A Work in Progress Bible Commentary
By: Chip Crush

JOHN
CHAPTER 16

1"All this I have told you so that you will not go astray. 2They will put you out of the synagogue; in fact, a time is coming when anyone who kills you will think he is offering a service to God. 3They will do such things because they have not known the Father or me. 4I have told you this, so that when the time comes you will remember that I warned you. I did not tell you this at first because I was with you.

The Work of the Holy Spirit

5"Now I am going to him who sent me, yet none of you asks me, 'Where are you going?' 6Because I have said these things, you are filled with grief. 7But I tell you the truth: It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. 8When he comes, he will convict the world of guilt[1] in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment: 9in regard to sin, because men do not believe in me; 10in regard to righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; 11and in regard to judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned.
12"I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. 13But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. 14He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you. 15All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will take from what is mine and make it known to you.
16"In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me."

The Disciples' Grief Will Turn to Joy

17Some of his disciples said to one another, "What does he mean by saying, 'In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me,' and 'Because I am going to the Father'?" 18They kept asking, "What does he mean by 'a little while'? We don't understand what he is saying."
19Jesus saw that they wanted to ask him about this, so he said to them, "Are you asking one another what I meant when I said, 'In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me'? 20I tell you the truth, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy. 21A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world. 22So with you: Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy. 23In that day you will no longer ask me anything. I tell you the truth, my Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. 24Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete.
25"Though I have been speaking figuratively, a time is coming when I will no longer use this kind of language but will tell you plainly about my Father. 26In that day you will ask in my name. I am not saying that I will ask the Father on your behalf. 27No, the Father himself loves you because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God. 28I came from the Father and entered the world; now I am leaving the world and going back to the Father."
29Then Jesus' disciples said, "Now you are speaking clearly and without figures of speech. 30Now we can see that you know all things and that you do not even need to have anyone ask you questions. This makes us believe that you came from God."
31"You believe at last!"[2] Jesus answered. 32"But a time is coming, and has come, when you will be scattered, each to his own home. You will leave me all alone. Yet I am not alone, for my Father is with me.
33"I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."

If we think about this discourse as a whole, it is effectively a grand sermon that begins and ends with the same point. The point, back in chapter 14 was this, “Do not let your heart be troubled.” And the point at the end of chapter 16 is the same, “In Me you may have peace. In the world, you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” So Jesus is preaching a grand sermon called, “How to have peace and keep you heart from distress,” to His small audience of eleven men. Jesus teaches the disciples about the Father, about Himself, and about the Holy Spirit. The doctrine of the Trinity is meant to give us peace.

  1. V1-4 - Jesus continues from chapter 15, where He explained that God’s pruning of the branches to cause them to bear more fruit would come to the disciples in the form of persecution. The news gets direr here, as Jesus reveals that this persecution would lead to excommunication from the Jewish synagogue, and even death.

    In v1, Jesus says that the reason He told the disciples everything in chapter 15 was so that they would not go astray. Prophecy has an amazing ability to hold our attention. Think of the Jews, who even today believe that Messiah is coming, thanks to the prophecy spoken to them 2500 years ago. These disciples trusted Jesus, so His explaining to them what would happen in the days (and years) to come held their attention and kept them from straying. When excommunication threatens religious folks, fear sets in and perhaps keeps them in check; but knowing about it in advance strengthens people to face the threat and maintain their course in the way of the Lord. For example, Martin Luther was asked to renounce his position before the archdiocese, and his reply was, “Here I stand; I can do nothing more.” V2 is one of my favorites, because it speaks so intimately to the reality of martyrdom, especially in light of Muslim aggression. The true Islam would have any non-believers killed as a service to God. Jesus says that time is coming. It is now here. V3 adds to this explanation. Why would people killing others think they were doing God a favor? Because they have never known God, and they have certainly never known Christ. Thus we learn what a serious offense it is to never come to know the Lord. The fruit of unbelief is increasing wickedness.

