6. The consolations and influences of Christ's Spirit have not been the exclusive privileges of the apostles; they are the birthright of all the sons and daughters of God.
Introduction
Christ warns his disciples, and foretells the persecutions they should receive from the Jews, [Joh 16:1-4]. Foretells his death, and promises them the Comforter, [Joh 16:5-7]. Points out his operations among the Jews, and in the world, [Joh 16:8-11]. His peculiar influences on the souls of the disciples, [Joh 16:12-15]. Speaks figuratively of his death and resurrection, at which his disciples are puzzled, [Joh 16:16-18]. He explains and illustrates the whole by a similitude, [Joh 16:19-22]. Shows himself to be the Mediator between God and man, and that all prayers must be put up in his name, [Joh 16:23-28]. The disciples clearly comprehend his meaning and express their strong faith in him, [Joh 16:29], [Joh 16:30]. He again foretells their persecution, and promises them his peace and support, [Joh 16:31-33].
Verse 1
These things have I spoken - Particularly what is mentioned in the two last chapters.
Be offended - Ἱνα μη σκανδαλισθητε, That ye should not be stumbled. May not fall away from the faith, nor receive any injury to your souls, as that man does to his body who stumbles, or falls over a stone, or block, in the way which he has not discovered.
Verse 2
They shall put you out of the synagogues - They will excommunicate you, and consider you as execrable, and utterly unworthy to hold any commerce with God by religion; or with man by civil fellowship. See on [Joh 9:22] (note). In these excommunications they were spoiled of all their substance, see [Ezr 10:8], and see also [Heb 10:34], and deprived of their character, their influence, and every necessary of life. Though the Jewish people had the most humane laws, yet they were a most vindictive and cruel people.
That whosoever killeth you, etc. - This Paul found; for more than forty Jews bound themselves under a curse that they would neither eat nor drink till they had killed him, [Act 23:12], [Act 23:13]; and agreeably to this, it is said, in that Tract of the Talmud which is entitled Bammidbar, R. xxi. ad. [Num 25:13] : "He who sheds the blood of the ungodly, is equal to him who brings an offering to God." What the Zealots did is notorious in history. They butchered any person, in cold blood, who, they pretended to believe, was an enemy to God, to the law, or to Moses; and thought they were fulfilling the will of God by these human sacrifices. We had the same kind of sacrifices here in the time of our Popish Queen Mary. May God ever save our state from the Stuarts!
Verse 3
Because they have not known the Father - See on [Joh 15:25] (note). Ignorance of the benevolence of God, and of the philanthropy of Christ, is the grand fountain whence all religious persecution and intolerance proceed.
Verse 4
At the beginning - I would not trouble you by speaking of these things pointedly at first, when I chose you to be my disciples, but have referred them to the present time, lest you should be discouraged; and now only declare them because it is absolutely necessary that you should be put upon your guard.
Verse 5
None of you asketh me, Whither goest thou? - In [Joh 13:3], Peter had asked, Lord, thither goest thou? - and Thomas much the same in [Joh 14:5], both of whom had received an answer. But now, at the time when Jesus was speaking this, none of them asked this question, because their hearts were filled with sorrow: [Joh 16:6].
Verse 7
It is expedient - that I go away - In other places he had showed them the absolute necessity of his death for the salvation of men: see [Mat 20:19]; [Mat 26:2]; [Mar 9:31]; [Mar 10:33], [Luk 9:44]; [Luk 18:32]. This he does not repeat here, but shows them that, by the order of God, the Holy Spirit cannot come to them, nor to the world, unless he first die; and consequently men cannot be saved but in this way.
Verse 8
He will reprove - Ελεγξει, He will demonstrate these matters so clearly as to leave no doubt on the minds of those who are simple of heart; and so fully as to confound and shut the mouths of those who are gainsayers. See [Act 2:1], etc.
The world - The Jewish nation first, and afterwards the Gentile world; for his influences shall not be confined to one people, place, or time.
Verse 9
Of sin - Of the sin of the Jews in not receiving me as the Messiah, though my mission was accredited by the very miracles which the prophets foretold: see [Isa 35:3-6]. This was literally fulfilled on the day of pentecost, when the Spirit was given; for multitudes of Jews were then convinced of this sin, and converted to God. See [Act 2:37].
If we take this prediction of our Lord in a more general sense, then we may consider that it is one of the grand offices of the Holy Spirit to convince of sin, to show men what sin is, to demonstrate to them that they are sinners, and to show the necessity of an atonement for sin; and in this sense the phrase, περι ἁμαρτιας, may be understood, and in this sense it is used in multitudes of places in the Septuagint, but the words, because they believe not in me, restrict the meaning particularly to the sin of the Jews in rejecting Jesus as the Messiah.
