUT IN AND BY THE MEMORY. None of the faculties of the human soul have been given it in vain. Every endowment has its office; and in working out salvation, man may find his whole intellectual and moral nature brought into play. It is so with fear, with hope, with love; so also with memory.

1. There is a very remarkable instance of this in the case of the apostles. Nothing is clearer than that the twelve disciples, at the time, did not and could not comprehend the nature or the teaching of their Lord. When the Holy Ghost came down, then, as He revived in their minds the memory of all that Christ had done and said, they began to see, more and more, who He was.

2. And thus also is it with ourselves. We interpret Gods dealings with us, not at the moment, but as we go over them again in memory. Is it not the case that in every mans life occur critical periods, upon which the whole after existence turns, and which yet at the time he understands not? The becoming acquainted with a certain individual, the going for a few weeks to a certain place, have often fixed a mans whole after destiny. You knew not at the time how important the step was; but when you look back, you are able to discern in it the hand of God. It is in memory, that is, that you can trace Gods dealings with your soul.

3. In the history of Churches and nations, the same rule will be noticed. How frequently in the progress of a kingdom has the history of centuries turned upon an infants death, upon a bow drawn at a venture. If the king had acted otherwise, says the annalist, the history of the country from that hour would have had to be written differently. Yet to contemporaries it seemed of no consequence which course was taken. What a difference again does the moment of acting make. The same political conduct at one period stops, at another hurries on a revolution; yet the acutest human intellect at the instant discerns not the crisis. By and by a child can often appreciate the error, and trace its results. Nor is it hard to assign a reason why God should thus leave us blind at the moment, and allow us to be enlightened afterwards. It is evident that if, whilst an event was happening, we could see palpably Gods hand in it, our freedom of will would be interfered with.

II. LET US PASS ON TO OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS.

1. It is a common observation, that argument does no good. All a mans good opinion of himself is armed against you when you try to convince him that he is wrong. And perhaps if the truth is really on your side, there is yet another profounder cause why you are not heard. But you may also have noticed how in after years the same reasoning has made itself felt. When the excitement of the moment is over, the words of wisdom which we put from us will often return to the mind, and force conviction of themselves.

2. Take the case of a young man who laughs to scorn the remonstrances of a father, and pursues headlong his career of sin and self-pleasing. He has always an answer satisfactory to himself, if not to others. Life ebbs away, and those remonstrances seem to be wasted breath; yet not so. Again and again has it happened, that in distant lands and remote years, the reproof of a father and the sighs of a mother have echoed in the silent soul, and, like one risen from the dead, spoken with power. And what is this but the Holy Ghost acting upon the memory, to teach and convert the sinner.

3. And we may not pass over here the strange power which the dead possess in memory. Why should a person exercise an influence when departed out of this world which he did not exercise whilst alive? How many a wayward boy weeps bitter tears, as he recollects by a mothers grave, her earnest longings for his well-doing, her prayers and warnings against sin, and vows amendment which is often the beginning of a saintly life. The meaning of this is the Holy Ghost using the power of memory to check mans sin, and stir him to repentance.

4. And there is a darker hour yet, when the Holy Ghost turns the faculty of memory to a terrible yet blessed account, when He causes the dying man to see with a fearful distinctness all the lapses of his life past.

Conclusion:

1. Memory has no power to convert. It only preserves or recalls the past. But God the Holy Ghost lays hold of mans memory and turns souls unto righteousness.

2. It is on this peculiar working of God the Holy Ghost as a Remembrancer, that may be founded one main argument for early Christian education. Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.

3. There remaineth yet a nobler accomplishment of the promise than any yet seen below. The work of the Holy Ghost as a regenerating sanctifying Spirit, will be past and over; but tits work as a Remembrancer shall never cease. For in the courts of the heavenly city there shall be a perpetual recurrence of the souls of the redeemed to all that Christ said unto them and did for them on earth. If the thunder of their song shall ever roll with a mightier volume at one time than another, it will be, methinks, as the Eternal Spirit brings to the remembrance of each saved soul, the wonders of the way in which the Lord God led it. (Bishop Woodford.)

The Divine Remembrancer

I. There is A GIFT OF FORGETFULNESS. What would this world be if it were not given us to forget--if the finger of time had no subduing, and mellowing, and obliterating touches. What a mercy is oblivion! There is not a more gracious revelation of Deity than this--I will not remember thy sins. It is among the best offices of the Holy Ghost that He can teach us to forget. There are many to whom the greatest lesson which they have to learn in the school of grace is to forget. You should not remember what God has forgotten. But here is our comfort--that if we will let the Spirit work in our hearts, He will secure at once the right memory and the right forgetfulness.

II. A GIFT OF MEMORY.

1. Who has not to lament over his religious forgetfulness? Sermons, conversations, which were so interesting and so useful; hymns once learnt; passages of Scriptures, impressions, thoughts and feelings, which seemed engraven upon the mind as with a pen of iron--how have they effaced themselves? What would it be if everything which once lived in our souls were living there now? And if it be really an attribute of the Holy Ghost to bring all these things back again, and not to allow anything to die which was indeed the voice of Christ, what a possession that Spirit must be! And yet, what else can these words mean?

2. There is no doubt that a strong memory is a natural endowment. And he that has it has a wonderful power. But it is a gift--he could not help it. But that with which we have now to deal is something different. It is the prerogative of the Spirit to help the memory on all sacred subjects. And if upon sacred subjects then on all. For if that faculty of the mind be strengthened and increased in one department, surely it cannot fail to be improved in every other, for all memory is one.

(1) Did you never know a verse of the Bible, which had been lying dormant in your mind for a long time, awake and come to you with a power and a vividness which quite surprised you? And it, strangely appropriate, just fits the circumstances in which you find yourself, and the state of your own mind. If it had been made for you it could not have suited you better. What is this but the Holy Ghost fulfilling His own mission.

(2) Or there is a passage in the Bible with which you are very familiar--but today it stands out in such a new light, and carries such a power, never felt before, that it strikes upon you like a new creation. And yet you have read it hundreds of times--no verse more common. Then why is it so salient now? It is memory illuminated by the Holy Ghost.

