Who is the Comforter?

We have another beautiful expression in chapter 2 verse 1, where John writes, “My children, these things I write to you in order that you may not sin; and if anyone sin we have a patron with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous”. The note in the JND Translation is very illustrating. It says parakletos means “comforter” as in John's gospel, chapter 14. Christ manages all our affairs for us above, as the Holy Spirit does here below. “Patron” has the sense of the Roman patron who maintains the interests of his clients in every way: so Christ on high, and the Spirit here for the saints below. In another passage (John 14: 16, note) the New Translation of JND says the word “comforter” or “patron” or “advocate” (as it is sometimes translated) actually means the modern solicitor. It is somebody capable, able and willing to take upon him the cause of his client and do everything for him to make a success of his cause. That is the meaning of this word parakletos (patron or comforter). This explains that there are two comforters, two patrons. The One is here in first John 2 verse 1, the other in the gospel of John, chapter 14. I just mention one of the four passages where the comforter is mentioned. It is John 14 verse 16: “And I (says the Lord Jesus) will beg the Father and he will give you another Comforter, that he may be with you forever, the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive.” So here He speaks of another Comforter whom He identifies as the Spirit of truth, the Holy Spirit, whom everybody who believes in the Lord Jesus receives after believing the gospel of salvation.

Why does the Lord Jesus say “another Comforter”? Simply because here Christ Himself is our Comforter in the first place. The Lord Jesus was the Comforter, the Advocate of His disciples when He was with them on earth. Now He says, “I will leave you now but you will not be alone – I will send you another comforter.” So it is a wonderful truth that as believers we are not left alone and on our own in this world, but we have two Advocates! The One is in us and with us, the Holy Spirit, of Whom we read many things in John chapters 14 to 16. He takes our cause in hand and will lead us until the end of our pathway, when the Lord Jesus will come and take us home. He is with us and He will never leave us. He is with you and He is in you and He will be with you in eternity, the Lord Jesus said.

The Other Comforter. — And now a further proof of the Lord's love comes before us. For not only would He respond to the desires of His people, but He Himself would pray the Father on their behalf. "And He shall give you another Comforter," so the Lord proceeds, "that He may abide [rather, be] with you for ever; even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it sees Him not, neither knows Him: ye know Him; for He dwells with you, and shall be in you" (16-17). Already had the Lord indicated (John 7:39) (though without mentioning the Spirit by name) the effect of His coming as regards the ministry of believers. Now He will begin to unfold teaching about the Holy Ghost's presence here, teaching distinctively Christian; for the Holy Ghost is only dwelling on earth in person, since the Lord Jesus Christ ascended to the right hand of God. He is here, because the Lord is away. Two terms now describe Him — one what He would be for believers, the other what He is in Himself. As to the believer, He is the Comforter, or Advocate. In Himself He is the Spirit of truth. As Comforter, or Advocate, He takes up the cause of God's saints. To this Rom. 8:26 refers. But remark, He was not just to replace Christ as an Advocate for the disciples. The Lord is our Advocate on high (1 John 2:1). The Holy Ghost is the Advocate on earth. So He is another Comforter. Believers now have two such. What fulness of provision is made for us! Would they lose by the Lord's departure? Immensely would they gain. They would get another Advocate, and He the Spirit of truth. Bereft of the Lord's personal presence, and so unable to carry their difficulties to Him as they had done, the Spirit of truth would be with them. Nothing, therefore, of Divine teaching could they possibly lack. Further, He would never leave them, whilst they remained on earth. Unseen He would be, and would remain unseen, to mortal eyes; yet really would He be present down here. The world would not receive Him, not seeing Him, not knowing Him; but, continued the Lord, "Ye know Him; for He dwells with you, and shall be [or, as some would read, is] in you" (17). The present tenses are here characteristic, denoting results of the Holy Ghost's coming, which at that moment was a future event. A Divine Person, the Third Person of the Godhead, would come, and dwell on earth. Surely we must say, very little is that consciously known, or even is it believed in this our day. Why pray for a fresh outpouring of the Spirit, if He is here, and has been uninterruptedly since Pentecost?

Accordingly, therefore, with all this weight of truth before us, these depths that were as yet unfathomed of divine grace, the Lord Jesus Christ speaks to His disciples. He would lead them into the counsels and reveal to them the mind of God the Father, the grace of the Saviour-God; but the means by which He pledges His name, and promises on His Father's part to more than make up for His own loss to the saints, is by the presence of "another Comforter."

But I apprehend the word "Comforter" sometimes fails (perhaps to most fails) to give an adequate notion of what it is that our Lord Jesus really meant us to gather from thus speaking of the Holy Ghost. We might very naturally draw from it, that the term was in relation to sorrow, that it intimated a person who would console us in the midst of the distresses of this lower world. And, indeed, the Holy Ghost does console us and comfort us. But this is only a very small part of the functions here conveyed by the word "Paraclete." This is the expression, if one would give an English reproduction of that which is in point of fact the very word our Lord employed. But the meaning of that word "Paraclete" is not merely "Comforter," but one who is identified with our interests, one who undertakes all our cause, one who engages to see us through our difficulties, one who in every way becomes both our representative and the great personal agent that transacts all our business for us. This is the meaning of the Advocate or Paraclete or Comforter, whatever equivalent may be preferred. Manifestly, then, it has an incomparably larger bearing than either "advocate" on the one hand, or "comforter" on the other: it includes both, but takes in a great deal more than either. In point of fact, it is One who is absolutely and infinitely competent to undertake for us whatever He could do in our favour, whatever was or might be the limit of our need, whatever our want in any difficulty, whatever the exigencies of God's grace for the blessing of our souls. Such the Holy Ghost is now; and how blessed it is to have such an One! But remark here, that it never was known before. I have already hinted, and indeed plainly expressed the conviction, that it will never be known again, fully allowing that there will be, as to extent, a larger outpouring of blessing in the world to come. But the personal presence of the Spirit here below as an answer to the glory of Christ at the right hand of God! — such a state of things never can be repeated. While the High Priest is above, the Spirit sent down gives a heavenly entrance into His glory as well as redemption; when the High Priest comes out for the earthly throne, the Spirit then poured out will give a testimony suited to the earth over which the Lord will reign.

