Now in the previous lesson, we had been considering our obedient walk in the faith. And up to this point in their experience, Jesus, in the flesh, had been comforting His disciples, but beginning in vs. 16, He begins teaching truths for eternity. His physical presence would soon be missing, but as we read in vs. 18, the disciples would not be left "comfortless"! You know, if you were to start reading at vs. 13, skipped vs. 15 and continued to the end of vs. 20...and then insert vs. 15 just before vs. 21, you would have a much clearer understanding of what Jesus is teaching here.
Do you have a "comforter"? I mean a flesh, blood and bone comforter? One who will love you without ever letting his words get in the way? Well that's the kind of comforter Jesus is referring-to here. And that's exactly the kind of comfort that Jesus knew those twelve (and us), would need...to minister by His very presence when we have been cast down, or are broken up, and when we are weak or afraid. Even when we're just plain obstreperous, turning-off anyone who dares speak...He'll even comfort us then! And this Comforter...this Spirit, is One that the world can never receive, because rather than the Giver-of-Life, they possess the destroyer-of-life. And because they can't see Him, neither can they know Him (vs. 17). As Paul would later write to the Corinthian church, "...the natural man cannot receive (Holy Spirit comfort), because they are not spiritually discerned."
You realize of course, that once Jesus left the disciples, they would be like sheep without a shepherd; an army with no defense; street people without a cardboard box to call home... comfortless, inconsoleable...and lost! But what a promise...He would come to live IN them, rather than beside them, before they even realized how much they really needed Him...orphans in need of the Father's care (vs. 18).
Now that is one precious promise! And you can deposit it in the promise bank when Jesus saves you, so that God possesses you, and Holy Spirit indwells you...we are not left comfortless. In Matt. 28.20, He promised, "Lo, I am with you always"; in Hebrews 13.5 we read, "I will never leave you or forsake you", and Paul, in Gal. 2.20..."Christ lives in me!" How comforting is that?! And these promises are credited to the Believer's account, generating comfort-credit into eternity. My, oh my.
Then finally, in verses 19-20 we read that, "Now you see Me...then you won't!" That is until, as we're promised in the Revelation, there will be no going, but a great return in all His glory, when "every eye shall see Him"; when, as John has recorded in his first letter, "we shall see Him as He is!"
But what's the point? Well in vs. 20 we read that, "In that day, you will know that I Am...in the Father; and you in Me, and I, in you." Of course His reference here, is most likely to the coming of Holy Spiirit at Pentecost (Acts 2), when the church would receive our marching orders, as the Spirit of the Lord Jesus fell upon His disciples in all power! Right now we have a glorious life in Him; then, we will have HIM, in glory!
But we mustn't overlok that greatest of promises in vs. 19, "Because I live...". Our lives have been secured by His life, and most especially, by His death. That truth alone should convince us of our own spiritual potential, until that day when we see Him face to face! It's mind-boggling, that the mysteries of the faith can be believed and received and put into practice, even without our understanding how...but not without our obedience, as is again so clearly stated there, in the 21st verse.
Thus endeth the lesson.
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