By prof. A.P. Lopukhin
John, chapter 16. 1 – 33. The end of Christ’s farewell discourse with the apostles: about the coming persecution; the going of Christ to the Father; the work of the Holy Spirit; the happy outcome of the trials to which the apostles will be subjected; hearing their prayers; the scattering of Christ’s disciples.
In the first 11 verses, which form the end of the second consolatory speech, Christ warns the apostles of the persecutions that await them, and then, announcing again His departure to the Father, promises that the Comforter will come to the apostles, who will rebuke the world that is at war against Christ and the apostles.
16:1. I have told you this so that you will not be deceived.
“This,” i.e., of the persecutions awaiting the apostles (John 15:18ff.)
“lest you be deceived.” Knowing about upcoming suffering is helpful because the expected doesn’t hit us as much as the unexpected.
16:2. They will drive you out of the synagogues; even a time is coming when anyone who kills you will think he is doing God a service.
“cast out of the synagogues” – cf. the interpretation of John 9:22, 34. In the eyes of the Jews, the apostles appear as apostates from the father’s faith.
“anyone who kills you.” From this it is clear that the apostles will be outlawed, so that anyone who meets them will have the right to put them to death. Subsequently, it was explicitly established in the Talmud (treatise of Bemidbar Rabba, reference to Holzmann, 329,1) that whoever kills an unrighteous person thereby offers a sacrifice to God.
16:3. And so they will do to you, because they knew neither the Father nor Me.
Christ repeats (cf. John 15:21) that the reason for such a hostile attitude towards the apostles will be that they, the Jews, do not properly know either the Father or Christ.
16:4. But I have told you this, so when the hour comes, remember that I told you; and I did not speak this to you at first, because I was with you.
The Lord did not tell the apostles about the sufferings that awaited them at the beginning of their following of Christ. The reason for this is that He Himself was constantly with them. In case of troubles that could befall the apostles, Christ was always able to comfort them. But now He was separating from the apostles, and they were to know all that awaited them.
Hence, there is reason to conclude that the evangelist Matthew placed in the words of Christ to the apostles, when he sent them to preach (Matthew 10:16 – 31), predictions about the sufferings that awaited them, not because the Lord then revealed to the disciples the fate that awaited them, but because he wanted to unite in one section all the instructions of Christ to the disciples as preachers of the Gospel.
16:5. And now I go to Him who sent Me, and none of you asks Me: where are you going?
16:6. But because I told you this, your heart was filled with sadness.
The Lord’s words about His departure deeply struck the disciples, but they felt sorry for themselves more than for their Master. They thought what would happen to them, but they did not ask themselves what fate awaited Christ. It was as if they had forgotten about Thomas’s question, oppressed by the grief of Christ’s departure (cf. John 14:5).
16:7. But I tell you the truth: it is better for you that I go away; for if I do not depart, the Comforter will not come to you; if I depart, I will send Him to you;
16:8. and He, coming, will reprove the world for sin, for righteousness, and for judgment:
“it’s better for you”. The Lord condescends to this state of the disciples and wishes to dispel their oppressive sorrow by telling them that the Comforter will come to them.
“will rebuke the world.” Christ had previously spoken of this Comforter and of His work among the apostles and other believers (John 14:16), but now He speaks of His importance to the unbelieving world. After all, the interpreters differ on the question before whom the Holy Spirit will appear as a rebuke or witness for Christ – whether before the world or only before the believers. Some say that the Lord is speaking here that through the work of the Holy Spirit the truth of Christ and the unrighteousness of the world will become clear, but only to the minds of believers.
“To them shall be revealed all the sin of the world, all its iniquity, and that destruction to which it is condemned… And what could the Spirit reveal to the spiritually deaf and blind, what could He tell to the dead? But He was able to teach through them those who could perceive Him…” (K. Silchenkov).
