Thus the Lord had declared their general position in His absence, declared it that as a time of trial they might not be disturbed when it arose. The friendship to Him He had stated, and His joy to be in them, and their joy full. The hatred of the world He had stated, but the reason of it also. He was now more precise, for He had more to communicate. They would be rejected by their religious companions and ecclesiastical authority. This was more definite trial than viewing it as the general hatred of the world, which knew not the Father nor Him. The Church (that is, as Jews) were to hate them and reject them. Their excommunication was as a matter of course. But being ignorant of the Father and the Son they would think they were doing God service in killing them. They were not to be surprised at them. They had been told before, and were to be mindful of them as confirming the truth of their expectations. They were to expect no relentings, for murderers by conscience are surely unrelenting, as it is the power of Satan; not inconvertible, as we know in Paul.
The Lord having been with them had not told them these things. It was not concealment, but they were not so while His power was present. Whatever He might suffer He exercised control over Satan; but now that it was matter of faith, His glory, He being rejected, the principle (of sufferance to death) was brought in, and they must expect it in that sense (that is, by present power) unsustained. He had been with them, and there had been occasion for none of these cautions or warnings. He was there to guide, help and secure; but now He went His way to Him that sent Him, and none's eyes were carried forward, or to where He was going. So did selfishness of sorrow, feeling, prevail. But they were filled with the fact of their own desolation. Yet it was not rest to Himself He sought, though it were so. He had made Himself the Servant of His Father's will and their blessing. But He told them the truth. It might seem a humiliating thing to all He had been to them. It was a justifiable thing to them. He should go away. Strange, yet brilliant and blessed mercy! What things has our Lord provided for us, even the presence of the Holy Ghost, His witness! If He went, He would send Him to them. The presence of the Holy Ghost, then, was the greater. The thing which made up was greater than the loss of Jesus, that being which He revealed and declared, but His presence in the consequent blessings was a greater thing. The world was to be against them, and the Church was to be against them; but this was their great link with every blessing, the great distinctive witness of God's portion, their portion. Therefore in the opposition of all the inheritance as contrasted with the world (on God's part), not the temple made with hands, but the presence of God by the Spirit, their portion the conscious witnesses of the divine power. That was gone as a thing made with hands; and they had that which was abiding in the power of its revelation (compare 2 Cor. 3:1111For if that which is done away was glorious, much more that which remaineth is glorious. (2 Corinthians 3:11) and Acts 7).
The distinction of their place here is very important. The world rejected, but the Spirit "will convict," and though made "out of the synagogues," the Spirit with them witnessed the glory. This latter, and all the fullness of moral truth connected with it, God's glory being always consistent with His character, they could not be told now, because death had not come in, and they had not that Spirit of life in which they could understand both the glory and the death. For there are two distinct things, the testimony of the Spirit to the world, and its taking and showing things to them of the fullness of Christ, as the Spirit of truth. The latter they were for the most part incapable of now. The promise is explicit and precise. He, the Comforter, the Advocate, shall convince it of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment. You will observe it is the marked presence of a Person who does these things: "Having come he will convict."
If we are put out of the synagogue, note, we become temples. Were it not, difficult indeed would be our lot.
He, coming, shall convince the world about sin, etc. This is His office. He does not speak of effectual result, though of course there was such. About sin, indeed, in this, that "they believe not on me." It was not merely sinfulness or transgressions; both might have been charged naturally, and by the law; but their very state, their whole state with God. The former, sunk under the bright coming of Jesus from God the Father, were forgotten in this abounding act of love. This proved the manner of God's dealings with the world; not then, that is, in the presenting of Jesus to it. God was in Christ reconciling, and not imputing. They saw no beauty in it or Him. He was despised and rejected of men. They esteemed Him not. Thus was the accumulated evidence of their utter and desperate alienation of mind brought out. They were sin, and nothing else; for where all beauty was they saw none; where God was manifested in the flesh He was not known; when He came to His own in the way of personal grace they received Him not, but hated and rejected Him. This is the great argument, the argument of sin to the world. Here is the ground on which it stands before God, howsoever besides it may have transgressed, as indeed they had. They believe not on Jesus; that is the whole matter, the summing up of all, the concentrating and exhibition of all; enmity against God most displayed in grace; enmity to death; the slave of Satan. Here sin was triumphant, most utterly so as far as it could be in its weakness and destructiveness in the death of Christ the Lord. But not believing was the same thing as to position.
