When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mind; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you (John 16:13-15).

Here we have Jesus’ final words about the Holy Spirit. And what does he emphasize as he comes to the cross, but the central and often overlooked work of the Spirit to glorify Christ. Most immediately, Jesus is speaking to the Twelve about the work the Spirit will do in the days ahead to reveal Christ’s full glory to them (John 7:39). But derivatively, Jesus’ promise is also about the work of the Spirit to glorify Christ in our hearts through the truth the disciples would soon see.

This is an important passage because it helps us avoid two common mistakes.

The first mistake is to pit the Spirit v. the Scriptures. Jesus’ promise has nothing to do with the Spirit telling me who I should marry or what job I should take. That’s not what he has in mind when he says the Spirit “will guide you into all truth” (v. 13a). Jesus is talking to the Apostles (v. 12). They are the ones who will be led into “all truth.” And the “all truth” they would receive was not the truth about every bit of knowledge in the universe from supernovas to DNA. The “truth” refers to the whole truth about salvation, everything bound up in Jesus Christ the way, the truth, and the life. The Spirit will illuminate the things that are to come (v. 13b), not in a predictive sense, but in so far as he will unpack the significance of the events yet to come, namely Jesus’ death, resurrection, and exaltation. The Spirit, speaking for the Father and the Son, will help the Apostles remember what Jesus said and understand the true meaning of who Jesus was and what he accomplished (14:26).

This means the Spirit is responsible for the truths the Apostles preached and which, in turn, were written down in what we now call the New Testament. We trust the Bible because the Apostles, and those under the umbrella of their authority, wrote it by means of the Spirit’s revelation. The Bible is the Spirit’s book. He inspired it, not only the Old Testament, as the Apostles assume (Acts 4:25; 28:25; Hebrews 3:7; 2 Peter 1:21), but also the New Testament, as Jesus indirectly promised in John 16.

Therefore, we can yield no ground to those who, like Mormons, argue for on-going revelation that adds to the doctrinal content of the New Testament. Nor can we tolerate the suggestion liberals often make that sticking meticulously to the Scriptures is somehow an insult to the Holy Spirit. Word and Spirit belong inseparably together. We hear from the Spirit when we search the Scriptures. And in searching the Scriptures, we must pray for the Spirit’s illumination.

The second error this passage can help us avoid is the mistake of pitting the Spirit v. Christ. The Holy Spirit is a serving Spirit. He speaks only what he hears (13b). He declares what he is given (14b). His mission is to glorify Another (14a). All three persons of the Trinity are fully God, yet in the divine economy the Son makes known the Father and the Spirit glorifies the Son. Yes, it is grievous to ignore the Holy Spirit and overlook the indispensable role he plays in our lives. But we must not think we can focus on Christ too much. The Spirit is not hurt when fix our attention on Christ. Exulting in Christ is evidence of the Spirit’s work! The focus of the church is not on the dove but on the cross, and that’s the way the Spirit would have it. As J.I. Packer puts it, “The Spirit’s message to us is never, ‘Look at me; listen to me; come to me; get to know me,’ but always, ‘Look at him, and see his glory; listen to him, and hear his word; go to him, and have life; get to know him, and taste his gift of joy and peace.’”

All of this business about the work of the Spirit to reveal and glorify the Son is why the notion of anonymous Christians is so horribly mistaken. I remember a professor in college who argued that because God was sovereign and the Spirit blows where he wishes, the Spirit could very well be savingly at work in all religions, causing people to be born again and joining people to Christ apart from their knowing it. He believed people could be saved in Christ without hearing of Christ or professing faith in him.

This “inclusivist” way of thinking is popular. Even the beloved C.S. Lewis, in his classic Mere Christianity, espoused it:

There are people who do not accept the full Christian doctrine about Christ but who are so strongly attracted by Him that they are His in a much deeper sense than they themselves understand. There are people in other religions who are being led by God’s secret influence to concentrate on those parts of their religion which are in agreement with Christianity, and who thus belong to Christ without knowing it. For example, a Buddhist of good will may be led to concentrate more and more on the Buddhist teaching about mercy and to leave in the background (though he might still say he believed) the Buddhist teaching on certain other points.

