John 16

Joh 16:1-33.

DISCOURSE AT THE

SUPPER

TABLE

CONCLUDED.

1-5. These things have I spoken unto you, that ye should not be

offended--both the warnings and the encouragements

just given.

2. They shall put you out of the synagogue--

(Joh 9:22; 12:42).

the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth

God service--The words mean religious service--"that he is

offering a service to God." (So Saul of Tarsus,

Ga 1:13, 14;

Php 3:6).

4. these things I said not . . . at--from.

the beginning--He had said it pretty early

(Lu 6:22),

but not quite as in

Joh 16:2.

because I was with you.

5. But now I go my way to him that sent me--While He was with them,

the world's hatred was directed chiefly against Himself; but His

departure would bring it down upon them as His representatives.

and none of you asketh me, Whither goest thou?--They had done so

in a sort

(Joh 13:36; 14:5);

but He wished more intelligent and eager inquiry on the subject.

6, 7. But because I have said these things . . . sorrow hath filled

your heart--Sorrow had too much paralyzed them, and He would rouse

their energies.

7. It is expedient for you that I go away--

My Saviour, can it ever be

That I should gain by losing thee?

KEBLE.

Yes.

for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you, but if I

depart, I will send him unto you--(See on

Joh 7:39;

Joh 14:15).

8. And when he is come, he will, &c.--This is one of the passages

most pregnant with thought in the profound discourses of Christ; with a

few great strokes depicting all and every part of the ministry of the

Holy Ghost in the world--His operation with reference to individuals as

well as the mass, on believers and unbelievers alike [OLSHAUSEN].

he will reprove--This is too weak a word to express what is meant.

Reproof is indeed implied in the term employed, and doubtless the

word begins with it. But convict or convince is the thing

intended; and as the one expresses the work of the Spirit on the

unbelieving portion of mankind, and the other on the

believing, it is better not to restrict it to either.

9. Of sin, because they believe not on me--As all sin has its root

in unbelief, so the most aggravated form of unbelief is the rejection of

Christ. The Spirit, however, in fastening this truth upon the

conscience, does not extinguish, but, on the contrary, does

consummate and intensify, the sense of all other sins.

10. Of righteousness, because I go to my Father, and ye see me no

more--Beyond doubt, it is Christ's personal righteousness which

the Spirit was to bring home to the sinner's heart. The evidence of this

was to lie in the great historical fact, that He had "gone to His

Father and was no more visible to men":--for if His claim to be the Son

of God, the Saviour of the world, had been a lie, how should the Father,

who is "a jealous God," have raised such a blasphemer from the dead and

exalted him to His right hand? But if He was the "Faithful and True

Witness," the Father's "Righteous Servant," "His Elect, in whom His soul

delighted," then was His departure to the Father, and consequent

disappearance from the view of men, but the fitting consummation, the

august reward, of all that He did here below, the seal of His mission,

the glorification of the testimony which He bore on earth, by the

reception of its Bearer to the Father's bosom. This triumphant

vindication of Christ's rectitude is to us divine evidence, bright

as heaven, that He is indeed the Saviour of the world, God's Righteous

Servant to justify many, because He bare their iniquities

(Isa 53:11).

Thus the Spirit, in this clause, is seen convincing men that there is in

Christ perfect relief under the sense of sin of which He had before

convinced them; and so far from mourning over His absence from us, as an

irreparable loss, we learn to glory in it, as the evidence of His

perfect acceptance on our behalf, exclaiming with one who understood

this point, "Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is

God that justifieth: Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died;

yea, rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God,"

&c.

(Ro 8:33, 34).

11. Of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged--By

supposing that the final judgment is here meant, the point of this

clause is, even by good interpreters, quite missed. The statement, "The

prince of this world is judged," means, beyond all reasonable doubt,

the same as that in

Joh 12:31,

"Now shall the prince of this world be cast out"; and both mean

that his dominion over men, or his power to enslave and so to ruin

them, is destroyed. The death of Christ "judged" or judicially

overthrew him, and he was thereupon "cast out" or expelled from his

usurped dominion

(Heb 2:14;

1Jo 3:8;

Col 2:15).

Thus, then, the Spirit shall bring home to men's conscience: (1) the

sense of sin, consummated in the rejection of Him who came to

"take away the sin of the world"; (2) the sense of perfect relief in

the righteousness of the Father's Servant, now fetched from the

earth that spurned Him to that bosom where from everlasting He had

dwelt; and (3) the sense of emancipation from the fetters of Satan,

whose judgment brings to men liberty to be holy, and

transformation out of servants of the devil into sons and daughters of

the Lord Almighty. To one class of men, however, all this will carry

conviction only; they "will not come to Christ"--revealed though

He be to them as the life-giving One--that they may have life. Such,

abiding voluntarily under the dominion of the prince of this world, are

judged in his judgment, the visible consummation of which will

be at the great day. To another class, however, this blessed teaching

will have another issue--translating them out of the kingdom of

darkness into the kingdom of God's dear Son.

