Chapter XVI
Verses 1-7. The chapter division at this point is unfortunate. There should be no break between the last verse of the preceding chapter and the beginning of the sixteenth. He had informed them of the world’s hatred; it would be the same hatred with which the world hated Him. Linked with this information is the promise of the coming of the Holy Spirit to testify, and to enable them to be witnesses. The thought might have arisen in their minds that the coming of that Spirit would change things as far as the world is concerned. He guards them against such a false hope and gives a prophetic warning so that they might not be offended. He announces that they would be put out of the synagogue. Such an excommunication carried with it the meaning of a complete cutting off from the nation and the national hope, so that the Jew who was treated thus was considered outside, like a heathen. It meant the loss of everything. The blind man whom the Lord healed (chapter ix) had been cast out of the synagogue. Such was to be their fate. But He predicts more than that. They would be killed, and their death would be considered service for God. This prophecy has been fulfilled in the entire history of the Church. Saul of Tarsus, the young Pharisee and son of a Pharisee, persecuted the Church and wasted it. He made havoc of the Church, entering every house and hailing men and women and committing them to prison, and consenting to Stephen’s death (Acts vili:1-4). He thought it was zeal for God, for he testified later “concerning zeal, persecuting the church, touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless” (Phil. iii:6). And when this erstwhile persecutor had been saved, he also found out the truth of these words. The Jews hated
4
:
‘
;
:
LHe GUsrihh OF JUOTUN IVS
him; they persecuted him, scourged him and tried to take his life, thinking, as he did once, that they were serving God. Behind all persecutions stands the liar and murderer from the beginning, that is, the devil. During the Middle Ages, when the papal persecutions swept over many lands, when the horrible inquisition ruled, with its satanic tortures, and countless thousands were put to a cruel death, popes, bishops and priests acted as murderers under the satanic delusion that they were serving God and the Church.
The future will bring another fulfillment of the words of our Lord, for during the coming great tribulation pious Jews, who believe on Jesus as their Messiah, their coming King, will be martyred again. The prophet Daniel (chapter ix:19-22) and the book of Revelation (chapter xiii) tell us of this. He is forewarning them and those who came after them, yea, His whole Church, what they were to expect during this present evil age. He did not speak of these things in the beginning, when they first followed Him, so as not to discourage them, but now He told them what the unbelieving Jews and the hating world would do unto them.
He told them that He was going back to Him who sent Him, and perhaps mournfully He added, ‘‘None of you asketh Me, Whither goest Thou?” It is true Peter had asked the question, but at best it was just a question of inguisitiveness and not a desire to lay hold on the deeper meaning of His return to the Father. Instead of asking of Him more about that place to which He said He would soon go, and the future glory of which He had spoken, they were only moved by the thought that He would leave them; on account of this their hearts were filled with sorrow. His going away was expedient for them. ‘‘For if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart I will send Him unto you.” His going away meant, of course first of all, His sacrificial death on the cross, followed by His burial, His triumphant resurrection and His glorious ascension, when He took the place on the right hand of God. As a result of His blessed work, the third person of the Trinity came down to earth, to take His place in and with His own. The presence, that is, the omnipresence of God the Holy Spirit in the true Church, and in every individual believer,
JUS Ln GUoreht UL JUTLIN
is a better thing than the continued presence of our Lord on earth, in His state of humiliation. In this sense it was beneficial for them that He should go away.
“The presence of the Holy Spirit is a greater comfort and advantage to us than the presence of Christ in the flesh. Christ’s bodily presence was comfortable, but the Spirit is more intimately a Comforter than Christ in His fleshly presence; because the Spirit can comfort all believers at once in all places, while Christ’s bodily presence can comfort but few, and that only in one place at once. The benefit of Christ’s presence was great, but the advantage of the Spirit’s renovation and holy inspiration is much greater.”
Verses 8-15. What the effect of the presence of the Holy Spirit means in the world is now taught by our Lord. These words are generally misunderstood. ‘The common interpretation is that the Holy Spirit convinces people that they are lost sinners, that they need righteousness and also convinces them of a coming judgment. Conviction of sin is certainly the work of the Holy Spirit, who also quickens those who believe, but this is not the teaching of the passage before us in this paragraph. Much depends on the right rendering of the word “reprove.” It has not the meaning of an inward conviction, but rather means a conviction by demonstration. It means conviction by an unanswerable argument. The Holy Spirit on earth is the convicting demonstration of the world’s sin, for having cast Him out, and rejecting the Lord of Glory, and having not believed on Him. The world therefore is under condemnation and the Holy Spirit in His presence on earth bears witness to it. Then the presence of the Holy Spirit is the convicting demonstration of righteousness, because He has gone to the Father. The Son of God who lived the life of perfect righteousness on earth, who pleased God always, was condemned by the world as an unrighteous man. They cast Him out and all was done in the name of God. Perhaps some of them stood before the Cross when that dread darkness enshrouded the Lamb of God and heard the cry “My God, My God, why hast Thau forsaken Me?” and they may have imagined a vindication of their awful deed. But God in His righteousness acted in His behalf, He raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory. He rewarded Him who had been obedient to Him in His holy life, obedient unto death, the death of the cross. The world sees Him no more but the presence of the Holy Spirit demonstrates His righteousness and is the convicting argument that He is at the right hand of God. And therefore but one thing remains for the unbelieving world with its guilt, and that is judgment. Already the prince of this world is judged, though the full sentence of judgment in the all-wise purpose of God is not yet executed. The Holy Spirit on earth therefore is the convicting evidence of that coming judgment.
