This is a proclamation of the work of the Spirit. The Lord Jesus spoke these words before His departure. First He said to His disciples in verse 12 that He had many things to say unto them, but they were yet unable to bear them. However, the Lord Jesus would send another Comforter, His Representative on earth, the Holy Spirit, who proceeds from the Father and the Son. The Holy Spirit is a divine Person, not just a power. He is the Comforter. He searches all things, and He distributes gifts as He wills.

He is divine. This is evident in His Names. He is called God. We see this also in His attributes. He is the omnipresent Spirit (Psalm 139). His works also speak of His divinity. The Spirit also created the heaven and the earth. His honor is clearly shown at our baptism in His Name as well as in the blessing which is laid upon the congregation.

This Spirit is the Spirit of truth. He will guide believers into all truth. He will not speak of Himself, but He will speak that which He has heard and He will show believers things to come. It is the Holy Spirit which dwells in the church. It is not only "God with us" or "God for us," but also "God in us." "Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you?" (1 Corinthians 6:19). It is the Spirit which quickens the dead sinner. That which is born of the Spirit is spirit. It is the Spirit who loves and leads His church, "that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost" (Romans 15:13).

The Holy Spirit will also help our infirmities by making intercession for us. "Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit Itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered" (Romans 8:26). It is the Spirit that witness, that testifies with the heart. "The Spirit Itself beareth witnesses with our spirit, that we are the children of God" (Romans 8:16). It is the Spirit who seals the believer unto the day of redemption. "And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption" (Ephesians 4:30). It is the Spirit who reveals the things which no eye hath seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man.

It is of this Spirit that we read, "He shall glorify Me." It is a precious work to glorify Christ. That is the main purpose of the work of the Holy Spirit, namely, to glorify Christ. And how does the Holy Spirit do this?

First, He does so by reproving of sin. The word "reproving" means "to stop the objections and the argu­ments against," so that we have to admit that we are sinners. Since our fall, we are missing the mark and the purpose for which God has created us. We have all become so self-centered and have turned away from our Maker. That is sin – missing the mark.

Sin is also transgressing the law. It is going out of the way, for we have turned ourselves to our own ways. Sin is also rebellion and pride. The desire to be independent and to reject the sovereign rule of God over us is sin. Sin is what the Spirit will show unto us. We have been shapen in iniquity, and in sin did our mother conceive us. Sin includes sins of omission and sins of commission, sins of thoughts, words, and deeds, actual sins, as well as our original sin. The worst of all is the sin of unbelief. We have rejected God, but also His Christ. By nature we do not want Him to be King over us, nor do we want to be saved by grace alone. We do not want to come as a bankrupt sinner to that blessed fountain which He has opened. We have done the same as the Jews when they cried out, "Crucify Him, crucify Him."

It is the work of the Spirit, as He did at Pentecost, to reprove the world of sin and all that is opposed to Him. What a blessing it is if that may not only be outwardly, so that we have to admit that we were wrong. One day every knee will be bent and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. But if saving conviction may be wrought in our hearts by the Spirit so we learn to know our lost condition, we will be convinced that we have no righteousness at all, and that our best works are as filthy rags. All our money or merchandise has no value; we can only increase our debts.

Yet the Holy Spirit shows the righteousness of God. "Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity" (Habakkuk 1:13). God has to punish the sinner. "In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die" (Genesis 2:17). But it is also the Spirit who glorifies Christ by revealing His righteousness unto a contrite sinner. He shows unto the sinner that there is a righteousness which saves from death. There is One whose work has been accepted by the Father by whom sinners can again be restored into fellowship with God.

The Spirit also reveals the finished work of Christ, who has conquered the powers of death, hell, and the grave. He said, "It is finished." It is the Spirit who shows that Christ is Victor, and that all the enemies of the church are conquered in His accomplished work. In the life of sinners it is the Holy Spirit who reveals the avenger of blood, that there is no safety, and that they must hasten for their life's sake. But He also reveals the city of refuge. It is the Spirit who displays the wrath of God, as well as He who reveals the ark of the Greater Noah.

The justice of God is likewise revealed by the Holy Spirit. We have no penny to pay, but oh, what a full ransom has been paid by the Mediator. The Spirit glorifies Christ when we are perishing from thirst in the wilderness and He comes to reveal the Fountain of living waters. To the naked sinner who has been stripped by the discovering work of the Spirit, He reveals the precious Mediator's garments of righteousness.

It is the Holy Spirit who guides continually. When we have nothing but riddles, He leads to the Great Solomon, who will explain all that is in our heart. When we have no righteousness, He shows the Lord Our Righteousness. When we are unclean, leprous from the head to the sole of our feet, He shows the One whose blood cleanses from all sin. When we don't know of any way to come back to the Father, the Spirit reveals Him who says, "I am the Way." Thus that is now the work of the Spirit, to glorify Christ by His Word and through the ministry of His servants. It is the Holy Spirit who applies that Word to the heart of sinners.

