Excerpts from “In the School of Christ” by David Gooding
By now the little party of eleven apostles, clustered closely round the Lord Jesus to catch His every word, must have been getting near the Garden of Gethsemane. Soon all instruction must cease for the time being. Many things that the Lord had to say to them would have to be left unsaid. It was not simply lack of time that would prevent Him from saying them: it was that the apostles could not have borne them, even if He had said them. Months before, they had come to believe and confess that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the Living God (Mt. 16:16). But how, before they had seen and felt His glorified, resurrection body and experienced His ascension, could they have formed any adequate concept of these further things: of the fact, for instance, that this One whom they would presently see sweat in agony in the garden, and crucified on a cross and buried in a tomb, was the One through whom the universe was made? He would not, therefore, tell them these further things now; but He would tell them later on. And this is how He would do it.
“I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. But when He, the Spirit of truth comes, He shall guide you into all the truth.” (Jn. 16:12)
The source of His teaching
Notice that having said that the Spirit “will guide you into all the truth,” the Lord Jesus immediately added an explanation as to how the Holy Spirit would be able to do this when the Lord Jesus Himself did not do it during His lifetime on earth. The explanation made clear three important things about the source of the truth that the Holy Spirit would communicate to Christ’s disciples:
A. The Holy Spirit is not Himself an independent source of truth
“He shall not speak from Himself,” says Christ.
B. The Holy Spirit does not replace the Lord Jesus as the Teacher of Christ’s people
Yes, of course, the Holy Spirit’s gracious, divine ministry includes that of teaching the people of God. Our Lord had earlier said explicitly (Jn. 14:26): “But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My Name, He shall teach you all things”; and, of course, the Lord Jesus is not denying here what He said there. But what He is informing us about here is the source of the Holy Spirit’s teaching: “He shall not speak from Himself, but what things soever He hears, these shall He speak.” So the teaching which the Holy Spirit imparts to the people of God He has first heard from Someone else. From whom? From the Lord Jesus, who in turn received and receives all His words from the Father (Jn. 14:10).
Let’s take an actual example of this which we find in the New Testament itself. The Book of the Revelation describes itself as “The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show to His servants, even the things which must shortly come to pass.” Then it tells us who actually communicated this revelation to Christ’s servants … it leaves no doubt that it is the Lord Jesus who is dictating the letter. But at the end of the letter, the Lord Jesus says: “He who has an ear let him hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches” (Rev. 2:7).
C. The scope of the Holy Spirit’s teaching to the apostles
On this topic the Lord Jesus indicated that the Spirit of Truth would guide the apostles into all the truth, and that He would declare to them the things that are to come (Jn. 16:13).
To see the proper significance of this wonderful promise we must be good historians and notice to whom the Lord Jesus was speaking when He made the promise: “the Holy Spirit will guide you into all the truth.”
He was talking to the apostles, not to all the subsequent generations of believers. And He was talking about the revelation to His apostles and prophets—who formed the foundation of the church—of truth that no one had ever heard of before because it had not been revealed before. As the Apostle Paul later put it: “By revelation there was made known to me the mystery…which to other generations was not made known unto men as it has now been revealed to His holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit…” (Eph. 3:3, 5). Christ was not talking about that other gracious ministry of the Holy Spirit by which He helps us today, for instance, subjectively to understand more and more the meaning of what the Lord Jesus revealed to His apostles after Pentecost.
Similarly, when He earlier said: “I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now,” He was not talking to us and telling us that there are many things in the truth which He revealed to His apostles and prophets which we as yet cannot grasp, but which He will explain to us later on; though that may well be true. He was telling His apostles that, though He had already revealed much truth to them, there were still truths which He could not reveal to them at the moment, because they were not yet able to bear them. But after the resurrection, ascension, and the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost they were able to bear these further revelations, and did actually receive them to the full. They were guided into all the truth. And by the time Jude, one of our Lord’s half-brothers, wrote his epistle, he could describe the faith as having been “once and for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3). It would take centuries to understand it fully and to draw out all its implications; but the faith itself would never need addition or modification.
The content of His teaching
“He shall glorify Me,” said Christ; and this has been the supreme and delightful object of the Holy Spirit right from the very first moment that He came on the Day of Pentecost. Filled with the Holy Spirit, Peter pointed out to the crowd on that occasion not only that the ascension of Jesus had been followed by the pouring out of the Holy Spirit, but that it was the risen and ascended Jesus who Himself had poured out the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:33). But then the Holy Spirit is not some impersonal power. He is a member of the great Tri-unity that is God. If Jesus Christ, then, has poured out the Holy Spirit, who must Jesus Christ be? Only One who was Himself God could pour out the Spirit of God. And so the Holy Spirit Himself through Peter draws out for the crowd the implication of this amazing phenomenon: “Let all the house of Israel therefore know assuredly that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ” (Acts 2:36). So did the Holy Spirit from the very first glorify the Lord Jesus. … We shall never know more about God than the Lord Jesus reveals to us through the Spirit.
This then is, always has been, and always will be, what the Holy Spirit teaches Christ’s people. All theories of holiness that claim that by the use of certain disciplines and techniques people can come to a fuller knowledge and vision of God, and a fuller union with God, than Jesus Christ could give us, are thereby shown not to come from the Holy Spirit’s teaching. They are false. Let us resolve to shun them entirely.
An example of His teaching
Now as we come to the end of this particular lesson, what could be more fitting than to read slowly, attentively, and thoughtfully one instance of the Holy Spirit using an apostle to reveal to us the glories of the Lord Jesus: His relationship with the Father, His relation to creation, and to the reconciliation of the universe, His relationship with the church, His work on the cross for us in the past, His dwelling in us in the present, and His future manifestation in glory along with His redeemed at His return. And having read these things, let us worship Him once more. See Colossians 1:12–2:15.
Reprinted with permission