The many things which were on His loving heart they could not understand in their present condition. The coming of the Spirit would bring to them the revelation of these things. He is the Spirit of truth and therefore He will lead into all truth. The word truth, means both the written Word and the living Word. The Spirit has come to guide us into all truth, the truth as it is revealed in the Bible. Believers, many of whom are found in certain Pentecostal sects, who believe and teach that there is a Spirit-guidance independent of the Bible, by inward impressions, by dreams and visions, are deluded. Some have gone so far as to declare that their inward experiences are sufficient and that they have no more need to study the Word of God. And the Word of God, which is truth, witnesses of Him Who is the Truth. It is noteworthy that in the Greek the word truth in the above passage has the definite article — He shall guide you into all the truth. Through the written Word He guides to Him Who is the Truth, our Lord.
He does not speak from Himself, that is in independence from the Father and the Son. His testimony is the testimony of the Father and the Son, as the Son on earth heard the Father’s voice and spoke of that which He heard from the Father. Furthermore, He will show things to come. This was fulfilled in the inspired witness of the Apostles, Paul, Peter, John, James and Jude all bore a prophetic testimony; they prophesied concerning the future of the church, the evils to come, the coming of Christ and the day of the Lord. Let no one therefore think that the Holy Spirit continues now to give prophecies through individuals.
He has shown the things to come in the completed Word of God and we must turn there to know these future events.
But His great work is to glorify Christ. Hereby may be known the real ministry of the Spirit, when Christ is exalted. The Book of Acts is a witness to all this. Peter on the day of Pentecost exalted Christ by the Spirit who filled him and used him as His mouthpiece. Every leading testimony in the Acts has but one theme, Christ. The heart filled with the Spirit, governed by Him, has but one ambition, to glorify Christ. And all things which are Christ’s, the glory the Father has given to Him, He will show to those who abide in Christ.
Verses 16-24. What did our Lord mean when He said to His sorrowing disciples “A little while, and ye shall not see me” and “‘a little while and ye shall see me”? What is the meaning of “‘a little while’? It has been applied to His death and resurrection in the sense that He meant it would be a little while until He would die and be buried, a little while and they would see Him in resurrection. This view is untenable. Equally so is the view that the Lord meant by “the little while,” the time when they would see Him, His second coming.
It is true the same expression in the original is used in Hebrews x:37, where it undoubtedly means the return of our Lord, but this in itself is no proof at all that it must mean the same in this verse. If we consult the original language, we find that there are used two different verbs translated with “see.” The first “‘see’” has the meaning of beholding with the physical eye; the second, used in the sentence “‘a little while and ye shall see Me,” has the meaning of “perceiving”’ — that is, a spiritual vision. Inasmuch as the Holy Spirit employs these two words, the first one meaning an external perception by the physical eye, the other meaning a spiritual perception, our Lord could not have meant His second coming. It must be interpreted as the coming of the Holy Spirit to take His place as the other Comforter. Through his office and work the believer beholds Him in faith who has gone to the Father. Such was the effect of the Holy Spirit’s filling Stephen. ‘But he being full of the Holy Spirit, looked steadfastly into heaven,
;: and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God” (Acts vii:55). His, of course, was an actual vision, but the Holy Spirit in the believer gives the spiritual vision of Christ in glory.
This saying of our Lord occasioned new questionings among the eleven disciples. They were greatly puzzled about the expression, ‘‘a little while.”
They frankly confessed that they did not know what He was speaking about. When they were thus conversing among themselves, they probably stood by themselves, withdrawing from the Lord a little distance. But He, the omniscient One, knew what they were talking about and what was on their hearts, and that they were anxious to ask Him. After stating Himself their perplexity, He said to them: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, That ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice, and ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy.” It is another “verily”? with which He introduced this prophetic statement. The word used for weeping is the general word for external expression of grief; the word lament means to wail, and is used in connection with the hired mourners at funerals (see Mark v:38; Luke xxiii:27); the word sorrowful expresses the inward feeling of the heart. Such were for the disciples the emotions connected with His death, the ignominous death of the cross, while the world, their enemies, exhibited a malignant joy. But the words of our Lord picture also the conditions prevailing throughout this age, the age called elsewhere, Man’s day. This age is for true believers an age of sorrow, weeping and lamentation, while the self-secure world, blinded by the god of this age, goes on with seeming joy.
