The one who comes from above is above all.
The one who is of the earth is earthly and speaks of earthly things.
But the one who comes from heaven is above all.
Those who are of earth tend to believe that the earthly is all there is, and that, even if there is more it is beyond the understanding of mere creatures. Even if there was more to reality than the physical and the empirical, how, after all, would we know it? Ought not we behave like the psalmist who wrote, "O LORD, my heart is not lifted up; my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me" see Psalm 131:1)? Yet what if there was someone who, by his nature, knew all of these mysteries and could speak about them with authority? Even then we would want to avoid mere curiosity. But what if those things which we could not know naturally were things that we nevertheless needed to know?
He testifies to what he has seen and heard,
but no one accepts his testimony.
Whoever does accept his testimony certifies that God is trustworthy.
For the one whom God sent speaks the words of God.
We are meant to know more than merely earthly things, the time bound and the temporary. Our horizon is meant to be more expansive than things which will all eventually perish. And learning of these heavenly things is not only not optional, not only important, but vital and necessary. To disregard the message is to disregard the messenger, which is to demean God who is himself the source and guarantee of the truth of the message. We must not tell God that we don't believe him or that we don't care what he has to say. God has no need to teach us anything. But we are in desperate need of his teaching. We were made for more than this earth. We were designed for a heavenly destiny, intended for a relationship with God himself. But only the one from heaven, Jesus, can reveal the Father to us. Thus the heavenly teaching in question is not merely esoteric facts or data. It is rather experiential and personal. It is not communicated by the firing of synapses so much as it is by the fire of the Spirit.
He does not ration his gift of the Spirit.
The Father loves the Son and has given everything over to him.
Jesus received the gift of the Spirit without measure from his Father. But he in turn delights to pour out that gift upon us. That gift, the Spirit, is a "Spirit of wisdom in revelation in the knowledge of him" in order that we "may know what is the hope to which he has called" us and the full promise of our heavenly inheritance (see Ephesians 1:16-18). We tend to believe, at least subconsciously, that God is stingy, that he is reluctant to give good things to his children. But we can see in the fact that Jesus himself has received the Spirit without measure that there is also no upward limit to how much we may hope to receive. And this in turn can reinforce our trust in a Father who delights to give good gifts to us, his children.
If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him! (see Luke 11:13).
The gift of the Holy Spirit is not merely a nice to have, not an optional extra for super Christians or Jesus Freaks. His presence in our lives means more than feeling like water walking, glow in the dark, wonder workers, and definitely means more than entertaining ourselves at prayer meetings, however good those may be. He may well mean all of that too. But the principle aim of the Spirit is to unite us to the Son in his own relationship to the Father. This is why it is so vital to believe the revelation of the Son about the Spirit. Because if we don't respond to that revelation there is no way to reach the eternal life that God intends for us.
Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life,
but whoever disobeys the Son will not see life,
but the wrath of God remains upon him.
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