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Comforter How Jesus
Comforts I will not leave you comfortless [or orphans]: I will come to you.—John 14:18 In these words of the Savior we have an “I will not” and an “I will” in close and significant conjunction. One seems to show us the negative, and the other the positive side of Christ’s love. The first suggests his knowledge, feeling, responsibility, etc., with regard to his disciples, and the second the activity of his love. He will not leave them orphans, he will come unto them. We who have become disciples of Christ know that these words apply to ourselves, as well as to those to whom they were originally spoken; and we who know the needs of the spiritual life will lay hold of such a promise as this and appropriate it in all its fulness. “I will not leave You Comfortless” Let us look at the prospect that lay before the disciples. Whichever way they turned, it was a comfortless one. The loss of Christ was the loss of all, the loss of the head, the loss of the great object of life, the bereavement of themselves so that they must be left in a condition of orphanage, with all the evils consequent to that helpless state. Jesus made provision for all this gloomy prospect when he promised that he would not leave them orphaned. What a terrible loss it would have been to his disciples had Christ gone away never to return, never to have sent his holy spirit. He was the head of this little family. To him they had been accustomed to look as Teacher, Lord, and all in all; in all their ignorance he was their adviser. In all their difficulties he was their helper; and although they were no doubt much to each other in holy brotherhood, still their relation to one another was founded upon their common relationship to him. Just as it is today, and has always been. Let Jesus be severed from them, let their bond with him be broken, and there remained nothing to hold them to each other. How sorely we miss the earthly head of a family when he has filled the headship in the way which God designed. We never know what such a head is to us until he is removed; then when the great void is made, and there is no one to look to for counsel, no one for action; when we are thrown upon our own resources, then we realize what it is to be left alone. Jesus knew well what would be the condition of the disciples if he left them without the Comforter. Well did he know what he had been to them. He knew this far better than they did, and acting upon his own knowledge he makes the promise, “I will not leave you comfortless.” And is it not of great consolation to us also, that Christ acts toward us, out of his own knowledge, as he did toward those, his immediate disciples! Christ knows all that lies before his people, under all circumstances, and makes provision accordingly. It is as though he said, “I know what would happen if I were to leave you; do not fear, I will not leave you comfortless.” We grow gradually more and more into the knowledge of his headship, his leadership; and into the deep feeling of our need of his comforting presence. Our Lord acts upon his knowledge and is often acting in the power of his headship when we may be coming sadly short of acting in the power of our membership. It is well for us to pause at times and ask ourselves if Christ is indeed our head—if we are always conscious of that relationship to us. Christ Supplants Earthly Affection There is another very important sense in which the disciples would have been left comfortless had Jesus wholly abandoned them. Such a departure would have involved the subtraction of the great object of their lives. The apostles would have been left aimless, and without purpose. Christ had been the one prominent figure before them for many a long day. With him they journeyed, and with him they rested. With him they lived and moved, and in him every hope and thought was centered. Mistaken though they were about the immediate restoration of the kingdom of Israel and their own consequent exaltation, still everything was connected with their great Master, and so to take him away was to take all. There is always some object which is the mainspring of life, and when that is removed, the wheels stand still. Now the Master knew what would be the misery of his disciples thus left without their one object in life. He knew that their nets could never be to them what they had been before, and that the receipt of custom had lost the exclusive charm. He knew that it was he himself who had displaced these as life’s great object, substituting himself in their place, and now if he went away from them, what remained for them but an aimless life. We cannot imagine Christ calmly contemplating this without making provision for it, and this he did: “I will not leave you comfortless.” All true disciples are very much in the position of those to whom our Lord here speaks. Christ has become to such the great object in life. He has not taken away all life’s interests, or diminished the fondness of natural affection, but he has placed himself above them all, he has substituted himself for whatever ruled the heart, and has become the object of that heart’s affection, and that mind’s thought, so that “they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again” (2 Corinthians 5:15). Though joining Christ in true fellowship, becoming his disciples, involves the loss of earthly interests, Christ has effectually provided for this by substitution. He always gives more than he takes. Some may be afraid to take this step, thinking only of what they shall lose, not realizing what they shall gain. But those who have taken this step of consecration, have personally realized that Christ has substituted himself and all his interest and concern for that which formerly absorbed the heart, and to their great gain. The very fact that Christ has done this is an evidence that he will not depart from his followers and leave