Bible research image for John 14:26 examining Jesus' promise that the Father would send the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, in his name, and investigating the biblical identity and role of the Holy Spirit.
QUICK FACTS: WHO IS THE ADVOCATE, THE HOLY SPIRIT, IN JOHN 14:26?
Who Did Jesus Mean When He Said the Father Would Send the Advocate in His Name?
Is the Holy Spirit a Third Coequal Person of God—or God's Own Holy Spirit Through Whom the Father and Risen Christ Are Present and Active?
Research by Simon Brown
INTRODUCTION
Few subjects in Christianity have produced more disagreement than the identity of the Holy Spirit.
Most Christians who believe in the Trinity have been taught that God is one Being existing eternally as three distinct Persons—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. According to this understanding, the Holy Spirit is not the Father and is not the Son, but is a third divine Person who is fully and eternally God.
But is that actually how the Bible itself defines the Holy Spirit?
That is the question I want to investigate.
My purpose is not to begin with the assumption that the Holy Spirit cannot be a distinct divine Person. Nor should we begin by assuming that later Trinitarian definitions must be what Jesus and the biblical writers intended.
Instead, we need to ask a much simpler question:
What does Scripture itself tell us about the Holy Spirit?
Throughout the Bible we repeatedly encounter expressions such as:
“My Spirit”
“His Spirit”
“Your Spirit”
“Your Holy Spirit”
“His Holy Spirit”
“the Spirit of God”
“the Spirit of your Father”
“the Spirit of Christ”
and:
“the Spirit of His Son.”
This raises an important question.
Could the Holy Spirit fundamentally be God's own Holy Spirit—His divine presence and activity through which He speaks, teaches, reveals, empowers and dwells among His people?
And following the resurrection and exaltation of Jesus, could that same Spirit be given through God's Son so that the Father and the risen Christ are present and active within believers?
Or does Scripture reveal the Holy Spirit as a third coequal and coeternal Person within one triune God?
We must allow the biblical evidence to answer.
THE ADVOCATE — WHERE SHOULD WE BEGIN?
One of the strongest passages used to establish the personal identity of the Holy Spirit is found in Jesus' final teaching to his disciples in John chapters 14–16.
Jesus knew that he was about to leave them.
Yet he made an extraordinary promise:
“I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Advocate, that He may be with you forever.”
— John 14:16
The Greek expression translated “another Advocate” is:
ἄλλον παράκλητον — allon paraklēton
The word paraklētos can carry the meaning of an advocate, helper, intercessor or someone called alongside to assist. Significantly, the same Greek word is later applied directly to Jesus Christ in 1 John 2:1. (Bible Hub)
Therefore, when Jesus promises “another Advocate,” we should not simply dismiss the wording.
There is genuine distinction in the passage.
Jesus is speaking.
Jesus asks the Father.
The Father gives another Advocate.
And a few verses later Jesus tells us exactly who this Advocate is.
JESUS IDENTIFIES THE ADVOCATE
Jesus says:
“But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things and will remind you of all the things that I said to you.”
— John 14:26
This verse is extremely important.
The Advocate is explicitly identified as:
THE HOLY SPIRIT
And the verse contains three identifiable participants:
THE FATHER — sends the Holy Spirit.
JESUS — the Spirit is sent in his name and reminds the disciples of his teaching.
THE HOLY SPIRIT — is the Advocate who is sent and teaches the disciples. (BibleGateway)
Therefore, I do not believe we should simply say:
“The Advocate is Jesus.”
John's wording is more complicated than that.
Jesus has just promised “another Advocate.”
Nor, however, does Jesus say:
“The Father will send God the Holy Spirit, the third coequal and coeternal Person of the Trinity.”
Those words are not present either.
We therefore need to investigate what Jesus actually meant.
A VERY IMPORTANT CLUE: “I WILL COME TO YOU”
Only two verses after promising the Advocate, Jesus says something remarkable:
“I will not leave you orphans. I will come to you.”
— John 14:18
Notice what Jesus does not say.
He doesn't simply say:
“I am leaving, and another divine Person will replace Me.”
Instead:
“I WILL COME TO YOU.”
Then Jesus continues:
“In that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.”
— John 14:20
So somehow the coming of the promised Spirit is intimately connected with Jesus himself being present within his disciples.
But it becomes even more remarkable a few verses later.
