Deeper Commentary

15:1- see on Lk. 13:8.

I am the true vine and my Father is the husbandman- The Lord Jesus in John’s Gospel describes Himself in terms of the “I am…” formula. Each time, He was referring back to the burning bush revelation of Yahweh as the “I am”; and by implication, the Lord’s audience are thereby placed in the position of Moses, intended to rise up in response as he did. This parable is in the direct context of the promise of the Spirit. This is expressed here as the Father's constant activity as our husbandman, seeking to elicit spiritual fruit from us. And likewise our partaking in the vine means that we receive the sap, representing the Spirit, without which we are "none of His" are dead, unable to bring forth fruit.

The parable of the vine is within the context of the Lord's teaching about the gift of His Spirit, and the need to let that abide in them. So we can deduce that the central thrust of the parable is the need to be in the vine, so that the sap [representing the Spirit] may be in us. Without abiding in the source of that sap, we are nothing.

We notice the juxtaposition of ideas- the "I am" of the Yahweh Name is placed next to the description of the Father as "the husbandman", literally, 'the worker of the land', one of the lowest jobs, nearly always performed by a slave or servant. We see the humility of God; none of the false gods of the Gentiles had this feature of humility. But perhaps we are intended to put this parable together with that of the wicked husbandmen. The owner of the vineyard [God] sent His servants and then His Son, but the husbandmen [s.w. six times in Mt. 21] rejected them. He then destroyed the vineyard. And perhaps we are supposed to take that parable further- and conclude that the owner does the work of the husbandmen, so short is He of good workers, because the other husbandmen are not much better than the Jewish ones. He does the menial work Himself, because He is so passionately connected to His vineyard project. Even though the absentee landlord is initially set up to evoke images of someone distant and disinterested- which is how many see God. But putting these parables together, we see that this is but an initial impression. Closer investigation shows that He actually has a passionate interest in His special project of the vineyard, and fruit within it.

"The true vine" suggests that the community in view is the true one compared to a false one; and the false vine was the community of Israel: "Thou hast brought a vine out of Egypt and planted it in this land" (Ps. 80:8). That vine had not brought forth good fruit and so had been cut down (Mt. 3:8). But the parable makes clear that the new vine, Jesus, still has the possibility of being fruitless and suffering judgment. Membership in a community had been replaced by membership or, better, relationship, with and in a person- the Lord Jesus. That same move is part of every conversion- from 'religious membership' to personal relationship. 

In this parable, the mediation of the Spirit is envisaged as being provided collectively, to the whole vine. If we opt out of realistic mixing with each other, we are effectively resigning from Christ. For He is His brothers and sisters. He didn’t say ‘I am the trunk and you are the branches’, He said ‘I am the vine, and you are the branches’. We are Him, His body. Our attitude to our brothers and sisters is our attitude to Him. We cannot claim to love God if we don’t love our brother. It’s as simple as this.  

The Father is the husbandman, and is noted for His long patience in waiting "for the precious fruit" (James 5:7). Every bit of spiritual development is so precious to Him. To hinder it by our attitude to others, or enforcing situations which are going to limit the development of spirituality in others, is deeply displeasing to God and frustrating of His purpose and work for people.

The same word is used by the Lord in the synoptics concerning the parable of the husbandmen in Mt. 21; Mk. 12 and Lk. 20. This is surely John's take on that parable. The Jewish husbandmen had failed to develop fruit for the Father, and had been replaced by other husbandmen. But ultimately, the owner of the vineyard also becomes the husbandman. He is manifested through our efforts to be husbandmen. If we consciously seek to develop spiritual fruit in others then we will experience God's especial blessing and empowerment of our efforts.

15:2- see on 2 Cor. 4:4.

Every branch in me that carries no fruit, he prunes away- This is powerful warning that it is possible to appear as "in Christ" by status, perhaps by baptism, and yet bear no fruit. Perhaps the difference is between simply being "in Christ", and "abiding in" Him, which alone will bring fruit. And it is bearing the fruit of the Spirit which is therefore critically important. Only at the day of judgment is the branch finally pruned to the point of being cut off and burnt. Until then, fruitless branches are allowed to remain- in hope that the vinedresser may coax them into life. The Lord's approach is a stark contrast to those who want to cut off fruitless branches from the church in this life. To lament a lack of 'fruit worthy of repentance' and therefore cut someone off is in fact not what we read here. Such fruitless branches get special attention. And only after the dormant period of Winter [cp. death] are they then cut off and destroyed. And of course it is God, through the Lord Jesus (the vinedresser of Lk. 13), who does the pruning away, and not us. Our focus is to be upon our personal fruitfulness. In viticulture, the pruning of apparently dead branches is to avoid the tendency of vines to grow longer, larger and more leafy branches- at the expense of fruitfulness. We can easily perceive that God's activity in our lives is geared towards our fruitfulness, and to prevent us from merely external appearances. 

"Prune" is literally 'to lift up'. First century vineyards allowed the branches of the vine to run along the ground, or to be lifted up on trellises, or cross-bars. So the same word for "prune" is translated "take up" or "carry" in "take up his cross..." (Mt. 16:24; 27:32). The idea is not as in AV to 'take away' in destruction. That comes later, when at the day of judgment, the fruitless branch is cut off and thrown into the fire. The connections with crucifixion may suggest that the Father works in order to bring the fruitless believer into closer identity with the cross of Jesus.

 

And every branch that carries fruit, he cleanses it, that it may bear more fruit- The removed branch which was not cleansed refers initially to Judas, who had now left them, as he was the one of them who was not clean / cleansed (13:10). Bearing the fruit of the Spirit is absolutely essential; Paul puts it another way when he writes that if we have not the Spirit of Christ, we are "none of His". The Lord Jesus here speaks of how we as shoots on the vine tree are either ‘cut off’ in rejection, or ‘trimmed / purged’ to be more fruitful. There is a paranomasia here in the Greek text [i.e. a play on similar sounding verbs]- airein and kathairein. The point being that the purging process works through condemning oneself now; by going through the realization of our condemnation now, we are thereby purged so that we avoid condemnation at the day of judgment.

"Cleanses" is the word used in Jn. 13:10,11 to describe how the 11 disciples were 'cleansed', but Judas was not. Always in these upper room discourses, Judas is ever being alluded to. He was the branch which was not cleansed because he had no fruit, and was finally broken off. He was the one who did not abide in Christ, but walked out into the darkness. In one sense, abiding in Christ means to stick with Him and not walk out on Him. Which is all easier said than done.

