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But this is where mankind is in a difficult position; the disciples had grown accustomed to a physical proximity to Christ (the source of love). And now, due the fulfillment of His mission, there was going to be physical distance between Him and them, between Him and us. His mission once fulfilled, there would be time between His first appearing and His second. We were to be separated once again, at least by His physical proximity, by a physical distance we are unable to transcend. And separation would be painful for us and for Him. Anxiety would be natural in this circumstance. Like those players on the show Survivor who know that family waits for them, and loves them, and misses them – each day of physical separation is difficult to endure. The reality of that knowledge is not quite the same as the reality of their presence. That feeling is amplified many fold when it is applied to us and to God.
John continues to relay the communion Christ was having with His disciples on that final night before all the ferocity of the hate of the world would be levied upon Him. Christ was aware of the great sadness His followers would experience when He was taken from their view. And so again, thinking nothing of His own comfort, and everything about theirs, even only moments before the pain He would endure; He offers His followers hope in the most hopeless of situations. John records in chapter 16 of his gospel, beginning in verse 5 … “But now I go my way to him that sent me; and none of you asketh me, Whither goest thou? [verse 6] But because I have said these things unto you, sorrow hath filled your heart.” The reality of separation was near at hand, the anxiety and sadness that would accompany that reality was there as well. The hopes of the disciples that an earthly anti-Roman kingdom was about to be established were crashing around their ears. Jesus had never been wrong. And everything He was saying ran counter to the idea that the Romans were about to be toast. They were moving at night, alone, with no throngs of admirers, and the idea that Christ would be taken from them was not an appealing one.
Yet even with the impending doom of our separation, something was going to be different this time, than when in the garden Adam and Eve would leave their home and no longer enjoy the daily company of God walking with them in the evenings. This time when Christ left, a new phenomenon was going to occur. Jesus continued in verse 7 … “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; but if I depart, I will send him unto you.” While Christ was physically with them, and bound in the constraints of His humanity, He could only be with those who were in His immediate presence. But God is more than what our human constructs can bind. When He returned to the side of His Father, another part of God would be sent to “Comfort” them. The Comforter would not be bound by human constructs forcing Him to localize in only one place at a time, or with one believer at a time. The Comforter would be omni-present, able to be with each of us, no matter where we were in the world, at the same time, all the time. This ability of God, Christ makes reference Himself as “expedient” for us. It is more practical, and will be needed more by us, in the time of our physical separation.
Jesus continues in verse 8 … “And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: [verse 9] Of sin, because they believe not on me; [verse 10] Of righteousness, because I go to my Father, and ye see me no more; [verse 11] Of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged.” Here Jesus outlines the primary work and mission of the Holy Spirit. Remember in earlier verses Jesus had said that the Holy Spirit would testify of Him. Here he captures three significant concepts that are worth a second look. First, the Holy Spirit or Comforter (remember it is the name Comforter Christ uses in the context of this discussion), will “reprove” the world. The term reprove might find synonyms in this context, with other words like “correct”, “aid in understanding”, “reveal”, or “identify” to the world. Notice too, the world is bigger than just those who do not believe, it also includes those who do. With respect to that, the first task our Comforter takes on relates to sin. Our sin is identified when we do not believe on Christ. When we cut off the source of our forgiveness because we refuse to believe in Him, we are left with our sin and no recourse for its pardon. But our lack of belief has worse consequences; when we refuse to believe in Christ, trusting instead to ourselves, and our own ideas about the removal of sin, we cut ourselves off from the only source who can change our nature, and remove the sin from our desires as well as our actions. When we do not look at Christ for perfection, we simply do not find perfection at all. Thus, even when we believe in His forgiveness, we are left struggling with our sins, because we refuse to believe in His ability to perfect us, and save us – from us.
The second task of the Comforter (noting again that the work of a comforter is not supposed to be “bad” or upsetting news to us, but instead something to anticipate or desire) – is the reproval of righteousness because Christ is physically with His Father and we will see Him no more until He returns. The eternal end to sin itself can come only in one way, through absolute trust in God, and NOT in ourselves. We who have never seen Him face to face, are given the choice to believe in spite of our lack of “facts” and surety of scientific evidence of His existence. We are given the choice to believe in His promises, recorded in His word, without benefit of absolute proof they are true. We trust anyway. We believe anyway. Because our belief or lack of belief is a choice we make. Our righteousness then, can only come when our belief allows Him to remake us, from the sinful creatures we are today, into the creations He intended that love without limit, and serve for the infinite joy that is found in service to others. That definition of righteousness happens when we choose to believe in what we cannot see, what we cannot prove, what we cannot scientifically be assured is absolutely true beyond doubt. And this belief and trust in God, is what will keep us from ever finding sin again throughout the eons of time in eternity. There will be no “second Satan” because the lesson of evil has taught us to rely not on our wisdom, but on His.
The third task of our Comforter is the reproval of “Judgment” itself. Our trial is over. Our verdict was guilty. Our sentence was passed. And Our Advocate told the Judge that HE would take on our punishment in order that WE might be spared. And so the “threat” of our judgment is over, done, and no longer hanging over our heads. Instead, only hope remains for us. Salvation, forgiveness, and redemption through the sacrifice of our Advocate on our behalf, means the trial has no more meaning to us. We are past it. The “great day of judgment” has already been revealed where we are concerned. We are guilty, there is no escaping that, but our punishment we will escape, because our Judge took it on Himself in order to spare us. Those who fear standing before God, in a trial of weighing all of the “good deeds” they have done in their lives against all of the “bad deeds” they are decidedly guilty of, have missed the point entirely. Our “good” will never outweigh our evil. For one thing, any good that ever came from us, came through us as we submitted our will to Christ. Therefore it is not “our” good in the first place. Second, our evil is as much a part of us as is our DNA, unless again we submit ourselves, including our decisions, our desires, even our thinking back to Christ in order to be remade. When we are remade it is not evil that is natural to us, but repugnant to us, and only love is what we seek. In this, our Comforter actually brings us comfort. We need not fear a judgment that is already past, done, and over. Instead we can accept His gift, of transformation and the removal of pain and death from our lives and existence.
