John 16 commentary

JOHN 16 COMMENTARY
1 “All this I have told you so that you will not
fall away.
BARNES, "These things - The things spoken in the two previous chapters,
promising them divine aid and directing them in the path of duty.
Be offended - For the meaning of the word offend, see the notes at Mat_5:29. It
means here the same as to stumble or fall - that is, to apostatize. He proceeds
immediately to tell them, what he had often apprised them of, that they would be
subject to great persecutions and trials. He was also himself about to be removed by
death. They were to go into an unfriendly world. All these things were in themselves
greatly fitted to shake their faith, and to expose them to the danger of apostasy.
Compare Luk_24:21. If they had not been apprised of this, if they had not known
why Jesus was about to die, and if they had not been encouraged with the promised
aid of the Holy Spirit, they would have sunk under these trials, and forsaken him and
his cause. And we may learn hence:
1. That if Christians were left to themselves they would fall away and perish.
2. That God affords means and helps beforehand to keep them in the path of duty.
3. That the instructions of the Bible and the help of the Holy Spirit are all granted
to keep them from apostasy.
4. That Jesus beforehand secured the fidelity and made certain the continuance in
faith of his apostles, seeing all their dangers and knowing all their enemies.
And, in like manner, we should be persuaded that “he is able to keep that which
we commit to him against that day,” 2Ti_1:12.
CLARKE, "These things have I spoken - Particularly what is mentioned in
the two last chapters.
Be offended - ᅿνα 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.
GILL, "These things have I spoken unto you,.... Concerning the world's hatred
and persecution of them, and the little regard they would show to their doctrine:
these things Christ thought, proper to give them notice of before hand, that expecting
them, they might be prepared for them, and be fortified against them;
that, says he,
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ye should not be offended: his view in speaking of them, was not to discourage
them, but to prevent their stumbling at them, and falling by them. Hardships coming
upon persons at unawares, bear the harder upon their spirits, and they are more apt
to take offence at them and be impatient under them, which is prevented by previous
intimation: had Christ said nothing of these things that should befall his disciples,
they might have surprised them, and have been a stumbling to them; and might have
tempted them to have relinquished their profession of him, and dropped their
ministerial work; whereas being apprized of them before hand, they were not so
shocking to them. This shows the tender concern of Christ for his disciples, how
careful he was to remove, every occasion of stumbling, or what might be matter of
offence to them; and may teach us to act in such like manner towards one another, in
this, or any other case.
HENRY, "Christ dealt faithfully with his disciples when he sent them forth on his
errands, for he told them the worst of it, that they might sit down and count the cost.
He had told them in the chapter before to expect the world's hatred; now here in
these verses,
I. He gives them a reason why he alarmed them thus with the expectation of
trouble: These things have I spoken unto you, that you should not be offended, or
scandalized, Joh_16:1. 1. The disciples of Christ are apt to be offended at the cross;
and the offence of the cross is a dangerous temptation, even to good men, to turn
back from the ways of God, or turn aside out of them, or drive on heavily in them; to
quit either their integrity or their comfort. It is not for nothing that a suffering time is
called an hour of temptation. 2. Our Lord Jesus, by giving us notice of trouble,
designed to take off the terror of it, that it might not be a surprise to us. Of all the
adversaries of our peace, in this world of troubles, none insult us more violently, nor
put our troops more into disorder, than disappointment does; but we can easily
welcome a guest we expect, and being fore-warned are fore-armed - Praemoniti,
praemuniti.
JAMISON, "Joh_16:1-33. Discourse at the supper table concluded.
These things have I spoken unto you, that ye should not be offended —
both the warnings and the encouragements just given.
CALVIN, "1.These things I have spoken to you. He again states that none of
those things which he has spoken are superfluous; for, since wars and contests
await them, it is necessary that they should be provided beforehand with the
necessary arms. Yet he also means that, if they meditate deeply on this doctrine,
they will be fully prepared for resistance. Let us remember that what he then
said to the disciples is also spoken to us. And, first, we ought to understand that
Christ does not send his followers into the field unarmed, and, therefore, that, if
any man fail in this warfare, his own indolence alone is to blame. And yet we
ought not to wait till the struggle be actually commenced, but ought rather to
endeavor to become well acquainted with these discourses of Christ, and to
render them familiar to our minds, so that we may march into the field of battle,
as soon as it is necessary; for we must not doubt that the victory is in our hands,
so long as those admonitions of Christ shall be deeply imprinted on our minds.
For, when he says THAT YOU MAY NOT be offended, he means that there is no
danger, lest anything turn us aside from the right course. But how few there are
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that learn this doctrine in a proper manner, is evident from this fact, that they
who think that they know it by heart when they are beyond arrow-shot, are no
sooner obliged to enter into actual combat than they give way, as if they were
utterly ignorant, and had never received any instruction. (93) Let us, therefore
accustom ourselves to use this armor in such a manner that it may never drop
out of our hands.
PINK 1-11, "The following is an Analysis of the passage which is to be before
us:—
1. Reason why Christ warned His disciples, verse 1.
2. Details of what they would suffer, verse 2.
3. Cause of the world’s hostility, verse 3.
4. Christ’s tender solicitude, verse 4.
5. The disciple’s self-occupation, verses 5, 6.
6. The promise of the Spirit, verse 7.
7. The Spirit vindicating Christ, verses 8, 11.
The chapter division between John 15 and 16 is scarcely a happy one, though
perhaps it is not an easy matter to indicate a better: John 16:12 would probably
have been a more suitable point for the break, for verse 12 obviously begins a
new sub-section. In the passage which is to be before us we find the Lord
continuing the subject which had engaged Him at the close of chapter 15. There
He had been speaking of the hatred of the world—against the Father, against
Himself, and against His disciples. Then He had assured them that He would
send the Holy Spirit to conduct His cause. The character in which Christ
mentioned the Third Person of the Godhead—"the Comforter"—should have
quieted the fears and sorrows of the apostles. Now Christ returns to the world’s
hatred, entering more into detail. Previously, He had spoken in general terms of
the world’s enmity; now He proceeds to speak more particularly, sketching as He
does the future fortunes of Christianity, describing the first chapter of its
history.
Most faithfully did the Savior proceed to warn His disciples of the treatment
which would be meted out to them by their enemies. Strikingly has Mr. John
Brown commented upon our Lord’s conduct on this occasion. "The founders of
false religions have always endeavored to make it appear to be the present
interest of those whom they addressed to acquiesce in their pretentions and
submit to their guidance. To his countrymen the Arabian impostor held out the
lure of present sensual indulgence; and when he at their head, made war in
support of his imposture, the terms proffered to the conquered were proselytism,
with a full share in the advantages of their victors, or continued unbelief with
slavery or death. It has indeed been the policy of all deceivers, of whatever kind,
to conceal from the dupes of their artifice, whatever might prejudice against
their schemes, and skillfully to work on their hopes and fears by placing in a
prominent point of view all the advantages which might result from them
embracing their schemes, and all the disadvantages which might result from
their rejecting them. An exaggerated view is given both of the probabilities of
success, and of the value of the benefits to be secured by it, while great care is
taken to throw into the shade the privations that must be submitted to, the labor
that must be sustained, the sacrifices that must be made, the sufferings that must
be endured, and the ruin that may be incurred, in joining in the proposed
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enterprise.
"How different the conduct of Jesus Christ! He had no doubt promised His
followers a happiness, ample and varied as their capacities of enjoyment, and as
enduring as their immortal souls; but He distinctly intimated that this happiness
was spiritual in its nature, and to be fully enjoyed only in a future world! He
assured them that, following Him, they should all become inheritors of a
kingdom; but He with equal plainness stated that that kingdom was not of this
world, and that he who would enter into it must ‘forsake all,’ and ‘take up his
cross.’ Himself poor and despised, ‘a Man of Sorrows and acquainted with grief.’
He plainly intimated that His followers must be ‘in the world, as He was in the
world.’"
The disciples of Christ were to be hated by the world! But it is highly important
that we do not form too narrow a view of what is meant by "the world." Satan
has tried hard to obliterate the line which separates between those who are "of
the world" and those who are "not of the world." And to a large extent he has
succeeded. The professing "Church" has boasted that it would convert the
world. To accomplish this aim, it has sought to popularize "religion."
Innumerable devices have been employed—many of which even a sense of
propriety should have suppressed—to attract the ungodly. The result has been
the world has converted the "professing Church." But notwithstanding this it
still remains true that "the world" hates the true followers of the Lamb. And
nowhere is this more plainly evident than in those who belong to what we may
term the religious world. This will come before us in the course of our exposition.
The closing verses of our present portion announce the relationship of the Holy
Spirit to "the world" and it is this which distinguishes the first division of John
16 from the closing section of John 15. In the concluding verses of John 15 the
Lord had spoken of the world’s hatred, and this still engages Him in the first few
verses of chapter 16. But in verse 7 He refers once more to the Holy Spirit, and in
verses John 8:11 presents Him as His Vindicator. It is this which has guided us in
selecting the title of our present chapter: its suitability must be determined by
the interpretation which follows.
"These things have I spoken unto you, that ye should not be offended" (John
16:1). Before the Lord describes in detail the forms in which the world’s hostility
would be manifested, He paused to acquaint the disciples with His reasons for
announcing these things. First, it was in order that they should not be
"offended" or "stumbled" or "scandalized" as the word means. To be
forewarned is to be forearmed. Christ would prepare His people beforehand by
telling them plainly what they might expect. Instead of contending among
themselves which should be the greatest, He bids them prepare to drink of the
cup He drank of and to be baptised with the baptism wherewith He was to be
baptised. It was not that He would discourage them, far from it; He would fortify
them against what lay ahead. And bow this evidenced the tender concern of their
Master. How it demonstrates once more that He "loved them unto the end"! And
how gracious of the Lord to thus warn us! Should we not often have stumbled
had He not told us beforehand what to expect?