(3) Or, it may be no written word at all. Years and years back, Christ spoke to you by an impression. The rough contact of ten thousand things in this rude world has long since trodden it out. You are now as if that good impression had never been. Why is it there again today so distinct and loud? Did you call it up? What has raised it from those sleeping places? I know but one answer--He who quickens all buried things, He who raises dead Christs out of the graves of our dull hearts is bringing back the things of Christ to you.

(4) Or, it may not be even as much as this. Who has not felt the mysterious power of association? It may be the smallest possible thing that evokes it--a breath of wind, a colour, the scent of a flower, the accent of a note.But it will make you go through chapters of existence. And what if all these recovered links of being are the waftings of the Spirits wing, verifying the promise of Jesus. (J. Vaughan, M. A.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Joh 14:25-27. These things have I spoken, being yet present — I have spoken these things during my personal presence with you briefly, because my time with you is short. But the Comforter, whom the Father will send in my name — For my sake, in my room, and as my agent; he shall teach you all things — Necessary for you to know; as if he had said, Though you may not now understand many of the particulars mentioned by me, you shall have a perfect knowledge of them afterward. For my Father will give you the Holy Spirit to supply my place, and he shall be a Comforter to you, teaching you every article of the Christian faith, and bringing to your remembrance all the things I have ever said to you in the course of my ministry. Here is a clear promise to the apostles, and their successors in the faith, that the Holy Ghost should teach them all that truth which was needful for their salvation. Peace I leave with you — Peace in general, peace with God, and with your own consciences. My peace — In particular, that peace which I enjoy, and which I create; I give — At this instant. Not as the world giveth — Unsatisfying, unsettled, transient; but filling the soul with constant, even tranquillity. Lord, evermore give us this peace! How serenely may we pass through the most turbulent scenes of life, when all is quiet and harmonious within! Thou hast made peace through the blood of thy cross. May we give all diligence to preserve the inestimable gift inviolate till it issue in everlasting peace!

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

John

THE TEACHER SPIRIT

Joh 14:25 - Joh 14:26.

This wonderful outpouring of consolation and instruction with which our Lord sought to soothe the pain of parting is nearing its end. We have to conceive of a slight pause here, whilst He looks back upon what He has been saying and contrasts His teaching with that of the Comforter, whom He has once already, though in a different connection, promised to His followers. He speaks of His earthly residence with them as being ‘an abiding,’ distinctly therein referring to what He has just said, that the Father and He will, in the future, ‘make their abode’ with His disciples. He contrasts the outward and transitory presence which was now nearing its end, with the inward and continuous presence, which its end was to inaugurate.

And, in like manner, with, at first sight, startling humility, He contrasts ‘these things,’ the partial and to a large extent unintelligible utterances which He had given with His human lips, with the complete, universal teaching of that divine Spirit, who was to instruct in ‘all things’ pertaining to man’s salvation. We have then, here, sketched in broad outline, the great truths concerning the ever-present, inward Teacher of God’s Church who is to come, now that the earthly manifestation of Christ, whom the twelve called their ‘Teacher,’ had reached a close. I think we may best gain the deep instruction which lies in the words before us, if we look at three points of view which they bring into prominence: the Teacher, His lesson, and His scholars.

I. Now, as to the first, the promised Teacher.

I need not repeat what I have said in former sermons as to the wide sweep of that word ‘the Comforter,’ beyond just reminding you that it means literally one who is called to the side of another, primarily for the purpose of being his representative in some legal process; and, more widely, for any purpose of help, encouragement, and strength. That being so, ‘Comforter,’ in its modern sense of Consoler, is far too narrow for the full force of the word, which means much rather ‘Comforter,’ in its ancient and etymological sense of one who, in company with another, makes Him strong and brave.

But the point to which I desire to turn attention now is this, that this comforting and strengthening office of the divine Spirit is brought into immediate connection here with the conception of Him as a Teacher. That is to say, the best strength that God, by His Spirit, can give us is by our firm grasp and growing clearness of understanding of the truths which are wrapped up in Jesus Christ. All power for endurance, for service, is there, and when the Spirit of God teaches a man what God reveals in Christ, He therein and thereby most fully discharges His office of Strengthener.

Then note still further the other designation of this divine Teacher which is here given: ‘The Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost.’ We might have expected, as indeed we find in another context in this great final discourse, the ‘Spirit of Truth’ as appropriate in connection with the office of teaching. But is there not a profound lesson for us here in this, that, side by side with the thought of illumination, there lies the thought of purity built upon consecration, which is the Scripture definition of holiness? That suggests that there is an indissoluble connection between the real knowledge of God’s truth and practical holiness of life. That connection is of a double sort. There is no holiness without such knowledge, and there is no such knowledge without holiness.

There is no real knowledge of Christ and His truth without purity of heart. The man who has no music in his soul can never be brought to understand the deep harmonies of the great masters and magicians of sound. The man who has no eye for beauty can never be brought to bow his spirit before some of those embodiments of loveliness and sublimity which the painter’s brush has cast upon the canvas. And the man who has no longings after purity, nor has attained to any degree of moral conformity with the divine image, is not in possession of the sense which is needed in order that he should understand the ‘deep things of God.’

The scholars in this school have to wash their hands before they go to school, and come there with clean hands and clean hearts. Foulness and the love of it are bars to all understanding of God’s truth. And, on the other hand, the truest inducements, motives, and powers for purity are found in that great word which is all ‘according to godliness,’ and is meant much rather to make us good than to make us wise.

So, in this designation of the teaching Spirit as holy, there lie lessons for two classes of people. All fanatical professions of possessing divine illumination, which are not warranted and sealed by purity of life, are lies or self-delusion. And, on the other hand, coldblooded intellectualism will never force the locks of the palace of divine truth, but they that come there must have clean hands and a pure heart; and only those who have the love and the longing for goodness will be wise scholars in Christ’s school. Your theology is nothing unless its distinct outcome is morality, and you must be prepared to accept the painful, the punitive, the purifying influences of that divine Spirit on your moral natures if you want to have His enlightening influences shining on the ‘truth as it is in Jesus.’ ‘If any man wills to do His will, he,’ and only he, ‘shall know of the doctrine.’ Knowledge and holiness are as inseparable in divine things as light and heat.

