JOHN 16
JTB You spoke in your prayer about the blessings which we can enjoy. This chapter is a great comfort in that sense that, despite the adversity and attacks which the enemy might bring about, we have the Holy Spirit, and we have this assurance that the Lord Jesus says, “and again a little while and ye shall see me”, a very blessed thing. I suppose, as we gather together at the Supper, we have that privilege, although it has a forward look as well, but to see the Lord as glorified by the Spirit is a very great blessing, do you think?
GB So Paul refers to the Lord Jesus saying, “in the night in which he was delivered up, … as often as ye shall” do this, 1 Cor 11: 23-26. It is a living experience, and we read about the Comforter: “he …will bring to your remembrance all the things”, John 14: 26. We are provided for in the Lord’s absence, but He is nevertheless with us in that sense.
DCB This flows forward from the end of the previous chapter; “the Spirit of truth who goes forth from with the Father” and the fact of His coming, “he shall bear witness concerning me”, v 26. When He says, “These things I have spoken unto you that ye may not be offended”, He is really giving them reassurance, and gives us a wonderful reassurance, that in the Spirit there is One who is to sustain the testimony despite the absence of Christ.
JTB That is what I thought about these preceding verses as to “the Spirit of truth who goes forth from with the Father”. There is a certain majesty and dignity, but authority as well, as if the mind of heaven is conveyed in that, going “forth from with the Father”.
TWL The Spirit goes forth from where Christ is forever as Man, and sustains us as a Man. This being offended is not being offended exactly in or against the persons who harm them, but it is the idea of the path of suffering, that they would not be offended in the path of suffering because of what they have in the reality of Christ in heaven. Is that how you understand that?
JTB I was affected this morning by the very fact that during these ten days there were three divine Persons in heaven, but for the first time a Man was there, a glorious Man, who had accomplished everything for the divine pleasure and who also, through the Spirit’s operations, makes Himself available to us still: but it is a Man. But the Spirit too, “who goes forth from with the Father”: it seems a great realm of affection and care. Comfort is mentioned, the Spirit as Comforter, but it is very pleasing that the Spirit is so described.
TWL He “goes forth from with the Father”, speaking very carefully, with the power for everything that belongs in heaven. Everything connected with our place in heaven has power because of the Spirit; and He goes forth from where affections are known, and men are known. It is a wonderful thing to think of the Spirit moving and being the power for heaven.
JTB We have referred to the testimony; so there is power to reflect what is heavenly in testimony now because of these great transactions, “the Spirit of truth who goes forth from with the Father”.
DCB You see what power there is in the Spirit. I was thinking that, naturally speaking, it was as great a bereavement to the disciples if the Lord was caught up as if He had died, in that He was no longer present to persons He had been present to. That feeling might have been with them, but they have the Spirit as link with Him, and the same Spirit that is in Him is in them and is in us.
JTB In some sense the disciples, speaking guardedly, experienced a fatherly influence from the Lord Jesus. The Spirit “goes forth from with the Father”, who is another divine Person, preeminent in the economy. But it was really that kind of influence that would be with them as comforting them. Is that what you had in mind?
DCB I suppose that previous reference does set that out: “I will send to you” – that is from the Lord’s side, while “from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes forth …”. It brings in the fact that the whole of the Trinity is engaged in that movement, and that it is a movement that is going to be for comfort, sustaining and carrying forward what is for the Lord Jesus in the time of His absence.
TWL And going into the next part, the reality that they would not take offence was seen in people like Stephen, and seen in the ones that Paul afflicted, and so on. That was the reality of the link they had. Of Stephen it says, “a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit”, Acts 6: 5. He did not take offence at the situation; He saw a Man in heaven. That was the reality of the Spirit’s work, “who goes forth from with the Father”. That was, to our way of thinking, the beginning of chapter 16.
DHM The way He opens up to them that “It is profitable for you that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Comforter will not come to you; but if I go I will send him to you” is very attractive. He is giving them, as well, a reassurance that He is seeking to open up to them how things are going to be. They might be very different from when He is here, very different but actually better, which would be very hard for them to take in at that point. The whole heavenly realm, the whole heavenly side of Christianity, was going to be opened up after the Lord had completed His work here.
TWL It is quite a thing, when we think about it, that the Lord does not say the Spirit cannot come; He says, “the Comforter will not come to you”. The Spirit would not come until there was a glorified Man because He would not settle on anything less than what was in accord with the glorified Man; so it says He “will not come”.
DHM We have seen that this was the One on whom the Spirit descended as a dove; this was the One that divine delight was found in; but now what we have is consequent and contingent on Him going away. Even the term is very feeling. He does not say, ‘I am going to go into death. I am going to suffer on the cross. I am going to go into the grave’; He says He is going away. He is very gentle with them as to what is so precious in the hope, I suppose, that they understand it as quickly as possible.
