I am Sending the Promise of my Father Upon You
After the Lord had regulated the Apostles’ views of their fundamental relations, He now turns to His specific farewell discourse. This character we find in Jn. 16:12-15. As Moses, when he departed, pointed to Joshua, Deut. 31:23, so Jesus pointed to the Holy Ghost, who should lead His disciples into all the truth.
And the LORD commissioned Joshua the son of Nun and said, “Be strong and courageous, for you shall bring the people of Israel into the land that I swore to give them. I will be with you.” Deut. 31:23 cp. According to Gal. 3:14 so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith.
And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you
Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.” Luke 24:45–49
“I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. 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. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you. John 16:12–15
But I have said these things to you, that when their hour comes you may remember that I told them to you. “I did not say these things to you from the beginning, because I was with you. John 16:4
“But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me. And you also will bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning. John 15:26–27
Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.
Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. John 20:21–22
As Paraclete, the Holy Ghost has but one office: to assure to the Apostles, and generally to all the faithful, help in their conflict with the world. The to you must be carefully noted.
It shows that the Holy Spirit is considered here as having His indwelling in the Apostles, and not as simply exerting His immediate influence upon the minds of those to whom they preached the word. So, in Jn. 16:8 And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment,
it is only a false interpretation which finds anything like a direct relation of the Paraclete to the world.
This is evident from the preceding to you in John 16:7 Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.
He will lead you into all truth.” That the “to you” must refer only to the Apostles, has been shown in our remarks upon ver. Jn.16:12
That the Spirit would lead them into all truth, is grounded upon this, that He would not speak of Himself, but speak that which He had heard. The Spirit cannot absolutely speak of Himself, because He exists in the most intimate communion of nature with the Father and the Son; because it belongs to His essence to be the Spirit of the Father and of the Son.
Augustin:
“He will not speak of Himself, because He is not of Himself. But whatsoever things He shall hear, He will speak: whatsoever He shall hear of Him from whom He proceeded.”
That which is self-understood is, however, here emphatically stated, because there is a false “spirit,” which speaks of itself, and on that account can lead not into truth, but only into error
Luther: “His preaching would not be like a dream of man, like that of those who bring matter of their own,—such things, to wit, as they have neither seen nor known. But He would preach such things as had a foundation under them; that is, what He received of the Father and Me.”
That was the spirit who was active in the false prophets of the Old Testament: comp. Jer. 23:16, “Thus saith the Lord of hosts, Hearken not unto the words of the prophets that prophesy unto you: they make you vain: they speak a vision of their own heart [Michaelis: Arising from his own heart as from a source. in Jer.23:26 they are called ‘prophets of the deceit of their own heart’], and not out of the mouth of the Lord:” comp (Isa. 14:14, 27, 9:14). Then the LORD said to me, Jeremiah 14:14
“The prophets are prophesying lies in my name. I have not sent them or appointed them or spoken to them. They are prophesying to you false visions, divinations, idolatries and the delusions of their own minds.
In 1 Kings 22:21 this spirit appears personified, in harmony with the character of the vision, and offers to deceive Ahab, by being a lying spirit in the month of all the prophets of the calves. In Zech. 13:2, the Lord promises, “And also I will cause the prophets and the unclean spirit to pass out of the land.” That this spirit still existed in the times of the New Testament, and that there was needed a rampart against him in the Spirit who should not speak of Himself, and in the trustworthy monuments of His revelation, is plain from;
And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. Matt. 24:11, For false messiahs and false prophets will appear and produce great signs and wonders, to lead astray, if possible, even the elect. Matt.24:24.
And I saw three foul spirits like frogs coming from the mouth of the dragon, from the mouth of the beast, and from the mouth of the false prophet. Rev. 16:13, These are demonic spirits, performing signs, who go abroad to the kings of the whole world, to assemble them for battle on the great day of God the Almighty. Rev. 16:14.
not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as though from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord is already here. 2 Th. 2:2
E. W. Hengstenberg, Commentary on the Gospel of St John, vol. 2, Clark’s Foreign Theological Library (Edinburgh; London; Dublin: T&T Clark; Hamilton, Adams & Co.; J. Robertson & Co., 1865), 271–
But you shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you
We may compare the “filled with the Holy Ghost” in Acts 4:8; and Luke 24:49, where the Lord, after His resurrection, says to His disciples, “And, behold, I send the promise of My Father upon you: but tarry you in the city of Jerusalem, until you be endued with power from on high; “and also Acts 1:8,
“But you shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you;” and Acts 4:31. And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness.
There is a distinction in Jn. 15: 27 And you also will bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning. between the testimony which the Holy Spirit would bear in His function as Paraclete by the lips of the Apostles against the opposing world, and the Apostles’ own testimony, which would refer to the historical facts as such, and which they would bear as intelligent and honorable men: compare the same distinction in Acts 5:32, where Peter says,
“And we also are His witnesses of these things; and so is also the Holy Ghost, whom God hath given to them that obey Him.”
