“Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you.”
Of course, the “Helper” Jesus refers to is the Holy Spirit. And sure enough, not long after Jesus ascended into Heaven, the Holy Spirit showed up in a big way on the day of Pentecost!
The way the Lord words this seems to imply the Spirit cannot come down until Jesus leaves us, and goes there to send Him.
In 2 Thessalonians, Paul is talking about the last days, and he offers up this interesting tidbit:
“For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only He who now restrains will do so until He is taken out of the way.” (2 Thessalonians 2:7)
There has been a lot of conjecture and discussion about who “He who now restrains” is. Some people believe the ‘Restrainer’ is the Archangel Michael, some believe it is the Body of Christ (the Church), and some believe it is the Holy Spirit.
If it is indeed the Holy Spirit, then that would be very interesting to me, because soon after the ‘Restrainer’ is removed and Satan goes on his rampage, Jesus Christ will return.
This would mean that Jesus leaves and the Spirit comes, and then the Spirit leaves and the Son returns… almost like there is a ‘mutual exclusivity clause’ here – although of course, that would be impossible since we know there are no lawyers in heaven…. (Okay, that was just a joke – please don’t send me angry notes if you are, or are related to, a lawyer!).
Of course, this also doesn’t seem quite right, because we are talking about the all-knowing, all-seeing, He is everywhere and in everything, Sovereign Lord! So for the One, Triune God, we know that there is no ‘mutual exclusivity’…
Perhaps…and this is just me thinking about it (always dangerous)…the problem isn’t with Jesus and the Spirit cohabitating (DUH!), but the problem is with us. What if we, as sin-filled, broken, and incomplete humans, are simply unable to handle having both Jesus in the flesh beside us and the Spirit inside us? Maybe it would cause some sort of system overload to have that much Goodness and Love in and around us - we might just explode or burst into flames or something?
When Jesus was walking with His Disciples, they often seemed to be completely missing the point. After He ascended, when the Spirit came down to them, it was like the world’s biggest lightbulb was turned on inside them, and they burned with boldness and truth.
I hear some people tell stories of the day they were baptized and it sounds almost like that - a Pentecost experience. They were “on fire for the Lord!” I expected something like that when I got baptized, but instead it seemed more like a seed being planted and slowly taking root and growing inside of me, and not a flame bursting out of me.
However, I also see some people who appear to be “on fire” that also seem to burn out pretty quickly. But I admit, when I see people on fire like that I usually think, “Why can’t I have that much passion and boldness?” and then I feel like I’m falling short. But later I see that my little seed is still slowly growing (it just seems to take so long!), but thank you Jesus, it is still growing! Of course, there are a few brothers and sisters who seem to just stay on fire – which completely humbles and amazes me.
If Jesus in the flesh stood beside me, and fanned the flames of the Spirit living in me…well, I might just burst into flames and leave nothing behind but an ashy spot on the ground! So maybe it’s only on the other side, when we have our new eternal bodies - after we have been changed in the ‘twinkling of an eye’ – that we can actually handle being filled with the Spirit while staring at the Son?
Guess I’ll have to add that to my list of questions….that I’ll probably never even need to ask when the time finally comes!