Jesus says:
“If a man loves me, he will keep my word. My Father will love him, and WE will come to him, and make OUR home with him.”
— John 14:23
Who are the “WE”?
The immediate grammatical subjects are:
the Father
and
Jesus Christ.
Jesus therefore promises:
“WE will come.”
And:
“OUR home.”
Yet immediately afterwards he speaks about the Holy Spirit being sent by the Father.
That raises a question which deserves far more attention than it usually receives:
If the Holy Spirit dwelling within believers is simply a third divine Person arriving independently of the Father and Son, why does Jesus describe the resulting indwelling as the Father and Son coming and making THEIR home with the believer?
This does not by itself prove that the Holy Spirit is not a distinct Person.
But it certainly gives us a reason to investigate whether the Holy Spirit could instead be the means through which the Father and Son are present with believers.
WHY MUST JESUS GO AWAY?
This brings us to perhaps the most revealing statement in the entire Advocate discourse.
Jesus says:
“Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I don't go away, the Advocate won't come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.”
— John 16:7
This immediately raises the question:
WHY?
Why could the Advocate not come in this promised way until Jesus had gone away?
Jesus doesn't merely say:
“After I leave, the Advocate will come.”
He establishes a relationship between the two events:
IF I DO NOT GO → THE ADVOCATE WILL NOT COME
but:
IF I GO → I WILL SEND THE ADVOCATE. (BibleGateway)
Fortunately, we don't have to invent an explanation.
John himself gives us an earlier clue.
THE SPIRIT COULD NOT YET BE GIVEN IN THIS PROMISED WAY
John 7:39 explains:
“But he said this about the Spirit, which those believing in him were to receive. For the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus wasn't yet glorified.”
We must be careful with this verse.
It obviously cannot mean that God's Spirit did not exist before Jesus was glorified.
The Hebrew Scriptures are filled with God's Spirit.
Rather, John is describing the promised giving of the Spirit associated with Jesus' glorification.
And notice the sequence:
Jesus not yet glorified
↓
Spirit not yet given in this promised way
Therefore something about Jesus' death, resurrection, glorification and exaltation had to happen first. John 7:39 explicitly connects the promised reception of the Spirit with Jesus' glorification. (BibleGateway)
But then Acts tells us what happened.
ACTS 2:33 MAY GIVE US THE ANSWER
After Jesus has been raised from the dead and exalted to God's right hand, Peter declares:
“Being therefore exalted by the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this which you now see and hear.”
— Acts 2:33
This verse deserves enormous attention.
Look carefully at the sequence:
THE FATHER
gives the promised Holy Spirit
↓
JESUS
receives the promised Spirit from the Father
↓
THE EXALTED JESUS
pours out the Spirit
↓
THE DISCIPLES
receive the Spirit.
Acts explicitly says that the exalted Jesus “received from the Father” the promised Holy Spirit and “poured out” what the people were witnessing at Pentecost. (BibleGateway)
Now return to Jesus' words:
John 7:39
Jesus must first be glorified.
John 16:7
Jesus must first go away.
Acts 2:33
Jesus is exalted, receives the promised Holy Spirit from the Father, and pours it out.
Suddenly John 16:7 makes considerably more sense.
Jesus' departure was not an irrelevant event occurring immediately before somebody else arrived.
Jesus had to go to the Father and be glorified and exalted before the promised Spirit would be poured out through him upon his disciples.
That appears to provide a biblical explanation for Jesus' remarkable statement:
“Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you.”
THE FATHER SENDS THE SPIRIT — AND JESUS SENDS THE SPIRIT
Now another apparent puzzle begins to make sense.
Jesus says in John 14:26:
“the Holy Spirit, whom THE FATHER will send in My name.”
But in John 15:26 Jesus says:
“the Advocate…whom I will send to you from the Father.”
And in John 16:7:
“I will send Him to you.” (BibleGateway)
So which is it?
Does the Father send the Spirit?
Or does Jesus send the Spirit?
Acts 2:33 gives us a remarkably straightforward answer:
THE FATHER → gives the promised Spirit to the exalted Son → THE SON pours it out.
Therefore both statements can be true without contradiction.
The Spirit originates from the Father, while the exalted Messiah participates in its sending/pouring out.
And that takes us directly to the much larger question we now need to investigate:
WHAT EXACTLY IS THIS HOLY SPIRIT THAT COMES FROM GOD?