And still further note that this great Teacher is ‘sent by God’ in Christ’s name. That pregnant phrase, ‘In My name,’ cannot be represented by any one form of expression into which we may translate it, but covers a larger space. God in Christ’s name sends the Spirit. That is to say, in some deep sense God acts as Christ’s representative; just as Christ comes in the Father’s name and acts as His representative. And, again, God sends in Christ’s name; that is, the historical manifestation of Christ is the basis on which the sending of the Spirit is possible and rests. The revelation had to be complete before He who came to unfold the meaning of the revelation had material to work upon. The Spirit, which is sent in Christ’s name, has, for the basis of His mission, and the means by which He acts, the recorded facts of Christ’s life and death, these and none other.

And then note finally about this matter, the strong and unmistakable declaration here, that that divine Spirit is a person: ‘He shall teach you all things.’ They tell us that the doctrine of the Trinity is not in the New Testament. The word is not, but the thing is. In this verse we have the Father, the Son, and the Spirit brought into such close and indissoluble union as is only vindicated from the charge of blasphemy by the belief in the divinity of each. Just as the Apostolic benediction, ‘The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God the Father, and the communion of the Holy Spirit’ necessarily involves the divinity of all who are thus invoked, so we stand here in the presence of a truth which pierces into the deeps of Deity. That divine Spirit is more than an influence. ‘He shall teach,’ and He can be grieved by evil and sin. I do not enlarge upon these thoughts. My purpose is mainly to bring them out clearly before you.

II. I pass in the second place to the consideration of the Lesson which this promised Teacher gives.

Mark the words, ‘He shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.’ Now as we have seen in the exposition of the words ‘in My name,’ the whole subject-matter of the divine Spirit’s teaching is the life and work and death and person of Jesus Christ. ‘He shall teach you all things’ is wider than ‘He shall bring all things which I have said to you to your remembrance.’ But whilst that is so, the clear implication of the words before us is that Christ is the lesson book, of which the divine Spirit is the Teacher. His weapon, to take another metaphor, with which He plies men’s hearts and minds and wills, convincing the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment, and leading those who are convinced into deeper knowledge and larger wisdom, is the recorded facts concerning the life and manifestation of Jesus Christ. The significance of this lesson book, the history of our Lord, cannot be unfolded all at once. There is something altogether unique in the incorruption and germinant power of all His deeds and of all His words. This Carpenter of Nazareth has reached the heights which the greatest thinkers and poets of the past have never reached, or only in little snatches and fragments of their words. His words open out, generation after generation, into undreamed-of wisdom, and there are found to be hived in them stores of sweetness that were never suspected until the occasion came that drew them forth. The world and the Church received Christ, as it were, in the dark; and, as with some man receiving a precious gift as the morning was dawning, each fresh moment revealed, as the light grew, new beauties and new preciousness in the thing possessed. So Christ, in His infinite significance, fresh and new for all generations, was given at first, and ever since the Church and the world have been learning the meaning of the gift which they received. Christ’s words are inexhaustible, and the Spirit’s teaching is to unveil more and more of the infinite significance that lies in the apparently least significant of them.

Now, then, note that if this be our Lord’s meaning here, Jesus Christ plainly anticipated that, after His departure from earth, there should be a development of Christian doctrine. We are often taunted with the fact, which is exaggerated for the purpose of controversy, that a clear and full statement of the central truths which orthodox Christianity holds, is found rather in the Apostolic epistles than in the Master’s words, and the shallow axiom is often quoted with great approbation: ‘Jesus Christ is our Master, and not Paul.’ I do not grant that the germs and the central truths of the Gospel are not to be found in Christ’s words, but I admit that the full, articulate statement of them is to be found rather in the servant’s letters, and I say that that is exactly what Jesus Christ told us to expect, that after He was gone, words that had been all obscure, and thoughts that had been only fragmentarily intelligible, would come to be seen clearly, and would be discerned for what they were. The earlier disciples had only a very partial grasp of Christ’s nature. They knew next to nothing of the great doctrine of sacrifice; they knew nothing about His resurrection; they did not in the least understand that He was going back to heaven; they had but glimmering conceptions of the spirituality or universality of His Kingdom. Whilst they were listening to Him at that table they did not believe in the atonement; but they dimly believed in the divinity of Jesus Christ; they did not believe in His resurrection; they did not believe in His ascension; they did not believe that He was founding a spiritual kingdom, a kingdom was to rule over all the world till the end of time. None of these truths were in their mind. They had all been in germ in His words. And after He was gone, there came over them a breath of the teaching Spirit, and the unintelligible flashed up into significance. The history of the Church is the proof of the truth of this promise, and if anybody says to me, ‘Where is the fulfilment of the promise of a Spirit that will bring all things to your remembrance?’ I say-here in this Book! These four Gospels, these Apostolic Epistles, show that the word which our Lord here speaks has been gloriously fulfilled. Christ anticipated a development of doctrine, and it casts no slur or suspicion on the truthfulness of the apostolic representation of the Christian truths, that they are only sparsely and fragmentarily to be found in the records of Christ’s life,

Then there is another practical conclusion from the words before us, on which I touch for a moment, and that is, that if Jesus Christ and the deep understanding of Him be the true lesson of the divine, teaching Spirit, then real progress consists, not in getting beyond Christ, but in getting more fully into Him. We hear a great deal in these days about advanced thought and progressive Christianity. I hope I believe in the continuous advance of Christian thought as joyfully as any man, but my notion of it-and I humbly venture to say Christ’s notion of it-is to get more and more into His heart, and to find within Him, and not away from Him, ‘all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.’ We leave all other great men behind. All other teachers’ words become feeble by age, as their persons become ghostly, wrapped in thickening folds of oblivion; but the progress of the Church consists in absorbing more and more of Christ, in understanding Him better, and becoming more and more moulded by His influence. The Spirit’s teaching brings out the ever fresh significance of the ancient and perpetual revelation of God in Jesus Christ.

