Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals

Guest (Male): These chapters in John's Gospel, which we have been studying, are often called the Upper Room Discourse of John's Gospel, because they were spoken in the upper room where Jesus is preparing his disciples for the shortly to be experienced reality of his death. He is within hours of his crucifixion, and here in the upper room, he gathers them together in order that he might minister to them.

The remarkable thing is that though he is only this short step away from this barbaric form of execution which crucifixion was, the whole concentration of Jesus' attention with the disciples around him is not on how they can help him to die, but on how he can help them to live. He is totally unconcerned, as it seems, about himself and his own preoccupations. It would have been entirely understandable if he had been talking to them about the apprehensions and fears that he had because, as we were saying this morning, he was in all points like as we are, tested. He was not superhuman in the face of death.

Instead of that, what Jesus is doing is expressing his concern for them. All his ministry is focused on this. It is a quite extraordinary thing. Principally, his concern is for the thing that he mentions at the very beginning of this chapter 16 in verse one, that is, that they would not fall away. It really is amazing here and in chapter 17 of John, where we read the prayer of Jesus for his disciples, what we call his high priestly prayer, to see how the Lord Jesus has in the truest sense the fulfillment of that picture you get of the high priest in scripture, who has the names of the people of Israel inscribed upon his breastplate.

Jesus has the names and needs of his own inscribed in deepest form upon his heart, and he is burdened for them and cares for them lest they might fall away. What an example he is of the kind of pastoral concern that ought to fill the hearts of Christian people for each other, and sadly so seldom does. But here is Jesus with this immense weight upon his spirit, not for himself and his own coming death, but for them and their coming trials as he leaves them. All this I have told you so that you will not go astray.

Now in this teaching, Jesus directs them to certain truths which will be like anchors for their souls as they pass through these days of testing that he sees ahead of them. One of them, the first that he mentions at the beginning of chapter 14, is the anchor of a confident trust in himself. It is his first appeal to them. Do not let your heart be troubled. What is the first key to the cure for a troubled heart? It is believe in God, believe also in me, says Jesus. Place your trust there, place your confidence utterly in God, and place your confidence utterly in me as his son and your savior.

The second great anchor that he throws to them, as it were, is the truth concerning their union with him. As branches in a vine, says Jesus, so are you joined to me. Without me you can do nothing, but joined to me, there is no limit to the possibilities of what might appear in your lives in days yet to come. So he brings these anchors for them to be made steadfast in the midst of the coming storms.

Of course, the most dominant one in these chapters in John's Gospel is the truth that Jesus teaches them about the ministry of the Holy Spirit. He has already introduced this to us in chapter 14 verses 15 to 20, and again in verse 26 of that same chapter, where he describes the coming of the spirit in this way: I will ask the Father, and he will give you another counselor to be with you forever. That teaching recurs in chapter 15 at the end where we began our reading this evening, and in chapter 16.

Jesus is concerned through all of these areas of his teaching in the upper room to provide an anchor for the lives of these weakened, needy believers he is leaving behind him in the truth of what the Holy Spirit is to come to do in their lives and in the world around them. Now so far in the passage that we have most immediately studied at the end of chapter 15 and the beginning of chapter 16, Jesus is concerned with the ministry of the Holy Spirit in the world. He is talking about how they are to be left in the world, and the world will be hostile to them. They will experience pressures and trials and adversity and hostility.

But, says Jesus, the Holy Spirit when he comes, he will testify to the world. He will testify concerning me to the world, and the Holy Spirit is to come through them to bear witness to a godless, hostile world. Not only so, but Jesus tells us that the Holy Spirit is going to convict the world of sin and righteousness and judgment. He is going to deal with the world in such a way by coming and ministering in the world that men and women will suddenly become starkly aware of their immense and appalling need in the presence of a holy God.

The Holy Spirit will produce what we cannot ourselves produce in anybody. That is a sense of sin and its solemnity and seriousness, the reality of righteousness which God demands and we cannot provide, and the coming judgment which none will be able to escape. So Jesus says to remember even in the midst of all the pressures of the world, the Holy Spirit is coming to testify to it and to convict it.