them comfortless, for he has said, “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.” He substitutes himself, the imperishable One, for all that passeth away. He gives himself to his people, he is “the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever” (Hebrews 13:5,8). Friend to the Friendless We know that none are so helpless as the orphan. All the little needs of daily life are seldom thought of by any, save a parent. All the little sorrows of life are feebly felt, except by a parent’s heart, and thus helpless must the disciples have been if their connection with Christ were now to be broken off by death. Who in all the world could supply their need, even supposing the need were known? The needs of the disciples were such that the world could not meet, and this the Savior knew. The aspect of a helpless family was that which met his view if his disciples were permanently bereft of him. And even now Christ will never allow this picture of a deserted family to become a reality. He will never desert even the weakest of those who have cast in their lot with him. We need never be afraid of becoming forlorn or friendless since we have embraced Christ. We can take his promises to ourselves. We are his disciples. This promise is to us as well as to the apostles. “I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.” Let us look at the prospect of orphaned disciples in relation to the Lord Jesus Christ personally. Their Master was, if we might so speak, bound to take care of them as he had influenced them to give up all for him. We know that the “all” was very little, still it was all to them, and God looks at things relatively, as well as absolutely. He estimates that which is given according to the capacity of the one who gives. Is it not a comforting thought that God looks at things in this light, that he puts his own and not man’s value on the two mites, that he knows our feelings, and what it may cost us to do, or give, or give up, any thing for him, to make this sacrifice, to present our bodies a living sacrifice, holy acceptable unto God! Christ puts himself in the place of all that is given up. Christ will never disavow the consequences of this act by which we gave up all for him. Whenever we can clearly trace a connection between our sufferings and the one for whom we suffer, we may always rest assured that that one will never leave us, nor forsake us. He Knows How to Fill the Void All true children of the Lord, know how amply he makes up to them for every sacrifice for him. Yes, in truth, the love of Christ is in itself great compensation for all we give up. We remember what Paul said in Philippians 3:8: “Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ.” This love of Christ has an expulsive power, so that it and the world cannot affiliate. If our minds are much occupied with thoughts of holiness, of the meek and lowly Jesus, how he lived and walked on earth, we will feel a shrinking from worldly things. God knows that where the heart is given to him, the life will assuredly be given too, and this motive of obedience is not so much of duty, but of love. So this world is to be given up because of love; and that love supplies the great compensation—Christ substitutes himself. He is with us in our new tasks and new pursuits. He knows what each one gives up for him, and he knows how to fill the void. Bearing in mind that Jesus knew what would happen to the disciples if they were left to themselves, he recognized that they, like sheep, would be scattered abroad if he, the shepherd, were permanently removed and no comforter sent. He knew all that lay before his disciples in their upward and onward struggle—a struggle and a mission on which he himself had sent them and for which they were wholly unqualified apart from him. From him they had received the mighty impulse for a new life; they like others had to go through much tribulation to enter into the kingdom of heaven. Which of them were in themselves sufficient for these things? They needed their Leader as well as their Teacher. Meat of Which the World Knows Not We can contemplate also the difficulty which these disciples would have in retaining their union with Christ. He was taken from them by an ignominious death. All the world scoffed at them as followers of a dead malefactor. How could they cling to him? The trial would have been too much for them. The Christian clings to an individual, to Christ himself, and not to a creed. Christ knows well the difficulties that beset his disciples in retaining their union with him. He also knows that being linked to an abstraction—a system of truth—will never carry them where he would have them be, and so he provides for his personal union with them now. We retain our union in the power of a personal attachment to a living being personally attached to us. Christ is the vine and we are the branches. There must not only be vitality in us to cling to him, but there must be vitality in him to inject sap into us. So as we survey this side of the subject we realize that separation from the world does not involve an orphaned or comfortless condition. We who have broken off affinities with it, have become connected with higher infinities in Christ, infinitely higher. We have meat to eat of which the world knows not. By our own faults we may be for a season left comfortless, we may hide ourselves from the Savior. We may not clearly see the one who lives for us, and still is ours, though our eyes are so dim that we know not he is near. Such a condition may come to us, but it is not Christ who has left us. His promise is unbroken, though we are from our own fault “suffering comfortless.” Yet happy is he who is suffering and comfortless without his Lord, for his grief is a witness that he lives. The existence of a life may be manifested by a tear, as well as by a smile, by the voice of weeping, as well as by the voice of joy. Present Help in Time of Need And now