The Promise Of The Holy Spirit

John 16:1-16

Jesus is continuing here in John 16 teaching about the hatred by the world of the testimony of Jesus Christ, to combat what the disciples would face by the world, they were given (as we are given) the Holy Spirit.

The disciples were left with the pronouncing of the Gospel of Jesus Christ......their task was way more difficult than ours ever will be, because there was no one with this truth on the planet. The “Jews” as we have seen in our study of John, has rejected that Jesus was the Son of God and that He was the Messiah promised in Scripture. This was not being taught by anybody but John the Baptist (who is dead) and Jesus. Now, the disciples were going to be left with continuing teaching this Gospel.....

Vs. 1-4.....

Vs. 1......Jesus is telling them things, so they will have confidence when persecution and hate comes.

Opposition seems to run rampant, when the Truth comes and it would for these guys and they need to know and they also need to place their confidence in the Trueness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ!

Offended.....means that when you are teaching/declaring the Gospel of Jesus Christ, when you are scoffed at for doing so, you will not cave in the pressure and either quit or manipulate the message of the cross to make it easier for folks.

That has and will continue to be done.

No quitting and no compromising and they will need help with that!

Insert the Comforter! Thank you, Jesus!

Later, Jesus will tell us more of the functions of the Holy Spirit!

Vs. 2......The Blind man............John 9:22 “These words spake his parents, because they feared the Jews: for the Jews had agreed already, that if any man did confess that he was Christ, he should be put out of the synagogue.”

John 9:35 “Jesus heard that they had cast him out; and when he had found him, he said unto him, Dost thou believe on the Son of God?”

Because the blind man called them out for their hypocrisy, and eventually believed John 9:38 “And he said, Lord, I believe. And he worshipped him.”

The apostle Paul personified this attitude as he persecuted the church..

Acts 22:4-5 “And I persecuted this way unto the death, binding and delivering into prisons both men and women. As also the high priest doth bear me witness, and all the estate of the elders: from whom also I received letters unto the brethren, and went to Damascus, to bring them which were there bound unto Jerusalem, for to be punished.”

This Paul said in his defense of his belief in Jesus Christ, after being arrested and a mob wanted him dead in Jerusalem.

This has been the normal throughout the history of those believing in Jesus! I talk about Christians in the early centuries being persecuted and killed for Jesus’ Name sake!

All because they were delivering and teaching the Gospel message of Jesus Christ.

Even, the Roman Catholic church was complicit in these persecutions of true Christians.

John the Baptist, James, Stephen, all of the disciples were martyred and they tried to with John.

You see it somewhat over the big water.

I often thought about this..........we don’t see it much here.........listen to these verses and tell me what you think????

2 Timothy 3:12 “Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.”

1 Peter 4:13-14 “But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy. If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye; for the spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you: on their part he is evil spoken of, but on your part he is glorified.”

I believe God had mercy on some and gave us a country to live in where we can preach the true Gospel, however we have distorted this Gospel in our teachings.

Changing it to meet the tickling ears of humans, when it gets tough we send out questionnaires asking what they would like to see in a service?????

Instead of when we are persecuted, pressed, or reproached for preaching the true Gospel, just continuing to preach it, as is!

Adam Clarke a British theologian in the later 1700’s and early 1800’s wrote this about this verse: “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, Acts 23:12-13 “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.” ; and agreeably to this, it is said, in that Tract of the Talmud which is entitled Bammidbar, “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!”

I have the same thoughts in our day.....

Some try to silence those that preach and teach the truth and think that they are doing God’s work......The Roman Catholic church comes to mind, but mainly Jesus is talking about the Jews.

Vs. 3........They do this because they really have no understanding of God nor His Son!

2 Timothy 3:7 “Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.”

Romans 1:25 “Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.”

Verse 4..............There is a time coming for these disciples that they will remember what Jesus said and taught, that will provide enlightenment in their time of persecution and trials.

Jesus didn’t to warn them as long as He was with them, however He was leaving and they would need this knowledge and understanding to navigate in this life and in God’s purpose!

Verses 5-16.......The promise of the Holy Spirit.......

Verses 5-6....In order to understand verse 5 we must read verse 6.......If you read verse 5 without verse 6 you would say that Jesus missed them asking this question........we got to understand the context of what Jesus is getting at.....

The disciples had already asked twice, where He was going.......John 13:36 “Simon Peter said unto him, Lord, whither goest thou? Jesus answered him, Whither I go, thou canst not follow me now; but thou shalt follow me afterwards.” John 14:5 “Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way?”