III. And now, lastly, note the Scholars.

Primarily, of course, these are the Apostolic group but the Apostles, in all these discourses, stand as the representatives of the Church, and not as separated from it. And whilst the teaching Spirit could ‘bring to the remembrance’ of those only who first heard them ‘the words that He said unto them,’ that Spirit’s teaching function is not limited to those who listened to the Lord Jesus. The fire that was kindled on Pentecost has not died down into grey ashes, nor the river that then broke forth been sucked up by thirsty sands of successive generations, but the fire is still with us, and the river still flows near our lips, and we, too, may be taught by that divine Spirit. For this very Evangelist, in writing his Epistle, has at least two distinct references to, and almost verbal quotations of, this promise, when he says, addressing all his Asiatic brethren, ‘Ye have an unction from the Holy One, and know all things.’ And again, ‘The unction which ye have of Him abideth with you, and ye need not that any man should teach you.’

So, then, Christian men and women, every believing soul has this divine Spirit for His Teacher, and the humblest of us may, if we will, learn of Him and be led by Him into profounder knowledge of that great Lord.

Oh! dear brethren, the belief in the actual presence with the Church of a Spirit that teaches all faithful members thereof, is far too much hesitatingly held by the common Christianity of this day. We ought to be the standing witnesses in the world of the reality of a supernatural influence, and how can we be, if we do not believe it ourselves, and never feel that we are under it?

But whilst a continuous inspiration from that self-same Spirit is the prerogative of all believing souls, let us not forget that the early teaching is the standard by which all such must be tried. As to the first disciples the office of the divine Spirit was to bring before them the deep significance of their Master’s life and words, so to us the office of the teaching Spirit is to bring to our minds the deep significance of the record by these earliest scholars of what they learned from Him. The authority of the New Testament over our faith is based upon these words, and Paul’s warning applies especially to this generation, with its thoughts about a continuous inspiration and outgrowing of the New Testament teaching: ‘If a man think himself to be spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord.’

Now from all this take three counsels. Let this great promise fill us with shame. Look at Christendom. Does it not contradict such words as these? Disputatious sects, Christians scarcely agreed upon any one of the great central doctrines, seem a strange fulfilment. The present condition of Christendom does not prove that Jesus Christ did not send the Spirit, but it does prove that Christ’s followers have been wofully remiss and negligent in their acceptance and use of the Spirit. What slow scholars we are! How little we have learnt! How we have let passion, prejudice, human voices, the babble of men’s tongues, anybody and everybody, take the office of teaching us God’s truth, instead of waiting before Him and letting His Spirit teach us! It is the shame of us Christians that, with such a Teacher, we, ‘when for the time we ought to be teachers, have need that one teach us again which be the first principles of the oracles of Christ!’

Let it fill us with desire and with diligence. Let it fill us with calm hope. They tell us that Christianity is effete. Have we got all out of Jesus Christ that is in Him? Is the process that has been going on for all these centuries to stop now? No! Depend upon it that the new problems of this generation will find their solution where the old problems of past generations have found theirs, and the old commandment of the old Christ will be the new commandment of the new Christ.

Foolish men, both on the Christian and on the anti-Christian side, stand and point to the western sky and say, ‘The Sun is setting.’ But there is a flush in the opposite horizon in an hour, as at midsummer; and that which sank in the west rises fresh and bright in the east for a new day. Jesus Christ is the Christ for all the ages and for every soul, and the world will only learn more and more of His inexhaustible fullness. So let us be ever quiet, patient, hopeful amidst the babble of tongues and the surges of controversy, assured that all change will but make more plain the inexhaustible significance of the infinite Christ, and that humble and obedient hearts will ever possess the promised Teacher, nor ever cry in vain, ‘Teach me to do Thy will, for Thou art my God. Thy Spirit is good, lead me into the land of uprightness.’

Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Joh 14:25. Ταῦτα, these things) not any more.—λελάληκα, I have spoken) Therefore the Word of Jesus Christ is the word of faith: it is for this reason that He so often saith, λελάληκα, εἴρηκα, εἶπον, I have said [it (or these things), as a thing established once for all, the word of faith]. He said to the disciples, at the time of His staying with them, different things from what He said at the time of His departure; ch. Joh 16:4, “These things I said not unto you at the beginning, because I was with you.”

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Joh_14:25-26. We are to suppose a pause before Joh_14:25; Jesus looks back upon all that He has hitherto said to them at His farewell supper, and of which so much still remained to them enigmatical, and continues: These things have I spoken to you, whilst I (still) tarry with you; but the Paraclete who, after my impending separation from you, will have come to you from the Father, He will further instruct you, etc.

ἐν τῷ ὀνόμ. μου] Specific definiteness of the act of sending. God sends the Spirit in the name of Jesus, i.e. so that what the name Jesus Christ comprises in itself, forms the sphere in which the divine thought, counsel, and will lives, and is active in the sending. Comp. on Joh_14:13. The name of Jesus is the only name which includes in itself the eternal salvation of men (Act_4:12); but God intends and designs, in the mission of the Spiritthe causa meritoria of which lies already in this name, and the appearance of which is attached to the glorification of Jesus (Joh_8:39)nothing else than this Name, the complete saving knowledge of which, its confession, influence, glorification, etc., is to be brought about and advanced through the mission of the Spirit, as in general, all that He has done in the carrying out of His redemptive counsel, He has done ἐν Χριστῷ, Eph_1:3 ff. The notion: at my request (comp. Godet: in meam gratiam), is not contained in the words, although, according to Joh_14:14, the prayer of Jesus precedes (in answer to Lücke, De Wette, Ebrard, Godet, and several others). Better, but only an approximation, and wanting in precision, is the interpretation of B. Crusius: in my affair, and of Melanchthon and several others: propter me. The rendering, in my stead (Euth. Zigabenus and several others, including Tholuck, Baeumlein, Ewald, Weiss), is not appropriate, since, according to it, the Spirit would not appear as the Representative of Christ (comp. Joh_5:43), but God, as in Christs stead, executing the missionwhich would be absurd. It must in that case run: ὃ ἐλεύσεται παρὰ τοῦ πατρὸς ἐν τῷ ὀνόματί μου, comp. Joh_16:7.