It is a profound mystery to me, that Christians believe it to be their job to “judge the world” and “judge others” and “judge sin” when they have never been given this task to perform. Even our Comforter comes to “correct” our ideas on these topics, and offer us hope through Jesus Christ. He does not condemn us, as it is evil that has been judged, and salvation that is found in Jesus Christ. Jesus does not constrict His offer of salvation only to men, or the young, or the healthy, or the perfect, or those who are straight or gay, or have abstained from adultery or addiction. The condition we find ourselves in prior to accepting His salvation is ALWAYS one of self-inflicted pain. This is the very condition He longs to free us from. Our lives AFTER we allow Him to transform us will be different, and will find us more fulfilled, with different wants, needs, and attitude on what it means to love and serve. It has never been the job of the Christian to judge, it has always only been the “job” of the Christian to love. And when we are transformed, it is no “job” to love, and no “commandment” to love, instead His love is “who” we are, it is then natural for us to love.
Again what Jesus is offering His disciples, what is in fact expedient for them and us, is this Comforter, who does these 3 tasks, and enlightens our world through them. He brings us Comfort through these tasks, not condemnation, reproach, or doom. The point of His work, is to provide us Comfort and in these areas we should see the hope He brings. Jesus assesses the situation and continues in verse 12 … “I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.” Already the anxiety of losing their Lord was setting in. They were unprepared to hear any more news that was not happy in nature. Like we are today, we get mired in the reality of our day-to-day, and it is hard for us to see the bigger picture because we define our lives by the here and the now. But the words Christ wished to communicate would be delivered.
Jesus continues in verse 13 … “Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come.” Here we go again. When God, the Spirit of Truth, the Holy Spirit is come to us, he does NOT speak of Himself. He is here to serve our needs, see to our comfort, and educate us into “all” truth. God is always serving others, in this case, His creations. He never seems to serve Himself. The mission of the Holy Spirit is not to educate us on who He is right now, but instead on who Christ is. He passes on to us the things He hears in heaven, the messages Christ wanted to communicate with us, but we were unable to bear. It takes time to build trust with anyone. If in the first encounter with God, Abraham had been asked to kill his only son, he would likely have declined. It takes great trust to act against our own interests, logic, wisdom, and feelings, and do what God asks us to do. This is not something we do overnight, but it becomes something we do over a lifetime, as we yield ourselves to Him. When we first encounter God, we may not be willing to let go of our most cherished sin, but over time with Him, we realize the sin we cherish, is the sin that is destroying us and causing us the most pain in the here and now. When once we may not have been able to bear the news that we would be losing that most cherished sin, we come to the point where we long to be free of it, and then mystified that it was ever a part of our desire and lives in the first place. This too is the work of the Holy Spirit on each of us, unique to each of us.
Jesus continues in verse 14 … “He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you. [verse 15] All things that the Father hath are mine: therefore said I, that he shall take of mine, and shall shew it unto you.” Here is the union of the Godhead presented in the continuing mission to save us from the evil we embrace. The Holy Spirit does NOT glorify Himself, instead only glorifying Christ. Indeed the acts of love the Holy Spirit performs for us, are on behalf of Christ, and at the will of the Father. We all belong to the Father, and He shares us all with His son. Notice that the Father holds nothing back from His son. He retains no ownership of even His most precious treasures, us, from the Son which He loves so much. He holds no acts of love back from us, the objects of His so great love. For God does not value ownership and possession, He values service and gifts and acts of love He is able to perform for us, and for all the creations He made and loves. Those truths we still need to hear from Christ, are delivered to us through the mechanism of His co-partner in our redemption, the Holy Spirit.
Jesus then must tell them what is to come (once again), but He is no longer able to be so direct. Instead He elects to speak more in the context of a proverb, to some extent a riddle, or saying, that carries meaning, but is not quite as blunt. It would give His followers time to process what He was saying, and a memory of when He said it. Its full meaning would become clear later, while the timing of what He said would carry more weight because of when He said it. Note that John is recording all these words of communion with Christ between the time of the Last Supper and the time of His final betrayal in the Garden they were likely already within. Jesus now tells them in verse 16 … “A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again, a little while, and ye shall see me, because I go to the Father.” With the benefit of hindsight, we know Christ was referring to His impending death, when in just a little while they would not see Him. Then after His resurrection they would seem him again. Then He would go to His Father. One might also surmise He meant that His time with them on earth was to be short, but it would only be a little while of separation before they would spend eternity with Him in Heaven with His Father. But the use of this phrasing was by intent, to offer them and us something to ponder.
In verses 17 to 19, the disciples try to determine what He means, but cannot and need Him to help them out a bit more. So Jesus elects to use the analogy of a pregnancy. Labor is hard, difficult, painful, but what it results in, is so joyful, that the memory of the pain quickly fades for the joy of what has been born. Our separation from Christ is hard, difficult, and painful. Our process for salvation may appear that way to us as well at first, as we cling to the notions of accomplishing it ourselves. But what is born within us brings us great joy. The things the world rejoices in, we will find, cause us sorrow. But our sorrow will be short lived, as what God does for us, in transforming us, bears a result that makes us forget the pain we once endured from the world. In verse 22, Jesus affirms once again, that the final results of will happen to us, and for us, will bring a joy that can never be taken from us again.
But communion was not over yet …
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