"Another" Comforter?

Who is the first Comforter then?

None Other than our Lord Jesus Christ!

Let me rephrase this thought. Jesus came into this world to be the Saviour, and then ... in the lives of those who believe, who are indeed saved ... our Lord continues with His Ministry as "Comforter!"

But after Jesus' Death and Burial and Resurrection, forty days later to be exact, He "ascended" to Heaven, to be at His Father's Right Hand! With the "going away" of Comforter Jesus ... ten days later ... occurred the "coming down" of the Holy Spirit! To continue the great Work Jesus had initiated!

John 14:16 again, words flowing from Jesus' lips: "And I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you for ever."

The adjective "another" here is spelled "allos" in Greek. It means "another" all right, but "another of the same kind!" Its corresponding adjective is "eteros," pronounced "heteros," meaning "another" but of a "different kind altogether!" Thus, Jesus and the Holy Spirit are similarly cooperating in our spiritual development! They work together, "allos" style!

Do you see this?

Jesus is our Comforter too!

He encourages us.

He defends us.

He empowers and emboldens us.

And when He went back to Heaven, He did not want to leave us "comfortless," John 14:18 using "orphanos" in Greek, not like little "orphans" ... so our Lord prayed the Father to send the Other Comforter, the abiding Holy Spirit, to be with us forever!

It's a Team Effort!

Jesus first, the Champion!

The Holy Spirit next, the Cheerleader!

Both God, divine, equally holy.

An Both serving to fulfill all the Will of our great God in Heaven!

Wow!

Christians are blessed people indeed!

Doubly Comforted!

               --- Dr. Mike Bagwell

LESSON 2:

We are currently studying the parallels between Jesus our Saviour and the Holy Spirit our Comforter. The "closeness" of these Two Members of the Trinity is verified by John 14:16, where our Lord calls the Spirit "another comforter." Presumably meaning that Jesus is also our Comforter! The Greek adjective "other" is "allos," meaning "another of a similar kind!" Jesus and the Holy Spirit? Yes, we serve One God, yet He expresses Himself in Three Persons.

Here's a way the Saviour and the Spirit are alike: Jesus precisely came from the Father, "Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that He was come from God," John 13:3. And the Holy Spirit came from the Father too, "But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father," John 15:26, on a mission from God!

In other words, Both are divine!

Again, the Lord Jesus is the gift of God to lost humanity, "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." John 3:16, notice the "gift" idea! So is the Holy Spirit a gift from God to us! "And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever," John 14:16.

Jesus' special day of arrival, mentioned many times in Scripture, was the miraculous time of the Virgin Birth! Celebrated by angels! Recorded in Scripture multiple times! Jesus to Pilate: "To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth," John 18:37, what a First Coming Jesus enjoyed! Now the Holy Spirit, "It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you." John 16:7, a special coming for Him too, Pentecost!

See?

Many likenesses ... just in the Coming of the sinless Son and the Coming of the Holy Spirit!

No wonder the Spirit is called "another" Comforter! The Son is just that too, a wonderful Comforter!

Enjoy Him today!

                  --- Dr. Mike Bagwell

LESSON 3:

Here's one more way that Jesus and the Holy Spirit are extremely similar. We are currently studying such "likenesses." It seems to me that if Jesus can claim identity with God the Father, "I and My Father are One," that there would be comparable statements in reference to Jesus and the Spirit. By the way, the quoted verse is John 10:30.

In John 14:6 our Lord, using one of His "I am" declarations, says, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life." In other words, Jesus is Truth! He is The Truth, none other like Him. In fact He says so, particularly regarding access to God, in the remainder of John 14:6, "No man cometh unto the Father, but by Me."

Wow!

Now here's the New Testament's portrayal of the Holy Spirit. In John 14:16-17 we read, Jesus Himself being the Speaker, "And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; even the Spirit of truth." That's Him, the Truth Expositor! Now again in John 15:26, "But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me." The Truth about Jesus will be constantly highlighted for us via the Holy Spirit's illuminating power! Then let's look to John 16:13, "Howbeit 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 will shew you things to come." Taught even "things to come" by the Holy Spirit of Truth!