KRC I was pondering what you have made reference to, and I was wondering if that is maybe why it is so serious when the Spirit is grieved. I was thinking of what there is to be for the Spirit to settle on. You could say the model is the Man that is now in heaven. I had not really considered that so much, but I think what you said is challenging.
TWL It is fine to see that the Spirit is eager to help, but we need to appreciate who He is. It is God, and the things that are contrary to Him are contrary to God. It is very interesting that there are certain things that God cannot do, and one of them is that He cannot have liberty where evil is. It is not a case that He will not; He cannot. But the positive side of this is that there are persons testimonially, like the ones even in Paul’s day. Paul thought to render service to God: he was provoked because of the work of the Spirit that he saw shining in Stephen, and it began to change him. So when the Lord appeared to him, there was already a groundwork there because of what he had seen in another man.
JTB It is interesting that we have the reference in John’s epistle to “we have a patron with the Father”, 1 John 2: 1. “Patron”, as we know, is the same word as “Comforter”. I suppose the Spirit of God could have said, or the writer John through the Spirit could have just said, “we have a patron”, but it is “a patron with the Father”, as if the great intent is to re-establish our links with the Father so that we can enjoy these heavenly blessings.
DCB I was thinking about this question at the end of verse 5, “and none of you demands of me, Where goest thou?” He is going to the Father. Is it really the desire of the Lord Jesus that they should be alert to that fact of where He was going? He would awaken a desire to know where He was going, and where He was going was to the Father.
JTB You can see this as a kind of prelude to John 17, where these glorious relationships with the Father are asserted. Is that what you thought?
DCB You can certainly see how the chapters from chapter 13 are running up to the glory of chapter 17, of the Lord’s communion with the Father.
THB You referred earlier to the Spirit of truth at the end of the previous chapter; Could you say something as to that? It comes in again in verse 8, “And having come, he will bring demonstration to the world, of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment”. Do you think that is one of His services, “the Spirit of truth”? Can you say something about that title? He could not be Spirit of anything else other than truth, could He?
DCB When we think of “truth”, it is not simply what is true, but it is a setting forth of what is in the divine mind. “The Spirit of truth” is a characteristic of His, that He is bringing to us what is the mind of heaven at the moment. “But when he is come, the Spirit of truth, he shall guide you into all the truth”. He is guiding you into what He knows.
THB I was thinking of the hymn that we sing sometimes:
Here the Spirit too bears witness
To the truth that all is done.
(Hymn 133)
DCB I was thinking about these demonstrations: “he will bring demonstration to the world”. It is mainly the assertion of the truth, is it not? You wonder how He is going to do that to “bring demonstration to the world, of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment”. It is really His presence which demonstrates what these things are, what is according to the truth, the true view of these questions.
TWL Is He not bringing these things to bear as Christ is known? It is not a creed; the truth is not a creed; The Truth is a Person. So the Spirit is operating in relation to what has come into expression in Jesus on the earth; so righteousness was in expression there, and sin, or what was contrary to it, the judgment of it, was in expression there. The judgment of the world was in expression there in that Person, and the Spirit of truth is what He is as linking on with what was manifest in Jesus.
DCB So we often have pointed out to us that in this gospel the Lord Jesus says, “I am the way, and the truth”, (chap 14: 6): the Lord is the truth. But when you come to the epistle, it says, “the Spirit is the truth” (1 John 5: 6); so you can see how at present here in the testimonial sphere “the Spirit is the truth”, and the very fact of His being the truth means He sets out the truth of everything of God.
TWL The Spirit operates according to the moral excellency of Jesus in heaven. He operates now in the assembly according to the moral excellence of that Man. Everything centres in that Man for God and for us, and that includes the Spirit.
JTB Paul says “the truth is in Jesus” (Eph 4: 21); so it is a reflection of everything that was found in Christ here, but also what is extant in heaven. It is very fine simply to think of “He shall glorify me, for he shall receive of mine and shall announce it to you”. That must have a current bearing: “he shall receive of mine”. It is what is current in heaven, it seems to me. I had the thought this morning that if every holding of the Lord’s supper and the service of God were to be written down in print since it was inaugurated, every one of them would be different because the Spirit is in operation and giving us a fresh impression of that glorious Person. I think that would be the case actually. No two observances of the Lord’s supper are the same, are they, otherwise there would be a creed? It would be something that you just repeat ritually, but that is one of the great attractions of the Supper, the service of God, that it is different.
DHM Although we have all been tested in the small breakings of bread we have in our homes, it is amazing how there is support, and it is amazing how something fresh comes in against the backdrop of numerical weakness; and yet not only are we sustained, but there is power that is clearly not our own power in evidence there, which is very reassuring in the circumstances we find ourselves in. Even though the restrictions have been relaxed in many ways, there are still these arrangements in relation to the Supper.
