We continue with the two overlapping promises by Christ regarding the Holy Spirit. The promises are interwoven in the scriptures and therefore have not been easily distinguishable even by Bible scholars. The first promise was meant to grant us the power to live in the Truth by consciously receiving the flow of God’s power into Creation as discussed in the last blog.
The second was to bring us conviction in the knowledge of the Truth that will enable us to achieve salvation in the judgment. Jesus promised to send the Spirit of Truth who will come just like Himself from the Father. This will be a personal mission.
Part 2. The promise of the Spirit of Truth
A promise for the future
The primary purpose of Christ’s mission was to bring us salvation in the Word, which He personally represented. This Truth He first anchored in the darkness by stepping foot on earth, by His incarnation. In addition, He sought to anchor the Truth in the human spirits to enable them to achieve personal victory. For this He chose and laboriously thought and empowered the best of human spirits on earth at the time, who thereafter carried this Truth to the rest of humanity. Unfortunately, as also documented, there was little doubt that the human beings of His time and even His disciples did not always understand the Lord Jesus.
The incarnate Love of God could not and did not abandon us despite our failings; our inability to understand Him fully because of the level of our spiritual maturity, and even the obvious attempts to kill Him. In the abundance of His Love, Christ asked the Father, as a further act of grace, to send the Truth to striving human spirits once more before the end. It was apparent to Him that without this further help and guidance, human spirits will be lost by the time the Son of Man comes for the judgement.
In John 16: 12-16, Jesus tells us: “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. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. 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. In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me”.
This tells us a lot:
- The Spirit of Truth will come as a person, not as an out flow of power.
- When He comes, he will guide us into ALL Truth. The further knowledge that humanity could not at the time of Christ on earth fully understand.
- Like Christ, He will speak in the authority of the Father, i.e., only what He hears or what He carries within Him from His Eternal origin. His, will be no learned knowledge and humanity, as they did with Christ, will marvel and ask – On whose authority does He do all this? He will not speak on His own.
- In His work, He will bring glory to Christ because He will confirm all the Truth brought by Christ and strip the teachings and the written accounts of Christ’s life of every falsehood. He will read from the same script that Christ used, from the same Divine Unsubstantiate knowledge.
- The last verse of this quotation is often overlooked, but is very important. It reveals that the coming of the Son of Man as the Spirit of Truth will correspond to Christ’s promise of a second coming. Although we will no longer see Him as Jesus because He returns to the Father, yet He will come to us in the Spirit of Truth, as one with Him. In the Father they are One, the Holy Trinity.
The Lord Jesus had indeed earlier confirmed in John 14:25-26, that The Spirit of Truth will be sent in His name to teach His followers – “All this I have spoken while still with you. But the Counsellor, 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”. But the Counsellor will also be a separate personality. He further tells us in John 15:26, “When the Counsellor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of Truth who goes out from the Father, he will testify about me”.
The Counsellor will come out of and from the Father like Jesus, and will be sent at the instance of The Love of God, Jesus. Note that an important part of the work of the Spirit of Truth is to testify about Christ and to remind us of everything Christ said. This is a major criterion with which we may recognise the work of the Spirit of Truth. It must correspond with the Truth Christ brought while at the same time purifying it of all distortions. Note that, like Christ, He comes as a person from the Father and is One with the Father.
No time frame is set to this mission, as is set with the first promise of empowering that was to follow in a few days after His resurrection, while the disciples remained in Jerusalem. While the power flowing into Creation is an eternal promise of the Father, the personal mission of the Spirit of Truth who will come in the power and authority of Christ to guide us into all Knowledge, is in response to the request of the Son of God. This work of the Spirit of Truth will be for all believers and not just for His disciples. The bringer of this Truth will be like Him – from the same source, bringing the same Truth He brought but in addition coming with other roles such as bringing the judgement.