comes the promise of the Lord: “I will come to you”—or as it is in the Greek, “I am coming to you.” We believe the primary meaning attached to this promise has reference to the sending of the holy spirit. Our Lord gives us to understand that all the ministrations of the spirit are his own ministrations. Our Lord’s promise implied that the holy spirit which the Father would send in Jesus’ name would be to his followers a “present help in every time of need,” that they would be helped, encouraged, and strengthened by that holy power that would guide, direct, and enable his people to walk by faith and not by sight. This power of God is with the whole Church, and yet each receives the influence of the holy spirit personally by individual connection with the channel of the spirit. This comforting and strengthening holy spirit is the spirit of the Father and the Son. It was necessary too that our Lord should make a personal appearance to the disciples after his resurrection, and before his ascension. The grief of the disciples was connected with the departure of their Lord, and we can easily understand how the reappearance of the Lord would comfort their hearts. The great loneliness would pass away. Death brings with it the most saddening loneliness which falls to the lot of man, and in proportion as we have become bound up in a single object, in that proportion comes the desolation of loneliness when that object is removed. Jesus had been all to his disciples, and when they lost him, they lost all; when he returned, they got all back again. Their hopes were revived. And it is an eternal source of comfort that Christ dieth no more. Death hath no more dominion over him. “I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore.” Christ hath ascended into heaven, and the Comforter, which is the holy spirit, has been sent as an eternal source of comfort to his children. We Are Serving a Living Lord It was in a body of flesh that the disciples saw our Lord after his resurrection. They knew that henceforth they had no more to do with a dead Christ, but that now he was a living Christ. They had witnessed his ascension. “And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight.” He is now far beyond the world’s reach, “sitting on the right hand of the Father.” He is our Advocate, as well as our Comforter. His disciples are living in him and by him, and thus deriving all benefits from him. We are serving a living Lord, and we should be ever rising higher and higher above the world and all the interests of the world. All the interests of the world are perishable: all concerned with our living Christ are eternal. Going back to the disciples, we remember how they were assembled at Jerusalem, a company of troubled ones. Without were fightings, within were fears. They were weak in faith. Before them lay an unknown future. The one cure for all their sorrows was Christ’s manifestation to them. And so he stood in the midst of them and said, “Peace be unto you.” So Christ’s manifestation of himself is the great cure for the troubled heart. No doubt one cause of the disciples’ troubles was their imperfect apprehension of the truth. They could not have full knowledge until the spirit came upon them, and so having only part of the truth concerning Christ’s resurrection and plan, they were confused and perhaps confounded. And perhaps even we who are responsible by reason of having come into Christ and received the holy spirit may have learned only part of some important truths, and thus when certain experiences come into our lives we are confused and perhaps confounded. We should strive to have our apprehension of truth more perfect, to be growing in knowledge and in grace. Discerning Christ in Our Experiences Another part of the disciples’ troubles arose from an unaccustomed manifestation. Jesus appeared to them in a different body and in an unfamiliar form. To these they were wholly unaccustomed. And so we may realize a lesson here: Christ manifests himself to his followers in different aspects at different times and under different circumstances. May we so appreciate Christ’s teachings through the holy spirit that when he manifests himself in any way, we may not be troubled, but recognize that it is Christ himself. There is another aspect in which this trouble of the disciples must be viewed. They were all in trouble together; they could not help each other. And so with us, there are times when no one on earth can help us, not even our spiritual brethren. They themselves may be as much perplexed as we are. The lack is in their power, and not in their will. And it may be that God would speak to us and say, Your comfort, your peace lies not in the many any more than in the few. You will not find comfort among your fellowmen, but from one, even Jesus Christ. The revelation of Jesus Christ himself is the solution of trouble, and it was upon the full manifestation of his identity that the disciples obtained peace. We read in Revelation 1:17, 18, how John was comforted: “And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. And he laid his hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not; I am the first and the last: I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore.” Thus by declaring his identity, he brought peace and comfort. What could give us more comfort than the knowledge that the Lord we are now in union with, can be identified as the one who came to earth and died that we might live? While here on earth none endured such pain as he, none was so isolated and alone, none was so maligned. But in resurrection life he receives glory for all the sufferings of the past. He is an High Priest forever set on the right hand of God. Thus we receive comfort from the knowledge of the identity of the Christ on earth with the Christ in heaven. It is this Christ that we have taken as our own, hearing him say to us, “I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.” |