I’ve benefited from Lewis often, but to think this way is to misunderstand the Spirit’s mission, at Pentecost and in the age of Pentecost. The work of the Holy Spirit is to bring glory to Christ by taking what is his–his teaching, the truth about his death and resurrection–and making it known. The Spirit does not work indiscriminately without the revelation of Christ in view. Arguably, the Holy Spirit’s most important work is to glorify Christ, and he does not do this apart from shining the spotlight on Christ for the elect to see and savor.

1. Faith comes by hearing (Rom. 10:14-15). We cannot call on Jesus unless we believe in him and we cannot believe in him unless we hear of him from the lips of a herald. Faith begins with words.

2. God has chosen word-gifts and word-offices to build up the church (Eph. 4:11-12).

3. God creates through his word (cf. Gen. 1; Col. 1:16). God’s work of creation is always a speech act.

4. God regenerates through his word. We are born again through the living and abiding word of God (1 Peter 1:23). And “word” here is not merely Jesus Christ, but the preaching Peter’s audience had received (v. 25).

5. God’s people are called to follow his commands and keep the laws. Jesus exhorted “if you love me, you will keep my commandments (John 14:15; cf. Deut. 11:1). We cannot love unless we are obedient and we cannot obey unless we are instructed in the law of the Lord. That is why the Psalmist not only rejoices in the person of God, but delights in his decrees and statutes (Psalm 119:16, 24).

6. Throughout the Bible, there is an unmistakable priority of hearing over sight. In distinction to the popular religions around them, God insisted that he was a God who would be unseen (cf. Exodus 20:3-4). When Moses asked to see God, the Lord refused, saying, “You cannot see my face, for no one can see me and live” (33:20). Instead, God caused his goodness to pass in front of Moses by proclaiming his name–“Yahweh”–and declaring his character–“I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion” (33:19). Biblical faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see (Heb. 11:1; cf. 1 Peter 1:8).

7. All the corporate worship we know of in the early church is saturated with words. While there are many things we don’t know about the worship of the early church in the Bible, we do know that they devoted themselves to the apostle’s teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer (Acts 2:42). We know they were devoted to the public reading of Scripture (1 Tim. 4:13). We know they brought hymns, words of instruction, revelations, tongues and interpretations (1 Cor. 14:26). In other words, while we can make inferences and prudential judgments about the role of visual arts in worship, we know for certain that their gatherings were infused with words.

8. Jesus Christ is the preexistent, incarnate, eternal, Word of God (John 1:1). It is sometimes objected that our focus in worship is to be on the Word (Jesus) not the word (the Bible). This is surely true. We worship Christ not the Scriptures. But the argument goes too far if it places a wedge between the incarnate Word of God (Jesus) and the word of God (Scripture). We don’t believe the Bible is Jesus Christ, but let us not miss the connection between the Word and the word. God created by means of the eternal Logos–his wisdom, his speech, his voice, his word. At the same time, we know that God created by and in Jesus Christ. Both truths demonstrate that the Logos is the mediating agent in all of creation and revelation, whether by means of the Divine Voice or incarnated in the person of Jesus Christ. In other words, the Word we see revealed and embodied in Jesus, is the same Word we meet in God’s self-disclosure in the pages of Scripture.

9. Paul places a high value on maximum intelligibility in corporate worship (1 Cor. 14:1-25). There are times and places for ambiguity and subtlety. Corporate worship, however, is for proclamation. And words are the least ambiguous (though not always crystal-clear themselves) means by which the truth can be proclaimed. Dance can honor God, painting can praise our Maker, and music can please the Lord, but no other art form can proclaim the truth with as much shared intelligibility as words. Even the parables, which are often cited as encouragement for using stories and drama, were too ambiguous. That’s why Jesus told parables: to be unclear. “The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you,” Jesus told his disciples. “But to those on the outside everything is said in parables so that they may be ever seeing but never perceiving, and ever hearing but never understanding; otherwise they might turn and be forgiven” (Mark 4:11-12).