The work of the Spirit can be compared to the work of an architect who is about to erect a building. He also makes provision in his plans for the foundation. When God builds His house, He does so as a wise and wonderful architect. He makes provision for the foundation and has respect to the nature of the building and of the soil. Digging deep, He reaches the rock before He begins to build. He does not make us rejoice in Christ before we learn to mourn over self. We do not feel glad before we feel sorry. When He first digs, He finds sand, mud, and mire. As He digs down, He convinces of sin, showing the sinner his corrupt nature, wickedness, and deceitfulness. He alarms him by the thunder of the law and by views given to him of the Holy God with whom he has to do. He alarms him by giving him some sense of the evil deserts of sin, and of his deserving eternal punishment. He gives some views of hell and of the divine justice, as well as a sense of the power of God, who, after He has killed the body, has power to cast into hell.

This discovering work is necessary. It is the digging of the foundation. God is free. In His sovereignty it may sometimes take years, but the Spirit does this digging, preparing, turning away, and casting out in order that the foundation stone, that precious Cornerstone, may be well laid. God makes us aware of our desperate state of sin through the light of the Spirit, by using the law, but He also opens our eyes and guides us into the precious truth of that perfect Mediator, that all-sufficient and willing Christ, who has no form nor comeliness for us by nature. "When we shall see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him" (Isaiah 53:2). But then He becomes utterly necessary and precious.

Under that irresistible work of the Spirit, enemies of Christ are made friends, followers, and humble students at His feet. It is so necessary that room be made at the first, and continually, for that perfect Savior. By nature we are so proud and averse to the glorification of God's virtues. We turn against the service of the Lord, but, by the Spirit, Christ will be glorified as the Redeemer. Oh, what a beautiful meaning this name has! It is full of liberty and peace. It is full of heaven. Men who are slaves of Satan and in bondage to the law of God are to be redeemed, and it is the Lord Jesus who per­forms that work. We were in bondage and were slaves of Satan, but God loved enemies and gave His Son as a sacrifice. "The chastisement of our peace was upon Him" (Isaiah 53:5).

The Spirit lifts Him up as the Mediator. There is one Holy God, and He cannot have fellowship with guilty, unholy sinners. He is awful in His majesty, unapproachable in His holiness, and inflexible in His jus­tice. We all must one day stand before the Lord whom we have offended. How will that ever be if, when the books will be opened and He will read what we have done, we have no Mediator? Now the Spirit comes to such a helpless sinner and reveals to Him the only Mediator, the Man Christ Jesus. How that brings hope and attracts the soul.

Thus the Spirit magnifies Christ before the soul in His great office as a great Mediator, as the precious One, as the Prophet who teaches the way of salvation, as the great High Priest who made the full payment and gave a ransom to the Father, and as the eternal King who is mighty and able to deliver and save to the uttermost.

The Spirit glorifies Christ's blood and righteousness in the life of poor and needy sinners, not only for the forgiveness of their sins, but also for the cleansing of their souls and the renewing of their lives. He teaches them to flee to the Fountain, the blood and righteousness of Christ, for the mortification of the sin which doth so easily beset them.

The Holy Spirit will reveal Christ's power. No man can pluck His sheep out of His hand. In spite of all their enemies and many attacks, Christ keeps them safely. All power has been given unto Him in heaven and in earth. The Spirit will glorify Christ in His fullness. That means eternal life, everlasting righteousness, free forgiveness, and perseverance to the end, grace to comfort, peace to console, strength to persevere, pure life to keep from the corruption of our nature, power to keep from the devil and to bless in trials, and fullness to supply in all needs.

This Spirit glorifies Christ in His faithfulness. He has promised, "I will never leave thee nor forsake thee." He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He also glorifies Christ in His glory. He gives beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning. Everything is His and everything is in Him. Stephen saw Him glorified, standing at the right hand of God. It is the Spirit that shows the majesty and the glory of the exalted King, He who said, "Because I live, ye shall live also." He has promised, "I go to prepare a place for you" (John 14:2).

The Holy Spirit receives of Christ all these blessings and favors, and shows them unto sinners. God's people are an afflicted and poor people. They have nothing in themselves, and it is the Spirit who also keeps them needy and makes them poor in themselves. It is in this way that they will give glory to God and Christ.

Erskine said, "Then we give glory when we bring to Him our poverty, our lack, our emptiness. The poorer a soul comes to God, the more He is glorified." That is now the work of the Spirit – to lead a poor sinner deeper into his own wretchedness, barrenness, and unfruitfulness, and to make him loathe himself. But then He also leads to the all-sufficient Savior, to cause him to need Him and to cling unto Him, but also by grace to be ministered to out of Christ's fullness.

It is therefore the Holy Spirit who fills the heart with heavenly blessings, and leads sinners so that Christ may increase and they may decrease. In this way He may be everything to them and for them, and the wonder may become greater and more incomprehensible that such a one who has deserved death and who does nothing but grieve the Lord will inherit eternal life. Then all honor will be given unto God and the Lamb, unto His dear Christ.

The Spirit's work has been promised by Christ who merited the right to send His Spirit. It is one of the gifts of the ascended King of His church. Is it not time to beg that the Spirit may be poured out upon all flesh, also in our very times? We must plead that the church may be revived, God's work be manifested, Satan's dominion be broken down, and God's children edified and strengthened in the most holy faith. We must also plead that many may be drawn out of darkness to His marvelous light. That is all the precious work of the Holy Spirit. It is not to glorify man, the believer, his experiences, or his precious deliverances. No, not the Christian, but this dear Christ and His work in the Christian will be magnified.

May the Lord grant that to us and our children.