The fact is clear. Both Jesus and the Spirit of God are Truth personified. And with our Lord in Heaven praying for us, and the Spirit on earth inhabiting us ... surely we can enjoy knowing the Truth about the great issues of life! Including the Truth of knowing God!

Jesus one more time, in the same general area of John's Gospel that we've been noticing today, "And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent." John 17:3, we know we have eternal life because we know God and His Son Jesus. And such Truth is imparted by the precious Holy Spirit, our special Comforter in these last days.

Truth!

             --- Dr. Mike Bagwell

LESSON 4:

Jesus can be known, so He said again and again when He was on earth, walking the hills and valleys and plains of the Holy Land. "Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip?" John 14:9

In fact, in John 17:3 Jesus defines eternal life as the state of "knowing" the Father and the Son! Again I say it, Jesus can be known! "And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent."

"Knowing" Jesus ... "ginosko" in Greek ... is a knowledge based on experience! On study! On walking side by side with a person! Not "taken-for-granted" knowledge, but "assured" knowledge!

Thank God, Jesus has made Himself known. Wonderful, we can know the very Son of God!

Now let me add this. The Holy Spirit also can be known. Same verb, "ginosko," really "experienced!" Better, "studied!" John 14:17 says: "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."

See?

We can know Him!

Wow!

Both the Lord Jesus and the Holy Spirit are knowable, easily approached, gracious, yearning for fellowship with the children of God, the subjects of redemption.

Jesus, in Heaven, our great High Priest!

The Spirit, on earth, inhabiting us Believers really, our Comforter!

Sometime when you are communing with God, joyfully speak a word to Jesus! Then to the Spirit! Thank the Saviour for washing away your sins. Thank the Spirit for encouraging you day after day!

Remember, you can do that.

Each in knowable!

Because our wonderful triune God is One, and He asks us to know Him! "Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." Isaiah 1:18

Not only do we know the Godhead, He in John 15:15 calls us His "friends!" Now that's even more closely "knowing" Him! "But I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you."

Sounds like we may even be in the "inner circle!"

Praise His Name!

             --- Dr. Mike Bagwell

LESSON 5:

I am so thankful that we who are saved have not been left here on earth as "orphans!" That's the very Greek word Jesus used in John 14:18 to encourage His Disciples just before His Crucifixion, just before He "went back home" to be with his Father. "I will not leave you comfortless." And "comfortless" is the adjective "orphanos!" It means "bereft of a teacher, guide, or parent."

In other words, Jesus was "with" His Disciples, seldom leaving their side for the duration of His Public Ministry! Mark 3:14 tells us, "And Jesus ordained Twelve, that they should be with them." In John 14:9 our Lord reminded the Disciples of "how long" He had been with them! The early Christians certainly were not "comfortless," not when Jesus was visibly here!

But now the Death, Burial and Resurrection are past, are history! So is His Ascension. He is at the Father's Right Hand this very second. And will be until He returns to get us.

Does that mean we are "alone?"

Are we now "bereft" of help?

Are we these days "comfortless?"

"Orphans?"

No!

No!

No!

Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to be our Companion! To be our Comforter! "But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me." John 15:26, we are not without Divine Aid!

We have Help!

We have One Who strengthens us!

We have One Who emboldens us!

We have One Who teaches us!

The Holy Spirit, God Himself come to earth in a way so that he can inhabit our very lives!

Thank God! There are no "orphans" in God's Family, not in a spiritual sense. Jesus said it. And it's still true. "Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen." Matthew 28:20

Never "bereft!"

Praise the Lord!

                 --- Dr. Mike Bagwell

LESSON 6:

Often millions of people call their topmost religious leader the "vicar" of Christ. The word has a Latin background, "vicarious," simply meaning a "substitute." Baptists disagree with this terminology of course, when applied to a mere man!