Then of "righteousness, because I go to my Father, and ye see me no more." To the world there would be no evidence of righteousness in the death of Christ, but the contrary; nor even outwardly in the act of vicarious suffering. To the world it was the triumph of unrighteousness. And not only so, but the apparent utter dereliction or failure of God in upholding that which was righteous. The righteous One was put down by man apparently, and deserted by God. His own word was, "Why hast thou forsaken me?" Indeed, the full tide of the effects of unrighteousness, judicial and moral, all set in and flowed into and over the soul of Christ. If He bowed in His love under the triumphant effects of moral unrighteousness, led of the great head of it, Satan, his hour and the power of darkness, He had to bow at the same moment, instead of finding vindication under the judgment, as the unrighteous One (though righteous), at the hands of His God. It was the full resulting exhibition of the power (but weakness) of unrighteousness in the hands of Satan, left (in order to the full result of divine glory and vindication) to come to its height of evil; the utter rejection of sin by the Father, even when laid on the Person of His beloved Son, where if anywhere it might be passed by. In a word, while the cross established in the Person of Jesus the most perfect righteousness on the part of Man, as may be seen in the minutest contrast with the first Adam, and the most perfect vindication of God in the same act, as may be also seen in it, there appeared the most total failure to own or vindicate this; it seemed left helplessly in the power of unrighteousness. But indeed vindication there would neither have been it, or given it its force; nor would it have given it its righteous reward. Righteousness to death was needed, and righteousness under apparent rejection, to show the full force of its reception at the right hand of God, the right hand of the Father, the Majesty on high itself.
It was God's righteousness illustrated in the Son that was to be shown; and though in Man, in whom it was to be wrought out, it had no adequate witness of glory but at the right hand of the Father. And hence as to this the intrinsic importance of the position of Christ to the Church before His return: “I go to my Father, and ye see me no more." He was alone in this, alone in righteousness. Even His disciples forsook Him, and fled; or denied Him, and stood afar off. None even outwardly stood by Him, or were able to drink the cup; that is, then, or be so baptized. And though the coming of the Lord will be the time of His joy in being glorified in His saints, their being glorified with Him, yet the reward of righteousness was in His acceptance of the Father, His glory vindicated and adequately shown, and only so in His sitting down on the Father's throne. This is a blessed and glorious thought. He, speaking of Him as a Man, owned and vindicated the Father throughout, and sits down accordingly on His throne in righteousness. And righteousness in its fullest, highest sense was here, as between the Father and the Son; that is, the suffering Jesus shown, but shown in the glory of God. See chapter 13: 31, 32.
The world is convinced of righteousness and its perfection, then, in the suffering Jesus being at the right hand of the Father, the Majesty on high, in righteousness. Vindicatingly and effectually He was alone. Then He, and none else, sits, and righteousness is demonstrated. It would not have been done so here, though as to actual righteousness He might have been at any time vindicated; but righteousness in man would not have been wrought out in its fullness, nor God glorified in it, and love and divine counsel so ordered for His glory. Left in the world to be seen of those (however gracious to them) who rejected or forsook Him would not have been righteousness. And the present glory of the Savior is the full, personal witness of righteousness. Though alone in it in death it morally extended to the Father. Here it was effected, declared, and known; of course, only to those to whom, by the Spirit sent down, it was witnessed; though it was the testimony in love, declared to the world which had rejected Him, the unrighteous world. Besides, there was a righteousness in death which was more than intrinsic; it was vindicating God, and therefore God vindicated it. It was not merely that which was just (in Him as Man), but that which fully justified God in character; and therefore God justified it, when it was done, at His right hand. As regarded Man, the righteous One was rejected, and therefore they saw Him no more. But the righteousness, all that God was, was vindicated, was brought into light from evil, and He went to the throne due to Him, accepted, of the Father, and it due to Him.