There, however, the two testimonies are inverted. Those that obey are the Apostles. As here, so also in our Lord’s word, Matt. 10:20, “It is not you that speak, but the Spirit of your Father that speaks in you:” the organ altogether retires behind the efficient Spirit. Quesnel brings out the practical element in these words with much force:
“What have we to fear? The Spirit who is in the Church and dwelleth in our hearts, is stronger than the spirit which dwells in the world and in the ungodly.—We labor in vain when we seek to overcome error by merely human means, without the assistance of the Spirit of truth.”
It is plain also from the words which follow, “He will show you things to come,” where we may, from the species, infer the kind, the revelation of hitherto unknown mysteries.
The Apostles laid the most decisive claim to be the organs of such revelation.
“Regarding this promise,” says Grotius, “the Apostles say, It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us. Acts 15:28” Acts 10 records an important revelation made to Peter. John, in the Apocalypse, declares himself to be the organ of high revelations.
With regard to the revelations and prophetic position of Paul, see (2 Cor. 12; Eph. 3:3; Gal. 1:1, 2:2). I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows. And I know that this man was caught up into paradise—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows— and he heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter. Paul, an apostle—not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead—
It has been shown in my Commentary on the Apocalypse (Clark’s Transl.), (Rev. 1:1, 18:20), that for the reception of new truths there is no other organ than the prophetic; and that this organ, under the New Testament, is intimately connected with the Apostolate, forming a portion of its prerogatives.
We find no trace in the New Testament that any disclosures of secret truth, important for the whole Church, were made beyond the circle of the Apostles; or any revelations which affected the doctrine or the future destiny of the whole Church. What we read in the Acts of the manifestations made to other prophets, bears always a very subordinate character; we never read that they were the organs of any great and new revelations.
It has been maintained, entirely without reason, that the truths into which the Spirit of truth should lead them were not to be more closely defined. They were simply all those which first were clearly expressed in the Apostolical Epistles and Apocalypse, and concerning which the discourses of Christ had given in the Gospels no adequate disclosure.
That the Apocalypse in particular occupies an important place among them, is plain from the triple declare, in verse. Jn. 16: 13,14,15, and from the corresponding high importance which, in the Apocalypse itself, is ascribed to its revelations and teachings. The promise given, as we have seen, to the Apostles alone, would have been wavering and useless, if it had not resulted in documents from which we might gather the nature of the disclosures communicated to them.
Only by the presence of such archives could the appeal of enthusiasm and heresy to this promise be foreclosed and cut off. (Augustin: All the most senseless heretics, wishing to bear the name of Christians, have sought to give, by occasion of this passage, an evangelical coloring to lies against which man’s common sense rebels.)
The apostolical writings, the monuments of the fulfilment of this promise, form, notwithstanding their apparent independence, an organic whole, in the instruction of which the Spirit of truth has provided for all the needs of all ages of the Church. Stier’s assertion, that this passage is not strictly a proof of the infallibility of the Apostles, inasmuch as the promise essentially belongs to us all (1 John 2:27), is based upon an opinion which we have already rejected, viz. that the promise was given to all believers generally, while it was really given to the Apostles alone, who were consecrated as the organs of the establishment of the whole treasury of the truth needed by the Church.
The apostles had a power of imparting these gifts, but even they had not a power of enabling another to impart them. Paul by laying hands on Timothy could endow him with the gifts of tongues and prophecy, but he could not so endow him that he should be capable of conveying those gifts to another. This was purely apostolical to dispense these gifts; and when they died, this power and privilege died with them. John Lightfoot, A Commentary on the New Testament from the Talmud and Hebraica, Matthew-1 Corinthians, Acts-1 Corinthians, vol. 4 (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2010), 97.
cp. If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. John 5:46 ; “But Abraham said, ‘Moses and the prophets have warned them. Your brothers can read what they wrote.’ Luke 16:29; that you may learn by us not to go beyond what is written,1 Co 4:6.
“I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, John 17:20 And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. Acts 2:43 Now many signs and wonders were regularly done among the people by the hands of the apostles. Acts 5:12 And all the assembly fell silent, and they listened to Barnabas and Paul as they related what signs and wonders God had done through them among the Gentiles. Acts 15:12
The signs of a true apostle were performed among you with utmost patience, with signs and wonders and mighty works. 2 Cor. 12:12
That the ground-tone of apostolical preaching after Pentecost was conviction and reproof, is evident from its result in Acts 2:37, “pricked in their heart,” and the affrighted “What shall we do?” This testimony is true. Therefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith, Titus 1:13
“And when He is come, He will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment.” John 16:8
The world, after what has preceded, must be regarded primarily in its Jewish manifestation: that is, the Jews. So Heumann stated it rightly: “The Lord here sets before the Apostles only their first apostolical work, since they were to urge upon the Jewish people the sin of their past unbelief, and were to convert a great multitude of them.”
The sin can be only, according to Jn. 15:22,24 If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have been guilty of sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. Whoever hates me hates my Father also. If I had not done among them the works that no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin, but now they have seen and hated both me and my Father.
unbelief in the manifested and gloriously authenticated Redeemer. For that was there pointed out as the single great sin of the Jews.