Far more accurately, fundamental theology textbooks call our Lord's Death on the Cross His "vicarious" atonement! Jesus died "in the stead of" you and me! He died "for" our sins! Now here's the proper use of the word!

Today I want to tell you Who, according to the New Testament, is the Real Vicar of Christ. It's not a human being, either.

We look to one of the Gospels for our answer. John 14:16 thunders: "And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever." Jesus is talking, His great Upper Room Discourse!

This "Comforter" is the Holy Spirit, Whom Jesus sends into the world on the Day of Pentecost, ten days after His Ascension. John 14:26, still Jesus: "The Comforter, Which is the Holy Ghost."

But the adjective "another" is the key here to finding Christ's True Representative on earth! In Greek "allos" certainly means "another" but in this sense, "another of like kind, of the same kind." It's not the preposition "heteros," suggesting "another of a vastly different kind!"

Whom has Jesus sent into the world to "represent" Himself? A Comforter "just like" our Lord?

Yes, Who is this second "Comforter," Jesus being the First?

Who is the true "Vicar" of our Lord, Biblically speaking?

The Holy Spirit!

Then, grammatically as well as spiritually I can announce, "When the Holy Spirit came to indwell us Believers ... Jesus through Him moved into our very lives!"

When, in a good fervent Church Service, The "Spirit" is moving, in actuality Jesus is present there!

The Lord Jesus ... via the Holy Spirit!

No wonder our Saviour could say: "Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." And later: "I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee." Matthew 28:20 and Hebrews 13:5

He is here, because of His Vicar, the precious Holy Spirit!

The "other" Comforter!

Enjoy Him today.

                 --- Dr. Mike Bagwell

LESSON 7:

I saw this truth last week while studying John chapter 14. And I'd love to share it today with you all. It might be an encouragement to someone.

In the opening paragraph of our focus chapter Jesus makes some promises. "In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also." John 14:2-3

Jesus loves us, those who have believed in Him, so much that He is preparing a place for us to live! Eternally, with Him, in His Father's House! And He is preparing that "mansion," soon to return for His children! He then will take us to Heaven to be with Him forever! Christians ... living with Jesus! What an absolutely astounding thought!

Next, later in John 14, comes another thought. One that just may surpass its twin! It's verse 23. "Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him."

Look!

Now Jesus is saying that in the mean time, prior to His coming to get us and take us to our eternal home, to that mansion ... He will just come down here, via the Holy Spirit, and live "with" us! In fact, live "in" us according John 14:20.

See it, John 14:23?

"Me ... My Father ... we will come unto you, and make our abode with you!" The Father and the Son ... living in us!

And get this. The very same word is used for those "mansions" in Heaven Jesus is preparing for His own ... and the "abode" Jesus makes of the saved, a place in which He and His Father "live." And that little Greek noun is "mone," pronounced "mon-ay'."

What a chapter, John 14!

Jesus loves us so much He wants us to live with Him. So He's building us a place, a mansion. But then it's like He can't wait any longer, so He and the Father move down here ... by means of the Holy Spirit mind you ... and indwell us, turning our bodies into His "temple" Paul says in First Corinthians 6:19-20. Jesus here merely calls us an "abode." He turns us into His little "mansion" on earth!

Wow!

I need to think about this a little more, ponder it. The Lord surely loves to be "with" His people!

Amen!

              --- Dr. Mike Bagwell

LESSON 8:

There exists in the lives of Believers a constant need to be taught the things of God. And of course we have a great textbook, the Bible which is divinely inspired.

But Who is our Teacher?

Who tutors us in this type of knowledge?

The answer is twofold.

Jesus is the true Teacher of Scripture, the great Expositor. Throughout His earthly ministry He taught in place after place. John 6:59 provides us an example: "These things said Jesus in the synagogue, as He taught in Capernaum."

Matthew 4:23 may be more definite, more of a summary: "And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues."

But ... Jesus has now gone. He came to die for sinners. And He, after that Death, was buried and raised again the third day! He "finished" His Work!