Because long before Jesus promised the Advocate, the God of Israel had repeatedly spoken about:
“MY Spirit.”
The prophets spoke about:
“HIS Holy Spirit.”
David prayed:
“Do not take YOUR Holy Spirit from me.”
Jesus himself would speak about:
“the Spirit of YOUR FATHER.”
And Paul would later make the extraordinary comparison between the spirit within a man and the Spirit of God.
That is where I think Part Two of the article should begin: with the Old Testament, because before deciding whether John's Advocate is a third Person of the Trinity, we need to establish what “the Spirit of God” meant throughout Scripture before John 14 was ever spoken.
WHAT DID “THE SPIRIT OF GOD” MEAN BEFORE JOHN 14?
Before deciding what Jesus meant by “the Advocate, the Holy Spirit” in John 14:26, we should ask a question that is surprisingly easy to overlook:
How had God already spoken about His Spirit throughout the Scriptures?
Jesus and his disciples did not hear the words “Holy Spirit” in a theological vacuum.
For centuries, Israel's Scriptures had spoken about:
“My Spirit”
“Your Spirit”
“His Spirit”
“Your Holy Spirit”
“His Holy Spirit”
and:
“the Spirit of YHWH.”
So before concluding that the Holy Spirit must mean a separate third coequal Person within God, we should first examine how the Bible itself describes the relationship between God and His Spirit.
“WHERE CAN I GO FROM YOUR SPIRIT?”
Psalm 139 contains an especially revealing statement:
“Where can I go from Your Spirit?
Or where can I flee from Your presence?”
— Psalm 139:7
Notice the Hebrew poetic parallel:
YOUR SPIRIT
is placed alongside:
YOUR PRESENCE
David is speaking directly to God.
He does not ask where he can flee from another divine individual. He asks where he could escape God's Spirit or God's presence.
This doesn't by itself prove everything about the identity of the Holy Spirit. But the parallel is important: God's Spirit is intimately associated with God's own presence. (Bible Hub)
That immediately gives us something to remember when Jesus later promises that God's Spirit will dwell within believers.
GOD SAYS: “MY SPIRIT”
Consider what YHWH says through the prophet Haggai:
“My Spirit remains among you; do not be afraid.”
— Haggai 2:5
The context is particularly interesting because immediately beforehand God assures His people:
“I am with you.”
— Haggai 2:4
So again we encounter the connection:
GOD: “I AM WITH YOU”
↓
GOD: “MY SPIRIT REMAINS AMONG YOU.”
God's presence among His people and the presence of His Spirit are closely connected. (Bible Hub)
This begins to sound remarkably similar to what Jesus later says in John 14:
“I will come to you.”
and:
“We will come to him and make our home with him.”
followed immediately by his teaching about the Father sending the Holy Spirit.
Could the Spirit be the means through which God's presence remains with His people?
We need more evidence.
“YOUR SPIRIT” SPOKE THROUGH THE PROPHETS
Nehemiah gives us another extremely important passage:
“Yet for many years You had patience with them,
and testified against them by Your Spirit in Your prophets.”
— Nehemiah 9:30
Look at the sequence:
GOD
↓
YOUR SPIRIT
↓
THE PROPHETS
↓
GOD'S MESSAGE
The prophets spoke, but God was communicating by His Spirit through them. (Bible Hub)
Zechariah describes essentially the same process:
“the words which YHWH of Armies had sent by His Spirit through the former prophets.”
— Zechariah 7:12
Again:
YHWH → HIS SPIRIT → HIS PROPHETS → HIS WORDS
This becomes extremely important when we reach New Testament passages saying:
“The Holy Spirit said…”
Does such language necessarily mean that a separate third divine Person is speaking independently?
Not necessarily.
The Old Testament had already established a pattern in which God speaks by His Spirit through human messengers.
That doesn't prove that God's Spirit cannot possess personal distinction. But it does mean that “the Spirit spoke” cannot automatically settle the entire question by itself.
“I WILL PUT MY SPIRIT WITHIN YOU”
Now consider one of the great new-covenant promises.
God says through Ezekiel:
“I will put My Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in My statutes.”
— Ezekiel 36:27
Notice again whose Spirit it is:
“MY SPIRIT.”
God does not say here:
“I will send another divine Person to live inside you.”
He says:
“I will put MY Spirit within you.”
