In the Farewell Discourses (chaps. 14-17), there is a group of five passages that refer to the Holy Spirit as “Paraclete” or “Spirit of Truth” (14:16-17, 25-26; 15:26-27; 16:7-11, 13-15).1 What distinguishes such passages, besides their location in the Gospel and their distinct terminology, is that they are exclusive to John, deal with the coming of the Spirit, and ascribe functions or traits that are significantly different from those found in the narrative sections of the Gospel.2 The predominant idea is that of an instructor, a witness, and a guide, which goes way beyond the concept of a life-giving and enabling power. In fact, in the case of John’s Gospel, such passages “provide the strongest evidence for conceiving of the Spirit as a distinct figure, an independent agent or actor,”3 and are among those which have contributed the most to the development of the Christian doctrine of the Spirit.
Among the functions ascribed to the Spirit in the Paraclete passages are teaching (14:26), guiding in truth, revealing things yet to come (16:13), and bringing to mind what Jesus had said when He was with the disciples (14:26). The Spirit speaks, hears (16:13), glorifies (vs. 14), bears witness (15:26), and convicts concerning sin, righteousness, and judgment (16:8). The Spirit is also referred to as “another Paraclete” (14:16) that comes to replace Jesus (16:7), suggesting that He has prerogatives comparable to those of Jesus, with the difference that His presence should be even more valued than that of Jesus Himself, perhaps due to the absence of spatial limitations (14:28; 16:7). The Spirit would also be free from temporal limitations, as He could be with the disciples “forever” (14:16). In addition, the Spirit comes from God (15:26; 16:7), that is, He is sent by God (14:26; 15:26) as John the Baptist (1:6; 3:28) and Jesus Himself (3:34; 6:29, 57; 7:29; etc.) were. Lastly, the Spirit can also be known and received (14:17; cf. 7:39) just as Jesus could be (1:12; 6:69; 10:14; 13:20).
All of this points to a distinct, independent figure, and at the same time conveys some divine attributes, such as the ability to transcend the boundaries of time and space.4 It is true that in 14:18, right after referring to the coming of the Paraclete (cf. vss. 16-17), Jesus promises that He Himself would come back to the disciples, and there are those who have already claimed that the Paraclete is none other than the glorified Christ Himself who would return to the disciples in a spiritual, invisible form.5 Some commentators see this return of Jesus in connection to the Parousia (cf. vss. 1-3),6 but it is hard to see how this (still) future event could solve (or have solved) the problem of the disciples’ orphanhood. If this is what Jesus meant, then we have to recognize that all the disciples did remain orphans. The reference, therefore, must be to something closer at hand, such as Jesus’ resurrection or the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost. In light of vs. 19, it seems it was the resurrection that Jesus had in mind when He made this promise, as it is hardly open to question that “a little while” points to His approaching death (cf. 7:33; 12:35; 13:33), while “because I live” refers to His resurrected life.7 An secondary allusion to the coming of the Holy Spirit as an extended meaning, however, is not to be discarded (cf. 14:23), inasmuch as it was only this event—as opposed to Jesus’ limited post-resurrection appearances (cf. Acts 1:3)—that could bring Jesus’ promise to a more complete fulfillment.8 In any case, Jesus and the Spirit cannot be the same person, as Jesus refers to the Spirit as “another Paraclete” (John 14:16), which, though pointing to an identity of function (cf. 1 John 2:1, where Jesus is also called paraklētos), retains the personal distinction between them.9 The same distinction is present in other passages where Jesus and the Spirit are mentioned side by side (1:32-33; 7:39; 14:26; 15:26; 20:22). In fact, by implying that He Himself would come back to the disciples in the person of the Spirit—once that extended meaning of the promise is admitted—Jesus was probably only invoking the same concept when He said: “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (14:9; cf. vs. 11). That is, as the Father can be seen in the Son, the Son can come back in the Spirit. It is difficult not to conclude, therefore, that the same oneness that exists between the Son and the Father (10:30) also exists between the Son and the Spirit.10
The meaning of the term paraklētos is highly controversial. Notwithstanding, whatever John had in mind when he used it, this term only reinforces the idea that he saw the Spirit as an independent, or virtually independent, character sent by God to replace Jesus and continue the work Jesus had initiated. Though paraklētos functions as a noun, it is formally a verbal adjective related to the verb parakaleō, which literally means “to call to one’s side” (cf. Acts 28:20). In this case, paraklētos would have a passive nuance (“called to one’s side”) and would denote the idea of help or assistance. The most ancient evidence available, albeit scarce, shows that the term was used in legal contexts, meaning “legal assistant/helper” in court. In Latin the equivalent term was advocatus, which is how the early Latin fathers and translators understood it.11 Since parakaleō can also mean “to exhort/comfort” (cf. paraklēsis, “consolation/comfort”), some translators, as well as several Greek fathers, came to interpret paraklētos actively as “Counselor/Comforter.” This was the meaning preferred by Wycliffe, Tyndale, and Luther, among others, hence the one most frequently found in Protestant tradition (cf. KJV).12 The point is that none of these meanings suits well the Johannine paraklētos, except in 1 John 2:1, where the term refers to Jesus—though not as a title—and certainly means “advocate” (intercessor/mediator). With regard to the Gospel, however, things are completely different.