"These things have I spoken unto you, that ye should not be offended." That
there was need for this warning is very evident. Already the question had been
asked, "Behold, we have forsaken all, and followed thee; what shall we have
therefore?" (Matthew 19:27). Moreover, that very night all would be "offended"
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because of Him: "Then saith Jesus unto them, All ye shall be offended because of
me this night; for it is written, I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep of the
flock shall be scattered abroad" (Matthew 26:31). But, it may be asked, Why
should Christ here forewarn the disciples when He knew positively that they
would be offended? Ah! why tell Peter to "watch and pray lest he enter into
temptation" (Mark 14:38), when the Lord had already foretold that he would
deny Him thrice! Why command that the Gospel should be preached to every
creature when He foreknows that the great majority gill not believe it! The
answer to each of these questions is: to enforce human responsibility.
"They shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the time cometh, that whosoever
killeth you will think that he doeth God service" (John 16:2). Out of the
catalogue of sufferings to which the disciples should be subjected, the Lord
selects for mention two samples of all the rest: an extreme torture of the mind
and the final infliction upon the body. It is indeed solemn to observe that this
persecution of Christ’s people comes from the religious world. The first
fulfillment of this prophecy was from the Jews, who professed to be the people of
God. But Christ indentifies them with the world. Their sharing in and display of
its spirit showed plainly where they belonged. And the same is true to-day.
Where profession is not real, even those who bear the name of Christ are part of
"the world," and they are the first to persecute those who do follow Christ.
When the walk of the Christian condemns that of the worldly professor, when
faithfulness to his Lord prevents him from doing many things which the world
does, and when obedience to the Word obliges him to do many things which the
world dislikes, then enmity is at once aroused and persecution follows—
persecution just as bitter and real to—day, though its forms be changed.
"To be ‘put out of the synagogue’ was more than simply to be excluded from the
place of public worship. It cut a man off from the privileges of his own people,
and from the society of his former associates. It was a sort of moral outlawry,
and the physical disabilities followed the sufferer even after death. To be under
this ban was almost more than flesh and blood could bear. All men shunned him
on whom such a mark was set. He was literally an outcast; in lasting disgrace
and perpetual danger. Those familiar with the history of the dark ages, or who
are acquainted with the effects of losing caste among the Hindoos, will be able to
realize the terrors of such a system" (Mr. Geo. Brown).
Sometimes the degradation of excommunication was the prelude to death. Cases
of this are recorded in the book of Acts. We find there mention made of a class
called "zealots." They were a desperate and fanatical faction who thirsted for the
blood of Christians. "And when it was day, certain of the Jews banded together,
and bound themselves under a curse, saying that they would neither eat nor
drink, till they had killed Paul. And they were more than forty which had made
this conspiracy" (Acts 23:12, 13). That such men were not restricted to the lower
classes is evident from the case of Saul of Tarsus, who tells us that in his
unregenerate days, "I verily thought with myself, that I ought to do many things
contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth. Which thing I also did in Jerusalem:
and many of the saints did I shut up in prison, having received authority from
the chief priests; and when they were put to death, I gave my voice against them"
(Acts 26:9, 10).
How fearfully do such things manifest the awful depravity of the human heart! It
has been the same in every age: godliness has always met with hatred and
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hostility. "Cain, who was of the wicked one, and slew his brother. And wherefore
slew he him? Because his own works were evil, and his brother’s righteous" (1
John 3:12). He that is upright in the way is abomination to the wicked" (Prov.
29:27). "They hate him that rebuketh in the gate, and they abhor him that
speaketh uprightly" (Amos 5:10). It is the same now. Faithfulness to Christ will
stir up religious rancour. In spite of the boasted liberalism of the day, men are
still intolerant, and manifest their enmity just so far as they dare.
"And these things will they do unto you, because they have not known the
Father, nor me" (John 16:3). Here the Lord traces, once more, the world’s
undying ill-will to its true source: it is because they are not acquainted with the
Father and the Son. Hatred and persecution of God’s children are both the
consequence and the proof of the spiritual ignorance of their enemies. Had the
Jews really known the Father in whom they vainly boasted, they would have
acknowledged the One whom He had sent unto them, and acknowledging Him,
they would not have mistreated His followers. Thus it is to-day! "Whosoever
believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God. And every one that loveth Him
that begat loveth him also that is begotten of Him" (1 John 5:1).
"But these things have I told you, that when the time shall come, ye may
remember that I told you of them" (John 16:4). The Lord had already given one
reason (John 16:1), why He had spoken these things to the disciples, now He
gives them another: He made these revelations that their faith in Him might be
increased when the events should confirm His prophecy. The fulfillment of this
prediction would deepen their assurance in Him as the omniscient God, and this
would encourage them to depend upon the veracity of His promises. If the evil
things which He foretold came to pass, then the good things of which He had
assured them must be equally dependable.
"And these things I said not unto you at the beginning, because I was with you"
(John 16:4). "The Lord also tells them why He had not told them at the first. The
full revelation was more than their weak hearts could bear. They would be
staggered at the prospect. They must be gradually trained to this. Not all at once,
but by little and little, as they were able to bear it, He unfolds the scheme of His
cross, and of their duties and dangers. The Lord has milk for His babes, and
meat for His strong men. And there was as yet no need for this. For He Himself
was with them, and by the less could prepare for the greater. He was with them,
as a nurse with her children; to lead them on from strength to strength, from one
degree of grace and Christian virtue to another. But now that He was about to
depart from them, and leave them, as it were, to themselves; to see how they will
acquit themselves in that contest for which He has been training them all the
while; it is necessary that all the more plainly and fully He should lay before
them their future—at first this was not needed. ‘Sufficient unto the day is the evil
thereof.’ And He was yet with them and could gradually unfold it to them. And
there was yet time. But as time goes on, we see Him and hear Him opening page
after page of the volume of His secret Providence to their opening minds; till
finally, as here, He tells them plainly and fully even of the extremest trials that
are coming upon them" (Mr. Geo. Brown).
"And these things I said not unto you at the beginning, because I was with you."
But how are we to reconcile this with such passages as Matthew 5:10, 12;
Matthew 10:21, 28, etc.? In addition to the solution offered above, namely, that
Christ gradually unfolded these things to the apostles, we may point out: First,
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He had not previously said that the world would do these things unto them; that
is, He had not hitherto intimated that they would be hated by all men. Second,
previously He had not declared that the reason for this hatred was because of
men’s ignorance of the Father and the Son. Third, He had not previously
predicted that such persecution would proceed from the delusion that the
perpetrators would imagine that they were doing God a service!
"But now I go my way to him that sent me" (John 16:5). There are some who
would connect this first clause of the verse with the end of John 16:4, thus: "And
these things I said not unto you at the beginning, because I was with you; but
now I go my way to him that sent me." And then after a brief pause, the Lord
asked, "And does no one of you ask whither I go; but because I have thus spoken
to you, your heart is filled with sorrow." This is quite likely, and seems a natural
and beautiful connection.
"And none of you asketh me, Whither goest thou?" (John 16:5). In John 13:36,
we find Peter asking Christ, "Whither goest thou?" But this was an unintelligent
forwardness, for he evidently thought that the Lord was going on an earthly
journey (cf. John 7:5). In John 14:5: Thomas said, "We know not whither thou
goest," but this was more by way of objection. What the Lord wanted was an
intelligent, sympathetic, affectionate response to what He had been saying. But
the apostles were so absorbed in grief that they looked not beyond the cloud
which seemed to overshadow them. they were so occupied with the present
calamity as not to think of the blessing, which would issue from it. They were
depressed at the prospect of their Master’s departure. Had they only asked
themselves whither He was going, they would have felt glad for Him; for though
it was their loss, it was certainly His gain—the joy of being with His Father, the
rest of sitting down on high, the blessedness of entering again into the glory
which He had before the foundation of the world. It was therefore a rebuke for
their self-occupation, and how tenderly given!
"But because I have said these things unto you, sorrow hath filled your heart"
(John 16:6). How often it is thus with us! We magnify our afflictions, and fail to
dwell upon the blessings which they bear. We mourn and are in heaviness in the
"cloudy and dark day," when the heavens are black with clouds and the wind
brings a heavy rain, forgetting the beneficial effects upon the parched earth,
which only thus can bring forth its fruits for our enjoyment. We wish it to be
always spring, and consider not that without winter first, spring cannot be. It
was so with the disciples. Instead of making the most of the little time left them
with their Master, in asking Him more about His place and work in Heaven, they
could think of nothing but His departure. What a warning is this against being
swallowed up by over-much sorrow! We need to seek grace to enable us to keep
it under control.
"But because I have said these things unto you, sorrow hath filled your heart." It
is blessed to learn that the disciples did not continue for long in this disconsolate
mood. A very different spirit was theirs after the Savior’s resurrection.
Strikingly is this brought out in the concluding verses of Luke’s Gospel: "And he
led them out as far as to Bethany, and he lifted up his hands, and blessed them.
And it came to pass, while he blessed them, he was parted from them, and
carried up into heaven. And they worshipped him, and returned to Jerusalem
with great joy: And were continually in the temple, praising and blessing God."
Forty days of fellowship with Him after He had come forth victor of the grave,
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had removed their doubts, dispelled their fears, and filled their souls with joy
unspeakable.
"Nevertheless I tell you the truth; it is expedient for you that I go away: for if I
go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you" (John 16:7). Blessed
contrast! The disciples, at the moment, had no thought for Him, but He was
thinking of them and assured them that though they lost Him for a while, it
would be their gain. Though they had failed to ask, their compassionate Master
did not fail to answer. Ever more ready to hear than we are to pray, and want to
give more than we desire; ready to make allowance for them in their present
distress, and thinking always more of the sufferings of others than His own;
thinking more now of those He is leaving behind, than of the agony He is going
forth to meet—before they call He answers, answers what should have been their
request, declaring unto them the expediency of His departure.