In viticulture, the branches that are fruitful are pruned in order that after the Winter dormancy period [cp. death], they will be more fruitful next season. I suggested above that the unfruitful branches are lifted up, or trellised; and now He refers to the trimming of the fruitful branches. But the most severe trimming or  pruning is done after the harvest, after which the vine becomes dormant, and then as it were resurrects into new life in the Spring. So the Lord may be saying that the fruitless will be harvested and pruned at their death, and then in the resurrection, their fruitfulness will be again considered. If then there is no sign of fruit, they are cut off the vine and burnt / destroyed. Another take on this is that the Lord is speaking to the disciples just before His own death. He is urging them to "abide" in Him through that time of dormancy, and emerge into an eternal Spring of fruitfulness at His resurrection.

The fruit to be produced is the fruit of the Spirit- which is all internal attributes, elicited by the sap / Spirit: "The fruit of the Spirit (that which the Spirit produces) is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, self-control" (Gal. 5:22,23). Nine qualities gathered as one cluster, just as on a grapevine.

As also to be noted on the parable of the vineyard in Isaiah 5, God does all He can to ensure that we have an optimal environment for bearing spiritual fruit. So often we complain that if only we were in this or that situation, then we would bear more fruit. But He knows best. The cleansing, spoken of in this Upper Room context, must be understood in the context of the Lord's washing of the disciples' feet, whereby they were cleansed, but not all (13:10); for Judas was not cleansed internally. His comment that feet needed regularly washing may refer to some regular cleansing by the Lord, of which He again speaks here. 'Cleansing' may refer to internal cleansing of the heart; the pure / cleansed in heart (Mt. 5:8), those cleansed "within" (Mt. 23:6), and the internal work of cleansing the heart and conscience is that of the Spirit, operating within the heart of believers.

15:3 Already you are clean because of the word which I have spoken to you- How does the Lord's word cleanse? It is inadequate to suppose that by reading the whole Bible, we are somehow internally cleansed. The same word is used in 13:10 of how they had been cleansed, but not all- for Judas was excepted. Yet he had heard the word, as spoken words- but was not cleansed. As ever in John, the prologue helps us toward understanding. "The word was made flesh", and was "in the beginning" of His ministry, and "was God". The reference is not to all the recorded statements of the Lord Jesus, as if we are to read and recite all the red letter words in a New Testament and thereby be cleansed by the exercise. I have suggested elsewhere that the Gospel records were indeed intended to be memorized. But "the word" is the Lord Jesus as a person, in the flesh, as the personality which was the sum total of all His words, miracles, work, personality and character. The word of John 1 was the light of men, in which they should live. Logos, "word", like rhema, is used to translate the Hebrew dabar. These terms, however, are used to refer not just to words, but to actions and persons. Dabar is used to refer to far more than spoken words; but to things and causes. When the Lord speaks of "My word", He means not simply His recorded statements, but He Himself, the summary of all His being and personhood. "The acts [dabar] of David" (1 Chron. 29:29) means not simply his words, but his acts and whole life story. "The things [dabar] which your eyes have seen" (Dt. 4:9) referred not to words heard, but to experience; and this is a common usage, speaking of event as a "word". In Hebraic thought, a 'word' is a thing done and not merely words as in lexical items. "The Lord was angry with me for your sakes [dabar]" (Dt. 4:21) doesn't refer to words so much as to the sake or cause of a person. The Lord's "word" must be understood in this Hebraic sense, far wider than simply His recorded speech as it stands in the Gospels. This is why He speaks of "My word[s]"; the word / logos / dabar which was Him. His reference is not to the words of God in the Bible, but to the word which was Him. Dt. 26:17 records that Israel had chosen Yahweh to be their King; but the Targum on this says that they had appointed the word / logos of God to be their king. The logos of a person is them, with all their actions and events; and thus the word of the Lord Jesus refers to He Himself, just as "the word was God" in the prologue.

We therefore at this point note the singular, "word", not "words" as we would expect if His utterances were in view. References in the plural to His "words" may well be an example of the Hebrew plural of majesty- the one great word / logos, which in John's writing can be none other than the Lord personally. We are cleansed by Him, by His blood, His work, and His sacrifice of a uniquely perfect life. The association of cleansing with His sacrifice is a common New Testament theme.

"Now you are clean...", in the context of viticulture, may be an allusion to how after three years, the fruit of vines was "holy" (Lev. 19:23,24). And the Lord was speaking after the third year of ministry with them.

15:4 Abide in me and I in you- The idea of 'abiding' is so common. The preceding verse has spoken of how they are 'clean'; and yet the Lord has made the point in Jn. 13 that they were all clean, apart from Judas, who went out into the night. To abide is therefore to not go out into the night. Sinlessness is not therefore in view. Rather the sense of overall location and self-perception is to be "in Christ". Abiding in the Lord Jesus is also definable as allowing Him to "abide in you" through His Spirit.

As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine, so neither can you, except you abide in me- The Lord’s common Upper Room theme of ‘abiding’ in Him uses the same word as Moses used when exhorting his people to ‘cleave unto’ God (Dt. 10:20; 11:22 LXX). This abiding involved loving God and keeping His commandments- all ideas which occur together in Dt. 13:4; 30:20. The branch can only bear fruit if it receives the sap which is in the whole tree. This sap represents the Spirit, which is why this parable is found wedged in between the promises of the indwelling of the Comforter. Abiding in the Lord means Him abiding in us, which He does through the gift of the Spirit in our hearts (1 Jn. 3:24 etc.). The disciples were going to be tempted to turn away from the Lord; but He urges them to abide, because there can be no fruit of the Spirit on us unless the Spirit abides in us and brings forth those fruits. This is also a vital perspective on the claim that non-Christians produce spiritual fruit. The fruit brought forth by the Spirit, spiritual fruit, is indeed just that; and unless we are abiding in the vine, in the Lord Jesus, and He in us, then we simply cannot bring forth the fruit of the Spirit. It is no good being near the vine, associated with it... we have to have the spirit of Christ, in order to bear fruit. To abide in the vine is therefore to remain under the influence of His Spirit. "The fruit of the Spirit" is brought forth by the Spirit. We can therefore never overstate the case for a Spirit-based approach to practical Christian living. This is the emphasis of the Bible, and any approach which devalues the ministry of the Spirit is simply missing the point of the essence of Christianity. The vine cannot bear fruit "of itself"- a sober warning against all ideas that we can force ourselves to bring forth the fruit of the Spirit. We may think we have brought forth love or peace, but this is not the fruit of the Spirit unless it has been brought forth of the Spirit and not of ourselves. And yet there is an interplay between the work of the Spirit on the one hand, and human volition on the other. For the fruit is all the same called "your fruit" (:16).

The man under the Old Covenant who made his offering of, e.g. an ox, at a place other than at "the door of the tabernacle of the congregation" was viewed as having shed blood and therefore was to be cut off from the congregation (Lev. 17:3,4). The Law foresaw that there would be this tendency, to worship God away from the rest of the congregation. Those who did so were condemned in the strongest terms: their sacrifice of an animal was seen as the murder of their brother, whereas they would have seen it as an expression of their righteousness. "He that kills an ox is as if he slew a man" (Is. 66:3) refers back to this, making it parallel with idolatry and proudly refusing to let God's word dwell in the heart.

