Jesus Promises the Holy Spirit
Bible Study Guide
(Verses 15-18) Jesus understands that His disciples are perplexed by all that’s happening. They’re worried and have lots of questions. Jesus is going to continue to encourage them. He tells them that they will not be left alone as orphans when He leaves.
In Jesus’ place, God is going to send to them the Holy Spirit. Jesus calls Him the Spirit of Truth. It’ll be this Spirit that will carry on the work of Christ through His Apostles. The Spirit of Truth will also continue to reveal God’s word and power to the Apostles. This will allow them to carry on the ministry and turn hundreds of followers of Christ into thousands.
When an unbeliever becomes a believer and follower of Christ, this Holy Spirit is the same spirit that comes to reside in us. It’s the Spirit that sanctifies us in our Christian journey toward our glorification with Christ.
The Holy Spirit is the one that reveals the truth of God’s word when read and pray on it. He gives us wisdom to understand and share it with others.
(Verses 19-21) The disciples are reminded that Jesus is about to leave this world. He tells them that when He leaves and the Holy Spirit takes His place, they will receive the truth. They will come to realize that Christ is of the Father and now with the Father in Heaven.
The Christian Journey Explained
(Verses 22-24) Jesus answers Judas (not Judas Iscariot) by explaining to him the journey of a Christian in one simple paragraph.
Jesus says, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teachings.” In other words, when we convert from unbelievers to believers, we accept and put our full faith and trust in Christ. We ask for the forgiveness of our sins. Then we turn to Christ with love and obedience. This is part of the first step in the Christian journey. Then comes the next part.
Then Jesus says, “My Father will love them…” The next part in the first step is justification. It’s when God looks into our hearts to see if we have truly come to love, believe and become a follower of His Son. Only God can justify because only God can see into the heart of a person. We can only see what’s on the outside of a person.
Jesus finished by saying, “…and we will come to them and make our home with them.” The meaning of the second part of this journey is our sanctification. God and Jesus will come to live with the Christian believer through the advocate (power of the Holy Spirit). He will dwell within the Christian. This will continue until the journey closes out with the glorification of the body at the resurrection of all the saints.
Jesus Promises the Holy Spirit As the New Teacher
(Verses 25-27) The disciples were used to being taught by Christ for the past three years since they dropped everything and began following Him. Jesus reminds them that they will now have a new teacher. This teacher will reveal to them everything they’ll need for the work in spreading the gospel.
They’re blessed with the peace of Christ and told not to be troubled. They will need to cling to these words from their Teacher with all their might. The next few days are about to become the most troubling days of the each of the disciples lives.
(Verses 28-29) Each of the eleven receive a reminder of Christ’ initial words of encouragement. This is when He explained to them the rapture and of His return in the clouds to gather all His followers as previously recorded in John 14:2-4.
Who’s the Prince of this World?
(Verses 30-31) The “prince of this world” that Jesus mentions is Satan. This is revealed in the death and crucifixion of Christ. Satan thought He achieved victory on the day of Christ’ death but he was proved wrong.
Christ reveals in His words, “He has no hold over me.” This means that Satan and death are defeated at the resurrection. Jesus’ death proved no victory for Satan but only the fulfillment of God’s word so that Christ could defeat death.
Then Christ would become the firstfruits of the resurrection. Thereby we believers will follow in those resurrection footsteps of Christ. We will make our way to eternal life with the Father as He originally planned for His creation.
What greater love is there than to give your only Son to die so that we may live eternally also with Him one day. There is none!
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