He will bring glory for me. (John 16:14)

    The Spirit brings glory to Christ by refusing to put himself on center stage. Whatever the Spirit does and however he does it, it is to be understood in light of Jesus’ own proclamation: “He will bring glory to me.”

    We’ve all known people who were the dynamic behind what was going on, and while we knew they were at work, they didn’t parade or proclaim their presence. They were hiding in plain sight. They did their job so well that people looked at what was being accomplished more than at the prime mover in the venture. The Spirit of God models this behavior for us.

    He doesn’t want first place!

    Because there is no life without him, because we have no Christ without him, because he does so much — we’re tempted to forget why he does what he does. The Spirit does what he does to glorify the Christ, to bring the Christ, to represent the Christ. He never parades his own presence, even though he insists that we know he is present. And when the Spirit leads people to speak — and they cannot speak without him — they speak of the Master and not of him.¹ The Spirit suffers from no identity crisis, yet you never hear him say, “Behold me!” Rather, over and over and over again he says, “Behold him!“²

    To say we shouldn’t glorify the Spirit would be nonsense! To say we shouldn’t delve into his nature and work would be sheer ignorance.³ But one of the reasons that less has been said about the Spirit down the centuries than about the Father and Son is because the Holy Spirit has unceasingly pointed to the Father and the Son. That he himself should be praised and glorified is only proper, but it honors the Spirit when we pay attention to the focus of his work in the world.⁴ He is not the focus of his own holy labors. In pointing away from himself, the Spirit is not putting himself down; he is exalting the Christ.

The Spirit does what he does to glorify the Christ, to bring the Christ, to represent the Christ.

    We shouldn’t think this a matter of no consequence. If this is how the Spirit works and makes it clear to us that this is how he works, it must have a deep significance. And if the Spirit of God keeps stepping aside so that we can see the glorious Lord, what does this say of the Christ? What are we to make of the one whom the Spirit insists on putting at the center?

    Shouldn’t that remind us that we haven’t gotten to the bottom of Jesus Christ yet? Doesn’t it say that there are unfathomable and unimaginable riches in the incarnate Lord?

    The old cliché says that the hardest instrument to play is second fiddle. Perhaps it isn’t out of place to say that the Spirit does this with enthusiasm and love for the Son. It’s obviously true — but needs to be said just the same — that the words “second fiddle” lose their meaning in a setting where competition doesn’t exist. Still, how fine it is to know that the Spirit of God finds joy in working to bring glory to the Savior. While it is what we would fully expect — we were never led to expect anything else — still, it’s strengthening to note the harmony of it all. It gives coherence to our own lives in community when we remember that “the divine Communion of Persons” knows nothing of envy, and when a specific one is adored, all rejoice.