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Preparation Of The Apostles
Preparation Of The Apostles
The record of Jesus speaking with His apostles on the night before His crucifixion is recorded in John 14 - 16. Jesus knew what was coming. He knew that He not only would die and be raised again on the third day, but that He was returning to the throne of God. The apostles would be the ones to carry on the work of the kingdom. They would be the proclaimers of the King's law. Under their direction the kingdom would grow into a world-wide people of God. Jesus therefore speaks to them to prepare them for this work. They needed instruction and assurance. They needed to know what God was going to do with them and for them to assure their success.
One of the first rules of bible study is to consider who is speaking and to whom they are speaking. Of course it is Jesus who speaks, but it is to the apostles that He speaks. Some things in these chapters were repeated and applied by the apostles TO disciples in general, but many things were NOT general promises or provisions. Notice in particular: John 14:25-26; 28-31; 15:19; 15:26-27; 16:4-7; 16:12-15; 16:20; 16:22-27; 16:31-33. He speaks of things that He has said while he was with them. He promises that the Holy Spirit would be sent to them. With the coming of the Spirit, He would bring to their remembrance all that Jesus had taught them. The Spirit would also teach them other things and thus lead them into all truth. They would thus be equipped to be witnesses and could testify to what they had seen, heard and experienced with Jesus (1John 1:1-4). They could be witnesses not only of his life and death, but of his resurrection (Acts 1:8) because they had SEEN HIM after He was raised. They were promised that they could ask anything in His name and it would be done for them.
Uniquely particular here are the promises of revelation, inspiration, and the miraculous confirmation of their message. These were NOT general promises to all believers but specific promises to the apostles regarding their work as apostles. One must be careful in trying to make application of the promises in these chapters to ALL disciples. I could only wish that the Spirit would bring to my remembrance all things that Jesus said, it would make preaching much easier. He has provided that through the apostles writings I can KNOW what I need to know but that is different than promising that I would be given miraculous memory of all that Jesus said while on earth. These verses do not involve a special promise of the Spirit's help in our bible study. We are not promised a 'name it and claim it' ability concerning our asking Jesus.
We see some things that are mentioned in these chapters that are applied to disciples. For example the idea that if you love Jesus you will keep His commandments (1 John 2:3-6 and John 14:15, 15:10). We know that such applies to all disciples BECAUSE the apostles so applied it. Much of the rest of these chapters are NOT so applied and do not pertain directly to us. I would urge carefulness and discretion in your study of these chapters.
We do take great joy in knowing how God provided for the apostolic message to be given and the completeness that God intended for it to be. We can rest assured in the accuracy of their statements on what Jesus taught. We can trust their testimony on Jesus being raised from the dead. Hugh DeLong
