THE HOLY SPIRIT IN JOHN'S WRITINGS

THE HOLY SPIRIT IN JOHN’S WRITINGS

A. J. Gardiner Revelation 1: 4 - 6; 1 John 5: 6 - 8; John 14: 15 - 20; Revelation 22: 16 - 17 I wish to present to you, dear brethren, certain particular lights in which the Holy Spirit is presented in John’s writings. John has an exceptional way of speaking of the Holy Spirit, which has a special bearing upon ourselves, John’s writings having especially the closing days in mind. The presence of the Holy Spirit in the assembly, and as indwelling believers, is of course the great characteristic feature of Christianity, and the truth as to the Spirit occupies an important place in all the epistles. James refers to the Spirit in a most touching way. He says, “Does the Spirit which has taken his abode in us desire enviously?” Peter speaks of sanctification of the Spirit; he speaks of the Spirit of glory and of God resting upon one who is reproached in the Name of Christ. Jude speaks of the importance of praying in the Holy Spirit and keeping ourselves in the love of God. But Paul, to whom is given the light of the assembly and to whom it was given to complete the word of God, speaks very largely of the Holy Spirit. In the epistle to the Romans, for instance, he brings in the Spirit in many ways - the love of God shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit given to us; the Spirit being the power, and the alone power, by which we can fulfil every righteous obligation; the Spirit, too, being the power by which we can mortify the deeds of the body and so live. Indeed, the Spirit is life, as it is said, on account of righteousness, and moreover, the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. In Corinthians the Spirit has a very large place necessarily - in the first epistle especially, and in the second epistle presented as the anointing, and the earnest, and the seal; then there is that remarkable expression at the end of the epistle, the communion of the Holy Spirit. In the epistle to the Galatians, how important is the place that the Holy Spirit has - the Spirit of liberty, the Spirit of God’s Son. In the epistle to the Ephesians the earnest of the inheritance, and the One by whom we have access to the Father, and the Father’s Spirit strengthening us in the inner man that we may be able to apprehend the whole expanse of what the Father has in His thoughts. What wondrous grace, dear brethren, that the Father’s Spirit should be operating in our hearts with that in mind.

