John 16:9-11

John 16:9-11. Concerning sin, because they believe not in me: and concerning righteousness, because I go away to the Father, and ye no longer behold me: and concerning judgment, because the prince of this world hath been judged. The general work of conviction to be effected by the Spirit having been stated in John 16:8, the several particulars are next explained more fully. The point of view from which all are to be looked at is that of the controversy with the world in which Jesus had Himself been engaged. So long as He was on the earth this controversy was left unsettled; but after His departure, His disciples, in the power of the promised Advocate, shall bring it to a triumphant issue. The first part of that controversy had reference to sin. The world had cast on Jesus the imputation of sin (chaps. John 5:18; John 7:20, etc.); and, on the other hand, His whole work and life had been first directed to bring the charge of sin home to the world. But the world had no just idea of what sin was. It thought of gross violations of the Divine law, or of violations of positive religious ceremonial: of sin in its true sense, not only as a departure from truth and love, but as even a failing to recognise and welcome these with all the affection of the heart and devotion of the life, it had no idea. Hence the work here spoken of the work of Him who was at once the Advocate of Jesus and of His disciples. He shall convict the world of wrong in its estimate of Jesus, and thus also in its estimate of itself. He shall bring home to the world the fact that it believed not in Jesus, did not trust itself to Him as the impersonation of Divine truth and love, and that in this lay sin. Nay, not only so, the world shall learn that in this lies the very essence and root of all sin, for it is really a rejection of the Father manifested in Jesus it is hating the light and choosing darkness (chap. John 3:21, etc.). Thus it was unnecessary to speak of other sins: this was the crowning sin, inclusive of them all.

The second part of the controversy of Jesus with the world had reference to righteousness; in what righteousness really lay, what the true nature of righteousness was. The world boasted of its righteousness; in its form as the Jewish world it was proud of its fathers, of its outward inheritance from them, and of itself. Jesus had pronounced that righteousness to be worthless (Matthew 5:20, etc.). Again, which of them is right? The Advocate, working in the disciples, shall decide the controversy in such a manner that the world shall be silenced. He will bring home to it the truth that, notwithstanding its rejection of Jesus, the Father has received Him, and has set His seal upon Him as His Righteous One. Hence the last words of John 16:10, ‘because I go away unto the Father, and ye no longer behold me,' words which do not seem to mean that the realm of faith shall henceforth be the abiding state of the kingdom of God on earth, and the home of the righteousness which is of faith, but which appear simply to give expression to that removal from the bodily sight of the disciples which is the essential concomitant of the glorifying. They gently explain that what brought such grief to those who were now to be separated from their Lord was the very means of accomplishing the great purpose that the Father had in view the settlement of the controversy as to His Son, and the manifestation of what the Son really was. It is interesting to notice how the disciples, at a time when the work of conviction here spoken of had begun, dwell upon that characteristic of Jesus which is thus referred to (Acts 3:14; Acts 7:52; Acts 22:14; Romans 1:1, etc.).

The third part of the work of conviction is that of judgment; and it has reference to the same controversy to which, as we have seen, the two previous parts of the work of the Spirit are related. The world had judged Jesus; but He, on the other hand, had judged the world; and His judgment would be proved to be just when the Advocate should enable the disciples to bring home to the world that it was founded upon eternal reality and truth. ‘The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life' were now the objects of the world's ambition and pursuit; but a day was coming when it should be compelled to acknowledge a different standard of judgment; when it should discover, with terror and dismay, that its past standard had been altogether false; that what it had approved was passing away; that what it had despised was abiding for ever. Then should it see that its very prince had been judged in a manner against which there was no appeal, and that, instead of being the conqueror, he had throughout been the conquered. Then should the world be constrained to confess that it had been madly attempting to reverse the position of the everlasting scales, and had been foiled in the attempt.

Such, then, is the great work of the Holy Spirit upon the world during the whole period that was to pass between the departure of Jesus to His Father and His coming again in glory. It will be observed that it is the same work which Jesus had Himself carried on, that is now completed by the ‘other' Advocate. The difference does not lie so much in the nature as in the effect of the work : to the one period belongs the beginning of the controversy; to the other, the final decision. It is also clear that the conviction spoken of is to be understood in the same sense throughout. It is not primarily a work of conversion (although it may lead to conversion) that is referred to: it is a work that confounds and overwhelms the world when, as God gives His judgments unto the King and His righteousness unto the King's Son, ‘they that dwell in the wilderness shall bow before Him, and His enemies shall lick the dust' (Psalms 72:9). That work is the glory of the Church of Christ as she takes her Master's place in the world; and, when she remembers that it could not be done, did not the exalted Redeemer send down to her His all-powerful Spirit, she may well feel that it was ‘expedient for her that He should go away.'