15:5 I am the vine, you are the branches. He that abides in me and I in him, the same carries much fruit. For severed from me you can do nothing- He is the whole tree; He doe not say that He is the trunk, and we the branches. To leave the tree is to leave Him; and He is His body, the entire community of believers. And severed from me, He said, you can do nothing, in spiritual terms. Much as some think they can. And in the end, like a slow cancer, the brother or sister who was offended by whatever, will eventually die in that they leave the vine of Christ. It is from the body of Jesus that there comes nurture and nourishment, supplied by every member of the body (Eph. 4:16). And we, all of us, are the body of Christ. To cut ourselves off from it, formally or informally, openly or deep within our hurt hearts, is to deprive ourselves of the nourishment which He is willing to give through our brethren. And likewise to try to exclude others from it is serious indeed; for so many who are disfellowshipped or excluded then fall away from true spirituality. It follows from this figure that not all our brethren are no good. There’s a lot of goodness out there- those who give up lands, houses, parents etc. for the Lord’s sake will find within His ecclesia a hundredfold of these things. But we will only share in these things if we are willing to look at the positive side in our brethren. For in many things we also offend others. Yet we know well enough we basically are sincere and willing to give to others. And as we expect others to relate to that good side in us, so we should to others. Nobody in the brotherhood is totally, purely evil- at least, seeing we cannot judge in that sense, we should not think that of any. We have to assume that each of our brethren is secured in Christ, and will be in the Kingdom. They have the Christ-man formed in them, however immaturely.

"Severed from me" is as AV "without Me", the same phrase as in Jn. 1:3, "without him", the Word made flesh, the Lord Jesus, "nothing was made / created". The connection is to demonstrate that spiritual fruit is in fact the creation of the Lord Jesus; for He is the vinedresser, on God's behalf. We cannot take a day off work in order to develop our love or our patience, there is no button on our head that we must press in order to change. The new creation, the fruit on the branches, is of His creation- although it requires our openness to His work.

15:6- see on Mt. 13:6; Rev. 14:10.

If a man does not abide in me, he is thrown out as a branch and withers, and these are gathered and thrown into the fire, and they are burned- The language of branches being severed from the vine is used in Romans 11 about how God can do this in judgment. But it is He who can do this, and not us. We are the branches, not the husbandman. Those who choose not to abide in the Lord shall wither. In the primary context, the Lord had Israel in view, the fig tree which "withered" and would then have to be burnt (s.w. Mt. 21:19). The Lord had this figure in view when He spoke soon afterwards, on the way to the cross, of Israel as a withered tree about to be burnt up in AD70 (Lk. 22:31).

But Israel then, as many today, are living out their own condemnation; they will be "thrown out" or [s.w.] "cast away" at the final judgment (Mt. 13:48; Lk. 14:35) in response to their conscious decision not to remain in the Lord, in the vine; and refusing the sap of the Spirit. It is they rather than the Lord who have chosen their fate. 

The last day is the time of breaking off and burning; but Romans 11 says that the Jewish branches have already been broken off, and the Gentiles grafted in. However, Romans 11 speaks of an olive tree, not a fig tree. And a different word for "branch" is used. I suggest that the two teachings are not to be confused. Unless we conclude that Jewish branches were "broken off" ahead of time because they totally refused to be part of the true vine; but fruitless branches who are "in Christ" but fruitless, He works with; and they will only finally be cut off at the last day.  

 

15:7 My words- see on Job 22:27,28.

If you abide in me and my words abide in you, you shall ask whatever you will and it shall be done to you- I have suggested elsewhere that the Lord's "words" refer not so much to His recorded statements, those printed in red letters in some Bibles; but rather to the whole essence of His being and personality. For He was "the word made flesh", as the prologue states (1:14). The reference is not to the entire Bible, but specifically to the words of the Lord Jesus. If He abides in us, we will ask what we will, and it will be done. Yet only if we ask according to God's will can we receive our requests (Jn. 15:7 cp. 1 Jn. 5:14). The implication is that if the word that is Him dwells in us, our will becomes that of the Father, and therefore our requests, our innermost desires, are according to His will, and are therefore granted. It is by the Spirit that He abides in us (1 Jn. 3:24). His Spirit, His word, His way of thinking, is His will, which is the Father's will. If we have Him within, then our will shall be the Father's, and we will intuitively ask for only what we know is His will. We will not as it were be guessing, asking for lists of things in the hope that we shall hit on some points where our will and His coincide.

 In our age, the Bible is indeed a valuable source for growing in knowledge of His will. The word of the Gospel becomes “united by faith with them that hear it” (Heb. 4:2 RVmg.). Through the medium of our response to God’s word, our will becomes united with His. Therefore the word was what directed and motivated David's regular daily prayers (Ps. 119:164); they weren't standard repetitions of the same praises or requests, but a reflection of his Biblical meditation. He asks God to hear his prayers because He keeps God’s word (Ps. 119:145,173). He asks God to hear his voice in prayer, using the very same words with which he reflects upon how he heard God's voice as it is in His written word. He even goes so far as to draw a parallel between God and his own “reins” or inner self- both of them “instruct me” (Ps. 16:7). His inner self was so absorbed into the reality of God. He asks God to hear his voice in prayer, using the very same words with which he reflects upon how he heard God's voice as it is in His written word. In successful prayer, therefore, our will merges with that of the Father. His will becomes our will; and vice versa. By this I mean that our will can become His will in that He will hear us and even change His declared will [Moses several times achieved this during the course of his prayer life]; prayer really does change things. Our will becomes God’s just as His becomes ours. There is an awesome mutuality between a man and his God as he kneels at night alone, praying and asking for the very things which are now God’s will.

15:8- see on Jn. 12:23-26.

Herein is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit; and so shall you be my disciples- They were fearful that the Lord was going away, and they were being left "orphans", pupils without a Rabbi. But the promise of the Spirit means that He will be present with us just as much, and even moreso, than when He was physically present as their teacher. He envisaged them, and all believers, continuing to be disciples, and Him through the Spirit being their continued teacher. The "fruit" in view is what Paul later terms "the fruit of the Spirit", the fruit brought forth by the Spirit, through our allowing the Lord to operate in us. It is the Father's will that we should bear much fruit, because it glorifies Him; and this is the end result of all the Lord's teaching, and of our being His disciples. We may think that if only our life situation were different, then we would be the more spiritually fruitful. But the Lord is clear that it is the Father's will, and His will, that we should be fruitful. As taught in the parable of the vineyard of Isaiah 5, all has in fact been done to provide us with an optimal environment in which to bring forth fruit.

