Empowered by the Paraclete: Strength in Hatred

"In the 15th chapter of John's Gospel Jesus has a discussion of several things, but one of the central points that He discusses in this discourse is hate. That may seem strange to us because we're accustomed to thinking of the centrality of love in the teaching of Jesus and certainly in the Gospel of John. But in the 15th chapter Jesus is talking about the hatred that the world had for Him. And as a consequence of that hatred that the world expressed toward Jesus, Jesus now in this upper room discourse is alerting His disciples to what they may expect from the world." [00:00:07]

"And in this discourse He says this in verse 18, 'If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you, and if you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but that I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.' And then He goes on to speak about persecution, and in the midst of that discourse He introduces a very important theme, and that is the theme of the promised Comforter whom He will send to be with His people in the midst of a hostile world." [00:00:56]

"Now, historically in the church this idea of the Paraclete in terms of the ministry of the Holy Spirit has been associated with comfort because we also use the title Comforter with respect to the Holy Spirit. And here is an aspect in which we miss something significant about the ministry of God the Holy Spirit. I think for a moment of the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche who in the 19th century, as you know, declared the death of God. But Nietzsche was quite critical of the impact of Christianity on Western civilization." [00:05:59]

"Now, the fascinating thing to me is that when Jesus refers to the Holy Spirit as another Paraclete, another Comforter, that this concept has been vastly misunderstood in our culture. When we think of somebody who brings comfort, we think of one who ministers to us in the midst of our pain, somebody who will dry the tears from our eyes and give consolation to us when we are disquieted or downcast. Now when Jesus calls the Holy Spirit another Comforter or Paraclete that's not what He's talking about." [00:08:13]

"The paraclete is the defender, the strengthener, who is there to assist you in the time of trouble. Now, one of the things that's always amazed me is that the same Greek word is used by John in his epistles that he uses here in his Gospel, but the old translators, when they would come to parakletos, in John's letters, they didn't translate it as comforter or helper. They translated it as advocate. 'If anyone sins, remember that we have an advocate with the Father, even Jesus Christ the righteous.'" [00:11:04]

"Well, obviously, you can see the difference between a work wherein the Holy Spirit stands beside us to encourage us, to defend us, and to strengthen us in the heat of the battle; the difference between that image and the image of the Holy Spirit who comes to us after the battle when we're there brutalized and broken and we're all beat up and He comes and consoles us. That's a whole different image. The image of the comforter is not the image of one who comes to dry away our tears after the battle, but who comes to give us strength and courage for the battle." [00:14:45]

"The word comfort, again, comes from two Latin words, 'cum', which means 'with', cum forte, with forte. Now what does 'forte' where do you ever see that word? If you've ever played any music, or played the piano, you remember that the name of the instrument 'piano', is already an abbreviated name for that instrument which was originally called a pianoforte. Why? Because in the technology of building musical instruments what differed -- what made the piano differ from the harpsichord was it had a dynamic in the instrument whereby you could adjust the how loud the instrument played." [00:16:00]

"Now, that's what in the original meaning of this term the word comfort meant literally with strength, not consolation. And so the point is that the reason why the old text called the Paraclete the comforter was Jesus said, 'When you are faced with all of the adversity of this hostility and hatred of this world, don't be discouraged, because I'm going to send one to be in your presence, and He will come to you with strength.' And that's the primary work of the Holy Spirit here, to come to strengthen God's people to be courageous in the midst of fearful tribulation." [00:18:03]

"I think, for example, of Paul's statement that in Christ we are more than conquerors, hupernikon is the Greek there. That is super, in fact in the Latin is supervincemus. We are super conquerors. I think of Nietzsche when I read that, and I said, 'Nietzsche, you want conquerors, alright, we'll give you conquerors, the conquerors that are developed by God the Holy Spirit, who strengthens His people, and one of the key ways in which He strengthens us for confrontation with the world is with truth.'" [00:19:03]

"As we see in this same discourse that Jesus says, 'I will send you the Comforter, the Paraclete, who is the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father.' And then later on He says in verse 12 of chapter 16, 'I still have many things to say to you, but you can't bear them now; however, when He, again the Spirit of Truth has come, He will guide you into all truth for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears, He will speak and He will tell you things to come.'" [00:19:52]

"So again we see that the ministry of the Holy Spirit is to apply the work of Christ to His people, and He does this by sanctifying us, by revealing the truth of God to us, and by coming to us in strength. I think that this discourse is an extremely important discourse in the New Testament, John chapter 14, 15, 16, and 17, which we call the Upper Room Discourse. This is that final teaching session that Jesus has with His disciples on the night in which He's betrayed, on the eve of His execution." [00:20:39]

"And it's also significant, beloved, that in this four chapters that John gives us, we get more information about the person and work of God the Holy Spirit than we get in the rest of the New Testament combined. This is an amazingly important section of Scripture to instruct us about the character of the Holy Ghost and of the mission of the Holy Ghost, and it comes at a time when Jesus is preparing His disciples for His imminent departure, and He's ministering to them in their fear, 'Yet a little while and I'm going away.'" [00:21:30]