By J.R. Miller
Spirit of God, descend upon my heart;
Wean it from earth; through all its pulses move;
Stoop to my weakness, mighty as You art,
And make me love You as I ought to love.
Teach me to love You, as Your angels love,
One holy passion filling all my frame;
The baptism of the heaven descended Dove,
My heart an altar, and your love the flame.
Jesus spoke to his disciples of the Holy Spirit, as the Paraclete. The word used in our translation is Comforter. The name is very beautiful and suggestive. We think of a comforter as one who gives consolation in trouble. There is much sorrow in the world, and there is always need of those who understand the art of comforting. Not many do. Job spoke of his friends, who came to offer him consolation in his great trouble, as "miserable comforters." They certainly were. Their words as he heard them, were like thorns. They only added to his suffering. There are those in every place who want to be comforters. When they see one in pain or in tears they think they must comfort him. So they begin to say things which they suppose they ought to say. They are sincere enough--but they do not know what they should say. Their words give no strength; they only make the grief seem deeper, sadder, and more hopeless. They are mere empty platitudes; or they misinterpret the sorrows of their friends. That was what Job's "comforters" did.
There is constant need for true comforters. Barnabas is called, a "son of consolation." No doubt he was a sunshiny man. No other one can be a consoler. When Barnabas went into a sick room, we are quite sure his presence was a benediction. When he visited the homes of those who were sorrowing, he carried the light of heaven in his face, and his words were full of uplifting. It is a great thing to be a son or daughter of consolation. Christ himself was a wonderful comforter. The words he spoke were words of eternal truth on which we may lay our heads, and find that we are leaning on the arm of God. No doubt, too, the Holy Spirit is a comforter. He brings the truth of eternal life to those who are bereft. He brings the gentleness and healing of divine love to hurt hearts. The name of Comforter describes well one kind of work the Spirit does in the world.
But the best scholars agree that "comforter" is not the word which most fully and clearly gives the sense of the Greek word which our Lord used. It is Paraclete. The word is used only a few times in the New Testament, and only by John. In the Fourth Gospel it is always translated Comforter. Then in John's First Epistle, it is translated Advocate. Advocate is perhaps the more accurate translation--not merely a comforter who consoles us in trouble, and makes us stronger to endure sorrow--one who stands by us. The word Advocate is very suggestive. One of its meanings is a person who stands by; strictly, a person called to the side of another. The thought of one who stands by is very suggestive.
It may be said that this is one of the finest definitions of a friend that could be given. He must be one who always stands by you. This does not mean in a human friend that he must always be close to you, always manifesting affection in some practical way, always speaking words of cheer. He may be miles away in space--but you know that he is always loyal to you, true to you, your friend wherever he may be. He always stands by you. He may not be able to do many things for you. Indeed, it is but little that a friend, your best friend, really can do at any time for you. He cannot lift away your load--no other one can bear your burden for you. Each one must bear his own burden. Each one must meet his own life's questions, make his own decisions, endure his own troubles, fight his own battles, and accept his own responsibilities. The office of a friend is not to do things for you, to make life easy for you.
But you know that he always stands by you. You know that if ever you need him in any way and turn to him, that he will not fail you nor disappoint you; that if you do not see him for months, or even for years, nor hear from him, and if you then should go to him with some question or some appeal, you will find him unchanged, the same staunch, strong, faithful friend as always. Though your circumstances have changed, from wealth to poverty, from influence to powerlessness, from popular favor to obscurity, from strength to weakness, still your friend is the same, stands by you as he did before, meets you with the old cordiality, the old kindness, the old helpfulness. Your friend is one who stands by you. That is the kind of friend the Holy Spirit is. You are sure he is always the same, always faithful and true.
Jesus said the Father would give "another Comforter," that is, one like Jesus himself. He was an advocate for his disciples, who always stood by them, their comrade, their defender, and their shelter in danger. His friendship was unchanged through the years. "Loved once" was never said of him. Having loved, he loved unto the end. His disciples failed him, grieved him, disappointed him--but when they came back to him they found him the same, waiting to receive them. Peter denied him in the hour of his deepest need, saying he did not know him; but when Jesus was risen again, the first one of his disciples he asked for was Peter, and when Peter found him, he was still standing by, the same dear, loyal friend.
