John 16:5-33

Just as God sent Jesus into the world, so Jesus sent His disciples into the world to redeem people from its power and from the power of its prince. They, and we, are called to overcome the world through the witness of the Holy Spirit, the witness of their own transformed lives, and the witness of their words. And God will continue to call out from the world a people for Himself. And that’s the theme for this next section.

John 16:5-15 but now I am going to him who sent me. None of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ 6 Rather, you are filled with grief because I have said these things. 7 But very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. 8 When he comes, he will prove the world to be in the wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: 9 about sin, because people do not believe in me; 10 about righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; 11 and about judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned.

12 “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. 13 But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. 14 He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you. 15 All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will receive from me what he will make known to you.”

The Holy Spirit has a threefold ministry.

1. To comfort the disciples after the Ascension of Jesus. They were depressed because He told them He was leaving them. He tells them here they will be much better off. And the Holy Spirit couldn’t come unless Christ left. While Jesus was on earth He was confined to His human body and could only help people He was near. But as the Holy Spirit He would fulfill His promise from Matthew 28:20 which says, “And surely, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” The Holy Spirit would also help them understand Jesus’ Glory and who He is.

2. To empower the disciples to witness to the world. Jesus told them that in themselves they could neither convict the world of its sin as sin, nor could they hope to convince the intellectual (as well as the ordinary man) that the Man Jesus is the unique Son of God and that to reject Him as the Lord results in judgment. Therefore, Jesus deliberately told the disciples not to leave Jerusalem to witness of Him until they had received the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Under this part there are 3 points to notice about the Holy Spirit’s work toward the world when He indwells believers. He convicts the world of sin (in people), of righteousness (in Jesus) and of the fact of God’s judgment of the world and its prince.

A. He convicts the world of sin –

When the world (the Jews and the Romans) crucified Jesus, the Jews refused to believe they were sinning. Instead, they rationalized that they served God by seeking to eliminate the people’s delusion (that He was the Son of God) by eliminating Jesus Himself. However, after Jesus ascended into Heaven and the disciples prayerfully had waited God’s appointed time, the promised Holy Spirit came. When He indwelt Peter, he was transformed. From denying Christ to a little servant girl to boldly preaching to the Jewish leaders. He accused them of crucifying Jesus, the Messiah! And he did it so powerfully that over 3000 were saved that day. They were cut to the quick with guilt when they heard him speak. And it is only the Holy Spirit that can convict us about what we believe about Jesus and that God holds us personally responsible for our attitude toward His Son whom God sent into the world for the sinner’s sake.

B. He convinces the world of righteousness –

He convicts the world also on the grounds of the complete righteousness of Christ because Jesus is no longer where we can see Him. Jesus lived the perfect life that God intended for all of us to live. However, the proof of His perfect righteousness is seen in His resurrection, ascension, and exaltation at God’s right hand. This means if He is perfectly righteous and died for my sins as the unique Son of God and is now exalted by God to power, this means that God accepted His sacrifice made on Calvary on our behalf. This means that God counts us as righteous by His sacrifice. Because He bore our sins on His body on the cross means we can be delivered from both the guilt and the power of them. It’s the Holy Spirit who also convicts us that our good works and any attempt at our own righteousness are like filthy rags in comparison with the spotless linen of God’s required righteousness.

C. He convicts the world of judgment –

The judgment of the prince of this world is also the judgment of the person who chooses to follow his directions and opinions. Satan is called the prince of this world because the world of fallen humanity is under his control. We can’t be neutral. We are either governed by the prince of this world or by Jesus, the Prince of Peace. Satan was judged at the cross and because he was judged we are free from his power. And then the Holy Spirit begins to transform believers into the image of the Son. And the Holy Spirit witnesses to the world by the personal honesty, business integrity and loving family life of the believer. He witnesses to the world when the believer loses his life for the sake of the needy, the socially rejected. It’s the poured-out life that convicts the world of its selfishness of what true righteousness is and of God’s judgment upon social indifference and selfishness.

3. To teach the disciples –

This refers to verses 12 and 13 - “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. 13 But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.”

Jesus was pointing to the future, when the disciples would need to explain the meaning of many of His words that could only be understood in the light of His death, resurrection, ascension and exaltation to supreme power as the Son of Man, as well as the Son of God.

Only when the Holy Spirit is free to work in us to illumine our minds with God’s thoughts and move our emotions to desire His truth do we truly understand God’s truth, delight in this truth and receive it as from God with power to communicate it to others. The Bible becomes clearer to us! We wonder why we never saw these things before!

The Holy Spirit also showed the disciples and Paul the future. Paul wrote about the rapture for one thing! John the book of Revelation.

John 16:16-33 16 Jesus went on to say, “In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me.”

17 At this, some of his disciples said to one another, “What does he mean by saying, ‘In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me,’ and ‘Because I am going to the Father’?”18 They kept asking, “What does he mean by ‘a little while’? We don’t understand what he is saying.”

