John 16:13

John 16:13. But when he is come, the Spirit of the truth, he will guide you into all the truth: for he will not speak from himself; but whatsoever things he shall hear, he will speak: and he will declare to you the things that are coming. These words lend strong confirmation to what has been said on the previous verse. For this work of the Spirit is evidently different from that of chap. John 14:16; John 14:26, or chaps, John 15:26; John 16:7; the first pair of these passages relating to preparation for the work, the second to the discharge of its duties, while this relates to something to be given in the midst of these duties and their corresponding trials. Further, ‘He shall guide' implies not merely that He shall show the way, but that He shall Himself experimentally go before them in the way (Matthew 15:14; Luke 6:39; Acts 8:31; Revelation 7:17). It will thus be observed that we are again led to think, not of new revelation, but of earlier teaching deepened by experience. The view now taken is strengthened by two important particulars in this verse: (1) The unexpected use of ‘for' in the clause ‘for He shall not speak from Himself.' This word, so closely binding the clauses together, makes it plain that ‘all the truth' can be nothing else than the truth of which Jesus was the Proclaimer: ‘all the truth,' He would say, ‘which I have proclaimed, of which I am Myself the substance (chap. John 14:6). He will guide you, for it is not from Himself that He will speak: He comes as My Representative, not for new and independent offices of grace: He will carry on My work.' (2) When it is said, He hears, we are not told whence He hears. It is possible that it may be from the Father; but when we call to mind that the unity of the Father and the Son is a leading thought in this discourse (comp. chap. John 14:23), particularly in relation to the sending of the Spirit (comp. chap. John 14:26, and especially chap. John 15:26), it seems highly probable that the mention of the Source whence the Spirit hears is designedly omitted. Thus we are led to think not of the Father only, but of the Father and the Son, and again the revelation given is bounded by what Jesus has Himself revealed. The last clause of the verse may indeed, at first sight, appear inconsistent with this view. Are not ‘the things to come' new revelations? We answer that in no strict sense of the words are they so. Even should we suppose that Jesus speaks of such things as ‘the things to come' of the Apocalypse (chap. John 1:19), these properly interpreted are not so much revelations wholly new, as new applications of what had already been revealed, and in particular of that very controversy between the Church and the world of which the mind of Jesus was now full. ‘The things that are coming' are the things that happen when ‘He who is to come' begins in the power of His Spirit the great conflict carried on throughout all the ages of the Christian Church in her militant condition; and the whole verse thus refers not to new revelations, but to revelations made new by the teaching of Christian experience.