Do the words that Jesus spoke in John 14:26; 15:26; and 16:13 apply to us today or were they for the disciples who were with Jesus at the time? How would the original audience have understood them?
I appreciated your response, JStaller, but the question was about John 16:13 rather than 16:23. Oh, well. Other than the wrong verse, it was great. The warning, "This is a dangerous verse," should be taken to heart regarding all three verses, and these verses should be understood in context. Jesus is addressing the fact that He was being attacked personally, and His message was being contradicted. He was preparing to leave this world and return for awhile to the Father. The emphasis on the future ministry of the Holy Spirit was critical for the followers to understand. The Son would not leave His followers without a teacher. We need to understand that these were specifically addressed to the disciples, prior to the writing of the Gospels. Jesus had been reinterpreting the Scripture for about 3 years ("You have heard that it hath been said, but I tell you...."), giving His followers God's viewpoint of what the Scriptures meant. Without a teacher, they would likely go back to hearing Scripture from the old misinterpretive point of view. The work of the Holy Spirit was to remind them of God's point of view.
Today, we need the Holy Spirit as teacher just as much as they did then. However, we have the additional benefit of the written record of Christ's ministry and teachings. The danger in today's Christianity is the emphasis on the work of the Holy Spirit to the point of disregard of Scripture. In other words, if one trusts in "personal revelation" to the point where "the Holy Spirit told me" takes the place of "the Holy Spirit helped me understand the complete Scriptural message," the follower of Christ can be led astray from truth. The Holy Spirit will not teach anything in contradiction to the Holy Scripture.
When Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit would bring to remembrance what Jesus said, we would have a problem with too tight an interpretation of how that impacts us. We weren't there, so the Holy Spirit can't remind us what we heard Jesus say. However, the concept is no less true today. When we have studied the Book, the source of our truth and faith, we may well not think about a passage for years. We may then find that the Holy Spirit reminds us what we studied at a time when we need it, causing us to go back and restudy, relearn, and reuse that passage of Scripture.
I believe that this understanding of the work of the Holy Spirit makes it critical that we spend much time in studied God's written Word to know the Word of John 1:1, so we have something for the Holy Spirit to remind us of. We need to hear Jesus first so there's something to be brought to mind. And, please don't forget, Jesus is the incarnate manifestation of the Deity (Philippians 2 and John 1), so when we speak of what He said, we must remember that He is the source of the Scripture which was given to man prior to His humanity. What we refer to as the Old Testament is also a part of what Jesus has said to us.
Some may not think much of this way of putting it, but I believe we need to understand that the study of Scripture is a balancing act. We must balance the entirety of Scripture to correctly understand the truth -- not an easy task, because there is a lot of it to balance. Part of the Holy Spirit's ministry, according to these verses you asked about, is to bring Scripture (the teachings of Jesus) to mind in such a way that we are able to balance it and understand it from God's point of view, not ours.
We should all keep John 5:39-40 in mind.
Dave S.
Moderator, Volunteers for Proofreading
2 Tim. 3:16--All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable
for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.
16:13
I appreciated your response, JStaller, but the question was about John 16:13 rather than 16:23. Oh, well. Other than the wrong verse, it was great. The warning, "This is a dangerous verse," should be taken to heart regarding all three verses, and these verses should be understood in context. Jesus is addressing the fact that He was being attacked personally, and His message was being contradicted. He was preparing to leave this world and return for awhile to the Father. The emphasis on the future ministry of the Holy Spirit was critical for the followers to understand. The Son would not leave His followers without a teacher. We need to understand that these were specifically addressed to the disciples, prior to the writing of the Gospels. Jesus had been reinterpreting the Scripture for about 3 years ("You have heard that it hath been said, but I tell you...."), giving His followers God's viewpoint of what the Scriptures meant. Without a teacher, they would likely go back to hearing Scripture from the old misinterpretive point of view. The work of the Holy Spirit was to remind them of God's point of view.
Today, we need the Holy Spirit as teacher just as much as they did then. However, we have the additional benefit of the written record of Christ's ministry and teachings. The danger in today's Christianity is the emphasis on the work of the Holy Spirit to the point of disregard of Scripture. In other words, if one trusts in "personal revelation" to the point where "the Holy Spirit told me" takes the place of "the Holy Spirit helped me understand the complete Scriptural message," the follower of Christ can be led astray from truth. The Holy Spirit will not teach anything in contradiction to the Holy Scripture.
When Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit would bring to remembrance what Jesus said, we would have a problem with too tight an interpretation of how that impacts us. We weren't there, so the Holy Spirit can't remind us what we heard Jesus say. However, the concept is no less true today. When we have studied the Book, the source of our truth and faith, we may well not think about a passage for years. We may then find that the Holy Spirit reminds us what we studied at a time when we need it, causing us to go back and restudy, relearn, and reuse that passage of Scripture.
I believe that this understanding of the work of the Holy Spirit makes it critical that we spend much time in studied God's written Word to know the Word of John 1:1, so we have something for the Holy Spirit to remind us of. We need to hear Jesus first so there's something to be brought to mind. And, please don't forget, Jesus is the incarnate manifestation of the Deity (Philippians 2 and John 1), so when we speak of what He said, we must remember that He is the source of the Scripture which was given to man prior to His humanity. What we refer to as the Old Testament is also a part of what Jesus has said to us.
Some may not think much of this way of putting it, but I believe we need to understand that the study of Scripture is a balancing act. We must balance the entirety of Scripture to correctly understand the truth -- not an easy task, because there is a lot of it to balance. Part of the Holy Spirit's ministry, according to these verses you asked about, is to bring Scripture (the teachings of Jesus) to mind in such a way that we are able to balance it and understand it from God's point of view, not ours.
We should all keep John 5:39-40 in mind.
Dave S.
Moderator, Volunteers for Proofreading
2 Tim. 3:16--All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable
for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.