John 15-16
One of the most haunting scenes to me in the Gospel of John is when Jesus stands before Pilate awaiting judgment and says that he came into the world to testify to the truth. Pilate, frustrated by Jesus’ unwillingness to exonerate himself, says cynically, What is truth?
I guess I have always been drawn to this passage because I want to know the truth: the truth about the way the world works; the truth about myself and other people; the truth about God. I long for knowledge and wisdom that lasts.
In the Gospel today, Jesus gives his disciples Truth—he himself is the truth. Jesus famously said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. To know Jesus IS to know the Father. To know Jesus is also to know the world, to shine a light on it and to see it as it is.
But Jesus also promised that when he was gone, we would send the Advocate, whom he called the Spirit of truth. The word translated as Advocate in the Greek is parakletos, and it is a term that comes from the courtroom. The parakletos is “a legal advocate who makes the right judgment-call because they are close enough to the situation” (Strong’s Concordance). As such, parakletos is often translated as advocate, or intercessor. But it can also be translated as consoler, comforter, and helper. The parakletos is the one who stands beside you not only as a defender and helper, but also the one who reveals the truth. And the Spirit of truth that Jesus leaves with his disciples is uniquely designed to continue the unveiling process that Jesus began. Jesus the light revealed God’s work on earth and the Spirit of truth continues to declare God’s purposes, to reveal God’s glory, and to guide God’s people into the truth.
We have a personal witness today about how the Spirit of truth speaks from Billy Heaning. I give him to you now, that you may find connection in his story that the Spirit may speak truth into your life, as the Spirit has spoken truth to Billy:
“I became a Christian back in eighth grade. I had a crush on a girl on the school bus, and she invited me to go to church with her, so, of course, I said yes. Since I was the only person in my immediate family who ever went to church on a regular basis, I didn’t have the familial guidance like many others did. There was no one at home encouraging me to read my Bible or pray—I was learning everything on my own.
I received my first Bible in sixth grade, and I tried to read it. Everyone said, ‘Start with John,’ so I did. I remember reading the first chapter and imagining Jesus being beamed down to Earth like in ‘Star Trek.’ I had no context outside of my own imagination. Back then I didn’t even realize the baby in the manger was the same guy hanging on the cross! You can imagine what my mind conjured up when I read Revelations for the first time as a youth…
The church the girl took me to was a Pentecostal church. She asked me, “Have you ever been to a Pentecostal church?” I told her, “I’ve only been to a Catholic church a few times as a kid,” and she said, “Oh. Ok. Our services are a little different.”
What an understatement. It was like going to a rock concert. People were jumping up and down, running around the pews, shouting, hooting. I don’t think the preacher even started preaching until 30 or 40 minutes after the singing started.
Back then, churches gave ‘altar calls.’ They were always at the end of the service. Every church in the south did them. The preacher would say something like, ‘You don’t know what today may bring. You could step outside those doors and get hit by a car going home. Now is the time, here is the place to get right with God.’ Thankfully I never came to the altar out of fear. When my time came, my heart was swelled with love and emotion and happiness and delight. It was truly a moment I will never forget. I had, indeed, become a Christian.
Sometimes I can get long-winded when reminiscing, so I’ll keep this as concise as possible. In our youth group, there was always a debate: could you lose your salvation? At the church I was going to, they believed you surely could lose your salvation. They called it ‘backsliding.’ It was a big deal in our church. But back then, it didn’t make sense to me. Why would God give you a gift, only to take it away?
Without getting into the dogma or concepts of ‘once saved, always saved,’ their views left me rattled. How did I know I was really saved, then? I prayed the sinner’s prayer, I believed in Jesus’ sacrifice, I invited him into my heart.
The first half of my high school years, I spent every night hunched over my bed, going over every possible sin I could’ve committed that day, begging God to forgive me. I prayed and read Psalm 51 aloud so many times, I could recite it from memory. It became so all-consuming and overwhelming that I thought that if I had any single bad thoughts and then a car hit me, I’d die and go to Hell.
Then one day, sometime around my sophomore year in college, I read a few verses in Romans that settled the matter once and for all. After reading it, and re-reading it, and re-re-reading it, it became my favorite Bible verse of all time.
Romans 8:37-39. ‘No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the Love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.’
To me, these verses mean that if our hearts truly belong to God, then there is absolutely nothing in this entire universe that can separate Him from us. Of course, this doesn’t mean we can do whatever we want, act however we want, or say whatever we want carte blanche, but it does mean that whenever I make a mistake, whenever I sin, whether knowingly or not, that I know God will always love me, will always want me to ‘come home’ to him, and will never, ever abandon or forsake me. Amen.”