Materials
Real World Encounters with Jesus in the Gospel of John
Never Alone
John 14-16
by R. Todd Bouldin
Read John 16:4b-33
There is no human situation that we fear more than being alone. In fact, we fear death so much because we will face it alone. We have an innate need to belong and to have others be near. That is why Jesus gives us his Holy Spirit to live in us: so that we will never be alone.
Prayer
The last section of John starting in chapter 12, what some have called The Book of Glory, is filled with long discourses or teaching of Jesus. For the next three weeks, we will be spending some time in this final teaching of Jesus to his disciples. During this season in which we prepare our hearts for Good Friday and Easter, it is appropriate that we continue to study that all- important night before Jesus knew that he would die.
Last week, we saw how Jesus showed the full extent of His love by washing the feet of the disciples. After He washed their feet, He begins a sustained teaching from John 13-17. On the night of his betrayal and arrest, Jesus wants to share his parting words with his closest followers and friends. He is looking for something to assure them, something that will get them through the horrific hours they soon would face, and then to prepare them for his eventual return to God weeks later. For three years, they have been the closest of friends and brothers. Their lives would never be the same. They were always there for each other. But soon it would all come to an end. And the disciples were crushed.
But on this horrible night when it seemed all of their hopes would come to an end, Jesus gives them a word of reassurance: “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever . . .. I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.” (John 14:15-17).
The word for Advocate here means counselor, or your attorney, if you will. It literally is “one called to your side” in Greek. He is a Person – the living presence of Jesus in you. He is not an “it”, as some have referred tot the Holy Spirit. He is not a book, as if God could be contained within the words of Scripture or any other book. The Holy Spirit is the living presence of God, and this passage teaches us, that He lives in and comes alongside believers. So, when you think you are all alone in the world – you really are not. You have one who comes along beside you, and He is the Holy Spirit of God. As Jesus describes Him, he will be your adviser, your instructor, your guide, your assistant, your encourager, your interpreter, your advocate, your character witness, and the counsel for your defense.
“I will not leave you alone,” Jesus promises. When the night is as black as it can be, when you feel like no one loves you, when you fear being alone in your house without a lover or because the mate you loved has passed away, when you fear that no one understands you or your faith – then you can know that you are never alone. When you are down and out, when you are confused and weak, or when you don’t know what you think or believe anymore, the Holy Spirit will be with you. In fact, that is exactly when you will know that He is in you and with you. He is with you forever.
Have you felt Him? Sometimes his presence is as clear as the blue sky. You felt power and energy within you to do what you could never do alone. You came to understand something about Jesus that you never knew before and you could not have known through the mere reading of a book or attending a class. You discerned something that is happening in the life of a person, and you know that you could not have discerned their sadness, or their lostness, or their joy on your own. You had a strong sense of direction, and you knew that it is coming from somewhere outside of you. You were not alone.
Sometimes His presence is a bit harder to feel or to know. You had a gut feeling, or an instinct, or a distinct impression about something. You prayed. You asked other Christians about your impression. You sought the counsel of the elders. You read Scripture. Turns out your instinct was right – you come to know through the counsel of Scripture and others that God was with you and leading you right into the Truth.
When you know that you will never be alone, then your heart can really rest. You feel a peace you have never felt before. When you have an Advocate to remind you of the calm Jesus brings you, then you can be at peace. That’s why, right after He has promised this gift of the Holy Spirit, that Jesus promises his disciples, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid. . . . You heard me say to you, ‘I am going away, and I am coming to you.’” (John 14:27-28). The world’s idea of peace has to do with absence – the absence of conflict, the absence of turmoil, the absence of loneliness. But that is not what Jesus promises. Jesus promises a peace that comes to us “not as the world gives.” It is a peace in the in the midst of conflicts, turmoil, and confusion. It is peace that has nothing to do with absence but Presence. You are no longer orphans. You are no longer left to fend for yourselves. You will never be alone – even in death. The Holy Spirit, given to you at baptism, is yours forever. Until we make our home with God, God is making His home with us. That is good news!
It is in that context that Jesus promises, “When the Spirit of Truth comes, He will guide you into all the Truth.” (John 16:13) He goes on to say that this Spirit “will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you.” (John 16:13-14). He will guide you into all the Truth. Now that is an interesting phrase, and it has been interpreted and misinterpreted many ways. Some have suggested that this promise applied only to the Apostles who were standing there that day – that the Spirit would lead them into all the Truth that would then be written down as Scripture. Therefore, if we are to find “all the truth,” we read the writings of the apostles who were led by the Spirit. Others have taught that it is a promise to those apostles and all those in succession of the apostles that they would be the repository of truth. I believe that both of these interpretations could not be more wrong.
