Year 2, Week 38, Day 3 Bible Reading Observations

Year 2, Week 38, Day 3

I have a brief observation for today’s reading of John 13-14.

Today’s reading begins a segment of John’s Gospel account that contains an extended conversation that Jesus had with His disciples on the eve of His arrest and crucifixion. John 13-14 has some correlation with the readings from the past three days from Matthew 26, Mark 14, and Luke 22; but there are several distinctions. During the meal Jesus had with His disciples, John provides details of Jesus washing the feet of His disciples. This event is not found in any other Gospel account: “Jesus…rose from supper…laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him” (John 13:3-6). In addition to the action of serving His disciples, John adds Jesus’ clear orders: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:34-35). John 14, as well as the next few subsequent chapters of John’s Gospel account, provide crucial instructions as to how the disciples were to live in light of Jesus’ imminent departure: “Little children, yet a little while I am with you. You will seek me, and just as I said to the Jews, so now I also say to you, ‘Where I am going you cannot come” (John 13:33). At the appropriate time, Jesus would return: “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also” (John 14:1-3). But before He returns, Jesus makes another promise: "These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you” (John 14:25-26).

One of the things that struck me from today’s reading is the statement that speaks of the Spirit’s new relationship with followers of Christ: “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you” (John 14:16-17). Jesus had been with His disciples. Like the Tabernacle and Temple of the Old Covenant, the Holy Spirit dwelled in Jesus. Thus, at that moment, Jesus said of the Holy Spirit, “he dwells with you.” The Spirit of God dwelt among the Hebrew people, residing in their midst in the Tabernacle: “And let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell in their midst. Exactly as I show you concerning the pattern of the tabernacle, and of all its furniture, so you shall make it” (Exodus 25:8-9). As the portable Tabernacle was replaced by a permanent Temple, the Spirit of God made His dwelling among His people at the Temple Solomon had built: “The LORD our God be with us, as he was with our fathers. May he not leave us or forsake us” (1 Kings 8:57). Therefore Solomon declared: “The LORD has said that he would dwell in thick darkness. I have indeed built you an exalted house, a place for you to dwell in forever” (1 Kings 8:12-13). And when Jesus appeared in the flesh, His arrival is described with Tabernacle language: “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14, “dwelt among us” could also be read, “tabernacled among us”).

But with His soon departure, Jesus speaks of a new way that the Spirit of God would dwell with His people. The Spirit would no longer dwell near His people, but now within His people. Jesus explains the shift as being from, “he dwells with you,” to “[He] will be in you.” Jesus had alluded to this change concerning the indwelling Spirit earlier in His ministry: “Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified” (John 7:38-39). As Jesus spoke of how the Holy Spirit would one day be residing in the hearts of His people, John explains that such an arrangement was to happen after Jesus was glorified through His death and resurrection. But as soon as Jesus rose from the dead and regathered His disciples, He imparted the Holy Spirit into them: “Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit” (John 20:21-22). As Jesus had stated earlier in His ministry, and promised on the eve of His crucifixion, the proximity of the Holy Spirit went from being near His people to being in them.

The indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit is a distinct feature of the New Covenant: “And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules” (Ezekiel 36:26-27). The Apostle Paul picks up on the reality of the New Covenant as he speaks of the implications of the Spirit taking up residence within believers “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God?” (1 Corinthians 6:19).

What struck you in today’s reading? What questions were prompted from today’s reading?

Pastor Joe