Then Forty days after His Resurrection He ascended to Heaven! To be with His Father, at God's Right hand.

Who is our Teacher now?

Or do we even need one?

Oh folks, Jesus did not leave us teacherless!

He prayed the Father Who dispatched the Holy Spirit to earth. And One of His ministries is ... teaching the saints of God!

I only need to share one verse now. "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." John 14:26

What a Teacher!

Apparently in John 16:12 when Jesus told His disciples, "I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now," He had in mind the later teaching activity of the Spirit!

Wow!

We not only have the Gospels and the Epistles and the History and the Prophecy of the New Testament ... Old Testament too, we have the Author in our midst! And who can better interpret and explain a Text that the one who wrote it?

The Holy Spirit is such an effective Teacher that one of His names, one of His Titles is precisely "The Spirit of Truth!" John 16:13 continues: "Howbeit when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth. And He will shew you things to come."

Christians, how well taught we should be!

Do you know Him, the Interpreter of the greatest Book ever written?

If not, you can!

John 14:17 says of the Holy Spirit, "Whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth Him not, neither knoweth Him: but ye know Him," one of the many blessings of being a Christian! Knowing God, personally!

And how do we know Him? "But ye know Him; for He dwelleth with you, and shall be in you."

Praise the Lord!

Let's go to class!

             --- Dr. Mike Bagwell

LESSON 9, CONCLUSION:

The Day of Pentecost is clearly an epochal event in the New Testament. The "Coming" of the Holy Spirit!

In Luke 24:49 our Lord told two of His followers, clearly encouraging them: "And, behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you: but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high."

Then this same Luke, writing in Acts 2:1-4. "And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance." Where the noun "tongues" is spelled "glossa" in Greek, actually meaning "languages."

Pentecost, many dispensationalists call it the "Birthday" of the Church.

But in the Gospel of John a further fact is recorded about the coming, the giving, of the Holy Spirit! Jesus has been raised from the Dead, the first day of that glorious week. And after appearing to a few of His devotees, Mary Magdalene apparently being first, our Lord "manifests" Himself to the "Twelve" in the upper room. Even when, "The doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you. And when he had so said, he shewed unto them his hands and his side. Then were the disciples glad, when they saw the Lord. Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you." John 20:19-21

But next, in John alone, something happens! Something that I think "prefigures" Pentecost! And it's just like John to tell us what the other Gospel writers have omitted! That same night, his next sentence after the bestowal of "Peace" ... "And when Jesus had said this, He breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost." John 20:22

Wow!

Our Lord's very "breath," and the Holy Spirit is present!

The verb "receive" means "a Gift for you, just accept such as from God!" Wonderfully, "lambano" does not mean reach out and "take" the gift! Or you must "earn" the gift! Or it must be "won" in battle! It's yours, merely appropriate and enjoy!

Again: "Jesus breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost."

Wow!

Both events are accurate, John 20 and Acts 2, no doubt about that.

Both accounts are correct.

It's just that the fourth Gospel, with its HEAVY emphasis on the Comforter, has Him coming via Jesus' words, while our Lord was still on earth ... in addition to His coming on every believer, 120 of them, in that upper room a few weeks later, fifty days later to be exact.

That's how critically important the Holy Spirit is to the theology of John. He is given sooner, rather than later, than Luke and Acts have reported.

And I think that's why Acts 2:1 begins, "And when the Day of Pentecost was FULLY come!" Here "fully come" translates "sumpleroo," meaning "to pour and pour and pour into a container, until it overflows!" Used often of a river that had reached and surpassed flood stage! Water everywhere!

And the best news of all is this, this same Holy Spirit is still the very Breath of God, the exact definition of "pneuma" or "spirit" in Greek!

And He is still our Comforter too!

Thank God, in Jesus' corporal absence ... God is still with us! Via His faithful Holy Spirit!

I just though you might today enjoy that little "extra" fact John gave us long ago. The Holy Bible, what a Book, completely without error!

                  --- Dr. Mike Bagwell