The Holy Spirit Always Teaches the Truth - He Always Teaches Jesus. - John 16:12-15
Preached to the saints at Mount Olive Lutheran and Grace English Lutheran Churches in Bovey and Marble, Minnesota on Cantate Sunday, May 2, 2021:
I still have many things to say to you, but you are not able to bear them now. But when the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you in all truth, for he will not speak on behalf of himself, but as much as he hears, he will speak and will announce to you the things coming. He will glorify me, because he will take of mine and announce it to you.
Many things happen in our lives and in the world, it is sometimes hard to make sense of them all. Some things bring happiness and excitement; and other things bring difficulty and sometimes even pain. So much of it is confusing, frustrating, and troublesome. Who can understand it all? With everything changing all the time, it is difficult to navigate this sinful world and follow after the things of God’s good pleasure. Even when you open the Holy Word of God to gain some semblance of the truth, sometimes you can feel absolutely lost like the Ethiopian Eunuch of Acts 8. He was reading from the prophet Isaiah and said: I am not able to understand unless someone guides me! So, Philip, full of the wisdom granted by the Holy Spirit through constant study of the Scriptures, taught the Ethiopian from the Isaiah passage all things concerning Christ.
That event in Acts demonstrates the fulfillment of Jesus’ promise from John 16 where Jesus says, “I still have many things to say to you, but you are not able to bear them now.” You are not able to endure under them, understand them, or make sense of them. “But when the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you in all truth...He will speak and announce to you the things coming. He will glorify me.”
The things coming refers directly to Jesus’ imminent suffering and death upon the cross. Even though we have the fullness of God’s counsel in the Holy Scriptures, the full reality of Christ’s sacrificial death for our disobedience and rebellion is impossible to bear and endure on our own – who can understand it unless someone guides us!
A helper and guide into the things of God is what Jesus promises today. Through the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the Third Person of the Holy Trinity, we have a paraclete - a helper who guides us to make sense of all things concerning this fallen world, our own sin, and concerning Christ. As a faithful guide, the Holy Spirit uses the Scripture to always set our minds on Christ - He will always teach the truth - He will always teach Jesus as our Savior and God, whose cross and empty tomb proclaims forgiveness of sins and the life of peace everlasting.
This was something totally new for the disciples. Up to this point Jesus had been their helper and guide, teaching them the truth of God and his love for all the world. Jesus was alongside them, correcting them, and giving them hope in His constant compassionate care. He encouraged them to stand on the truth , teaching them to silence all opposition with the clear Word of Scripture. His loving kindness and mercy forgave them of their frequent faults. He was their divine teacher and friend. Through Jesus, the disciples learned what it meant to be a child of God and were refreshed in the wells of salvation that poured from Jesus’ lips and given in his personal touch. Now, Jesus was going to the Father - and as difficult and confusing as it is to understand, It is to your advantage that I go away, for then the Helper would come. And when the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you in all truth.
Dear people loved by God and brought into the righteousness of Jesus by the work of the Holy Spirit, it is an advantage for you to know Jesus in this way. Our world is not much different than the world the disciples lived in. Their government was heavy handed and pressured people to think and behave a certain way that, many times, was contrary to God’s order. People were more interested in themselves and their personal truths rather than uniting together around one solid foundation. Because we’ve all gone our own way, followed our own hearts, there are still today many disorganized, confusing, and even troubling ideas and opinions - and they keep changing.
But, there can only be one truth - because there is only One God who created all things, ordered all things by His gracious and saving will, and who sent his One Son to share in the fullness of man’s flesh and fulfill all things concerning sin, righteousness, and judgment through his cross and empty tomb. We need to repent from following whatever makes sense and hear the truth given by the Spirit of Truth, whom you have received and who guides you in the unchangeable truth of Jesus in His final and complete Holy Word of Scripture.
The Holy Spirit’s work is to glorify Jesus; to put focus solely on the absolute truth of His excellencies at all times. Christ our Lord says this very clearly: when the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you in all truth, for he will not speak on behalf of himself, but as much as he hears, he will speak and will announce to you the things coming. He will glorify me, for he will take of mine and announce it to you.
There can be no knowledge of God and Christ without the proclamation of the Holy Spirit. There can be no conclusion of what is good, right, or true without the Holy Spirit’s guidance in the Bible. Feelings can be manipulated; priorities can change; and opinions can be shuffled around, but a foundation of opinion is like that house Jesus speaks of in Matthew 7; When the floods rise and the winds beat upon the house built on opinion, the whole house falls.
The Holy Spirit has no opinion - he has the truth. As the Spirit of truth, He will only speak the truth; he will only speak Jesus. As James says, Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. The Holy Spirit will not lead you in one direction, and then change his mind and guide you somewhere else. He will not offer updated guidance or practices, but will always center his proclamation in the full work of Jesus who purchased you from sin, death, and the power of the devil with His holy precious blood and His innocent suffering and death on the cross and raises you to new, Christian and everlasting life in His resurrection.
He takes from Jesus and announces it to you. He glorifies Christ, creates faith, and reveals the depth of the Father’s love for you in all things - he unites you to Christ and to one another.
You have received this promised Holy Spirit in your Baptism. He has come and made you his unique dwelling place so that every expression of faith, hope, love, and courage is granted to you by His guidance through the Holy Scripture alone. His Word of Truth will pull your mind away from the filth of the world and the corruption of sin and He will be your guide and lift up your head to sing a new song to the Lord - a song of joy in the redemption that is coming.
The Holy Spirit has come to us, glorifying the work of Jesus, to make sense of the many changing things of the world and the confusion of the many opinions of sinful mankind. He guides us to the well of salvation; He opens our eyes to hear, see, touch, and taste the glory of our Lord Jesus in the Holy Sacrament; He teaches us to know Jesus as the Christ, our Savior, with ever-increasing clarity - because the Holy Spirit always teaches the truth; He always teaches Jesus.
So let us continue to hear the Word the Holy Spirit has given to us, and begin our devotion with prayer to the Holy Spirit, the one who guides us into all truth. Let us always do the work of the Holy Spirit and glorify Christ in our songs and praises, and in our everyday conversations and vocations. Let us in all things follow the work of the Holy Spirit and glorify Christ who promises to be with us, to forgive us, care for us, and guide us into His everlasting Kingdom. To him be the glory forever and ever. Amen