19 Jesus saw that they wanted to ask him about this, so he said to them, “Are you asking one another what I meant when I said, ‘In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me’?20 Very truly I tell you, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy. 21 A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world. 22 So with you: Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy. 23 In that day you will no longer ask me anything. Very truly I tell you, my Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. 24 Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete.

25 “Though I have been speaking figuratively, a time is coming when I will no longer use this kind of language but will tell you plainly about my Father. 26 In that day you will ask in my name. I am not saying that I will ask the Father on your behalf. 27 No, the Father himself loves you because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God. 28 I came from the Father and entered the world; now I am leaving the world and going back to the Father.”

29 Then Jesus’ disciples said, “Now you are speaking clearly and without figures of speech. 30 Now we can see that you know all things and that you do not even need to have anyone ask you questions. This makes us believe that you came from God.”

31 “Do you now believe?” Jesus replied. 32 “A time is coming and in fact has come when you will be scattered, each to your own home. You will leave me all alone. Yet I am not alone, for my Father is with me.

33 “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

There are many symbolic expressions in this last conversation of Jesus with His disciples as He speaks of going and coming, of grief and joy, or asking and receiving, of parables and open speech, of faith and unbelief and of tribulation and peace.

He talks about both immediate fulfillment and later more complete fulfillment. Immediate being the brief time Jesus was buried and the disciples didn’t see Him. This was followed by His resurrection and seeing Him and great joy.

But later during His ascension “a cloud hid Him from their sight”. Then at the day of Pentecost they saw Him, by means of the Holy Spirit.

Even later a “little while” is also descriptive of the present age. Jesus is up in Heaven right now, but soon the day will come when we see Him face to face.

The disciples told Him they believed. And Jesus accepted their belief. However, He knew that they did not realize the horror of the fire in which that faith was to be tried. Therefore, His last words were a mixture of warning, prophecy, encouragement and a promise of victory.

“You will be scattered…and will leave me alone.”

Their boasted faith in Him would fail at the test of the Cross, but it would be reborn at the Resurrection.

“I am not alone, for my Father is with me..”

This is a comfort for them and us. So long as we have Christ we are never alone. God is with us.
“In me you will have peace.”

In spite of tribulation, in spite of world upheavals, nothing can touch the peace that Christ gives His own.

“But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

To be in Christ is to overcome as He overcame. Later John would write in 1 John “You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them because the one wo is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.”

Jesus said, "No one comes to the Father, except through Me"

John 13:18 “I am not referring to all of you; I know those I have chosen. But this is to fulfill this passage of Scripture: ‘He who shared my bread has turned against me.”

In Middle Easter culture there was no treachery worse that to eat at a person’s table and then betray him, because to eat together shows true friendship.

Jesus knew Judas completely: his mind, his desires and disappointments. And Judas had witnessed the miracles, heard all the teachings and Christ’s promises, prophecies and warnings.

But he wasn’t satisfied, and he succumbed to the devil’s influence. But Jesus washed his feet along with the other disciples. But when He spoke of them being clean and promised blessing for following His command, He continued, I am not referring to all of you; I know those I have chosen. 

And Jesus not only knew Judas completely, He knew His betrayal would fulfill prophecy from the words and the life of His human ancestor King David. David wrote in Psalm 41:9 Even my close friend, someone I trusted, one who shared my bread, has turned against me.

John 13:19-30 “I am telling you now before it happens, so that when it does happen you will believe that I am who I am. ²⁰ Very truly I tell you, whoever accepts anyone I send accepts me; and whoever accepts me accepts the one who sent me. After he had said this, Jesus was troubled in spirit and testified, “Very truly I tell you, one of you is going to betray me.”

²² His disciples stared at one another, at a loss to know which of them he meant. ²³ One of them, the disciple whom Jesus loved, was reclining next to him. ²⁴ Simon Peter motioned to this disciple and said, “Ask him which one he means.”

²⁵ Leaning back against Jesus, he asked him, “Lord, who is it?”

²⁶ Jesus answered, “It is the one to whom I will give this piece of bread when I have dipped it in the dish.” Then, dipping the piece of bread, he gave it to Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot. ²⁷ As soon as Judas took the bread, Satan entered into him.

So Jesus told him, “What you are about to do, do quickly.” ²⁸ But no one at the meal understood why Jesus said this to him. ²⁹ Since Judas had charge of the money, some thought Jesus was telling him to buy what was needed for the festival, or to give something to the poor. ³⁰ As soon as Judas had taken the bread, he went out. And it was night.

The table around which they gathered was a low, solid block, with couches grouped around it in a half-circle. As host, Jesus would have been in the center with a disciple on each side. Each man reclined on his left side with his left arm on a cushion for support, leaving his right arm free for eating. They stretched their feet out behind them. This meant the head of each person was near his neighbor’s chest on the left.