The context had changed somewhat, He had already told them He was leaving and was teaching them He would leave them the comforter, but now in the last part of ch. 15 and now in ch 16, Jesus tells them they will be hated and persecuted for His Name sake.

Now, as we look at verse 6.....Jesus notes their sorrow......they were overcome by what Jesus said, they had forsaken all to follow Jesus and when He leaves they will be turned out into haters that wish to kill them.

“You are going to leave us in our greatest time of need?” They probably asked.

So, now we can see why Jesus said and asked what He did in verse 5.

Their minds was off of where He was going and on what they will face.

Despite your sorrow and fear, it is best for the disciples that Jesus goes away......

This is how the Holy Spirit comes and lives in the believer, instead of Jesus walking with them and questions fill our minds, we have Him within us, enlightening us as we go on our journey!

Verses 8-11......The Holy Spirit’s function.........Reprove: rebuke, expose; refute, show one’s fault, implying that there is a convincing of that fault. Convict as in passing sentence......Essentially that is what the Gospel does it reveals (exposes) that we are guilty before God and that God has rendered judgement.....John 3:18 “He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”

Sin..........We are full of sins (plural) this being singular (In Greek as well) carries the meaning of what I just read from John, the sin of not believing!

John 8:24 “I said therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sins: for if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins.”

Sins.....by the testimony of Jesus Christ we can clearly see that we are sinful, however if we reject that and say that we are an ok person and I can make Heaven based on your own merits, then in a sense you are rejecting Jesus Christ and His perfectness and your sins are ever before you.....but the essence of all of this is rejecting Jesus Christ!

Utterly sinful is my life.........In, through, and with Jesus Christ I am utterly saved!

All of that is exposed in Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit in the disciples teaching and witnessing (ours too).

Righteousness........2 Corinthians 5:21 “For He (God) hath made Him (Jesus) to be sin for us, (Jesus) Who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him (Jesus).”

The Holy Spirit will destroy the pretense of self-righteousness, which is hypocrisy. The Holy Spirit will expose the true darkness of the heart, left to itself!

Isaiah 64:4-7 “For since the beginning of the world men have not heard, nor perceived by the ear, Neither hath the eye seen, O God, beside thee, What he hath prepared for him that waiteth for him. Thou meetest him that rejoiceth and worketh righteousness, Those that remember thee in thy ways: Behold, thou art wroth; for we have sinned: In those is continuance, and we shall be saved. But we are all as an unclean thing, And all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; And we all do fade as a leaf; And our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away. And there is none that calleth upon thy name, That stirreth up himself to take hold of thee: For thou hast hid thy face from us, And hast consumed us, because of our iniquities.”

Israel was the shining light of self-righteousness, which is a part of every human........

The greatest danger is to think that you have some righteousness, we must be born again which means we were not right to begin with......so we need to be changed and that is only found in Jesus Christ!

The testimony of Jesus Christ exposes self-righteousness

Judgement.......This carries a meaning of satan perverting the world’s judgement.....No judgment from worldly humans is right.....Only the judgement of Christ, which is testified by the Holy Spirit is right.

Ironically, those that judge according to worldly standards will fall into the judgement of God!

I read this commentary: “While Christ’s death looked like satan’s greatest victory, it actually was satan’s destruction.”

Turn to Acts 2............This is after the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the disciples......

Verses 12-15........Many mysteries the disciples need to hear, but to hear what was to come and to understand it all was basically not humanly possible..........As time moved on and the events of Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection happened they began to be enlightened, still in that time that Jesus spent with after His resurrection, there was more they needed to know, it seems they were still dumbfounded at all that Jesus did and what He said....

But when the Holy Spirit come....The Spirit of Truth comes He will guide them into all truth about Jesus Christ......not of Himself, His primary function (in Pollard terms) is Jesus inside them!

“All truth”.......2 Peter 1:3 “According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue:”

That is all we need!

The Holy Spirit will glorify (attribute high rank) to Jesus Christ......and what He hears from Jesus that He will give to us.......He does not function on His own initiative.

Whatever Jesus gives to the Holy Spirit comes from the Father (God).....Whatever God gives comes to us.

Verse 16.......In a little while they will not see Jesus; when He ascends back to the Father, yet they will see Him through the work of the Holy Spirit.

Adam Clarke wrote about this verse: “ I will rise again, and show myself to you. Or, As I am going by my ascension to the Father, in a short time, ye shall see me personally no more; but in a little while I shall pour out my Spirit upon you, and others through your ministry; and ye shall see me virtually in the great and wonderful work which shall then take place in the hearts and lives of men.