Few words in the New Testament have offered scholars more scope for
research and debate than the expression paraclete. We have already seen
that a good case can be made for translating the term as ‘comforter’;
or again, as ‘legal adviser’. But it is also possible to argue for a
third interpretation which proceeds not so much from a study of the Greek
paraklêtos and its secular usage as from the particular moment in
John's gospel when the paraclete promises appear.
According to John’s high christology, Jesus was the Word made flesh who while he lived on earth made the Father visible. Who saw Jesus, saw the Father (14:9; 12:45). Who listened to Jesus, actually heard the words of the Father (8:28; 12:49). Whoever knew Jesus, was beginning to know the Father (8: l9). Jesus glorified the Father (17:4). Jesus himself was the way, the truth and life; no one could come to the Father except through him (14:6). This central mediating role of Jesus, however, implied also a critical theological problem for the Johannine community. How could they relate to the Father once Jesus way, truth and life had gone?
The earliest disciples had solved this problem by their belief in Jesus’ imminent return. Had he not said that some people belonging to his own generation would still be alive at the parousia (Mk 13:30)? Had his words not conveyed urgency and immediacy (Mt 24:32-44)? But this initial belief had gradually been dissolved by the uneventful course of history.
Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 AD but Christ had not yet come. The answer in Johannine reflection had been to radically question the anxious waiting for elusive eschatological happenings. Christ had brought his salvation already now. Whoever believed in him has already passed from death to life (5:24). The judgment on unbelievers is not reserved for a distant future: it takes place at this very moment (3:18). The disciples have already risen with Jesus for he is resurrection and life (11:25-26). Overcome by the grace and truth Jesus brought us, we have seen his glory (1:14). Life’s judgment, resurrection and glory are not postponed till a future, final day. But how can all these realities be present already now if Christ is no longer with us?
Also here, Johannine theology provides a radical answer. Christ has left us in one way; in another sense he is still with us. The historical deeds he did during his earthly life and what he does for us today are two levels of salvific reality that interpenetrate. In all the scenes of John’s gospel we are presented with both levels at the same time.(1) For John, the historical level would not have any meaning without the contemporary level of Christ’s action today. (2) But John connects the two realities explicitly through Jesus’ farewell discourses (]n 13-16). In them he explains how the return to his Father paradoxically produces a new presence. “It is good for you that I go” (16:7).
The whole purpose of these discourses is to discuss how the disciples can survive Jesus’ physical absence. The theme of Jesus’ departure dominates. (2) “Jesus knew that his hour had come. He must leave this world and return to his Father” (13: 1). “Where I am going you cannot come” (13:33) “I am going to the Father”(14:12). “A little while and you will see me no more” (16:16). To offset their separation, Jesus offers the disciples a threefold assurance. (a) Though absent physically, he promises a continued spiritual presence: “I will return . . . and I will be with ... I will reveal myself ... You will see me”. (3) (b) The disciples themselves will be Jesus’ successors, “doing greater things than I have done” (14:12), putting into practice his service (13:12-17) and love (13:34-35) and so keeping Jesus present to each other.(4) (c) Jesus will send the paraclete to take his place. He announces that the paraclete will be appointed as his main successor.
Farewell discourses belonged to a well-known literary form in Jewish literature. The OT itself records some classical examples, usually to round off a leader’s life: Moses (Deut 31:123), Joshua (Jos 23:1-16), Samuel (1 Sam 12:1-25), David (1 Chron 28:1-21), Mattathiah (1 Mac 2:49-70) and Tobias (Tob 14:5-13). Succession figures prominently in such speeches and occasionally it is stated that the successor receives the spirit of the leader he succeeds.(5) Joshua was filled with the spirit of wisdom when Moses imposed hands on him (Deut 34:9). “Give me a double share of your spirit”, Elishah asked Elijah (2 Kings 2:9). It is not difficult to see that Jesus’ words fit a similar situation. He equips his successors by giving them of his own spirit.
