Pastor’s Pen Pulpit Series: Truth for the Heart

June 26, 2005

ALL THE TRUTH

John 16:12-15

Jesus had not yet taught His disciples all that He wanted to teach them. In fact He had many more things to share with them but knew He would not be with them much longer. However, they were not sufficiently mature to assimilate and understand those things at the present. This understanding would come later when the Spirit of Truth would come. The Spirit would not impart an independent message different from what they had already learned from Him. They would be led further into the realization of His Person and in the development of the principles He had already established.

As indicated earlier, all of the truth in the epistles is capsulated in the upper room discourse. He also emphasized in verse 15 that “all things that the Father has are Mine.” Thus the Holy Spirit is revealing the truth of both the Father and the Son - A GOOD EXAMPLE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT TEACHING US THE TRUTH WE NEED FOR THE MOMENT! Often we are not ready to receive everything God has for us!

There is another aspect of the passage that we want to look at now. Jesus said that the Spirit of Truth would lead the disciples into all THE Truth. There are two features that we want to look at in this statement - REVELATION and ILLUMINATION. Let’s distinguish between the two:

REVELATION (not necessarily the book of Revelation) is the giving of the truth to man - “The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things REVEALED belong to us and to our sons forever, that we may observe all the words of this law - Deuteronomy 29:29.” This refers to the initial giving of the Scriptures.

ILLUMINATION refers to the understanding of the revelation. At this point in time all of the Old Testament truth had been given. This statement by Jesus is a statement of pre-authentication of the writing of the New Testament. He is saying that essentially in the lifetime of the apostles all of the truth that God desires man to know would be revealed, written down and finalized.

THE TRUTH refers to the whole body of revealed truth. Specificity is emphasized by the use of the definite article (“the”) in some of the best manuscripts. Later on the apostle Paul would be included in the apostolic band. Hence there is no inspired truth beyond the writings of the apostles. Truth is finished. Jude says in Jude 3 “Beloved while I was making every effort to write you about our common salvation, I felt the necessity to write to you appealing that you contend earnestly for THE FAITH which was ONCE FOR ALL delivered to the saints.”

There is a sense that John 16:14 refers to the illumination of the truth to all believers - “He shall glorify Me; for He shall take of mine, and shall disclose it to you.” The Holy Spirit today illuminates our eyes and understanding of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Thus we have in today’s passage the Spirit’s ministry in both the giving of the truth and in the understanding of the truth. When we come to the Word of God, let us voice to Him our need for His illuminating work in the Scriptures in our lives. God bless.

In His matchless grace!