"Nevertheless" is adversative: I know you are saddened at the prospect of My
departure, but My going is needful for you. "I tell you the truth": the personal
pronoun is emphatic in the Greek—I who love you, I who am about to lay down
My life for you: therefore you must believe what I am saying. I tell you the truth.
Your misgivings of heart have beclouded your understandings, you
misapprehend things. You think that if I remain with you, all the evils which I
have mentioned would be prevented. Alas, you know not what is best for you. "It
is expedient for you that I go away": It is for your profit, your advantage. It is
striking to note the contrast between our Lord’s use here of "expedient" from
the same words on the lips of Caiaphas in John 11:50!
But what did the Lord mean? How was His going away their gain? We believe
that there is a double answer to this question according as we understand
Christ’s declaration here to have a double reference. Notice that He did not say
"It is expedient for you that I go my way to him that sent me?" as He had said in
John 16:4. He simply said, "it is expedient for you that I go away." We believe
that Christ designedly left it abstract. Whither was He "going" when He spake
these words? Ultimately, to the Father, but before that He must go to the Cross.
Was not His first reference then to His impending death? And was it not highly
expedient for the disciples and for us, that the Lord Jesus should go to and
through the sufferings of Calvary?
"For if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you." "The atoning
death of Christ was necessary to make it consistent with the Divine government
to bestow on men these spiritual blessings which are necessarily connected with
the saving influence of the Holy Spirit. All such blessings from the beginning had
been bestowed with a reference to that atonement; and it was fitting that these
blessings, in their richest abundance, should not be bestowed till that atonement
was made" (Mr. John Brown). "‘Unless I go away,’ that is, unless I die, nothing
will be done—you will continue as you are and everything will remain in its old
state: the Jews under the law of Moses, the heathen in their blindness—all under
sin and death. No scripture would then be fulfilled, and I should have come in
vain" (Mr. Martin Luther).
But while we understand our Lord’s first reference in His words "If I go not
away" to be to His death, we would by no means limit them to this. Doubtless He
also looked forward to His return to the Father. This also was expedient for His
disciples. "So fond had they grown of His fleshly presence, they could not endure
that He should be out of their sight. Nothing but His corporeal presence could
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quiet them. We know who said, If Thou hadst been here, Lord, as if absent, He
had not been able to do it by His Spirit, as present by His body. And a tabernacle
they would needs build Him to keep Him on earth still; and ever and anon they
were still dreaming of an earthly kingdom, and of the chief seats there, as if their
consummation should have been in the flesh. The corporeal presence therefore is
to be removed, that the spiritual might take place" (Bishop Andrews).
In other ways, too, was it "expedient" for His disciples that the Savior should
take His place on High. It is of a glorified Christ that the Spirit testifies, and for
that the Savior had to "go away." Moreover, had Christ remained on earth He
had been localized, His bodily presence confined to one place: whereas by the
Spirit He is now omnipresent—where two or three disciples are gathered
together in His name, there is He in the midst. Again; had the Lord Jesus
remained on earth there had been far less room and opportunity for His people
to exercise faith. Furthermore, this cannot be gainsaid: after Christ had
ascended and the Spirit descended, the apostles were new men. They did far
more for an absent Lord, than they ever did while He was with them in the flesh.
"But if I depart, I will send him unto you" (John 16:7). "Every rendering of this
verse ought to keep the distinction between ‘apeltho’ and ‘poreutho,’ which is not
sufficiently done in the English Version, by ‘going away’ and ‘depart.’ ‘Depart’
and ‘go’ would be better! The first expressing merely the leaving them, the
second, the going up to the Father" (Dean Alford). We believe our Lord’s fine
discrimination here confirms our interpretation above of the double reference in
His "if I go not away," though we know of no commentator who takes this view.
"And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness,
and of judgment" (John 16:8). There is hardly a sentence in this Gospel which
has been more generally misunderstood than the one just quoted. With rare
exceptions this verse is understood to refer to the benign activities of the Holy
Spirit among those who hear the Gospel. It is supposed to define His work in the
conscience prior to conversion. It is regarded as a description of His gracious
operations in bringing the sinner to see his need of a Savior. So firmly has this
idea taken root in the minds even of the Lord’s people, it is difficult to induce
them to study this verse for themselves—study it in the light of what precedes,
study it in the light of the amplification which follows, study the terms employed,
comparing their usage in other passages. If this be done carefully and
dispassionately, we feel confident that many will discover how untenable is the
popular view of it.
It should be very evident that something must be wrong if this verse be
interpreted so as to clash with Christ’s explicit statement in John 14:17, "The
Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive." What then is the character of
the "reproof" that is here spoken of? Is it an evangelical conviction wrought in
the heart, or is it something that is altogether external? Almost all the older
commentators regarded it as the former. We, with an increasing number of later
writers, believe it is the latter. One of the leading lexicons of the twentieth
century gives as the meaning of elencho, "to bring in guilty; to put to shame by
proving one to be wrong; to convict with a view to condemnation and judgment,
but not necessarily to convince; to bring in guilty without any confession or
feeling of guilt by the guilty one."
The general use of the word in the New Testament decidedly confirms this
definition. It occurs in John 3:20: "For every one that doeth evil hateth the light,
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neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved," which obviously
means: lest the evil nature of his deeds should be so manifested by the light that
excuse of extenuation would be impossible. It is found again in John 8:46,
"Which of you convinceth me of sin?": most certainly Christ did not mean,
Which of you is able to convince Me, or make Me realize I have sinned. Rather,
Which of you can substantiate a charge? which of you can furnish proof of sin
against Me? It is rendered "reproved" in Luke 3:19, meaning "charged," not
made to feel guilty. So too in Ephesians 5:11; 2 Timothy 4:2.
Thus, in each of the above passages "elencho" refers to an objective
condemnation, and not to a subjective realization of condemnation. In 1 Timothy
5:20 it is rendered, "rebuke". So also in Titus 1:13; Titus 2:15; Hebrews 12:5;
Romans 3:19. Clearer still, if possible, is its force in James 2:9, "But if ye have
respect of persons, ye commit sin, and are convicted of the law as transgressors."
Rightly did Bishop Ryle say in his comments on John 16:8, "Inward conviction is
certainly not the meaning of the word rendered ‘reprove.’ It is rather refutation
by proofs, convicting by unanswerable arguments as an advocate, that is meant."
The next point to be considered is, How does the Holy Spirit "reprove the world
of sin," etc.? In order to answer this question aright it needs to be pointed out
that our Lord was not, in these verses, describing the mission of the Holy Spirit,
that is, the specific work which He would perform when He came to earth. We
grant that at first sight the words "He will reprove" appear to describe His
actual operations, but if everything in the passage is attentively studied, should it
be seen that this is not the case. We believe our present verse is similar in its
scope and character to Matthew 10:34, "I came not to send peace, but a sword."
To send a "sword" was not the nature of Christ’s mission, but, because of the
perversity of fallen human nature, it was the effect of His being here. Again, in
Luke 12:49 He said, "I am come to send fire on the earth." It is the very presence
of the Spirit on earth which, though quite unknown to them, reproves or
condemns the world.
The Holy Spirit ought not to be here at all. That is a startling statement to make,
yet we say it thoughtfully. From the standpoint of the world, Christ is the One
who ought to be here. The Father sent Him into the world, Why, then, is He not
here? The world would not have Him. The world hated Him. The world cast
Him out. But Christ would not leave His own "orphans" (John 14:18, margin).
He graciously sent the Holy Spirit to them, and, to the angels and His saints, the
very presence of the Holy Spirit on earth "reproves", or brings in guilty, the
world. The Holy Spirit is here to take the place (unto His disciples) of an absent
Christ, and thus the guilt of the world is demonstrated.
Confirmatory of what has been pointed out, observe particularly the character in
which the third person of the Godhead is here contemplated: "and he shall
reprove." Who shall do so? The previous verse tells us, "The Comforter." The
Greek word is "paracletos" and is rightly rendered "Advocate" in 1 John 2:1.
Now an "advocate" produces a "conviction" not by bringing a wrong-doer to
realize or feel his crime, but by producing proofs before a court that the wrong-
doer is guilty. In other words, he "reproves" objectively, not subjectively. Such is
the thought of our present passage: it is the actual presence of the Holy Spirit on
earth which objectively reproves, rebukes, convicts "the world."
"Here the Holy Spirit is not spoken of as dealing with individuals when He
regenerates them and they believe, but as bringing conviction to the world
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because of sin. The Holy Ghost being here, convicts the world, i.e., what is
outside where He is. Were there faith, He would be in their midst: but the world
doth not believe. Hence Christ is, as everywhere in John, the standard for
judging the condition of men" (Mr. W. Kelly).
But some may object, If this passage be not treating of a subjective work of
evangelical conviction, why does the Holy Spirit "reprove" the world at all?
what is gained if the world knows it not? But such a question proceeds on an
entire mis-conception. We say again, these verses are not treating of what the
Spirit does, but mention the consequence of His being here. John 9:39 gives us
almost a parallel thought, "And Jesus said, For judgment I am come into this
world, that they which see not might see; and that they which see might be made
blind." In John 3:17 we are told, "For God sent not his Son into the world to
condemn the world." How then are these two passages to be harmonized? John
3:17 give us the mission on which God sent His Son; John 9:39 names one of the
consequences which resulted from His coming here. His very presence judged
everything that was contrary to God. So the presence of the Spirit on earth
judges the world, condemns it for Christ’s being absent.
"Of sin, because they believe not on me" (John 16:9). The presence of the Divine
Paraclete on earth establishes three indictments against "the world." First "of
sin." "He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew
him not" (John 1:10). The word "knew" here means far more than to be
cognizant of or to be acquainted with. It means that the world loved Him not, as
the word "know" is used in John 10:4, 5, 14, 15, etc. In like manner, unbelief is
far more than an error of judgment, or nonconsent of the mind: it is aversion of
heart. And "the world" is unchanged. It has no more love for Christ now than it
had when its princes (1 Cor. 2:8) crucified Him. Hence the present tense here:
"because they believe not on me."
