The Lord proceeds to explain why He had now and not before spoken of the things which were then occupying His heart and being made known to the disciples.
“These things I have spoken to you that ye should not be offended. They wilt put you out of the synagogue; nay, an hour is coming that everyone that hath killed you will think that he is offering service to God. And these things will they do to you because they knew not the Father nor me. But I have said these things to you, that when the [or, their] hour shall have come, ye may remember them that I told you; but these things I told you not from [the] beginning, because I was with you. But now I go unto him that sent me, and none of you asketh me, Where goest thou? But because I have said these things to you, sorrow hath filled your heart” (Vers. 1-6.)
Many were to be stumbled among the Jews who looked for anything but sorrow, shame, and groundless hatred to be the portion of those who follow the Messiah. But the Lord graciously considers His own; and while He uses trial for the blessing of the strong, He would shield and strengthen the weak, both by warning them of the world's undying and of the Holy Ghost's coming to add His testimony to theirs in the face of the persecution of the servants as of their Master. (Ver. 1.)
Two forms should be taken to get rid of Christians and their testimony: one in common when men affect the utmost zeal for divine authority and holiness; the other open to individuals even to the extreme point of death to extinguish malefactors not fit to live. “They will put you out of the synagogue; nay, an hour cometh that everyone that hath killed you will think that he is offering service to God.” Impossible to conceive rancor more deadly, yet sanctioned by all, than that any one who liked might take on himself to kill a follower of Christ, not only with impunity, but claiming therein to do a religious service to God. Saul of Tarsus furnishes a notable example of all this till sovereign grace chose him to bear the Lord's name before all and to suffer great things for His sake. (Ver. 2.)
Doubtless there is a disposition in men generally to fight for their religion, whatever it be. But a special reason gives intensity to the world's, and in particular to the Jew's enmity to Christians. The measure of truth possessed is to the flesh the most powerful motive for disliking and resenting that which claims fuller light; and Christianity cannot but confess the truth in all its fullness in Christ by the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven. He who confesses the Son has the Father also; as he is the antichrist who denies both. (1 John 2:2323Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father: (but) he that acknowledgeth the Son hath the Father also. (1 John 2:23).) And this is what the proud unbelief of Judaism ever tends to when confronted with the testimony of Christ. They set their partial and preparatory knowledge against that complete revelation which could not be till He came who shows the Father, and accomplished everlasting redemption. How blessed for the babes of God's family that, if what they heard from the beginning abides in them, they too shall abide in the Son and in the Father
And as it was with the Jew, so it is with every ecclesiastical system of Christendom itself, which in order to embrace the greatest possible number contents itself with the least and lowest confession, and hence is exposed to the snare of the devil in setting itself against all that go beyond the Christian alphabet. So even the reformed bodies settled themselves on what their founders learned on emerging from popery, and oppose as innovation all that working of the Spirit which recalls to the fullness of Christ in the written word which was long before either the Reformation or Popery. They too persecuted when they had any confidence in their own confessions; till of late they have become so honeycombed with the indifference or the activity of skepticism that they care too little for anything to persecute anybody. But where there is a real holding fast of such a measure of traditional truth as arrogates the name of orthodoxy, there is always a jealousy of the action of the Spirit which insists on Christ more richly known with fresh power to men's hearts, and consequently claiming exercise of faith. So the Jew set the unity of the Godhead to deny the Father and the Son and the Spirit; so men now resist the truth of the one body and one Spirit, devoted to the fleshly unity of Rome or boasting of the active rivalry of Protestant societies. But the more they hold even truth itself in a measure as a form, the less willing are they to allow the activity of the Spirit by God's word as a whole. “And these things will they do, because they knew not the Father nor me.” Yet to know both is eternal life, which every Christian characteristically has by the gospel, though the most advanced is marked by deepening acquaintance with Him that is from the beginning. When and where idols reigned, it needed the energy of grace to turn to God, the living and true; where God was making Himself known in the Son, flesh might avail itself of old truth no longer contested nor costing any sacrifice, and have its tongue set on fire of bell to blaspheme the full revelation which tests actual faith and faithfulness, and seek to exterminate those who testified it. The principle holds good in small things as well as in the greatest, and now as ever.
But as the Lord thus prepared the disciples for harsher things from the professing people of God than from men wholly ignorant, so now He lets them know what they must suffer, that they might gather comfort even in that hour by remembering His words. As the trial that came to pass was known to Him and made known to them, now they could trust His assurance of love and blessing, of deliverance and glory. Besides He explains why He had not told of those things before. He was with them, their shield and Paraclete; and what need was there to say a word? But as He was about to leave them, it was well, and would help all to work for good. (Ver. 4.)
“But now I go unto him that sent me, and none of you asketh me, Where goest thou? But because I have said these things to you, sorrow hath filled your heart.” (Vers. 5, 6.) This sorrow was more of nature than of faith. No wonder it surprised them to hear of their divine Master leaving them with such a prospect before them, with so little manifestation of the effects of His coming in the world or even in Israel. And they had forsaken their all and followed Him: what could it mean? He had already assured them that He would not leave them orphans, but was coming to them. Had faith been simpler, they would have not only counted on His loving care of them, but had asked whither He was going, and have learned its bearing on His glory and their blessing. It is ignorance of His mind which fills the heart with sorrow at His words, for they are spirit and life, though we may need to wait on God in order to lay hold on them intelligently. But the Lord proceeds to bring out all clearly in what follows.