    In 1685, there was Margaret McLoughlin, a 63 year-old widow and Margaret Wilson, a young girl of 18, and both of them had refused to bow to the order that they should worship according to Episcopalian rules. They just simply wouldn’t do that and Margaret McLaughlin had taken every opportunity to go and hear Presbyterian ministers preaching the gospel, and for which she was put in prison with no bed and no fire to keep her warm. When the Abduration Oath was put to them, they refused it and were found guilty “and the sentence was that upon the 11th of May, instant, both of them should be tied to stakes fixed within the flood mark of the water near of Bladnoch near Wigtown where the sea flows at high water, there to be drowned. The two women were brought from Wigtown with a numerous crowd of spectators to so extraordinary and execution. Major Windram with some soldiers guarded them to the place of execution. The old woman’s stake was a good way in beyond the other, and she was first dispatched in order to terrify the other to a compliance with such oaths and conditions as they required; but in vain, for she had adhered to her principles with an unshaken steadfastness. When the water was overflowing her fellow martyr, some about Margaret Wilson asked her what she thought of the other now struggling with the pangs of death. She answered, “What do I see but Christ wrestling there? Think you that we are the sufferers? No, it is Christ in us for He sends none a warfare upon their own charges.” And Margaret Wilson was at the stake and she sang the 25th Psalm from verse 7 downward a good way and read the eighth chapter of Romans with a great deal of cheerfulness and then prayed. And while at prayer, the water covered her, but before she was quite dead they pulled her up and held her out of the water until she was recovered and able to speak and then by Major Windram’s orders she was asked if she would pray for the king. She answered she wished the salvation of all men and the damnation of none. One deeply affected with the death of the other and her case said, “Dear Margaret, say ‘God save the king,’ and she answered in the greatest steadiness and composure, “God save him, if He will for it is his salvation I desire.” Whereupon some of the relations nearby, desirous to have her life spared if possible, called out to Major Windram, “Sir, she hath said it, she hath said it!” Whereupon the Major came near and offered to her the abduration charging her instantly to swear it, otherwise returning her to the water. Most deliberately she refused and said, “I will not. I am one of Christ’s children. Let me go.” Upon which she was thrust down again into the water where she finished her course with joy.

    Finally, v4 reveals why Jesus told the disciples this harsher news about their potential martyrdom. They are to remember that He warned them; this recollection would serve to encourage their faith. This harsh news was not to be told too soon, for Jesus was/is bearing the brunt of the persecution. Once He departs, however, the disciples will become the main target of persecution. And as a poorly rooted faith might flee at this news of potential martyrdom; a deep-rooted faith, as we’ve seen, stands firm even in the most unbearable of circumstances.

  2. V5-11 – First, in v5, notice the curious remark of Jesus. He has told them that He is going away, yet none of them asked where He was going. As v6 reveals, they were too grief-stricken to concern themselves with His destination. How would you react if your wife said, “I’m leaving.” Or maybe a better example would be this. How would your children react if you said, “I’m leaving, and you can’t come.” The first thought is not, “Where are you going?” but “Why?” The same thing is happening for these disciples, but Jesus doesn’t get to that concern. Rather, He says that it is a good thing that He is leaving.

    The disciples are in despair that Jesus is leaving; they are worried about how they will find the way to see Him again (remember Thomas’ question); but the one question they are not sufficiently concerned with is where Jesus is going. But the answer to that question makes all the difference in the world: Jesus is going to the Father, to sit at His right hand in victory – and it is only when He sits in victory that the Spirit will come. There’s a bit of a mystery involved with why the Holy Spirit can’t indwell people who are in the physical presence of Jesus, but we trust that to be true. Jesus must go to send the Spirit, and beginning in v8, He speaks about one of the Holy Spirit’s roles: to convict the world of guilt, or as it would be better rendered, to expose the guilt of the world. When / how were you convicted?

    The Spirit of God will play a very central role in this last and greatest of all redemptive eras before the final state of glorification on the new earth. The Spirit will go throughout the world, bringing to light men’s sin, showing them of the coming judgment, foreshadowed when the ruler of the world, Satan, was condemned by Christ’s work on the cross, and revealing to them the nature of true righteousness, which Jesus alone was demonstrating when He was on the earth. When Jesus was in His physical body, only a few thousand people could hear Him at once, and see the display of perfect righteousness. But when He sent His Spirit, He was able to speak to the individual hearts of countless men and women about all these things that he had spoken of on earth and demonstrated on the cross. And the disciples would be the mouthpieces of the Spirit’s work in the world. See Acts for the beginnings of this.

  3. V12-16 – Jesus explains here how the Holy Spirit drives people to Christ and makes Him known to the elect more fully than He could even be known in the flesh – for by the Spirit, He lives in you! The disciples would be better off for Jesus to discontinue His explanation of these spiritual things, because they had had their fill – they were unable to understand any more of the mighty and powerful words of Jesus. But the Spirit, when He came, would enable them to understand. He would speak the very words of Jesus, just as Jesus speaks the very words of the Father – but He would also open the hearts of the disciples to understand these words. Jesus’ teaching ministry to His disciples was certainly a wonderful and necessary thing. But as great as it was, the teaching ministry of the Spirit, according to the divine plan, would be even better and more effective in unveiling blinded hearts to the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 4:4-6)!

