The Greek word for comforter is “parakletos,” meaning “come alongside.” John 14:16 says, “And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever.”
Jordan says, “Notice it says He shall give you ANOTHER Comforter. The Comforter when He comes is going to replace one who was already there. Who was that? The Lord Jesus Christ. He said, ‘If I go away, He’ll replace me.’ So who did the Comforter replace? The Holy Spirit is given His own personal office--His own personal ID--that only a person could fill.
“If Jesus Christ was a person and another Comforter came along to stand beside, what would that mean? By the way, I John 2 says, ‘We have an advocate with the Father.’ The word ‘advocate’ literally means to stand beside. It’s the same idea. The Stand Besider. In law, the advocate comes to stand beside his client.
“The Holy Spirit is going to take the place of a person. You see, he’s not a force; he’s a person. And the pronouns that are used here, over and over, He’s called a ‘he.’ Somebody says, ‘Well, what about Romans 8:16 where it calls Him an ‘it’? People say, ‘Ooh-ooh, denying the personality of the Holy Spirit.’ You know, you ought to just go sit down for a little while and cool your jets when you start talking like that because that’s just so silly.
“While there’s some technical reasons in the translation for using ‘it,’ it’s interesting in Romans 8:27 he swaps over and says ‘he.’ So the pronouns are pretty clear that you’re expecting a person to be involved in this.
“Now when you have personality you have the ability to have certain types of characteristics. You have knowledge, will, the ability to have emotions. I Corinthians 2:10 says, ‘But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.’
“Notice the Spirit of God has knowledge, the ability to search knowledge,
the ability to teach and reveal knowledge. That’s all characteristics of a person. By the way, He can SPEAK when He reveals the knowledge. Revelation 2 talks about the words that the Spirit spoke unto them. Galatians 4:6 says, ‘And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.’
“It’s that spirit of sonship but He SPEAKS. In Romans 8 we read that He makes ‘intercession for the saints.’ Well, that’s something a person does! In verse 34, you see the Lord Jesus Christ at the right hand of God making intercession. The same characteristics that are identified as true of Jesus are identified as true of the Holy Spirit.
“Romans 15:30 says, ‘Now I beseech you, brethren, for the Lord Jesus Christ's sake, and for the love of the Spirit, that ye strive together with me in your prayers to God for me.’
“Notice there are some things that the Spirit loves. He has the capacity to love things. He’s a person. That’s why He can be grieved. That’s why He can have these things happen to Him because of His personality. He does the things that PEOPLE do. He intercedes, He gives testimony, He bears witness, He teaches and He’s a person outside of the Father and the Son. He’s a person but He’s also a distinct member of the godhead.
“Jesus Christ and God the Holy Spirit have always existed and here He is before all things and by Him all things consist. He’s outside of creation. He was there before there was any creation. When it says that ‘by him were all things made,’ there’s one of the modern translations that says ‘all OTHER things were made.’ But that’s not what it said. There’s no other there. If He made everything then every part of creation is different from Him because He was there before creation and all of creation He made. Now if He is not eternally, absolutely God, then somewhere along the line He was made and you couldn’t say that He made all things if He was made. So that’s a great verse.
“Paul when he wrote this wasn’t trying to teach the issues of the deity of Christ; he assumes that, just as we do. He’s teaching the ramifications of it but you don’t want to miss the fact that it’s there.
“ ‘And he is the head of the body, the church.’ The reason He’s made the head of the body, and the key there, is that in all things He can have preeminence. Not just the things in the earth but the things in heaven too.
“ ‘Admired in all them that believe.’ There’s an issue of what we do now and how our conduct now affects the admiration He gains through us out there. That’s what verse 11’s talking about. ‘Worthy of this calling.’
“Notice He’s praying for them that God would count them worthy. Now when you count something worthy, you identify it and approve it for something.
“The calling is not salvation. What people do in theology is they take these terms out of the Bible and apply them and put theological meanings to them and they get them all messed up.
“The calling is what happens when you are saved. In Christ you have a calling, which is what God is doing with the Body of Christ. Why did He form it? What did He intend for it to do?
“For some members of the Body of Christ there’s going to be a different level of admiration than for others and there’s this privileged status that’s going to be awarded to us for Christ’s sake--not us but for Him for how much of our lives is filled up with him!
“How much of the activity in your life . . . At the Judgment Seat of Christ, you’re not going to face your sins—the Cross took care of them. You’re never going to have to face God with your failure and have to deal with that. The Cross takes care of the guilt and ALL the payment for everything.
“As a child of God and a saint of the most high God, as one who was ‘created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them,’ how much time did you focus on in your life on being who we are in Christ?
“When you get to the Judgment Seat of Christ, all the time you were walking after the flesh--walking in your own way, walking in denomination or religious tyranny or performance or whatever (something other than it being Christ in you living through you) . . . in essence when you get there and you go through it, you’re going to come out on the other side with just a blank in those areas. Empty places.
“And what you lose, as detailed in I Corinthians 3, is the reward that you could have had by having your life filled up with Him. Well, if you fill your life up now, do you get a reward now from that? Whoa, listen, you have the privilege, as Philippians 1 says, ‘Not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake.’ Paul said, ‘That I may know him and the fellowship of his suffering.’
“You learn an intimacy with the Lord and an appreciation of His grace, and there are some rewards right now in your personal fellowship with the Lord, your personal maturity and your growing and you’re able to be comforted with the comfort of God.
“The being counted worthy here has to do with the reigning that we’ll have, the functioning that we’ll have with Him in the ages to come. If we suffer with Him now, we reign with Him then. So when you go to the Judgment Seat of Christ, you’re not going to face your sins in the sense of the guilt and shame and payment, but you certainly will be accountable for the way you used your life.
“I’ve always loved that verse in I Peter 3:4 where he says, ‘Let’s let the time of the past suffice for the works of the flesh.’ The works of the flesh are a waste of your life in time.
“You come away from here with the reward; with the status and the capacity of serving Him. It’s the capacity for Him to be admired in all them that believe. Verse 11. We sing that song, ‘It will be worth it all when we see Jesus.’
"And when you see Him get glorified and admired in all the saints, then you’ll say, ‘Wow, it certainly is!’ And it’s that work of faith with power."
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