To this righteousness, which indeed belongs to the people of God, but did not grow up in the soil of their own nature, the Lord’s saying in Matt. 5:6 refers, “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled,” which again points us back to Isa. 55:1.
And as the sins and the righteousness belong to the world, so also does the judgment. It can be no other than the condemnation which falls upon the world, and primarily upon the Jews, when they persist in the sin of unbelief towards Christ, and will not become partakers of the righteousness which springs from faith in Him.
“And you also will bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning. John 15:27”
This is a second power for subduing the hatred of the Jews: which, indeed, derives its true significance from its strict connection with the verse preceding it. This double testimony—that of the Holy Ghost and the historical—now goes on in the Church concurrently. But the thorough study and use of the latter is not so simple as in the apostolic age; and it demands a profound research.
The present, bear witness, is fully explained by the future that immediately precedes. The Lord places Himself in the future: “You also bear witness.” We have a commentary on “from the beginning” in Mark 1:1; Luke 1:2; Acts 1:21. The beginning was the first manifestation of Christ: comp. 1 John 1:1,
“That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, declare we unto you.”
“But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceeded from the Father, He shall testify of Me.”—Jesus had hitherto fortified the disciples against the hatred of the Jews, by reminding them that it fell upon them on account of His name; that the hatred which they felt for Him had His Father also for its object; and finally, that this hatred subserved the fulfilment of Old Testament prophecy.
A new element now enters. It might have been supposed from the previous considerations, that Jesus had already now finished with the Jews. But this issue would have been at variance with the prophecies of the Old Testament, which were not satisfied by all that had been yet attained. According to those prophecies, the calling of a special election was as necessary as the rejection of the mass.
Hence our Lord intimates that the work of salvation among the Jews was not sealed and closed; and that He would oppose to their hatred such a power in the Paraclete as should subdue many into submission. The Christ of truth, coming from the Father, would with victorious power break down the opposition of many. Thus the disciples were prevented from making the enmity of the Jews a source of despondency.
These words concerning the Paraclete do not point back to Jn. 14:26-that saying is not taken up again until Jn. 16:13—but to Jn. 14:16, where the question is the same as it is here, the warfare against an unfriendly world. The Holy Ghost is the Paraclete only inasmuch as He in this conflict lends His aid. The idea of the Paraclete is elucidated in 2 Tim. 4:16: “At my first answer no man stood with me, but all men forsook me: notwithstanding the Lord stood with me, and strengthened me.”
The human paracletes, or judicial advocates—which service in ancient times was discharged not merely by counsellors, but also by distinguished friends—had forsaken the Apostle; but, instead of them, the heavenly Paraclete had faithfully stood by his side—Christ, that is, by the Spirit whom He sent.
E. W. Hengstenberg, Commentary on the Gospel of St John, vol. 2, Clark’s Foreign Theological Library (Edinburgh; London; Dublin: T&T Clark; Hamilton, Adams & Co.; J. Robertson & Co., 1865)
for Paul is emphasizing how the Lord was near (see Acts 23:11; 27:23), that he gave the necessary strength (Phil 4:13), and that therefore, though all had departed, in the Lord’s strength alone he has been able to continue the work given to him: making the gospel known to all the Gentiles.
The Lord’s intervention also took the form of rescue, and Paul views this from two perspectives. His allusion to the lion’s mouth, against the background of Psalm 22, refers to physical death, from which Paul had been spared (on more than one occasion, 2 Cor. 11:23). Philip Towner, 1–2 Timothy & Titus, vol. 14, The IVP New Testament Commentary Series (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1994), 2 Tim. 4:16.
Certainly the Acts narrative of Paul’s arrest and imprisonment in Jerusalem and then Caesarea is noteworthy for the lack of support from James and the other leaders of the Judean church. The Paul of Acts must depend on his own scruples, Roman politics, family members, and ultimately the Lord for his personal safety.
In fact, this intertext may allow the reader of 2 Timothy to conclude that the “no one” on “Paul’s side” also included earnest believers and not just religious renegades such as those listed in the letter, presumably because they did not think Paul’s mission to the Gentiles was on God’s side (cf. Acts 21:18–26). Perhaps this then explains why Paul would add the refrain “may it not be charged against them” (2 Tim. 4:16b), which is otherwise a curious note to sound in a concluding passage that includes the hope that God would punish others who opposed him (2 Tim. 4: 14b).
The mention of Timothy’s human “spirit” in these final words recalls the mention of the divine “Spirit” in the letter’s opening words (2 Tim. 1:6–7) and provides the letter with a literary inclusio that frames its instruction by the interplay of God’s indwelling Spirit and Timothy’s spirit. This interplay supports the letter’s theme that the ideal tradent-meaning to hand over or deliver “protects the good tradition through the Holy Spirit who indwells you” (2 Tim.1:14). Evidently, the effect of this individual’s ministry extends to and is measured by the forward obedience of the entire congregation.
Robert W. Wall and Richard B. Steele, 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus, ed. Joel B. Green and Max Turner, The Two Horizons New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2012), 287,288.
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