The notion of the Spirit as a legal defender may be present in texts such as Matt 10:20 and Acts 6:10, but not in the Fourth Gospel, especially in John 16:7-11, where the Paraclete’s role seems more like that of a prosecutor or an accusing attorney trying to prove the guilt of the world. In addition, in Jewish law courts, the role of the defense counsel was void, as it was the judge who conducted the questioning, while the defendant would only be allowed to have some witnesses for his/her defense. In 15:26 the Paraclete is depicted as a witness to Jesus, but not as an advocate.13 Concerning the idea of a Comforter, there is not a single passage in John in which the Paraclete takes on such a role. At best, the element of comfort is present in the immediate context, as in 16:6 (cf. 14:18, 27; 16:20-22, 33), which precedes one of the Paraclete passages, but even so, the One who comforts is Jesus, not the Spirit.14 John Ashton is emphatic in saying that “none of the possible meanings … [of parakaleō], either active or passive, squares precisely with the various functions attributed to the Paraclete in the Gospel” and that “these functions cannot be reduced to or summed up in a single comprehensive term that could then be substituted for paraklētos.”15
If parakaleō does not provide a satisfactory explanation, then the Johannine meaning of paraklētos perhaps has to be sought elsewhere. Several interpreters suggest a solution related to the Hebrew mēlîṣ, which is used in Job 33:23 in the sense of “intercessor” and translated in the Targuns as peraqlîṭāʾ, which is nothing more than the Aramaic transliteration of the Greek paraklētos. The idea of a vindicatory intercession, though not the word mēlîṣ, is also present in Job 16:2016 (cf. 19:25), where the Job Targum once again uses peraqlîṭāʾ. In fact, peraqlîṭāʾ appears several times in rabbinic literature, always with the sense of someone interceding for another,17 which shows that the term was well known among not only Hellenistic Jews but also Palestinian Jews. The Hebrew mēlîṣ is also found in the Qumran writings to designate an instructor or “interpreter of mysteries” (1QH10:13), besides an intercessor (1QH14:13).18 That is, mēlîṣ seems to combine the functions of intercession and instruction. The same happens in intertestamental literature in relation to interceding angels,19 and in the Testament of Judah from the third or second century BC, the “spirit of truth” in human beings “testifies to all things and brings all accusations” (20:1-5).20 Such evidences, however, are not straightforward, which may raise questions about their validity. One thing, though, may perhaps be said: in Hebrew thought there are several antecedents even with linguistic correspondences that combine legal and instructional functions in a way that is not far removed from the role ascribed to the Paraclete in the Fourth Gospel. The Johannine Paraclete, nevertheless, is not an angel or any other heavenly being, but the Holy Spirit Himself (John 14:26). The use of a technical term of Greek origin already employed in Jewish legal contexts should not obscure the distinct application that the fourth evangelist makes of it.21
Here are some considerations on the instructional role of the Paraclete: According to John, the Paraclete would “teach [the disciples] all things” and remind them of everything Jesus had said (14:26). He would guide them into “all the truth” (16:13) and tell them only what He had received from Jesus Himself (vs. 14). That is, He would come as a witness to Jesus (15:26) with the sole purpose of glorifying Him (16:14). The work of the Spirit, therefore, would be entirely centered on Jesus Christ, or perhaps it would be better to say that Jesus Himself would be the object of the Paraclete’s work, and this work, according to Gary Burge, “is the single most important feature of the Johannine Paraclete.”22 It may be that this helps to explain the high and distinct Christology found in John, all the more so if compared to one of the other Gospels. In the promise of the Paraclete, it is implicit that there would be new Christological dimensions and implications to be understood by the disciples (cf. 16:12) and that by saying what he says about Jesus, the evangelist does so through the authority of the Spirit.