In the ministry of the Spirit ὑμᾶς διδάξει πάντα is the general feature: He will not leave you uninstructed respecting any portion of the divine ἀλήθεια (comp. Joh_16:13): to this the particular is then joined: καὶ ὑπομνήσει, κ.τ.λ.: and (and especially) will He bring to your recollection, etc. To the first belong also new portions of doctrine, not yet delivered by Jesus (see on Joh_16:12), also disclosures of the future (Joh_16:13). On ὑπομνήσει, κ.τ.λ., comp. e.g. Joh_2:22, Joh_12:16. ἃ εἶπον ὑμῖν might also be referred to διδάξει πάντα (Luther, Melanchthon, Grotius, Calovius, and several others), but Joh_16:12-13 justifies the ordinary reference, which also logically at once suggests itself, merely to the second πάντα, and nevertheless excludes the misuse of the present passage in favour of Catholic tradition (see on Joh_16:12), as well as of the revelations of fanaticism. Of the actual fulfilment of the entire promise, the apostolic discourses and letters supply the full proof.

εἶπον] Not merely now, but generally, as the context, by the first πάντα, demands.

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Joh 14:25-31 . The conversation closed by bequest of peace . The genuineness of this report of the last words of Jesus is guaranteed by the frequency with which He seems to be on the point of breaking off. The constant resumption, the adding of things that occur on the moment, these are the inimitable touch of nature. At this point the close seems imminent.

Joh 14:25 . Ταῦτα λελάληκα … μένων , implying that this abiding and teaching were now at an end.

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Vv. 25-31.

1. The phrase ταῦτα λελάληκα is repeated several times in these chapters, and evidently refers, in each case, to the entire section which precedes. Here, the reference is to the whole discourse of this chapter. After presenting the three grounds of consolation and encouragement, Jesus closes with a few parting words—a kind of benediction of friendship.

2. The promise given here with regard to the Paraclete is, that He will teach them all things and bring to their remembrance all things which Christ had spoken to them. How far this latter phrase may indicate an exact verbal recalling of Christ’s words and teachings may be open to question; but there can be no doubt that a special influence of the Spirit upon the memory is promised, which should guard the apostles against error in their calling to mind and setting forth to others the doctrine which Jesus had taught them.

3. The words of Joh 14:27 are the parting salutation, evidently founded upon the common “Peace be with you” of the hour of separation. Meyer quotes from Luther the comment: “These are last words, as of one who is about to go away, and says good-night, or gives his blessing.” We cannot doubt, in view of this closing passage of the chapter, that the position which Jesus takes is that of the friend who is leaving his intimate associates behind him in a foreign land and returning to his home.—4. Joh 14:28 is also to be explained in connection with this idea; and the thought of the Father as greater than Himself is probably introduced here as indicating the joy and blessedness which would come to Him when He should return to heaven. They should rejoice in the joy of the friend who was leaving them, instead of simply sorrowing over their own loss and bereavement.

5. The simplest and most natural explanation of Joh 14:30 is that the last clause, “he has nothing in me,” means there is nothing common to him and me—the sphere in which he moves is that of hostility; he is the ruler of the world, which is at enmity with me and my truth—and hence there is no time now for further conversation in this sphere of intimate and loving friendship. But now is the time to go forth and, by meeting that which is to come, to show to the world that Jesus loves the Father and obeys His command.

6. The construction of ἐγείρεσθε, ἄγωμεν ἐντεῦθεν —whether it is to be taken as an independent sentence or as connected by ἀλλά with what precedes, so as to be the leading verb of this part of the contrast—is uncertain. To the writer of this note it seems probable that the latter construction is the one intended by the author, and that the ἄγωμεν ἐντεῦθεν is contrasted by ἀλλά withλαλήσω.

7. The question whether Jesus actually went out from the room with His disciples at this time is probably to be answered in the negative. This appears from the following considerations:—(a) that there is no distinct statement that they went out until Joh 18:1; (b) that the other Gospels represent the going out which followed the Supper as being a departure for the Mount of Olives, etc., which corresponds with what John says at the beginning of ch. 18; (c) that as He certainly did not leave the city before Joh 18:1, it follows that if He left the room at the end of ch. 14, the discourses of chs. 15 and 16, and the prayer of ch. 17, must have been uttered in the city streets—but this seems quite inconsistent with such utterances.

Vv. 25-31.

1. The phrase ταῦτα λελάληκα is repeated several times in these chapters, and evidently refers, in each case, to the entire section which precedes. Here, the reference is to the whole discourse of this chapter. After presenting the three grounds of consolation and encouragement, Jesus closes with a few parting words—a kind of benediction of friendship.

2. The promise given here with regard to the Paraclete is, that He will teach them all things and bring to their remembrance all things which Christ had spoken to them. How far this latter phrase may indicate an exact verbal recalling of Christ’s words and teachings may be open to question; but there can be no doubt that a special influence of the Spirit upon the memory is promised, which should guard the apostles against error in their calling to mind and setting forth to others the doctrine which Jesus had taught them.

3. The words of Joh 14:27 are the parting salutation, evidently founded upon the common “Peace be with you” of the hour of separation. Meyer quotes from Luther the comment: “These are last words, as of one who is about to go away, and says good-night, or gives his blessing.” We cannot doubt, in view of this closing passage of the chapter, that the position which Jesus takes is that of the friend who is leaving his intimate associates behind him in a foreign land and returning to his home.—4. Joh 14:28 is also to be explained in connection with this idea; and the thought of the Father as greater than Himself is probably introduced here as indicating the joy and blessedness which would come to Him when He should return to heaven. They should rejoice in the joy of the friend who was leaving them, instead of simply sorrowing over their own loss and bereavement.

5. The simplest and most natural explanation of Joh 14:30 is that the last clause, “he has nothing in me,” means there is nothing common to him and me—the sphere in which he moves is that of hostility; he is the ruler of the world, which is at enmity with me and my truth—and hence there is no time now for further conversation in this sphere of intimate and loving friendship. But now is the time to go forth and, by meeting that which is to come, to show to the world that Jesus loves the Father and obeys His command.

6. The construction of ἐγείρεσθε, ἄγωμεν ἐντεῦθεν —whether it is to be taken as an independent sentence or as connected by ἀλλά with what precedes, so as to be the leading verb of this part of the contrast—is uncertain. To the writer of this note it seems probable that the latter construction is the one intended by the author, and that the ἄγωμεν ἐντεῦθεν is contrasted by ἀλλά withλαλήσω .