JTB It is an affecting thing, “he shall receive of mine and shall announce it to you”. It brings out really the harmony that exists between the Lord Jesus and the Spirit; so you can see how the Spirit delights to express the glories of Christ in a fresh way to us as we gather.
DHM There is a hymn that says,
Thou takest heav’nly glories of the Son,
And bringest every precious feature near.
(Hymn 401)
That links with what you are saying about the diversity and variety of impressions that we receive.
KRC We sing hymn 434. I was just thinking of the last two lines:
That in these vessels here
Thy glory may shine through.
That is His present glory, is it not, where He is now? It is not historical or what He was, but it is who He is. In the sense of what we have been bringing forward, I think it is quite attractive to see that the Spirit’s work in operation is in relation to the Man that is in heaven now. I feel freshly affected by that.
DCB So the background to, “He shall glorify me” is the previous verse, “for he shall not speak from himself; but whatsoever he shall hear he shall speak”. Really it is the conversation of heaven that is being conveyed to us by the Spirit.
KG It seems a gentle service, “he shall guide you”. We would have to be willing to be guided. Would that be right?
DCB That is helpful, because in a certain sense the Spirit does not act forcefully. There are times when He would retire, thinking of the fact that He can be grieved and so on, but He is looking for persons really who are on the same line as He is, who are willing, ready to be accepting that guidance into all the truth.
JTB That is an interesting point. I often think of Numbers 21 in that regard,
Vaheb in Suphah, and the brooks of Arnon;
And the stream of the brooks
which turneth to the dwelling of Ar,
And inclineth toward the border of Moab.
And from thence to Beer, v 14-16.
We would think it is circuitous, but He is guiding us.
DCB Yes, and the whole thought of the brooks is gently making things more fertile, and gently guiding in the way that would bring more fruit for God.
DHM A brook flows; there is an indication of supply there as well, is there not?
DCB We have reference to “the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ”, Phil 1: 19. There is what is available, and in part it depends on vessels too, does it not? In the hymn referred to there are vessels; what flows from one to another and what comes out is, “out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water”, John 7: 38. Clearly the Spirit can act sovereignly, but in a certain sense He depends on vessels in which all this is to be opened up and that, of course, is how it works out so much especially in what is normal when we are gathered together, the impressions at the Supper, for instance, flowing from one to another.
DHM The vessel is an interesting thought because it is something that contains, but it is not containing it with a view to it remaining hidden. There is something flowing because it goes on to say, ‘shine through’; so there is to be something seen. There would be something in evidence which links with what you are suggesting about what would flow out.
JTB You can see how right it is that the Spirit as a divine Person should be worshipped against this background. Again Numbers 21:
Rise up, well! sing unto it:
Well which princes digged, which the nobles
of the people hollowed out at the
word of the lawgiver, v 17, 18.
That would be Christ, I suppose, but how the Lord Jesus desires that the Spirit should get His portion!
DCB And you can see also how suitable is the time when the Spirit is addressed, that really it is part of the flow; Christ has been brought before our hearts, and then our hearts opens up to the Spirit, the One who has done so much to bring Christ before us, and has allowed that there should be the genuine response in hearts to Christ.
TWL When we were young, we used to be told to speak to the Spirit of God before the Supper so that we had the sensitivity at the Supper to move with Christ. You will not see anything without Him, and you will not have any inkling without Him, and you will not recognise anything without Him; so it is important before the Supper to pray to the Spirit about the Supper. Do you think that is right?
JTB “Well which princes digged”: it is the removal of every hindrance so that the Spirit’s place is recognised, so that He can bring to us the glories of Christ, do you think?
TWL As Comforter He is the One who gives us the capacity and sensitivity to see and hold something of Jesus, and that is what comes out at the Supper. It is not just something we do because it is right to do it but rather the reality that a Man is going to be there. Well, that is the Spirit.
DCB So the remarkable thing is that the Lord speaks of His service as in the Spirit’s power. He did not go out in service until such time as the Spirit came upon Him. It is not that you could not say that the Spirit was with Him before that - but there is something publicly shown of the Spirit with Him on that ground. He took up service, and that example to us is that everything that is to be moved forward for God is done under the power of the anointing of the Spirit.
TWL The Spirit’s service will not stop when the rapture happens: “that he may be with you forever”, John 14: 16. It will be eternally so that our praises will go on because the Spirit is active; not just because Christ is there but the Spirit is active in relation to Christ. That will be forever; it is not just for time; it will always be true of what goes Godward.
