The second Comforter is the Spirit of truth, the Spirit of reality. The Spirit of reality functions to make God, Christ, and the divine things concerning God and Christ real (John 14:17a; 15:26b; 16:13a). The Spirit makes God real, makes Christ real, and makes all the divine things concerning God and Christ real. He is the reality of God, the reality of Christ, and the reality of all the divine things. The reality of sanctification, for example, is the Spirit. The reality of all the divine things, such as transformation and conformation, is the Spirit.
Another function of the Spirit is to dwell in us (John 14:17b). As we pointed out in the previous message, it is not an easy thing to dwell with someone day in and day out. But the Spirit has the ability to indwell us, to be with us all the time.
In John 14:26, the Lord said, “But the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and remind you of all things which I said to you.” At the time the Lord spoke this word, He had already spoken many things to the disciples. Without the reminding Spirit, the disciples could have forgotten what He had said to them. The Spirit not only teaches us but also teaches us by reminding us of what He has spoken. He even reminds us of the things He spoke to us years ago. He teaches us by reminding us.
Teaching and reminding are both a kind of witnessing. John 15:26c says that the Spirit will testify of Jesus. This is His witnessing.
The Spirit also functions to convict the world. John 16:8 says, “And having come, He will convict the world concerning sin, and concerning righteousness, and concerning judgment.” At the time of our salvation, we were convicted by the Spirit of our sins, our failures, our rottenness, and our corruption. After that time, the Spirit continues to convict us. We are convicted of our wrongdoings and our bad attitudes. The Spirit within us is always doing a convicting work.
John 16:13 says, “But when He, the Spirit of reality, comes, He will guide you into all the reality.” The Spirit leads us into all reality, or truth. The work of the Spirit is to convict the world, and then, as the Spirit of reality, to guide the believers into all the reality. This is to make all that the Son is and has real to the believers.
The Spirit discloses the riches of Christ and the things to come. In John 16:13b through 15 the Lord told us that all that the Father has becomes His. What God is, which is included in what God has, becomes the Lord’s riches. These riches are passed on to the Spirit. Then the Spirit discloses all these riches to the disciples. Disclosing means unveiling. The Spirit unveils the riches of Christ, which Christ received from the Father. The riches of the Triune God are received by the Spirit, and the Spirit discloses them to us.
He also discloses to us the things to come. The things to come are mainly revealed in the book of Revelation. In the book of Revelation, there is a full unveiling of the coming things. Revelation shows us the first four seals of God’s economy which consist of four horses with their riders (Rev. 6:1-8). These four horses with their riders signify the gospel, war, famine, and death. All these will continue until the end of this age. Then the Lord will judge the world and set up His kingdom, which will be His thousand-year reign. Eventually, there will be a new heaven and a new earth with the New Jerusalem. We will be there as parts of the New Jerusalem. These are some of the things to come. We may know these things, but we need to trust in the Spirit to give us a living unveiling to see them.
In John 16:14a, the Lord said that the Spirit functions to glorify Him. To glorify Christ is to express Christ in His divinity as a splendor. Christ is so rich in His divinity, but His divine riches are hidden and concealed without the function of the Spirit to glorify Him. The Spirit expresses the divinity of Christ as a splendor. Glory is the divine substance of Christ expressed as a splendor. To glorify Christ is what Paul meant when he expressed his desire to magnify Christ (Phil. 1:20). To magnify Christ is to glorify Christ, to express the hidden, concealed Christ in His divinity splendidly. To express Him in His divinity as a splendor in our lives is to glorify Him.
The Spirit was breathed into the believers by the Son in resurrection. “He breathed into them and said to them, Receive the Holy Spirit” (John 20:22). The Holy Spirit here is actually the resurrected Christ Himself because this Spirit is His breath. The Holy Spirit is thus the breath of the Son. The Greek word for Spirit in this verse is pneuma, a word that is used for breath, spirit, and wind. Therefore, this verse can be interpreted, “Receive the holy breath.” On the day of His resurrection, the Lord Jesus breathed Himself into His disciples as the holy breath. The essential, infilling Spirit is our breath for our breathing.