And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Advocate to be with you forever— the Spirit of truth. The world cannot receive Him, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. But you do know Him, for He abides with you and will be in you.
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Significance
As Jesus prepares to depart, He promises not to leave His disciples bereft: "And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Advocate to be with you forever" — "the Spirit of truth" (14:16-17). The title Advocate/Comforter (παράκλητος) gathers up the Old Testament's promise of the consolation reserved for the messianic age, announced in Isaiah's "Comfort, comfort My people, says your God" (Isaiah 40:1), the opening of the book of Israel's comfort. Where Isaiah promised that God would console His exiled people, Jesus names how: by giving "another" Advocate of the same kind as Himself, the Spirit who will not merely visit but "abides with you and will be in you" (14:17), making the comfort permanent and interior. The promised consolation of the new age proves to be not a circumstance but a Person — the Spirit of Christ continuing Christ's own presence with His people after His ascension. The telos is communion: the departing Lord does not withdraw His nearness but deepens it, so that the comfort Israel longed for becomes the settled indwelling of God Himself, and the disciples' loss becomes gain.
Found via
Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Reference Type
Allusion
Connection Method(s)
Promise-Fulfillment
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