26 “But when the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me. 27 And you also will bear witness, because you have been with Me from the beginning. 1 “These things I have spoken to you, that you should not be made to stumble. 2 They will put you out of the synagogues; yes, the time is coming that whoever kills you will think that he offers God service. 3 And these things they will do to you because they have not known the Father nor Me. 4 But these things I have told you, that when the time comes, you may remember that I told you of them. “And these things I did not say to you at the beginning, because I was with you. 5 “But now I go away to Him who sent Me, and none of you asks Me, ‘Where are You going?’ 6 But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart. 7 Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you. 8 And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: 9 of sin, because they do not believe in Me; 10 of righteousness, because I go to My Father and you see Me no more; 11 of judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged. 12 “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. 13 However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. 14 He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you. 15 All things that the Father has are Mine. Therefore I said that He will take of Mine and declare it to you.
Commentary
Vs. 26 “But when the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me.”
Having condemned the worlds rejection of His Word and hatred of Him without a cause; which will culminate in their Crucifixion of Him; Jesus now foretells of the Ministry of the Helper who will continue on His Work and Witness in the world through His disciples. Now Jesus also calls Him the Spirit of truth because He is the only Holy Spirit who comes from the Father from whom all truth precedes. Therefore, in departing from this world the Lord Jesus Christ will/has sent Him to His disciples to testify of Him. The Lord Jesus Christ’s Witness then is not lost with His departure, rather with His departure the Holy Spirit now takes this Work upon Himself!
Vs. 27 “And you also will bear witness, because you have been with Me from the beginning.”
Therefore, Jesus now links the Helper, i.e. Holy Spirits Arrival and Witness of Him with the disciple’s witness of Him, for just as the Holy Spirit has been with Him from the beginning, so too have His disciples, and so they too will bear witness of Him, of all that they saw and heard!
John 16:1-15
1 “These things I have spoken to you, that you should not be made to stumble. 2 They will put you out of the synagogues; yes, the time is coming that whoever kills you will think that he offers God service. 3 And these things they will do to you because they have not known the Father nor Me. 4 But these things I have told you, that when the time comes, you may remember that I told you of them. “And these things I did not say to you at the beginning, because I was with you. 5 “But now I go away to Him who sent Me, and none of you asks Me, ‘Where are You going?’ 6 But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart. 7 Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you. 8 And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: 9 of sin, because they do not believe in Me; 10 of righteousness, because I go to My Father and you see Me no more; 11 of judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged. 12 “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. 13 However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. 14 He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you. 15 All things that the Father has are Mine. Therefore I said that He will take of Mine and declare it to you.
Commentary
Vs. 1 “These things I have spoken to you, that you should not be made to stumble.”
The Lord Jesus now tells the disciples that His foretelling them all these things is so that they should not stumble, that is lose their faith or their hope, because these things will take place in every generation. For the world will hate Him, and because they hate Him, they will hate us who believe in Him also.
Vs. 2 “They will put you out of the synagogues; yes, the time is coming that whoever kills you will think that he offers God service.”
And so, Jesus begins with their generation, and Jews to whom He came, who because they rejected Him, will also reject His disciples. Indeed, Jesus says first they will start by putting His disciples out of the synagogues (i.e. the local places where Jews worshipped). However, they will soon digress to killing them under the guise that they are doing God’s Will, for such is the deception that this world is under by the ruler of this world.
Vs. 3 “And these things they will do to you because they have not known the Father nor Me.”
Here the Lord Jesus Christ makes it clear that they will do these things to His disciples because they know neither Him nor His Father who sent Him! Thus, all their religious worship and services are nothing, for if they truly knew God, they would love God and His Son and His own!
Vs. 4 “But these things I have told you, that when the time comes, you may remember that I told you of them. “And these things I did not say to you at the beginning, because I was with you.”
Jesus now explains to the disciples that He is telling them these things now so that when they happen, they will remember that He foretold them of them. And so, with His imminent departure He is now preparing them for what will happen to them when He is gone. Both the Holy Spirits Arrival and Work as well as their own rejection and persecution by the world.
