12 “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. 13 But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. 14 He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you. 15 All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will take from what is mine and make it known to you. (NIV)
In 1896 Joshua Lionel Cowen invented the first flashlight. Because he sold the patent, he’s more well-known for the creation of toy electric railroads—Lionel Trains. Cowen’s flashlight invention is pretty simple if you understand the basic parts. It consists of an electric battery, some kind of light bulb, an electric switch, wires to connect the battery, switch and bulb, a parabolic refractor to reflect all the light in one direction, and some kind of metal or plastic tube to hold everything in place. And yet even many adults just pick one up and use it without knowing anything about glass-blowing, the delicacy of copper filaments, the workings of an electric storage battery, or even anything about the elegant mathematics of parabolic arcs.
Do you feel that way sometimes about the Triune God? We know he’s there; we know he works on our behalf. We even know that he’s the creator of the universe and the Savior of our souls—but we know less about who or what God is than most adults know about the making of something as simple as coated copper wire.
“God is a spiritual being, unique, eternal, wise, just, merciful, omnipotent (almighty). He is the eternal Father, the Son who is the image of the Father, and the Holy Spirit who proceeds from the Father and the Son. This spiritual being—God—has been revealed in the creation of the world and in the Word handed down to the Church. And by that Word alone people can know, worship and praise him.”1
In our text, Jesus described the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of truth. He reveals, as a flashlight does, the true things about God. Once, almost joking about what a truly righteous man would be like, the Greek philosopher Plato wrote: “The truly righteous man will have to endure the lash, the rack, chains, the banding-iron in his eyes, and finally, after every extreme of suffering, he will be crucified—and then he’ll learn his lesson that it’s better to seem righteous than to actually be righteous.”2 But where Plato fell short was realizing that not only would such a man actually come into being, but that he would truly be God himself, the Righteous One, whom the Holy Spirit has made known to us.
The role of the Triune God is so often to point to himself—himselves, if you will—to show us his plan of salvation. The Son praises the Father who created us and who preserves us. The Father cries out for us to listen to his Son, in whom he is well pleased. The Holy Spirit inspired holy men of God to write about the work of the Father and the words and work of the Son on our behalf—and never, not once, do the members of the Holy Trinity conflict with each other, contradict one another, or present anything other than a divinely perfect and unified message for us.
When we react like Plato to that message, wondering how anyone could do anything truly righteous when it’s better just to act righteous, we need to realize that God has just torn open the baggage of all our sin and dumped our guilt everywhere around us. We sometimes focus on just trying to act like Christians because, sinners that we are, we know we’re not perfect. We can never truly be perfect, and yet we try to act like we are.
Why is that? Are we afraid someone will see us and (gasp) how could a Christian be a sinner? The truth is—and it was the Holy Spirit who shined his immortal light on that truth—we are at the same time sinners and believers. When we stumble into sin, we mustn’t try to cover it over so that we look the way we think we should. We need to confess that sin, to lay it before God for what it is, and then hear the wonderful, incredible message of God’s forgiveness in Jesus Christ. That message comes to us through the work of the Holy Spirit, who shines his light on Jesus, always on Jesus, for our sakes.
That’s the work of our Triune God for us—his glorious work that made believers out of pagans, and made sinners like us into people who hold the promise of eternal life.
1 David Chytraeus, A Summary of the Christian Faith (1658) p. 32.
2 Plato, Republic II.361-362. ...oti outw diakeimenoV o dikaioV masigwsetai, streblwsetai, dedhsetai, [362] ekkauqhsetai twfqalmw, teleutwn panta kaka paqwn a nasvinduleuqhsetai kai gnwsetai oti ouk einai dikaion alla dokein de eqelein.
Something Extra:
Ecclesiastes 10:1-3
10 As dead flies give perfume a bad smell, so a little folly outweighs wisdom and honor. 2 The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left. 3 Even as he walks along the road, the fool lacks sense and shows everyone how stupid he is. (NIV)
Verse 1 finishes the thought from chapter 9 about one fool bringing disaster on a nation.
There are no American politics in verse 2. It is not just a mistake, but a sinful misrepresentation of God’s Word to imply that this passage would speak either for or against any political platform in our century. On the contrary, these words are an almost playful look at the Hebrew view of people who are left-handed and right-handed. To be right handed, or to be placed on someone’s right hand, was a place of honor and respect. A left handed man was considered shifty was disapproved. To have one’s heart lean to the left side would be to put one’s seat of knowledge and righteousness in the realm of chaos and in the words of one commentator “in the realm of practical and spiritual incompetence.”
These words begin a new section (10:2-20) on the fool and his folly. In everything he does, the fool is characteristically lacking sense. That means that in everything he does, the unbelieving fool show his foolish unbelief. Verse 3 should not be considered alone apart from verse two; the NIV’s “Even…” helps us remember this. The heart of the fool is in the wrong place (let that be how you think of the Old Testament concept of “left”) and as you watch him (verse 3) you will notice this more and more as the way he always is. Watch him long enough, and you will have the complete story: The fool says in his heart, “There is no god.” That’s why we keep carrying the gospel to the world, to change hearts, to bring the Holy Spirit into the lives of people who need to hear about Jesus Christ.
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in New Ulm, Minnesota. His wife, Kathryn, attended Chapel from 1987-1990 while studying Secondary Education (Theater and Math) at UW-Madison. Kathryn’s father, John Meyer, was also the first man to serve as a Vicar at Chapel.
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