We might enlarge upon the place that the Holy Spirit has in the various epistles, and yet it will be found that John’s writings give the Holy Spirit a place and present Him in certain lights which are peculiar to John. I suppose we may say that Paul’s service was to present the whole extent of the truth of God in a formal way in doctrine, and as we have said, he completed the word of God. But then John is raised up, as one has said years ago, as a reserve man. He is raised up having in view days when the truth, established through Paul’s ministry, would be given up, and the public position would be in ruins. The things of God are to go through notwithstanding. The work of God is not going to fall to the ground, and so John ministers in view of days when the truth is recovered - not in outward recovery in a general way, but on the principle of life. John does not name things formally, but he gives us the truth vitally, held in persons who are going on with the Lord and with the Spirit. In that setting he has a certain way of his own of presenting the Spirit of God, that we may be fully assured that, in the presence with us of the Holy Spirit, we have all that is needed to go through to completion, notwithstanding the difficult conditions that obtain in the last days. You remember that Paul in writing to Timothy, contemplating days of departure, all in Asia having forsaken him, said, “I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep for that day the deposit I have entrusted to him”. I have no doubt he referred to the fact that, when everything was outwardly going to ruins, he so to speak handed back to the Lord the ministry that had been entrusted to himself, and said, I am assured that He will see it through. I believe we may say humbly, dear brethren, that we are living in days when the Lord is making good that confidence that Paul reposed in Him, the Spirit is making it good; so that whatever Paul brought out in his ministry is being recovered and held among the saints in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Now I start with John’s letter to the seven assemblies. The fact that he is writing to seven local assemblies shows that he has in mind not merely the statement of the truth in a kind of doctrinal way, but that there should be an answer to the truth. It is important, I believe, to bear in mind, in relation to local assemblies, that it is in the localities that there is (or there is not) an answer to the truth. The truth should come into expression in localities, and John is writing to seven local assemblies, doubtless intended to represent the whole assembly in its responsible setting. He presents the Lord walking in the midst of the seven local assemblies, taking account of conditions that He finds there, passing an appraisement upon them, commending what He can commend, but alas, finding much that He has to condemn. John in writing to the assemblies says, “Grace to you and peace from him who is, and who was, and who is to come.” That is, he is presenting God majestically, because he has in mind opposition to the truth rising to its height. He is contemplating, as this book shows as we proceed, the full development of lawlessness, and power accompanying it, in opposition to the truth. Having that in mind he presents God majestically. “Him who is”. That cannot be said of any man. God IS absolutely; as the Lord Jesus, who is in His Person God, said, “Before Abraham was, I AM”. He stands out majestically as the One who is. What is man in contrast to that? He is so to speak but a shadow. His life may last seventy, eighty, or a hundred years, but that is all, and what is that in the presence of Him who IS? “And who was”. That is what He has proved Himself to be historically. He who could support a man like Daniel, who could support Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego - Him who was - the God who has proved Himself in history. “And who is to come”. John says, “and from the seven Spirits which are before his throne; and from Jesus Christ”. This is something that Paul never does. This is something peculiar to John. Paul in his epistles says consistently, “Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ.” John says, “Grace to you and peace from him who is, and who was, and who is to come” - that is God - “and from the seven Spirits which are before his throne”. He invokes grace and peace upon the saints from the Spirit of God, and he even puts Him before the Lord Jesus - I will say in a minute why I believe this is so - not in any sense to interfere with the order in which the Persons of the Godhead stand in the economy, which is the Father first, the Son second, and the Holy Spirit third. We can see that is right, because the Son sends the Spirit as well as the Father sending Him. Nevertheless, here John, in the liberty that there is in the Holy Spirit, not only does what Paul never does, invokes the Spirit to afford grace and peace to the saints, but he even puts Him before the Lord. Why is that? Is it not, dear brethren, that he is giving peculiar place in our minds to the Holy Spirit of God as the great support, the great standby of the saints in the last days, and so he says, the seven Spirits which are before His throne. That does not mean that they are in heaven. Of course, when we come to speak of any One of the Persons of the Godhead, we cannot limit Him by questions of location. We cannot say that One of Them is on earth and therefore not in heaven, or anything of that sort; so that “the seven Spirits which are before his throne” means that the Spirit in fulness of power is here with the saints in order to support the throne of God. Everything that affects the rights of God, everything that challenges His rights, every issue as to the truth whatever it may be - the Spirit is here, the Spirit, who is God, is here personally in fulness of power to support the throne.

What a great thing that is, beloved brethren. We read in Isaiah 59: 19, “When the adversary shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of Jehovah will lift up a banner against him.” The great resource of the saints is the Spirit of God. Indeed, in John’s writings, we have two great supports that we can fall back upon. In the 13th of John it says, the Lord, “knowing that his hour had come that he should depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, loved them to the end”. It is as though the moment having come for Him to depart, He so to speak took up that attitude of mind and let them know it, that one thing that they could rely upon through everything - through thick and thin as we say - was His own love, the love of Christ. We were having it yesterday - that nothing can separate us from it. In the 14th chapter He introduces the Comforter, to be with us for ever and to be in us. He is giving us a second resource that we can rely upon whatever arises in the course of the testimony here.

John puts the Spirit before the Lord here, and I believe for this reason, that he would establish us first of all in the sense that the Spirit, who is God Himself, is here to carry the testimony right through in power that cannot be overcome. On what lines is it to be carried through? It is committed to the saints, because the testimony is committed to men. It is committed to the Spirit it is true, but it is the saints that are being used in testimony. It is we to whom God has given the great privilege of being committed to the truth and to carry it through not only in word but in life, right through to the end. The testimony is entrusted in grace to men, but on what lines is it to go through? It is to go through on lines of suffering, and so he says, “from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness” - faithful even unto death. He is the firstborn from the dead. Moreover, He is the prince of the kings of the earth. I understand, dear brethren, that it is a question of the truth going through in testimony right to the end. The Spirit of God, who is God, here in the scene of testimony and conflict to carry it through in divine power. The manner in which it is to go through is in faithfulness in manhood, even though it is faithfulness unto death. He is Jesus Christ, the faithful witness; He has gone through.

