12 “I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.
We are getting toward the end of the farewell discourse of Jesus to his Apostles, which begins at the end of the Last Supper until they reach the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus makes promises of both a middle period (the age of the Church) and of the eschatological period (the end of time) as well as warnings. It is important to understand when and to whom these statements are made or otherwise you would come to some very problematic (yet common) misconceptions about Jesus.
It may be difficult in a prideful façade of piety to accept that there are still things to be said and done after Jesus’ death, resurrection and ascension, luckily Jesus in his own words tells us as much. The Church is not rejecting Jesus, she humbly accepts his word. There are “many things” he wishes to tell his Apostles but they “cannot bare them now.”
The sticking point between man-made institutions and the Church fundamentally comes down to the perception of Jesus’ death, the mainstream protestant view of modern times is penal substitution or/and forensic justification. The former means all the sins of man, past, present and future are perfectly taken out on Jesus in a bloody manner on the Cross and the latter that Jesus’ death was a toll paid out for the legal declaration of humanities justification. This conclusion comes from misunderstanding Greek words, surface level observation and in all honesty, refusing to take Scripture as a whole non-contradicting piece of inspired literature, reducing some portions, even words of Jesus to below their intended importance.
The Church’s perception is that of Paul’s elaborations in Ephesians 5, these explain why Jesus can say the things he says here without ignoring them or minimising them like man-made institutions have. The mystery of the connection between Jesus and the Church is a marriage but on a divine level. Marriage is the mutual offering of life to one another in exchange for the two becoming one flesh. Now imagine one of the spouses is God, what does this do for the bride? She is divinised by divine legality and also becomes a representative for the bridegroom, Christ. Because Jesus’ nature is shared with the other persons of the Godhead, The Father and the Spirit, all those baptised into his Church enter a covenant, a divine contract, with the Holy Trinity itself, all members of a body with a singular head, the Pope that unifies the mouth and limbs that are the Bishops and Clergy. This is why the “Natural Model” stuff is so important in my ramblings, that is how our Lord envision this, you can think its weird if you want but I’m just gonna submit because its easier.
13 When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.
Jesus has previously made it extremely clear that he must go before the Spirit can arrive, that means his death, resurrection and ascension are all just parts of the mission, I do not say this to minimise them, they are more glorious and magnificent than we can possibly imagine but this tale of salvation is WAY bigger than we can truly comprehend. That is why faith is needed because our eyes cannot see nor the mind imagine what is in store for us. If these monumental moments were final and the be all end all, the Spirit would not be required to do anything after Jesus ascends. Yet he does and Jesus says as much so we must humbly submit to that.
The Spirit shares his nature with The Son and The Father, he will transmit all he hears to the Apostles who will be the mouth, mind and limbs of the Bride of Christ, the Church. Jesus can say he wants to tell them more and then that the Spirit will tell them these things because of their shared nature. This transmission is possible because of the marital nature of the crucifixion, it makes his flesh one with ours like a marriage. The Bishops have the authority they have because they truly are, like a married couple, legally one, not in the eyes of a human court but in the eyes of God himself but also like a married couple, they are not equal, the bride is in submission to the bridegroom but the bride is still a legal representative in the absence of the bridegroom.
This promise extends throughout all time until the eschaton, guiding the Church in faith and morals, binding and loosing as required without error.
14 He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you.
15 All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.
Jesus now expresses the framework of the shared divine nature within the Trinity in a manner that the Apostles can understand in faith. The Spirit can be completely trusted because he only says what he hears from the Godhead, he glorifies Christ because he only takes what is from Jesus and transmits it to the Apostles, everything that Jesus has that is being transmitted in his physical absence is what the Father has. Again, the binding of the Godhead is the shared nature. Since we are finite beings operating in time, the entirety could not be dispensed in instantaneously, most people at this time couldn’t understand why a guy was blind without him or his parents sinning. The Divine pedagogy is always at work not because God is limited but because we are. You might ask why doesn’t God just make us understand, I’d answer because at that point the beauty of Love being faith and trust would be eliminated but the most we can say for certain is that is how God planned this.
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