The Gospel of John John 16:4b-15

Find a quiet place, alone and apart from distractions. Be comfortably alert, still, and at peace. Say the Lord’s Prayer. Sing or cant the Jesus Prayer. Pray for family, friends, neighbors, and yourself. Slowly and carefully read the passage of Scripture.

1.         Much of what we find in chapters 14, 15, and 16 of John’s Gospel Jesus saved until the time for His departure was at hand.

2.         Jesus clearly states, again, that He will be leaving them. Now the emphasis is on what Jesus’ leaving means to His disciples. He acknowledges the sorrow they are experiencing.

3.         However, Jesus makes in clear that it is to their advantage that He leaves, since then the Holy Spirit, the Paraklete, here the Helper, will come to them. Thus we have Him with us for the ages and throughout the world and not localized.

4.         The work of the Holy Spirit involves three arenas: conviction of sin, the truth of righteousness, which is the essential Gospel message, and the fact that Satan has been judged, meaning that Satan has been defeated ultimately.

5.         Jesus states He has yet many things to say to them, but His disciples are not yet ready for it. We find, from John 20:21, that they are not yet indwelt by the Holy Spirit. And as yet the Holy Spirit has not come in power upon them, which story we find in the Book of Acts.

6.         The ministry of the Holy Spirit is the ministry of the Triune God, and thus there will be a crisis of transition for the apostles. Jesus so carefully prepares His disciples for what is quickly to come.

7.         The way to know the work of the Holy Spirit is that the Holy Spirit will lift up or glorify Jesus and nothing else.

8.         The Holy Spirit brings nothing new but only that which belongs to Jesus, and this we find in His words and deeds in the Gospel accounts.

9.         And again Jesus makes it clear that what He has taught His disciples comes directly and only from the Father.

10.       Again and again in John we find the Trinity, a truth that will always be difficult for us to grasp. How could it be otherwise? Here the God of creation who spoke the entire universe into existence in a nano-second, is unthinkably above and beyond our ability to fully grasp. But He gave us His Word.