During the Passover meal, it was customary for the father of the family to give the honored guests pieces of bread or meat dipped in a juice made from fruit boiled in wine, a symbol of the fruits of the Promised Land.

Jesus gave this to Judas. This should have really touched Judas. But now Satan had entered him. Matthew 27 records Judas regretted his decision to betray Jesus and tried to return the 30 pieces of silver the chief priest paid him. But remorse isn’t the same as repentance. Remorse is wishing you hadn’t done something, usually because of the consequences, but refusing to confess and ask for forgiveness. Repentance is a deliberate change in mind, spirit and life direction following the receiving of forgiveness. Judas didn’t ask for forgiveness from Jesus or God. In fact, in choosing to take his own life he shut the door to reconciliation with Christ.

John 13: 31-38 When he was gone, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man is glorified and God is glorified in him. ³² If God is glorified in him, God will glorify the Son in himself, and will glorify him at once.

³³ “My children, I will be with you only a little longer. You will look for me, and just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now: Where I am going, you cannot come.

³⁴ “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. ³⁵ By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

³⁶ Simon Peter asked him, “Lord, where are you going?”

Jesus replied, “Where I am going, you cannot follow now, but you will follow later.”

³⁷ Peter asked, “Lord, why can’t I follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.”

³⁸ Then Jesus answered, “Will you really lay down your life for me? Very truly I tell you, before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times!

The disciples needed to understand that Jesus was not a victim. He willingly laid down His life. And the cross would bring Jesus glory.

Jesus made four statements about His glorification. He spoke of divine glory as well as human glory.

1.     How the Son of Man is glorified. Son of Man was Jesus’ most-used title for Himself. Jesus’ perfect human life fulfilled all God’s purpose in creating people in His own image.

2.     God is glorified in Him. Jesus’ death, resurrection and ascension brought lasting glory to God the Father through His triumph over Satan, sin and death. The cross displays the perfection of God’s mercy, justice and wisdom.

3.     God will glorify the Son in Himself. Jesus was preparing to return to Heaven as Son of God in a glorified body.

4.     God will glorify Him at once. Jesus’ hour had come. God glorified his Son as man by His bodily resurrection from the dead and His ascension into heaven in His human body.

Jesus calls His disciples “my children” here. God’s children are those who trust in His Son. Brought into His family forever by faith in Him. This seems to have made an impression on John because he often called his readers my children.

He tells the disciples (and us) to love one another as He has loved them (and us!): selflessly, humbly and sacrificially.  We may not feel Jesus’ loving look or touch, but we can feel it when another believer does it. Believers now put the skin on Jesus!

John 14:1-7 “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. ² My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you?3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. ⁴ You know the way to the place where I am going.”

⁵ Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”

⁶ Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. ⁷ If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”

Everyone knows this passage. It’s quoted ALL the time. We love to hear that Jesus is preparing a home for us and he’s coming back to get us, don’t we?

And Jesus meant for it to be a comfort. His disciples were worried. They didn’t know what was happening. So, Jesus told them. But He started out by commanding them to not let their hearts be troubled. He is showing us that worry is a choice! He told them to stop worrying and replace worry with trust in God.

After that He told them His purpose for leaving – to prepare a place for them where they would live with Him forever. When He returns for us we’ll never be separated again.

Some translations say, “many mansions” instead of houses. That doesn’t mean large houses like we would picture now. Back then a “mansion” referred to a permanent dwelling place.

Jesus pictured a king’s son, his father’s heir and the ruler of his kingdom returning to His Father’s house and to His proper place on His throne. And the Father welcomes all His Son’s friends. Within the king’s home is room for all who trust Him. In Christ, the Father adopts each believer as His child.

Jesus talked about His coming back a lot. 1 out of every 20 verses in the New Testament relates to His return. He will return personally, physically, visibly and in the same way he went up into Heaven.

When He returns He will: judge and bring salvation to those who are waiting for Him. He will evaluate the character, personal relationships, thoughts, motivations, words and work of every day of each person who has ever lived. But he will never accuse any who repent and trust Him. Everyone who trusts in Christ can be confident the Father has laid on His beloved Son all our punishment. The book of Romans says, “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

And His righteous judgment will vindicate His people and end all questions about the seeming victories of wrong over right or the suffering of the innocent.

Where Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” He didn’t say, He knew, taught or revealed the way the truth or the life. He didn’t say He was one way among a bunch of other good choices. He said NO ONE else can lead us to God.

John 14:8-14 Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.”

⁹ Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? ¹⁰ Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. ¹¹ Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves. ¹² Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. ¹³ And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. ¹⁴ You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.

Jesus reveals God perfectly to us. To see Jesus is to see God.

Twice each day, Jesus, Philip and the other disciples would have recited the Shema. Deuteronomy 6:4 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.”

That’s why the Jewish leaders were trying to kill Him. Because He was claiming equality with God. They sort of got it, but apparently Philip still didn’t.

Jesus is the only one who came from Heaven to tell us about Heaven.