Christians believe that the paraclete or Comforter whom Jesus mentioned is the Holy Spirit; the third person of the trinity. Actually this prophecy tells about Muhammad ﷺ. How come? Let’s see what Jesus said:
John 14:16 And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may be with you forever, 17 even the Spirit of truth: whom the world cannot receive; for it beholdeth him not, neither knoweth him: ye know him; for he abideth with you, and shall be in you.
Actually there had been a great controversy regarding the word “Paraclete” which is “Paraklytos” in the Greek Bible and that this word was changed from “Periklytos” which means “the praised one” meaning “Ahmad” in Arabic, the name of Prophet Muhammad ﷺ . Although there is no clear evidence proving it today, we can find that the Paraclete foretold in the Bible is Prophet Muhammad ﷺ analyzing the Bible verses in hand.
The Paraclete, a man or a spirit?
Some people may think that the word “spirit” here doesn’t apply on human beings, but actually we find that this word “spirit” is used also for men as shown below:
1John 4:1 Beloved, believe not every spirit, but prove the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets are gone out into the world.
Actually Jesus said that he doesn’t speak from himself, but from what he hears:
John 16:13 Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he shall guide you into all the truth: for he shall not speak from himself; but what things ever he shall hear, these shall he speak: and he shall declare unto you the things that are to come.
And this is what a prophet from God does, not what God Himself does. A prophet speaks from what he hears from God not from himself. Christians believe that the Holy Spirit is God, how come we say that God doesn’t speak from Himself? This is a proof that the verses here are not talking about the third person in the trinity but rather it is talking about a prophet that shall be sent from God. This paraclete shall foretell about things that are to come, so does Prophet Muhammad ﷺ as shown in the section above talking about the article fulfilled prophecies of Prophet Muhammad ﷺ.
Who is the Paraclete?
Here we can see more why the spirit believed by Christians to be the third person in the trinity is not the Paraclete foretold by Jesus:
The Paraclete shall convict the world
Jesus tells about the Paraclete:
John 16:8 And he, when he is come, will convict the world in respect of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment:
Prophet Muhammad ﷺ convicted the world because the people didn’t believe in Jesus (Peace be upon him) as a prophet sent from God. The Quran convicted the Jews because they didn’t believe in Jesus and convicted the Christians because they considered Jesus as God which is another type of disbelief as Jesus never said it.
On the other hand, when the Holy Spirit descended to the disciples in Acts (the Pentecost), all what he did was that he made the disciples speak many languages but we didn’t see how he convicted the world or preached about Jesus. Christian commentators say that the meaning of this verse is that he shall convince the disbelievers, but actually this is not the case, since many people in the world know nothing about Christianity or Jesus, and if this was the case, there would have been no need for missionaries or evangelists or apologists to preach Christianity and defend it since the Holy Spirit already does this job.
When shall the Paraclete come?
Jesus then says:
John 16:7 Nevertheless I tell you the truth: It is expedient for you that I go away; for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I go, I will send him unto you.
And this can’t be applied on the Holy Spirit, because the Holy Spirit was already present at that time when he came on Mary (Luke 1:35) and Simon (Luke 2:25), and when John the Baptist said regarding Jesus that he shall baptize them with Holy Spirit and fire, and when the Holy Spirit descended on Jesus as a dove (Mat 3:17), and when he breathed on them, and said unto them, Receive ye the Holy Spirit: (John 20:22). All this proves that the Holy Spirit was already present, while in case of Muhammad ﷺ, he wasn’t present at that time.
An objection may be raised, how will Jesus send Muhammad ﷺ ? Well, the verse may mean that since they are not on the same time, then the advent of Muhammad ﷺ must be on condition that Jesus (Peace be upon him) is not on Earth, so sending him will be that way which is by raising Jesus (Peace be upon him) being raised to him.
The Paraclete will guide us to the truth
One of the signs of the Holy Spirit is that he shall guide people to the truth:
John 14:26 But the Comforter, even the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said unto you.
The word” he shall teach you all things” can’t be applied on the Holy Spirit, because Christian scholars misinterpreted many issues. For example if we looked at the Early Church Fathers, we will find that many of them adopted heretic opinions; you can see this in my article Holy Spirit and Guidance.
If all these misinterpretations and diversities among Christian sects occurred, then what is the job of the Holy Spirit? Isn’t he supposed to teach them all things? Otherwise this means that most of the Early Church Fathers whom Christians mainly depend on as they took their faith from them, and knew the Bible canons from them rejected the Holy Spirit when he told them the truth. This is a blasphemy against the Holy Spirit:
Matthew 12:32 And whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him; but whosoever shall speak against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, nor in that which is to come.
This will consequently mean that either Christians took their doctrine and their faith from heretic church fathers, or that we have the first choice that the Holy Spirit will not be the Paraclete mentioned in that prophecy. But in case of Muhammad (Peace be upon him), he told us what to believe, what to do and not to do through what God revealed to him either in the Quran or in the Sunna, if a Muslim misunderstood a verse or had a wrong opinion, then he will be the one who is mistaken, not the Quran or the Sunna since we don’t believe that there is a Holy Spirit in us.
Back to John 14:26, it says that the Comforter will be sent in Jesus’ name, so all those who believe in Jesus must follow him, and that he will teach all things, which was what Prophet Muhammad did. He shall also remind them of what Jesus said. This was done by Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him), when God said in the Quran concerning Jesus (Peace be upon him):
and giving glad tidings of a Messenger who will come after me, his name being Ahmad. (Holy Quran 61:6)
Conclusion
So we can conclude that the Holy Spirit of Christians is not the one foretold by Jesus here, but it was foretelling about a prophet who is Muhammad (Peace be upon him), as for saying in Acts 1:4 that Jesus told them “to wait for the promise of the Father, which, said he, ye heard from me”, this is not necessary that it was telling about these verse, especially that Luke the one who is supposed to be the writer of Acts didn’t say anything about the Paraclete in his Gospel of Luke.
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