7. The question whether Jesus actually went out from the room with His disciples at this time is probably to be answered in the negative. This appears from the following considerations:—(a) that there is no distinct statement that they went out until Joh 18:1; (b) that the other Gospels represent the going out which followed the Supper as being a departure for the Mount of Olives, etc., which corresponds with what John says at the beginning of ch. 18; (c) that as He certainly did not leave the city before Joh 18:1, it follows that if He left the room at the end of ch. 14, the discourses of chs. 15 and 16, and the prayer of ch. 17, must have been uttered in the city streets—but this seems quite inconsistent with such utterances.

Vv. 25, 26. “I have spoken these things to you while I am yet with you. 26. But the support, the Holy Spirit, whom my Father will send in my name, will teach you all things, and will bring all things to your remembrance which I have said to you.”

We might endeavor to connect these words with the preceding; for it is through the gift of the Holy Spirit, who is about to be spoken of again, that the great promise of Joh 14:22-24 will be accomplished. But the perfect λελάληκα, I have spoken to you, rather indicates a conclusion; the conversation reaches its end and returns now to its starting point. Joh 14:25 therefore is not to be connected with Joh 14:24; it recalls the contents of the entire discourse. What Jesus has just said to the disciples of the future reunion, above (Joh 14:1-3), and here below (Joh 14:12-24), is all that He can reveal to them on this subject for the moment. If this future is still enveloped in obscurity for them, the teaching of another master will dissipate the mists, and will explain to them all His promises by realizing them. Ταῦτα, these things, at the beginning, in contrast with πάντα, all things (Joh 14:26): “This is what I am able to tell you now; another will afterwards tell youthe whole.”

The epithet holy given to the Spirit, Joh 14:26, recalls the deep line of separation which Jesus had just drawn, in Joh 14:17; Joh 14:24, between the profane world and the disciples already sanctified by their attachment to Jesus. As holy, the Spirit can only come to dwell in these last.

The expression: in my name, is to be explained, as in Joh 14:14, with this difference, that it refers here to an act of God (shall send), and no longer to the human act of prayer (shall ask). On the side of God, it is sending in virtue of the perfect revelation which He has given of the person and work of His Son; while on man’s side, it is asking in virtue of the more or less imperfect possession which he has gained of this revelation. Weiss, in despair of finding any satisfactory sense in the words in my name, if they are made to refer to the act of sending, applies them to the object of the mission: God will send the Holy Spirit to be in the place of Christ, as His substitute with believers. But the Spirit is not the substitute for Christ; Christ Himself comes again in Him; then, the grammatical relation of the limiting words in my name to the verb send, does not authorize this sense.

The pronoun ἐκεῖνος, he, he alone, brings into strong relief the person of this new teacher who will tell everything, in contrast with the earthly person of Jesus who is going to be taken away from them (Joh 14:25). The Spirit will do two things: teach everything; bring to remembrance everythingwhich Jesus has taught. These two functions are closely connected; He will teach the new by recalling the old, and will recall the old by teaching the new. The words of Jesus, the remembrance of which the Spirit will awaken in them, will be the matter from which He will derive the teaching of the complete truth, the germ which He will fertilize in their hearts, as, in return, this internal activity of the Spirit will unceasingly recall to their memory some former word of Jesus, so that in proportion as He shall illuminate them, they will cry out: Now, I understand this word of the Master! And this vivid clearness will cause other words long forgotten to come forth from forgetfulness. Such is, even at this day, the relation between the teaching of the written Word and that of the Spirit.— Καί : and specially.

Naturally the first πάντα, all things, embraces only the things of the new creation accomplished in Jesus Christ, the plan and work of salvation. The first creation, nature, is not the subject of the revelation of the Holy Spirit; it is that of scientific study.

Frédéric Louis Godet — Commentaries on Luke, John, Romans, and 1 Corinthians — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1870s–1890s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

It is the office of the holy Ghost to imprint in the midst of the elect in their times and seasons, that which Christ once spake.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

he shall teach you all things, and bring all to . . . remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you--(See on Joh 14:15; Joh 14:17). As the Son came in the Father's name, so the Father shall send the Spirit in My name, says Jesus, that is, with like divine power and authority to reproduce in their souls what Christ taught them, "bringing to living consciousness what lay like slumbering germs in their minds" [OLSHAUSEN]. On this rests the credibility and ultimate divine authority of THE GOSPEL HISTORY. The whole of what is here said of THE SPIRIT is decisive of His divine personality. "He who can regard all the personal expressions, applied to the Spirit in these three chapters ('teaching,' 'reminding,' 'testifying,' 'coming,' 'convincing,' 'guiding,' 'speaking,' 'hearing,' 'prophesying,' 'taking') as being no other than a long drawn-out figure, deserves not to be recognized even as an interpreter of intelligible words, much less an expositor of Holy Scripture" [STIER].

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

25. These things I have spoken to you. He adds this, that they may not despair, though they may have profited less than they ought to have done; for at that time he scattered a seed of doctrine, which lay hidden, and, as it were, suffocated in the disciples. He therefore exhorts them to entertain good hopes, until fruit be yielded by the doctrine which might now appear to be useless. In short, he testifies that in the doctrine which they had heard they have abundant ground of consolation, and that they ought not to seek it anywhere else. And if they do not immediately see it, he bids them be of good courage, until the Holy Spirit, who is the inward Teacher, speak the same thing in their hearts. This admonition is highly useful to all; for, if we do not immediately understand what Christ teaches, we begin to grow weary, and grudge to bestow unprofitable labor on what is obscure. But we must bring an eager desire to receive instruction; we must lend our ears and give attention, if we desire to make due proficiency in the school of God; and especially we need patience, until the Holy Spirit enable us to understand what we thought that we had often read or heard to no purpose. That the desire of learning may not be weakened in us, or that we may not fall into despair, when we do not immediately perceive the meaning of Christ speaking to us, let us know that this is spoken to us all.

The Holy Spirit will bring to your remembrance all things that I have said to you. It is indeed a punishment threatened by Isaiah against unbelievers, that the Word of God shall be to them as a book that is sealed, (Isaiah 29:11) but in this manner, also, the Lord frequently humbles his people. We ought, therefore, to wait patiently and mildly for the time of revelation, and must not, on that account, reject the word. When Christ testifies that it is the peculiar office of the Holy Spirit to teach the apostles what they had already learned from his mouth, it follows that the outward preaching will be vain and useless, if it be not accompanied by the teaching of the Spirit. God has therefore two ways of teaching; for, first, he sounds in our ears by the mouth of men; and, secondly, he addresses us inwardly by his Spirit; and he does this either at the same moment, or at different times, as he thinks fit.

