Jesus did everything necessary to inform His disciples about the coming of the Holy Spirit to indwell all believers. While it is true that the Holy Spirit is eternal God, and that He has worked with mankind on earth since the beginning of the world, yet He is working in a different way in the church age than He did in the Old Testament. According to what we read in the Old Testament, the Spirit of God came upon believers to empower them to do certain tasks, yet there is no Scripture that shows that He permanently indwelt believers before the day of Pentecost. We are living in a day that has multiple blessings for the believer, and the permanent indwelling of the Spirit in all believers is one of those blessings! John 14:25-27 says, “These things have I spoken unto you, being yet present with you. But the Comforter, Which is the Holy Ghost, Whom the Father will send in My name, He shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have told you. Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you, not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” It might be worth noting that the Spirit of God gave information directly to the disciples of Jesus that He has not directly given to believers in our day. For example, the Spirit of God inspired the writers of Scripture, giving them the exact words that God wanted the church to have, but the Spirit of God does not give “new Scriptures” to be written in our day, for Revelation 22:18-19 pronounces judgment on any who would add to, or take from, what has been written in Scripture. So, we need not think that the Spirit of God always works in the same way in every age or in every person. What He does, however, is something that will magnify Jesus, not the Spirit Himself. No, the Spirit of God is not less than the Father or the Son, but His position is to make known the Son through the believer.
Notice that our verses above show that Jesus gave a message to His disciples, before He left them to proclaim His message to the world. Jesus also informed His disciples that when the Comforter should come, He would teach the disciples all things. Does the Holy Spirit still teach us the truth of God? He does in the sense that He makes the Scriptures more clear to us, but He also impresses us concerning things that He desires us to do, and He empowers us to do those things. The Holy Spirit, however, does not give us new revelations as He did in giving the Scriptures, even though He does give us new insights into the Scriptures. The “church world” is suffering great division in our day, partly because some within it think that they have received new revelations from God that are additional to the Scriptures, but it seems that would be adding to, or taking from, what has already been inspired as Scripture and written down. Yes, the Holy Spirit does impress believers concerning things He desires us to do, but he is not giving new revelations in addition to the Scriptures we already have. After all, I have never seen, or known, anyone who has mastered all that the Bible says. I did know a great man, Dr. Aubrey Martin, who died some years ago, who had memorized all of the New Testament and much of the Old Testament, and that as a blind man. His knowledge of the Scriptures was astounding, yet his humility was remarkable! The things that Jesus told His disciples concerning the Holy Spirit is that He would teach them, and bring to their remembrance, the things that Jesus Himself had said to them. So, if we will work at mastering as much as possible the things said in Scripture, we will no doubt be doing a great thing!
By J. Briggs King, Rainsville, AL. (678) 451-0921