JESUS knew that His hour was come that He should depart out of this world unto the Father.” But His thoughts seemed to be more with His children in this world than upon the glories His eyes were soon to behold by the Father’s throne. “Having loved His own which were in the world, He loved them unto the end.”
There is the love that clings until death. He came into the world to suffer because He loved His children, wayward and sinful tho they were. His heart of love so bound Him to His own in the world that the thought of leaving them was relieved of sadness only by the knowledge that it was best for them. “It is expedient for you that I go away.” For our sakes He came into the world. For our sakes He returned to heaven. For us He is coming again. His thought is ever for His children.
In His prayer with the disciples, He prayed: “And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to Thee. . . . While I was with them in the world, I kept them in Thy name.”
We can catch in the tone of the voice the longing to cling to His own and keep them. But He knew that He must go—that it was expedient for them that He should. So He prayed: “Holy Father, keep thru Thine own name those whom Thou hast given Me.”
Just as He had kept them while with them, He prayed that the Father would keep them. Well He knew that in the counsels of God the eternal Spirit was to be sent to be the companion and helper of His children. This was to be more to them than even His personal presence could be in the flesh of humanity.
The promise had been made thru the prophets. Isaiah had written:
“And the Redeemer shall come to Zion, and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob, saith the Lord. As for Me, this is My covenant with them, saith the Lord: My Spirit that is upon thee, and My words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed’s seed, saith the Lord, from henceforth and forever. Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee.” Isa. 59:20, 21; 60:1.
This was that “promise of the Father” (Acts 1:4) for which Christ told His disciples to wait at Jerusalem. The Holy Spirit, to be sent in fulness of blessing after Christ returned to heaven, was to be believers what Christ’s personal presence was to John and Peter and all who walked with Him and leaned upon Him and were comforted by Him in the days when He lived among men.
They grieved like children about to be orphaned when He spoke of leaving them. But He said: “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. I will not leave you orphans.” John 14:16-18, margin.
Therefore He could say: “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.” John 16:7.
The promise was fulfilled. On the day of Pentecost the Comforter was sent to abide with believers. Peter said of Christ and His promise on that day: “Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, He hath shed forth6this, which ye now see and hear.” Acts 2:33.
The promise was not for believers in that day alone. In Christ’s prayer He said: “Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on Me thru their word.” And when on the day of Pentecost the people cried out, “What shall we do?” Peter said to them: “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.” Acts 2:38, 39.
Every believer may claim and receive the blessed Spirit as he claims every promise of God from the forgiveness of sins onward in Christian experience. God’s love bestows what we need. “If any man sin, we have an Advocate [Comforter] with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” And there is not only a Comforter in heaven, but a Comforter on earth, the Holy Spirit, “whom God hath given to them that obey Him.” Acts 5:32.
The blessings of the Holy Spirit must be earnestly sought for and claimed in faith. But to those that seek is the promise that they shall find. The earthly parent loves to give gifts to his children. “How much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him.”
We have reached the last days. It is the “time of the latter rain,” the “times of refreshing” “from the presence of the Lord,” when soon He “shall send Jesus Christ.” Acts 3:19, 20. Now is the hour of the outpouring of the Spirit in more blessed fulness, and the Lord exhorts us: “Ask ye of the Lord rain in the time of the latter rain.” Zech. 10:1. The soul that hungers and thirsts shall be filled. “I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground: I will pour My Spirit upon thy seed, and My blessing upon thine offspring.” Isa. 44:3. The blessed Comforter is come.
“O, spread the tidings round wherever man is found,
Wherever human hearts and human woes abound;
Let every Christian tongue proclaim the joyful sound:
The Comforter has come.”
