John: The Sending One

Exegetical Point:

Homiletic Point:

Intro

There is so much confusion in the church about the Holy Spirit.

Some churches you could attend for 3 month before you hear them mention the HS, and even then it was so brief that you weren’t quite sure if you heard it. They live and act as if the HS is irrelevant to the Christian life.

Some churches talk about nothing BUT the HS, as if the ministry of Jesus was side story and miracles by the HS was the real deal.

Some of us I’m sure have been burned by bad teaching about the HS with nonsense like:

You have to speak in gibberish tongues to show you have the HS and are a true believer.

Or if you have true faith you will be miraculously healed of illnesses or injuries. Your pain is a from a lack of faith

Or that you can tell the HS is present because you feel a certain way, such as euphoria or a calm peace, or just intuition.

That a preacher is filled with the HS when they have a certain gravitas or charisma in the pulpit.

Each of these ideas are not found in the Bible, and are in fact shackles from Satan that burden people with guilt, shame and despair, because so many Christians are excluded.

Now if you have an issue with any of the things I just said about what the HS does not do, I encourage you to turn to the scriptures, take your pre-conceptions, put them to the side, and let God speak for himself about the HS!

Let God tell you what he is like, and how he works by the Spirit.

That’s what we’re doing here today. We’re going to let Jesus, the one who sends the HS, tell us what to expect from the Spirit. Jesus is God the Son, and he speaks from God the Father about God the HS. If there is anyone who has the qualifications to teach us about these things, it is him!

Now, because we are focused in this specific passage, we won’t be able to cover every element of the present ministry of HS, but here’s the thing, in this part of John, Jesus is teaching the disciples about how to be disciples after Jesus’ departure. This is a discipleship intensive - the important stuff you need to know to be a faithful disciple. This is the stuff that affects how we as disciples of Jesus live out our lives for the glory of God.

Now, if you’re here today and are not a disciple of Jesus, that means you’re not a Christian, that’s OK. I still want you to hear this. There is still good news here for you today.

I’ve divided the passage into three parts. Each part gives us an important insight into the role and power of the HS. Lets look at the first one!

Holy Spirit is our Advantage (v4b-7)

Jesus is teaching his disciples at the Last Supper. Judas the betrayer has already left the meal, and Jesus is speaking to the remaining 11 disciples.

In the previous portion, Jesus has dropped the bad news that if you’re a disciple of Jesus, you’re probably going to be hated by the world in general. He’s preparing them for the opposition. But in the middle of that Jesus said:

John 15:26 ESV

“But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me.

So in effect, even though it’s going to be rough, i.e. the world will hate and persecute Christians, the HS helper/advocate will come and confirm the truth about Jesus.

The HS will be an indispensable part of discipleship after Jesus had left the earth, in part because of the trials and difficulties that we will face.

But the question on the disciple’s mind was probably, “why didn’t you tell us about this HS and persecution stuff earlier?”

We’ll Jesus preemptively and answers that question! Have a look:

John 16:4–7 (ESV)

“I did not say these things to you from the beginning, because I was with you. But now I am going to him who sent me, and none of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart. Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.

Jesus is going away, and that means they need to be prepared for what is to come. Not only that, it is better for Jesus to physically leave them! It is to their advantage that Jesus is no longer bodily with his disciples. How does this work?

Surely it is better to have Jesus here on earth walking among us right?

We could go visit him, or hear his preach, or ask him specific questions about how he wants us to live. That would be nice right?

Yeah, it would be nice! But there’s something better! On commentator puts it this way:

“The choice is not between Christ present and Christ absent, but between Christ present in body and Christ present in the Holy Spirit. The latter is far better, Jesus said, explaining that when the Spirit came, he would “convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment” (John 16:8).”

Richard D. Phillips, John, 1st ed., vol. 2 of Reformed Expository Commentary (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2014), 334.

It is better that Jesus is not physically in one location, but instead with us in Spirit all across the earth! His bodily departure has meant that all Christians everywhere may have Christ with them!

Imagine if we could only meet Jesus in the flesh? We’d have to wait a lifetime to get a chance. Remember how hard it was for the paralytic to see Jesus with all the crowds around? How much worse would it be if over a billion people were clamoring to meet Jesus?!

This way, in the Spirit, Christ is with all of us who are Christians. We have become mini-temples where God dwells with us, and we are taught by Christ through the Spirit. He goes with us wherever we go!

The OT looked forward to the great advantage of the coming of the Spirit!

Ezekiel 36:25–27 ESV

I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.

Jesus is sending this spirit! That is such an amazing thing. That is an amazing gift! Yes there is sorrow at Jesus departure, but there is great joy in the Spirit continuing Jesus ministry across time and space.

Holy Spirit in The World (v8-11)

What will the HS specifically do once he arrives? We’ve already been told that the HS will confirm the words of Jesus, teaching them to disciples. Here Jesus indicates that this is not a narrow thing where the HS is only found in Bible Studies and church services, but the HS will be active in the world. Let’s look:

John 16:8–11 ESV

And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment: concerning sin, because they do not believe in me; concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you will see me no longer; concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.

