In The Promise And Coming Of The Comforter

by RICE T. H. HORNE | Category: The Holy Spirit And His Work | Aug 1952

The words of the Lord Jesus, "It is expedient for you that I go away," must have fallen strangely upon the ears of His disciples in that dark night when He, the One with whom they had companied during the blessed years of His sojourn here, was so rudely taken away from them.

How could it be expedient for them that He who had become so much to them, their Lord and Master, their Teacher and Guide, their Protector and Comforter, to whom they had learned to look for all things, should be taken away from them? What could it mean? How often it is that we understand so little of the Lord's gracious purposes towards us!

The promise of the Lord Jesus in John 7.38, "He that believeth on Me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water," still awaited its fulfilment; the Holy Spirit's comment being, "But this spake He of the Spirit, which they that believed on Him were to receive : for the Spirit was not yet given; because Jesus was not yet glorified."

Later, however, the Lord Jesus was able to say, "Father, the hour is come, glorify Thy Son, that the Son may glorify Thee." He must needs know the dread experiences of Gethsemane and Golgotha, before Peter could say as he did on the day of Pentecost, "This Jesus did God raise up, whereof we all are witnesses. Being therefore by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He hath poured forth this, which ye see and hear."

This pouring forth Peter connects with the promise of God through

Joel:"And it shall be in the last days, saith God, I will pour forth of My Spirit upon all flesh."

The Lord had said to His disciples, "Behold, I send forth the promise of My Father upon you: but tarry ye in the city, until ye be clothed with power from on high" (Luke 24.49); and later, "Being assembled together with them, He charged them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, said He, ye heard from Me "(Acts 1.4).

In the minds of the disciples the "promise of the Father" may have been connected with the restoration of the kingdom to Israel, but the Lord Jesus reveals to them that in the coming of the Holy Spirit the Father had purposes of blessing, not only for men of Israel, but that blessing should flow out "unto the uttermost part of the earth."

From Olivet, where they had seen the Lord taken up from them to take His place "on the right hand of the Majesty on high," His disciples returned to Jerusalem, there to wait as the Lord Jesus had bidden them, and whilst waiting they "with one accord continued stedfastly in prayer." Can we doubt that the coming of the Comforter and the witness which they were to bear to their risen Lord would be the subjects of their prayer?

Ten days after His going, the promise of the Holy Spirit's coming was fulfilled, and so we read "They were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance."

As the presence and power of the blessed Holy Spirit was thus experienced, and they were enabled to give their witness to the Lord Jesus, they would surely begin to understand the expediency of the Lord's going and the Spirit's coming.

What a comfort the remembrance of the Lord's words would be to them !-" I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may be with you for ever." Such a parting as they had experienced at Olivet, they would never know from the other Comforter.

How soon they began to know the promise fulfilled, "He shall teach you all things" and "He 'shall guide you into all the truth," may be seen from what is recorded in Acts 2.

Although the Lord had many things to say unto them, they were not able to bear them until the Holy Spirit had taken up His dwelling in their hearts. Paul tells us at a later date, "We received, not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us by God." How dependent we are upon the teaching of the Spirit if we are in any measure to know the things that have been given to us by God! What a blessing it is that He taught those who were chosen to speak and write for His people "not in words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Spirit teacheth" (1 Corinthians 2.18), and that we are able to read the words of the Spirit in their writings to-day!

Had it not been that the Comforter would bring to remembrance all that the Lord had said unto them, we could never have had the pure records which are preserved for us in the Gospels and Epistles of the New Testament Scriptures. We may well wonder sometimes at the lengthy discourses of the Lord which are recorded for us and which were probably not written down until some years afterwards, but here is the secret.

How were John in the Revelation and Paul and Peter in their Epistles able to write of future events? The Lord had said, "When He, the Spirit of truth is come ... He shall declare unto you the things that are to come."

It is a blessing to know that the Comforter is here to bear witness to the Lord Jesus, and in this witness the Lord's people may bear their part as they are energized by the great Witness-Bearer. This world would be a dark place without the Spirit's witness to the One who is God's Servant" to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and restore the preserved of Israel" ; who also was given "for a light to the Gentiles," that He might be God's "salvation unto the end of the earth."

His coming, dependent upon Christ being glorified, was expedient indeed!

Oh, that we may know more of the conscious presence, guidance and power of this blessed Comforter both in our individual experience and in our collective testimony for the Lord, that He may dwell in us ungrieved so that He may take of the things of Christ and declare them unto us, that the Lord may thus be glorified (John 16. 14)!

RICE T. H. HORNE | Aug 1952
The Holy Spirit And His Work