John 16:14-15

“ He shall glorify me, for He shall take of what is mine and shall announce it to you. 15. All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he takes of mine and shall announce it to you. ”

The asyndeton between John 16:13-14 proves that Jesus only reproduces under a new and more emphatic form in John 16:14 the thought of John 16:12-13. The work of the Spirit introducing the apostles into the truth will be only the increasing glorification of Jesus in their hearts. After the Father shall have exalted Christ personally to glory, the Holy Spirit will cause His celestial image to beam forth from on high into the hearts of the disciples, and, through them, into the hearts of all believers. There is a mysterious exchange here and, as it were, a rivalry of divine humility. The Son labors only to glorify the Father, and the Spirit desires only to glorify the Son. Christ, His word and His work herein is the sole text on which the Spirit will comment in the souls of the disciples. He will, by one and the same act, cause the disciples to grow in the truth and Jesus to grow greater in them. For the understanding of this word glorify, comp. the experience admirably described by St. Paul in 2 Corinthians 3:17-18; 2 Corinthians 4:6.

In designating the source from which the Spirit will draw as that which is mine, Jesus seems to contradict what He has said in John 16:13; at least, if “from the Father” is understood after shall hear. Jesus gives the explanation of this apparent contradiction in John 16:15, by means of the words: “ All that the Father has is mine. ” The Father's treasure is common to Him with the Son. This word reveals, as does no other, the consciousness which Christ had of the greatness of His manifestation. The Christian fact is the measure of the divine for humanity. There is nothing essentially Christian which is not divine; there is nothing divine which does not concentrate and realize itself in the Christian fact. “ Therefore I said ” means here: “Therefore I have been able to say.” The present takes is better attested by documentary evidence (John 16:15) than the future shall take, and it is more in accordance with the present tenses, has, is; the future is a correction in accordance with John 16:14, He takes: it is the present of the idea, designating the permanent function. After the present takes, the future will declare signifies: “and, after having taken, He will announce in each particular case.” Westcott cal s attention to the three: and He will announce to you (John 16:13-15), which form, as it were, a consoling refrain. Thus there is not a real breath of the Spirit which is not at the service of the person of the historic Christ. So St. Paul makes the cry of adoration: “ Jesus Lord! ” the criterion of every true operation of the divine Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:3); comp. also 1 John 4:3. If we recall to mind how the glorifying of the creature constitutes in the Scriptures the capital crime, we shall understand what such words imply with relation to the person of Christ.

All these discourses, and in particular this masculine ἐκεῖνος, he, John 16:14, rest on the idea of the personality of the Holy Spirit. As Weiss says on account of John 15:26: “The Spirit is conceived as a personal manifestation like to that of Christ Himself.”