This evening from verse 12 of chapter 16 onwards, Jesus concentrates on the ministry of the Holy Spirit in the church. It is this that I want us to focus on in these moments this evening from verse 12 of chapter 16. The concentration of Jesus' ministry is on the effect that the work of the Holy Spirit in the church, that is amongst God's people, is going to have. I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when he, the Spirit of Truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth.

Somebody has entitled these verses from verse 12 to 15 of John chapter 16, "Why Jesus Never Wrote a Book." It is an intriguing title. I remember the first time I saw it, being intrigued by this: Why Jesus Never Wrote a Book. Of course he didn't, as you know, despite the fact that all the prophets of the Old Testament wrote down the message that God had given to them, often at God's own instruction.

Jesus never, so far as we know, penned a word that was going to remain for his church in the future. Which, if you think of it, is really rather extraordinary. These verses do explain to us why Jesus never wrote anything down. The reason is not that he had doubts or questions about the authority of his teaching. It was rather that he was anticipating the ministry of the Holy Spirit in his disciples who became apostles.

He is really taking up the same theme that we found in chapter 14 of John and verse 26. The promise Jesus gives there is that the counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and remind you of everything I have said to you. That's John 14:26. Now the promise Jesus gives in John 16:13 is that the Spirit of Truth, when he comes, will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.

The promise that Jesus gives, the Spirit of Truth will guide you into all the truth, is one of the most immensely important and yet one of the most easily misunderstood anywhere in the Gospels. It is true for us, of course, this evening, all of us who are Christian believers, that Jesus is saying to us the Spirit of Truth will guide you into all truth. But it is primarily true for the apostles to whom it was originally spoken. It is true of both groups, ourselves and the apostles, in different ways.

Notice how this comes about, because it is of immense importance. It is the provision Jesus makes for his people to remain in the world and to live victoriously and to overcome the world. What is the provision that Jesus makes through the Holy Spirit? It is this: in chapter 14 verse 26, Jesus says that everything he has said to the disciples, the Holy Spirit will bring back to their memory.

Notice how he puts it: The counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. Now that was of tremendous importance, of course, that the apostles should be sure that they had an accurate record of everything that Jesus taught. Jesus here says the Holy Spirit is the key to that, and he will remind you of everything that I have said to you.

Let me point out to you again that the people Jesus is addressing are primarily the apostles. You can tell this from the frequent repetition of the word 'you'. Notice in verse 25: All this I have spoken while still with you. Who are the 'you' to whom he is speaking? They are obviously the disciples whom we call the apostles. But the counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you. Who is that 'you'? Obviously, it has to be the same group of people.

He is not switching to a different group within a sentence. He will teach you, that is the apostles, all things, and will remind you of everything I have said to you, that is the disciples. The Holy Spirit will bring this back to their memory. But in chapter 16 verse 12, Jesus says I have other things to say to you, more than you can now bear. That is, what he wants them to understand is not just what he said to them when he was here in this world, but there are other things he wants to say to them.

The trouble is, they can't take it in at the moment, says Jesus. You can't bear it. That may mean they were not sufficiently mature spiritually. It may mean that this was not the opportunity for them to grasp this since the crucifixion and resurrection had not taken place. They were incapable of grasping it. But Jesus says, I want you to understand it, so I am sending the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of Truth, and he will guide you into all truth. Now, notice again the 'you'. It is of immense importance if we are going to understand scripture properly.

Verse 12, who are the 'you's to whom he speaks? I have much more to say to you, more than you can now at this present time bear. That's the disciples, isn't it, whom we call the apostles? Verse 13: But when he, the Spirit of Truth, comes, he will guide you, the same group of people, into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.

What that tells us is that the apostles are going to be inspired by the Holy Spirit in two ways. You really need to grasp this. First, to recollect everything that Jesus said. Secondly, they are going to be inspired to understand everything Jesus could not yet say to them, but which he wanted them to know. The first inspiration was recorded in the Gospels, when the apostles wrote down in the Gospels what Jesus had said and the Holy Spirit brought it back to their memory. That's how the Gospels were produced.

The second promise is fulfilled in the rest of the New Testament. What Jesus is saying is that that inspiration will produce a full record of the truth, and that is in the Epistles and in the book of Revelation. Now you will notice certain things about this full inspiration that leads them into the truth of which Jesus speaks. It will be authoritative. In verse 13: When he, the Spirit of Truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own. He will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.