"Of righteousness, because I go to my Father, and ye see me no more" (John
16:10). The personal "I" links up with John 16:7, the last clause of which should
be carefully noted: ‘7 will send him unto you." The Paraclete is here as Christ’s
"Advocate." Now the office and duty of an "advocate" is to vindicate his client
when his cause permits of it: to do so by adducing evidence which shall silence
his adversary. It is in this character that the Holy Spirit is related to "the
world." He is here not to improve it, and make it a better place to live in, but to
establish its consummate sin, to furnish proof of its guilt, and thus does He
vindicate that blessed One whom the world cast out.
If it were the subjective work of the Holy Spirit in individual souls which was
here in view, it had necessarily read, "He will convict the world... of
unrighteousness," because it is destitute of it. But this is not the thought here at
all. It is the Spirit’s presence on earth which establishes Christ’s
"righteousness," and the evidence is that He has gone to the Father. Had Christ
been an impostor, as the religious world insisted when they east Him out, the
Father had not received Him. But the fact that the Father did exalt Him to His
own right hand demonstrates that He was completely innocent of the charges
laid against Him; and the proof that the Father has received Him, is the presence
now of the Holy Spirit on earth, for Christ has "sent" Him from the Father. The
world was unrighteous in casting Him out; the Father righteous in glorifying
Him, and this is what the Spirit’s presence here established.
"Of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged" (John 16:11). Had our
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passage been describing the work of the Spirit in producing conversion this
order had been reversed, the "judgment" would have preceded the (un)
"righteousness." Let this detail be carefully pondered. If the Spirit’s reproof of
"sin" means His bringing the sinner to realize his lost condition, and His
reproving of "righteousness" means making him feel his need of Christ’s
righteousness, then wherein would be the need of still further convincing of
"judgment"? It does not seem possible to furnish any satisfactory answer! But
understanding the whole passage to treat of the objective consequences of the
Spirit’s presence on earth, then John 16:11 furnished a fitting conclusion.
"Of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged." This is the logical
climax. The world stands guilty of refusing to believe in Christ: its condemnation
is attested by the righteousness of Christ, exhibited in His going to the Father:
therefore nothing awaits it but judgment. The Spirit’s presence here is the
evidence that the Prince of this world has been judged—when He departs
sentence is executed, both on the world and on Satan. "This, therefore, is the
testimony of the Holy Spirit to the world. It is heaven’s reversal of the world’s
treatment of Christ. It is the answer of the righteous Father to what the world
has done to His Son, and must not be interpreted of Gospel conviction" ("Things
to Come," Vol. 5, p. 142).
BARCLAY, "WARNING AND CHALLENGE (John 16:1-4)
16:1-4 "I have spoken these things to you in case you should be caused to
stumble in the way. They will excommunicate you from the synagogue. Yes, a
time is coming when anyone who kills you will think that he is rendering a
service to God; and they will do these things because they did not recognize the
Father or me. But I have spoken these things to you, so that when their time
comes, you will remember that I spoke them to you."
By the time John was writing it was inevitable that some Christians should fall
away, for persecution had struck the Church. Revelation condemns those who
are unbelieving and fearful (Revelation 21:8). When Pliny, the governor of
Bithynia, was examining people to see whether or not they were Christians, he
wrote to his emperor Trajan to say that some admitted "that they had been
Christians, but they had ceased to be so many years ago, some as much as twenty
years ago." Even amidst the heroism of the early Church, there were those whose
faith was not great enough to resist persecution and whose endurance was not
strong enough to stay the course.
Jesus foresaw this and gave warning beforehand. He did not want anyone to be
able to say that he had not known what to expect when he became a Christian.
When Tyndale was persecuted and his enemies were out for his life because he
sought to give the Bible to the people in the English language, he said calmly: "I
never expected anything else." Jesus offered men glory, but he offered them a
cross as well.
Jesus spoke of two ways in which his followers would be persecuted.
They would be excommunicated from the synagogue. This for a Jew would be a
very hard fate. The synagogue, the House of God, had a very special place in
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Jewish life. Some of the Rabbis went the length of saying that prayer was not
effective unless it was offered in the synagogue. But there was more to it than
that. It may be that a great scholar or a great theologian does not need human
company; he may be able to live alone and solitary, keeping company with the
great thoughts and adventures of his mind. But the disciples were simple folk;
they needed fellowship. They needed the synagogue and its worship. It would be
hard for them to be ostracized, with all doors shut against them. Men have
sometimes to learn, as Joan of Arc said, that: "It is better to be alone with God."
Sometimes loneliness among men is the price of fellowship with God.
Jesus also said that men would think they were rendering a service to God when
they killed his followers. The word Jesus uses for service is latreia (Greek #2999),
which is the normal word for the service that a priest rendered at the altar in the
Temple of God and is the standard word for religious service. One of the
tragedies of religion has been that men have so often thought that they were
serving God by persecuting those whom they believed to be heretics. No man
ever more truly thought that he was serving God than Paul did, when he was
trying to eliminate the name of Jesus and to wipe out the Church (Acts 26:9-11).
The torturers and judges of the Spanish Inquisition have left a name which is
loathed; yet they were quite sure that they were serving God by torturing
heretics into accepting what they considered to be the true faith. As they saw it,
they were saving men from hell. "O Liberty." said Madame Roland, "what
crimes are committed in thy name!" And that is also true of religion.
It happens, as Jesus said, because they do not recognize God. The tragedy of the
Church is that men have so often laboured to propagate their idea of religion;
they have so often believed that they have a monopoly of God's truth and grace.
The staggering fact is that it still happens; that is the barrier to union and unity
between the Churches. There will always be persecution--not necessarily killing
and torture, but exclusion from the house of God--so long as men believe that
there is only one way to him.
Jesus knew how to deal with men. He was in effect saying: "I am offering you the
hardest task in the world. I am offering you something which will lacerate your
body and tear out your heart. Are you big enough to accept it?" All the world
knows Garibaldi's proclamation at the siege of Rome in 1849, when he appealed
for recruits in these terms: "I offer neither pay, nor quarters, nor provisions; I
offer hunger, thirst, forced marches, battles and death. Let him who loves his
country in his heart, and not with his lips only, follow me." And join they did in
their hundreds. When the Spaniards were conquering South America Pizarro
presented his men with a choice. They might have the wealth of Peru with its
dangers, or the comparative poverty of Panama with its safety. He drew a line in
the sand with his sword and he said: "Comrades, on that side are toil, hunger,
nakedness, storm, desertion and death; on this side is ease. There lies Peru with
its riches; here lies Panama with its poverty. Choose, each man, what best
becomes a brave Castilian. For my part, I go to the south." There was silence
and hesitation; and then an old pilot and twelve soldiers stepped across to
Pizarro's side. It was with them that the discovery and the conquest of Peru
began.
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Jesus offered, and still offers, not the way of ease, but the way of glory. He wants
men who are prepared with open eyes to venture for his name.
MACLAREN, "WHY CHRIST SPEAKS
The unbroken flow of thought, and the many subtle links of connection between the
parts, of these inexhaustible last words of our Lord make any attempt at grouping
them into sections more or less unsatisfactory and artificial. But I have ventured to
throw these, perhaps too many, verses together for our consideration now, because a
phrase of frequent recurrence in them manifestly affords a key to their main subject.
Notice how our Lord four times repeats the expression, ‘These things have I spoken
unto you.’ He is not so much adding anything new to His words, as rather
contemplating the reasons for His speech now, the reasons for His silence before,
and the imperfect apprehension of the things spoken which His disciples had, and
which led to their making His announcement, thus imperfectly understood, an
occasion for sorrow rather than for joy. There is a kind of landing place or pause here
in the ascending staircase. Our Lord meditates for Himself, and invites us to
meditate with Him, rather upon His past utterances than upon anything additional
to them. So, then, whilst it is true that we have in two of these verses a repetition, in a
somewhat more intense and detailed form, of the previous warnings of the hostility
of the world, in the main the subject of the present section is that which I have
indicated. And I take the fourfold recurrence of that clause to which I have pointed as
marking out for us the leading ideas that we are to gather from these words.
I. There is, first, our Lord’s loving reason for His speech.
This is given in a double form. ‘These things have I spoken unto you, that ye should
not be offended.’ And, again, ‘These things have I told you, that when the time shall
come, ye may remember that I told you of them.’ These two statements substantially
coalesce and point to the same idea.
They are separated, as I have said, by a reiteration, in more emphatic form, of the
dark prospect which He has been holding out to His disciples. He tells them that the
world which hates them is to be fully identified with the apostate Jewish Church.
‘The synagogue’ is for them ‘the world.’ There is a solemn lesson in that. The
organised body that calls itself God’s Church and House may become the most
rampant enemy of Christ’s people, and be the truest embodiment on the face of the
earth of all that He means by ‘the world.’ A formal church is the true world always;
and to-day as then. And such a body will do the cruellest things and believe that it is
offering up Christ’s witnesses as sacrifices to God. That is partly an aggravation and
partly an alleviation of the sin. It is possible that the inquisitor and the man in the
San Benito, whom he ties to the stake, may shake hands yet at His side up yonder.
But a church which has become, the world will do its persecution and think that it is
worship, and call the burning of God’s people an auto-da-fe (act of faith); and the
bottom of it all is that, in the blaze of light, and calling themselves God’s, ‘they do not
know’ either God or Christ. They do not know the one because they will not know the
other.
But that is all parenthetical in the present section, and so I say nothing more about it;
and ask you, rather, just to look at the loving reasons which Christ here suggests for
His present speech-’that ye should not be offended,’ or stumble. He warns them of
the storm before it bursts, lest, when it bursts, it should sweep them away from their
moorings. Of course, there could be nothing more productive of intellectual
14

bewilderment, and more likely to lead to doubt as to one’s own convictions, than to
find oneself at odds with the synagogue about the question of the Messiah. A modest
man might naturally say, ‘Perhaps I am wrong and they are right.’ A coward would be
sure to say, ‘I will sink my convictions and fall in with the majority.’ The stumbling-
block for these first Jewish converts, in the attitude of the whole mass of the nation
towards Christ and His pretensions, is one of such a magnitude as we cannot, by any
exercise of our imagination, realise. ‘And,’ says Christ, ‘the only way by which you
will ever get over the temptation to intellectual doubt or to cowardly apostasy that
arises from your being thrown out of sympathy with the whole mass of your people,
and the traditions of the generations, is to reflect that I told you it would be so, before
it came to pass.’