DCB At the moment the services of the Spirit include that He is “against the flesh”, Gal 5: 17. We are going to come into the realm where the Spirit can - shall we say? - restfully lay aside being “against the flesh”, and everything will be moving forward in His grace and power. In degree, as the service of God proceeds, we have some experience of that, do we not?
TWL “The flesh lusts against the Spirit” (Gal 5: 17) but it does not say, ‘the Spirit lusts against the flesh’: it just says, “the Spirit against the flesh”. It is a case of sensitivity and gentleness on the Spirit’s part, and that is quite a thing because we may lust, or what is in our flesh may lust, against the Spirit, but sensitivity to the Spirit means that He will have the liberty to move as He chooses. I find that very testing. Does the Spirit have the liberty to move as He chooses? That is the service of God.
JTB I ask but it must be right, I think, whether the Spirit will indwell the assembly eternally. The Spirit dwells in the assembly now totally. From what you are saying, it must be that that pertains eternally. Would that be right? That does not mean, of course, that the Spirit will not serve in other capacities, but the ‘residence of glory’ (Hymn 221) will be the assembly, will it not?
DCB The hymn brings in -
The Spirit all pervading -
The Fulness pleased, at rest!
You see the wonder of the fact that everything is dependent on the Spirit, even in the day to come. He will be active with every family. He has acted upon everyone who is there in the eternal scene, so that they should be born anew; and, as He is the Spirit of truth, the light can only come to persons in whom He has acted. The whole sphere will be filled with different families, those who have been acted upon by the Spirit, and continue without the flesh’s activity to be there available to Him for however response would go up to divine Persons.
TWL Whatever degree we touch heaven at the Supper is because the Spirit is able to act without hindrance in whatever degree that is. I remember my father telling us when we were growing up that you cannot just become holy on Lord’s day, and that was when there was maybe more flesh active than was good for us. He used to say, ‘You are not going to go to the Supper on a Lord’s day morning and find it will all just fall into place’; it does not happen like that. It is important to remember that; if we genuinely want a touch at the Supper, it will be because we have had close links with the Spirit in the previous six days.
DCB So that brings in what Galatians brings in as to sowing to the Spirit, chap 6: 8. There is something of a reaping on Lord’s day morning, some fruit from sowing to the Spirit seen in the responses there are, is there not?
DHM It is hugely practical and challenging, but there is quite a provision. First of all, you have what is private, what is individual; then you have what is in a household, and then we are very thankful we have brethren similarly minded to gather with on a number of occasions. These have been restricted, and now they are more or less back to normal, but these are things that can help us to sow to the Spirit. It can be quite easy to use these expressions. What does sowing to the Spirit mean? It means much more than I have mentioned, I know, but these are things that would help us along the journey so that there is something that is fresh coming out of the preceding week when we gather together to remember the Lord Jesus.
KRC So hymn number 4 says,
Oft has the Comforter spoken of Thee.
I find that very challenging myself. That is really the expression from these prompts; it is again linked to the glory shining through, it is the Spirit’s work in relation to that. I am touched by that operation, that that is what He is striving to do.
TWL He is seeking to implant something in you of the Man He loves, speaking carefully. The Spirit loves Christ, but He is seeking to implant something in you of that Man that He loves, so that you can bring it to God, and it becomes yours. That is quite a test, because if He does not have liberty, He cannot do that. That is not negative; it is just practical.
DHM We can have what may be a small impression, and it can develop here; it can develop as the week proceeds, whether it comes from what is private and what is collective; and that is the work of the Spirit.
TWL It is to be added to the collective whole; so you might say one thing, and somebody else will build on that, and another will build on that again; and that is what makes the saints as gathered together more than what they are in their individual parts. What is collective is greater than what is there individually because the Spirit works and adds, and your impression and somebody else’s impression come together, and you get something fresh again, and that is how the Spirit works.
JTB The reference in Philippians chapter 3, “For we are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God, and boast in Christ Jesus, and do not trust in flesh” (v 3), is parallel with what we are saying, for circumcision means all these things that hold us back have been addressed. And then, “who worship by the Spirit of God” that is over to the positive side. We are ready to do that, “and do not trust in flesh”. We referred to Romans 7. You can see how it all leads to “worship by the Spirit of God”; so He has free rein to secure our affections and direct them in that way.
TWL One of the things I find as I go along and get a little older is that I do not do things for fear of retribution, but I do not do things because of fear of loss of communion; I am going to lose more by touching or thinking or acting in a certain way. I am going to lose intimate communication with the Person I love with my whole heart. Why would I do that? That is the point.
JTB Increasingly as we experience the Spirit announcing and speaking to us about Christ, the greater the stimulation just to act in that way.
Edinburgh
13th June 2021
Key to Initials:-
(all from Edinburgh)
G Bailey; T H Bailey; D C Brown; J T Brown; K R Cumming; K Grant; T W Lock D H Marshall