I need not enlarge on the doxology that immediately follows. It is a touching thing, beloved brethren, that when God is presented, or the Lord Jesus, in the scriptures we so often get these doxologies. I think it is a challenge to one, perhaps a challenge to us all, as to how we hold the truth; whether we just hold it in correctness of terms, or whether we hold it in affection for God and for Christ, and you might say for the Spirit. Here the Lord is mentioned as the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. John says, “To him who loves us, and has washed us from our sins in his blood, and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father; to him be the glory and the might to the ages of ages.” He has washed us from our sins in His blood. That is to say, we are never to return to them, dear brethren. Sin is lawlessness, and sins are just the accumulation and detail of the lawlessnesses, the way in which lawlessness is worked out in detail with every one of us, and He has washed us from our sins in His blood. We are never to return to the principle of lawlessness. He has washed us from it in His blood, in order that He may hold us as a kingdom, under His own protection and His own administration, in view of the service of God.

What I really had in mind is the way the Spirit is presented in John’s writings, and so there is this remarkable expression, the seven Spirits before the throne. We get more than once in the book of Revelation the seven Spirits of God, showing that the Spirit is here in fulness of divine power to meet every exigency that arises. It may be that the fact that he says, “the seven Spirits”, and there are seven assemblies, is in order to bring home to us in our several localities, however weak the position may be outwardly, that the Spirit in fulness of power is available to us in that locality. The testimony is in localities, and the Spirit is here commensurate to the demands and requirements of the testimony.

Before I proceed, let me just allude to what is well-known, how at the end of each of the seven addresses to the assemblies we have the word, “He that has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the assemblies”; the Spirit speaking to the assemblies. In each of these addresses the Lord is dealing with the particular conditions that He finds in the assembly which He is addressing. In five out of the seven He has something to condemn. In Smyrna and in Philadelphia He has nothing to condemn, but whether He has something to condemn or not, He finishes with this: “He that has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the assemblies”. That is to say, the Lord will adjust things in a locality according to the conditions that He finds there, but having adjusted them He has in mind that that locality, with all the others, should link on with the universal trend of the Spirit’s ministry. The Spirit has a voice to “assemblies”, in the plural, and he that has an ear is to hear what the Spirit says to the assemblies. That of course requires spiritual discernment on our side. It involves also that there should be with us a recognition of leadership in the ministry.

Perhaps one could just add in relation to what we have been saying as to the Spirit presented as power to support the rights of God - as the brethren will remember - in the 12th chapter of Luke the Lord is contemplating the saints having to appear before rulers or authorities and to give an answer in respect of their faith. He tells them not to prepare beforehand what they should say, for, He says, “The Holy Spirit shall teach you in the hour itself what should be said”. That is just an example of the way the Spirit is presented in this expression, the seven Spirits before His throne. It is a question of the rights of God being maintained; it may be the refusal to do something which conscience will not allow one to do, but whatever it is, it is a question of the rights of God, of the rights of the throne, and the Spirit is here to support in that relation, and the Lord says, “The Holy Spirit shall teach you in the hour itself what should be said”.

