John 14:18Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

But since the disciples did not understand the meaning of His words and were not sufficiently comforted by them, He says, "I will not leave you orphans," because this is what they especially desired.

And since the saying, "I will come to you," indicated a coming, lest they expect again exactly the same sort of coming as before, see how He did not say this plainly, yet nevertheless made it understood.

I will therefore set forth in a few words what Christ teaches us in the saying before us.

By saying that another will be sent to us from God the Father, He again confirms this doctrine for the purposes of the divine economy.

For some, misunderstanding this saying, might think that the Holy Spirit, according to His words, is not from the essence of God, as it appears to certain foolish people, but is something else by nature.

The expression "another" could serve as an especially strong basis for such an opinion.

Therefore, to show clearly that He wishes this difference to be understood in no other way than as His own distinct personal or hypostatic existence, He says that the Advocate will be sent and promises to come Himself.

For the Spirit is Spirit, and not Son, just as the Son is Son, and not Father.

By this He shows that the Spirit is nothing other than what He Himself is, since He is the Father's own Spirit and is understood as His Spirit.

For this reason He is also called His mind. Thus Paul, pointing to this very thing, says, "But we have the mind of Christ" (1 Cor 2:16).

Therefore, understanding this rightly and without error, rejecting the distortion of the truth as a shameful thing, and following the words of divinely inspired Scripture, we shall say that He is nothing other than Him.

This is said with regard to natural identity, distinctly and separately. Understanding this, I think, divine Paul often joins the One and the Other and introduces Them as one and the same, I mean the Advocate and the Son.

Thus you will find him saying, "If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His" (Rom 8:9).

And again immediately after this: "But if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness" (Rom 8:10).

Do you hear how clearly he acknowledges that those who have received His Spirit have Christ? He also says elsewhere, "I think that I too have the Spirit of God" (1 Cor 7:40).

He is the same one who said to us, "If you seek proof that Christ speaks in me" (2 Cor 13:3).

He often boasts that Christ has dwelt in us who have believed through faith, although he also receives the Holy Spirit.

Let no one think that we say he abolishes the meaning of the distinction of names or persons in relation to the One and the Other.

Nor should anyone think that he does not consider the Son to be Son, but Spirit, or that he does not acknowledge the Spirit as Spirit, but considers Him Son.

This was not the aim of that saying, and we do not believe in this way. He knows the threeness of the Holy and Consubstantial Trinity.

He also teaches the distinct existence, idia hyphesthai, of each of the divine Persons signified. Yet at the same time he clearly proclaims that the Holy Trinity abides in unchangeable identity.

Otherwise, how can the Spirit be God and be called God? "Do you not know," he says, "that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?" (1 Cor 3:16).

If we have become temples of God because the Spirit dwells in us, then how can the Spirit who causes God to dwell in us through Himself not be from God, that is, from His essence?

Therefore the Only-begotten, showing that the Spirit is not alien to His own nature, says that the Advocate will be sent to the saints from the Father.

He promises that He Himself will come and fill the place of the Father for them. Thus they will not be like certain orphans, deprived of protecting help.

Nor will they thereby be easily caught in the snares of the devil or very readily inclined to the scandals in the world.

These scandals are very numerous and come almost of necessity because of the unbridled frenzy of those who bring them about.

Thus, as an instrument and unshakable support for our souls, the Father gave the Spirit of Christ, who fulfills in us His grace, presence, and power.

Indeed, it is impossible for the human soul to accomplish anything good, restrain its passions, or escape the very great and strong snare of the devil, unless it is fenced about by the grace of the Holy Spirit.

For this reason it has Christ Himself within itself. So too the divine Psalmist, composing thanksgiving for this through the wisdom present in him, cried out to God: "O Lord, as with a shield of favor You have crowned us" (Ps 5:13).

By the shield of favor he meant nothing other than the Holy Spirit, who protects us and by unimaginable power keeps us in what is pleasing to God.

Therefore He promises that He will be present and help through the Spirit those who believe in Him, even though He will ascend into the heavens themselves after being made alive from the dead.

He will ascend "now to appear in the presence of God for us," according to Paul's word (Heb 9:24).

Therefore He also calls us children of the bridegroom when He says, "The hour will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then the children of the bridegroom will fast," cf. Mt 9:15. And who is this bridegroom, if not the Lord Christ?

If only this were meant here, then the promise, "I will not leave you orphans," would not be fulfilled.

The world, unworthy and incapable of inwardly receiving God into itself, can behold Christ only with bodily eyes. Therefore, together with the Lord's visible departure from the world, which is soon to take place, the world will not see Him.

The disciples, however, will see the Lord because they will live His life, having entered into inward communion with Him.