John was one of the greatest geniuses of the apostolic church, but despite his ability as an interpreter and theologian, his own Gospel is the result of the implicit work of the Spirit. This is why he did not limit himself to remembering the historical facts involving the person of Jesus. He went beyond, attaching the meaning of those facts to the life and faith of the church, as wherever the Spirit works, the words and episodes of Jesus’ life are repeated and interpreted (14:26).23 It was not John, therefore, who arbitrarily rewrote the gospel traditions in view of the needs of his own time, resorting to the figure of the Paraclete to justify his own Christology as if it had little or nothing to do with the historical Jesus.24 Even if his Gospel is different from the Synoptics on a number of issues, has been written according to his own vocabulary and literary style instead of Jesus’, and has a series of interpretations and personal reflections (e.g., 1:14-18; 3:16-21, 31-36), nothing of this requires a negative assessment of the historicity of the account.25 On the contrary, for John the facts can only be meaningful if they are authentic (cf. 20:30-31; 1 John 1:1-4), and it was the Spirit, not the apostle’s own enterprise, that made him understand Jesus more properly than those who are mentioned in the drama of the Gospel. This explains his teaching that a full understanding of Jesus was only possible after the resurrection (2:22; 12:16; 20:9). In fact, the Spirit is the continuing presence of Jesus guiding, teaching, and leading the believers to a clearer understanding of Himself and His saving work, so that they will also be able to understand the reason behind their own existence as a church (20:20-22; 15:26-27).26
In conclusion, there is no question that in the Farewell Discourses, John’s concept of the Spirit broadens its scope and reaches new levels of significance. The title “Paraclete,” possibly inspired by the Aramaic peraqlîṭāʾ (itself a transliteration of the Greek paraklētos used in Jewish literature, sometimes to replace the Hebrew mēlîṣ, to express notions of intercession and instruction) could have been chosen exactly because of this conceptual broadening. Instead of merely a power that regenerates and enables, the Paraclete seems more an “agent” of God27 that comes to replace Jesus, the first Paraclete (14:26; 16:7), and to continue the work He initiated. This means that the Paraclete is comparable to Jesus in personality and activity.28 The Paraclete is not the glorified Jesus Himself, but the unity that exists between them, which parallels the one that exists between the Father and the Son (10:30; 14:9), is hinted at by Jesus when He suggests that He would come back through the Paraclete (14:18), a promise whose full meaning His post-resurrection appearances do not seem to exhaust.29 In addition, to some extent the coming of the Spirit parallels the coming of Jesus: as Jesus brought condemnation to those who did not believe (3:18-20; 9:39-41; 15:22-24), the Spirit would convict the world concerning sin, righteousness, and judgment (16:8-11). As Jesus instructed and guided those who heard Him (6:63, 68; 7:16-18; 8:28; 18:20), the Spirit would teach all things to those who believed and would guide them into all truth, causing them to remember everything that Jesus had said and sharing new information with them (14:26; 16:13-15).30 In other words, “John presents the Spirit-Paraclete as the successor of Jesus who carries on His revelatory work, sustaining the disciples after the rupture created by Jesus’ death.”31 It is not without basis, therefore, that Christian theology sees the Spirit as someone with His own personality, and there is no other writing in the NT, or in the entire Scripture, for that matter, that individually contributes more to such understanding than the Fourth Gospel.