U.B. Mueller maintains that the term paraclete may directly derive from this literary form of the farewell speech.(6) In contemporary literature the Jews were presented with a number of alternatives through which the preaching and teaching (paraklêsis) of a leader could be continued. It could be a book (4 Ezra 14), a letter, (2 Baruch 84), a personal successor (in the Assumption of Moses) or a group of disciples (2 Baruch 44-46). Often we find the same situation as in John’s gospel: a departure with questions about the future, encouragement for those who stay behind, succession in some form or other. Even though we note that the term paraclete for such a successor is never used, (7) it cannot be without significance that the paraclete performs all the functions expected from such a successor. He admonishes, inculcates the teaching of his predecessor, explains and elaborates.
Succession seems also implied in the fact that Jesus speaks of “another paraclete” (14:16). Jesus himself is the paraclete; the Spirit becomes another paraclete by stepping into his shoes.
This similarity of function is another pointer to the paraclete’s vicarious role. (8) Whatever the paraclete does, Jesus does too, or has done before him. As Jesus was sent by the Father, the paraclete is sent by the Father; and by Jesus. As Jesus only speaks his Father’s words and perfoms his Father’s will, so the paraclete only takes from what belongs to Jesus; which is the Father’s anyway (16:15). The paraclete will come as Jesus had come; will be given by the Father as Jesus had been given (3:16), will witness, teach and guide into the truth as Jesus had done. The world does not know him (14:17) as it failed to know Jesus (8-:19). But the disciples will know him because he lives in them (14:17), as they know Jesus from his indwelling ( 14: 19-20).
This identification of functions only makes sense if the paraclete is Jesus’ own Spirit, if he is another Jesus, ‘the personal presence of Jesus in the Christian while Jesus is with the Father’. (9) And this is precisely what John says. The paraclete whom the Father will send in Jesus’ name is the Holy Spirit who will remind the disciples of all Jesus said (14:26). He will glorify Jesus, for everything he reveals he will draw from what belongs to Jesus (16:14). When Jesus says he will return to his disciples (14:3; 14:19), he means a coming back to them through the gift of his Spirit. (10)
The presence of Jesus’ Spirit in the disciples was not something new; it was part of Christian transformation, as we saw when discussing the Spirit texts. What stands out in the paraclete passages is the sharp personified features. Can a spirit ‘hear’ and ‘talk’ as the paraclete is said to do (16:13)? Why speak of the Spirit of Jesus in such definite, personalised terms? H. Sasse ventured the suggestion that originally the paraclete was a specific person, one of the disciples who had been filled with Jesus’ Spirit to an exceptional degree, possibly the evangelist himself whose task it was to lead the other disciples into the fullness of truth.(11) Others have followed this lead, pointing out that the mysterious ‘Beloved Disciple’(13:23; 19:26; 20:2; 21:20) could well have fulfilled this role.(12) Indeed, the task of the paraclete sums up so well the ideal of the Christian prophet (13) that the original formulation of the paraclete promise might well derive from a text understood about a human successor of Jesus. A trace of this could be the phrase: “he will be among (meta) you” (14:16)—which is different from “he will be with (para) you”; referring to human companionship.
Continuing this round of speculation, could it thus be that the Beloved Disciple was originally taken by the Johannine community to stand in for Jesus as his successor? His head had rested on Jesus’ breast at the last supper. He had stood under the cross. He had seen the empty tomb and the risen Lord. He was the paraclete, the person ‘called in’, the ‘supporter’ in a general sense, (14) who could witness to Jesus (compare 19:35-37 and 15:26). Could it be that the early Johannine community believed Jesus’ eschatological return would take place before this person died? Jesus said:
“If I want him to remain until I come, what is it to you? Follow me”. That word of Jesus spread through the community as if that disciple would not die. But in fact Jesus never said he would not die; he only said: “If I want him to remain until I come, what is it to you” (21:22-23)?