10. Jesus was a preacher. “But he said, ‘I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns also, because that is why I was sent’” (Luke 4:43).

11. The church was founded on the teaching of the apostles and prophets (Eph. 2:20; cf. John 16:13).

12. Teaching-preaching was a normative part of early Christian worship. The first Christians inherited from the Jews a strong tradition of teaching and preaching (cf. Acts 13:14-16; 15:21). From at least the time of Ezra, for example, we know that the Levites “helped the people understand the law.” They “read from the book, from the law of God, clearly; and they gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading” (Nehemiah 6:7-8; cf. 2 Chronicles 15:3). We see this same emphasis in the New Testament church. Paul was preeminently a preacher (Ephesians 3:7-9). He commanded Timothy mainly to preach and teach (1 Tim. 4:13) and to instruct others in the same (2 Tim. 4:2). Titus’ primary instructions are concerned with teaching what is in accord with sound doctrine (Titus 2:1). One of the main roles of the elder was to teach (1 Tim. 3:2; cf. Acts 6:2), so much so that “the elders who direct the affairs of the church well are worthy of double honor, especially those whose work is preaching and teaching” (1 Tim. 5:17). Clearly, the authoritative teaching and preaching of Scripture was a normative part of the early Christian gatherings, if not the central event of their meeting together.

13. We live by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord (Deut. 8:3; Matt. 4:4).

14. The gospel is first of all news (Rom 10:15). Words must be central in corporate worship because the gospel is first and foremost a message–not an experience or an expression or even a command, but a declaration of good news.

15. Powerful emotional experiences come through Holy Spirit anointed preaching. Giving priority to the word, does not mean short-circuiting our affections. Our aim is not wise and persuasive words, but a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words (1 Cor. 2:4, 13). True preaching does not simply fill our heads with knowledge, but removes the veil from our eyes (2 Cor. 4:3) and clearly portrays Christ crucified (Gal. 3:1).

16. The word of God is no dead letter. It is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, dividing soul and spirit, joint and marrow, and judging the thoughts and intentions of the heart (Hebrews 4:12; cf. Acts 2:37).

17. Transformation into Christ-likeness is not less than a mental-cognitive activity. We need words and truths in order that we might be transformed by the renewing of our minds and reach maturity in the knowledge of the Son of God (Romans 12:1-2; Eph. 4:13).

18. Jesus abides in us through his words. There is no rigid distinction between the person of the Jesus and the words of Jesus. We know Jesus through his words. “If you abide in me and my words abide in you,” Jesus tells his disciples, “ask whatever you wish and it will be given you” (John 15:7). For Jesus the two are interchangeable: remaining in him and his words remaining in us. When his words abide in us, we abide in him.

19. The promises of God sustain us in hard times. For example, the Psalmist says, “My comfort in suffering is this: Your promise preserves my life” (Psalm 119:49). And, “If your law had not been my delight, I would have perished in my affliction” (119:92). And “I rise before dawn and cry for help; I have put my hope in your word” (119:147). Only the word of God has the power to keep us going when life grinds us down.

20. God has exalted above all things his name and his word (Psalm 138:2).

21. When all else passes away, the word of God will remain (Isa 40:7-8; 1 Peter 1:24-25).

22. Our only weapon in spiritual warfare is the sword of the Spirit which is the word of God (Eph. 6:10-18; Matt. 4:1-11). We fight the devil’s temptations to disobedience and despair by claiming the promises of God and knowing who God declares us to be; that is, we resist the devil with words and by belief in God’s words to us.

23. All of Scripture is God-breathed and profitable for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness (2 Tim. 3:16).

24. Through God’s great and precious promises, we are able to participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires (2 Peter 1:4).

25. The Scriptures cannot be broken (John 10:35). There is much flexibility when it comes to corporate worship, but since we know that the Scriptures are inviolable, and that we are sanctified by the truth, and that the word is truth (John 17:17), we would be foolish if we did not make a priority that which we know has the power to save, transform, and endure.