John 16

Introduction

• What would be your concern if you had only a few months to live?
• It was once said that “Disappointment is the distance between our expectations and our experience.”
• What is our “misery index” (Devine, p. 43-48)?

John 16:1-11

• 16:1—Jesus warns them about these things so that they will not be “shaken” (Brown, 1970, p. 701).
  a. 16:2—We are dealing with a largely Jewish community that has been ripped from the synagogue because of the scandal of the Cross.
  i. Being put out of the synagogue would be like being accused of treason.
  ii. The irony is that Jesus’ mission was to restore the Sabbath and the community that worships on that day.
  b. 16:3-4—Those who are not “in the know” will lead the persecution. This word is to remind the disciples that they are not alone.
  c. 1 John 1:15, 2:24, 3:8 and 11—The Church is connected to the events of the Incarnation through the Paraclete.
  d. 14:30-31—Dodd says that this is an exhortation to move against the “prince of this world” (p. 408-409).
• 16:5-6; 13:36, 14:5—But they have asked where He is going? Could this be a reference to a feeling of a failed parousia (or Jesus’ return)?
• 16:7—The Son says that He will send the Paraclete, thus supporting the doctrine of the “economic Trinity” (Brown, 1970, 1139-1141).
  a. 16:8—Augustine avoided this passage and Thomas Aquinas danced around it.
  b. 14:17—It does not appear that the world can receive anything from the Spirit.
  c. It appears that as long as the Church is in the world, there will always be an encounter between light and darkness. The question is, has it happened yet?
  i. The world can be convicted of sin yet still not be persuaded to accept salvation.
  ii. The Church is the place where this conviction is played out, and the Church sees the world for what it is—a place of sin that stands judged.
  iii. 7:7 and 24—The world is a contradiction to the Church and its message.
  iv. Implicit in the Christian confession of kurious Christos (“Christ is Lord”) is ouk Kaisar (“not Caesar”).
  d. 2 Timothy 3:16—Although Jesus is unjustly convicted, He is vindicated by the Resurrection.
  e. John 16:11—The worldview of most people is faulty.
  i. 19:13—This passage is left ambiguous because Rome is actually on trial and is guilty of a whole host of sins (Rauschenbusch, p. 240-259).
  ii. 16:9-11—This may not be about convincing the world as convicting the world.
  iii. 12:31—The defeat of the “prince of this world” will not be a public display but the Church eluding his clutch.

John 16:12-22

• 16:12-13a—This could be a reference to the continual function of the Paraclete.
  a. 15:26—The Paraclete will bring to memory the life and teachings of Jesus. His mission, then, is linked to the Incarnation.
  b. 1 John 4:1-3—John encourages the Church to test what comes in because of the emergence of Docetism and Gnosticism (Talbert, p. 35-36).
  c. The Paraclete will “flesh out” the true teachings for the Church.
  i. Some see the Paraclete as replacing the Son as the guide for the Church, yet John says that He is the revelatory force behind understanding the Son.
  ii. The Paraclete’s office is to continue what Jesus has already said and done, not to bring a new revelation.
  d. The Holy Spirit guides in two ways—preaching (2 Timothy 3:16) and revelation (2 Peter 1:21).
  e. John 16:13b—The events could possibly be the further events of John’s Gospel.
• 16:21—The necessary pains of childbirth are linked to the joy of bringing a child into the world (Morris, p. 626).
  a. Does this speak to the feeling of a failed or delayed parousia?
  b. Does it refer to their sorrow over His leaving?

John 16:23-33

• 16:22-24; cf., 15:15-16; Hebrews 4:6-9—Jesus’ departure will be the event that draws the disciples into the circle of love shared by the Father and the Son.
• 16:25-28—His departure will be to return to the Father. The Paraclete can only come when the Son is fully revealed.
• 16:29-30—The problem is that they do not yet fully understand because Jesus has not yet been fully revealed. This is John’s message that Jesus’ whole life is parabolic.
• 16:31-33—The disciples will not only have peace but will no longer feel sorrow.
  a. Daniel 12:1; Zephaniah 1:14-15; Habakkuk 3:16—In the Septuagint, each of these passages uses the same Greek word for “distress” (thlipsis).
  b. Colossians 1:24—Paul links his message to the messianic woes by saying that suffering is necessary as history turns on its hinge because more suffering is coming through preaching.

References

Raymond Brown, The Gospel According to John XIII-XXI, Anchor Bible 29a (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1970).

Edward T. Devine, Misery and Its Causes (New York: Macmillan, 1909).

C. H. Dodd, The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1953).

Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John, rev. ed., New International Commentary on the New Testament 4 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1995).

Walter Rauschenbusch, A Theology for the Social Gospel, Library of Theological Ethics (Reprint: 1917. Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1997).

Charles H. Talbert, Reading John: A Literary and Theological Commentary on the Fourth Gospel and the Johannine Epistles, rev. ed., Reading the New Testament (Macon, GA: Smyth and Helwys, 2005).