Yesterday on the podcast, we were talking about the Holy Spirit and remembering Jesus promise

that he'd send him to the disciples as another counselor, another just like himself.

But then he said it was to their advantage that he, Jesus, would leave them and the spirit

come to them.

And for some of us, maybe many of us, maybe most of us, that's actually hard to believe.

How could that be to their advantage?

After all, which would you rather have, Jesus, or the Holy Spirit?

I think most of us would say, surely, Jesus.

But I suspect we'll never really get to know the Holy Spirit unless we get to the bottom

of these words of Jesus in John 16 verse 7.

And the key to understanding them is found in his earlier words when he promised them

the other helper, the Holy Spirit.

He said, the world can't receive the Spirit because it doesn't see him or know him, but

then he added, you know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.

Now in the interest of full disclosure, I think these words are often, perhaps, usually

understood as though Jesus meant something like this.

In the old covenant, the Spirit was with God's people, but in the new covenant, he's

going to be in God's people.

As though Jesus was answering the question, was the difference between the old covenant

experience of the Spirit and the new covenant experience?

The answer?

The Spirit was with people in the old, but he's in people in the new.

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