The Father is glorified in our fruit bearing; but it is a major theme of John that it is the cross of Christ which brings glory to Him. The connection is in the fact that a true response to the principles of the cross brings forth true spiritual fruit. The glory of God is His Name and the characteristics associated with it; and we will bear these if we respond to the spirit of the cross. In this sense the Lord Jesus could say that through His death, He would be glorified in us (Jn. 17:10). By beholding and perceiving His glory on the cross, we glorify Him (Jn. 17:24,10).

We may be correct to connect the Lord's theme of fruit on the vine with His comment at the last supper, that He would only drink the fruit of the vine with us at His return (Mt. 26:29). The harvest of the vine will therefore be at the Lord's return, even though we bring forth some fruit now; that is the time when Israel as the vine shall fill the face of the earth with fruit. Now, we are being pruned and cleansed towards that final harvest. And the Lord Jesus, presented in the parable of LK. 13 as the vinedresser of His people, will eternally enjoy the results of His labour.

15:9 Even as the Father has loved me, I also have loved you. Abide in my love- Abiding is achieved through the Spirit abiding within us (1 Jn. 3:24); it is through the gift of the Spirit accepted within our hearts that His love is shed abroad within our hearts (Rom. 5:5). We abide in Him, in His love, and His love abides in us. And we therefore shall live in love to others. If we do not love our brother, we do not abide in Him nor He in us (1 Jn. 3:14). These allusions in John's letters seem to be saying that abiding in His love means loving each other, those others who are also in Him. This idea is continued in the next verse, speaking of how abiding in the Lord's love means keeping His commandment, of loving our brethren.

"My love", the love of Christ, is consistently associated with His death. To abide in His love is to abide in a deep impression of the cross, to live always in the shadow of His death there for me, with all the certainty of salvation which this brings. "Abiding" is a major theme of John. It is his code for 'being a Christian'. The imagery of abiding in the vine, in contrast to Judas who went out into the darkness, suggests that believers are not "in" with the Lord Jesus for a few minutes and then "out" during sin, and then back "in" after repentance. The idea of "abiding" reflects how the Lord sees the overall spirit of a man's life; rather like the records of the kings of Judah give God's overall judgment of them as obedient or disobedient, and then we read their biographies- which feature many ups and downs of faith in the shorter term. For a branch doesn't drop on and off a vine, it remains part of it. Paul expresses the same idea in speaking of how we are brethren "in Christ", parts of His body. The Old Testament has the equivalent in the idea of being "in" or "out" of covenant relationship with Yahweh, also expressed in terms of being married to Him, or being within the Divine family. Membership in a family doesn't speak of being red hot enthusiastic about each other all the time; rather does the metaphor speak of abiding relationship and permanent identity. "Abiding" is therefore speaking of relationship. All this is one of the things symbolized in the bread and wine of the communion service; we thereby act out our abiding in Jesus and His abiding in us: "He that eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in him" (Jn. 6:56). We are helped in achieving this experience of 'abiding' through the gift of the Spirit. The Lord spoke of how He was 'abiding' with them [AV "being yet present with you", Jn. 14:25], but His 'abiding' in the sense of His presence would be just as real for all believers through the Spirit. "Hereby we know that He abides in us, by the Spirit which He has given us" (1 Jn. 3:24; 4:13). Paul expresses this in terms of "Christ dwelling in" human hearts (Rom. 8:9,10; 2 Cor. 13:5; Eph. 3:17; Col. 1:27). But we are to dwell in Him, to abide in Him as He abides in us.    

 

15:10- see on Jn. 17:6.

If you keep my commandments, you shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love- I suggest that the plural "commandments" is a Hebraism, a plural of majesty, referring to the one great commandment. And that is defined clearly in :12- the singular commandment is to love one another as He loved us, to death on the cross. The idea is not that the Lord's love is conditional, waiting only for those who obey a long list of commandments. This effectively means: 'If you love one another, then you shall abide in My love'. Which is just what He has said in :9 (see note there). 1 Jn. 2:10 says as much: "He that loves his brother abides...". "If we love one another, God abides in us" (1 Jn. 4:12).  "His commandments" and "the [singular] commandment" are paralleled in 2 Jn. 6. The Father's commandment likewise is the same. For the Lord taught that all the Father's commandments are summarized in the idea of loving God and thereby our neighbour; see on Mk. 12:31. Any other reading of this verse is likely to veer towards treating the Lord's commandments as another list of statutes, similar in principle to the 613 given by Moses; as if He grants His love conditional upon our legal obedience to some extended moral code of behaviour. If this were the case, given our disobedience and weakness, we shall never know His love. And His love is not conditional upon legalistic obedience in this sense.

15:11- see on 1 Jn. 1:4.

These things have I spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full- The filling up of joy means that something will be done to us within our hearts; for that is where "joy" is experienced. 'Filling up' is the language of the ongoing filling of the Spirit, which is the context of this whole section in chapters 14-16. The Lord's spirit, His way of being and thinking, His mind, included "joy". Although as He spoke these words facing His death, His "joy" was hardly of a frivolous type, as the world thinks of "joy". As with "love", the Lord in His farewell discourses radically redefines love, joy and peace. He wished to give His spirit to us, so that His spirit might become ours; and thereby His joy would be within us. His "joy" is expressed in the Gospels as joy over a lost sheep being found (Lk. 15:7), the joy of finding people for the Kingdom (Mt. 13:44), the joy of seeing others enter His Kingdom (Mt. 25:21). What He rejoices in, we shall. His joy shall be in us in that we share His spirit, His attitude and mindset (17:13). John himself experienced this when he wrote of having joy that his converts were abiding in Christ; and he could think of "no greater joy" (3 Jn. 4).

The language here in Jn. 15:11,14 speaks of the disciples as friends, who can now have fullness of joy. It clearly alludes to the earlier account of John the Baptist, "the friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice; therefore this joy of mine is now full" (Jn. 3:29). Here we have further evidence that the disciples' coming to Jesus was thanks to John's work; many of them would have been John's followers. So the Lord is rejoicing that John's ministry had not been in vain.

15:12 This is my commandment: That you love one another, even as I have loved you- As noted on :10, this singular commandment is spoken of in the Hebraic plural of majesty as His "commandments", plural. This in one 'word' is the essence of His message, His logos to men. We are to love each in on ongoing way, as Christ loved us in His death in that once-off act (Jn. 15:12,17). The combination of the present and aorist tenses of agapan [‘to love’] in these verses proves the point. Thus our obedience to Christ in loving each other is exemplified by the obedience of Christ (:10). Quite simply, something done 2000 years ago really does affect us now. There is a powerful link across the centuries, from the darkness of the cross to the lives we live today in this century. “By his knowledge", by knowing Christ as He was there, we are made righteous (Is. 53:11). As Israel stood before Moses, they promised: “All the words which the Lord has spoken will we do". When Moses then sprinkled the blood of the covenant upon them- and this incident is quoted in Hebrews as prophetic of the Lord’s blood- they said the same but more strongly: “All the words which the Lord hath spoken will we do and be obedient" (Ex. 24:3,7). It was as if their connection with the blood inspired obedience. Likewise the communication of God’s requirements was made from over the blood sprinkled mercy seat (Ex. 25:22)- another foretaste of the blood of Christ. Quite simply, we can’t face the cross of Christ and not feel impelled towards obedience to that which God asks of us, which is to love as the Lord loved us. For the next verse will define love as the love of the cross.