Of course all that has a special bearing upon those to whom it was originally
addressed, and then it has a secondary bearing upon Christians, whose lot it is to live
in a time of actual persecution. But that does not in the slightest degree destroy the
fact that it also has a bearing upon every one of us. For if you and I are Christian
people, and trying to live like our Master, and to do as He would have us to do, we too
shall often have to stand in such a very small minority, and be surrounded by people
who take such an entirely opposite view of duty and of truth, as that we shall be only
too much disposed to give up and falter in the clearness, fullness, and braveness of
our utterance, and think, ‘Well, perhaps after all it is better for me to hold my
tongue.’
And then, besides this, there are all the cares and griefs which befall each of us, with
regard to which also, as well as with regard to the difficulties and dangers and
oppositions which we may meet with in a faithful Christian life, the principles of my
text have a distinct and direct application. He has told us in order that we might not
stumble, because when the hour comes and the sorrow comes with it, we remember
that He told us all about it before.
It is one of the characteristics of Christianity that Jesus Christ does not try to enlist
recruits by highly-coloured, rosy pictures of the blessing and joy of serving Him,
keeping His hand all the while upon the weary marches and the wounds and pains.
He tells us plainly at the beginning, ‘If you take My yoke upon you, you will have to
carry a heavy burden. You will have to abstain from a great many things that you
would like to do. You will have to do a great many things that your flesh will not like.
The road is rough, and a high wall on each side. There are lovely flowers and green
pastures on the other side of the hedge, where it is a great deal easier walking upon
the short grass than it is upon the stony path. The roadway is narrow, and the
gateway is very strait, but the track goes steadily up. Will you accept the terms and
come in and walk upon it?’
It is far better and nobler, and more attractive also, to tell us frankly and fully the
difficulties and dangers than to try and coax us by dwelling on pleasures and ease.
Jesus Christ will have no service on false pretences, but will let us understand at the
beginning that if we serve under His flag we have to make up our minds to hardships
which otherwise we may escape, to antagonisms which otherwise will not be
provoked, and to more than an ordinary share of sorrow and suffering and pain.
‘Through much tribulation we must enter the Kingdom.’
And the way by which all these troubles and cares, whether they be those incident
and peculiar to Christian life, or those common to humanity, can best be met and
overcome, is precisely by this thought, ‘The Master has told us before.’ Sorrows
anticipated are more easily met. It is when the vessel is caught with all its sails set
that it is almost sure to go down, and, at all events, sure to be badly damaged in the
typhoon. But when the barometer has been watched, and its fall has given warning,
15

and everything movable has been made fast, and every spare yard has been sent
below, and all tightened up and ship-shape-then she can ride out the storm.
Forewarned is forearmed. Savages think, when an eclipse comes, that a wolf has
swallowed the sun, and it will never come out again. We know that it has all been
calculated beforehand, and since we know that it is coming to-morrow, when it does
come, it is only a passing darkness. Sorrow anticipated is sorrow half overcome; and
when it falls on us, the bewilderment, as if ‘some strange thing had happened,’ will be
escaped when we can remember that the Master has told us it all beforehand.
And again, sorrow foretold gives us confidence in our Guide. We have the chart, and
as we look upon it we see marked ‘waterless country,’ ‘pathless rocks,’ ‘desert and
sand,’ ‘wells and palm-trees.’ Well, when we come to the first of these, and find
ourselves, as the map says, in the waterless country; and when, as we go on step by
step, and mile after mile, we find it is all down there, we say to ourselves, ‘The
remainder will be accurate, too,’ and if we are in ‘Marah’ to-day, where ‘the water is
bitter,’ and nothing but the wood of the tree that grows there can ever sweeten it, we
shall be at ‘Elim’ to-morrow, where there are ‘the twelve wells and the seventy palm
trees.’ The chart is right, and the chart says that the end of it all is ‘the land that flows
with milk and honey.’ He has told us this; if there had been anything worse than this,
He would have told us that. ‘If it were not so I would have told you.’ The sorrow
foretold deepens our confidence in our Guide.
Sorrow that comes punctually in accordance with His word plainly comes in
obedience to His will. Our Lord uses a little word in this context which is very
significant. He says, ‘When their hour is come.’
‘Their hour’-the time allotted to them. Allotted by whom? Allotted by Him. He could
tell that they would come, because it was as His instruments that they came. ‘Their
time’ was His appointment. It was only an ‘hour,’ a definite, appointed, and brief
period in accordance with His loving purpose. It takes all sorts of weathers to make a
year; and after all the sorts of weathers are run out, the year’s results are realised and
the calm comes. And so the good old hymn, with its rhythm that speaks at once of
fear and triumph, has caught the true meaning of these words of our Lord’s-
‘Why should I complain
Of want or distress,
Temptation or pain?
He told me no less.’
‘These things have I spoken unto you that ye might not be offended.’
II. Still further, note our Lord’s loving reasons for past silence. ‘These
things I said not unto you from the beginning, because I was with you.’
Of course there had been in His early ministry hints, and very plain references, to
persecutions and trials, but we must not restrict the ‘these things’ of my text to that
only, but rather include the whole of the previous chapter, in which He sets the
sorrow and the hostility which His servants have to endure in their true light, as
being the consequences of their union with Him and of the closeness and the identity
of life and fate between the Vine and the branches. In so systematic and detailed
fashion, and with such an exhibition of the grounds of its necessity, our Lord had not
spoken of the world’s hostility in His earlier ministry, but had reserved it to these last
moments, and the reason why He had given but passing hints before was because He
was there. What a superb confidence that expresses in His ability to shield His poor
followers from all that might hurt and harm them! He spreads the ample robe of His
protection over them, or rather, to go back to His own metaphor, ‘as a hen gathereth
16

her chickens under her wings’ so He gathers them to His own breast, and stretches
over them that which is at once protection and warmth, and keeps them safe. As long
as He is there, no harm can come to them. But He is going away, and so it is time to
speak, and to speak more plainly.
That, too, yields for us, dear brethren, truths that apply to us quite as much as to that
little group of silent listeners. For us, too, difficulties and sorrows, though foretold in
general terms, are largely hidden till they are near. It would have been of little use for
Christ to have spoken more plainly in those early days of His ministry. The disciples
managed to forget and to misunderstand His plain utterances, for instance, about
His own death and resurrection. There needs to be an adaptation between the
hearing ear and the spoken word, in order that the word spoken should be of use, and
there are great tracts of Scripture dealing with the sorrows of life, which lie perfectly
dark and dead to us, until experience vitalises them. The old Greeks used to send
messages from one army to another by means of a roll of parchment twisted spirally
round a baton, and then written on. It was perfectly unintelligible when it fell into a
man’s hands that had not a corresponding baton to twist it upon. Many of Christ’s
messages to us are like that. You can only understand the utterances when life gives
you the frame round which to wrap them, and then they flash up into meaning, and
we say at once, ‘He told us it all before, and I scarcely knew that He had told me, until
this moment when I need it.’
Oh, it is merciful that there should be a gradual unveiling of what is to come to us,
that the road should wind, and that we should see so short a way before us. Did you
never say to yourselves, ‘If I had known all this before, I do not think I could have
lived to face it’? And did you not feel how good and kind and loving it was, that in the
revelation there had been concealment, and that while Jesus Christ had told us in
general terms that we must expect sorrows and trials, this specific form of sorrow
and trial had not been foreseen by us until we came close to it? Thank God for the
loving reticence, and for the as loving eloquence of His speech and of His silence,
with regard to sorrow.
And take this further lesson, that there ought to be in all our lives times of close and
blessed communion with that Master, when the sense of His presence with us makes
all thought of sorrows and trials in the future out of place and needlessly disturbing.
If these disciples had drunk in the spirit of Jesus Christ when they were with Him,
then they would not have been so bewildered when He left them. When He was near
them there was something better for them to do than to be ‘over exquisite to cast the
fashion of uncertain evils’ in the future-namely, to grow into His life, to drink in the
sweetness of His presence, to be moulded into the likeness of His character, to
understand Him better, and to realise His nearness more fully. And, dear brethren,
for us all there are times-and it is our own fault if these are not very frequent and
blessed-when thus, in such an hour of sweet communion with the present Christ, the
future will be all radiant and calm, if we look into it, or, better, the present will be so
blessed that there will be no need to think of the future. These men in the upper
chamber, if they had learnt all the lessons that He was teaching them then, would not
have gone out, to sleep in Gethsemane, and to tell lies in the high priest’s hall, and to
fly like frightened sheep from the Cross, and to despair at the tomb. And you and I, if
we sit at His table, and keep our hearts near Him, eating and drinking of that
heavenly manna, shall ‘go in the strength of that meat forty days into the wilderness,’
and say-
‘E’en let the unknown to-morrow
Bring with it what it may.’
III. Lastly, I must touch, for the sake of completeness, upon the final
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thought in these pregnant verses, and that is, the imperfect
apprehension of our Lord’s words, which leads to sorrow instead of joy.
‘Now I go My way to Him that sent Me; and none of you asketh Me, Whither goest
Thou? But because I have said these things unto you, sorrow hath filled your heart.’