This view is supported by His own words in Matthew ix:15, “Can the children of the bridechamber mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? But the days will come, when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them, and then shall they fast.”
He speaks of a woman. When she is in travail to give birth to a child she is in sorrow, “but as soon as she is delivered of the child she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world. And ye now therefore have sorrow, but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you.” This also refers to this age and the anguish and sorrow for His true people, looking forward to the time when all groaning, sorrow and pain ends for His waiting Church, when all His own, in the day of His coming again, will see Him as He is. Then the joy begins which will never end. These words also have a more special meaning in connection with the close of the present age. Before the great promised regeneration takes place, when He will take His own throne (Matthew xix:28), there will be a great travail in pain and sorrow among the remnant of His people Israel. Of this the prophetic Word speaks repeatedly in passages like Isaiah xxvi:17; Ixvi:7, Hosea xiii:13 and especially Micah iv:9-10. Then the remnant of God-fearing Jews, typically represented by the eleven, will be delivered by His glorious manifestation.
The verse division in verses 23 and 24 obscures the real meaning. The first sentence of verse 23 must be added to verse 22, and the last sentence of verse 23 belongs to verse 24. We read it correctly in this wise: ““But I will see you again (at His coming glory) and your heart shall rejoice and your joy no man taketh from you. In that day (of His return) ye shall ask Me nothing.” The word “ask” is a different word from that used in the second half of verse 23. It means to ask questions, such as they were asking. In that coming day all believers shall know, as they are known, and shall look no longer in a glass darkly. Therefore, He said that in that day they will have nothing more to ask.
Then we read verse 24 in this wise: “Verily, verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in My name He will give it to you. Hitherto ye have asked nothing in My name; ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full.” It is the last “Verily” in the Gospel of John, in which this blessed word of precious assurance is so frequently used. It concerns prayer and its blessed use, after the coming of the Holy Spirit. Up to now they had prayed the prayer which any pious Israelite might pray, that form of prayer which He gave them on their request to teach them to pray, as John the Baptist had taught his disciples to pray. From now on they were to pray in His name. And what a marvelous privilege it is — the God-given means of a full joy. The saintly Gerhard spoke of prayer as follows:
“The benefit of prayer is so great that it cannot be expressed! — Prayer is the dove which when sent out, returns again, bringing with it the olive-leaf, namely peace of heart. Prayer is the golden chain which God holds fast, and lets not go until He blesses. Prayer is the Moses’ rod, which brings forth the water of consolation out of the rock of salvation. Prayer is Samson’s jawbone, which smites down our enemies. Prayer is David’s harp, before which the evil spirit flies. Prayer is the key to Heaven’s treasures.”
Verses 25-33. ‘This paragraph records the final words of the memorable discourse of our Lord, preceding the greatest of all, His intercessory prayer. He reminds them first that He had spoken all these things in proverbs, or figures, showing that He knew how unable they were to comprehend all. But this would soon be changed, when He would show them plainly the Father. What time is this? No doubt the time when the Holy Spirit came to earth. The entire dispensation of the Spirit has brought to believers the full knowledge of the Father and the Son. The Fatherhood of God and the Sonship of the believer is the distinctive revelation given to the believing heart by the Holy Spirit. “And because ye are sons God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father” (Gal. iv:6). “For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit Himself beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God” (Rom. viii: 15, 16). Once more prayer in His name is mentioned by Him and the assurance given of the Father’s love, and that He will hear those who come to Him in His name.
‘Verse 28. “I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world; again I leave the world, and go to the Father,” is a most important declaration. It is a summary of the whole Gospel of John in its scope. It is more than that. It contains all the great facts of His Person, His Glory, and His Work. Here we have His Deity; He came forth from the Father: His incarnation; He came into the world: His life on earth; His leaving the world supposes His sacrificial death and His resurrection: His going back to the Father; His ascension and glorification..
This wonderful statement made a deep impression upon the disciples and seems to have clarified their vision. They acknowledged the plainness of His speech, that it was no longer in a figurative way He spoke. They had a vision of His Deity; they realized afresh that He knew all things; they expressed their faith that He came forth from God. And the Lord answered them by a word of warning. “Do ye now believe?” Is it so in reality? He knew their faith would soon be severely tested. As the disciples had said “Thou knowest all things,’ even so He knew what would happen. A few hours more and they would be scattered; Peter would deny Him and all would leave Him alone. Then He added His own precious assurance. “And yet I am not alone, because the Father is with Me.” But how can this be reconciled with the fact that He hung on the cross, and, when that dread darkness enshrouded Him, uttered that unfathomable word, “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” There is no difficulty. Some speak carelessly of Him as being forsaken by the Father on the cross; but He was never forsaken by the Father. The Father never forsook Him; the Father never left Him alone. He was forsaken of God.
And blessed are His words of comfort and cheer, not alone for those who heard Him, but for all His own. “These things have I spoken to you, that in Me ye might have peace.” Peace, true peace, lasting peace is only found in Him. He announces tribulation for His own in the world. “But be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”