And I will beg the Father, and he will give you another Comforter, that he may be with you for ever,
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see him nor know him; but ye know him, for he abides with you, and shall be in you.
Jesus has just promised another Helper, and here He gives Him a name: the Spirit of truth. Two questions follow — why can the world not receive Him, and what is the difference between the Spirit being with the disciples and in them?
The title links the Helper to what the Lord had just said about Himself — truth set before us in Christ, then truth put inside us:
F. B. HoleThe Comforter is also the Spirit of truth. Truth, together with grace, "came through Jesus Christ" (John 1:17), and He is the truth, as we have just seen, set before us outside ourselves. The Spirit of truth is now to come, living in the saints, and so bringing truth inside them.
The Lord does not say the world will not receive Him. He says it cannot:
An Outline of Sound WordsIt is not that the world does not receive Him; it cannot receive Him. He is not put before the world as a testimony to accept or refuse. He brings the world the testimony of a heavenly Christ — the One they rejected, for all the Father's grace. The world has no capacity to receive Him. It only receives what it sees and knows, and it neither sees nor knows Him whom the Father has sent.
There is a plain reason behind that. The Son came in human flesh; the Spirit never did:
W. T. P. WolstonThe Spirit of truth! Could I expect a world of falsehood to receive Him? No… The Holy Spirit never came in a human body. What the world sees it is prepared to believe. What it does not see it refuses to believe… He was not put before the world as an object for it to receive.
The Lord never says the disciples see the Spirit. He says they know Him:
George DavisonMen of the world are not born of God, so they are bound entirely to the material world. It does not say that we see Him, but it does say we "know Him." Something is already in our souls that is the Spirit's own work, and as He makes His home in our hearts as the Comforter, we are conscious that He is there — we "know Him."
The verse ends with two promises, not one:
William KellyHere it is a special possession of the Spirit. His personal presence is something only the Christian has… It is the privilege of the believer here below, and of no one else: "for he dwells with you and will be in you." The Spirit does not just give them a passing taste of blessing; He dwells with them. And more than that: He does not only dwell with them — "He will be in them." There is this double truth: the dwelling with, and also the being in.
Both halves came true on one day — Pentecost, when the Spirit came — and each has its own line of teaching in the letters that follow:
The Christian's FriendThis was fulfilled at Pentecost. In Acts 2:2 we first find that the Spirit "filled the entire house" — that is, He came to be with them. Then "they were all filled with the Holy Spirit" (v. 4). The first we find in 1 Cor. 3:16-17 and 2 Cor. 6:16: "you are God's temple" — one temple, not many. The second in 1 Cor. 6:19: "your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you."
Commentators differ over "He dwells with you." A common reading takes it of Christ Himself, already with them as He spoke. One writer calls that a mistake:
J. N. DarbyI have not the least doubt that the interpretation of John 14:17, though very common, is a mere blunder. "Dwells" is the same word as "abide" in verse 16. Christ the Comforter would not "abide" with them as He then was, nor was He "with" them. The other Comforter would abide "with" them, and "be in" them.
The promise waited on two things: the work of redemption finished, and Christ glorified at God's right hand:
W. W. FeredayThe Spirit could not come until Jesus was gone… Redemption had to be accomplished, and Christ had to be glorified as man at God's right hand, before God could give such a gift to the saints. The work is done, Jesus has gone, and the Comforter is here… How much real unbelief there is about the personal presence of the Divine Spirit! Many today pray for His outpouring, or for a fresh baptism, while others fear He will leave them because of their shortcomings and failures. But He is to be with us for ever, and the righteous basis for that is the sacrifice of Christ.
- Named — He is the Spirit of truth: Christ is the truth before us, and the Spirit brings that truth inside us.
- Refused — the world cannot receive Him. It has no capacity for Him, it lives by what it sees, and He never came as an object for it to look at.
- Known — believers are never said to see Him, only to know Him. His work in the soul makes us conscious that He is here.
- With — He filled the house at Pentecost: the saints together are God's temple.
- In — then He filled each one: your own body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, and, resting on the sacrifice of Christ, He stays for ever.