John 16:13 – “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. 14 He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. 15 All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.” RSV

This is the most important promise of Jesus to mankind. In the previous verse John 16:12 “I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.” Jesus saw that His disciples were not mature enough to understand Him. They were not fully ready for all He had to teach them. Realising this fact Jesus made this promise of the coming of the Spirit of Truth.

John 16: 17-18 showed the confusion and the lack of understanding of the disciples as they talked amongst themselves trying to decipher what Jesus had just told them. This is proof that the disciples could not understand many things that Jesus told them.

This has led to the confusion whereby the promise of the power from on High stated in Luke 24:49 has been fused together with this great promise of John 16:13. The power from on High in Luke 24:49 was the power from the Holy Spirit at Pentecost which imbued the disciples with strength to be able to carry out their missions.

This event was an immediate event for the disciples, whereas the promise made about the Spirit of Truth was a promise for the future when mankind would be mature enough to receive all the messages from God. It is the promise of the Coming of the Spirit of Truth to come here and teach us all Truth.

It is a promise of another Teaching that will guide us into all Truth and take from the Teachings of Jesus and give to us and explain all things further and show us the things that are to come in the World Judgment. It is a Teaching that consolidates and extends the Teaching of Jesus so that nothing is hidden anymore. We will now know all Truth and all the Laws of Creation.

We will now be given all knowledge that Jesus could not give at that time given the yawning immaturity of all the human spirits.

This new Teaching is from a Teacher Who is also from God as this new Teacher will not speak of Himself or from Himself but will speak of the things He hears – the things He hears from God. HE is the new Envoy from God who will teach us all things as promised by Jesus.

This NEW TEACHER is the Comforter or the Counsellor promised in John 14:16 “And I will pray the Father, and he will give you another Counselor, to be with you for ever..” This means another Teacher and a New MEDIATOR Who will continue to teach us for ever.

The event of the power at Pentecost has not shown mankind all things, it has not given us all truth and has not reproved the world of all sin. This is because that event was a personal fulfilment for the disciples and not a general one for all mankind.

We must be on the look out for this NEW TEACHER so that we can learn all the good tidings and all the secrets and all knowledge about Creation and the Will of God. We must be on the look out so that we do not miss the ONE promised by Jesus.

We must be wary of following the crowd in all this but we must make sure that we personally do the work of being on the look out for this NEW ENVOY from God.

May we be granted the strength of independent thought and assessment. Amen.