John 15:26 “When the Counselor comes, the one I will send to you from the Father–the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father–he will testify about me.”

A number of years ago I was in one of those “just-getting-to-know-you” conversations with someone I had just met. “What’s your name?” “Where are you from?” “What do you do?” The person jokingly said of his little hometown that it was “a good place to be from.” You know the implications of that, right? There wasn’t much to his hometown. He didn’t have a lot of good things to say about it. He was glad he didn’t live there anymore.

Jesus sends us the Spirit from “a good place to be from,” from the Father’s side, but that has only good things to say about it! From the Father’s side the Spirit has seen and knows all that God the Father in heaven sees and knows. We couldn’t have a more knowledgeable Counselor to help us!

From the Father’s side he comes with the power of God himself. That is no pea shooter you are picking up and wielding when you take the sword of the Spirit, the word of God, on your lips and start sharing it with others. It’s more like a big bazooka. Even in your mouth, or my mouth, God’s words are explosive. Other words might have the power of persuasion. But God’s word has the supernatural power of his Spirit working in it, who comes from the Father’s side, able to work miracle changes in the hearts and heads of those who hear.

Jesus calls this One he sends from the Father the “Spirit of truth.” There is such a thing as absolute truth. You have it from the Spirit. You believe it through the Spirit. And you speak it with the Spirit’s power accompanying every word.

That flies in the face of majority opinion today. Less than half of American adults believe absolute truths exist regardless of cultural realities or personal preferences. Do you know one of the major reasons why?  Common sense ought to tell us that something is either true, or it’s false. It is either fact or fiction. Most people understand that. But people fear the concept of absolute truth because they are afraid of what it produces. They think it makes people mean, even encourages violence.

After the terrorist attacks on New York in 2001 the number of people who believe in absolute truth in this country dropped nearly in half. Apparently, they were bothered that the terrorists rationalized their actions based on their ideas of truth. People were willing to throw out the general concept of truth rather than judging the individual truth claims themselves.

The Spirit of truth teaches us the absolute truth. But he doesn’t make people mean. He makes them humble. He reveals the depth of sin’s hold on our own hearts that we could never know without him. We are sinful from conception. Every inclination of man’s heart is only evil from childhood. Those are the Spirit’s own words. He convicts us of the truth that we are no better than anyone else. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Like Paul, he teaches me to regard myself as the chief of sinners. There is no room for a self-righteous rampage against others in a heart convinced of truths like that.

Yet that is the lesser half of the Spirit’s truth. The truth Jesus mentions here is this: “He will testify about me.” The Spirit teaches us facts about Jesus’ life, to be sure. But more than that, he tells us what they mean. The cross wasn’t an accident, a horrible mistake, a miscarriage of justice. It is the atoning sacrifice for our sins. It is the source of forgiveness and every other blessing. It is the supreme demonstration of God’s love for you and me. It makes you a treasured and dear child of God. Jesus’ resurrection isn’t a hoax, a pious legend, or a freak of nature. It is God’s happy promise that death is not the end, that our bodies and souls will live forever and ever.

Truths like that won’t make you mean. They will make you free. No one knows better than the Spirit that this is true. No one is better able than the Spirit to convince us that this is true. This is the perfect Counselor Jesus sends.