The word "Comforter" sometimes fails to give an adequate notion of what it is that our Lord Jesus really meant us to gather from thus speaking of the Holy Spirit. We might very naturally draw from it that the term was in relation to sorrow-that it intimated a person who would console us in the midst of the distresses of this lower world. And, indeed, the Holy Spirit does console us and comfort us. But this is only a very small part of the functions here conveyed by the word Paraclete.
This is the very word our Lord employed.
It is One who is absolutely and infinitely competent to undertake for us whatever He could do in our favor, whatever was or might be the limit of our need, whatever our want in any difficulty, whatever the exigencies of God's grace for the blessing of our souls.
Such the Holy Spirit is now; it never was known before, and it will never be known again. The personal presence of the Spirit here below as an answer to the glory of Christ at the right hand of God-such a state of things never can be repeated. [29]