Now coming to John’s epistle, this has not in mind our public position in testimony, but our enjoyment consciously of eternal life. The apostle is speaking of Jesus the Son of God. “This is he that came by water and blood, Jesus the Christ; not by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit that bears witness, for the Spirit is the truth.” He then speaks of the three that agree in one witness. “For they that bear witness are three; the Spirit (putting the Spirit first), and the water, and the blood; and the three agree in one.” They agree in one witness, they all point to one thing, and the witness they agree in is this, as we read later on, “that God has given to us eternal life: and this life is in his Son”. Now this is a remarkable expression, “This is he that came by water and blood”. He is referring to the death of Christ. He came deliberately to die, in order that in the power of His death we might be set apart from all that attached to us as responsible in flesh and blood here, in order that we might be given life in God’s Son. Not by water only, the apostle says. If it were water only, it might be regarded as reforming the first man, as an effort to purify and cleanse the first man. That of course is what the religious world is full of. He says by water and blood. I know that the blood meets the claims of God and effects expiation, but this is a cleansing that is effected by mean of death, and nothing less than death. The blood witnesses to that, that the death of Christ vicariously meant the ending of the man. I know that all will probably accept that as right teaching, but I wonder whether we have all honestly accepted it. We ought to accept it; we are not genuine if we do not; it is part of the gospel. Have we really accepted it, that the first man has been ended vicariously in the death of Jesus, in order that God might give us life by the Spirit in His Son? Is not that wonderful? Is not it a great liberation? Is not it dignifying, to think of God’s thought, what God has set us up in? He has given us eternal life and we are set up before God in His Son, as it says later in this very chapter, “We know that the Son of God has come, and has given us an understanding that we should know him that is true; and we are in him that is true, in his Son Jesus Christ”. We have a fixed place in the love of God in the Person of His Son; we are set up before Him in His Son. God has not come in to patch up the first man. He has come in in Christ to end his history in death, in order that, receiving the testimony brought to us in the gospel, we might receive the Holy Spirit and be set up before Him in life in His Son. The way God has met the situation that came in through the devil is by entering into the situation Himself, first in the Person of Christ and then in the Person of the Spirit. The more you think about it the more wonderful it becomes, that God Himself has entered into the situation, first by bringing in Christ and then by giving the Spirit. God takes us completely out of one order of things and sets us up before Him eternally in His beloved Son. I say, that is a way that is worthy of God, and so he says, We know that the Son of God has come. Oh, what bed-rock that is! “We know that the Son of God has come and has given us an understanding that we should know him that is true.” The true God stands out before our hearts in the light of His movements toward us in Christ, that we might know Him that is true. “And we are in him that is true.” He that dwells in love dwells in God, John says. You come more and more to the sense that we are embraced in God. “ ... in His son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life”. On the one hand He is God personally, and presents God to us in the light in which He has shone out; on the other hand He is the presentation in Himself as Man of the perfect answer to that. But now the Spirit witnesses to this. It is not a question of stating the truth objectively; the apostle has in mind that we should come consciously into the knowledge that we have eternal life. It is a question of conscious knowledge, and so he says the Spirit is the witness. He then says, “for the Spirit is the truth” - a remarkable statement. In the gospel of John, Christ Himself is the truth objectively. In the epistle of John, the Spirit is the truth subjectively. I believe that is what we have to come to more and more, dear brethren. It is a question of the extent to which the Spirit personally controls our thoughts, and our affections. The more the Spirit has place with us in a practical way, controlling our thoughts and directing what we shall say in relation to the truth, the more we shall know it is the truth. If a brother stands up and is wholly controlled by the Spirit in his thoughts and words, you may rest assured that what he says is the truth. That is what is so urgent for us now, that we should arrive through exercise at the sensitiveness, each one of us for himself, that is able to discern what is of the Spirit and what is not, and to reject in himself thoughts that are not of the Spirit, and commit himself fully to thoughts which are of the Spirit, because the more we move in the Spirit the more we shall be fully assured that what we are moving in, is the truth. The Spirit is the truth.