Of the Holy Ghost the Lord says, "whom the Father will send in my name," and again, "whom I will send from the Father"; that is, Christ obtains it for us, and the Comforter comes from the Father to put us, through that name, in relationship with the Father; then secondly, Christ sends Him from His Father, and the Holy Ghost comes to tell us all the glory into which Christ has entered as Man. But, that we may be distinct and clear upon the subject, we will look at John 14:16. "I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever"; and then, verse 17, "for he dwells with you, and shall be in you"; and then, in verse 20, "At that day ye shall know that I am in the Father, and ye in me, and I in you." The Holy Ghost in thus coming down gives to the believer the consciousness of being in Christ, and His being in them, "He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit." The disciples ought to have known that He was in the Father, and the Father in Him, as He said, Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? (v. 10). But they could not know while He was on the earth of the fulfilment of these words, "ye in me, and I in you." As He says, "At that day ye shall know," etc.; then in verse 26, "The Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name." Here we have the Father sending in the Lord's name; and in chapter 15:26, "When the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father"; and then in chapter 16:13, "when he, the Spirit of truth is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak, and he shall show you things to come."

Every word that fell from the lips of Jesus is of the utmost importance, and I would ask you to note particularly how He speaks of the Holy Ghost. He does not speak of Him as the Comforter merely, but "Another Comforter." That means, on the face of it, that He was to take the place of One who had already acted the part of Comforter. That One was Jesus Himself.

Our Lord in view of leaving this earth to return to the Father, from whence He came, said to His disciples, “I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you for ever” (John 14:16). By the use of the word, “another,” our Lord intimated He would not cease to be our Comforter, and Advocate, in heaven, but that He would send a Successor to earth, putting the one to be sent on the same level as Himself, even a Divine Person in the unity of the Godhead—Father, Son and Holy Spirit. If the One sent were only an influence, an emanation from God, as some falsely teach, our Lord would not have put the One to be sent on a level with Himself. That the Comforter sent would be a Divine Person in the full sense of the word, our Lord leaves us in no doubt, “The Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in My name. He shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said to you” (John 1:26).

“Another Comforter”—that means they were not to lose the One they had, even Himself. We have one Comforter on high—the Lord Jesus Christ, our great High Priest, our Advocate, and “another Comforter” on earth, even the Holy Spirit of God, and in that way the Lord has come again to His own.

We now follow the Lord to John 14. Here we have further truth on the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. "And I will pray the Father," He says, "and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him; but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you … But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you." The word "Comforter," or "Paraclete," means a person who is charged with and manages our affairs, as dwelling with us: one who comforts us in our trials, guides us in our difficulties, gives us the knowledge of our absent Lord; indeed one who looks after all our interests. It is difficult to conceive how any student of scripture could ever have understood our Lord's words about this divine Person as merely meaning a spiritual influence, gift, or power; or merely natural talents sanctified by grace. True, the Holy Spirit still works in various ways, as He has always done; and we should pray that He may work more and more, both in saints and sinners; but it would be wrong to pray for the Spirit to be poured out, or sent down, when He is here. Surely it would have been wrong, or worse, for the disciples to have prayed the Father to send Christ when He was in their midst.

Then we are temples of the Holy Ghost, which is in us, which we have of God. A temple is that in which God dwells, and my body is this temple. Surely this is a most solemn motive against sin, for how can I go and defile God's temple? In John 14:16 the Lord says, "I will pray the Father, and he will give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever." So also in John 16:7, He says, "It is expedient for you that I go away, for if I go not away the Comforter will not come unto you." The first Comforter, Christ, did not dwell, that is, abide with them; He had to go away, and further, He was not in them, but the other Comforter was, as He said, to dwell or abide with them, and should be in them. Christ was with them and went away; but the Holy Ghost, the other Comforter, was to be in them, and abide for ever. There is no strength in us to give power to the truth we receive, or to enjoy the things we have believed. But the Holy Ghost not only presents the things of Christ to us, but at the same time enables us to enjoy them, and to walk in the power of them.

The term "Advocate" is never applied to the Lord Jesus except in this scripture. He Himself applies it to the Holy Ghost. "I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you for ever" (John 14:16; also 26th ver.; and 15:26; John 16:7). The word here translated "Comforter" is the same as is rendered "Advocate" in John. It is παράκλητος — Paraclete in both cases. The word is very difficult to translate so as to preserve its full significance. The word "Advocate" seems to have been chosen, to set forth the fact that Christ is with the Father, charged with our interests, and entrusted with our cause, as One who has assumed the conduct of our case, to maintain our communion with the Father; and hence it is that, when we sin, He pleads for us, and secures for us that ministration of the word through the Spirit which brings about our self-judgment and confession, so that, in accordance with 1 John 1:9, our sin may be forgiven and our communion be restored. Christ is our Paraclete (Advocate), in this sense, on high; and the Holy Ghost is our Paraclete (Comforter) down here, as dwelling within us, His actings being in relation to the actings of our Advocate with the Father; and He, therefore, being charged with our interests below, as Christ is above.