Ok! So the Spirit is going to bring conviction to the world. This passage follows on from comments about how the world will hate Christians, so this must be that same “world” the people & institutions that set themselves against Jesus. It is the vast majority. The mob, the “man”, the system, the populace.

This conviction is in the sense of exposure. He is going to reveal to the world the nature of sin, judgement and righteousness. He is going to bring correction in some sense in each of these areas.

Sin

Righteousness

Judgement

And to press the point, Jesus goes on to explain those three areas a little more. Lets briefly look at each:

a. Convicted concerning Sin

“concerning sin, because they do not believe in me”

What is “sin”?

HS Exposes sin. The inexcusable guilt of the world will be revealed. The world will have to come face to face with it’s own sin...

Especially the sin of unbelief. - A reminder: Unbelief is not neutral. Unbelief is a rejection of the creator, and the only hope of salvation. It is a rejection of good morality - if you have any desire to live a morally good life, you cannot reject Jesus - the source of all true morality.

All have sinned, and in order to deal with that sin, you have to come face to face with the reality - something the HS can do, and especially does through coming face to face with the Law.

We can either be convicted of our sin and believe in Jesus, or sin against him but rejecting Him and his idea of sin.

b. Convicted concerning Righteousness

“concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you will see me no longer”

True vs Counterfeit righteousness

Like people who play for counterfeit money and then try to bank it. It was only meaningful inside the imaginary world.

Our righteousness is only valuable inside the imaginary systems we have built for it. - just look at the new pagan system being developed in the world where the fake righteousness of being LGBTI affirming, speaking out about climate change, and having so-called “anti-racist” perspectives give you righteousness in the eyes of the world.

But there are more pervasive forms of this - even if you reject the woke nonsense invading our society, you can still fall into this trap of thinking you’ve got the good stuff because you have got good manners and a job and worked hard and bought a house and send your kids to a private school. You have built an air of being a nice guy, a good egg, an upstanding citizen.

It comes in all shapes and sizes, you did or didn’t wear a mask, you did or didn’t get vaxxed, you do this curriculum as opposed to that, you eat this diet as opposed to that, drive this type of car as opposed to that. Yes, I will even admit to feeling a fake righteousness because I grow a beard, but in the Catholic church that is actually a thing preists don’t wear beards as a sign of righteousness. We can invent all sorts of fake righteousnesses. Whether you sign the cross right to left, or left to right. Whether you eat fish on Good Friday… or if you don’t pray with your eyes closed!

It’s all monopoly money before God. It’s flimsy rubbish.

The world needs to be convinced of what true righteousness is!

Jesus has demonstrated it with his life! And the sign that it was true righteousness was that he was raised from the dead, and ascended to the right hand of the father.

We no longer see Jesus, because he accomplished true righteousness, and the world will know this because the HS will reveal Jesus in his righteous perfection.

We can either hear the HS and see the righteousness of God, or reject this and keep playing with our monopoly money righteousness.

c. Convicted concerning Judgement

“concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.”

The HS will convince the world about Judgement.

God the Father has given all Judgment to Jesus. Judgment Day will be handled through Jesus Christ.

There is a Judgment Day doming when all will have to give an account.

God has already shown how things will go down. He has Judged Satan and he is waiting for the sentencing hearing.

The fact that Jesus came to the world to die for sin shows that God’s judgment against sin is very serious. God has to deal with it, and he does that through the perfect justice of Jesus sacrifice. God has revealed his judgment against sin, but what he did to overcome sin. The world needs to know that the Judgment of God is real, and it is coming.

We can either accept Jesus judgment of Satan, and escape Judgment, or we can ignore it, and place ourselves under God’s judgment.

This work of the HS in the world will bring some people to repentance! Alot of the world will reject the Good News about Jesus, but some will hear and respond.

Holy Spirit in the Church (v12-15)

Jesus switches gears now, and addresses the work of the HS among the disciples.

John 16:12–13 ESV

“I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.

Reiterating what he has said before. Remember, repetition on Scripture is usually a sign of importance, and big sign saying “LOOOK HERE!”

The fact that Jesus has mentioned this about 3 times should clue us into the fact that this is super important - this is the main mission of the HS.

The HS will teach the disciples things they cannot hear yet. How? Guide you into all truth:

open up the OT.

Bring to mind Jesus words

Prophetic word (E.g. Revelation)

Applied theology - the NT writings.

All of this is Jesus speaking, teaching his disciples.

All of this feeds into the big picture aim to glorify God.

John 16:14–15 ESV

He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

HS doesn't draw attention to himself - he is glorifying Jesus by opening up and enlightening people towards Jesus.

This is Trinitarian work - Jesus receiving from the Father, The HS takes from Jesus and declares truth!

So What?

Advantage of the HS

HS in the world

HS in the church