Our Lord makes a bold statement in our Gospel today: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” But in the same breath that he demands obedience, Jesus also promises the gift of the Holy Spirit. We’ll explore the role of the Spirit and see how Jesus’ promise to send the Holy Spirit fulfills Old Testament prophecies regarding a new covenant and also allows for Divine adoption. Finally, we’ll look at the title Jesus gives to the Holy Spirit - Advocate - a title and a role that we'll see is in direct opposition to Satan's.
BIBLIOGRAPHY AND RESOURCES
Martin, Francis, and William M. Wright. The Gospel of John. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2015.
Catechism of the Catholic Church
REFERENCES
Jeremiah 31:31-33 - “Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, 32 not like the covenant which I made with their fathers when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant which they broke, though I was their husband, says the LORD. 33 But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it upon their hearts.
1 John 2:1 - "We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous"
Zechariah 3:1-2 - Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the LORD, and Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him. 2 And the LORD said to Satan, “The LORD rebuke you, O Satan! The LORD who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Is not this a brand plucked from the fire?”
Catechism of the Catholic Church §1963 - According to Christian tradition, the Law is holy, spiritual, and good, yet still imperfect. Like a tutor it shows what must be done, but does not of itself give the strength, the grace of the Spirit, to fulfill it. Because of sin, which it cannot remove, it remains a law of bondage. According to St. Paul, its special function is to denounce and disclose sin, which constitutes a “law of concupiscence” in the human heart."
Catechism of the Catholic Church §1972 - The New Law is called a law of love because it makes us act out of the love infused by the Holy Spirit, rather than from fear; a law of grace, because it confers the strength of grace to act, by means of faith and the sacraments; a law of freedom, because it sets us free from the ritual and juridical observances of the Old Law, inclines us to act spontaneously by the prompting of charity and, finally, lets us pass from the condition of a servant who “does not know what his master is doing” to that of a friend of Christ.
Catechism of the Catholic Church §1265 - Baptism not only purifies from all sins, but also makes the neophyte “a new creature,” an adopted son of God, who has become a “partaker of the divine nature.”
Catechism of the Catholic Church §1303- Confirmation brings an increase and deepening of baptismal grace: it roots us more deeply in the divine filiation which makes us cry, “Abba! Father!”