I come now to this well-known passage in the 14th of John’s gospel, because it is a most affecting one, and is intended to establish us in personal appreciation of the Comforter. “The Comforter” is a personal presentation of the Holy Spirit which is peculiar to John’s writings. John, of course, refers to the Holy Spirit in many ways, but when we come to this chapter, in which he records, by the Spirit, the Lord’s own words, we have this remarkable presentation of the Holy Spirit as the Comforter - presented in a very personal way, and presented to us in this personal way by the Lord Himself. The Lord Himself is, if one may say so reverently, introducing us to the Spirit and commending Him to us. He would have us know Him and appreciate Him, indeed He says, Ye know Him. It raises the serious question whether we do. Evidently we are intended to know Him. The Lord is contemplating going away, leaving the disciples, and it is an interesting thing that in this chapter the Lord is seen speaking with the disciples, and the disciples speaking with Him, in the greatest liberty. They have difficulties; they do not understand everything, and so they express their difficulties and ask questions of the Lord. Thomas asks Him something, Philip asks Him something, and Judas, not Iscariot, asks Him something - they are all at perfect liberty to ask the Lord as to difficulties they have, and He answers them. But now He was going away, and they would lose all that, and the Lord says, I will give you another Comforter. That is to say, I will give you the Spirit, who shall be to you what I have been to you. You have been able to ask Me questions, and you have got your questions answered, and you will be able to ask the Comforter questions, and you will get them answered. How could He be another Comforter in place of the Lord Jesus if that were not open to the disciples? Another Comforter to be with you for ever, and not only to be with you forever but to be in you. Think of the wonderful intimacy, the nearness of it. Think what it means to have such an One dwelling in us. I admit that we begin to find out that this requires a certain amount of self-examination as to what we are going on with, and as to what we allow in our minds and thoughts and spirits and ways. Because, you see, if you receive a great person into your house you necessarily realise that you have to make preparation, to have things in suitability. If God Himself is coming to take up His abode in us, as He has done, what kind of conditions are we going to provide for Him? Suppose I were to ask you into my house, and you were to come and dwell there - and the Spirit has come to be with us for ever - you come into my house and dwell there and I do not speak to you. You speak to me, but I do not answer. How would you feel about it? Would you not feel insulted? The Spirit of God has come in to dwell with us, to take up His abode in us. He is ready to speak, and He is ready to be spoken to. He is ready to be asked questions; He was to be another Comforter. The Lord speaks of Him first of all as “Another Comforter”, and then He says, “The Comforter”. The Lord was going away; He had been a Comforter, and now the Comforter is left with us to guide us into all the truth, as the Lord says, and to enable us to take up in liberty and power all that is open to us that belongs properly to the assembly. These verses have in mind what properly belongs to the assembly - assembly privilege. John, writing as we have said for the last days, brings it down to very small conditions outwardly - indeed he brings it down to only one. I have no doubt John in Patmos proved the gain of those words in regard to the Comforter. John is bringing things down to very small compass outwardly, but showing what the Comforter would be in relation to all the truth proper to the assembly, and the privileges open to us in the knowledge of the blessed God.

He not only says that the Spirit should dwell with us and be in us, but then he comes down to what should be known, known objectively by virtue of the Spirit being with us. He says, “In that day” - the Spirit’s day - “ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you”. We are dependent on the Spirit for our knowledge of that. It holds true whether we know it or not, but the Spirit will give us to know it. He loves to direct attention to Christ in the position that He is filling as Man in His Father’s affections. The Spirit keeps it before our hearts day in and day out, that Christ is where He is, the only-begotten Son in the bosom of the Father. He is there as Man, that wonderful position of unalloyed affection. I believe, “I am in my Father” goes even beyond that. I believe the Spirit brings home to our hearts that this is He who is in His Person equal with the Father, although having taken in the economy a second place in order that God’s thoughts regarding man should be made good. This thought, “I am in my Father”, involves, I believe, the truth as to His Person. You will remember how the Lord says in verse 10 of this very chapter, “Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me?” Then again, “Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father in me; but if not, believe me for the works’ sake themselves.” It is a question of who Christ is in His Person. The more this is before our hearts, and He is known in the glory of His position as Man in the Father’s affections, the more the whole wonder of the economy stands out before our hearts, the way that God has conceived to make Himself known in thoughts of infinite blessing to men and to establish those thoughts so that we are brought into them. He establishes them in Christ as Man in His presence, and He gives us the Holy Spirit to set us up before Him in the life of Christ. The Holy Spirit shows us these things, He gives us to know that Christ is in His Father, and we in Him. It is a wonderful thing - we in Him! It speaks of our place as wholly united to Christ. We have no part, I need not say, in Deity. It is important to keep that steadily in mind, because we are brought so wonderfully near that we have to be preserved in our thoughts. We have our part as united to Christ in His Manhood, but the One with whom we are united in His Manhood is in His Person no less than God. A wonderful thing it is, the way God has taken to bring in an order of manhood wholly suitable to Himself and to have Christ before Him as of that order in glorious Sonship, and to bring men through redemption and the gift of the Spirit into a place of union with Christ. So, dear brethren, we are near to God in Christ, as it says, “We are in him that is true, in his Son Jesus Christ”. How great these things are, and the Spirit makes them good to us. The Spirit sets them before us, “that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you”. Christ is in the saints, He dwells in our hearts. The saints are His body; He is there in the saints. What it means for the pleasure of God to see Christ before Him in the saints. A wonderful thing this is that God has brought to pass, and this is what He has given us to have part in now through grace. This is the heavenly calling, and our answer to God in the service of God should be in keeping with it.

