October 9, 2020 (Friday)
JOHN 14:15-18 KJV:If ye love me, keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.
Many folks are trying to make sense of the troubled world that we live in. There is so much unrest on the world stage and so much fear. The world does not know God and cannot see His mighty hand at work in the earth. But you and I, who know the Lord, know that Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to comfort and counsel us. He is not only beside us; He is within us. He comforts us and through Him we can feel the very presence of God.
The word translated, “Comforter,” is Parakletos, commonly brought into English as Paraclete, which is the word Jesus used to describe the work of the Holy Spirit. It is a combination of two words which are literally translated as “one called along side.”
Clarke’s Commentary explains:
The word παρακλητος signifies not only a comforter, but also an
advocate, a defender of a cause, a counsellor, patron, mediator.
Christ is thus termed, 1 John 2:1, where the common translation
renders the word advocate. Christ is thus called, because he is
represented as transacting the concerns of our souls with God;
and for this cause, he tells us, he goes unto the Father, John 14:12.
The Holy Spirit is thus called, because he transacts the cause
of God and Christ with us, explains to us the nature and importance
of the great atonement, shows the necessity of it, counsels us to
receive it, instructs us how to lay hold on it, vindicates our
claim to it, and makes intercessions in us with unutterable
groanings. As Christ acted with his disciples while he sojourned
with them, so the Holy Spirit acts with those who believe in his
name.
The hymn, “The Comforter Has Come,” was written in 1890 by Francis
Bottome and the music was by William J. Kirkpatrick. After emigrating
to America, Bottome became a Methodist Episcopal minister in 1850.
Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, awarded him an honorary
Doctor of Divinity degree in 1872.
You and I are invited by a dedicated Christian lady in Australia to
accompany her as she goes driving in her own country and her thoughts
go back to this grand old hymn.