__________
1 Despite the difference of emphasis and the parenthetical statement of vs. 12, John 16:7-11 and 13-15 could be considered only one passage from a syntactical standpoint, as there is no question that “Spirit of Truth” in vs. 13 is appositional to “Paraclete” in vs. 7.
2 The fact that the term paraklētos is found only in the Johannine writings, and nowhere else in the NT, has generated questions about whether the tradition really goes back to historical Jesus (e.g., Bultmann, 552-555). The issue, however, is whether the other evangelists have expressed aspects of John’s teaching about the Paraclete in different ways. For possible examples, see G. Braumann, “Advocate,” NIDNTT, 1:90-91.
3 Thompson, 149.
4 Notice that the divinity of the Spirit can also be inferred from Jesus’ statement in John 6:63, as to give life (zōopoieō) represents a distinctly divine prerogative. As Andreas J. Köstenberger and Scott R. Swain say, “though John does not ‘say’ the Spirit is God, he certainly ‘shows’ that the Spirit is God” (Father, Son and Spirit: The Trinity and John’s Gospel, NSBT [Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2008], 135 n. 3).
5 E.g., George B. Stevens, The Theology of the New Testament, 2d ed. (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1906), 214-220; Ernest F. Scott, The Fourth Gospel: Its Purpose and Theology, 2d ed. (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1908), 343-349; Ian Simpson, “The Holy Spirit in the Fourth Gospel,” Exp 4 (1925), 292-299.
6 So, Barnabas Lindars, The Gospel of John, NCB (London: Oliphants, 1972), 480; F. F. Bruce, The Gospel of John (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983), 303.
7 Morris, 578-579. See also Keener, The Gospel of John, 2:973; Lincoln, 395. Barrett also relates John 14:18 to Jesus’ resurrection, but he believes that that text includes a secondary allusion to the Parousia. “It is … by no means impossible that John consciously and deliberately used language applicable to both the resurrection and the Parousia” (The Gospel according to St. John, 464).
8 So, Dunn, 2:214; Hartwig Thyen, Das Johannesevangelium, HNT 6 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005), 632; J. Ramsey Michaels, The Gospel of John, NICNT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010), 785; Köstenberger and Swain, 96.
9 The Greek allos paraklētos in John 14:16 accepts two translations: “another Paraclete,” indicating that the Spirit would be to the disciples that which Jesus Himself had been up until then, and “another, [that is] a Paraclete,” which would eliminate the idea of a former Paraclete. In Luke 23:32, e.g., heteroi dyo kakourgoi means “two others, who were criminals,” not “two other criminals.” J. Behm, however, argues that the pleonastic use of allos is not only contrary to John’s style but is also in disagreement with the exegesis of the Greek fathers (“Paraklētos,” TDNT, 5:800 n. 1).
10 And if the Son and the Spirit are one, as the Son and the Father are one, is it not natural to conclude that the Father and the Spirit are also one? Notice that in John 14:23, Jesus seems to suggest, apparently in reference to the coming of the Spirit (vss. 15-19), that both Himself and the Father would come back and dwell in the believer.
11 Lochlan Shelfer, “The Legal Precision of the Term ‘paraklētos,’” JSNT 32 (2009): 142. Behm clarifies: “There is no instance of paraklētos, like its Lat[in] equivalent advocatus, being used as a t[echincal] t[erm] for the professional legal adviser or defender of an accused person in the same sense as syndikos or synēgoros. But the use of paraklētos for representative is to be understood in the light of legal assistance in court, the pleading of another’s case” (5:801).
12 Some modern translations have opted for “Helper” (e.g., ESV, NASB, NKJV), which is much better than “Comforter” (BDAG, 766), though it still lacks precision.
13 See Raymond E. Brown, “The Paraclete in the Fourth Gospel,” NTS 13 (1967): 116-117.
14 Ibid., 117-118. Only a few contemporary scholars still see in John’s paraklētos some notion of comfort (e.g., J. G. Davies, “The Primary Meaning of Paraklētos,” JTS 4 [1953]: 35-38; James M. Hamilton Jr., God’s Indwelling Presence: The Holy Spirit in the Old and New Testaments [Nashville: B&H, 2006], 57-99). The legal meaning, on the other hand, finds more support (cf. NIV, NRSV). For a recent defense of such meaning, see Shelfer, 131-150.
