…”The Spirit was not yet because Jesus was not yet glorified.”
Some have made a sharp distinction between the Spirit’s work in the Older Covenant and His work in the New. John seems to make that clear when he writes that the Spririt was not yet until Jesus was glorified. But as Leithart observes, the difference is not so much between the earthly/functional work of the Older Testament and the spiritual/heavenly work of the New Testament, rather the point is that the Spirit’s presence is more enhanced by “the ‘glorification’ of the Son in His death and resurrection that John can comment that the Spirit “was not yet because Jesus was not yet glorified” (Jn. 7:39).
Leithart concludes brilliantly:
Still, it is a basic error to introduce too sharp an historical discontinuity in the work of the Spirit. A covenantal approach insists, on the contrary, that the pattern of His working in the Old Covenant provides the framework for understanding His working now.
