John 16:1-11

TEACHING WHICH IS DARK AND FOREBODING

Text: John 16:1-11

1

These things have I spoken unto you, that ye should not be caused to stumble.

2

They shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the hour cometh, that whosoever killeth you shall think that he offereth service unto God.

3

And these things will they do, because they have not known the Father, nor me.

4

But these things have I spoken unto you, that when their hour is come, ye may remember them, how, that I told you. And these things I said not unto you from the beginning, because I was with you.

5

But now I go unto him that sent me; and none of you asketh me, Whither goest thou?

6

But because I have spoken these things unto you, sorrow hath filled your heart.

7

Nevertheless I tell you the truth: It is expedient for you that I go away; for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I go, I will send him unto you.

8

And he, when he is come, will convict the world in respect of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment:

9

of sin, because they believe not on me;

10

of righteousness, because I go to the Father, and ye behold me no more;

11

of judgment, because the prince of this world hath been judged.

Paraphrase

I have spoken to you in these last hours many dark and foreboding things concerning the persecution which is to come your way in order that you may not be caught unawares. They will excommunicate you from the synagogues. They will even go so far as to kill you. And the astounding thing is that those who kill some of you will even believe they are worshipping God and serving Him by such deeds. They will do these things because they have conceived of God as one who would delight in destruction of the followers of Jesus and they have never known the true nature of the Father or of Me. But these things I have spoken to you ahead of time so that when they come to pass you may remember my prophetic revelation and recognize my omniscience. And these things I did not need to tell you so plainly before because when I was with you the world's hatred was directed almost exclusively toward me: but when I am gone that hatred will be directed toward you and so I forewarn you now. And I am about to leave you and return to him that sent me yet none of you are asking me any questions. You were full of questions before but now you do not even ask me where I am going because you are so full of sorrow. Sorrow has filled your hearts but even the most childish question would be better than the gloom of speechless despair. Nevertheless, in spite of your gloom, I am telling you the truth of the matter: It is an advantage for you that I return to the Father for if I do not return to Him the redemptive work of the Father will not be completed and therefore the Comforter will not come and perfect all this redemptive work into one completed message for your sakes; but if I return to the Father, having completed the work, then I will send the Spirit to you with the completed message. And when the Comforter comes He will publicly expose the guilt of the world and call it to repentance by convicting the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment: the Spirit will convict the world of sin in all its terribleness by showing that to reject Me is to reject the Lord of glory; He will convict the world of righteousness by showing that in My return to the Father I have completed the plan of salvation for man and there is now available a God-imputed righteousness; He will convict the world of judgment by showing the world the judgment of its own ruler, Satan, teaching the world thereby an ultimate separation between Me and all who persist in unbelief.

Summary

The many foreboding things which Jesus has spoken to the disciples has filled their hearts with sorrow. They are so filled with sorrow that they have lost all interest in what the Master is trying to tell them of the coming Messianic redemption. He tells them plainly that His going will be to their advantage for the Spirit will return to them with the completed Messianic redemption.

Comment

What Jesus had told them previously concerning the world's hatred and what He shall teach them subsequently about this hatred He teaches in order that they not be skandalizo, i.e., caught unawares, tripped-up, ensnared. They must be warned that following Him means they will be enduring the same persecution and hatred which the world meted out to Him. And when these dark and tortuous days come upon them they will know that their Master is not only sympathetic with their plight and is aware of it but that it all falls within His omniscient plan for the redemption of mankind. Their faith will not be tripped-up, they will not stumble.

Jesus prophesies that they will be excommunicated from their synagogues due to their following Him. For a Jew to be excommunicated from his synagogue then meant a great deal more than what we think of excommunication today. For the Jew of old, excommunication from the synagogue carried with it ostracization from social, economic, political and fraternal ties with their society as well as religious. They were the same as dead to all their contemporaries. In fact even some Jewish families today go through the form of a mock funeral for any member of their family who leaves Judaism and takes up Christianity!

