The Spirit of Truth (John 14:15-21)
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[00:00:00] Well, hey friends, this Tuesday my new book comes out March 31st, the Edge of the Inside. This is a book that has taken me the last five, six years to write. It's my journey from being a lead pastor to what I'm doing today and how it has caused me to rethink God in the process. And I think this is gonna be an encouragement for you as well.
You can check it out at edge of the inside.com.
Welcome to another episode of Rebilling Faith. These are 10 minute Bible messages for people with questions and doubts. Today we are going to look at an idea. From the Eastern Orthodox tradition of Christianity that many Western Christians may be unfamiliar with. And this may be a concept that you've never heard before, but this is one of those examples of how we can benefit from how Christians around the world have followed Jesus and often follow Jesus in ways that are slightly different than we might.
And yet we can glean the truth and glean the benefit from [00:01:00] all the expressions of following Jesus that we have seen come before us. So we're gonna look at that today and we're gonna use a different translation than normal. Normally I use the new Living Translation Today I want to use David Bentley Heart's translation of this passage because I like the way he words this.
I think it captures something for us today. This is John chapter 14, verse 15. If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I shall entreat the father and he will give you another advocate that he may be with you throughout the age. The spirit of truth, which the cosmos cannot receive because it neither sees nor knows it.
You know it because it abides with you and will be within you. I shall not leave you orphans. I am coming to you. Just a little while, and the cosmos no longer sees me, but you see me because I live, you too [00:02:00] will live. So Jesus is talking about this spirit of truth that we get to experience once he's no longer physically with us.
And this spirit of truth is our advocate today, which is a little bit ironic because many Christians seem to think that truth is a fragile thing. Much of Christianity often appears very fragile, that we're afraid of people who disagree with us. We're afraid of other ways of understanding things, and we often portray that this truth that we have is delicate.
So don't ruffle it too much or don't challenge it too much. It might not be able to withstand that. And yet here Jesus is saying something very different, that we have an advocate to help us navigate truth more than we would otherwise if we were just on our own. Jesus literally says, this advocate will be your guide, that the truth will guide you forward, and it'll allow us to do things that we would not [00:03:00] be able to do otherwise.
And this is what Jesus is getting at here. Then he gets to verse 20 on that day. You will know that I am in my father and you are in me, and I am in you. Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, that one is the one who loves me, and whoever loves me will be loved by my father and I will love him and will manifest myself to him.
Now, this is a crazy few verses here. If you look at the language being used, we have to think of Jesus in the terms of the Trinity in this. We think this is who God is. But notice how Jesus includes us in verse 20. I am in my Father, and you are in me. And I am in you. I, I mean, it's a bizarre turn of phrase here, right?
Jesus isn't just describing the trinity and then inviting us to observe the trinity. He includes the disciples into it. [00:04:00] It's almost like we become part of the trinity here in the language that Jesus is using. Which is especially significant. 'cause remember Jesus is setting up his last words here. I mean, he's getting ready to leave his disciples and so he's inviting them into this experience with God in a way that they probably thought they had no business being included in.
And so here Jesus is saying this and I can imagine their eyes getting a little big here going, we are a part of you and God and this, and like, what? What does this all mean? Jesus is describing that the Holy Spirit is our invitation to experience divinity, literally for us to experience the divine presence in our own life as well.
One of the verses elsewhere in the New Testament, that was one of the first times I noticed this idea. It comes from second Peter, chapter one, verse four. And because of his [00:05:00] glory and excellence, he has given us great and precious promises. These are the promises that enable you to share his divine nature and escape the world's corruption caused by human desires.
Did you catch that? That we are able to share the divine nature? I remember reading that phrase years ago and it jumping out at me going. Wait, we get to share this nature, like what is going on here? I don't think we talk enough about how radical this idea is. Now, the Eastern Orthodox tradition has a concept they call theosis and theosis is how they explain this idea.
The idea isn't that we become God, but that we are saturated with God's life and God's character. So virtue isn't moral effort. Virtue comes from [00:06:00] participation that as we participate with God, our life is saturated by the qualities of God, the traits of God. And so spiritual formation looks less like moral discipline and more like proximity to divinity.
The closer we get, the more we participate and experience, the more we embody this in our life today as well. So it's not just about trying harder, it's about staying closer, realizing the closer I get to God, the more I experience this. The more I participate in this, the more I'm going to manifest those things in my life that I want to be true of me.
So it's not just about being a good person, it's about being near Jesus. Being near what God is doing, and we then get to incorporate a lot of those things as well. And so I want to ask today, what would it look like for us to [00:07:00] participate in the Divine Nature? What? What would that look like? What would it mean for us to participate in the divine nature?
We would look to Jesus as an example, not just an exception. Not just some fluke, but no, this is the way we do it. This is the pattern that we follow in our life as well. The author, Heather Hamilton, has said it like this. Jesus doesn't symbolize a transcendence of humanity. He symbolizes a saturation of humanity with divinity, a soaking of nature with divinity.
So Jesus is inviting us to see this is what happens when you participate with God, and this is what can happen in our life as well as he has invited us in through the spirit of truth to experience this and our own life and [00:08:00] well, so we can saturate our humanity with divinity too, that we do this whenever we love someone that we have reason to resent.
We are participating with something beyond us. When we choose that, when we find compassion for someone that we normally don't have patience for, we are participating in something bigger than us. When we see the humanity in someone, our tribe may have written off and we refuse to dehumanize them. We are participating in the divine nature When we courageously follow wherever Jesus leads us.
And realize that we're moving forward even when things feel like they're falling apart. We are participating in the divine nature. We are saturating our humanity with divinity. So how can you experience the spirit of truth [00:09:00] in your life today? I'll see you next week on Rebuilding Faith.
