The Great Commentary of Cornelius a Lapide: S. John
2. Because the Holy Ghost has declared to the world that Jesus is God, and the Son of God, the Messiah and Saviour. For this was what Christ pressed home, saying, Philip, he that seeth Me, seeth the Father also. And I am in the Father, and the Father in Me. So S. Basil (lib. 2, de Spirit Sane. c. 18).
3. Euthymius says, He is called the Spirit of Truth, i.e., most true and excellent, as opposed to an angel, the soul, or wind, which are spirits in a sense.
4. Of truth , because He is worthy of credit, says S. Chrysostom.
5. Others say that the Spirit of Truth means that He is the Spirit of the New Testament. For to it was the Holy Ghost reserved, as the Spirit of liberty and love, whereas in the Old Testament He was the Spirit of bondage and fear.
6. And most plainly, the Holy Ghost is the Spirit of Truth , because He is the Author of all truth, and the alone Teacher and Giver of pure and perfect truth. He teaches us all truths necessary for salvation, and delivers us from all errors. And so Christ explains this to us, saying in the 16th chapter, “ When He, the Spirit of Truth, is come, He shall teach you all truth.” So too in Isa. xi. 2, the same Spirit is called “ the Spirit of wisdom and counsel,” &c., because He inspires us with those virtues.
The Spirit of Truth therefore is opposed to the evil spirit of the world, which is false and deceitful. Wherefore Christ adds, whom the world cannot receive . Whence S. Augustine (lib. de grat . Nov. Test.) says that the Holy Ghost is the soul of the Church. “ The Holy Spirit is the love and bond of union of the Father and the Son. To Him pertains the Society by which we are made one. A man’s body consists of many members, and one soul animates them all, causing the eye to see, and the ear to hear. So likewise the Holy Ghost contains and animates the members of the Body of Christ which is the Church.”
Whom the world cannot receive , i.e. worldly and carnal men, who gape after earthly desires and vain riches. Such persons cannot receive the Holy Ghost, because He is altogether heavenly, spiritual, and Divine, who teaches us to despise all earthly things as vanity, and to love and embrace heavenly things as true and solid. For as the Apostle says (Rom. viii.), “ The prudence of the flesh is the enemy of God.” ( Vulg .) Whence S. Basil says (lib. de Spir. Sc.), “As in an unpolished mirror the images of things cannot be received nor discerned, so cannot a man receive the illumination of the Holy Ghost, unless he cast away sin and fleshly lusts.”
Because it seeth Him not, &c. Because it hath the eyes of the mind earthly, and blinded by the lusts of the flesh. Wherefore neither doth it know Him, i.e. practically, so as to love and desire Him.
But ye shall know Him , &c. Know, i.e. His power, efficiency, doctrine, holiness. For He by His presence in you shall exercise His Divine power and grace. By which it shall come to pass that ye shall know Him, love Him when known, and long that He may be known to others. It is as the taste of pepper when it is bruised, or as the hidden power of fire in wood, which bursts forth into a mighty conflagration.
Shall abide with you. The Vulg., with S. Augustine and Nonnus, reads μενεῖ in the fut. The Greek with a different accent has μένει, abides . With this agree the Syriac and Theophylact. Listen to S. Bernard ( Serm . 20, inter Parv.), “The Holy Ghost proceeds, breathes, inhabits, fills, glorifies. He is said to proceed in two ways ,from whence , and whither. From whence? From the Father and the Son. Whither ? To the creature. By proceeding He predestinates. He calls those whom He has predestinated. By inhabiting He justifies those whom He has called. By filling He heaps merits upon those whom He has justified. By glorifying He enriches with rewards those upon whom He has accumulated merits.”
Ver. 18. — I will not leave you orphans , &c. Forasmuch as Christ called His disciples sons , He now says to them, I will not leave you orphans, i.e. without a Father. Because, although I am going away from you to the Father, I will send you another Comforter in My stead. It is not that going away I will desert you, but that going away I will return, and will come unto you.
Christ did this — 1. And especially, when after the resurrection He appeared to His apostles in bodily presence, and taught them, and made them glad. 2. He did it, when at Pentecost He visibly sent them the Holy Ghost in the appearance of tongues of fire. 3. He did it invisibly, spiritually visiting them from heaven, and communicating to them His heavenly gifts. 4. He will do it visibly in the day of judgment when He will make His Apostles assessors with Himself. All this Christ further explains in what follows.
Ver. 19. — Yet a little while , &c. But a short period of life remains to Me, only a few hours, after which I shall die upon the cross, and be withdrawn from this world ; but ye shall see Me, because the third day I shall rise from the dead, and show Myself to you. This is the literal meaning.
Tropologically, as the world shall not see Me with the eye of sense, so neither shall it see Me with the eye of the mind, because it will not believe in Me, nor recognise Me as the Messiah.
Analogically. The world shall not see Me after the day of judgment gloriously reigning in heaven.
Because I live, ye shall live also . Ye shall see Me, because I shall rise from the dead, and live again. Ye also shall live that ye may behold Me living again, that ye may be able to preach My death and resurrection to the whole world. As Theophylact says, When ye shall see Me living again ye shall rejoice, and as though ye had been dead, ye shall live again at My appearing. As Jacob, when he heard that Joseph whom he supposed to be dead was alive, he awoke, as it were out of a deep sleep, and lived again. Christ speaks in the present tense, I live, because He would signify that He would immediately rise again from the dead. As S. Augustine says, “ He spoke of Himself as living, in the present, of them as about to live in the future. For His Resurrection was presently to take place, but theirs was to be deferred to the end of the world.”
Ver. 20. — In that day ye shall know that I am in My Father , &c. After I have risen again, and ascended into heaven, and sent you the Holy Ghost, ye shall by His illumination know these three things more clearly and certainly, viz., 1. That I am in the Father, by the unity of the Divine Essence, that is to say, that I am true God. 2. That ye may be in Me through Love, through the special guardianship which I have over you. Cyril adds a deeper meaning, “That ye may be in Me through union of substance. For since I have assumed human flesh, I have united the whole nature of man, and as it were all men to Myself.” 3. That I may be in you as inhabiting , illuminating, and directing you to all good, and to everlasting life in heaven by My grace. Wherefore, says the Interlinear, ye shall know that I am in the Father , as a ray of light in the sun, one with Him, and ye in Me as branches in the vine, and I in you , as the vine in a branch, causing (heavenly) sap, and the life of grace to flow into you. S. Hilary adds that Christ is in us in the way of food by participation of the Eucharist.
He that hath My commandments, &c. As the Gloss says, not only you, O ye Apostles, but every one who loveth Me, and keepeth My commandments, shall live and know. Toletus understands this of the ordinary believers, who besides the Apostles in the time of Christ believed on Him, that these were here exhorted to persevere in His faith, love, and obedience. That in so doing they would in return be loved by Him and the Father, and that He would show Himself to them, when He rose again gloriously from the dead. This meaning is true, but too restricted. For Christ is speaking to all the faithful of every age. The meaning is, he that hath My commandments, i.e. he who keeps in his memory and affection the precepts which he has heard of Me, and keepeth them, i.e. fulfils them in deed ; he who, as S. Augustine says, keeps them in his life and in his works, and perseveres in so doing, he it is who loveth Me, because he does what is pleasing to Me, what I love and desire to be done by him. A similar phrase occurs in chap. v. 38, Ye have not My word abiding in you. For as S. Gregory says, “The proof of love is the exhibition of work. The love of God is never lazy. If it exists, it worketh great things. But if there be refusal to work, love is not there.”