https://odb.org/2026/10/08/the-holy-spirits-work
John 16:5–15 (NIV): 5 but now I am going to him who sent me. None of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ 6 Rather, you are filled with grief because I have said these things. 7 But very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. 8 When he comes, he will prove the world to be in the wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: 9 about sin, because people do not believe in me; 10 about righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; 11 and about judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned. 12 “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. 13 But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. 14 He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you. 15 All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will receive from me what he will make known to you.”
When Oswald Chambers, author of My Utmost for His Highest, ran a small Bible college, he learned that a couple who worked there was stealing supplies. Although at times it’s right to address wrongdoing, Oswald decided in this instance not to confront them, instead asking God to bring the matter to their hearts and minds. After several weeks, they came clean, expressing regret. “I’ve known about it all along,” Oswald said, “but we wanted to wait until God’s Spirit spoke to you.” Moved and astonished, the couple surrendered their lives to Jesus. God’s Spirit at work is what Jesus promised His friends before He died: “When he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth” (John 16:13). The disciples grieved at the thought of Jesus going away, but He reassured them that this was for their good. Then “the Advocate,” God’s Holy Spirit, would come to them (v. 7). Through the Spirit, God convicts people of their sin. (Amy Boucher Pye, Our Daily Bread 8th October 2026)
I guess for the disciples of Jesus it is better to have Jesus with them than He dying, being resurrected and then ascending to heaven. But in John 16:7 Jesus explained to them that unless He goes, the Holy Spirit cannot come – But very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.
Jesus although He was God, He was also fully human. That means in His human form, He cannot live forever. He was also not omnipresent. He was geo-located in and around Jerusalem. He spoke only Aramiac. I read somewhere that in terms of timing, Jesus’s arrival on earth as per John 3:16 was because the Romans had already built proper roads across the Roman empire and had a common language in Greek across the empire. That is why the New Testament was written in Greek (about 20 to 70 years after the transpired events). Timed perfectly that the Gospel could travel from Jerusalem to Judea and Samaria, and the rest of the world.
Of course we know with foresight that Jesus couldn’t remain because He had the mission to die for the sins of mankind and bring salvation to the world. While Jesus was human, the Advocate or Helper is spirit and He works in the spirit/soul of human beings to convict us of our sins and to remove the scales from our spiritual eyes to see and accept the Gospel. Without Him, we would not have stepped out in faith and believed. Without Him, we will still be overcome by sin and will follow the desires of our flesh. We will do what pleases us without thinking of eternal consequences.
After Pentecost, believers not only had the conviction of sin but began to experience the power of the Holy Spirit. We became filled with supernatural power from the spiritual realm and could move in signs and wonders and, healing and deliverance of the body. We experienced the truth in “greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world”. We became aware of the spiritual realm. That is why Jesus says it is for your own good that I am going away. Ultimately the Holy Spirit will guide us to all truth and most pertinently He will guide us so we will not fall away from the grace of our salvation in Christ Jesus. The Holy Spirit will guide us so that our names remain written in the Book of Life. Hallelujah! Amen!