15:13 Greater love has no one than this: That a man lay down his life for his friends- This is a truth accepted in every human society, and many men have laid down their lives for their friends. What is unique about the Lord's love-unto-death was that He died for us whilst we were yet enemies, and not His friends (Rom. 5:8); He took the initiative in loving us through the death of the cross (1 Jn. 4:10,19). We only love, because He first loved us. As noted on 10:11, the Lord did not have His life taken from Him, He gave it of Himself, to the point of controlling the very period and moment at which He died, consciously outbreathing His last spirit toward us. And so the Lord's "greater love" was in that He died for us whilst we were not actually His friends but enemies (Rom. 5:10 "when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son"). He called us friends; that is the huge force behind those words in :15. He took the initiative, calling us friends when we were enemies; and died for us. We show ourselves to be His friends by accepting His love, and living in that love toward others (:14).

15:14 You are my friends, if you do the things which I command you- For "friends", we could read 'The ones whom I love', for that is how the Lord has just defined love, as laying down life for friends (:13). The things commanded are quite simply to love our brethren as the Lord loved us (:12); that singular commandment is spoken of in the plural in :10 as a Hebraic plural of majesty, the one great commandment, the one great thing commanded. The Lord is not saying: 'I shall love you, if you first love Me, and demonstrate that by keeping a list of a few hundred commandments I have given you'. That would be to totally miss the point. We love, because He first loved us (1 Jn. 4:19); it was not that we loved God, but that He loved us in giving His Son (1 Jn. 4:10). The Lord has died for us, showing us that "no greater love" (:13). We abide in that love if His spirit abides in us, and we likewise live in love, doing the great thing He commanded both by word and example- to love as He did.

15:15- see on Jn. 16:12.

No longer do I call you servants. For the servant does not know what his lord does; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from my Father, I have made known to you- The servant simply does what he is told, without any particular insight into what the master does in the rest of his life, what his private life and thought is like. There are many allusions to the Rabbi-disciple relationship in the Lord's final words to the disciples, and here the allusion is to how disciples were servants of the rabbi. They were to be obedient to him, and to just obey his teaching- without 'knowing that he does'. That is the path of religion. But the Lord offers relationship, His word of teaching became flesh in Him, sharing with His servants what He really thinks, what His longer term agenda is, and who He really is. This is the path of spirituality and personal relationship. Professional distance between master and servant has been collapsed, although we are still His servants. But we are servants who are also His friends. And that friendship was not going to be on the basis of occasional contact; He was going away but would come again to His friends by living within them 24/7 through the gift of His Spirit- a friendship with an intimacy like no other.

As noted on :13, the uniquely "greater love" shown by the Lord was that He died for us when we were still enemies (Rom. 5:10); but He called us His friends. His intense hopefulness in our response accompanies all our efforts to invite others to accept His love and consciously befriend Him who so befriended them. The "no longer" suggests that in His death on the cross, they will see the final revelation of God, the quintessential declaration of all that He had heard from the Father, made known to them. There is no hint here that He now is going to declare the future to them. Now they were going to understand what their Lord and friend had done; for the Comforter was to open their understanding to the things of the cross, to the meaning of it all. This explains how things were going to change in their understanding, from being servants just obedient for the sake of it to a Master they respect and obey but do not really understand, to friends who now have been shown the innermost essence of their Master. As noted on 16:13, the Comforter was to make known to them the things which were coming, the things of His death on the cross. He would show them plainly of the Father, in His death on the cross and the Comforter unpacking that death to them (16:25). Or as Paul puts it, the gift of the Spirit opens our eyes to understand the depth and height of our Lord's love for us (Eph. 1:18; 3:18,19). And His love was declared in essence in the death of the cross.

Friendship is exactly the language God uses about Abraham- because He was His "friend", He showed Abraham what He was going to do (Gen. 18:17-19). But the things to be done here refer to the cross (see on 16:13). To the Lord’s first hearers, a slave was defined by his or her obedience to the master’s commands. The Lord says that His followers are His friends, who do His commandments- but they’re not slaves. He seems to be saying that they were indeed His slaves- but a new kind of slave, a slave who whilst being obedient to the Master, was also His personal friend. It’s lovely how the Lord speaks of such well known ideas like slavery, and shows how in the humdrum of ordinary life, He gives an altogether higher value to them. See on Jn. 10:28.

He has just reminded them that they call Him Lord, and rightly so, and therefore His washing of their feet was what they must do (Jn. 13:13). Earlier, He had rebuked them for calling Him “Lord” but not doing what He said (Lk. 6:46- this is in a speech directed at the disciples- Lk. 6:20,27.40). And yet He told others that His disciples did His word (Lk. 8:21). He was so positive about them to others, even though they did not do the consequences of calling Him Lord [e.g. washing each others’ feet- instead, they argued who was to be the greatest]. Perhaps when the Lord says that He will no longer relate to them as a Lord, with them as His servants, but rather simply as their friend, He is tacitly recognizing their failure, and preparing Himself to die for them as their friend rather than as their Master. And yet, as the Divine economy worked it all out, it was exactly through that death that they exalted Him as Lord and Master as they should have done previously. 

15:16- see on Mk. 4:8; Jn. 14:12.

You did not choose me, but I chose you, and appointed you to go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain. So that whatever you shall ask of the Father in my name, He may give it to you- This is alluded to in 1 Jn. 4:10,19- it is not that we loved God and He responded, but He loved us. It is not so much that we knew God, but that He knew us. It is not that we were out seeking for the Lord Jesus and found Him as a result of hard Biblical scholarship. He found us; indeed Paul cites the whole question of choosing, calling and predestination as the parade example of God's grace through the work of the Spirit. His choosing of us is the supreme example that it is not of works, nor intellectual ability, but of grace through the Spirit. “You did not choose me, but I chose you… out of the world” (:16,19) corresponds to the oft repeated theme of Moses that God has chosen Israel “out of all peoples” (Dt. 7:6 RVmg.), by grace (Dt. 4:37; 10:15; 14:2). For as Israel were the failed vine, so we in Christ are the new vine which will be fruitful.

