“If you love Me, you will obey what I command. And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Counsellor to be with you for ever – the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept Him, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. But you know Him, for He lives with you and will be in you.” (Jn 14:15-17)

Jesus says, “If you love Me…” – this is the condition. And He continues, “…I will ask the Father…” He says, “I” – Jesus. “…and He – the Father – will give you another Counsellor to be with you for ever – the Spirit of truth.” The Spirit of truth, the Holy Spirit, the Counsellor – He intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express, as we read in chapter eight of the Letter to the Romans. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us. So, Jesus will ask the Father. The Father will give the Spirit of truth, the Holy Spirit. Here we are already talking about the third Person of God. Jesus goes on to tell us about the Holy Spirit: “The world cannot accept Him, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. But you know Him, for He lives with you and will be in you.” (Jn 14:17) The world, or the spirit of the world, is the spirit of lies. It cannot accept the Spirit of truth, the Holy Spirit, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. “But you know Him,” says Jesus, “for He lives with you.” So He lives with us, or is with us. And then Jesus says something that we have read many times but never stopped to think about it, or we simply did not even know what it was about. He says, “… and will be in you.” “He will be in you.” The apostles knew Jesus; they had experience with the Holy Spirit in different situations, though Jesus did not clearly point to the Holy Spirit then. They had experience of the power of God. They knew it was near because they were near Jesus, and so they perceived the working of the Spirit of God. For not only are Jesus’ words true, “I and the Father are one,” but also “I and the Holy Spirit are one”. It is the union of three Persons in one Godhead. So Jesus speaks to the apostles about the Holy Spirit: “You know Him, you have experience…” We too have been baptized and have some experience of the Holy Spirit. But Jesus is talking about one particular experience: “…will be in you.” The apostles only understood this on the day of Pentecost. At that moment, their hearts underwent an inner change and were filled with the love of God in a special way, which was then manifested by prayer in unknown tongues, tongues of fire, and thunder whose loud noise aroused the attention of all Jerusalem. But above all, it was manifested in prayer in tongues, and also afterwards, when they received the inner knowledge of the Holy Spirit, experienced that deep relationship, and underwent a change, when apostles and disciples turned into martyrés – witnesses and martyrs, as Jesus said, “You will be My witnesses.” The Holy Spirit does this. “When the Holy Spirit comes on you, you will be My witnesses – martyrés.” This is what Jesus said on the day of the ascension. A few days later, the apostles experienced and recognized it. Then they also remembered this truth: “The Holy Spirit will be in you.” And they not only remembered it, they experienced it, they had the experience.

Perhaps the following analogy will help us to express what it means with you and what it means in you: A bottle sealed with a cork is floating on the sea. There is water all around it but not inside it. When the cork is pulled out and water gets inside, suddenly the bottle sinks. The water is around it, but also inside it. This illustrates baptism with the Holy Spirit. This promise is for us, too, i.e. Christians living in these end times.

Download: “And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Counsellor to be with you for ever – the Spirit of truth.” (Jn 14:16-17)