In chapter one we established by a cursory inspection that five passages
in John appear to be different from the ordinary Spirit texts: 14:16-17; 14:26;
15:26; 16:7-11; and 16:12-15. We called them Paraclete passages. It now remains
for us to examine these verses on their own merit.
As we did with the Spirit texts in chapter one, we should first before consulting scholarship and research study the Johannine text itself, discovering its inner themes and observing questions that need to be resolved. However valuable the reading of articles and books about John may be, our own attentive reading of the Johannine text must lay the foundation for our interpretation.
The Paraclete passages, though possibly revealing successive editorial reformulations, express a rather coherent set of beliefs. They exhibit the typically Johannine way of talking ‘around a subject’, of repeating a number of basic assertions in parallel ways so that gradually a complete picture is built up. We should, therefore, treat all these passages as one unit, supplementing from one text what may be missing in another and interpreting particular phrases from the parallels given elsewhere. In other words, rather than looking for ‘clusters’ as we did when scrutinizing the Spirit texts, we need to distinguish different elements that emerge from an interior analysis.
It is important, of course, to have the five passages I mentioned before us in the original Greek, or in a reliable, rather literal translation. Instead of printing the full text here, I request the reader to read those passages for herself or himself at this stage and judge the validity of my interior analysis with an eye on the text. As we have done with spirit in the first five chapters, I will print the paraclete and its synonyms in bold letters and without capital so as not to prejudice our interpretation.
My own analysis of the inner thematics of the paraclete passages focuses on figures and roles. The paraclete, presented as a person, relates to two individual persons: the Father and Jesus; and to two groups of persons: the disciples and the world. The texts express the relationships which the paraclete has to the other four.
The paraclete is indicated by four names: paraclete itself (14:26; 15:26; 16:7), by the expression “another paraclete”(14:16), as “the Spirit of Truth” (14:17; 15:26; 16:13) and “the Holy Spirit” (14:26). The last titles and the reference to his “coming” (15:26;16:7)-; 16:13) link the paraclete passages to the Spirit texts. At least in the final edition of the gospel as we have it now, we are meant to equate the coming of the Spirit announced in the earlier chapters of the gospel with the coming of the paraclete promised at the last supper.
The text leaves no doubt as to the origin of the paraclete. He is sent by the Father on the instigation of the Son, as the various parallel formulations show:
1. “I will ask the Father and he will give you another paraclete.” - 14:16
2. “whom the Father will send in my name”. - 14:26
3. “whom I will send to you from the Father”. - 15:26
4. “who proceeds from the Father”. - 15:26
5. “I will send him to you”. - 16:7
The same origin from Father and Son is implicit in the statement that everything the Father has belongs to the Son and that it can, therefore, be said that all he teaches he takes from the Son (16:15).
The paraclete is said to have a different relationship to the disciples than to the world. Whereas the disciples wil1 know him because he is with them and in them (14:17), yes, is with them for ever (14:16), the world cannot receive him because it neither sees nor knows him (14: 17). This constitutes another obvious link with the Spirit. For, as we have seen in the preceding chapters, it is reception of the Spirit that distinguishes believers from unbelievers.
The role of the paraclete, as far as the disciples are concerned, is that of a teacher. From the texts it transpires that he is expected to say more than what Jesus was able to say. Jesus was inhibited because such teaching would have been too much to bear before his resurrection (16:12). The paraclete is the teacher who will complete the message.
1. “He will teach you everything”. - 14:26
2. “He will lead you into the complete truth”. - 16:13
3. “He will tell you of the things to come”. - 16:13
However, the teaching of the paraclete should not be looked upon as an entirely new revelation. In all he says, the paraclete will draw on Jesus’ own message.
1. “He will remind you of all I said to you”. - 14:26
2. “He will not be speaking as from himself; rather, he will speak of things he has heard”. - 16:13
3. “He will glorify me. For he will take from what is mine and announce it to you”. - 16:14
In the conflict between Jesus’ followers and a persecuting, unbelieving world the paraclete will help to prove that the disciples are right, the world wrong.
1. “He will give witness in my favour”. - 15:26
2. “He will indict the world regarding sin, righteousness and judgment”. - 16:8
The indictment consists of three verdicts: pronouncing unbelief to be sin, defending Jesus’ innocence and declaring that the ruler of this world of darkness has already been found guilty (16:9-11).
Central to all these passages is the figure of the paraclete himself, who in distinction from the Spirit in the Spirit texts, is presented as a person. It is obvious that the term paraclete must have been chosen for a special theological reason. Uncovering that reason will throw more light on Jesus’ promise.
Since these passages lie embedded in the farewell discourses, they take their relevance from the special thematics found in these specifically Johannine reflections. What function is attributed to the paraclete in the context of Jesus’ valedictory address?
The gospel in its present form presents the paraclete as the realization of the Spirit. Was this equation noted from the beginning, or did the image arise from other sources? What is the specific new dimension added to the experience of Spirit taught elsewhere in the gospel?
These are the main questions we shall try to answer in the next four chapters.