THE LORD AS PARACLETE

P.

When the beloved disciples heard the Lord speaking to His Father in John 17, what happy remembrances of His service to them must have been recalled to their minds as He said, “When I was with them I kept them in thy name; those thou hast given me I have guarded, and not one of them has perished, but the son of perdition, that the scripture might be fulfilled” (John 17: 12). He had already spoken of another Comforter (John 14: 16) of whom He could say, “Ye know him, for he abides with you”. The kind of service which the Spirit was to undertake on their behalf had already been made known in all its fulness by the Lord Himself. How many times He had protected them, for they had continued with Him in His temptations, but on each occasion He had given them some fresh impression of His glory.

They walk through the cornfields and the Pharisees impugn their liberty to eat the ears of corn on the sabbath, but in defending them the Lord shows that He is Lord of the sabbath also (Luke 6: 5). The disciples are accused of transgressing the tradition by eating with unwashed hands and the Lord not only points but that God’s commandments are being transgressed by the accusers, but discloses the great matter of the essential sinfulness of the heart of the kind of man whom He had come to remove for ever from the sight of God by His death (Matthew 15). It is amazing how the natural mind loves to find fault—“Why do ... thy disciples fast not?”, they ask (Mark 2: 18). All the blessedness of the new character of things in Christianity comes to light—a new garment and new skins for new wine—what takes character from the Bridegroom Himself. Our hearts look forward to seeing Him again. What joy they must have experienced as being in His presence; they could not fast in those days.

“Blessed be he who comes in the name of the Lord”, they cry in Matthew 21, and the religious leaders would have them rebuked, for their hearts were harder than the stones which would otherwise have cried out and they are indignant as the children shout, “Hosanna to the Son of David”. But what a blessed answer, which has encouraged His own down through the ages, “Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise”.

We are told that He “Having loved his own who were in the world, loved them to the end” (John 13: 1) and He says therefore; “If therefore ye seek me; let these go away” (John 18: 8), and that at a moment of supreme pressure.—Blessed Paraclete who had kept them in the Father’s name!

It was not only the disciples as together that He had guarded; such persons as the woman in the Pharisee’s house who had “loved much” (Luke 7), the Woman in Luke 13 who was a daughter of Abraham, and Zacchaeus, a son of Abraham, all came under His gracious service. Even the disciples themselves took on the character of the accuser, but in grace the blessed Comforter could set, all right and could justify Mary’s choice of the good part, the which should not be taken from her (Luke 10: 42): When the disciples would have rebuked them, the little children were told to come to Him, “for the kingdom of the heavens is of such”, Matthew 19: 14. “Let her alone”, says the Lord of the woman who anointed His head, “She has wrought a good work as to me ... What she could she has done”, Mark 14: 6–8. .How, much He appreciated a heart that thought for Himself.

There were other forces from which He preserved them. Satan demanded to have the disciples to sift them as wheat, but the Lord says to Simon, “I have besought for thee that thy faith fail not”. Luke 22: 31, 32. It is wonderful to see that even before the failure the blessed Comforter is speaking of recovery—“Once thou hast been restored, confirm thy brethren”. What would they have done without the constant service of the Paraclete?

What Christ did then on earth He now does in heaven, and the Holy Spirit—“another Comforter”—carries it on down here. It is the same character of service and we can thus learn from what the Lord did all that is available now by way of divine support to carry the saints through for God’s pleasure in the face of every kind of opposition.