If such was the original belief, we could imagine the dismay and confusion when the Beloved Disciple actually did die, without the Second Coming having taken place. Was this the moment when the attention of the community focused more firmly on realised eschatology, on salvation attained here and now? Was this also the moment when the Johannine disciples acknowledged that the real successor to Jesus, the only lasting paraclete had to be the Holy Spirit himself? The promise of the paraclete could now be reformulated and widened to express the coming of the Spirit in general. This would explain the somewhat awkward juxtaposition of paraclete and Holy Spirit (14:26), or of paraclete and the Spirit of Truth (14:16-17; 15:26). It would also explain how in a later period of conflict and persecution, the paraclete’s task as teacher and witness was enlarged to embrace legal and judicial functions.(15) We might thus be able to reconstruct how the term paraclete came to be applied to the Spirit and how such a diversity of functions came to be attributed to it.
I must stress once more that the role of the Beloved Disciple as the original carrier of the paraclete title is only speculative. What cannot be doubted is that the paraclete, identified with the Holy Spirit, is presented to us in the farewell discourses as Jesus’ successor. He came to make Jesus present in a new way.
1. X. Leon-Dufour, “Towards a Symbolic Reading of the Fourth Gospel”, New Testament Studies 27 ( 1 98 1 ) 439-456.
2. J.L.Martyn, History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel, Harper, New York 1968, pp. 135-142.
3. D.B. Woll, "The Departure of ‘The Way’,” Journal of Biblical Literature 99 (1980) 225-239.
3. I have worked out this promise more fully in Experiencing Jesus, Ave Maria Press, Notre Dame 1981, pp. 9-28.
4. For the implications of this belief, see J. Wijngaards, Inheriting the Masters Cloak, Ave Maria Press, Notre Dame 1985, pp. 151-157. See also J.F. O’Grady, "Individualism and Johannine Ecclesiology," Biblical Theology Bulletin 5 (1975) 227-26 1.
5. G. Bornkamm develops this theme of succession well. There is no need to involve ‘the myth of the Son of Man’ as he attempts to do. “Der Paraklet im Johannesevangelium”, Festschrift R. Bultmann, Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1949, pp. 12-35.
6. U.B. Mueller, “Die Parakletenvorstellung im Johannesevangelium”, Zeitschrift fur Theologie und Kirche 71 (1974) 31-77.
7. R. Schnackenburg, The Gospel accorcling to St. John, Vol III, Burns and Oates, London 1980, p. 167.
8. This parallelism between Jesus and the Paraclete has been worked out fully by R.E. Brown in “The Paraclete in the Fourth Gospel”, New Testament Studies 13 ( 1966-7) 1 13-132.
9. R E. Brown, The Gospel according to John, vol 11, Doubleday, New York 1970, p. 1139.
10. S. Légasse, “Le retour du Christ d’après l’évangile de Jean, chapitre 14 et 16”, Bulletin de la littírature Eeclésiastique 81(1980) 161-174; N.M. Watson, “Risen Christ and Spirit/Paraclete in the Fourth Gospel”, Australian Biblical Review 31 (1983) 81-85.
11. H. Sasse who may have derived this idea from A. Loisy (Le quatrième évangile, Paris 1903) also thought the same leader had applied Jesus’ promise of the Spirit (Mt 10:20) to himself. “Der Paraklet im Johannesevangelium”, Zeitschrift fur die Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft 24 (1925) 260-277.
12. R. Hoeferkamp, “The Holy Spirit in the Fourth Gospel from the Viewpoint of Christ’s Glorification”, Concordia Theological Monthly 33 ( 1962) 517-529; R. E. Brown, o.c. p. 1142.
13. M.E. Boring, “The Influence of Christian Prophecy on the Johannine Portrayal of the Paraclete and Jesus”, New Testament Studies 25 (1978) 1 13-123. M.E. Isaacs, “The Prophetic Spirit in the Fourth Gospel”, Heythrop Journal 24 ( 1983) 391-407.
14. K. Grayston, “The Meaning of “PARAKEETOS”, Journal of Studies on the New Testament,13 ( 1981 ) 67-82.
15. J. Painter, “Glimpses of the Johannine Community in the Farewell Discourses”, Australian Biblical Review 28 (1980) 21-38. F.F. Segovia, “John 15:18-16:4a: A First Addition to the Original Farewell Discourse?” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 45 (1983) 210-230.