1. The word " Comforter." — The word translated " Comforter " is found only in the writings of St. John. You look in vain for it in all other portions of Scripture. We have it four times in the Gospel according to St. John, as coming from the lips of Jesus. We find it once in the First Epistle of St. John (ii. 1). In the Gospel, where the word is used by Christ and is applied to the
* M. D. Babcock, Thoughts for Every-Day Living, 17.
ST. JOHN XIV. 15-17 141
third person of the Trinity, it is translated Comforter; in the Epistle, where it is applied to Jesus, it is translated Advocate. In both instances the word is the same; it is the Divine Paraclete.
^ It was the custom in the ancient tribunals for the parties to appear in court attended by one or more of their most influential friends, who were called in Greek paracletes, in Latin advocatvs. These paracletes, or advocates, gave their friends — not from fee or reward, but from love and interest — the advantage of their personal presence and the aid of their judicious counsel. They thus advised them what to do, what to say, spoke for them, acted on their behalf, made the cause of their friends their cause, stood by them and for them in the trials, difficulties, and dangers of their situation. In this sense our Lord is said by St. John to be our Paraclete — where he says, " We have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous " — One in heaven before God, who appears there on our behalf, patronizes our cause, urges our plea, ever living to " make intercession for us."
While on earth, our Lord had counselled, advised, spoken for, and on behalf of, His disciples. They had looked to Him for aid, succour, comfort, truth, grace; and thus, ever at their side, He had been to them a Paraclete, or Advocate. He had most thoroughly identified Himself with them, had taught them to pray, to preach, to live, to work miracles, and the mysteries of the Kingdom. But He was now to leave them. His bodily form was to be removed. Yet, with a sweetness of compassion peculiarly touching. He says, " I will not leave you comfortless," orphans, undefended, unadvocated, unsustained. " It is expedient for you that I go away : and I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever." ^
^ Many are the emergencies of human life, and many are the forms of help which they require, and all are included in this great comprehensive name. If we wish to distinguish, we may range them in two divisions, the advocacy of our cause before others, the support of companionship to ourselves. When we think of the one office, we speak of an advocate ; when of the other, of a comforter. But the same person will fulfil either office as need requires ; and both are included in the word " Paraclete." Therefore the choice of the English equivalent in any particular case may be dictated by the nature of the occasion and the general feeling of the situation. If so, the Eevisers have
1 W. B. Stevens.
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done well in retaining the old rendering " the Comforter " in the four passages in which "Paraclete" here occurs, as they were plainly right in retaining that of " Advocate " in the only other passage where it is found (1 John ii. 1). The situation pre- sented in the Gospel more naturally suggests the first rendering, while that contemplated in the Epistle certainly prescribes the second.^
2. "Another Comforter." — The word "another" signifies that Jesus Himself was an advocate, helper, paraclete, comforter. But it does not mean that He was now to be superseded, or that, going out of sight, He was also to be out of mind. Scarred with wounds and enthroned as the Head of the Church, He was to be more in His people's minds and hearts, better represented in their lives, than hitherto. For — let us be clear about this — Jesus, and He alone, is our life ; it was He and He alone who bore our stripes and carried our death down into His grave, transfiguring our departure, with whatever distress and humiliation may attend it, into a promotion and home-going. " He that hath the Son hath life." If we can say with a true and thankful heart, " I am Thine own, 0 Christ " ; " My beloved is mine, and I am his " ; " To me to live is Christ," — then we possess the everlasting Life, and will never see Death.
Although Jesus spoke of another Comforter, two facts are clear — the one, that He would continue, and more fully than ever, to be the life of the believing soul and the believing Church ; and the other, that the Holy Spirit would be the vehicle of that life, uniting Christ and the soul, and so bringing it to pass that the Church should not so much mourn an absent Lord as rejoice in a present Spirit.
•jl God forbid that our thoughts should for one moment be turned away from the Lord Jesus Christ Himself as the Incarnate Head of His ransomed Church. It is as His executive that the Holy Spirit acts, and in Him there is nothing approaching to either abdication or desertion. There is no such thing as abdication ; for we are told that God " hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church." Nor is there desertion, for in the self-same chapter in which He gives the promise of another Paraclete He gives also the promise of His own presence in the words, " I will not leave