Now, that's an important phrase. If you had just been reading through John's Gospel, you would have discovered that it occurs earlier. The Holy Spirit will not speak of himself. He will speak what he is told to speak, what he hears, in other words. If you had read from John chapter 7 and verse 16, you would have read Jesus saying to the disciples exactly the same thing. My teaching, says Jesus, is not my own.

What did he say? I thought this was where the ultimate authority lay. Oh no, says Jesus, my teaching is not my own. Where does it come from then? It is from him that sent me, says Jesus. It bears the authority of God himself, so that they were not to dismiss Jesus' teaching merely as the teaching of the Nazarene. This has the authority of God in it.

Now when Jesus says the Holy Spirit will not speak from himself, he will speak only what he hears, he will tell you what is to come, he is saying exactly the same thing about the Holy Spirit. The authority of what the Holy Spirit teaches is the same as the authority of what Jesus teaches. Do you see this? It comes from God.

I'll need to apply and illustrate this to you in a moment or two, but it's immensely important because Jesus is saying when the Holy Spirit inspires the apostles to write the rest of the New Testament, it will have the same authority as his very words coming from God the Father. Now I wonder if you see the implications of that. The first implication is that the Epistles and the book of Revelation, many people think that what Jesus is referring to when he says at the end of verse 13 he will tell you what is yet to come, that it's a particular reference to the book of Revelation. I'm not so sure of it is or not, but it doesn't really matter.

What he is saying is that the apostles are going to be given the rest of the revelation that Jesus wants them to have. They can't have it just now; they're going to get it later. Therefore, the New Testament consists of two parts: the Gospels, which consist of the recollection of the apostles of what Jesus has said, and the rest of the New Testament, which is what the Holy Spirit has revealed to them subsequently.

That means that this subsequent truth we have in the New Testament Epistles and Revelation, but you see the second thing that it means. It means that this authoritative word of God in the rest of the New Testament bears the same authority as the very words of Jesus, since they come from the same source. Jesus says I do not speak of myself, it's the Father. He says the Holy Spirit will not speak of himself; he will speak what he is told, he will speak what he hears.

Now that's of great importance, because it means that, thirdly, the implication is not only that this is where the New Testament comes from, that the same authority belongs to the Gospels as to the rest of the New Testament. It is therefore wrong for us to divide the words of Jesus in the Gospels from the words of the apostles in the rest of the New Testament. Why? Because they both have the same authority.

Now I tell you how you see the way people do not understand that. Many evangelical Christians don't understand it. Have you ever seen the Red Letter New Testament? Yes, I see some smiles. Some of you have seen the Red Letter New Testament. If you don't know what the Red Letter New Testament is, I'll tell you. It's a New Testament that has all the words of Jesus, the words Jesus himself actually spoke, printed in red.

Now that may be a very convenient thing, it helps you to see where the words of Jesus are and so on, but there is a reason that this is done. The original reason that it was done was in order somehow or other to exalt the actual words of Jesus above the rest of the words of the New Testament. That is a great error, for the simple reason that the authority of the one is the same as the authority of the other, and that's greatly important.

This was put into somewhat home-spun language by a lady in New Mills to me soon after I went to New Mills. She said to me one day at the door, "Mr. Alexander, I really love the Gospels and I'm so keen on the teaching of Jesus, but I cannot be doing with the apostle Paul." She'd find many things Paul said she didn't care for very much. But you see, that's exactly the error that this anchor for the souls of God's people that Jesus is providing is designed to deal with.

Some of you who may be studying theology, the intellectual world in which this appears is in what they call the Quest for the Historical Jesus. You know the idea behind that is to strip away everything that belongs to the world of the apostles, to the way they have added to the simple teaching of Jesus, and let's get back to the historical Jesus. Well, of course what Jesus is saying here is the very words that the Holy Spirit will speak, he will not speak of himself; he will speak everything that I have given to him.

