The Holy Spirit Guiding Us into All Truth

"He will guide you into all truth." —John 16:13 [KJV]

Our Lord here gives His disciples a farther exhibition of the covenant of grace, and a fuller display of the grace of the covenant. Here is a full proof of the personality of the Holy Spirit, and also of His sovereignty in His operations and influences upon His members. Christ did not tell His apostles, as some ignorantly talk, "If ye will but be yielding and tractable, and suffer My Spirit to lead you, ye shall enjoy His kind assistance." No: this were to degrade the glory of this divine agent, to exalt the pride of the creature, and render the gracious guidance of the Spirit dependent upon the will of the flesh. As though instead of being the cause of life, He was to be only a mere auxiliary to aid and assist man's pious motions and good dispositions. Far be such thoughts from our hearts. All glory to this heavenly paraclete, "He will work, and who shall let Him?" 

He WILL GUIDE into the whole truth of covenant-love and salvation by Jesus Christ. This is the adorable person the Spirit is to testify of, and to glorify in the sight, heart and affections of His people. The apostles themselves were at this time in much ignorance about, and strong prejudices against many things concerning Jesus. As to the nature of His kingdom, they still dreamed of the grandeur of a temporal one. Their prejudices were great in favor of their own nation, and they thought "God was a respecter of persons:" of Jews above Gentiles; and were very hardly brought to give up the types and shadows, particularly the sign of the covenant-circumcision, as not fully seeing that Jesus the substance was really come, Who is essentially THE TRUTH itself There is no hope for poor guilty sinners but in the truth. 

For when the Lord declares His name to Moses, this is part of it, "I will by no means clear the GUILTY,"—Exodus 34:7. This must be very distressing to sensible sinners. I know one who has found it so. My poor soul has been sadly distressed with this text. But the Spirit teaches that the truth of God is inviolably preserved, while the guilty sinner is perfectly saved in the Lord Jesus, with an everlasting salvation. Jesus stood as our guilty Substitute. The Lord laid all our iniquities upon Him. He suffered as our Surety all the wrath due to our transgressions, "and with His stripes we are healed."—Isaiah 53:5. The reputed guilty died. The real guilty become guiltless. "His blood cleanseth them from all sin,"—1 John 1:7.  God is just while He is the justifier of the ungodly sinner who believes in Jesus. See Romans 3:26. 

Glory to the condescending Lord, who leads us out of the destructive paths of natural pride, self-will, and self-righteousness, "and gives us repentance to the acknowledging of the truth,"—II Timothy 2:25, "that we may be sanctified through the truth."—John 17:17.

-preacher William Mason (1724-1797 A.D.)

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