(25) These things have I spoken unto you, being yet present with you.--Better, . . . while abiding with you. He was about to depart from them. He had been speaking to them words which they found it hard to understand. He now pauses in His teaching, and proceeds to tell them of the Holy Spirit who should interpret His words to them.
Verses 25, 26. - These things (in antithesis to the "all things" of which he is about to speak), namely, the great consolations and instructions just delivered not the whole course of his ministerial prophetic teaching - have I uttered, and these things I am stilt continuing to address to you, while remaining with you; but the Paraclete (Advocate), of whom I have spoken as the "Spirit of truth," and whom I now more fully define as the Holy Spirit (this is the only place in this Gospel where this full and elsewhere often-used designation occurs), whom the Father will send - in answer to my prayer (Ver. 16), and as he has already sent me - m my Name. This shows that, while the disciples are to approach the Father "in the Name," in the fullness of perfection involved in the filial Name of Jesus, so the Father sends the Paraelete in the same Name, in the full recognition of Christ as the Sphere of all his gracious work. Meyer emphasizes by it the Name of Jesus; "in my Name," say Grotius, Lucke; "at my intercession" or "in my stead" (Tholuck, Ewald); "as my Representative" (Watkins). But the great Name of Jesus is "the Son" (Hebrews 1:1-5). In the Sonship which he realized and displayed, the Father himself was manifested. The Spirit is sent from the Father fully to reveal the Son, while the substance of the teaching and meaning of the life of our Lord, in his Divine training of souls revealed the Father. He (ἐκεῖνος, a masculine and emphatic pronoun, which gives personal quality and dignity to the Spirit, and points to all that is here predicated of his agency) shall teach you all things that you need to know over and above what I have said (λελάληκα), and he will assist you to know more than you do now. He shall remind you of the all things which I have said to you. The teaching of Christ, according to St. John's own statement, was vastly more extensive than all that had been recorded, the impression produced far deeper than anything that could be measured; yet even this would have been evaporated into vague sentiment, if the veritable things, the marvelous and incomparable wisdom, uttered by the Lord had not, by the special teaching of the Spirit, been re-communicated to the apostles by extraordinary refreshment of memory. The supernatural energy of the memory of the apostles, and their profound insight, is the basis of the New Testament, and the fulfillment of this promise. This sacred training will not teach specifically new truths, because the germinant form of all spiritual truth had been communicated by Christ; nor would the instruction create a fundamental deposit of tradition as yet unrevealed; nor is it to be such an intensification or addition to things already said as to contradict the teaching of the Lord; but the Holy Spirit will bring to the remembrance of the apostles all that the living Logos had spoken. Hence the mystic, the traditionist, and the rationalist cannot find support for their theses in these great words. The πάντα, however, gives a bright hint of the completeness of the equipment of the apostles for their work.
14:25-27 Would we know these things for our good, we must pray for, and depend on the teaching of the Holy Ghost; thus the words of Jesus will be brought to our remembrance, and many difficulties be cleared up which are not plain to others. To all the saints, the Spirit of grace is given to be a remembrancer, and to him, by faith and prayer, we should commit the keeping of what we hear and know. Peace is put for all good, and Christ has left us all that is really and truly good, all the promised good; peace of mind from our justification before God. This Christ calls his peace, for he is himself our Peace. The peace of God widely differs from that of Pharisees or hypocrites, as is shown by its humbling and holy effects.
These things have I spoken unto you,.... Concerning his Father, and his Father's house, and the way to both; concerning his being in the father, and the Father in him; concerning keeping his commandments, and the advantages and benefits following upon it:
being, says he,
yet present with you; which is a strong intimation that in a little time he should not be present with them; and that whilst he was present with them, he was desirous of saying such things to them in a brief compendious manner, as they were able to bear; which might be of future use and instruction to them.
being, says he,
yet present with you; which is a strong intimation that in a little time he should not be present with them; and that whilst he was present with them, he was desirous of saying such things to them in a brief compendious manner, as they were able to bear; which might be of future use and instruction to them.