15 John Ashton, “Paraclete,” ABD, 5:152. Ashton’s solution is to keep the transliteration “Paraclete,” since it “provides a distinct and recognizable name for the personage identified in the Farewell Discourse as ‘the Spirit of Truth’ (John 14:17; 15:26; 16:13) or ‘the Holy Spirit’ (14:26)” (ibid.). This was also Jerome’s solution in the late fourth-century Latin Vulgate (Paracletus). Due to different phonetic standards, the New Vulgate (1974) has opted for Paraclitus. So also the New Jerusalem Bible (“Paraclete”). In 1 John 2:1, both Jerome and the New Vulgate have maintained advocatus (“advocate,” NJB).
16 See the passage in the NIV.
17 E.g., m. ’Abot 4:11; Exod R. 18.3; b. B. Bat. 10a; Sipra 277a. For comments, see esp. Shelfer, 142-145.
18 The references follow the new standard adopted by Geza Vermes in The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English (New York: Allen Lane/Penguin, 1997).
19 E.g., 1 En. 9:3-11; 39:5; 40:6-7; 47:1; 68:4; 99:3; 104:1 (cf. 13:4-7; 15:2-3; 83:10; 89:76); T. Levi 3:5; Jub. 4:15; Tob 12:15. For comments, see esp. Behm, 5:810.
20 See Howard C. Kee, “Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs,” in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, 2 vols., ed. James H. Charlesworth, ABRL (New York: Doubleday, 1983-1985), 1:800. In T. Jud., the “spirit of truth” is not the Spirit of God, as in John, but only a good spirit that opposes the “spirit of error” that works in humanity.
21 For further discussion on the meaning of paraklētos, see A. R. C. Leaney, “The Johannine Paraclete and the Qumran Scrolls,” in John and the Dead Sea Scrolls, ed. James H. Charlesworth (New York: Crossroad, 1990), 38-61.
22 Gary Burge, The Anointed Community: The Holy Spirit in the Johannine Tradition (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987), 41.
23 Kümmel, 318.
24 Lincoln, e.g., declares: “The function of the Spirit is to witness to the significance of Jesus and its implications and thereby, as the Spirit of truth, lead believers into all the truth (15:26; 16:13). The evangelist’s contemporizing interpretive narrative is part of this truth. And since the Spirit also takes what belongs to Jesus and declares it to His followers (16:14-15), from the point of view of the Gospel it is indeed Jesus who speaks in its narrative, not so much the earthly Jesus but the exalted Jesus who speaks through the Spirit to His followers’ present needs” (47-48). Rather common in scholarly circles, this thesis was popularized through the application of redaction-critical techniques to John’s Gospel. The bibliography is extensive and includes: J. Louis Martyn, History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel, 3d ed., NTL (Louisville: WJK, 2003 [1st ed., 1967]), esp. 136-143; Raymond E. Brown, The Community of the Beloved Disciple: The Life, Loves, and Hates of an Individual Church in New Testament Times (New York: Paulist, 1979), esp. 27-31; John Painter, “The Farewell Discourses and the History of Johannine Christianity,” NTS 27 (1981): 525-543.
25 On the historicity of John in contemporary research, see Wilson Paroschi, “Archaeology and the Interpretation of John’s Gospel: A Review Essay,” JATS 20 (2009): 67-88.
26 “The view or interpretation of Jesus given in this Gospel is the work of the Holy Spirit. … Only within the ambit of the Spirit’s life and work does Christ live for the believer, and correspondingly, only there does the Christian or the church live and know who she is” (D. Moody Smith, The Theology of the Gospel of John, NTT [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995], 139, 142).
27 Thompson, 149.
28 Burge lists sixteen similarities between Jesus and the Paraclete (141).
29 “The Paraclete is the presence of Jesus when Jesus is absent” (Brown, The Gospel according to John, 2:1141).
30 The interpretation of the last part of John 16:13 is controversial. For details, see Keener, The Gospel of John, 2:1039-1041.
31 Smith, 143.