And in Ezekiel 37:14:
“I will put My Spirit in you, and you will live.”
This is highly significant background for Jesus' promise:
“He remains with you and will be in you.”
— John 14:17
The language of God's Spirit being within His people did not begin in John 14.
It had already been promised by God through the prophets.
DAVID CALLED HIM “YOUR HOLY SPIRIT”
Psalm 51 gives us another important expression.
David prays to God:
“Don't throw me from your presence,
and don't take your Holy Spirit from me.”
— Psalm 51:11
Once again notice the parallel:
YOUR PRESENCE
and:
YOUR HOLY SPIRIT
And most importantly, David calls the Spirit:
“YOUR Holy Spirit.”
Similarly, Isaiah speaks of Israel rebelling and grieving:
“His Holy Spirit.”
— Isaiah 63:10
and shortly afterwards asks about the God who:
“put His Holy Spirit among them.”
— Isaiah 63:11
The repeated possessive language matters.
It is consistently:
His Spirit.
My Spirit.
Your Spirit.
His Holy Spirit.
Your Holy Spirit.
That at least raises a legitimate question:
Is “Holy Spirit” fundamentally describing God's own Spirit rather than introducing another divine individual alongside God?
We cannot answer that from these expressions alone.
But the evidence is accumulating.
JESUS SAID: “THE SPIRIT OF YOUR FATHER”
Now we come to something particularly important because these are Jesus' own words.
Jesus told his disciples:
“For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you.”
— Matthew 10:20
This verse deserves careful attention.
Jesus doesn't merely say “the Spirit.”
He identifies it as:
“THE SPIRIT OF YOUR FATHER.”
And notice something even more remarkable when we compare the parallel Gospel accounts.
Matthew records:
“the Spirit of your Father” — Matthew 10:20
Mark records:
“the Holy Spirit” — Mark 13:11
Luke records:
“the Holy Spirit will teach you” — Luke 12:12. (Bible Hub)
That comparison is extremely important.
In corresponding teachings about disciples being given what to say, Matthew calls the speaker:
THE SPIRIT OF YOUR FATHER
while Mark calls the speaker:
THE HOLY SPIRIT
This does not mathematically prove that “Holy Spirit” is simply another name for the Father.
But it provides substantial biblical evidence that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit belonging to and coming from the Father.
Indeed, even mainstream commentary recognizes Matthew's “Spirit of your Father” as the parallel expression to Mark's “Holy Spirit.” (Bible Hub)
And this brings us straight back to John 14:26:
“But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom THE FATHER will send in My name…”
Perhaps Jesus' terminology there is not as mysterious as it first appears.
The same Jesus who says:
“the Spirit of YOUR FATHER”
later says:
“the Holy Spirit, whom THE FATHER will send.”
GOD IS SPIRIT — AND GOD IS HOLY
We should now consider the observation that first led us deeper into this investigation.
Jesus said:
“God is Spirit.”
— John 4:24
And immediately beforehand Jesus had identified the Father as the One whom true worshippers worship:
“the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth.”
— John 4:23
God is unquestionably holy.
And Jesus explicitly says:
“God is Spirit.”
So could “Holy Spirit” sometimes function as a way of referring to God Himself in His spiritual presence and activity?
It is certainly a question worth asking.
However, we must be careful.
John 4:24 does not literally say:
“God is THE Holy Spirit.”
Nor does the Greek text use the complete expression found in John 14:26 for “the Holy Spirit.”
Therefore, it would be going too far to argue:
God is holy + God is spirit = therefore every occurrence of “Holy Spirit” simply means “God the Father.”
The biblical case must be cumulative.
And that cumulative evidence is much stronger:
God is Spirit.
God says “MY Spirit.”
Scripture says “HIS Spirit.”
David says “YOUR Holy Spirit.”
Isaiah says “HIS Holy Spirit.”
Jesus says “the Spirit of YOUR FATHER.”
God's Spirit is paralleled with God's presence.
God speaks by His Spirit through His prophets.
And God promises:
“I will put MY Spirit within you.”
Taken together, these passages give us substantial reason to investigate whether the Holy Spirit is fundamentally God's own holy Spirit—His presence and activity among and within His people.
But there is an even more remarkable passage still to examine.
Paul actually compares the Spirit of God with the spirit belonging to a human being.
And 1 Corinthians 2:10–13 may therefore become one of the most important passages in our entire investigation.
