They shall all be taught by God.
Flesh and blood cannot teach us what we need to know. If we ask the crowds, they will say Jesus is John the Baptist, Elijah, or some other prophet. If we ask the moderns, they will say he was a myth, or a good man, or a spiritual leader like Buddha or Muhammad. There are varying degrees of truth in these answers but none of them get to the deepest truth of the identity of Jesus.
Everyone who listens to my Father and learns from him comes to me.
We are called to learn to listen to the Father as Peter listened so that we too can come to believe what Peter came to believe, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God" (see Matthew 16:16). Perhaps one of the reasons Jesus initially charged his disciples not to reveal this identity was so that they could gradually learn that it was not something they themselves could communicate. Only with time and experience would they learn that they too could invite people to hear the voice of the Father and be taught be God the truth about his Son.
Not that anyone has seen the Father
except the one who is from God;
he has seen the Father.
We are called to be drawn by the Father and listen to him, yet this can only happen in and through his Son who is himself the revelation of the Father.
Whoever has seen me has seen the Father (see John 14:9).
We are not supposed to go away and disengage from the Son in order to hear the Father and be drawn by him. It is rather precisely in the Son that the we experience the Father calling us. When we look to the Son we feel the pull of deepest desire which the Father himself has implanted in our hearts. Just as the Father spoke over the Son at his baptism, so too does he want to speak the truth of his identity into our hearts.
But the anointing that you received from him abides in you, and you have no need that anyone should teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about everything, and is true, and is no lie—just as it has taught you, abide in him (see First John 2:27).
We are called receive the anointed knowledge of faith. This anointing teaches us things which, while understandable, we might never understand on our own, or at least, not without many errors. But it also teaches us things we could never understand on our own, things that reveal the inner life of the Triune God. And God wants to be known. Therefore we should try to let the Father draw us beyond our limited and human ways of understanding to the more comprehensive mode of faith.
Then the eunuch said to Philip in reply,
“I beg you, about whom is the prophet saying this?
About himself, or about someone else?”
The Ethiopian eunuch was trying to figure things out from the Scriptures, but his attempt revealed his human limitations.
“How can I, unless someone instructs me?”
In truth, he could only understand if the Father instructed him. But Philip still had a role to play. That role was now like what Jesus did in his resurrection appearances, and no doubt this was how Philip came to understand it.
Then Philip opened his mouth and, beginning with this Scripture passage,
he proclaimed Jesus to him.
We may infer from the eunuch's immediate desire for baptism that his heart too burned within him when the Scriptures were opened for him. It was the revelation of Jesus within the Scriptures to which Philip pointed. This provided the eunuch with the opportunity to experience and respond to the draw of the Father toward his Son, to experience the confirmation of the Son's identity that only the gift of faith could give.
It must be said that the Holy Spirit is the principal agent of evangelization (see Evangelii Nuntiandi 75)
We can see the work of the Spirit through Philip clearly, not only by how effectively he proclaimed the Scriptures, but also by how ready he was to be led. He heeded the angel at once when he heard, "Get up and head south". He did not tary when his particular mission was completed, but was immediately ready for the next thing to which God would call him.
When they came out of the water,
the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away,
and the eunuch saw him no more,
but continued on his way rejoicing.
We first experience the Spirit teaching us. Then can become agents through whom the Spirit teaches others. And of course he will never finish teaching us in this life. This can become a virtuous cycle by which we become, more and more, the people we are meant to become.
Let all the earth cry out to God with joy.
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