'And I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter,
that He may abide with you for ever; Even the Spirit of Truth; whom the
world cannot receive, because it seeth Him not, neither knoweth Him:
but ye know Him; for He dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.'—JOHN
xiv. 16,17.
The 'and' at the beginning of these words shows us that they are
continuous with and the consequence of what precedes. 'If ye love Me,
_ye_ will _keep_ My commandments, and _I_ will _pray_ … and _He_ will
_send_.' Such is the series; but we must also remember that, as we have
seen in previous sermons, the obedience spoken of in the clause before
my text is itself treated as a consequence of some preceding steps. The
ladder that is fixed upon earth and has its summit in heaven has for
its rungs, first and lowest, 'believe'; second, 'love'; third, 'obey.'
And thus the context carries us from the very basis of the Christian
life up into its highest reward, even the larger gift to an obedient
spirit of that Great Spirit, who is the Comforter and the Teacher.
And there is another very striking link of connection between these
words and the preceding. There are, if I may so say, two telephones
across the abyss that separates the ascended Christ and us. One of them
is contained in His words, 'If ye ask anything in My name I will do
it'; the other is contained in these words, 'If ye keep My commandments
I will ask.' Love on this side of the great cleft sets love on the
other side of it in motion in a twofold fashion. If we ask, He does; if
we do, He asks. His action is the answer to our prayers, and His
prayers are the answer to our obedient action. So we have here these
points—the praying Christ and the giving Father; the abiding Gift; the
blind world and the recipient disciples.