Not only so but Jesus warns these disciples in John 16:2 that the hour is soon coming when they will be killed for their Christianity and the almost unbelievable part of it is, their murderers will justify their crimes by thinking they are offering worshipful service to God. Of course the Old Testament taught that blasphemers were to be stoned to death (cf. Leviticus 24:10-16) and the Jewish rulers had already accused Jesus (though it was unproven and unjustly pronounced) of this crime. If He was sentenced as guilty then His followers and those who preached His doctrines would also be sentenced as blasphemers. So the Jews in their ignorance and hardness of heart killed Jesus and His disciples convincing themselves that they were doing God a service. Paul the apostle, formerly Saul of Tarsus, the Pharisee of the Pharisees, was convinced that he was doing God a service by persecuting and imprisoning Christians (cf. Acts 22:3-5; Acts 26:9-11; 1 Timothy 1:12-16). The Roman Catholic Inquisitions and the inquisitions instituted by John Calvin and his followers in Geneva followed the same line of bigotry and perversion.

These murderous acts the Jews (and others since then) did because they did not know the true nature of God. They failed to behold that God is love, even when Jesus, the Son of God, came to reveal His perfect love. Their sin darkened, materialistically greedy hearts were hardened against the revelation of God in Jesus Christ. Their concept of God and His promises in their Old Testament was one of a God who was going to restore their gloriously prosperous kingdom of worldly blessings. They had made their own God from the thoughts of their own minds like the pagan world around them and like the world of unbelief today. The kingdom of salvation and redemption and regeneration which Jesus preached was not their idea of the kingdom of God. Therefore their God, they believed, would count it a service for them to kill anyone who dared to claim any other type of kingdom. One has only to read the Old Testament Prophets to get a background for the materialism of the Jews of Jesus-' time. The people of that day were not, for the most part, interested in righteousness, justice, regenerationthey were interested in an earthly king and an earthly kingdom of material goods. They were interested in religion only as traditions and outward rituals. They did not even know the meaning of their own prophets of the O.T., let alone the perfect revelation of God in His Son (cf.John 8:34-47).

So Jesus (John 16:4) prophesied all these things beforehand so that when they came to pass the disciples would remember that He had foretold them and they would be strengthened in their faith in Him as the omniscient Son of God. Prophecy has always been a tower of strength. When men in the finite limitations can know historically and experientially that future events have been foretold and have been fulfilled they may know historically, empirically and experientially that the Author of such prophecies is omniscient. If the prophecies of judgment and persecution come to pass we know that the prophecies of salvation and victory shall come to pass also. Fulfilled prophecy is perhaps the greatest evidence we have that the Bible is a supernaturally inspired book containing a supernatural revelation from a supernatural God.

Jesus had prophesied persecution for His disciples before (cf. Matthew 5:10-12; Matthew 10:16-39) but never quite so plainly as now. And the reason He did not need to reveal them so plainly and openly before was that when He was with them the world's hatred was directed almost exclusively toward Him and they did not feel the brunt of it. But from now on all that will be changed. They will feel all the force of the opposition of evil which He felt. Hendriksen has an interesting note: One is reminded of Revelation 12:4; Revelation 12:13; Revelation 12:17: first the dragon seeks to devour the child; next he pursues the woman who had borne the child. Angry with the woman, he makes war on the rest of her seed. The book of Acts shows that this prophecy (John 15:18, John 16:4) was fulfilled in every detail. Mr. Hendriksen in his commentary on Revelation More Than Conquerors believes that the dragon is Satan; the child is Christ; the woman is the early church; and the rest of her seed is the church for the remainder of time.

There was a darkness and foreboding character in all the events and words of the night which caused a perceptible sorrow to fill the hearts of these disciples. The thought of His leaving them and the persecution that was to come to them had so filled their hearts with sorrow and depression that they scarcely heard His promise of the Comforter who was to come at His departure. They were so filled with grief they had not even thought to ask questions. They had asked plenty of questions before when He had spoken of preparing mansions for them, but now they were so overwhelmed with sadness at the fact of His leaving them they forgot to be concerned with where He was going and what His going would mean to them.

But in spite of their gloom and despair Jesus tells them (John 16:7) that what they judge to be darkness in His leaving them is, in truth, to their advantage. If He does not return to the Father the Holy Spirit cannot come to them. If He does not complete the redemptive plan in atoning death and victorious resurrection, the Holy Spirit (whose work is that of giving the written revelation and substantiating it with miracles and signs) cannot come. The Holy Spirit was not to be sent to every believer until redemption had been completed (cf. our comments on John 7:37-39). The greater works of planting the regenerating word of God in the hearts of men could not come as long as the Word was limited in the Incarnation and as long as the good news had not been consummated in the atonement and resurrection. These greater works could only begin when the good news was completed and was preached by mouth and by printed page unto all nations. Thus it was expedient that He return to the Father.

