The Son is in the Father and the Father is in the Son (vv. 10-11). What a mystery this is! The Lord says that the Son is in the Father and that the Father is in the Son! Since the Father is in the Son, when the Son speaks, the Father, who abides in the Son, does His work. The Father does His work in the Son’s speaking because They are in one another.
In 10:30 the Lord tells us clearly that He and the Father are one. Again I say, we cannot explain this matter adequately because it is very difficult for our limited mentality to understand how They two could be one. In our limited understanding, the Son is the Son, the Father is the Father, and the two are distinctly separate one from the other. But the Lord tells us clearly that the Son and the Father are one. Here I strongly say that the Lord never says that He and the Father are two. We have to take the mystery of the Trinity according to the Lord’s definite and clear word, not according to our suppositions.
Isaiah 9:6 reveals that the Son is even called the Father. This verse says, “Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given...and his name shall be called...The mighty God, The everlasting Father.” A son is given, yet His name is called the everlasting Father, just as a child is born, yet He is called the mighty God. Is He the Son or the Father? We must say that He is both, just as He is both the child and the mighty God. How can the Son be the Father? I do not know. I know only that the Bible tells me so. Praise the Lord that the Bible tells us that the Son is called the Father, just as the Bible tells us that the child is called the mighty God. Therefore, according to the clear word of the Bible, the Son is the Father. None of us should be a Philip. But at that time even Philip was made clear.
When the Son was there with the disciples to express the Father, He was able only to be among them, but He was unable to be in them. Since He was the embodiment of the Father in the flesh, He was among the disciples to express the Father and to be seen by them. But while He was in the flesh, He had no way to enter into the disciples. So there is the need of the following section of this chapter, verses 16 through 20.
We have seen that the Father was embodied and expressed in the Son among the disciples. Now we must see that the Son is realized as the Spirit entering into and abiding in the believers. Notice that we do not say in the Spirit but as the Spirit. In order to abide in us the Lord had to be transfigured, transformed, from the flesh into the Spirit. He came in the flesh to be among us, but He had to be transfigured into the Spirit before He could come into us. After coming in the flesh to be among us, His next aim was to be in us. How was the Lord transfigured? He was transfigured from the flesh into the Spirit by His death and resurrection. His going was not His leaving; it was another step of His coming. He was coming in another form, in the form of the Spirit. The first step of His coming was in the flesh; the second step of His coming was as the Spirit. This chapter has the Lord’s going and it also has His coming. His going was by death and resurrection, and His coming was as “another Comforter.” The other Comforter is His other form, His other figure. By His coming as the Spirit, He enters into us and makes us to live just as He does. The life He lives is the resurrection life. After His resurrection He comes to enter into us as the Spirit. So He lives, and we live by Him also. He lives by the resurrection life, and we live by Him, sharing Him as the resurrection life.
In verse 16 the Lord said, “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Comforter, that He may be with you forever.” First, the Spirit is “another Comforter.” The Greek word for Comforter, paracletos, anglicized paraclete, means “one alongside who takes care of our case, our affairs, and all of our needs.” The Greek word for Comforter is the same as that for Advocate in 1 John 2:1. Today we have both the Lord Jesus in the heavens and the Spirit within us as our Paraclete, who takes care of our case. The Holy Spirit, the reality of Jesus and the realization of the Lord, is such a One that is alongside of us, ministering to us and taking care of all of our needs.