OUR COUNSELOR
John 14:15-17 "If you love me, you will obey what I
command. And I will ask the Father, and
he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever-- the Spirit of
truth.
It’s
correct to say that the Holy Spirit is our Counselor, because that’s what he
does and is supposed to do. Right now, I don’t want to debate about his divine
being or substance. Christ indicates here that the Spirit is a distinct person
– the Holy Spirit is neither the Father nor the Son. But in John 15, we also
see that the Spirit is God – the Holy Spirit is one in essence with the Father
and the Son. For now, it’s enough to learn that he is called a counselor for
us.
The word counselor shows us how we should think of
the Holy Spirit. A counselor is not a lawgiver or someone like Moses, who
frightens us with the devil, death, and hell. No, a counselor fills a troubled
heart with joy toward God. A counselor encourages us to be happy that our sins
have been forgiven, death has been conquered, heaven has been opened, and God
is smiling upon us.
Whoever understands what it means for the Spirit to be
our Counselor will have already won the battle. That person will find nothing
but pure comfort and joy in heaven and on earth. Because the Father is the one
who sends him to help us, and because Christ is the one who asks him to do so,
this sending is certainly not done out of anger. Instead, it flows from a
fatherly, heartfelt love. So Christians should remind themselves of this name
for the Holy Spirit. He is a counselor, and we are the troubled and timid ones
whom he helps.