Verse 10
Of righteousness - Of my innocence and holiness, because I go away to my Father; of which my resurrection from the dead, and my ascension to heaven, shall be complete proofs. Christ was treated by the Jews as an impostor; as a magician; as one possessed by the devil; as a wicked person, seducer, and destroyer of the law. His vindication from these charges he chiefly referred to the Holy Spirit, the Advocate, who, by his influences on the minds of the people, and by his eloquence and energy in the ministry of the apostles, convinced both the Jews and the Gentiles that the sentence of the Jewish rulers was unjust and infamous, and that the very person whom they had crucified was both Lord and Christ - Lord, the great governor of the universe; and Christ, the Lord's anointed, the promised Messiah. It was a matter of the utmost consequence to the Christian cause to have the innocence and holiness of its founder demonstrated, and the crime of the Jews in putting him to death made manifest to the world. This also has been literally fulfilled: the universe that has heard of him believes the righteousness and innocence of Jesus; and the Jews, his persecutors, are confounded and execrated throughout the habitable globe.
Verse 11
Of judgment - Of the false judgment of the Jews in condemning the Lord Jesus, who, as some think, is intended here by the ruler of this world: see [Joh 14:30]. Others think that Satan is meant whose usurped power over the world was now to be greatly restrained, and by and by totally destroyed: see [Joh 12:31]; [Col 2:15]; [Rev 11:15]; [Rev 12:10], [Rev 12:11]. Perhaps our Lord's meaning is, that as a most astonishing judgement, or punishment, was now about to fall upon the Jews, in consequence of their obstinate infidelity, the Holy Ghost, by the ministry of the apostles, should demonstrate that this judgment, severe as it might seem, was amply merited by this worst of all people; and may we not say that their continuance in the same crime sufficiently vindicates the judgment of God, not only in its being poured out upon them at first, but in continuing to pursue them?
It is necessary to observe that it was one office of the Spirit to convince of a judgment to come; and this he did particularly by the apostles, in declaring that God had appointed a day in which he would judge the world by him whom he had appointed for that purpose: [Act 17:31]. And we find that while Peter was asserting this doctrine at Caesarea, [Act 10:42], the Holy Spirit was poured out on the Jews and the Gentiles which were present, [Act 10:44], etc., and many were converted unto the Lord.
One general exposition may be given of these three verses. The Holy Spirit will convince the world of sin committed, and guilt and condemnation thereby incurred. Of righteousness - of the necessity of being pardoned, and made righteous through the blood of the Lamb, who, after being offered up for sin, went to the Father, ever to appear in his presence as our intercessor: and of judgment - of the great day thereof, when none shall be able to stand but those whose sins are pardoned, and whose souls are made righteous. In all that our Lord says here, there seems to be an allusion to the office of an advocate in a cause, in a court of justice; who, by producing witnesses, and pleading upon the proof, convicts the opposite party of sin, demonstrates the righteousness of his client, and shows the necessity of passing judgment upon the accuser.
The faith of the Gospel discovers unto us three different states of man: it shows him:
1. Under sin, in which there is nothing but infidelity towards God, because there is no faith in Jesus Christ.
2. Under grace, in which sin is pardoned, and righteousness acquired by faith in Christ; who is gone to the Father to carry on, by his intercession, the great work of redemption.
3. In the peace and glory of heaven, where Christ will reign with his members; the devil, with his angels and servants, being banished into hell by the last judgment.
Thus, in the Christian revelation, we are made acquainted with three grand truths, which contain the sum and substance of all true religion.
The first is the general corruption of human nature, and the reign of sin till the coming of Christ.
The second is the reparation of our nature by the Lord Jesus, and the reign of righteousness by his grace: [Rom 5:21].
The third is the condemnation of sinners, and the total destruction of the kingdom of sin, and of all the power of the devil, by the last judgment.
Verse 12
Ye cannot bear them now - In illustration of these three points, Christ had many things to say; but he found that his disciples could only bear general truths; yet, in saying what he did, he sowed the seeds of the whole system of theological knowledge, and heavenly wisdom, which the Holy Spirit of this truth afterwards watered and ripened into a glorious harvest of light and salvation, by the ministry of the apostles. Dr. Lightfoot supposes that the things which the apostles could not bear now were such as these:
1. The institution of the Christian Sabbath, and the abolition of the Jewish.
2. The rejection of the whole Jewish nation, at the very time in which they expected to be set up and established for ever.
3. The entire change of the whole Mosaic dispensation, and the bringing the Gentiles into the Church of God.
Verse 13
He will guide you - He will consider your feeble infant state; and, as a father leads his child by the hand, so will the Holy Spirit lead and guide you.
The Vulgate, and some copies of the Itala, read, He will Teach you all truth; but this and more is implied in the word ὁδηγησει, he will lead; besides, this reading is not acknowledged by any Greek MS.