But observe what are all these things which he promises that the Spirit will teach. He will suggest, he says, or bring to your remembrance, all that I have said. Hence it follows, that he will not be a builder of new revelations. By this single word we may refute all the inventions which Satan has brought into the Church from the beginning, under the pretense of the Spirit. Mahomet and the Pope agree in holding this as a principle of their religion, that Scripture does not contain a perfection of doctrine, but that something loftier has been revealed by the Spirit. From the same point the Anabaptists and Libertines, in our own time, have drawn their absurd notions. But the spirit that introduces any doctrine or invention apart from the Gospel is a deceiving spirit, and not the Spirit of Christ. What is meant by the Spirit being sent by the Father in the name of Christ, I have already explained.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

(25) These things have I spoken unto you, being yet present with you.—Better, . . . while abiding with you. He was about to depart from them. He had been speaking to them words which they found it hard to understand. He now pauses in His teaching, and proceeds to tell them of the Holy Spirit who should interpret His words to them.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

25. being yet present] Better, while abiding; it is S. John’s favourite verb (see on Joh_1:33). With this verse the discourse takes a fresh start returning to the subject of the Paraclete. Perhaps there is a pause after Joh_14:24.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

These things have I spoken unto you,.... Concerning his Father, and his Father's house, and the way to both; concerning his being in the father, and the Father in him; concerning keeping his commandments, and the advantages and benefits following upon it:

being, says he,

yet present with you; which is a strong intimation that in a little time he should not be present with them; and that whilst he was present with them, he was desirous of saying such things to them in a brief compendious manner, as they were able to bear; which might be of future use and instruction to them.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

25 These things have I spoken unto you, being yet present with you.

Ver. 25. These things have I spoken unto you] And truly I may seem to have spoken to small purpose ( verba quid incassum non proficientia perdo?) by anything that you have yet profited. But cast not away your confidence that hath so great recompence of reward. For the Comforter shall be your remembrancer, and cause your memories (as the sea doth) to cast up your dead notions, &c., as Joh 14:26.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Have I spoken - For your consolation and guidance. But, though he had said so many things to console them, yet the Spirit would be given also as their Comforter and Guide.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

That is, as to his bodily presence: For more than three years I have been fulfilling a ministry amongst you, and have spoken many things to you.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

25. These things have I spoken—In these two verses, 25 and 26, we seem to have a summary and close of the train of thought. Glancing the mind’s eye over his own discourse, Jesus presents it as a whole as uttered by himself being yet present. His personal presence and his living voice were yet with them, and he now places this personal teaching in preparatory contrast with that of the spiritual Paraclete whom the Father will send.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Vers. 25, 26. These things (in antithesis to the "all things" of which he is about to speak), namely, the great consolations and instructions just delivered not the whole course of his ministerial prophetic teaching have I uttered, and these things I am stilt continuing to address to you, while remaining with you; but the Paraclete (Advocate), of whom I have spoken as the "Spirit of truth," and whom I now more fully define as the Holy Spirit (this is the only place in this Gospel where this full and elsewhere often-used designation occurs), whom the Father will send in answer to my prayer (Ver. 16), and as he has already sent me m my Name. This shows that, while the disciples are to approach the Father "in the Name," in the fullness of perfection involved in the filial Name of Jesus, so the Father sends the Paraelete in the same Name, in the full recognition of Christ as the Sphere of all his gracious work. Meyer emphasizes by it the Name of Jesus; in my Name," say Grotius, Lucke; "at my intercession" or "in my stead" (Tholuck, Ewald); "as my Representative" (Watkins). But the great Name of Jesus is the Son". (Heb_1:1-5) In the Sonship which he realized and displayed, the Father himself was manifested. The Spirit is sent from the Father fully to reveal the Son, while the substance of the teaching and meaning of the life of our Lord, in his Divine training of souls revealed the Father. He (ekeinov , a masculine and emphatic pronoun, which gives personal quality and dignity to the Spirit, and points to all that is here predicated of his agency) shall teach you all things that you need to know over and above what I have said (lelalhka), and he will assist you to know more than you do now. He shall remind you of the all things which I have said to you. The teaching of Christ, according to St. John"s own statement, was vastly more extensive than all that had been recorded, the impression produced far deeper than anything that could be measured; yet even this would have been evaporated into vague sentiment, if the veritable things, the marvelous and incomparable wisdom, uttered by the Lord had not, by the special teaching of the Spirit, been re-communicated to the apostles by extraordinary refreshment of memory. The supernatural energy of the memory of the apostles, and their profound insight, is the basis of the New Testament, and the fulfillment of this promise. This sacred training will not teach specifically new truths, because the germinant form of all spiritual truth had been communicated by Christ; nor would the instruction create a fundamental deposit of tradition as yet unrevealed; nor is it to be such an intensification or addition to things already said as to contradict the teaching of the Lord; but the Holy Spirit will bring to the remembrance of the apostles all that the living Logos had spoken. Hence the mystic, the traditionist, and the rationalist cannot find support for their theses in these great words. The panta , however, gives a bright hint of the completeness of the equipment of the apostles for their work.

Vers. 25-27. The promise of a fuller revelation and of an abiding peace.

The disciples had much yet to learn.

I THE OFFICE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. "But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my Name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.

1. As the purpose of the Sons mission is to reveal the Father, so the purpose of the Spirits mission is to reveal the Son.

2. He has a double office:

a. teaching new truth;

b. bringing old truth to remembrance.

The sayings of Jesus will be the groundwork of all the Spirit"s operation.

II THE LEGACY OF PEACE. "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you." The words breathe the sweetness of a farewell blessing.

1. Mark the blessing promised. "Peace.

(1) It is the inward security of the soul based upon reconciliation with God.