It is not as if the Lord Jesus has said to us: 'Would you like me to die for you on the cross, to gain your salvation?'. Because then we could say 'No, don't do it for me', and we would be free of obligation. But He has taken the initiative. He has already died for us, He suffered for me, He won my redemption. And He has called me to know this and respond to it. I can't say, with eyes even only half open to the cross, 'No, I don't want what You did for me. Take it away, no, I don't want it'. He has done it. He has called me. I can't say I don't want it. And for you too. We have not chosen Him of our own decision; He has chosen us, and asked us to bring forth fruit (Jn. 15:16). Reflected upon, this is one of the most tremendous imperatives which we have to a dedicated life of response to the principles of His cross: justifying the weak, showing a spirit of grace amidst hatred, imbibing the word, being concerned for the salvation of others amidst our own agonies, enduring apparently endless tribulation (notice, and circle in your Bible, all the occurrences of the word "and" in Mk. 15 A.V.)... that principle that nothing else matters apart from our response to His love, so great, so free. The whole horror, pain and tragedy of the cross was surely to show us that He loved us far more than we have ever or will ever love Him. And yet He asks us to accept His love, to respond to it, to love Him and in that love, show forth His character to others. With shame at the paucity and poverty of our own devotions, we can do little else but respond as fully and as best we can.

The twelve evidently saw Jesus of Nazareth as a Rabbi, their special, lovable, somewhat mystic teacher at whose feet they sat. But the disciples saw Jesus within the frames of Judaism. "What does this mean? He tells us..." (Jn. 16:17) is similar to a familiar Rabbinic formula. But of course Jesus was far more than a Rabbi, and He laboured to change their perceptions. For example, He stresses many times that He chose them to be His disciples (especially Jn. 15:16-19)- whereas in Judaism, it was always disciples who chose a Rabbi: "Jesus chose the disciples, but the students of the rabbis almost always chose a teacher". The words of the Lord Jesus were the words which He had 'heard' from the Father. But this doesn't mean that He was a mere fax machine, relaying literal words which the Father whispered in His ear to a listening world. When the disciples finally grasped something of the real measure of Jesus, they gasped: "You do not even need that a person ask you questions!" (Jn. 16:30). They had previously treated Jesus as a Rabbi, of whom questions were asked by his disciples and then cleverly answered by him. They finally perceived that here was more than a Jewish Rabbi. They came to that conclusion, they imply, not by asking Him questions comprised of words and hearing the cleverly ordered words that comprised His answers. The words He spoke and manifested were of an altogether higher quality and nature. Here was none other than the Son of God, the Word made flesh.  

The language here is very much that of ordaining to priestly service, just as in chapter 17 the Lord will talk about sanctifying His followers, as if they are Levites, and sending them out to do Divine service in the work of the great commission, calling others to His grace. We find this same theme of a new Israel being created in the usage of “ordained [Gk. etheka] you”. C.K. Barrett shows that etheka reflects the Hebrew samak, and that the Lord’s phrase alludes to the ordination of a disciple as a Rabbi. Those guys must’ve looked at each other in shock. They who were barely literate, and knew how very human they were, whose small minds were creaking under the burden of trying to understand this Man they so loved… were being ordained as Rabbis, by a man who’d just washed their feet, which was what disciples usually did for their Rabbis. But yes, the Lord challenged them and us to have a far higher estimate of His opinion of us… 

“I have chosen you, and ordained you, that you should go forth and bring forth fruit... that whatsoever you shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you" is full of connection with the world-wide preaching commission; and in this context, whatever we ask to this end will be given. All will be provided for our mission; if it is indeed solely for His mission that we are making request. Lack of resources has never therefore ultimately and truthfully hindered any sincere attempt to obey the great commission. I can personally testify to that and so can many.

The fruit brought forth is therefore partly application to our converts. The 'remaining' [s.w. 'abiding'] of the fruit would then refer to the converts abiding in the Lord and He in them through the Spirit, which would then be alluded to by John when he writes that he has no greater joy than to know that his converts abide in the Lord (3 Jn. 4). This is the branch and fruit abiding in the vine.

In a more general sense, the fruit remains, in that all spiritual fruit abides eternally. This is another way of saying that we now live the eternal life, the kind of life which we shall eternally live. Righteousness, e.g. support of the poor, "abides for ever" (s.w. 2 Cor. 9:9). A man's works for the Lord "abide" even after judgment day (1 Cor. 3:14 "If any man's work abide which he has built thereon..."). Truly only what is done for Christ will last.   

15:17- see on Eph. 1:5.

These things I command you, so that you may love one another- This doesn't mean 'I command you to love one another, so that you may love one another'. The idea rather is that all the "things" the Lord had taught, in the word or commandment which was Him as well as in His actual words, were summarized in the need to love one another. This was and is the essence of Him, His word made flesh. See on :17.

15:18 If the world hates you, you know that it has hated me before it hated you- The "if..." is perhaps a reflection of the Lord's hope that the Jewish world would be persuaded by the witness of the disciples' love and unity- although elsewhere He clearly envisaged their being cast out of the synagogues and experiencing evil at the hands of the Jewish world. And yet in that word "if..." we see reflected His positivism and hopefulness for others, which is to be part of our spirit too, if we have received His spirit. The hatred of the world has been explained by the Lord as a result of their resistance to the message preached (7:7). I suggested on :16 that the Lord is here repeating the essence of the great commission, to go into the world and bring forth fruit for Him. The comment about love in :17 would then be suggesting that our love for each other will back up that witness, as the Lord envisaged in chapter 17. And now He comforts His future preachers that they are to expect opposition to their witness, but in that experience they will know Him and share His spirit, for that was His experience too. 

15:19 If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you- This is basic psychology; those who come "out of" a system are hated by that system. But the hatred is specifically because the disciples would preach to the world and seek to convict them of sin (7:7). The talk about love and hatred here is alluded to by John when he urges his converts not to hate each other, especially in 1 Jn. 4. By hating our brother, we are as the world. For that is what the world does. And John presents a chasmic divide between the believer and the world. To hate our brother is to place ourselves on the side of the world. John was writing for Jews and to Jewish converts; the pull of the Jewish world, the synagogue, was every strong. And he is reminding them that the Lord saw a huge divide between His followers and that world, a world which was fast heading to its destruction in AD70.

15:20 Remember the word that I said to you: A servant is not greater than his lord. If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will keep yours also- The Lord has just taught that He treats His followers not as servants but friends; and yet here He addresses them again as servants. But I suggested on :15 that His idea was that they are His servants whom He treats as intimate friends, revealing absolutely bare all that He is and stands for, and dying for them. From how the Lord speaks here, serious opposition to the preaching of His word is absolutely to be expected. A merely social Gospel, a doing good works in the hope somebody might somehow notice and come to the Lord, will not have this effect. Our preaching of Him means that there will be the parallel made here between "my word" and 'your word'. His word was the essence of Him, the light which challenged the darkness of men; and we shall meet the same response as He did. But it is that plain presentation of Him which will lead people to Him, rather than the supposed social Gospel of good works alone. For that is not a uniquely Christian statement, in that many folks do good works. 'Keeping My word' meant receiving life eternal (8:51,52), and the Father and Son making their dwelling in the heart of the hearer (14:23); this is the profound message we have for men. 