He had been telling them-and it was the one definite idea that they gathered from His
words-that He was going. And what did they say? They said, ‘Going! What is to
become of us?’ If there had been a little less selfishness and a little more love, and if
they had put their question, ‘Going! What is to become of Him?’ then it would not
have been sorrow that would have filled their hearts, but a joy that would have
flooded out all the sorrow, ‘and the winter of their discontent’ would have been
changed into ‘glorious summer,’ because He was going to Him that sent Him; that is
to say, He was going with His work done and His message accomplished. And
therefore, if they could only have overlooked their own selves, and the bearing of His
departure, as it seemed to them, on themselves, and have thought of it a little as it
affected Him, they would have found that all the oppressive and the dark in it would
have disappeared, and they would have been glad.
Ah, dear brethren, that gives us a thought on which I can but touch now, that the
steadfast contemplation of the ascended Christ, who has gone to the Father, having
finished His work, is the sovereign antidote against all sense of separation and
solitude, the sovereign power by which we may face a hostile world, the sovereign
cure for every sorrow. If we could live in the light of the great triumphant, ascended
Lord, then, Oh, how small would the babble of the world be. If the great White
Throne, and He that sits upon it, were more distinctly before us, then we could face
anything, and sorrow would ‘become a solemn scorn of ills,’ and all the transitory
would be reduced to its proper insignificance, and we should be emancipated from
fear and every temptation to unfaithfulness and apostasy. Look up to the Master who
has gone, and as the dying martyr outside the city wall ‘saw the heavens opened, and
the Son of Man standing’-having sprung to His feet to help His poor servant-’at the
right hand of God,’ so with that vision in our eyes and the light of that Face flashing
upon our faces, and making them like the angels’, we shall be masters of grief and
care, and pain and trial, and enmity and disappointment, and sorrow and sin, and
feel that the absent Christ is the present Christ, and that the present Christ is the
conquering power in us.
Dear brethren, there is nothing else that will make us victors over the world and
ourselves. If we can grasp Him by our faith and keep ourselves near Him, then union
with Him as of the Vine and the branches, which will result inevitably in suffering
here, will result as inevitably in joy hereafter. For He will never relax the adamantine
grasp of His strong hand until He raises us to Himself, and ‘if so be that we suffer
with Him we shall also be glorified together.’
BI 1-6, "These things have I spoken unto you, that ye should not be offended
Christ’s reasons for present speech and former silence
I.
OUR LORD’S LOVING REASON FOR HIS SPEECH.
1. The two statements of Joh_16:1; Joh 4:1-54 are separated by a reiteration of
the dark prospect that He has been holding out. The world is the apostate Jewish
Church. A formal church is the true world, to-day as then. And such a body will
do the cruellest things and believe that it is offering up Christ’s witnesses as
sacrifices to God. And the bottom of it all is that in the blaze of light, and calling
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themselves God’s, “they do not know” either God or Christ.
2. But that is all parenthetical. Look now at the loving reasons which Christ here
suggests for His speech. “That ye should not stumble.” There could be nothing
more productive of intellectual bewilderment and doubt than to find oneself at
odds with the synagogue about the question of the Messiah. A modest man might
naturally say, “Perhaps I am wrong and they are right.” A coward would be sure
to say, “I will sink my convictions and fall in with the majority.” And, says Christ,
“the only way by which you will ever get over these temptations is to reflect that I
told you it would be so, before it came to pass.”
3. Of course all that has a special bearing upon the apostles, &c., a secondary
bearing upon Christians, who live in a time of persecution. But it also has a
bearing upon us. For, if we are trying to live like our Master, we, too, shall often
be surrounded by people that take such an entirely opposite view of duty and of
truth, as that we shall be only too much disposed to say, “Well, perhaps after all it
is better for me to hold my tongue.” And then, besides, there are all the cares and
griefs which befall each of us. Christ does not try to enlist recruits by highly-
coloured pictures. He tells us plainly at the beginning, “If you take My yoke upon
you, you will have to carry a heavy burden.” The roadway is narrow and rough,
and the gateway is very strait, but it all goes steadily up. Will you accept the terms
and come in and walk upon it? Jesus Christ will have no service on false
pretences. Through much tribulation we must enter the kingdom. And the way by
which all these troubles and cares can best be overcome is precisely by this
thought, “The Master has told us before.”
(1) Sorrows anticipated are easier met. It is when the ship is caught with all
its sails set that it is almost sure to go down. But when the barometer has
been watched, and its fall has given warning, and everything has been made
fast, and every spare yard has been sent below, and all tightened up and made
ship-shape—then she can ride out the storm. Forewarned is forearmed.
(2) Sorrow foretold gives us confidence in our guide. We have the chart, and
as we look upon it we see marked “waterless country,” “pathless rocks,”
“desert and sand,” “wells and palm trees.” Well, when we come to the first of
these, and find ourselves as the map says; and when, as we go on mile after
mile, we find that it is all down there, we say to ourselves, “The remainder will
be accurate too.” And if we are in Marah to-day, we shall be at Elim to-
morrow. He has told us this; if there had been anything worse than this He
would have told us that.
(3) Sorrow that comes punctually in accordance with His word plainly comes
in obedience to His will. “Their hour”—the time allotted to them by Him. He
could tell that they would come, because it was as His instruments that they
came. It was only an “hour,” a definite, appointed, and brief period in
accordance with His loving purpose. It takes all sorts of weathers to make a
year; and after all the sorts of weathers are run out the year’s results are
realized and the calm comes.
II. OUR LORD’S LOVING REASONS FOR PAST SILENCE.
1. “These things” (Joh_16:4) include the whole of the previous chapter, in which
He sets the sorrow as being the consequence of union with Him. In so systematic
and detailed fashion our Lord had not spoken in His earlier ministry. And the
reason why He had given but passing hints before was because He was there.
What a superb confidence that expresses in His ability to shield His poor
followers, “as a hen gathereth her chickens,” &c. But He is going away, and so it is
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time to speak, and to speak more plainly.
2. For us, too, difficulties and sorrows, though foretold in general terms, are
largely hidden till they are near. It would have been of little use for Christ to have
spoken more plainly before. The disciples managed to misunderstand His plain
utterances about His own death and resurrection. There needs to be an
adaptation between the hearing ear and the spoken word. And there are great
tracts of Scripture dealing with the sorrows of life, which lie dark and dead to us,
until experience vitalizes them. The old Greeks used to send messages from one
army to another by means of a roll of parchment twisted spirally round a baton,
and then written upon. And it was perfectly unintelligible when it fell into a man’s
hands that had not a corresponding baton to twist it upon. Many of Christ’s
messages to us are like that. You can only understand the utterances when life
gives you the frame round which to wrap them, and then they flash up into
meaning, and we say at once, “He told us it all before, and I scarcely knew that He
had told me until this moment when I need it.”
(1) It is merciful that there should be a gradual unveiling of what is to come
to us, that the road should wind, and that we should see so short a way before
us. Did you never say to yourselves, “If I had known all this before, I do not
think I could have lived to face it.” Thank God for the loving reticence, and for
the as loving eloquence of His speech.
(2) There ought to be in our lives times of close communion with that Master,
when His presence makes all thought of trials in the future needlessly
disturbing. If these disciples had drunk in His Spirit when they were with
Him, then they would not have been so bewildered when He left them.
III. THE IMPERFECT APPREHENSION OF OUR LORD’S WORDS WHICH LEADS
TO SORROW INSTEAD OF JOY (Joh_16:5-6). The one definite idea that they
gathered was that He was going. And they said, “Going? What, is to become of us?” If
there had been a little less selfishness, and if they had put their question, “Going?
What is to become of Him?” then it would not have been sorrow that would have
filled their heart, but joy. That gives us a thought that the steadfast contemplation of
the ascended Christ is the sovereign antidote against all sense of separation and
solitude, the sovereign power by which we may face a hostile world, the sovereign
cure for every sorrow. If we could live in the light of that great triumph, then, oh!
how small would the babble of a world be. Look up to the Master that has gone, and
as the dying martyr outside the city wall “saw the heavens opened, and the Son of
Man standing”—having sprung to His feet to help His poor servant—“at the right
hand of God,” so with that vision in our eyes we shall be masters of grief and care,
and sin, and feel that the absent is the present Christ, and the present Christ is the
conquering power in us. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
The Church and the world
I. THE RELATION OF THE CHURCH TO THE WORLD IS THE SAME AS
CHRIST’S—one of moral contrast as to character, principle, motive, inward life,
whether it be the Jewish world, or the Greek, or the Roman. And it is the same now.
Conceive the character of Christ, and place by the side of it that of a thoroughly
worldly man, you will have the most striking contrast. “They are not of the world,
even as I am not of the world.” And marks there are, plain and palpable, between the
Church and the world. There are two kinds of changes possible with respect to these.
1. They may be shifted.
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(1) The Church may push them out so as to take in more and more of the
world, bringing in more and more converted spirits.
(2) The world may push it in upon the Church, making inroads upon it,
persecuting it. Moral ravages, too, may be made, and those who have been in
the Church may backslide, and the number of the faithful may be thus
diminished.
2. They may be obliterated
(1) By practical compromise. The peculiarities of Christian character are by
degrees diminished, and the Church becomes more and more like the world,
so that one shades itself off, and gradually fades away into the other.
(2) By theoretical dogmas. The puritan doctrine was most unmistakeable. But
there is in these days a doctrine which is just the opposite, that instead of
dwelling upon the distinction between the Church and the world, dwells upon
what belongs to Christians and men of the world in common. Now, we must
protest against this obliteration of landmarks. Christ has drawn them most
distinctly, and it is at our peril that we destroy them. We believe as firmly as
any in the fatherhood of God over all His creatures; but in the case of worldly
men, they have broken the hands of spiritual relationship, and adopted
themselves into another family. We believe also in the universality of the
atonement; but still there is to be a distinction made between those who
accept that gospel and those who reject it.
II. THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH IS THE SAME AS THE MISSION OF CHRIST.
“As Thou hast sent Me into the world,” &c. “I am the Light of the world,” “Ye are the
light of the world.” Christ is represented
1. In the Church’s testimony of truth. The Church is to hold forth the truth, to
make a stand for it, to illustrate and enforce it.
