²⁶ “When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, that is the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify about Me…”

We stand not alone in the quest for truth. God has a vested interest in the march of truth into the blackness of the lie, this fallen world. Even more so today, in our media-driven world which has saturated the human senses with its imagery and imagination, God has incisively injected the truth. Our role is not as partners, or even as channels of truth. Our role, rather, is to testify about the truth, as the next verse tells us. But, what energizes this effort on our part is the effort on God’s part.

Enter the Holy Spirit once again into Jesus’ final words to His disciples in the Upper Room, on the night before He was crucified. His departure, the thought of which was disappointing to the disciples, would usher in His Replacement. The battle for truth would not abate, but the tag-team of the Son and the Spirit would see to it that the truth would prevail. Actually, the Trinity works closely together, and the gates of Hades cannot prevail against the onslaught of the divine Three-fold cord (cp. Eccl 4:12).

Notice that Jesus sends the Helper from the Father. Both the first and the second member of the Trinity send the third member. While the original Nicean Creed says that the Holy Spirit “proceeds from the Father,” some later versions write that the Holy Spirit “proceeds from the Father and the Son.” There is some theological debate as to the Spirit’s accountability to the Father only or also to the Son. The word “proceeds” applies to the action of the Father in sending the Spirit. But it is clear that Jesus “will send” the Spirit. The nuanced subtleties of the difference in these view points is better left to the theologians. But it is clear from this verse that the work of Jesus in sending, the fact that this sending comes from the proximity of the Father’s presence and the clear statement that the Spirit proceeds from the Father, all point to a seamless co-intentionality, reminiscent of Jesus’ earlier statement, “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30).

Of particular note are the contrasting verb tenses of our passage today. At the time Jesus spoke these words, the sending of the Spirit was future (“I will send”). But the action of the Father is depicted using a present tense verb, “proceeds.” This “procession,” as theologians call it, is an eternal, on-going activity. We first see the Holy Spirit in Genesis 1:2, where, “The Spirit of God was moving across the surface of the waters.” Yet the specific action of the Spirit of which Jesus spoke, namely testifying about Jesus, would be future to the time when He spoke these worlds. That would come at the day of Pentecost.

Lord, I believe in You, Father, Son and Spirit–the three-fold Giver of Truth.