The fourth implication of this truth is, of course, that we could never claim that kind of authoritative inspiration for ourselves, could we? Here is an authority that belongs to the same kind of authority as the very words of Jesus. Now do you understand why we could never say I was led by the Holy Spirit, here listen to what the Holy Spirit is said to do, he will guide you into all the truth? Suddenly someone comes and says, "But the Holy Spirit has guided me to do this."

Now I've often talked with people when they've said that. The Holy Spirit has led me to do that. Now discussion is ended at that point. There's no more room for discussion. If the Holy Spirit has led me into this, then that's the end of the story. But of course, no mere human being, however mature a Christian he may be or she, could ever claim this kind of inspiration and authority for what they are saying or doing. The only one who can claim it is the Holy Spirit and the apostles who were the implements the Holy Spirit used to write down scripture.

We honor the Holy Spirit most when we honor scripture most. If the Holy Spirit is said to lead somebody to do something that is contrary to Holy Scripture, then it is most assuredly not the Holy Spirit who is doing the leading. What then is this promise that Jesus makes in relation to us? The clue to understanding it is the distinction between inspiration and illumination.

Let me try to explain that to you. The Holy Spirit helped the apostles to write scripture. That's inspiration. The Holy Spirit helps us to understand scripture. That's illumination. We need that kind of illumination from the Holy Spirit in order that our minds and spirits may be gripped by the truth of Holy Scripture. For us, the guiding of the Holy Spirit into the truth is an illumining of our minds to understand what he has already inspired the apostles to write.

Now that's why you see the difference between the apostles and all modern servants of God is that the apostles' sermons go into the New Testament. Our sermons should come out of the New Testament. That's the distinction. There is no such thing as a pronouncement made by any mere mortal which has the same authority as the authority of Holy Scripture.

So it is authoritative. You notice the other thing that Jesus says is that the Holy Spirit's ministry is Christ-centered in verse 14. He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you. All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the spirit will take from what is mine and make it known to you.

Now therefore, what the Holy Spirit is going to do in his ministry in the church is to bless us in understanding scripture. He has given us his word as the anchor for our souls. His ministry is that he will glorify the Lord Jesus Christ in the lives of his people and before their eyes. So we will be able to test whether something is a true work of the Holy Spirit or not by this means: it will always glorify the Lord Jesus Christ and it will focus attention on him. In that sense, the Holy Spirit's ministry is self-effacing.

Now finally, the last thing that I want to say to you is this: this ministry of the Holy Spirit in illumining what God has inspired the apostles to write is not merely academic and intellectual. What the Holy Spirit does is not only to bring inspiration to the apostles and illumination to his people, he also brings transformation into our lives. This is why, of course, he is directing the apostles here in John 16 and us in a secondary sense to the Holy Scripture.

This is where our lives are going to be changed. It is as we gaze into the word of God that the Holy Spirit not only illumines its meaning to us but transforms our character and changes us into the likeness of Jesus. Listen to 2 Corinthians 3:18: We all with unveiled face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord—and where we behold that glory is in Holy Scripture—we are being transformed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another. This comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

What's the Spirit's great ministry? To glorify the Lord Jesus. He glorifies the Lord Jesus by revealing him to us in scripture and by changing us so that in our lives we may bear the glory and beauty of Jesus before the world. That's the Holy Spirit's ministry. Now Jesus is going to tell them just shortly that one of the ways in which he does this is through trial and suffering and tribulation, through difficulty and adversity and opposition and hostility. But God the Holy Spirit gives us this transforming power as we gaze into Holy Scripture and changes us into the same image.

That's why this is an anchor for our souls. That's why Holy Scripture is of such cardinal importance to us in our daily living. It is this, Jesus' plan, to bless his people and to change their lives. May God help us that we may be those who hide his word in our hearts for the praise of his glorious name.

Mark Daniels: You're listening to Hear the Word of God with the Reverend Eric Alexander, a minister in the Church of Scotland for over 50 years. To access more Bible teaching from Reverend Alexander, visit hearthewordofgod.org where your generous contribution will help us sustain and grow this ministry. That's hearthewordofgod.org. You could choose instead to mail a check to this address: 600 Eden Road, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, 17601. Or call 1-800-488-1888. This program is a presentation of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. I'm Mark Daniels. Thank you for listening. Please join us again next time for Eric Alexander and Hear the Word of God.