| When the Holy Spirit Comes as the Comforter |
Today's Text:
But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me. John 15:26
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The Message:
It is not right for us to devote time, brain, bone, and muscle to gathering in the things of earth and drop eternity out of our reckoning, but we should gather sheaves for the Master's garner.... The Lord wants us to expand, to grow like the seed introduced into the soil-first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear....
Some have asked, What shall I do to receive the Holy Ghost? Ask God to search your hearts as with a lighted candle. Do nothing for selfish gratification. Suppose that Christ's professed followers were representatives of Christ in our earth; would not worldlings see this and take knowledge of such that they had learned of Jesus? Will not such be a power? We want the religion of Christ. This will bring forth the fruits of love, joy, and peace. The desire of the Master is not for a scanty supply, but to bear it in abundance.
John 15:17-21 points to the opposition between Christ and the world, and to the persecution inflicted upon Christ and His followers.... We want to know Christ, whom to know aright is life eternal. In John 15 He points to trials, to conflicts. He asks if you can endure the conflict; then He points to eternal realities and shows you the thousands of angels sent to be ministers to those who are heirs of salvation. Though He shows the armies arrayed against you, yet He tells you that you need not be discouraged, for the Captain of the Lord's host is with you, as with the Lord's people in Joshua's time.... What we want is to know how to fight the battle. The victory is not in the minister or the layperson, but in the Captain of the Lord's host who fights the battle for us....
We fight not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, and powers, and spiritual wickedness in high places, and God is with us.
We are not to consider that the smartness of men and women will bring success. People may have all the learning possible for a human being to comprehend, and yet they may be alone; without Christ they can do nothing. Do you walk humbly before Him? Have you a cherishing of inward sins, heartburnings against anyone? Are you seeking God with all your heart? We can bear to be separated from everything else but the Spirit of God. We want the inspiration of the cross, making us to fall helpless, and the Lord will lift us up.-Manuscript 27, 1891.
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Commentary:
My friend, the Spirit of God is the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is the Comforter, and the Comforter is Jesus Christ the righteous. The church in the time of Christ needed to have the presence of Jesus with them to comfort and to guide them. He is depicted in the book of Revelation as He "... who walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks;" (Revelation 2:1), meaning that He is in the midst of His church, comforting and guiding them by His Spirit.
The church in the time of Ellen White, believed in the Father as the One true God, and Jesus Christ as the only begotten Son of God. They believed that the Holy Spirit was the Spirit of the Father and the Son, not the Spirit of another being. Today the church teaches that the Holy Spirit is not the Father nor the Son, but is the third-person of the godhead. The doctrine of the trinity separates the Holy Spirit as a being unto itself, turning the image of God into a triune being rather than the One true God of the Bible.
The bible teaches that there is only one Spirit and that Spirit is the Spirit of God. The Son, because He is begotten of the Father, shares that Spirit, for it is the omnipresent Spirit of the Father and the Son. "There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; One Lord, one faith, one baptism, One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all." (Ephesians 4:4-6).
The apostle Paul understood this and used the Spirit, the Spirit of God, and the Spirit of Christ as one saying "But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness." (Romans 8:9, 10). The Spirit is life and Jesus said " For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself;" (John 5:26). And John said, "And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son." (1 John 5:11).
The Comforter that is spoken of in the book of John proceeds from the Father, for Jesus said "But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me:" (John 15:26), and in John 14:6 He said "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." The Comforter, which is the Spirit of truth, proceeds from the Father, and Jesus said that He is the way, the truth, and the life, therefore the Comforter is the omnipresent Spirit of Jesus.
The Greek word used by John for Comforter is used 5 times in the Bible and only by John. In John 14:26 he identifies the Holy Ghost as the Comforter, and in 1 John 2:1, he identifies the Comforter as Jesus Christ the righteous. "My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous:" (1 John 2:1). The word translated as 'advocate' is the same Greek word translated as 'comforter'. Therefore, the text says that "we have an comforter with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." The Spirit of God is the Spirit of Christ for Jesus said "Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works" (John 14:10).
When Jesus was speaking to His disciples saying that He would send to them another Comforter, He was not saying that He would send a different person, but that He would come to them in another form; He would come to them by His Spirit, for He said "And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you." (John 14:16-18). Jesus was using an illustration of how He would be with them, though He was bodily going to Heaven, He would be with them by His Spirit.
My friend, the trinity wants to rob you of the true Comforter which is Jesus Christ the righteous. It wants to connect you with a different being called God the Holy Spirit, which is not the Father nor the Son, but a being unto itself and therefore is another mediator between God and man, which the Scriptures clearly say "For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus;" (1 Timothy 2:5). The trinity teaches another way of salvation through another means other than Jesus Christ. Of this Jesus said in John 10:1 "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber.", and in verse 9 He says "I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture." The trinity, by teaching that the Holy Spirit is not the Father nor the Son, teaches another way of salvation, and as such is not of God.
My friend, the Comforter is the Spirit of Christ living within us, comforting us and guiding us unto all truth. It is He that came in sinful flesh and gained the victory over sin for us, that by His experience, we may also gain the victory over sin and is our hope of glory. "To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory:" (Colossians 1:27).
Won't you invite the Comforter, Jesus Christ the righteous into your heart today?
God bless,
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Video of the Week
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| The Trinity & Ellen White - Nader Mansour |
Ellen White is thought to have promoted the Trinity. In this study, Nader Mansour examines some historical evidence that is often overlooked. The evidence is compelling and clear as to where Ellen White stood on this question.
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