Enter The Holy Spirit

At the end of the 13th and into the 14th chapter of John, Jesus is telling His disciples that the time was coming soon when He would be glorified, and this would bring glory as well to the Father. This meant that He would be leaving them. Peter, wanting to follow Jesus, asked Him where He was going, and Jesus responds that Peter could not follow where He was going now (Jesus was talking about the cross), but later he would be able to follow (Jesus would rise from the grave, ascend into Heaven, and be with the Father). In my Father's house are many dwelling places . . . I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also". Note that the emphasis here is not that He is preparing a mansion for us in Heaven, but that our dwelling place is to be with Him and the Father.

Jesus assures His disciples that they will know the way He is going. Thomas then says that if they don't know where He is going then how can they know the way. And Jesus answers; "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but through me". Then Jesus teaches His disciples that they will know the Father by knowing Jesus, because His words are the Father's words and His works are the Father's works. "Believe Me that I am in the Father, and the Father is in me, otherwise believe on account of the works themselves. Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go to the Father".

Now Jesus tells His disciples that the Father will give them another "Helper" (Paraclete) who would be with them forever, that is the Spirit of truth, who the world cannot receive, because it does not behold Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you, and will be in you". A little later Jesus says; "These things I have spoken to you while abiding with you, but the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you".

Earlier in His ministry Jesus sent out seventy of His followers in the power of the Holy Spirit to do the works of the Father; proclaiming the kingdom, healing the sick, and casting out evil spirits. And the Holy Spirit that was imparted upon them enabled them to come back with joy saying that "even the demons are subject to us in Your name." (Luke 10). But now Jesus was telling them that soon this same Holy Spirit would be living in them. In Acts 1, forty days after the resurrection and just before Jesus ascends to Heaven He commands the disciples not to leave Jerusalem but to wait for what the Father had promised through Him; "John baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now . . . you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be my witnesses". And the Father poured out the Holy Spirit upon the church at Pentecost 10 days later.

All believers have a reborn spirit that is indwelt by the Holy Spirit. Baptism speaks of an immersion, and the baptism with the Holy Spirit given at Pentecost was an immersion of the Holy Spirit into the soul of man, for the purpose of doing the works of the Father. The soul (mind, personality, will, desires) usually changes a lot after salvation because of the presence of the Holy Spirit in the spirit. And all born again believers yield to the working of the Spirit that ministers to their soul to one degree or another. But God also has available to man a baptism, an inflooding, a surge of the Holy Spirit into the soul that clears away many of the barriers of doubt, fear and pride that reside there even after being born again. Surrendering our souls to the mighty wind and the incoming flood of the Holy Spirit should result in the "greater works" that Jesus spoke about.