As stated in John 16: 7-11, The mission of the Son of Man includes to convict the world of guilt and bring the judgement, but by the Grace of the Love of God the onset of this judgement will now be preceded by the counsel (or Message) of help. “But I tell you the truth: It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counsellor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. When he comes, he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgement: in regard to sin, because men do not believe in me; in regard to righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; and in regard to judgement, because the prince of this world now stands condemned. Christ will send another from the same Divine Unsubstantiate origin. He is coming to judge the World in regard to sin and righteousness. In addition, He personally judges and condemns the prince of this World (Lucifer).
The promise of the Spirit of Truth is a promise for the end time, the time of the judgement. Many parables from Christ emphasise this and indeed the Lord declared that the giving of this Truth about the Kingdom, this gospel of the kingdom is the final signal for the end of the age.
In His revealing teaching to His closest disciples concerning the end-times, Christ described many tribulations, trumpet warnings, diseases and pestilences, wars and rumours of wars; but these He emphasised are only indicators of the approaching end[i]. These we are told are like birth pangs or contractions. It is only with the bringing of the promised Word of Truth, the gospel of the kingdom that the end time Judgment begins. “And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come” (Matthew 24:14). Although many devout Christians have interpreted this to mean that the ‘Bible’ will be preached to the whole world, this cannot be right for the simple reason that at the time Christ was talking to them, the Bible as such did not exist. It is also not a reference to preaching the teachings of Christ to the whole world. Christ emphasise this by coupling this event with the sign of the Son of Man, indicating that this is also part of the activity of the Son of Man for the end time.
The Message of the Spirit of Truth from the Father is the last help to humanity, the trigger for the judgement and the end of the age, the great Cosmic turning point.
But when he the Son of Man comes, will he still find faith on earth?[ii]
The Lord Jesus went to considerable trouble to prepare us for the coming of the Son of Man, who He also calls the Spirit of Truth, the Comforter, the Counsellor, etc. If we are truly followers of Christ and have listened to His genuine teaching, not necessarily as interpreted for us by the churches, we should now be striving in the midst of the clarion calls of the warning trumpets to watch out for the Message of Truth.
Because of the importance of this for our survival many parables warn us to be alert for the coming of the Son of Man as the Spirit of Truth and as the Bridegroom. If we do not remain alert at the right time, we will miss His call for He will come unexpectedly like a thief in the night. These repeated admonitions from Christ indicate that we will not recognize the Son of Man easily, even when we have been waiting eagerly. This is brought out clearly in the parable of the ten virgins.
One reason for this is because of increasing indolence of human spirits against which Christ also warned strongly. Even more than was the case at the time of the coming of Christ, many false prophets will arise to confuse, all claiming to be the awaited one. This has been a consistent activity of the darkness in opposition to the Light. These together with many other forms of distraction constitute a great hazard for human spirits at a time they need to be most alert.
Christ called these false preachers vultures who hover around the body of Truth looking for preys. The Grail Message describes them as spiritual highwaymen. They are much worse than the Pharisees and Sadducees who Christ categorized as whitened sepulchre, full of dead men’s bones and all manners of iniquity; who will go through untold difficulty to convert disciples to their way of life only to make them twice children of hell[iii].
Only Spiritual alertness will permit us to understand, to accept the Truth and obey the Lord’s teachings. Only when we have allowed His words to come to life within us may we recognize and accept the Spirit of Truth. Again, Christ emphasised this – “If you love me, you will obey what I command. And I will ask the Father and he will give you another counsellor to be with you forever – the spirit of Truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you”[iv].
Alertness and openness to the Truth and to the enabling power of the Holy Spirit, will permit us to recognize the Spirit of Truth, the Son of Man when He now personally incarnates. Of course, we remain free to believe anything. Free to accept or reject the Truth. Free to interpret the sending of the Spirit of Truth in any way we like. Free to deny the terrible events of our time calling us to an awakening. Free to continue in spiritual indolence until it is too late.
And the Message promised has been granted to the whole world, thus the intuitive sensing by all who still have a longing for God that we are now in the period of the end times.
[i] Matthew 24:8
[ii] Luke 18:8
[iii] Matthew 23:13-29
[iv] John 14:15-17
ThePureGate.com 