“IT IS EXPEDIENT FOR YOU.”
By T.
“NEVERTHELESS I tell you the truth: It is expedient for you that I go away; for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send Him unto you.” These are the assuring and strengthening words of the Master as found in John 16:7. The Lord had been telling His disciples that He was about to return to the Father’s throne. “Sorrow had filled their hearts” because they thought that they were soon to be separated from the Saviour. Everything looked dark and dreary before them. Then came the words, “It is expedient for you that I go away.” It was no doubt hard for the disciples then, the same as with many to-day, to believe that it was “expedient” for the Lord to go away. They wanted Him to stay right with them there. They hoped soon to join in proclaiming Him a temporal king, and brilliant ideas of a glorious kingdom irresistible in power had no doubt filled their minds. But such was not the plan of the Master. His kingdom was not to rise in the track of the warrior, whose every battle is “with confused noise, and garments rolled in blood,” but it was to be made up from subjects who learn to be too kind to kill and too righteous to commit any other wrong. So the Lord says, “It is expedient for you that I go away.” But you ask, “Why is it expedient?” The answer is at once given by the Saviour Himself: “For if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send Him unto you.” Then, whether we understand it or not, it is our privilege to believe that it is better for us to have the ministrations of the “Comforter” for the time being than to have Jesus here in person. Often have we thought and talked and dreamed about what it would have been to have had the privilege of seeing and talking personally with the Redeemer here upon earth. This certainly would have been an exalted privilege. But if we believe the Master’s own word, He has something better for us still. “It is expedient for you that I go away; for . . . if I depart, I will send Him [the Comforter] unto you.” Then have we appreciated the gift of the “Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost”? We have talked of our love of Jesus, but have we loved Him enough so that we have learned to court the divine influence of the Comforter? The Bible shows us plainly that the Saviour and His Father are offering us one of the choicest gifts of heaven when they confer upon us the Holy Spirit. Have we thought upon this? Have we realized it? Have we opened our minds and hearts to receive this heavenly guest that Jesus says “the Father will send in My name”? When the Comforter is come, the Master says, “He shall glorify Me; for He shall receive of Mine, and shall show it unto you.” John 16:14. While Jesus was here in person, He could only be in one place at a time. When at Jerusalem, the sinner, the sick, the lame, and the blind who were off at Capernaum, did not have the privilege of His personal attentions. They could not hear His voice speaking pardon, and health, and life. They could not touch the hem of His garment, and receive the virtue that healed of every malady. But when the Comforter comes, “He shall receive of Mine, and shall show it unto you.” So, then, the Holy Spirit does not come with something different, but He is God’s agency by which He brings to each one the personal influence and the personal attention of Jesus the Saviour. When the Master was here on earth, the crowds thronged about Him to hear the “gracious words that He spake,” and to enjoy the benefits of His power so kindly exercised upon all. The Lord revealed Himself to us in person so that we might know Him as He is. Words, merely, could not convey to us the surpassing character and inestimable worth of our Saviour, so He came to earth and actually lived the divine life before men. He lived among men; He became the Son of man. He did it all so that we might have a perfect object lesson of what He really is. And by thus seeing Him in the perfect light of His perfect life, how can we keep from loving Him, and rendering Him our heart’s every affection? But “it is expedient for you that I go away” and “send Him [the Comforter] unto you;” “for He shall receive of Mine, and shall show it unto you.” When Jesus was here, He made manifest what was His. He showed to all the world the character of the benefits He has to offer a fallen world. He freely gives pardon from sin, and along with it the healing of every aching disease, and the perfect peace of His own heavenly life. It takes the Bible to tell the story. Read therein and feast on the words of life. Above everything else, keep in mind the important truth that the Comforter is sent into the world in the name of Jesus, to do the work of the Master for each one who will receive Him. “And I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you forever; even the Spirit of truth; whom the world can not receive, because it seeth Him not, neither knoweth Him; but ye know Him; for He dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.” John 14:16, 17. Receive the Comforter. He is a heavenly guest, and He will show you the things of Jesus. The Lord will no longer seem far off, but nigh at hand. The Bible will not appear dry and uninteresting, but under the influence of the Holy Ghost every word of the divine Book will be a shining, strengthening, comforting gem of life and power. The Comforter has been sent to you. Have you chosen Him as your intimate and abiding guest? T.