One more word and I close. We have this well-known passage in the last chapter, where the Lord presents Himself: “I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the assemblies”. He has not spoken in this intimate way before in the book. He presents Himself in the beginning in a judicial capacity, involving certain distance between Him and the beloved disciple John, so that when John saw Him he fell at His feet as dead. The Lord immediately reassured him, laying His right hand upon him and saying, “Fear not: I am the first and the last, and the living one: and I became dead, and behold I am living to the ages of ages”, but still there was that judicial presentation of Christ. But now we come to the end, and He says, “I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify these things to you in the assemblies. I am the root and offspring of David “. As dear Mr. Taylor has well said, the root is the gospel of John and the offspring is the gospel of Matthew. “And the bright and morning star. And the Spirit and the bride say. Come.” That is a presentation I think that is peculiar to John; the Spirit seen with the bride and the bride with the Spirit - the Spirit and the bride. This is the culmination, that which we are coming to. The Spirit is seeking to get His place with us all, that there should be no hindrance whatever to our moving along with Him; nothing to hinder concerted movement with the Spirit, because He wants the Spirit and the bride to arrive at this point, that with just one voice they say, “Come” to the Lord Jesus. Are we exercised to take on bridal features? You might say, Well, we love Christ. That may be, but a bride suggests something that is special. We read in Isaiah 61 about a bride adorning herself with her jewels. Are we concerned to adorn ourselves, beloved brethren, with that which will really be precious in the sight of Christ, or are we careless as to what He would look for? We know in natural things (I am not suggesting in any sense that we should take up worldly habits) a bride wants to look her best on her marriage day, and what will affect her as to what she will put on is what would gratify the heart of her husband. Are we concerned to take on bridal features? It is a good thing to be exercised in wifely features, that there should be faithfulness to the interests of Christ in His absence, and that we are to be in concert with His mind in all things, but what about bridal features, which stand for what is specially refined, adorning with jewels? It says in the 21st chapter, the holy city comes down in eternity prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. That is one of the things connected with the thought of the bride - being adorned for her husband. Are we concerned as to it? It is time we gave thought to these things, dear brethren, as to whether we are taking on adornment that is suitable to the heart of Christ, the kind of thing He would look for. Jewels to be adorned with are not easily picked up, they cost something, but they are worth having.

The Spirit and the bride say, Come. It seems to me that this scripture brings together the two aspects that we had before us in the previous scriptures. On the one hand, the public aspect, and the word to the Lord Jesus to come is really to come in relation to public conditions in the world and take up His rights where they have been so long denied Him. The Spirit would urge us in that direction. But then I believe there is the private side, linking perhaps more with John’s epistle and John’s gospel, that we cry, Come, to the Lord Jesus because we want Him, and He wants us. The Spirit and the bride say, Come. Then He says, “Let him that hears say, Come. And let him that is athirst come; he that will, let him take the water of life freely.” Another presentation of the Spirit peculiar to John’s writings - the water of life; what there is in a living way among the saints in the presence of the Holy Spirit here; the water of life refreshing and constantly fresh; the river of God, it says, is full of water - no diminution. There is no lack of freshness, and that is what we should be concerned about in our local companies, that as having the Spirit there is a constant flow of that which is fresh and living, so that anyone who thirsts may take of the water of life freely.

Well, beloved brethren, I trust what one has said may stimulate our interest in all that the Spirit is prepared to be to us in these closing days, and if there should be the slightest hesitation on the part of anyone here as to speaking to the Spirit of God, may the Lord deliver you from any such fear or hesitation. There is nothing whatever in scripture contrary to it. There is liberty for it - where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty. There is nothing whatever in scripture against it, and plenty in scripture to indicate that such a thing is pleasing to God; and the way the Lord presents the Comforter in the 14th chapter of John is the greatest possible inducement to us to avail ourselves of His presence and seek to cultivate an intimacy with Him which He will richly reward. May the Lord bless the word.