12-15. when he, the Spirit of truth, is come . . . he shall not speak

of himself--that is, from Himself, but, like Christ Himself, "what

He hears," what is given Him to communicate.

he will show you things to come--referring specially to those

revelations which, in the Epistles partially, but most fully in the

Apocalypse, open up a vista into the Future of the Kingdom of God, whose

horizon is the everlasting hills.

14. He shall glorify me; for he shall receive of mine and show it unto

you--Thus the whole design of the Spirit's office is to glorify

Christ--not in His own Person, for this was done by the Father when He

exalted Him to His own right hand--but in the view and estimation of

men. For this purpose He was to "receive of Christ"--all the

truth relating to Christ--"and show it unto them," or

make them to discern it in its own light. The subjective nature of

the Spirit's teaching--the discovery to the souls of men of what is

Christ outwardly--is here very clearly expressed; and, at the same

time, the vanity of looking for revelations of the Spirit which shall do

anything beyond throwing light in the soul upon what Christ Himself is,

and taught, and did upon earth.

15. All things that the Father hath are mine--a plainer expression than

this of absolute community with the Father in all things cannot be

conceived, though the "all things" here have reference to the things of

the Kingdom of Grace, which the Spirit was to receive that He might show

it to us. We have here a wonderful glimpse into the

inner relations of the Godhead.

16-22. A little while, and ye shall not see me; and again a little

while, and ye shall see me, because I go to the Father--The joy of the

world at their not seeing Him seems to show that His removal from them

seeing Him points to their transport at His reappearance amongst them on

His Resurrection, when they could no longer doubt His identity. At

the same time the sorrow of the widowed Church in the absence of her

Lord in the heavens, and her transport at His personal return, are

certainly here expressed.

23-28. In that day--of the dispensation of the Spirit (as in

Joh 14:20).

ye shall ask--inquire of

me nothing--by reason of the fulness of the Spirit's teaching

(Joh 14:26; 16:13;

and compare

1Jo 2:27).

24. Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name--for "prayer

in the name of Christ, and prayer to Christ, presuppose His

glorification" [OLSHAUSEN].

ask--when I am gone, "in My name."

25. in proverbs--in obscure language, opposed to "showing

plainly"--that is, by the Spirit's teaching.

26. I say not . . . I will pray the Father for you--as if He were

not of Himself disposed to aid you: Christ does pray the Father for

His people, but not for the purpose of inclining an unwilling ear.

27. For the Father himself loveth you, because ye have loved me--This

love of theirs is that which is called forth by God's eternal love in

the gift of His Son mirrored in the hearts of those who believe, and

resting on His dear Son.

28. I came forth from the Father, &c.--that is, "And ye are right,

for I have indeed so come forth,and shall soon return whence I came."

This echo of the truth, alluded to in

Joh 16:27,

seems like thinking aloud, as if it were grateful to His own

spirit on such a subject and at such an hour.

29, 30. His disciples said, . . . now speakest thou plainly, and

speakest no proverb--hardly more so than before; the time for perfect

plainness was yet to come; but having caught a glimpse of His meaning

(it was nothing more), they eagerly express their satisfaction, as if

glad to make anything of His words. How touchingly does this show both

the simplicity of their hearts and the infantile character of their

faith!

31-33. Jesus answered . . . Do ye now believe?--that is, "It is well

ye do, for it is soon to be tested, and in a way ye little expect."

the hour cometh, yea, is now come, that ye shall be scattered, every

man to his own, and shall leave me alone; and yet I am not alone--A

deep and awful sense of wrong experienced is certainly expressed

here, but how lovingly! That He was not to be utterly deserted, that

there was One who would not forsake Him, was to Him matter of ineffable

support and consolation; but that He should be without all human

countenance and cheer, who as Man was exquisitely sensitive to the law

of sympathy, would fill themselves with as much shame, when they

afterwards recurred to it, as the Redeemer's heart in His hour of need

with pungent sorrow. "I looked for some to take pity, but there was

none; and for comforters, but I found none"

(Ps 69:20).

because the Father is with me--how near, and with what sustaining

power, who can express?

33. These things I have spoken unto you--not the immediately preceding

words, but this whole discourse, of which these were the very last

words, and which He thus winds up.

that in me ye might have peace--in the sublime sense before

explained. (See on

Joh 14:27).

In the world ye shall have tribulation--specially arising from its

deadly opposition to those who "are not of the world, but chosen out of

the world." So that the "peace" promised was far from an unruffled one.

I have overcome the world--not only before you, but for you,

that ye may be able to do the same

(1Jo 5:4, 5).