Together with the indwelling of the Spirit of God in them, they will receive true knowledge of the relation of the Son to the Father and to those who believe in Him. They will know that the Son has one essence with God the Father, and that He receives those who believe in Him into essential communion with Himself.

But this communion with Christ, and through Him with God the Father, is given on the condition of complete devotion to the Savior, expressed in the keeping of His commandments.

The Holy Spirit will be their Comforter and will teach them everything they need to know for their preaching activity. He will also remind them of everything Christ told them, which they could not understand at the time.

From the book of the Acts of the Apostles it is known that ten days after the Ascension of Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit descended upon the apostles. He communicated to them the knowledge of everything necessary for them, the knowledge of the languages of the peoples to whom they had to go in preaching, and also the understanding of everything they had heard and seen while following Christ, but had not then understood.

Thus this whole discourse of Jesus contains the promise to send the Holy Spirit to the apostles and, in His person, to appear to them with the Father.

But since this discourse is broken and contains repetitions of what has been said, partly explained by the state of Jesus' own spirit, one may conclude from certain words in it, such as "I will come to you" and "you will see Me," that Jesus also spoke to the apostles about His coming appearances to them after His Resurrection.

See my booklet The Descent of the Holy Spirit, which contains a detailed study of the greatest miracle that transformed the apostles from men of little faith and doubt into such convinced preachers of the risen Christ that not even all the united powers of Hades could shake them.

This is the Lord's coming to the disciples in the Holy Spirit, since the Holy Spirit will bear witness concerning Him and glorify Him, Jn 15:26; Jn 16:14. The Spirit will be, as it were, the mediator of His closest spiritual communion with those who believe in Him, and this communion will be constant and unbroken: "I will not leave you."

His coming to them, or manifestation, after His Resurrection in His glorified body will be, as it were, preliminary to this unbroken and eternal communion of the Lord with the disciples in the Holy Spirit, cf. Chrysostom and Theophylact.

The further features of this new coming of the Lord to the disciples refer partly to these appearances after His Resurrection, and partly to His coming in the Holy Spirit, or to His constant and eternal communion with the disciples in Him.

He sanctified them by the Holy Spirit and made these trembling fishermen men of understanding, strength, and wisdom, men of God. Cf. Basil the Great, Homily 15. "A little while, and the world will see Me no more; but you will see Me." To the promise of His coming, the Lord adds that He will appear only to the disciples and not to the world. For from that time the right to preach and to remit sins would be handed to them by the Lord: Jn 20:22-23; Mt 28:19; Mk 16:15; Lk 24:47. Cf. also Acts 10:40-42, Peter's words about the Lord's appearing to the disciples and not to the world. The world that cried, "Crucify Him," is unworthy to see the Lord until it is "cut to the heart" (Acts 2:37). Then it must cry out with firm faith, "Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord" (Mt 23:38-39). Until then, as the Lord said to the Jews, "their house is left desolate." God's mercy is great. We see that many of the hard-hearted Jews were later received into Christ's community, beheld the Lord spiritually, and were counted worthy of baptism by the Holy Spirit. Yet first they had to humble their hearts and not be of this world. "If you were of the world, the world would love its own. But because you are not of the world, and I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you" (Jn 15:19). They had to come out of it and seek the Lord, as He foretold to the Jews in Jn 7:34 and cf. 8:24, threatening the hardened that they would not find Him. But those who were "cut to the heart," like the thousands who listened to Peter on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:37-41), were received by the Lord according to His word: "He who comes to Me I will not cast out" (Jn 6:37). Jerusalem, "killing the prophets" (Mt 23:37), like the Gentiles, was unworthy to see the risen Lord in the flesh. To see Him was granted only to those sent as His witnesses and preachers of the "words of life" (Acts 5:20). In these disciples the whole moral future of mankind was henceforth concentrated. From that time they represented life, while the Gentile and Jewish world represented death. Therefore the Lord says to them, "I live," that is, I am He who lives forever, "and you will live." You are lamps kindled from the eternal Light. You are to bring My light and My life into the darkness and death of the world. From you other lamps must be kindled, until the whole world shines with My radiance and rises to share in My eternal life. The Lord knows that many of His words are still unclear to the disciples. Therefore He adds, "In that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you." The Lord forewarns them not to be troubled because they do not yet understand everything. That day, still unknown to them, will come: the day of the radiant Resurrection of Christ. Then they will see that He has conquered death, and that He and the Father are one (Jn 10:30). They will also see that they, sinful and mortal men, are received into mysterious and gracious communion with God. This is by God's great love and for the sake of the great sacrifice of redemption. God manifests Himself to them and to all believers in the second Hypostasis of the Holy Trinity, one with the Father and the Holy Spirit, who assumed perishable flesh for the salvation of men.