2. In the Church’s missionary operations. Christ was the great Missionary, and
His work is now to be carried on instrumentally by His Church. “Go ye into all the
world.” There are different kinds of missions. There is the lip mission; the pen
mission; the hand mission; the foot mission; but chief of all, there is the life
mission, and that must be connected with all the rest. Some men have done great
things for the cause of Christ by their intellectual power, by pecuniary power, by
business power, but I believe there is still more to be done by moral and social
power. That connected with the rest makes the rest most effective.
III. THE DESTINY OF CHRIST IN THE WORLD, AND THE DESTINY OF
CHRIST’S CHURCH IN THE WORLD IS THE SAME. “If ye were of the world, the
world would love his own,” &c., and so the text. A great change has been wrought in
society by the influence of Christianity; so that the world is not what it was when the
prediction was first spoken. And persecution does not exist now in the world as it
once did. It is one part of the nominal church persecuting another. But the world is
still opposed to what is most truly the spirit of Christianity. The world does not like
to hear about the mediation of the Lord Jesus or the work of the Holy Spirit. And
then, again, the world is not opposed to some aspects of Christian consistency. When
a Christian carries out that in the way of generosity the world will praise him, but
when he refuses to connive at deceit and falsehood, the spirit of the world will come
out and persecute. Nor is the world so much opposed to moral consistency as to
spiritual consistency. Those who oppose forms of amusement which are instinct with
evil, such men the world hates. The world, too, may admire specimens of Christianity
which are remote, but it does not like specimens of Christianity which are near.
Bunyan dead is applauded, but Bunyan alive would not be so. Had Havelock come to
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England and exemplified his principles in connection with some civil callings at
home, there are numbers who would have been ready to persecute the very man
whom they applauded to the skies when he was far away. In many cases also the
world would be found to admire Christians in spite of their Christianity, but not
because of their Christianity. They are praised for their kindness, their generosity,
their humility; but their fondness for prayer, their religious strictness, and so on,
how often all this is regarded as an abatement! (J. Stoughton, D. D.)
They shall put you out of the synagogues
The best men liable to the worst treatment from mistaken zealots
I. THE BEST OF MEN MAY BE EXCLUDED FROM THE COMMUNION OF THOSE
WHO MAY ASSUME TO BE THE TRUE AND ONLY TRUE CHURCH, and that
under the notion of very bad and criminal persons. What the Jews did to the apostles
hath been too frequently practised since by some of the professors of Christianity
towards one another. Witness the case of Athanasius and others, in the reign and
prevalency of Arianism, and the ill treatment that whole churches have met with
from that haughty and uncharitable church which makes nothing of thundering out
excommunication against persons and churches more Christian than herself. But it is
our comfort, that the apostles were thus used by a church that made the same
pretences that they do, and upon grounds every whit as plausible.
II. THEY WHO ARE THUS EXCOMMUNICATED MAY NEVERTHELESS BE TRUE
MEMBERS OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. Men may be put out of the synagogue,
and yet received into heaven; for the judgment of God is not according to the
uncharitable censures of men, but according to truth and right.
III. FROM UNCHARITABLE CENSURES MEN NATURALLY PROCEED TO
CRUEL ACTIONS. This has been the source of the most barbarous cruelties; witness
the severity of the heathens persecution, which justified itself by the uncharitable
opinion that the Christians were despisers of the gods, and consequently atheists; but
they were pertinacious and obstinate in their opinions; i.e., in the modern style,
heretics. And the like uncharitable conceit has been thought a sufficient ground (even
in the judgment of the infallible chair) for the justification of several bloody
massacres; for after men are once sentenced to eternal damnation, it seems a small
thing to torment their bodies.
IV. MEN MAY DO THE VILEST AND MOST WICKED THINGS OUT OF A REAL
PERSUASION THAT THEY DO RELIGIOUSLY. The great duties and virtues of
religion are easy to be understood; and so are the contrary sins and vices: but then
they are only plain to a teachable and honest mind; to those who receive the Word
with meekness and love. But if men will give up themselves to be governed by any
corrupt interest, to be blinded by prejudice, intoxicated by pride, and transported by
passion, no wonder if they mistake the nature, and confound the differences of
things, in the plainest and most palpable cases; no wonder if God give up persons of
such corrupt minds to strong delusions to believe lies. In these cases men may take
the wrong way, and yet believe themselves to be in the right and be verily persuaded
that they are serving God, and sacrificing to Him. Of this we have a plain and full
instance in the Scribes and Pharisees, and in St. Paul. And if God had not checked
him in his course, he would have spent his whole life in persecution, and would (with
Pope Paul IV. upon his death-bed) have recommended the Inquisition to the chief
priests and rulers of the Jewish Church.
V. SUCH ACTIONS ARE NEVERTHELESS HORRIBLY WICKED. To make an action
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good and acceptable to God, we must do it with a good mind, and to a good end, and
it must be good and lawful in itself.
VI. THE CORRUPTION OF THE BEST THINGS IS THE WORST. Religion is
certainly the highest perfection of human nature; and zeal for God highly acceptable:
and yet nothing is more barbarous, and spurs men on to more horrid impieties, than
a blind zeal for God, and false and mistaken principles in the matter of religion (Act_
26:9-11). (Abp. Tillotson.)
Whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service.
The word “doeth” is the technical word for offering sacrifice (cf. Mat_5:23; Mat 8:4)
. The word “service” means the service of worship (Rom_9:4; Rom 12:1; Heb_9:1-6).
A rabbinic comment on Num_25:13 is, “Whosoever sheddeth the blood of the wicked
is as he who offereth sacrifice.” The martyrdom of St. Stephen, or St. Paul’s account
of himself as a persecutor (Act_26:9; Gal_1:13-14), shows how these words were
fulfilled in the first years of the Church’s history, and such accounts are not absent
from that history’s latest page. (Archdeacon Watkins.)
Abuse of conscience
What a rattle and noise hath this word conscience made! How many battles has it
fought? how many churches has it robbed, ruined, and reformed to ashes? how many
laws has it trampled upon, dispensed with, and addressed against? and in a word,
how many governments has it overturned? Such is the mischievous force of a
plausible word applied to a detestable thing (Act_26:9). (R. South, D. D.)
Put you out of the synagogue
Excommunication
was much more than simply to exclude from the place of public worship. It cut a man
off from the privileges of his people, from the society of his former associates. It was
a sort of moral outlawry, and the physical disabilities followed the sufferer even after
death. To be under this ban was almost more than flesh and blood could bear. All
men shunned him on whom such a mark was set. He was literally an outcast; in
lasting disgrace and perpetual danger. Those familiar with the history of the dark
ages, or who are acquainted with the effects of losing caste among the Hindoos, will
be able to realize the terrors of such a system. Sometimes this punishment and
degradation was a prelude even to death. At all events, the Jews, who since their
subjugation by the Romans had lost the legal prerogative of life and death, yet
thought it meritorious even by irregular and clandestine measures to compass the
destruction of those who were obnoxious. And the men who, in however underhand a
manner, carried out the secret sentence of their displeasure were regarded by the
rulers with approbation. So that there grew up a desperate and fanatical sect among
them, which went by a name which in our adopted term of “zealot” has a very
mitigated meaning. (G. J. Brown, M. A.)
Excommunication among the Jews
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The three degrees of excommunication among the Jews were
1. Niddui, putting out of the synagogue (Luk_6:22). And the effect of this
excommunication was to exclude men from the communion of the Church and
people of God and from His service, which was a great disgrace, because after this
sentence none of the Jews were to converse with them, but to look upon them as
heathens and publicans.
2. Cherem, which extended farther, to the confiscation of goods into the sacred
treasury, and devoting them to God, after which there was no redemption of
them (Ezr_10:7-9).
3. Shammatha
when the rebellious and contumacious person was anathematized and devoted, and,
as some conceive, according to the law Lev_27:29), was to be put to death; though
other very knowing men in the Jewish learning think it amounted to no more than a
final sentence, whereby they were left to the judgment of God, by some remarkable
judgment of His to be cut off from the congregation of Israel. Of the first and last of
these degrees of excommunication our Saviour seems here to speak. (Archbishop
Tillotson.)
Gratitude for massacre
One of the most horrid circumstances attending the dreadful massacre of the
Protestants under Charles IX. of Prance was that, when the news of this event
reached Rome, Pope Gregory XIII. instituted the most solemn rejoicing, giving
thanks to Almighty God for this glorious victory over the heretics!!
Religious fanaticism
In the Huguenot persecution in Belgium and France in 1562, the inhabitants of the
town of Orange fell into the hands of the Catholics. They were hacked to pieces, burnt
at slow fires, or left, infamously mutilated, to bleed to death. Noble ladies, first
sacrificed to the lust of the soldiers, were exposed in the streets to die—either naked,
or pasted over in devilish mockery with the torn leaves of their Geneva Bibles. Old
men and children, women and sick, all perished under cruelties unexampled even in
the infernal annals of religious fanaticism. (J. A.Froude.)
Religious intolerance dishonouring to God
In one of the Jews’ books it is stated that when Abraham sat at his tent door,
according to his custom, waiting to entertain strangers, he espied an old man
stooping and leaning on his staff, weary with age and travel, coming towards him,
who was a hundred years of age. He received him kindly, washed his feet, provided
supper, and caused him to sit down. But observing that the old man eat and prayed
not, nor begged for a blessing on his meat, he asked him why he did not worship the
God of heaven. The old man told him that he worshipped the fire only, and
acknowledged no other God. At which answer Abraham grew so zealously angry, that
he thrust the old man out of his tent, and exposed him to all the evils of the night and
an unguarded condition. When the old man was gone, God called to Abraham and
asked him where the stranger was. He replied, “I thrust him away because he did not
worship Thee.” God answered him, “I have suffered him these hundred years,
although he dishonoured Me; and couldest thou not endure him one night, when he
gave thee no trouble?” Upon this, salts the story, Abraham fetched him back again,
24

and gave him hospitable entertainment and wise instruction. “Go thou, and do
likewise,” and thy charity will be rewarded by the God of Abraham. (Jeremy Taylor.)