And now in John 16:8-11, Jesus gives in essence, the work of the Holy Spirit as it relates to the commission of the disciples to preach the gospel in the whole world. This is what the Spirit will do in assisting these men to regenerate those lost in sin. He will publicly expose the guilt of the world and call it to repentance by convicting the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment.

The Holy Spirit will come and convict the world of sin because of its rejection of the Savior. A man is not convicted of sin until he is convinced there is a standard between right and wrong and he is not convinced of any standards except his own until he is convinced of the Divine Person who has authority to set a Divine Standard. This is exactly the approach the Holy Spirit used through Peter on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:1-47) when he proved the deity of Jesus from O.T. prophecy and from eyewitnessed facts of the resurrection. It was only then that the crowds were convicted of their sin in rejecting the Savior and cried, Men and brethren, what shall we do? So the Holy Spirit, working through the Word, oral and written, when the deity of Jesus is preachedwhen the divine standard is preached, convicts men of their sin. Especially does the Spirit convince men of their utter lostness if they reject Jesus, the only hope of salvation, for except ye believe that I am He, ye shall die in your sins, Unbelief in Christ is the greatest of all sin for such unbelief leaves men dead in their sins. This is what the Holy Spirit was to come and convict the world of through the disciples, (cf. Acts 4:12, etc.).

He is to come and convict the world of righteousness because Jesus goes to the Father, What did He mean by this? We think He was referring to the world being convicted of righteousness relative to His completing the redemptive work of the Father on earth and then returning to the Father as man's Eternal High Priest. He will convict the world of righteousness by showing that in His return to the Father He has completed the plan of salvation for man and there is now available through covenant relationship to Him a God-imputed righteousness (cf. 2 Corinthians 5:14-21). He died the atoning death for our sins upon the cross, thus all who by faith accept His death for theirs have their sins forgiven there. When we come into covenant relationship to Him by obedience by burial in baptism we are promised by the Word of God that His death is appropriated to us and also His resurrection and so we become new creatures (cf. Romans 6:1-11). The Holy Spirit, upon the basis of the deity of Jesus, convinces men of the availability of this God-imputed righteousness. The Spirit also tells man of the terms of God's covenant in order that men may obey the terms and come into saving relationship to Christ.

The Holy Spirit comes to convict the world of judgment because the prince of this world has been judged, (cf. John 12:31; John 14:30). At the death of Christ sin was paid for and its penalty erased. At the resurrection the victory over death and the grave was won. Christ triumphed over the principalities and powers openly and spoiled them (cf. Colossians 2:15). He destroyed him that had the power of death over men (cf. Hebrews 2:15) and delivered men from this bondage of fear. Satan has been bound, he has been cast into the abyss (see Hendriksen's commentary on Revelation, More Than Conquerors). He came into the strong man's house and bound him (cf. Matthew 12:22-30).

Now if the devil is judged, conquered and despoiled by Christ men must be aware that Christ has won the victory over the world and that the world and all who are children of the devil will some day be judged.
One may turn just a few pages in his New Testament, to the 2nd chapter of Acts and he will see an amazing fulfillment of this prophetic promise of Jesus in action. Three thousand souls were convicted of their sin because of their unbelief in Christ; convicted of a God-imputed righteousness through His redemptive work and accepted a covenant relationship with Him by being immersed in water for the remission of sins; and were convicted of the judgment upon the perverse generation.

Quiz

1.

Why did Jesus have to speak so plainly about persecution that was to come to these disciples?

2.

Why would some think they were offering service to God by killing followers of Christ?

3.

Why would they do such a terrible thing?

4.

Why did He not speak to them before this of the terrible persecutions they would have to endure?

5.

Why was sorrow upon the hearts of the disciples?

6.

Why was His going away to be advantageous to them?

7.

How does the Holy Spirit convict the world of:

(a)

sin

(b)

righteousness

(c)

judgment