(2) It is Christ"s own peace

(a) which he enjoys;

(b) which it is his prerogative to give;

(c) it is allied to the "peace on earth sung at his birth;

(d) it is identified inseparably with him who is continuously "our peace". (Eph_2:14)

2. Mark the method of its bestowal.

(1) It is left as a legacy before his departure from the world. Precious legacy to a sin-troubled race!

(2) It is a gift, not earned by man; but, like salvation itself, altogether of grace.

(3) It is superior to all the world"s gifts. "Not as the world giveth, give I unto you.

(a) The world"s peace is not lasting.

(b) It gives the greatest pleasure at the first.

(c) This peace is absolutely superior to all legacies of the world, such as houses and lands.

3. Mark the effect of peace upon the heart-trouble. "Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.

(1) Peace guards the heart against care,

(2) and makes the heart strong for service and fearless in suffering in the face of the world"s hostility.

Vers. 25, 26. How the teaching of Jesus becomes abiding and effectual.

I THE POWERLESSNESS OF TRUTH. Jesus continually remembered this. No one, indeed, had more complete experience as to the inability of the natural man to receive spiritual things; and even here, when perhaps the disciples were unusually attentive, Jesus knew that they would be more than ever perplexed. And there was nothing in the mere lapse of time to make the meaning clearer, the promises more receivable, the duties more feasible. Persevering, indomitable students have, ere now, puzzled out some abstruse treatise usually made plain by a teacher who knows it thoroughly. They have not been able to get the teacher, and so they have managed to do without him. But the utterances of Jesus in the Gospels are sealed up, every one of them, to mere intellectual inquiry. The words are there, with a strange attractive power unique words; and yet the very power that is to make them useful is somehow lacking, or at all events unavailable. No fresh words are needed; it may truly be said there is nothing in the Epistles which is not already in the Gospels, so far as principles are concerned; but something is needed to bring the human heart and the words of Jesus into living contact.

II WHAT MAKES TRUTH VITAL The energy of the Holy Spirit. He will indeed be a Paraclete, ever coming in with ample and effectual guidance just at the needful moment. What riches have been got out of the Gospels by Spirit-guided men! What a serious accusation if we reject or neglect what has evidently been given to meet the emergency! God never gives anything unnecessary. Let it not be supposed that the Holy Spirit is for the difficulties of some, or for occasions when we cannot see our way to truth unaided. The Holy Spirit is for all and always. The truth as it is in Jesus can never become a real system to us, individually, unless as we accept this guidance provided by Jesus and his Father. How this guidance operates is another matter. That we may not be able to understand. But neither do we understand how the seed bursts into life and develops into plant and fruit. What we need is firm faith and an abiding recollection that the Holy Spirit which the Father sends in the Name of the Son is a real and a present power. The difference between the seed unsown and the seed springing up and moving onwards to fruit, is an analogue of the difference between an utterance of Jesus verbally lodged in the memory, and that same utterance opened up and filled with perennial power by the Holy Spirit.

III THE TWOFOLD ASPECT OF THE SPIRIT"S WORK HERE PRESENTED.

1. Teaching. The death of Jesus had yet to come, and then the resurrection and ascension. Everything Jesus has ever spoken must be brought into proper relation with these marvelous experiences of his personal life. The Holy Spirit has to explain the sum total of the incarnation.

2. Reminding. To recollect what we know just when we want it, is one of the hardest of things. What is the value of knowledge unless it can be turned to practice just at the right time? The Holy Spirit may be a help to mere memory, far more than we think. Y.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Here we have a repeated promise of the mission of the Holy Ghost, called The Comforter, and his special office declared; namely, to teach, and to bring to remembrance what Christ had taught; He shall teach you all things. As the Spirit of God is the great Comforter, so he is the Special Teacher, of his children; he teacheth condescendingly, stooping to the meanest capacities; he teacheth efficaciously, inclinging the heart to receive instruction, as well as opening the ear to hear it: he teacheth plainly and clearly, unerringly and infallibly; he is truth itself, and therefore his teachings are most true.

And as the Holy Spirit is the saint’s Teacher, so is he also their Remembrancer: He shall bring all things to your remembrance; that is, all truths needful to be known, and necessary to salvation.

Here note, That the Holy Spirit teaches nothing but what Christ himself taught; the Spirit teaches in the word, and by the word, but never teaches any thing contrary to the word: He shall teach and bring to remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you.

William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Comforter

This refers to the Holy Spirit. See how you translated this in John 14:16.

Father

This is an important title for God. (See: Translating Son and Father)

in my name

Here the word "name" is a metonym that represents Jesus' power and authority. AT: "because of me" or "for my sake" (See: Metonymy)

world

The "world" is a metonym that represents those people who do not love God. (See: Metonymy)

Do not let your heart be troubled, and do not be afraid

Here "heart" is a metonym for a person's inner being. AT: "So stop being anxious, and do not be afraid" (See: Metonymy)

translationWords

Holy Spirit

peace

world

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

25. ταῦτα. First for emphasis in opposition to πάντα in Joh 14:26: ‘Thus much I tell you now; the Advocate shall tell you all.’

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

25-31.] His farewell, and the parting bequest of His Love.

25.] λελάληκα is proleptic, referring, as εἶπον (ver. 26), to the futures, διδάξει and ὑπομνήσει. Meyer supposes that a pause took place here, and the Lord looks back on what He had said to them. But this does not seem so natural.

Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (1849–1861) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

25. ταῦτα λελάληκα ὑμῖν. This is the seventh time that this solemn refrain (see on 15:11) appears in the Last Discourse. Here ταῦτα may embrace all that has been said throughout the evening, and not only the sentences immediately preceding. “These things have I spoken to you, while abiding with you,” sc. in the flesh. But this temporary companionship in the body is now to be replaced by a permanent spiritual abiding, in the Person of the Paraclete.

25. ταῦτα λελάληκα ὑμῖν. This is the seventh time that this solemn refrain (see on 15:11) appears in the Last Discourse. Here ταῦτα may embrace all that has been said throughout the evening, and not only the sentences immediately preceding. “These things have I spoken to you, while abiding with you,” sc. in the flesh. But this temporary companionship in the body is now to be replaced by a permanent spiritual abiding, in the Person of the Paraclete.

International Critical Commentary — older volumes (1896–1929), various authors — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Being yet present [μενων] . Rev., stronger and more literally, while yet abiding.

Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (1887–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.