What both of these positions have in common is their need to control and restrict the Truth to timeless propositions and concepts that we can memorize, understand, and upon which we all can clearly agree. Truth for these folks is a clearly contained package of ideas. In my experience, that concept of truth and spirit always ends with timeless, heartless abstractions that just do not fit real life. There are real life situations where the abstraction just doesn’t fit. And we wonder what Jesus would do, or what He would say, and all the person can do is to repeat the abstraction.
Jesus said that He is the Truth. Truth is a person. And He will send another Person, the Holy Spirit, to guide you into the Truth about who He is. I believe we have so complicated this text by trying to prove what the Spirit doesn’t do that we have missed what Jesus clearly says the Spirit will do for you. He will lead you into all the Truth, and the Truth is Jesus Christ. Yes, Scripture will become the vehicle through which the Spirit may work to convict you and lead you to Christ. But the Truth is not just about head knowledge. If that were true, then atheists who teach the New Testament at some of our universities in America would not be atheists. Scripture speaks of a knowledge that goes beyond proposition, and logic and philosophy – it is a Truth known primarily by the heart. It is relational knowledge between God and humans that we can only know when the Spirit moves us to know fully. The Scripture teaches us, but the Spirit convicts us.
We too should remember that the Gospel of John was not written to be an historical biography of Jesus. It was written so that people in the late first century, a generation or more removed from the apostles, might believe (John 20:31). John recorded these promises so that His church in the middle of persecution and rejection might know that they were not alone. These promises would have been useless to a church at the end of the first century if they were meant only for the apostles. These were promises made to the church universal and for all time – that the Spirit of Truth will guide you and me back to the Truth. And that Truth is Jesus Christ.
Now this is no invitation to discover some new truth that leads us away from the will of God. The Spirit of God will never operate in the life of the believer to take us beyond the scope of the will of God or the testimony of Scripture itself. But it is the Spirit operating in our lives that makes the words of Scripture alive and transforming. The Spirit takes from what He hears from Jesus and declares it to us. (John 16:13). He glorifies Jesus, Jesus claims (John 16:14), so He will never contradict Jesus. The Spirit does not take us beyond Jesus but to Jesus. At the same time, the work of the Spirit in our time can never be limited to the intellectual understanding of Scripture. God is still at work in our day, revealing Himself to us through Scripture and through the Spirit in the most powerful and convicting ways. The reason we can open these same texts from Scripture again and again, and each time they speak a fresh word to you, is not because the preacher is so good or because your mind is clearer each time. It is because the Spirit is at work within you.
So tying it all together, what Jesus is saying is this: If we remain in him, and his Spirit abides in us, we will be guided into all the truth. If we embody Jesus, if we seek wisdom in Scripture, and if we stay in loving spiritual community with others, we can increasingly trust our intuition, trust our “hunches,” trust our grasp of reality, and trust our hearts. The Spirit of truth will guide us into all the truth, not infallibly, not perfectly, not privately (all the truth can only be found in community), but surely and confidently.
Even today, the Spirit is here to reassure you that your belief is not in vain. That He really is the Son of God. That you can know the Truth, and He will set you free. That is not controversial. That is reassuring. That you are not alone – not in your experience of aloneness, not in your confusion about the Truth – you have an Advocate who stands by your side forever, and He will lead you forever back to Jesus Christ.
The first Christians attributed all that was good, all that was truthful, and all that was beautiful to the Spirit of God, and that perspective changed everything. They could reasonably live their lives confidently, expectantly, and with great peace. They lived every day surrounded by grace, and with this heightened state of consciousness, they could always see—and know—so much more than unbelievers. They lived in a Spirit-inhabited world. So do you. Can you see it?
There is a wonderful song near the end of the Broadway musical, Into the Woods. It’s called “No One Is Alone.” The Lady Giant has slashed through the woods, and many people are gone, dead or otherwise. Now the Baker, Red Riding Hood, Jack and Cinderella are left. The Baker’s Wife is dead. Red Riding Hood’s grandmother is gone. Jack’s mother has been killed. Cinderella’s Prince is gone. And the song begins: “Mother cannot guide you.
Now you’re on your own.
Only me beside you.
Still, you’re not alone.
No one is alone, truly,
No one is alone.
Sometimes people leave you
Halfway through the woods.
Others may deceive you.
You decide what’s good.
But no one is alone.
Nothing’s quite so clear now—
Feel you’ve lost your way?
You are not alone,
Believe me,
No one is alone.
People make mistakes,
Holding to their own,
Thinking they’re alone.
Just remember.
Someone is on your side.
Our side.
Hard to see the light now.
Just don’t let it go.
Things will come out right now.
We can make it so.
Someone is on your side,
No one is alone.
Really, that is what Jesus is saying in John 16:13. You are not alone. Someone is on your side. It’s what Paraclete means: “someone on your side.” Jesus has come to you. He is all around you. He is in you. He will lead you through and guide you to what is real and True. He will lead you over and over again into the safe arms of Jesus Christ where you will never be alone.
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