Daily Manna · Day 117 · April 27
Guided into Truth
“Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come.”
We have used this verse to mean that the Spirit will tell us things, and then treated whatever arrived with force behind it as the telling.
So it is worth saying what it does not claim. It does not promise personal information on request. It avoids saying the Spirit will speak new things; it says almost the opposite, and the clause is right there in the middle: he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak. And the next verse closes it further: he shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you. The Spirit's material is Christ's. That is not a limitation slipped in by cautious theologians; it is the definition Jesus gave in the same breath as the promise.
It also does not say all truth arrives at once. He will guide you into all truth. Guide is a road word, and into is a direction. What was being promised, in the first instance, was to eleven men who were about to have to remember accurately what he had said, and who had just been told, ye cannot bear them now.
And it does not promise the absence of confusion. Two people you respect have told you opposite things about the same decision and both quoted Scripture at you. This verse does not resolve that by giving you an impression.
What it does promise is a test you can actually apply, and that is more useful than a feeling. Anything that pulls away from what Christ has already said is not the Spirit of truth, however certain it feels; and anything that shows you more of Christ is. The guide is real, he is going somewhere, and the direction of travel is not a mystery. It is toward the one he was sent to glorify.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 117 is Of Thine Own (1 Chronicles 29:14).