Jesus Promises to Send a Helper

Jesus Promises to Send a Helper



From Spirit Rising by Jim Cymbala



(This is directly from the book with no editing.)



During the Last Supper, Jesus told his disciples - the students who had learned from him and been friends with him for three years¬ that he was going away. Imagine how upset the disciples must have been to hear such a thing! He was their leader. He was a miracle worker. He was the one with the perfectly wise response when the Pharisees verbally cornered them. When he spoke, he spoke with an authority unlike any other teacher they had ever heard. No one had ever done that before.



How could he leave them? How could he leave them now, when they needed him most? And more confusing, he said that his leaving would benefit them. "But very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away" (John 16:7, emphasis added).



That statement must have flabbergasted the disciples. How could it be good that Jesus went away? This was the teacher they had eaten with, walked with, traveled with, watched, and learned from. Any benefit from his leaving had to be impossible for them to understand.



Fortunately, Jesus explained the reason why. "I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever - the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you" (John 14:16 -17). Then again he said, "But very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you" (16:7).

Now the whole picture began to unfold. The Father sent the Son to accomplish a specific work, to attest to God's love. "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16). God would show that love by sacrificing his Son on the cross to pay the penalty for our sins. And after the Son accomplished his work on the cross, rose from the dead, and ascended into heaven, the Son would send the Spirit.



Although the disciples couldn't comprehend it at the time, it was bet¬ter for them to have the invisible Holy Spirit in them than it was to have the physical Jesus with them. The divine person who was coming would help them understand every¬thing he had said. But they would have to wait until Jesus returned to heaven before the Spirit would come.

THE HOLY SPIRIT

Acts 1 tells us that after Jesus rose from the dead, he spent forty days making appearances among the apostles and talking about the king¬dom of God. Jesus also told them, "'Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about .... [And] you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth'" (vv. 4, 8).



They did as they were told, gathering in a house in Jerusalem to pray and worship God while they waited for the promise God made. "When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them" (Acts 2:1- 4).



Suddenly they received something from heaven, something that was far beyond their intelligence, talents, and training - the coming of the Holy Spirit in power. For the first time, they understood why it was good that Jesus went away. The Helper had come, and although Jesus was gone, the invisible Spirit had now taken residence in them and granted them power.

Perhaps the best way to understand what Jesus meant by say¬ing it would be better for the disciples after he left is to look at the life of Peter. In the Gospels, Peter often spoke at the wrong time, misunderstood the meaning of Jesus' teachings, and tended toward boasting of his superiority over the other disciples. But when Jesus was arrested, Peter not only fled, but he also cursed and denied even knowing Jesus!



Why was Peter so weak and mistake prone?



How could Peter deny the Messiah who had selected him as part of his inner circle and worked countless miracles right before his eyes?



Didn't Peter have a gifted teacher? Yes, it was Jesus himself.



Did Peter lack a great role model and example to follow? No, he had the perfect role model in Jesus Christ in the flesh.



So then, what did all of those educational and inspirational resources do for Peter?



Not enough.



On the night Jesus was betrayed and arrested, Peter fled like everyone else.





With three and a half years of excellent discipleship under his belt, Peter learned the harsh truth we all have confronted - it's one thing to know the Word, but it's quite another to obey it. Even the best discipleship training and spiritual accountability proved insuf¬ficient for Peter, because no outward teaching can compare to the inward power of the Holy Spirit. If you need proof, look at Peter on the day of Pentecost when the Spirit was poured out. Though the political climate hadn't changed from the time Jesus was arrested and cruci¬fied, Peter now preached boldly about the name of Jesus to massive crowds. This was a new Peter! He was filled with the Spirit. Jesus' promise about the Holy Spirit's power was right there to see in Peter's life. Suddenly that failed disciple was preaching with such amazing effectiveness that thousands converted to Christ. Jesus had been with Peter, but now the Spirit was in him.



If we follow Peter's story through the book of Acts, we see him continuing to act with wisdom and courage. He was a different man. Jesus' words had come to fulfillment: "But very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away" (John 16:7). Through his physi¬cal body, Jesus could be a mentor, teacher, preacher, and friend to the disciples, but he couldn't produce change from the inside out. This would be for the Spirit to accomplish just as God had planned from all eternity.

The Birth of the Church

The Christian church was born through the power of the Spirit. As we read through the rest of the book of Acts and the epistles of the New Testament, we see a picture of the early church the way God intended it to be. "They devoted themselves to the apostles' teach¬ing and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer" (2:42). Here was a community of believers who freely loved the Word of God and were devoted to the apostles' teaching. No one needed to bad¬ger or coerce them to love the Word. Instead, the Spirit within them inspired it. The same Spirit who wrote the Bible created an appe¬tite inside of them for what it said. They shared with one another the deep love the Spirit had put in their hearts. They also became bold witnesses for Christ, filled with wisdom beyond their training. Their hearts were full of the Holy Spirit, and they experienced surprises as God did things that no one could anticipate.



Not only had the Holy Spirit been sent to earth, but he was also moving. He acted in and through his people - he demonstrated his power to glorify Christ. The early church experienced him moving in their hearts and in their lives. Because of the hostile environment around them, they were repeatedly driven back to God for a fresh supply of the Holy Spirit, and they were wise enough to yield to his direction. Is the Holy Spirit moving like that in our lives? And in our churches?



Many people find it easy to relate to God the Father and Jesus the Son, but when it comes to the role of the Spirit in their lives, they don't have a clear picture of who he is or what he does. Do you ever feel that way? What about your life and your church? When you read about the power of the Holy Spirit in the life of Peter and in the early church, did it remind you of your own experience of the Holy Spirit? Or did you find yourself longing for something more?



I sometimes wonder, if the early Christians were around today, would they even recognize what we call Christianity? Our version is blander, almost totally intellectual in nature, and devoid of the Holy Spirit power the early church regularly experienced. How much loss do we suffer because we don't expect the Spirit to show up as promised? Everything we read about the church in the New Testament centered on the power of the Holy Spirit working in the hearts of Christian believers. Sadly, for many of us, this has not been our experience.



I believe it's time to return to the kind of faith we see in the New Testament church. They believed in Christ's word, they expected the Spirit to do great things, and he came through as promised.



He will do the same for us today.