#DailyDevotion The Father, The Son & The Holy Spirit Work Together To Bring You The Word
John 16:12-15 12“I have much more to tell you, but it would be too much for you now. 13When the Spirit of truth comes, He will lead you into the whole truth. What He will say will not come from Himself, but He’ll speak what He hears and tell you what is coming. 14He will glorify Me, because He’ll take from what is Mine and tell it to you. 15 Everything the Father has is Mine. That is why I said, ‘He takes from what is Mine and will tell it to you.’”
This text further explains the unity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit and how they related to one another. Earlier in John’s Gospel Jesus said, Joh 828So Jesus told them, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, you will know I am the one and I do nothing by Myself, but I speak as My Father taught Me…38“I’m telling what I’ve seen, being with My Father, and you do what you’ve heard from your father.” The Son subjects himself to the Father. He only does what the Father wants him to do. Further, Jesus only has spoken to us what the Father has given him to speak to us that we might have life in his name. Later Jesus reaffirms when he says in chapter 12, 49“because what I said didn’t come from Me, but the Father Who sent Me ordered Me to say and tell it.”
Now here in chapter sixteen, Jesus is promising to send the Holy Spirit even has the Father had sent him. The Spirit is to carry on Jesus’ work in the flesh through the Word Jesus has given to him. The same word the Father gave the Son to speak, the Son gives the Holy Spirit to speak to his apostles. The Spirit has indeed led the apostles into the whole truth and they have left us that truth in the Gospels and the letters of the New Testament. What we call the New Testament is the witness of the Holy Spirit of what the Father gave the Son and the Son has given the Spirit so we may know the whole truth, be set free and be given eternal life.
The Holy Spirit doesn’t seek glory for Himself. The Father only wants glory through his Son Jesus Christ for when we glorify Jesus in word and deed we glorify the Father. The Spirit glorifies Jesus and wants Jesus to be glorified. He does this through the Word of Truth he has left the Church. He has taken from what is Jesus’ and told it to us through the holy apostles.
The unity of the Trinity is seen as Jesus says, “Everything the Father has is Mine” and then he says, “He takes from what is Mine and will tell it to you.” Thanks be to God there are no secret doctrines or teaching in Christ’s Holy Church. Everything the Church teaches is found right there between the pages of the Old and New Covenants. Everything the Father gave the Son and the Son gave to the Spirit and the Spirit gave to the apostles, it is written down for us. It is the same Word the pastors the Spirit calls through the congregations preach and teach on Sunday mornings. The Holy Spirit then accompanies the Word he gave to the Church through their mouths to your ears and into your hearts giving you faith, forgiveness, life and salvation. Wherever the word of the apostles is read, taught and preached the Holy Spirit accompanies it to glorify Jesus so the Father may be glorified in Christ Jesus. We then should open our ears, pray for attentiveness so the Spirit may work through that word and form us into the children of God.
Heavenly Father, may the word you have given the Son and through the Son the Holy Spirit be upon the mouths of all who preach in Jesus’ name so that word may find a home in our hearts so we may rightly glorify Jesus with faith and a life that lives by that faith. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.