    The great fear of the disciples is that if Jesus goes away, they will know Him less; but Jesus is saying that the opposite is true. He’s talking about the Scriptures. He’s talking about the way the Holy Spirit will take these disciples and through them bring to the Church the gospels and the Epistles that we have been studying ever since we first came to Jesus Christ by faith, and as a consequence, have grown to know Him more and more. As a result of His going away, He would actually be nearer to them. Wouldn’t you have liked to hear Jesus speak this discourse? Jesus is saying to the disciples that there’s a better place to be than in the upper room. It’s right here with this Book open before you, and its pages being opened up and expounded. Jesus is saying that we should prefer to have the Scriptures than to have Him present in our midst.

  4. V17-24 – Jesus’ disciples immediately illustrate what He has just said about the necessity of the Spirit’s ministry: for once again, they fail to understand His teachings (v17-18) – it is only after His resurrection that they will understand, and that painful experience of His crucifixion will result in the abundant joy found in His resurrection. So Jesus explains His words further, using the illustration of a woman going through great pain to deliver a baby. Resurrection changes everything, because death no longer has any power. 1 Corinthians 15:55

    When He died on the cross, in just a few hours, they would be filled with grief. But when they see Him again, after He has been raised from the dead, they will be filled with a joy that no one can take away. Then, they will receive the Spirit and will understand what Jesus has taught them. Then, they will not still be wondering about when Jesus will show them the Father, but they will understand that, in Jesus’ name, they may go directly to Him in prayer, certain that He will hear them – for He is their Father too! Truly, the world and all the powers of darkness rejoiced when they saw Jesus hanging on the cross; but three days later they fled in terror, struck with a deathblow from which they would never recover (Colossians 2:13-15). The disciples sorrowed when they saw Jesus on the cross; but three days later, or at least when believed He was raised, they were filled with a joy that made them forget their sorrow – just as a woman who has just given birth forgets her pain and rejoices in her new child.

    V23-24, which Jesus will effectively repeat in v26-27, indicate that the believers can go directly to the Father with prayers and supplications – in Jesus’ name. The disciples were bold enough only to ask Jesus about the Father; but soon they would be bold to approach the Father Himself in Jesus’ name. Jesus remains our Mediator, but His mediation is completed. Still, He sits at the right hand of the Father ever and always interceding for us.

  5. V25-30 – Jesus finally brings everything to a conclusion, speaking about the security that is ours because we have come to know God as our Father. While He was on earth, Jesus spoke in parables, and few understood Him. But now, He was speaking plainly. God permits us to be stupefied for a time, in order to humble us by a conviction of our own weakness, lack of understanding, and poverty; but He causes those whom He enlightens by His Spirit to make such progress, that the word of God becomes known and familiar to them. This is the beginning of that progression for the disciples, who were now bold enough only to ask Jesus about the Father. Soon they would be bold to approach the Father Himself in Jesus’ name. The disciples were far above those who had no relish for the word of the Gospel, and yet they were still like children learning the alphabet, in comparison of the new wisdom to be bestowed on them by the Holy Spirit. Their joy would grow.

  6. V31-33 – Soon, the disciples would be filled with the Spirit, even as Jesus had promised – but before then (He tells them so that they do not fall into lasting unbelief when it happens), they will all abandon Jesus. But still, they will not be utterly lost, for Jesus has wrought an unstoppable victory. He has overcome the world. Jesus’ question is ironic, as if He had said, “Don’t boast of being full of faith, for the trial that will scatter you from Me is at hand.” We ought to restrain our foolish confidence (Galatians 6:3). Furthermore, notice that the scattering of these disciples does not leave Jesus alone. His Father is with Him. And if we find ourselves alone in the world – like Elijah supposed – then we need only remember the presence of God to realize that we’ve never been alone; we never will be. Finally, in v33, we see that Jesus has revealed these things to His disciples to encourage them to persevere. They can and will fight to the end, knowing that victory is won in Jesus.

    The farewell discourse of Jesus is deep beyond measure. To understand more of this discourse, just look to 1 John. The Trinity glorified and the covenant of redemption revealed should comfort us, knowing the truth of Romans 8:31: “If God is for us, who can be against us?” Our roots (genuine faith in Christ and the gospel) grow deeper by studying God’s word, simply because we have the Spirit of God. God lives in us, despite our sin!

Footnotes

  1. 16:8 Or will expose the guilt of the world
  2. 16:31 Or "Do you now believe?"


Bible text from Gospelcom.net.  Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society.

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