Our Friend and Comforter

The King James Version (KJV) of the Bible, John, Chapter 14, brings us “the Comforter”.  Most of the other versions I have, translate the idea as “a Friend”; one has “Someone.”  I feel quite bereft without that grand idea of Comforter. 

Mrs Eddy has set the “Comforter” forever in the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (S&H).  It is a particular name she has given to Christian Science itself.  On page 55 of the textbook, the last paragraph of the chapter Atonement and Eucharist reads: “In the words of St. John: “He shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever.  This Comforter I understand to be Divine Science.”  And what a comforter it is!  Healing sickness and destroying sin.  NOW!

However, “Friend” is good.  We find it in 8 of the hymns in the Christian Science Hymnal.  One of my favourites is hymn 291 Quiet Lord my froward heart.  The last stanza reads:

                                    As a little child relies

                                       On a care beyond its own,

                                    Being neither strong nor wise,

                                       Will not take a step alone,

                                    Let me thus with Thee abide,

                                    As my Father, Friend, and Guide.

Then, of course, there is the beloved children’s book My Best Friend.  I do not have a copy of this book, so cannot really comment on it, except to say that just the name of the book gives comfort when we know that God is indeed our best friend.

O Oh!  I just read Dummelow¹.  He says of the Comforter: “RM² ‘Advocate,’ or, ‘Helper.”  Attractive, and suitable to the context as the rendering ‘Comforter’ is, there can be little doubt that the true meaning of the Gk. Paracletos is ‘Advocate.’”

…Which reminds us of the “Trial Scene” in S&H where Christian Science is the advocate at the trial of the man “charged with having committed liver complaint.  What an example this allegory is to us as we endeavour to practise Christian Science in our human experience!  One of my favourite bits is “We send our best detectives to whatever locality is reported to be haunted by Disease, but on visiting the spot, they learn that Disease was never there, for he could not possibly elude their search” p. 439:31-1.

As I read all that Jesus shared with the disciples, I wonder who wrote it all down.  Were there people there, the oral historians, who could recall it all mentally until it could be written down?  There are whole chapters of Jesus speaking to the disciples, expounding the facts about himself and his Father and the Comforter.  Now in Chapter 17 we find him praying for them, and for all those who follow him.  Is this perhaps an expanding of The Lord’s Prayer as recorded in Matthew and Luke, but not in John’s Gospel?  I think I would like to record Luke’s version from the KJV –

                        Our Father which art in heaven,

                        Hallowed by thy name.

                        Thy Kingdom come.

                        Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth.

                        Give us day by day our daily bread.

                        And forgive us our sins; for we also forgive

                              every one that is indebted to us.

                        And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil.

I find it interesting that Jesus preached first and then prayed for his disciples, then and now.

Joyce Voysey

¹Dummelow’s One Volute Bible Commentary

² Roman