Vs. 5 “But now I go away to Him who sent Me, and none of you asks Me, ‘Where are You going?’
Here Jesus seems to lament the disciples seemingly lack of understanding/interest in the great things that were to coming and to be accomplished with His departure back to the Father. For it would be from there sitting on His Throne next to His Father in heaven with the Holy Spirit poured out that He would sanctify His people and direct our new lives!
Vs. 6 “But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart.”
Jesus now reveals the source of the disciple’s temporary disinterest in the things to come and that was their immense sorrow at hearing of His departure from them.
Vs. 7 “Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you.”
Therefore, the Lord Jesus Christ makes it clear that His departure is not the end for them, rather it is to their own advantage that He depart from them, for only then will the Helper, i.e. Holy Spirit come to them. And thus, He will be the One who will both transform them, then empower them, as well as now teach and remind of Jesus’ Word but also guide them into doing the Word/Work of the Lord Jesus Christ! For when Jesus was there amongst them, they were mostly only His witnesses, but now the Lord Jesus Christ through the Helper’s Ministry is going to make them His workers as well!
Vs. 8-11 8 And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: 9 of sin, because they do not believe in Me; 10 of righteousness, because I go to My Father and you see Me no more; 11 of judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.
Now the Witness and Work of the Holy Spirit towards Jesus disciples is far different than His Ministry towards the unbelieving world. For the Lord Jesus Christ says that He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment!
“of sin, because they do not believe in Me”
That is not only the sins that unbelieving people have committed and commit, but specifically of being under the condemnation of sin, because the Lord Jesus Christ the Savior of the world has made the Atonement for sin there is no more excuse for either sin or their unbelief, Jesus Christ by His death on the Cross and Resurrection from the dead has paid the price so that anyone anywhere may have remission of all their sins and everlasting life!
“of righteousness, because I go to My Father and you see Me no more”
Thus, the Holy Spirit also convicts the world of righteousness, that is that the Lord Jesus Christ is indeed Righteous, and His ultimate act of being so was His returning (i.e. Ascending) back to His Father in heaven!
“of judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.”
Because the world rejected the Lord Jesus Christ they now are convicted of judgment by the Holy Spirit, because at the Cross the ruler of this world was judged! Therefore, in rejecting the Lord Jesus Christ they now will share in the judgment that the ruler of the world will have who orchestrated Jesus Christ’s Crucifixion through them.
Vs. 12 “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.”
The Lord Jesus Christ now tells the disciples that still are many things He has to say to them, but He would not yet reveal everything then to them, because as He said they could not bear them. And so later through the N.T. writings of the Biblical Apostles and then the Revelation of God given the Apostle John we have His complete Revelation for us all!
Vs. 13 “However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come.”
Here the Ministry of the Holy Spirit, i.e. the Spirit of truth, is revealed. For it is He who guides us into all truth, for with the Lord Jesus Christ’s departure He is the One who speaks for the Lord Jesus Christ. Thus, it was He who spoke to the Biblical Apostles and gave them the commandments for the Body of Christ to keep and follow, as well as gave them Revelations of things to come. His ministry then in that sense in giving us the Word of God to keep and follow has ended because we now have the full Revelation of God given us in the Word of God. However, His ministry in teaching and instructing us on the Word of God, and giving us discernment into all truth continues on to everyone who believes in the Lord Jesus Christ (1 John 2:27).
Vs. 14 “He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you.”
Thus, the expressed Ministry of the Spirit of truth (i.e. Holy Spirit) is not to glorify Himself, or magnify Spirit gifts, but only to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ! And this He does by taken what is the Lords His Words, Commandments, and Truth and declaring these to us. And so its not Spirit gifts that He seeks to magnify amongst mankind, but the Lord Jesus Christ’s Word!
Vs. 15 “All things that the Father has are Mine. Therefore I said that He will take of Mine and declare it to you.”
The connection then between God’s Word being the Lord Jesus Christ’s Word and the Holy Spirits Word and Revelations then coming from Him is here undeniably clearly stated!
Scripture Quotations
New King James (1982):Thomas Nelson.
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