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This week’s Abide comes from the passage in the Our Daily Bread devotional for Monday 6th May. It’s John 14:15-21

Sometimes words in the Bible come with baggage – they have a deep, rich meaning attached to them, and the ideas in the Bible all have a backstory.

In the Abide on April 15, we looked at the first half of John 14. We saw the way that paying attention to context can help us engage with a passage. In that episode, we were looking at the situational context of Jesus sharing these words as He’s just hours from the cross.

Today as we look at more of John 14, which describes more of the conversations Jesus had with His disciples the night before His arrest, we’re going to look at what Jesus says in the context of the whole Bible. We’re going to zoom in on John 14:16-17, but also zoom right out to see this passage in light of the whole of Scripture.

So let’s look first at John 14:16-17.

And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.

This passage is incredible. Jesus is saying He’ll ask His Father to give us the Spirit. First of all – how amazing is it that Jesus asks on our behalf? But more than that, He then says His Father – our Father – will gift the Spirit to us. It’s not a request that Jesus submits on our behalf, not knowing whether it’ll be approved or not. It’s not even like a parcel that we know is going to come but is stuck with the status of “pending delivery”. Jesus asks, and the Father gives.

And what is the Spirit? It’s God’s very Spirit – it is God Himself, His presence in us. And this astonishing truth has a backstory that comes with a whole heap of meaning attached to it – and we’re going to see that it’s not a new idea in the Bible at all – it’s actually the fulfilment of God’s promise from generations before.

Now, let’s zoom right out, and look at the overarching story of the Bible for a minute.

In the beginning, God dwelt with Adam and Eve. He walked in the garden with them, He spoke with them. But when they disobeyed Him, they were cast out of God’s presence, and the rest of the Old Testament almost answers the question “Will God ever dwell with His people again?”

We see that He does, in various ways, as the Bible unfolds, through the pillar of cloud or fire in the desert, and then the Temple when it’s built. But we also see that one of God’s prophets talks of the future new covenant. Ezekiel 37 tells us that God says “I will put my spirit in you, and you will live” (Ezekiel 37:14) It goes on to say how God will put His dwelling place with us, and we will be His people.

As we fast forward to the New Testament, we see that God in His Son has come to dwell with us. In John chapter 1 we’re told that the Word – Jesus Christ, Son of God, became flesh and made His dwelling among us. (John 1:14) And as we keep moving through the New Testament, we see Paul writing in 1 Corinthians 6 that our body is a temple of the Holy Spirit.

But this promise of the Spirit, of God dwelling with us, has an even greater sense of fulfilment as we reach the very end of the Bible. Revelation 21:3 tells us of the promised future where God will dwell with us, and we with Him – not just in a spiritual sense, as His Spirit dwells with us now – but in a real, physical sense in the New Heavens and New Earth. That day, when God dwells forever with His people, is the day the whole Bible is looking forward to – and it’s a plan that God is slowly but surely working towards.

What a day that will be!

So, when looking at the whole-Bible context, this promise of God dwelling in and with us isn’t just some nice biblical knowledge to tuck away in our minds. It means something wonderful for us today.

When we looked at the first part of John 14 and saw that the disciples were facing the prospect of life without the physical presence of Jesus with them anymore, Jesus says that even though He’s going to another place to be with His Father, His presence – the presence of God – will be with them by the Spirit.

And today, that means for you and I, God is dwelling with us at this very moment.

He’s a God who keeps His promise – He dwells with us. And because His Spirit dwells in us, we’re never alone. He’s there with us in our laughter, in our tears, in our pain, and our joy. We can echo the words of David in the Psalms that “even though we walk through the darkest valley, we will fear no evil, because God is with us” (Psalm 23:4)

This is incredible news if you’re facing uncertainty or trouble like the disciples were. They were scared about what would happen next without Jesus around. But Jesus comforts them with the promise that God, by His Spirit, would be with them, always. They will never be alone.

And what good news is that?