By prof. A. P. Lopukhin
But does not the dignity of the Holy Spirit be degraded when it is said that the Spirit announces only what he hears from God the Father and God the Son? “Hearing the speech” of the other Persons of the Holy Trinity does not exclude the Spirit’s own participation in the Divine Council. Moreover, the fact that the Spirit will reveal all truth warrants the conclusion that He is one in essence with the Father and the Son.
Another question that may arise: Does not the words, “All that the Father hath are Mine,” imply that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son, as He proceeds from the Father? No, the proceeding of the Spirit from the Father could not be meant by Christ here, for in this whole section from verse 7 onwards He speaks of the activity of the Spirit, and not of His personal attributes as a divine Hypostasis, He does not mean the relations of the Persons of the Holy Trinity between them, and their relation to the work of the salvation of mankind.
16:16. A little while, and you will not see Me, and again a little while, and you will see Me, because I am going to the Father.
The Lord returns to the question of His going to the Father, which had so frightened the apostles, and comforts them that they will soon see Him again. As in John. 14:18 – 19, here we are talking about the appearance of the Lord to the apostles at the resurrection.
16:17. Then some of His disciples said to one another: what is this that says to us: a little while, and you will not see Me, and again: after a little while, and you will see Me, and that I am going to the Father?
“some more”. The disciples could not put together in their mind all that Christ had said about His future meeting with them. He then declared that it would be a long time before he saw them, that they would have to go through a path of suffering (John 16:2), then he said that he would come to them soon, as soon as he had prepared for them a dwelling in heaven (John 14:3), so they could assume that the separation would last only a few hours. The apostles were already confused by this expression “yet a little while.”
“I go to the Father.” In addition, His words: “I am going to the Father” also disturbed them. Some of them were probably inclined to see in them a hint of Christ’s coming glorious ascension into heaven, similar to that which was conferred upon the prophet Elijah, who was taken from the earth in a “chariot of fire and horses of fire” (2 Kings 2: 11). But then it seemed incomprehensible what His recent return Christ was talking about. Will His stay in heaven be short? But this contradicted what the Lord said to the apostles earlier (John 13:36 – 14:3). They may also have thought that Christ would appear to them at His last coming when He would come to judge the world (Matt. 19:28). But this “a little more” confused all their ideas.
16:18. And they said to themselves: what is this that says: a little while? We don’t know what he’s talking about.
16:19. Jesus understood, therefore, that they wanted to ask Him, and said to them: is this why you ask one another, when I said: a little while, and you will not see Me, and again: in a little while, and you will see Me?
16:20. Verily, verily, I say unto you, that ye shall weep and wail, and the world shall rejoice; you will be grieved, but your sorrow will turn to joy.
“your sorrow shall be turned into joy.” Christ answers the disciples’ bewilderment about the meaning of His words: “a little while longer, and you will not see Me, and again after a little while, and you will see Me.” The Lord repeats again that sorrow and weeping for His death (in verse 20 the verb θρηνεῖν means weeping for the dead, cf. Matt. 2:18) will quickly be replaced among the disciples by joy – of course, because of Christ’s resurrection from the dead. The world will rejoice, thinking that it has conquered Christ, and this joy of the world will sadden even more the disciples of Christ, already crushed by the death of the Master. But both joys will be very short-lived. The turnaround will come quickly and unexpectedly.
16:21. A woman, when she gives birth, is in pain, because her hour has come; but, after she has given birth to the child, for joy she no longer remembers the pain, because a man has been born into the world.
“a woman when she gives birth.” The disciples’ grief will be sudden, like a woman who unexpectedly feels the onset of painful labor pains while in the middle of a holiday or work! But Christ wants to present not only the unexpectedness of His resurrection to the disciples, but also its especially joyful character. The joy of the disciples when they see the resurrected Christ can be compared to the fullness of joy experienced by a woman who has just given birth. She immediately forgets the pains of childbirth and is filled with joy when she sees her child. Some interpreters continue the comparison begun by the Savior. They compare Him to a newborn child who has entered into a new life at the resurrection, as a new Adam (1 Cor. 15:45).
16:22. So you are now grieved; but I will see you again, and your heart will rejoice, and your joy no one will take away from you;
The Lord describes the consequences of His new coming to the disciples after the resurrection – their joy at meeting Him will be permanent.
16:23. and on that day you will not ask Me anything. Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in my name, he will give it to you.
“him day”. (cf. John 14:20), i.e. during the conversations with the resurrected Lord.
“you shall ask Me nothing.” We know that even after the resurrection, the disciples asked the Lord about things that particularly concerned them (for example, about how the kingdom of Israel would be organized; Acts 1:6). Therefore, the expression οὐκ ἐρωτήσεις is rather understood in the sense of “you shall not continually ask questions about every word of mine which you do not understand, and even continually repeat the same questions, as in this conversation of ours” (verse 18). The state of the apostles, which was then like inexperienced children, questioning the elders about everything, will change after they see the resurrected Christ – they will mature and become adults.
“Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you.” Here is another indication of the new position of the apostles in relation to God after the resurrection of Christ. Before that, the weight of the thought of the fate of the Son of God filled them with fear before the Lord’s right hand, which so terribly punishes the innocent Christ for the sins of humanity. And after the resurrection, they will begin to look at this right hand as containing all the mercies for those redeemed by Christ’s sufferings.
16:24. Until now you have asked nothing in My name; ask, and you shall receive, that your joy may be full.
“Until now”, i.e. before Christ ascended to the Father and received eternal glory and in His humanity, the apostles did not ask anything in His name (cf. John 14:13), i.e. in their prayers they they turned directly to the God of their fathers, without relying on the name of their Master and Lord Jesus Christ. After Christ’s glorification, it will be especially joyful for them that in their prayers they will invoke the name of Christ, who is so close to them, and in this His closeness they will find a guarantee that their prayers will not remain unfulfilled.
16:25. These things I spoke to you in parables; but the hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in parables, but will openly make known to you about the Father.
16:26. That day you will ask in My name, and I do not tell you that I will ask the Father for you; 16:27. for the Father Himself loves you, because you loved Me and believed that I came forth from God.
“These things I have spoken unto you in parables.” The farewell speech of the Lord is drawing to a close. The Lord says that everything He has said so far in this discourse (for example, John 13:32; 14:2, etc.) is in the form of parables, and His disciples, after hearing them, turned to Christ with questions and perplexities. (cf. Matt. 13:36). However, the time will soon come when the Lord will “directly” communicate to the apostles what they need to know, so that Christ does not need to accompany His speech with special explanations. But what time is Christ referring to here? Is it the relatively short period from His resurrection to His ascension into heaven, or the entire time of His Church’s existence on earth? Since this speech refers primarily to the apostles (who at this stage knew everything vaguely, as if under a veil), it is better to see in Christ’s promise an indication only of His personal treatment of the apostles after His resurrection, when He will ” open their minds to understand the Scriptures” (Luke 24:45).
“I do not say to you that I will ask the Father for you.” This does not mean that the intercession of Christ for the apostles will cease: love, as the apostle says, never ceases (1 Corinthians 13:8) and always continues to intercede for the beloved. But the Lord wants to say that the apostles themselves will find themselves in a new close relationship with God, because because of their love for Christ and their faith in Him, they will be honored with the Father’s love.
16:28. I proceeded from the Father and came into the world; again I leave the world and go to the Father.
16:29. His disciples said to him: behold, now you speak openly, and you do not tell any parable.
16:30. Now we understand that you know everything, and you don’t need anyone to ask you. Therefore we believe that you came from God.
“I came from the Father…and I go to the Father.” In order to explain to the disciples the purpose of His departure from them, the Lord once again repeats that as He came forth from the Father, so He must return to Him. But now he says it short and clear. The disciples are satisfied with the clarity of these words of their Master, such clarity as they needed. This ability of Christ to penetrate into the innermost corners of the human heart prompts the disciples to confess once more their faith that He really came forth from God and therefore has divine knowledge. He does not need to wait for their questions to find out who needs to know what from Him.
16:31. Jesus answered them: do you believe now?
“do you believe now?”. In response to this confession, the Lord accepted their faith as a fact (instead of: “Do you now believe?” it is better to translate: “yes, now you believe”).
16:32. Behold, the hour is coming, and it has already come, for you to run away, everyone to your homes, and leave Me alone; but I am not alone, because the Father is with Me.
you “run away”. The Lord says that this faith in the apostles will soon weaken to such an extent that they will abandon their Master (cf. Mark 14:27 and 50).
“The Father is with Me.” “However – Christ notes, as if to reassure the apostles for the coming time, when they will consider all Christ’s work lost, – I will not be alone, the Father is always with Me”.
16:33. I have told you this so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have sorrows; but take heart: I have overcome the world.
This is the conclusion of the discourses of chapters 15 and 16 (chapter 14 has its own special conclusion in verse 31). For this reason, the Lord spoke the additional speeches in chapters 15 – 16, so that the apostles would have “peace in Him”, i.e. the peace that He has and with which He goes to suffering (cf. John 14:27). And this peace must be based on the same thing with the apostles as it was with Christ, namely that Christ is certain of His victory over the world hostile to Him, which already, one might say, lies at His feet as defeated (cf. John 13:31). In the same way, the disciples must draw strength from the thought of their Master’s victory to endure the trials ahead (cf. verse 21).
Some modern exegetes consider chapters 15 and 16 to have been inserted by a later author. The main basis for this opinion is that in John 14:31 the Lord invites the apostles to “get up and go” from the upper room, thus recognizing the farewell discourse as finished. But critics are in vain embarrassed by this circumstance. As it was said above (see the interpretation of John 14:31), the Lord was able to continue His conversation with the disciples, seeing that they were not able to follow His invitation, could not, because of their great sorrow, get up from their seats.
Likewise, the other ground relied upon by the critics for not recognizing the authenticity of these chapters is of little force. Namely, they say that these chapters partly repeat what is already known from John 13:31 – 14:31 (Heitmuller). But what wonder is there in the fact that the Lord, comforting His disciples, sometimes repeats the same thoughts? It is obvious that they needed such a repetition because they did not get things clear enough the first time.
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.
