o you." Jesus cannot tell them all He would wish them
to know; but the same Helper whom He has already promised will
especially help them by giving them understanding of what has already
been told them, and by leading them into further knowledge. He is to
come "in the name" of Jesus--that is to say, as His representative--and
to carry on His work in the world.[16]

Here, then, the Lord predicts that one day His disciples will know more
than He has taught them. They were to advance in knowledge beyond the
point to which He had brought them. His teaching would necessarily be
the foundation of all future attainment, and whatever would not square
with that they must necessarily reject; but they were to add much to the
foundation He had laid. We cannot therefore expect to find in the
teaching of Jesus all that His followers ought to know regarding Himself
and His connection with them. All that is absolutely necessary we shall
find there; but if we wish to know all that He would have us know, we
must look beyond. The teaching which we receive from the Apostles is the
requisite and promised complement of the teaching which Christ Himself
delivered. He being the subject taught as much as the teacher, and His
whole experience as living, dying, rising, and ascending, constituting
the facts which Christian teaching was to explain, it was impossible
that He Himself should be the final teacher. He could not at once be
text and exposition. He lived among men, and by His teaching shed much
light on the significance of His life; He died, and was not altogether
silent regarding the meaning of His death, but it was enough that He
furnished matter for His Apostles to explain, and confined Himself to
sketching the mere outline of Christian truth.

Again and again throughout this last conversation Jesus tries to break
off, but finds it impossible. Here (ver. 27), when He has assured them
that, although He Himself leaves them in ignorance of many things, the
Spirit will lead them into all truth, He proceeds to make His parting
bequest. He would fain leave them what will enable them to be free from
care and distress; but He has none of those worldly possessions which
men usually lay up for their children and those dependent on them.
House, lands, clothes, money, He had none. He could not even secure for
those who were to carry on His work an exemption from persecution which
He Himself had not enjoyed. He did not leave them, as some initiators