The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth (14:17). The Spirit guides the believers into all truth of God, the great work of the Spirit is to bring God’s truth to men. We have a special name for this bringing of God’s truth to men; we call it revelation.[1]
The Spirit comes to us and gives us revelation. Revelation is bound to be a progressive process.[2] The Lord had many things yet to say but as the listeners could not bear, he could not say all he had to say. He tempers his discipline to our spiritual capacity.[3] Truth is proclaimed only as much as the listeners can bear and comprehend.
Although Christ could have taught more, he could not. Believers should be very careful here, for from time to time through the history of the Christian church, people have arisen who have said that they had new revelations and they have led people astray. It is important for us to keep a firm hold on the truth that the definitive revelation has been given in Scripture. Christian teaching is the teaching God gave through Christ and Christ’s apostles. Nothing can claim to be authentic Christian teaching that does not agree with this.[4] The truth which the Spirit will disclose is not truth additional to ‘the truth as it is in Jesus’ (Ephesians 4:21); it is the further unfolding of that truth.[5]
Revelation is unfolding of the importance of what belongs to Jesus. Revelation is a continual opening out of the meaning and the significance of Jesus Christ.[6] In other word, revelation is nothing else but revealing Jesus Christ to us.
Revelation comes to us from a living person. The nearer we live to Jesus, the better we will know him. The more we become like him, the more he will be able to tell us.[7] The more we follow the leading of the Spirit, the more of the truth we come to know.[8] Ordinarily, men ask to know the truth before they obey. The Spirit demands that they should obey before they know.[9] Submission to Christ and knowledge of Christ go hand in hand. It is only to the man of God that God can reveal his truth.[10]
Truth is not men’s discovery; it is God’s gift.[11] The Holy Spirit, which unfolds the truth to us, is a gift for us after Jesus having paid with his blood. The Spirit offers courage and comfort to the many disciples of today who are in the same situation as the disciples of Jesus then.
May it be ours to be patient and willing pupils in this heavenly school, in which the Holy Spirit is Teacher and Jesus the Textbook, and obedience the essential condition of knowledge.[12]
[1] Barclay, The Gospel of John, 226.
[2] Barclay, The Gospel of John, 226.
[3] Meyer, The Life and Light of Men and Love to the Uttermost: A Commentary on the Gospel of John, 287.
[4] Morris, Reflections on the Gospel of John, 546.
[5] F. F. Bruce, The Gospel of John: Introduction, Exposition and Notes (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1983), 320.
[6] Barclay, The Gospel of John, 229.
[7] Barclay, The Gospel of John, 229
[8] Morris, Reflections on the Gospel of John, 546.
[9] Meyer, The Life and Light of Men and Love to the Uttermost: A Commentary on the Gospel of John, 288.
[10] Barclay, The Gospel of John, 229.
[11] Barclay, The Gospel of John, 229.
[12] Meyer, The Life and Light of Men and Love to the Uttermost: A Commentary on the Gospel of John, 289.