1 Peter 4.7–11 + John 15.26—16.4
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Jesus promises to send the Helper to the apostles. I mentioned this two weeks ago, but it’s worth recalling that the word translated “Helper” is paraklētos. A paraklētos stands by your side as an advocate, encourager, and guide. This is how the paraklētos whom Christ will send will help the apostles. The paraklētos Christ sends is from God the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father.” Christ promises, not human or created help, but God the Holy Spirit who proceeds from the Father, whom St. Paul calls “the Spirit of His Son” (Gal 4:6) and “the Spirit of Christ” (Rom 8:9). When the Holy Spirit comes upon the apostles, Jesus says, “He will testify of Me.” They also will bear witness of Christ. because they have been with Him from the beginning of His ministry. They will go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature, as Jesus commanded them in Mark 16:15. They will make disciples of all the nations by baptizing and teaching, as Jesus commands them in Matthew 28[:19-20]. For this task they will have the Helper, the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit will give them the words to say and inspire their preaching so that their words are the very words of God Himself. The Holy Spirit will also testify to Christ with signs and wonders, miracles, and various gifts He gives to the apostles. The special gifts the Holy Spirit gives them will confirm the gospel they preach and show that they preach and teach by God’s command and with God’s authority. We will see the first of these special gifts next week when we celebrate Pentecost. Many more afterward will follow, just as Jesus told them in Mark 16, and we see many of them in the book of Acts. Through the miracles the apostles perform, the Helper confirms their teaching so that all who hear it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which also effectively works in you who believe (1 Thess 2:13).
There is another reason Christ promises to send them the Helper. “These things I have spoken to you, that you should not be made to stumble.” Jesus has told them these things about the Helper—the Holy Spirit—because they will be opposed. Even though they go into all the world with the word of God, with the gospel of forgiveness, new life, and eternal salvation, there are forces at work which do not want people to hear of the forgiveness of their sins, the power by which to lead a new and altogether different life, and eternal blessedness. The devil, who was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, who is a liar and the father of it (Jn 8:44), will fight against their preaching of the truth. The world, which hates Christ because He testifies that its works are evil (Jn 7:7), will oppose them as they preach against its works so that people repent and turn to Christ. The sinful flesh of men, which lusts against the Spirit and is enmity against God, will do all it can to silence their message of judgment against sin and salvation through Christ.
Their opposition isn’t just for show. The devil, the world, and the sinful flesh aren’t paper tigers. They will silence the apostles by any means necessary. “They will put you out of the synagogues.” This is more than being asked to leave. It’s excommunication, declaring them to be outside the church and outside salvation as long as they preach that faith in Christ alone justifies sinners before God. The opposition the apostles will face runs deeper though. “Yes,” Jesus says, “the time is coming that whoever kills you will thing that he offers God service.” Those who kill the apostles will imagine that to murder them is God-pleasing worship since they believe them to be excommunicated, heretics cut off from the true Israel of God. Why will they do this? “These things will do to you because they have not known the Father nor Me. They think they know the Father, but they only know an idol, a god who looks, thinks, and acts remarkably like them. Since the apostles’ gospel exposes their religion as idolatry, their piety as false worship, and their good deeds as sins, the apostles must be opposed to the point of death. “But these things I have told you, that when the time comes, you may remember that I told you of them.” It is as if Jesus were saying, “Do not be discouraged when you are opposed. Do not let your faith in Me stumble when they excommunicate you, murder you, and say all kinds of evil against you for My sake. For as it was for Me in this world, so it shall be for you, as well. So that you may not stumble, I send the Helper to you to witness of me.”
This is the apostles’ lot—and comfort—in this world. Ministers who faithfully follow the apostles share in this lot—and comfort—in their lives. Sometimes the world and false church use persecution to silence faithful ministers. They are ejected from congregations and excommunicated by synods for teaching the gospel: that faith alone justifies sinners before God, not any works of our own, nor any justification prior to faith. The world and false church do its best to marginalize faithful ministers so that people shy away from them as if they were spiritual pariahs on the one hand and ignore them as irrelevant on the other. It is as St. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 4:13, “We have been made as the filth of the world, the offscouring of all things until now.” But like the apostles before them, ministers know this may be part of the reward of faithfulness. Ministers must know this because otherwise they would stumble in faith, perhaps never to rise again, at the different forms of opposition, some active, some passive, they must face. Yet there is the promise of Jesus to send the Helper, the Spirit of truth, to bless the ministry—not with signs, wonders, and miracles, by working effectively in those who hear the word.
This is the apostles’ lot—and comfort—in this world. It is the faithful minister of the gospel’s lot—and comfort—in this world. And it is your lot—and comfort—in this world, dear saints. As Christians, members of Christ’s body, you, too, face opposition from the devil, the world, and your own sinful flesh. The devil, you know well, attacks you with all sorts of spiritual temptations to doubt God’s Word so that he may lead you into sin, and then if he succeeds, that he may lead you to despair of God’s mercy, so that, having stumbled, you refuse to rise in repentance and faith, thinking your sin too big for God to forgive. Then there’s the world which calls you ignorant and hateful because you won’t celebrate its sins as the height of virtue and affirm its wickedness as the pinnacle of truth. The world attacks the faith—and those who believe it—hoping to make you stumble in faith, perhaps to the point where you don’t rise again. Then there’s your own flesh, which lusts against the new man—and seeks to grieve the Holy Spirit and drive Him out by willful sinning.
But against all these opponents; against all their tactics and temptations, their leverage and lies, you have the Helper, the paraklētos, God the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit dwells in our hearts and makes us His temples, so that He might testify of Christ to us. He does this by calling to mind the divinely inspired witness of the apostles, whether we have read it or heard it preached. He dwells in us so that we stand against the opposition which the devil, the world, and our own flesh puts up against Christ, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ (2 Cor 10:5). The Spirit of truth dwells in our hearts by faith so that we may stand, as Peter says, serious and watchful in our prayers. The Helper dwells in our hearts by faith to increase His gifts in us, especially the gift of love, so that we have fervent love for one another, for ‘love will cover a multitude of sins,” that is, keeping our minds focused on loving our neighbor and therefore away from sinning, and also bearing with others in love, forgiving their sins against us as they repent. The Helper is given to us so that we may administer the gifts God has given us for the sake of others, so that that might speak to people truthfully and lovingly, and so that we serve one another with the ability which God supplies.
The devil, the world and false church with it, and our sinful flesh will continue to oppose Christ. If we are called to suffer for Christ’s sake, then let us suffer according to His good and gracious will. But whatever we suffer, and whatever Christ’s church suffers, we know beforehand that these things must be, for Jesus has told us beforehand. He has also sent the Helper to dwell in our hearts, so that regardless of the crosses Christ sends, we will not be made to stumble, but to stand. Amen.
May the peace of God which surpasses all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