We cannot agree with such an interpretation, because firstly, the Lord above (John 15:26) has already said that the Spirit will testify about Christ to the world, and secondly, it would be strange to suppose that the world, which is was so loved by the Father (John 3:16, 17) and for whose salvation the Son of God came (John 1:29; 4:42), will be deprived of the influence of the Holy Spirit.
Some claim that the world did not heed the rebuke, which is, however, noted here as a fact (“he will rebuke,” v. 8). We must say that the Greek verb used here, ἐλέγχειν (“to reprove”) does not mean “bring a person to a full awareness of his guilt”, but only “bring strong evidence, which, however, can be ignored by the majority of listeners” (cf. John 8 :46, 3:20, 3:20, 3:20, 3:20, 3:20, 3:20). :46, 3:20, 7:7). In view of this, it is better to adhere to the opinion that this is mainly about the attitude of the Comforter to the unbelieving and hostile to Christ world, before which the Comforter will appear as a witness.
What will the Comforter denounce or testify about? Of sin in general, of truth in general, of judgment in general (all Greek nouns standing here – ἀμαρτία, δικαιοσύνη, κρίσις – stand without an article and therefore mean something abstract). The world does not properly understand these three things. He does evil, and yet he is sure that it is not evil, but good, that he does not sin. He mixes good with evil and considers immorality as a natural phenomenon, showing that he has no concept of justice or righteousness at all, does not even believe in its existence. Finally, he does not believe in the divine court, where everyone’s fate must be decided according to his deeds. Here are these truths foreign to the understanding of the world, the Comforter Spirit must clarify to the world and prove that sin, and truth, and judgment exist.
16:9. for sin that they do not believe in Me;
How will the Spirit explain this to the world? Sin is revealed through the unbelief that the world has shown in relation to Christ (instead of: “that they do not believe” it is more correct to translate: “because they do not believe”: the particle ὁτι, according to the context has here the meaning of cause). In nothing is sin so clearly revealed as in the world’s unbelief in Christ (cf. John 3:20; 15:22). The world hates Christ not because there was anything in Him worthy of hatred, but because sinfulness, having conquered people, makes them not accept the high demands that Christ has for them (cf. John 5:44).
16:10. for righteousness, that I go to My Father, and ye shall see Me no more;
The Holy Spirit will also testify to the existence of righteousness, again in relation to Christ. The ascension of Christ to the Father is evidence that righteousness is an attribute of God, rewarding great works with exaltation, but it also exists as an attribute or work of Christ, Who by His exaltation will prove that He is righteous and holy (1 Jn. 2:1, 29; Acts 3:14; 1 Pet. 3:18), although He was a sinner (John 9:24). The Holy Spirit, especially through the preachers of Christ, will reveal the meaning of the separation of Christ from the apostles, who now perceived this separation as a sad and not a joyful event. But after the Comforter Spirit descends upon them, they will understand and begin to explain to others the true meaning of this withdrawal of Christ, which is proof of the existence of righteousness. Apostle Peter mostly spoke in this way to the Jews about Christ’s ascension (Acts 2:36; 3:15).
16:11. and for judgment, that the prince of this world is condemned.
Finally, the Holy Spirit will explain to the world that there is a judgment – with the example of the condemnation of the culprit of Christ’s death (John 13:2, 27) – the devil, the prince of this sinful world. Since the Lord regards His death as already accomplished, so also for the condemnation of the devil pronounced upon him by Divine justice for this bloody and unrighteous deed (he has put to death the One Who, being sinless, he had no right to deprive of life – cf . Rom. 6:23), He also speaks of a fait accompli (“condemned”).
In the early Church, the condemnation of the devil was manifested in the cases of the expulsion of demons by the apostles, who performed these miracles by the power of the Holy Spirit. Moreover, in the apostolic epistles the devil is presented as having already been expelled from the society of people who have believed in Christ: he only walks around the Church, like a roaring hungry lion (1 Pet. 5:8), spreads his nets again outside the Church, for to capture those believers who can go beyond the bounds of the Church (1 Tim. 3:7). In a word, the condemnation of the devil, the victory over him, was for the minds of believers a fact that happened, and they convinced the whole world of it.