15:21 But all these things will they do to you for my name's sake, because they do not truly know Him that sent me- John later speaks about those who fulfill the great commission as going forth for His name's sake (3 Jn. 7). Throughout this section, the Lord is speaking about the need to follow the great commission and preach forgiveness and repentance in His name (Lk. 24:47). If His Spirit, His word and essence, abode in them, then they would experience the same opposition which He did. Their 'not knowing' the Father who sent the Son would be the basis of their hatred of the preachers. On the other hand, to know the Father is to have relationship with Him, and love His children. John's letters develop this same theme; to not love is to not have a relationship with the Father.

15:22 If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin- We see here that hearing the word is the basis for responsibility to judgment. The 'coming' of the Lord was not a reference to some descent from Heaven to Palestine on planet earth; His coming to the Jewish world was in His words spoken to them. And as He was sent into the world, so He was sending His disciples. The fact they were without excuse issued in a hatred for the preachers who had spoken to them- for that is the context here in :23 and :21. All the synoptics use the word translated "excuse" about the Jewish leadership making a "pretence" of spirituality (Mt. 23:14; Mk. 12:40; Lk. 20:47). And this is John's version of that. He states specifically what the synoptic writers do not- that the "pretence" of external religion was in fact to cloke [AV] or hide their sin. The synoptics state that for a "pretence" the Jews made long prayers, but they do not specifically state what was being cloked or covered over. And here, the Lord states it was "sin". So often, religious behaviour is used in order to cover our sin from our own eyes. We must remember that we are all prone to the psychology of religious behaviour. The Lord 'spoke to them' about this; and they no longer had that cloke, for He had removed it and demonstrated that He saw through it. Their works were evil (7:7) and He had urged them to address their internal issues instead of covering their evil thoughts with external acts of obedience. And their response was to hate Him.

15:23 He that hates me hates my Father also- The attitude of people to the Son is their attitude to God. The Jews of course considered that they loved God, but hated His Son. And the Lord is saying that this cannot be the case. And again John builds on this in a pastoral sense in 1 Jn. 4, arguing that if we hate our brother, then we hate the Father and Son. It was an awful thing to accuse an Orthodox Jew of hating God; their whole life was so apparently God-centered. But our attitudes to His Son and all His children are our attitudes to Him.

15:24 If I had not done among them the works which no other man did, they would not have sin; but now they have both seen and hated both me and my Father- This parallels the statement in :22 that it was because the Lord had "spoken" to them that they "had sin". His spoken words were paralleled with the works He did amongst them. As John especially makes clear, all those miracles were "signs", were a word to men. This confirms our earlier suggestion that the references to "my word[s]" in John are talking about the essence of the Lord's self-declaration and declaration of the Father, rather than literally referring to His recorded lexical items, the sentences printed in red letters in some Bibles. The "works" were so that they could see the Son, and thereby the Father. The miracles were not therefore random acts of kindness to meet human compassion; for the Lord walked past many cases of human need without responding. They were specifically designed to enable men to see / understand / know / believe in the Son and Father. We also learn from this that the Jews through the miracles did in fact perceive who the Lord was, hence the hatred for Him which arose from a bad conscience. Throughout the Joseph record there is the unwritten sense that the brothers had a niggling conscience that Joseph might be alive. This typifies the underlying Jewish conscience towards the Lord Jesus. They knew Christ as Messiah, but blinded themselves to the fact (Jn. 6:36; 9:41; 15:24 cp. 14:7).

15:25- see on 1 Cor. 11:20.

All this happens so that the word may be fulfilled that is written in their law: They hated me without a cause- "Their law" rather than 'God's law' is another reflection of how they had hijacked God's word and ways and turned it into their own religion; the feasts of the Lord and house of the Lord had become the feasts of the Jews, and the temple of the Jews. “They hated me without a cause" (Ps. 35:19; 69:4) surely refers to their crucifixion of Him “without a cause" as reflected in the collapse of the legal case against Him. Their own law ["their law"] admitted there was no cause for death. He died purely because of their hatred. He again seems to use the past tense to describe His yet future death. There men would see the Father and Son, which has to be connected with John’s recurring theme that in the cross men saw what Moses so wanted to see- Yahweh Himself manifested.

The Messianic Psalms quoted about hatred of the Lord without a cause imply that this hatred was especially seen in His death. And yet the Lord has said that our sharing in His Spirit will mean that we too shall be hated if we witness "in Him", in His Name. This means that in our experience of opposition and hatred, we are sharing in His crucifixion experiences. He there becomes each of us. He was indeed our representative, and we are His too. Our experiences therefore provide a bridge between Him there, many centuries ago, and us today. We thereby in an experiential sense come to "know Him", and Him in His time of crucifixion. And if we thus suffer with Him, we shall also live with Him, eternally.

15:26 And when the Comforter comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth which proceeds from the Father, he shall testify of me- The opening of this verse, "And..." or "But...", suggests a direct connection with what has preceded. There we have been told one of John's versions of the great commission. The Lord envisaged that believers in Him would go forth into the world and bring forth fruit, but would encounter the same hatred from the Jewish world which He had experienced. His anticipation of persecution for His witnesses (:20) is the background for this renewed promise of the Comforter. It is this context of persecution which provides the appropriacy of the language of parakletos. The Spirit would testify of the Lord Jesus; yet the disciples personally were to do so. They would have the Lord's Spirit within them, and so their witness would be in the power of the Spirit.

The parakletos / Comforter is literally 'one called alongside', and this title is appropriate to the idea that the Lord is physically leaving them, but His presence will abide with them through the Spirit. It is as if the Lord is physically with us, as if He has come alongside us. The legal aspects of the word, referring to an advocate, may have been appropriate to the context of persecution. The association of the Comforter with "testimony" continues the legal association.

There is a definite link between the power of witness and the Holy Spirit. It is the Spirit that bears witness; and yet we are the witnesses. The miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit are not in view, although in the first century context, they were a visible manifestation of possession of the Comforter. The Spirit bears witness in us in that the spirit of Christ, the joy, peace, love which we show as individuals and thereby as a community, gives as much credibility to our witness as did the performance of miracles in the 1st century. And so Paul told the Thessalonians: “Our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with much assurance”. The “assurance”, the power of confirmation, was in the credibility which the Spirit of Christ in their examples gave to their preaching of the word. And likewise in 1 Cor. 2:3-5: “My speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and power, that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God”.  

"He shall testify of me" reflects a masculine term in the Greek. But the object referred to is the Holy Spirit, which is neuter. This apparent mismatch of gender in Greek grammar is intentional; for the Lord is saying that the Spirit will enable them to have His personal presence in their hearts, to the point that the neuter "Spirit" is effectively Him, a male; so really can He be in us by the Spirit. The testimony of the Spirit would be their testimony (:27). It is our spiritual character, the evidence of the Spirit within us, which is the real and compelling witness to this world.