Jesus said that they would receive another comforter, when he was gone. He wanted them to understand that he was not really going away from them. They would not see his face, would not feel any hands--but he would be there, as he always had been--still standing by. They would lose nothing by his going away. Indeed he would not be gone from them at all. In the Paraclete he would still be with them and would still be their Comforter, their Comrade.
Jesus tells us that the Comforter is more to us--than he himself was to his disciples. He said that it was expedient for them that he should go away, for then the Comforter would come. Think what it was to have their Master for a personal friend. There never was such another Friend. Think of his gentleness, his tenderness, his sympathy, his kindness, the inspiration of his life. Think of the shelter he was to them, the strength, and the encouragement. Then remember what he said the Holy Spirit would be--"another Comforter," one like Christ, and that it would be more to us to have the Holy Spirit for our friend than if Jesus had stayed with us. He is everything to us that Jesus was to his personal friends. He is our Advocate. He always stands by us, and for us. His love is unchanging.
We talk of the love of the Father. We are his children. He loves us. He comforts us with his wonderful tenderness. We talk and sing of the love of Christ as the most marvelous revelation of love the world ever saw. But we do not speak or sing so much of the love of the Spirit. Yet the Spirit's love is just as wonderful as the Father's or the Son's. For one thing, he loves us enough to come and live in our hearts. Does that seem a little thing? We speak a great deal, especially at Christmas time, of the condescension of the eternal Son of God in coming to earth, to be born in a stable and cradled in a manger. Is it a less wonderful condescension for the Holy Spirit to make your heart his home, to be borne there, to live there as your Guest? Think what a place a human heart is. The stable where Jesus was born was lowly--but it was clean. Are our hearts clean? Think of the unholy thoughts, the unholy desires, the impure things, the unlovingness, the jealousy, the bitterness, the hate, all the sin of our hearts. Then think of the love of the Spirit that makes him willing to live in such a foul place, in order to cleanse us and make us upright and holy.
The love of the Spirit is shown in his wondrous patience with us in all our sinfulness, while he lives in us and deals with us in the culturing of our Christian life. We speak often of the patient love of Christ with his disciples the three years he was with them, having them in his family, at his table, enduring their ignorance, their dullness, their narrowness, their petty strifes, and their unfaithfulness. It was a marvelous love that never grew weary of them--which loved on in spite of all that so tried his love, which endured the hate of men, their plotting, their treacheries, and their cruelty. We never can understand the depth of the love of Christ in enduring all that he endured in saving the world. But think also of the love of the Holy Spirit in what he suffers in his work with us. Paul beseeches us that we grieve not the Holy Spirit. The word "grieve" in the original is from the same root as the word used in the Gospel when we are told that the soul of Jesus in the Garden was exceeding sorrowful. Think of that. We make a Gethsemane in our heart for the Holy Spirit every time we doubt him; or grieve him by our thoughts, our disobedience.
A young Christian woman relates an experience which greatly saddened her. She had a girl friend that she had long loved deeply. The two were inseparable. They trusted each other implicitly. One who tells the story says she had regarded her friend as like an angel in the truth and beauty of her life. She never had had a shadow of doubt concerning her character and conduct. Then she learned that this girl had been living a double life for years. The discovery appalled her. At first she refused to believe it--but the evidence was so clear, so unmistakable, that she could not but believe it, and it almost killed her. It was painful to hear her words and see her distress. Then she wrote: "I understand now a little of the bitter sorrow of my Savior in Gethsemane, as he drank the cup of his people's sins."
If a human friend can be thus brokenhearted over the sin of a friend, how the Holy Spirit must suffer in his nourishing of us, in his watching for our sanctification, in his wondrous brooding over us--but how he must grieve when we fall into sin!
