THE PROMISE OF
THE FATHER
"I will pray the Father…and He shall
give you another Comforter, that He may be with you forever, even the Spirit of
truth: Whom the world cannot receive.” John 14:16-17
In the final charges delivered to
the apostles, Christ distinctly commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem,
but "to wait for the promise of the
Father." (Acts 1:4) Here is
the same thought, uttered by the Lord Himself, and here also He distinctly
tells them when the promise was made, "which,
said He, ye heard from Me." Thus it is evident that we are approaching
an explanation of this statement. Christ had promised the Spirit, and He had done that in the
name of the Father, for Whom He ever spake to men. Is there no
definite account of His having made such a promise? Most assuredly there is an
account, which is not only definite, but also detailed, and it is to be found
in the Paschal discourses, which are recorded by John alone. "I will pray the Father…and He shall
give you another Comforter, that He may be with you forever, even the Spirit of
truth: Whom the world cannot receive.” (John 14:16-17) “But the
Comforter even the Holy Spirit, Whom the Father will send in My name."
(John 14:26) "When the Comforter is come, Whom I will send unto you from the
Father." (John 15:26) Thus
in view of His approaching Cross, and in preparation of His disciples for the
days when He in bodily form should be no more with them, He declared that in
answer to His prayer, and in His Name, the Father would send them another
Comforter, the Holy Spirit. Nothing is more evident in reading these discourses
than the quiet majestic confidence of Christ. "I will enquire of the Father." “He will send you." “The
Father will send in My name." "I will send you from the Father."
That is the promise of the Father, and when the One Who made the promise to the
band of disciples, ascended into heaven, the Father recognized the prevailing
plea of His presence there gave Him the Spirit that He might fulfill the
promise to the waiting men upon the earth.
It is evident therefore that His reception of the Spirit was,
as has been shown, not for Himself but for others. This however will
be dealt with more fully subsequently. It would be sufficient to leave the
statement at this point and yet that phrase “the
promise of the Father" has more in it than is indicated by this
answer. As the whole of the Old Testament economy had culminated in Christ, and
as in His teaching He had fulfilled all that was symbolized and suggested in
that economy, so His uttering of the promise of the Father concerning the
Spirit was the explanation of a constant message, through the previous
centuries, concerning A NEW DISPENSATION OF POWER. The seers and the prophets
of the past all saw and spoke of a day full of light, full of force, a day of
restoration that was yet to come. Through these prophets the Father had promised the Holy
Spirit to men in larger, fuller measure than had ever been experienced.
In the midst of the darkness that characterized the age in which these men of
old had spoken, they had looked on towards the suffering Servant, Who was yet
to be the all-conquering Deliverer, and stretching away beyond His day of
suffering, they caught the light and glory of the dispensation of the Spirit.
One or two illustrations will
suffice.
Isaiah, in lofty and terrible
language is announcing the coming of judgment. He tells of woe and of desolation,
and ends with a paragraph pulsating with hope, which begins with the words "until the Spirit be poured upon us
from on high, and the wilderness become a fruitful field, and the fruitful
field be esteemed as a forest." (Isa.
32:15) Here the prophet, telling the message of Jehovah, promises the
Spirit.
And yet again the same prophet, "I will pour water upon him that is
thirsty, and streams upon the dry ground; I will pour My Spirit upon thy seed,
and My blessing upon thine offspring: and they shall spring up among the grass,
as willows by the watercourses. One shall say, I am Jehovah's; and another
shall call himself by the name of Jacob; and another shall subscribe with his
hand unto Jehovah, and surname himself by the name of Israel," (Isa. 44:3-5) again an inspired promise
of the Spirit.
There remains the most radiant and
remarkable foretelling of the Spirit's dispensation, which Peter quoted on the
day of Pentecost itself. “I will pour out
My Spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your
old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions: and also upon the
servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out My Spirit. And I
will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth: blood, and fire, and pillars
of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood,
before the great and terrible day of Jehovah cometh. And it shall come to pass,
that whosoever shall call on the name of Jehovah shall be delivered."
(Joel 2:28-32) This is a
pre-tribulational prophecy. Thus it is seen that the men who kept alive in the
heart of the nation this spiritual hope, were men who served, and spoke in the
hope of the coming of a new day, which should be a day of the poured out Spirit
of God. Thus the promise which Jesus made in the Paschal discourses was the
repetition of the promise made to the fathers by the prophets, by the One Who
now not only promised, but was working towards the mighty consummation, which
should consist in fulfillment.
In order to catch a true
perspective, let this argument now be summarized. God, through the prophets in
the past had promised the Holy Spirit to men, both Jew and Gentile. The Jews in
their unbelief are yet to receive that promise. Belief in Christ brings that promise
and one day they shall. The heroic souls hearing and seeing, declared to their
age the gracious announcement, and yet passed away without seeing the day of
which they spoke. In fullness of time the Messiah came. He accomplished the
will of God, and at last, passing into the presence of God, claimed as the
inevitable issue of His victory, the fulfillment of the Divine promise, made
to, and through the prophets, and finally uttered by His own lips. In answer to
that claim, God acting at once to Love and justice gave Him the Spirit. Through
Him the dreams of the prophets moved into the realm of deeds.
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