16:12. I have much more to tell you; but now you can’t bear it.
Verses 12 to 33 contain Christ’s third consolation speech. Here He speaks to the apostles, on the one hand, about the future sending of the Holy Spirit, who will instruct them in all truth, and, on the other hand, about His coming or returning to them after His resurrection, when they will learn many things from Him , which until then they did not know. If they now felt strong in faith because of what they had already heard from Christ, He tells them that the strength of their faith was not yet so great as to save them from fear at the sight of what was to come. with their Master. Christ concludes His discourse by exhorting the disciples to bear the coming trial with courage.
“a lot”. Christ cannot tell the disciples all that he had to impart to them: in their present state it is difficult for them to perceive the “much” that Christ had. It is very likely that it included what the Lord revealed to them during the forty days after His resurrection (Acts 1:3) and which then became a major part of Christian tradition.
16:13. And when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all truth; for he will not speak of himself, but what he hears he will speak, and he will tell you the future.
“all truth.” Above Christ spoke of the work of the Holy Spirit for the world. Now He speaks of the importance of the Spirit for the personal lives of Christ’s disciples. Here the activity of the Spirit will bear so much fruit that it will abundantly satisfy the thirst for the knowledge of truth, which it was impossible for the disciples to quench after the departure of their Master. The Holy Spirit, as the Spirit of truth (cf. John 14:17 and 25:26), will give them full knowledge of all truth, or rather all (πᾶσα) truth, which was previously communicated to them by Christ alone in general.
“will guide you.” However, these words do not mean that the students will learn the entire content of the teaching about God, that there will be no flaws in their knowledge. Christ says only that the Spirit will give them this, and whether they will accept all that is offered to them will depend on whether they yield to the leading of the Spirit. The Spirit will be their guide in learning the truth (instead of ὁδηγήσει in some ancient codices it reads ὁδηγός ἔσται).
“for He will not speak of Himself.” The property of the Spirit, by virtue of which He is the source of revelation, is based on the fact that He will as little as Christ (John 7:17; 14:10) speak “of Himself,” i.e. .He will not start anything new in teaching the disciples the truth, but like Christ (John 3:32; 8:26; 12:49) he will speak only what he receives or “hears” (ἀκούει υ Tischendorf, 8- o edition) from the Father (in the Russian translation “he will hear”, future tense).
“and will tell you the future.” The special activity of the Spirit will be to reveal the eschatological teachings. At times Christ’s disciples might be discouraged by the victories which evil often wins in the world, and then the Spirit would open before them the veil of the future and encourage them by painting before their spiritual eyes a picture of the future final victory of good.
16:14. He will glorify Me, because he will take from Mine and announce it to you.
Christ repeats again that the Spirit will not establish a new Church, but will only “glorify Christ”, i.e. will lead to the desired revelation of what, after the withdrawal of Christ, remained unrevealed and unfinished in Christ’s Church.
From this it appears how groundless are the opinions of the possibility of the recent opening of some new Church or Kingdom of the Spirit, which is to take the place of the Kingdom of the Son or His Church.
16:15. All that the Father hath is Mine; therefore I said that he will take from Mine and announce it to you.
For verse 13 says that the Spirit will declare what he hears from the Father, and verse 14 says that he will take from the Son (“of Mine”, i.e., what I have) to removes this apparent contradiction, Christ notes that all things belong to the Son that belong to the Father (John 17:10; cf. Luke 15:31).
Source in Russian: Explanatory Bible, or Commentaries on all the books of the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments: In 7 volumes / Ed. prof. A. P. Lopukhin. – Ed. 4th. – Moscow: Dar, 2009, 1232 pp.
(to be continued)