15:27 And you also shall testify, because you have been with me from the beginning- This was exemplified in Acts 4:13, where it was apparent from the nature of the disciples’ preaching that they “had been with Jesus”. To be with the Lord, to have experience of Him, meant that one would witness to Him; such is the true experience of Him that it is axiomatic that it issues in witness. All who have truly known the Lord will witness to Him. And if we don’t... do we know Him, have we “been with” Him...?

Jn. 14:26 and 16:12 likewise associate the work of the Comforter with the testimony of the disciples, who had been with the Lord from the beginning of His ministry. There was a special sense in which the Comforter was relevant only to the disciples, the first eye witnesses from the beginning of the ministry. But the connections with other teaching about the gift of the Spirit lead us to conclude that as with all New Testament teaching about the Spirit, the essence is for all time, although the miraculous manifestation was only for the first century. These passages (here and in 14:26; 16:12) make it clear that the disciples were to witness as Christ to this world exactly because they had been with the Lord from the beginning. John's gospel is his obedience to that. And so he explains that he is recounting how things were from the beginning off the Lord's ministry. And Luke does the same, writing that he too was a witness from the beginning and is therefore testifying to what he had seen (Lk. 1:2).

The whole purpose of the Lord’s life was that He should “bear witness” unto the Truth of the Father (Jn. 18:37). But John also records the Lord’s expectations that all in Him should likewise “bear witness” (Jn. 15:27). And as John recounted the Gospel [of which the Gospel of John is a transcript], He stresses that by doing so he is ‘bearing witness’, living out the work of the Lord who lived as the faithful and true witness to men (Jn. 3:11; 19:35; 21:24 cp. 18:37).

The Comforter: An Angel?
The point has been made by several expositors that as Israel were led by a special Angel through the wilderness, whom Isaiah 63 associates with God's Holy Spirit, so the new Israel were led by a Holy Spirit Angel, the Comforter, who was sent to the church by Jesus after His assuming of all power over the Angels on His ascension. The gift of the Holy Spirit was to be "within" the disciples; but it could be feasible that this was superintended by an Angel. The following thoughts are presented more for reflection; I am undecided about the matter. It could be that the Lord is alluding to Jewish ideas about a paraklete Angel and deconstructing them; urging His people to forget Jewish angelology and have His direct personal presence in their hearts through the Spirit. But for the record, here is a summary of the reasons for thinking that the Comforter may have some reference to an Angel:

- Is. 63:7-11 describes the Angel that guided Israel through the wilderness as the "Holy Spirit"- which is the Comforter.
- The Comforter was sent in God and Christ's Name (Jn. 14:26)- the Angel was sent in God's Name (Ex. 23:21)
- The Comforter would teach (Jn. 14:26), guide (16:13), be a judge (16:8) and prophesy (16:13); the Angel guided Israel through the wilderness, taught them God's ways, judged Egypt and the Canaanites, gave prophecies, and represented God to Israel as the Comforter represented Jesus to His people.  As the church  began a new Exodus and was constituted God's Kingdom in prospect as Israel were at Sinai, it was fitting that it should also have an Angel leading them, representing God to them.
- The Comforter would "shew you things to come" (Jn. 16:13)- fulfilled by the Angel giving the Revelation to John.
- The Angel testified to the churches (Rev. 22:16)- "the Comforter... shall testify of Me" (Jn. 15:26).
- The references in Acts to the Holy Spirit as a person would then be easier to understand - e.g. "The Holy Spirit said, Separate Me Barnabas. . " (Acts 13:2). Similarly the frequent occurrences of the ideas of God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit together fall into place if the Holy Spirit has some degree of reference to a personal being in the form of an Angel. The error of the doctrine of the trinity is not in identifying the three common forms of God manifestation (i. e. through God Himself, Jesus and the Holy Spirit Angel), but in the inter-relationships between them which it proposes. This idea is worth applying  to our understanding of the baptismal formula.
- The work of the Comforter Angel may have been confined to the first century, in the same way as the Angel was particularly evident to the ecclesia in the wilderness during the initial Exodus period. Thus the words 'Angel' and 'Spirit'  are  obviously interchangeable in the book of Acts (e. g. 8:26,29; 10:3,19,20).
- The Angel in Revelation "like the son of man" (i. e. representing Him but not Him personally) would then be this same Comforter Angel representing Jesus (Rev. 1:11 cp. 22:13,8,16). He carried the titles of Jesus, who carried the titles of God- e. g. "Alpha and Omega".
- The Comforter is called “the spirit of truth” (Jn. 14:17; 15:26; 16:13). In the Qumran Dead Sea Scrolls literature, this phrase describes an Angelic Spirit who is the leader of the “good forces” and ‘in whom’ the righteous walk [Testament of Judah 20, 1-5]. The Aramaic translation of Job, and the targums on it, uses the term prqlyt to describe the Angelic spokesman [the malak melis] who makes a testimony in Heaven in Job’s defence (Job 16:19; 19:25-27; 33:23).
- Otto Betz, Der Paraklet (AGJU, 1963), brings out many connections between the Comforter and the Angel ‘Michael the Spirit of truth’ in contemporary Jewish writings.
- When we read of the “spirit of the Lord” snatching away Philip, it seems logical to interpret this as the same Angel already mentioned earlier in the chapter (Acts 8:26,29,39). But this Angel is defined as the Lord’s Angel- and the Lord in Acts is nearly always the Lord Jesus. Clearly we are led to understand the Lord Jesus as being associated with a specific Angel. 
- "Ye have an unction from the Holy One (the Comforter/ Holy Spirit), and ye know all things" (1 Jn. 2:20) is clearly alluding to the promise of the Comforter in Jn. 14:26; but "Holy One" is Angelic language, as if the Holy One was also an Angel.

- The tongues sitting like flames of fire on the apostles at Pentecost was an Angelic manifestation; the Angels can be made "a flame of fire".

- Jude 5 reminds the new Israel of the first century that Israel of old had been condemned due to their provoking of the wilderness Angel- a warning that takes on special power once it is recognized that the very same Angel was leading the early church.
- Stephen's speech in Acts 7 contains many references to the Angel of Israel. He uses examples from Israel's history in which they  rejected  those  who  were  types of Jesus- e. g. v. 9,10,22,25. It follows then that v. 35 must refer to this same aspect of Moses as a type of Christ being rejected. "This is Moses whom they renounced. . even him God sent to be a ruler and a redeemer with the hand of that Angel which appeared to him in the bush" (Diaglott). Israel resisted the work of the Angel supporting Moses, and so years later they were also rejecting the support of the same guardian Angel for the teachings of Jesus and His disciples, the greater than Moses. So v. 51 stresses "ye do always resist the Holy Spirit (the title of the Comforter Angel in Is. 63): as your fathers did, so do ye". Their fathers resisted the Angel of the presence which went with them; and so the Jews of the first century were doing just the same.