Pentecost: The Spirit v. The World

Pentecost 2024 Year B; John 15:26-27; 16:4b-15

Older versions of the three-year lectionary on this feast presented the story from John 20, where the risen Jesus breathes on the disciples saying “receive the Holy Spirit,” which is effectively John’s “Pentecost” story (theologically if not chronologically).¹ Now we have, in the different years, parts of Jesus’ promise of the Spirit from the long farewell discourse in John that has also provided the Gospels of recent weeks. The passage for Year B begins with a framing statement from chapter 15 about the fact of the “Advocate” (NRSV), “the Spirit of truth who comes from the Father” (15:26) and the testimony both the Advocate and the disciples will give. The bulk of the Gospel is taken from chapter 16, in the form of two more specific statements about the coming and the subsequent work of the Advocate.

The departing Jesus insists that his absence is to their advantage because of the coming of the Spirit. We find this theme of blessed absence repeated in different forms in John, such as in the famous Thomas story (John 20). There Jesus praises those who have not seen but believe, not just because their faith is robust, but because they are the recipients of the Spirit. How this can be better than Jesus’ presence seems to have perplexed the ancient audience, and may still do so. Jesus however makes clear that the gift of the Spirit is actually a form of his presence, and one which enables greater things (14:12), because the life of the disciples will expand the message and the community beyond the constraints of one body and one life.

What is the work of the Spirit? The reading of the Pentecost story in Acts may bring to the surface assumptions about particular forms of religious experience (or simply emotions or hunches) as the real signs of the work of the Spirit. John has no interest in these issues. Here the Spirit’s work is to guarantee and realize the unity of the disciples in Jesus and in the Father, and thus to continue the work of Jesus which is a conflict with the world. The test of this work will not be religious experience, but (as we have seen so often in John’s Gospel) love.

Legal language is very prominent here. The “Advocate,” also variously translated Helper or Counselor (or in KJV Comforter), is a legal term, but for “a prosecuting rather than a defending counsel,” as Barrett points out.²

Jesus does have something more specific to say about what the Spirit does as Advocate:

And when he comes, he will prove the world wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: about sin, because they do not believe in me; about righteousness, because I am going to the Father and you will see me no longer; about judgment, because the ruler of this world has been condemned (16:8-11).

This is a notoriously difficult text,³ but it makes clear at least that what the Spirit does is essentially related to what Jesus has been doing, that this includes the creation of the community that continues his work, and that this work is basically—perhaps surprisingly—conflictual. The NRSV says “prove the world wrong” which gets some of the sense, but we could also translate this as “convict,” which retains the ambiguity that allows the word to mean “convince” as well as “prosecute.” All in all, the Spirit will make things completely clear, and that will itself constitute a form of judgement and sentencing for the false powers that are “the world,” whose apparent power lies partly in their concealing the truth about God’s power and love. The truth, as Jesus says elsewhere in John, will liberate us (8:32).

Pentecost; from the Rabula Gospels, Syrian, 6th century. Florence, Biblioteca Mediceo Laurenziana, cod. Plut. I, 560

Jesus breaks down this work of “conviction” into three parts and expands on each. We need not think of these as a completely systematic account; they depend on the fact that while complex in detail, John’s Gospel is always pointing to something quite simple (if profound) about the nature of the world and Jesus’ mission in it. Here the conflict with the world is foregrounded, and a sort of alternative picture of justice to the one that will play out at his trial before Pilate is sketched.

Sin, because they do not believe in me. Throughout this Gospel sin is not the accumulation of misdeeds and mistakes, but the deeper reality of separation from God. Belief in Jesus is not merely an interior “religious” question, but recognition of the one through whom all things were made. Not to believe in him is to be alienated from God, which is sin.

Righteousness, because I am going to the Father. “Righteousness” (this could also be “justice”) is not a Johannine term; this is the only place it appears in this Gospel. Jesus’ return to the Father—which is also his glorification—is however a very characteristic idea in John, and does not just mean departure but victory. Jesus’ exaltation vindicates his righteousness over against the false claims that are to be made in his historic trial. His going to the Father shows both where guilt and innocence really lay, and where true justice dwells.

Judgement, because the ruler of this world has been condemned. This phrase focusses most sharply on the conflict that lies behind the whole of Jesus’ ministry. While he has come to love and save (3:16 etc.) the world groans under another authority which must be exposed and condemned. Love cannot ignore evil. Jesus has already used this term (cf. 12: 31; 14:30) for the spiritual authority that the other Gospels call Satan; this usage is at once more oblique because of the lack of a name, but more pointed because we cannot ignore the fact that he will actually be facing this power at his Roman trial. It is a more scathing indictment of the political forces that abrogate the authority that belongs to God, and rule by oppression and violence.

The surprise here is how conflictual is this work of the Spirit. This conflict unfolds in the work of the community that the Spirit builds, ensuring the unity of the disciples in Jesus and thus providing a different model of human life. In this Gospel the Advocate also reminds of Jesus’ words (14:26), and testifies as disciples are to testify (15:26). This Gospel finishes by saying:

When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

The work of the Spirit is thus to create the community that will witness to Jesus. Any test of the Spirit that would pass muster for John will start not with religious experience, but with the community and its life. The proof of the Church as the Spirit-filled community is that it will show in practice its understanding of the truth, and its conviction that the true authority is the God of love.

1. The earlier BCP and Roman lectionaries had John 14, where Jesus first promises the Spirit.

2. Gospel of John, p. 462

3. Augustine simply ducks, when discussing the text in his longest work on John: “all this is very obscure, and cannot be included in the present discourse, lest brevity only increase the obscurity.” Valde latebrosum est, nee isto sermone coarctandem, nefiat obscurius brevitate (In Joh. Tr. 94,6). He does however discuss it in Sermons 143 and 144.