The fate of the first disciples
Matthew suffered martyrdom by the sword in Ethiopia. Mark died at Alexandria,
after being dragged through the city. Luke was hanged on an olive tree in Greece.
Peter was crucified at Rome with his head downward. James was beheaded at
Jerusalem. James the less was thrown from a pinnacle of the Temple and beaten to
death below.
Philip was hanged against a pillar in Phrygia. Bartholomew was flayed alive. Andrew
was bound to a cross, whence he preached to his persecutors till he died. Thomas was
run through the body at Coromandel, in India. Jude was shot to death with arrows.
Matthias was first stoned, and then beheaded. Barnabas was stoned to death by Jews
at Salonica. Paul, “in deaths oft,” was beheaded at Rome by Nero. (J. Angus, D. D.)
Because they have not known the Father, nor Me
The tribulation explained
I. TRACED TO ITS CAUSE—ignorance. It is strange how differently Christ and man
may view the same action. The Jews imagined they above all men were acquainted
with the Father, and knew better than all the world beside what kind of service to
present upon His altar. This was not the judgement of Christ.
II. CONDEMNED IN ITS CHARACTER. Though Christ ascribed their behaviour to
ignorance, He does not say that for this they were not responsible, if they did not
know the Father or Him they might have known Joh_15:22).
III. COMMISERATED IN ITS ACTORS. One cannot help thinking Christ designed
His words to awaken pity in the breasts of His persecuted followers, like that
afterwards found in His own, when, hanging on the cross, He prayed for His
murderers (Luk_23:34). (T. Whitelaw,D. D.)
But now I go My way to Him that sent Me
Going to God
He says, not that He is going the way of all the earth, because He was not going as all
flesh must go, from the necessity of man’s nature, but of His own will. All things
which He suffered on earth were a going to His Father, a fulfilment of His mission,
and the way by which He was to return to Him that sent Him. By His cross and
passion, by His sufferings and death, was His kingdom to be set up and His throne
established. And by reminding His disciples of this truth He seeks to assuage their
grief, and to prevent their being offended in Him, since, however greatly He should
be humiliated, and however many His sufferings might be, they were all but a going
to His Father, all but the means by which His glory was to be made known unto men.
This thought was the consolation of the Man Christ Jesus, and with the same thought
He consoles us. The oil from the head of our Great High Priest flowed down to all His
members, even the oil of gladness to comfort them in all their troubles. The whole of
this present life of man is one continual going either to God or from Him. All
thoughts and deeds of our daily life are either separating us from our heavenly Father
25

or drawing us towards Him in whose presence we are at all times. It is our vocation
to pass through life into the glory of our Father; and our duty to remember that
whilst all is shifting around us, the Christian’s career is in itself a going the way to
Him that sent him. (W. Denton, M. A.)
None of you asked Me, Whither goest Thou?
Misdirected and sanctified curiosity
Curiosity is often reprehensible. It is the fault of many to wish to pry into matters
which they had much better never know. But there is one direction in which inquiry
is never out of place. We can never be too anxious to know about Christ, the reasons
of His movements, and the explanations of His doings (1Pe_1:10-12). Here anxious
interest and casting about for light are not only legitimate, but necessary to our
proper instruction, comfort, and salvation (Jas_1:5). But just here it is that the
human heart is most sluggish. People spend their lives searching into questions of
political and domestic economy, finance, commerce, agriculture, education. They toil
and experiment touching the character, relations, and classifications of rocks, metals,
soils, plants, insects, reptiles, animals, birds, and flowers. They explore and labour, at
every expense and inconvenience, to make and test theories about the world. They
rummage the darkest histories of the past, and exhaust their powers speculating
upon the phenomena of human life, and perplex themselves about a thousand things
in reference to which the best wisdom is as useless as it is scanty. But when it comes
to the great and mighty movements of the Lord of all, the incarnation of Jehovah for
the redemption of a world labouring under the curse of sin, and those moral and
spiritual administrations, without which all the universe must be as nothing to us,
they have no inquiries of living interest to propound. And to many an energetic sage
and earnest searcher in departments not a thousandth part the account of this, the
wronged and burdened Saviour is compelled to say, “I go My way to Him that sent
Me; and none of you asketh Me, Whither goest Thou?” And especially in times of
affliction, when the good Lord seems to withdraw Himself, and leave us to ourselves
and our weaknesses, does the Saviour find occasion to complain of the deadness of
men, paralyzed with their griefs, when they ought to be inquiring of Him about the
reasons and objects of them. He has His explanations for all our days of darkness,
and an antidote for every pain or privation we suffer, if only we had the faith and
interest to ask after it. But the human heart is such an inveterate doubter, and so
ready to give way before what is afflictive and dark, that we often miss the very
consolations which are at hand, just because we are too dull and despondent to make
the requisite inquiry. (J. A. Seiss, M. A.)
2 They will put you out of the synagogue; in
fact, the time is coming when anyone who kills
you will think they are offering a service to God.
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BARNES, "Out of the synagogues - See the notes at Joh_9:22. They would
excommunicate them from their religious assemblies. This was often done. Compare
Act_6:13-14; Act_9:23-24; Act_17:5; Act_21:27-31.
Whosoever killeth you - This refers principally to the Jews. It is also true of the
Gentiles, that in their persecution of Christians they supposed they were rendering
acceptable service to their gods.
God’s service - The Jews who persecuted the apostles regarded them as
blasphemers, and as seeking to overthrow the temple service, and the system of
religion which God had established. Thus, they supposed they were rendering service
to God in putting. them to death, Act_6:13-14; Act_21:28-31. Sinners, especially
hypocrites, often cloak enormous crimes under the pretence of great zeal for religion.
Men often suppose, or profess to suppose, that they are rendering God service when
they persecute others; and, under the pretence of great zeal for truth and purity,
evince all possible bigotry, pride, malice, and uncharitableness. The people of God
have suffered most from those who have been conscientious persecutors; and some
of the most malignant foes which true Christians have ever had have been in the
church, and have been professed ministers of the gospel, persecuting them under
pretence of great zeal for the cause of purity and religion. It is no evidence of piety
that a man is full of zeal against those whom he supposes to be heretics; and it is one
of the best proofs that a man knows nothing of the religion of Jesus when he is
eminent for self-conceit in his own views of orthodoxy, and firmly fixed in the
opinion that all who differ from him and his sect must of course be wrong.
CLARKE, "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!
GILL, "They shall put you out of the synagogues,.... The Jews had made a law
already, that he that confessed that Jesus was the Messiah, should be cast out of their
synagogues; and they had put it in execution upon the blind man Christ restored to
sight, for his profession of faith in him; which struck such a terror upon the people,
that even many of the chief rulers who believed that Jesus was the true Messiah,
27

durst not confess him, because of this law; for it was what they could not bear the
thoughts of, to be deemed and treated as heretics and apostates, and the vilest of
wretches: for this putting out of the synagogue, was not the lesser excommunication,
which was called ‫נדוי‬ "Niddui", and was a "separation" from a particular synagogue
for a while; but the greater excommunication, either by ‫,חרם‬ "Cherem", or ‫,שמתא‬
"Shammatha"; when a person was cut out from the whole body of the Jewish church,
called often the synagogue, or congregation of the people; and was devoted and
consigned to utter destruction, which was the height of their ecclesiastical power,
their rage and malice could carry them to; and this the apostles were to expect; nay,
not only this, but to have their lives taken away by ruffians, under a pretence of zeal
for the service of God, and interest of religion:
yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you, will think that he doth
God service. For this is not to be understood of their being delivered up into the
hands of civil magistrates, and of their being tried, judged, condemned, and put to
death by their orders, but of their being murdered by a set of men called "zealots";
who, in imitation of Phinehas, as they pretended, took upon them, whenever they
found any person guilty of a capital crime, as idolatry, blasphemy, &c. or what they
judged so, to fall upon him at once, and without any more ado kill him; nor were they
accountable to any court of judicature for such an action, and which was reckoned
laudable and praiseworthy: in this way, and by the hands of such miscreants,
Stephen the protomartyr lost his life; for though they had him before a council, and
suborned witnesses against him, yet when in his own defence he said what these
"zealots" interpreted blasphemy, they ran upon him at once, and cast him out of the
city, and stoned him to death; and without any leave or authority from the
sanhedrim, as appears: and these men were accounted good men, zealous, ‫של‬ ‫קנאתו‬
‫מקום‬ (y) "with a zeal for God", his honour and glory; and valued themselves much
upon such butcheries and inhumanity, and thought, as our Lord here says, that they
"did God service"; or as the Syriac renders it, ‫מקרב‬ ‫,דקורבנא‬ "offered a sacrifice to
God", and so the Arabic and Ethiopic: and indeed this is a rule the Jews (z), and
which they form upon the instance and example of Phinehas;
"that whoever sheds the blood of wicked men, (and such they reckoned the apostles
and followers of Christ to be,) ‫קרבן‬ ‫הקריב‬ ‫,כאלו‬ "it is all one as if he offered a
sacrifice";''
they looked upon this to be a sacrifice acceptable and well pleasing to God: so the
Apostle Paul, in his unregenerate state, thought he ought to do many things contrary
to the name of Christ: and that he was doing God service, when he prosecuted the
church, and gave his voice with these ruffians, to put the saints to death.
HENRY, "II. He foretels particularly what they should suffer (Joh_16:2): “Those
that have power to do it shall put you out of their synagogues; and this is not the
worst, they shall kill you.” Ecce duo-gladii - Behold two swords drawn against the
followers of the Lord Jesus.
1. The sword of ecclesiastical censure; this is drawn against them by the Jews, for
they were the only pretenders to church-power. They shall cast you out of their
synagogues; aposunagōgous poiēsousin humas - they shall make you excommunicates.
(1.) “They shall cast you out of the particular synagogues you were members of.” At
28

John 16 commentary

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John 16 commentary