After Jesus goes to the cross, dies, resurrects, and ascends, he gives his own Spirit to every believer. Then, Christ’s mission is unbound and advances exponentially. The world now sees Christ’s body wherever his church is found. Imbued with the gifts of heaven, the church puts Jesus’s manifold glory on display (Romans 12:3–8; 1 Corinthians 12:7–11; Ephesians 4:11–13). Where the church is, there the Spirit makes Christ visible, full of grace and truth.

Huddled with his disciples in the upper room, Jesus named a critical problem they’d soon face: “Yet a little while and the world will see me no more” (John 14:19). The trouble of that news was clear, and it confounded the disciples. After three years witnessing his miracles and soaking up his teaching, in a matter of days the world would no longer see Jesus.

With this warning of his imminent departure, Jesus made a breathtaking promise: “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth….He dwells with you and will be in you” (vv. 16–17). Jesus provides a solution that more than addresses the problem of his departure. When Jesus leaves, the disciples won’t be alone; rather, the third person of the Trinity will descend on them like fire and smoke on Sinai ages before.

In fact, Jesus says, it’s better for him to go than to stay (16:7). How could that be possible? When Jesus ministered in the flesh, he exhorted, rebuked, and encouraged, but teaching alone—even divine teaching—wasn’t enough to pierce hearts hardened by the fall. If Jesus stayed, even the Sermon on the Mount would be no more efficacious than the law given on Sinai. For his disciples to have a lasting faith, they needed God’s indwelling presence to help them see the unseen.

The Spirit’s Threefold Work

At the pinnacle of Jesus’s ministry, when he appeared in his resurrected form to his disciples, he asked, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (20:29). These words anticipated the Spirit’s work. By granting faith, changing hearts, and empowering God’s mission, the Spirit leads believers to see what we can’t see apart from him.

1. Creating Faith

Faith, by definition, is the conviction of things unseen (Heb. 11:1)—but from where does this conviction come? God’s Spirit. His central work is to magnify Jesus, to make the crucified and resurrected Son of God beautiful before our souls’ eyes.

The church’s great theologians have stressed this point. Augustine held that the Spirit prepares the mind to grasp God’s revelation, and John Calvin elaborated on illumination: “Now we shall possess a right definition of faith if we call it a firm and certain knowledge of God’s benevolence toward us, founded upon the truth of the freely given promise of Christ, both revealed to our minds and sealed upon our hearts through the Holy Spirit.”

When the Spirit is sent to dwell not just with but within God’s people, we gain the help of God’s own Spirit to lead us into trusting and obeying God’s own Son. As J.I. Packer has written, “The Spirit’s message to us is never, ‘Look at me; listen to me; come to me; get to know me,’ but always, ‘Look at him, and see his glory; listen to him, and hear his word; go to him, and have life; get to know him, and taste his gift of joy and peace.’”

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