John 14:15-21 has the theme of
Jesus promising to his disciples the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit. Jesus
begins with saying that love of Jesus will mean that they will keep his
commandments. Jesus is asserting his right to have them love him and obey him,
even as does the Lord in the Old Testament. While love is important throughout the
New Testament, only in John do we find the object of love to be Jesus. Then,
Jesus will ask the Father, and the Father will give them another Advocate, to
be with them forever. The Advocate is also the Spirit of truth, whom the world
cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him, all of which
suggests the strangeness of the world to those who love Jesus, for they know
him, because he abides with them. He will also be in them. Pannenberg stresses
that here the Spirit is not present to believers in the way the Spirit will be
given later. [1] Barth stresses that the Spirit gives
instruction to Christians in a way that never becomes identical with their own
spirits, so to speak. The Holy Spirit is superior to us as believers. As our
teacher and leader, the Spirit is in us, but in a way that the Spirit remains
Lord of our lives. For him, the entire notion of Paraclete in this passage is
relevant to this discussion. He notes the difference in the notion here of “the
Spirit of truth.” For Barth, God is establishing and executing the divine claim
to lordship over us by this immediate presence.
[2]
"Paraclete" means advocate, intercessor, counselor, protector, and supporter. There is a close parallel between the work of
the Spirit and that of Jesus. Barth says this word refers to a calling,
summoning, inviting, demanding, admonishing, and encouraging, an address that
both corrects and comforts. The Spirit will be for the community and individual
Christian the great paraclete. It describes the Spirit as the mediator,
advocate, and spokesperson of Jesus Christ to the community of believers. The
Spirit speaks both of Christ and for Christ, as the representative of the cause
of Christ, seeking to make the cause of the community and the individual to
become the cause of Christ. The Spirit sees to it that neither individual
followers nor the community forgets Christ. [3]
Pannenberg opines that John distinguishes more sharply than does Paul the Son
and Spirit. Here, the Spirit is the “other Advocate” whom the Father will send
in the name of Jesus. [4] He
offers the opinion that the material difference between the types of statement
regarding the giving of the Spirit is not great. After all, in each case both
Father and Son work together in sending the Spirit, whether it be that the
Father sends the Spirit at the request and in the name of the Son or that the
risen Lord pours out the Spirit whom he has received from the Father.
Regardless, he points out that the purpose of the sending is to continue the
work of revealing Jesus. The Spirit glorifies Jesus as the Son of the Father by
teaching us to recognize the revelation of the Father in the words and work of
Jesus.[5]
Pannenberg says that in this passage we see that the Holy Spirit is present to
the church through the glorifying of Jesus Christ as the one whom the Father
sent. For him, this passage suggests an immediacy of individuals to Jesus
Christ that the Holy Spirit brings. [6]
Later, he makes the point that the risen Christ will be with his disciples to
the end of the world, though he will argue that this presence is through the
Lord’s Supper and the Easter event. [7]
Further, as John continues, Jesus will
not leave them orphaned. In Phaedo 116a
Plato has the followers of Socrates becoming orphans upon his death. Jesus is
coming to them. Soon, the world will no longer see Jesus because it does not
have the spiritual insight to see. However, the disciples will see him. This
means the world will always feel somewhat strange for those who love Jesus,
obey his commandments, and in whom Jesus lives. Since he lives, they also will
live. “On that day,” a reference to Easter, they will know that Jesus is in the
Father, and they will be in him, and Jesus will be in them. Pannenberg views it
as a decisive step in the train of thought in John that Jesus himself, by the
work of the Spirit, is with his own, being “in” them as they are “in” him.
[8] The
people who have his commandments and keep them are those who love him. The
Father will love those who love Jesus. Further, Jesus will love them and reveal
himself to them.
To Raymond Brown, John offers a
profound reinterpretation of the post-resurrection period and directs us to the
real gift of this period, which is union with Jesus. The appearances are not an
end in themselves. They initiate and point to a deeper type of presence. Even
in Matthew 28:20, the risen Jesus says, “I am with you always until the end of
time.” Barth says that world history, having attained its goal in Christ and in
his death, cannot continue as though nothing had happened. His community,
Christians, is now present in the world as witnesses to Christ. Yet, God does
not leave them to their own devices. They cannot be without Christ in the
world. [9]
Barth further points out that Easter, Ascension, Pentecost, and the second
coming are, in this passage, a single event: “I am coming to you.” It suggests
a foreshortening of perspective. The event of Easter and the second coming,
with the intervening history of the community under the present power of the
Holy Spirit, are different moments of one event. For him, those scholars, like
Schweitzer and Weiss, who go down the path of “thoroughgoing eschatology,” are
quite wrong. He sees no need to suppose that there was unforeseen delay in the
return of Christ, or that hope in it was repeatedly deferred, or that primitive
Church, or Jesus himself, were disillusioned or mistaken on the subject in
consequence of an exaggerated enthusiasm. He thinks one should condemn such a
view from the outset. He discusses this within the context of Jesus being Lord of
time, and thus, not subject to human experiences of time.
[10]
Barth discusses the notion of Jesus as victor. He thinks it
quite natural to wonder whether the notion of a new age in which being
reconciled to God is not an illusion. The message of the coming of the new age
and a new humanity is stranger than that of the passing of the old. He wonders
whether the only option is a pure, supra-temporal, transcendent future to which
one can only look forward with longing. Therefore, one would agree in practice
that it has not yet arrived and that the positive declaration of the word of
grace would have no validity here and now. Yet, he does not think “we” can
dispose of the declaration so easily. For him, the word of grace says that
humanity is already this new humanity. It speaks of the eternal future of this
new humanity as irrupting into the present, of the coming of the new humanity
here and now, disrupting the “peaceful and merry life in fellowship within the
present” that humanity now has. Its validity is because this word is spoken in
Jesus Christ, and thus, “Because I live, you shall live also.”
For Barth, this focus on Christ makes it distinct from all
illusions. Human “realism” is shown to be an illusion.[11] He
thinks the phrase is the right order, in that the Christian community exists as
Christ exists. It exists only as he exists. Therefore, the being of the
community is a dimension of the being of Christ as well. It belongs to Christ
and is the property of Christ. Christ is the source of its life and existence.
It has no option but to exist in faith in Christ love for Christ, and hope in
Christ. It exists as Christ exists, for Christ does not exist without the
Christian community. [12]
No comments:
Post a Comment