I do not speak of the continual tendency towards it, or the trial through which the Lord passed anticipative of His death, but abstractedly. The Lord's righteousness upon earth was natural righteousness, perfect consistency with what was required of God, Adam righteousness. Therefore this extended not to God. Therefore He says, "Why callest thou me good? there is none good but One, that is God." As He says, " I will make all my goodness pass before thee." So in Psa. 16; the Lord expressing His portion as Man in His mind or spirit, doubtless, when He said, "Why callest," etc.: "Thou hast said unto Jehovah" (He here owned this place before the Father), "Thou art my Lord; my goodness reacheth not to thee." This was the humiliation of Jesus. Now this righteousness seemed altogether lost; for He was not only despised and rejected of men, but so as to be esteemed smitten, stricken of God, and afflicted; and no witness to man of the contrary. But the ascension to the throne of the Father showed a goodness that extended to God there. For indeed God had been perfectly glorified in the death of Him, the Lord, the Head of a righteousness which had its place there, as Adam was naturally excluded from God; He re-admitted, having suffered for sin, to the Father's throne. And here was the extent and effect of righteousness, and here our place and acceptance with God, whatever our actual condition. And this is the abounding glory of the gospel. He was seen no more. The world was righteously deprived of Him. Righteousness then, note, was evinced, not in seeing the Lord in the glory (that is the glory of grace), but in Jesus at the right hand of the Father, and seen no more. It is a present portion, and equivalent to the throne of God. But enough thus far.
"Of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged." The same way judgment is known in principle as passed, because the head of the system is judged. The Prince of believers is on high; seen no more even by them; and their righteousness therefore was not merely associated with Him on earth in such order of righteousness (as indeed they could not), but by faith, as not seen, with Him whose righteousness reached to God's throne, to the acceptance of the Father. "Therefore doth my Father love," as God was glorified. The prince of the world, so proved previously, was judged; and so judgment was proved; this world as such judged in its head. Thus it was convicted of judgment, sin, and righteousness;
set on quite a new ground, even the rejection of Jesus on earth; His reception to previous glory with the Father in heaven in His throne; but herein the setting aside the whole system, proved to be under the power of the apostate enemy of righteousness, of God, by the death of Christ; judged in the rejection of Jesus, in His resurrection proving who was rejected. Hence the reception of Jesus graciously when He reappears is not that righteousness of faith which has its place and portion with the Father in the Father's house; for it does not know Jesus there. But this is the Church's righteousness and portion, and it has fellowship therefore with the Father and with His Son Jesus by virtue of the Spirit so revealing the Lord; a greater portion, a portion of faith; therefore not rest, but which reaches to the righteousness of the Father's throne.
Then as to the conflict as to the world in which they are conversant, though there is no judgment now, wrong judgment proceedeth, and though in the world while Jesus was at the right hand of the Father, and hence though knowing righteousness in conflict, yet kept steady and in comfort, knowing by proof of the Spirit sent down, the prince of this world, even the enemy to be judged. It was " this world " which hated them, but the prince of it was judged. It all hinged round the great truth of the absolute rejection of Jesus by a led world, Jew and Gentile; known, and the reception to the Father known, by the sending down of the Spirit. Thus far was testimony to the world, and so was expressed now as subjects of it; but the glory of risen and glorified hopes nothing but the Spirit could understand. They could not bear what followed upon death now, and all the mystery of the wisdom which was to be opened in His rejection, exaltation, and the hope of the Church in that, and position Of the Jew. It could not consort with present thoughts and hopes of faith.
The gift of the Spirit would open it out, and show the bearing on the world, in love gathering into the glory. But when the Spirit was come He would guide them into all truth. This was given as to disciples, not to the world. Here He is primarily called the Spirit of truth. This is one great official character that it has; the same Spirit, but having this farther office towards them, to guide them into all the truth; for He shall not speak from Himself, as conversant on the earth, when He is spoken of officially as the Son there, and therefore of present things; but what He shall hear; that is, as communicating the counsels of God. He shall communicate, the counsels as from on high from God. Of the Son it was said, because of fellowship, "We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen," as one with the Father, the Son of Man "who is in heaven"; but He, because of revelation as from them in whom the fellowship was, "that which he shall hear"; "and he shall show you things," or the things, "to come." All the truth seems contrasted with the conviction of the world upon the elementary principles of what had taken place in Christ; that is, evinced in that. But He should guide into all truth, that is, the disciples. What He heard: this was His revelation from heaven. He spoke them (that is, on earth). What He should hear: it was open revelation; it was not as Christ, measuring ability, but “whatever he shall hear"; for He does it ministerially, Christ the Lord ministering suitable revelations; as heard He shall speak. Compare Matt. 10:2727What I tell you in darkness, that speak ye in light: and what ye hear in the ear, that preach ye upon the housetops. (Matthew 10:27), and with equal force. So [Matthew] 10:19, 20. “Whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak." It was a measured and specific communication, though no measure in Him acting ministerially. What He heard He spake, and consequently the disciples. It was not discretion, like Christ. He came to make a revelation, and consequently to declare what He was given to reveal, as so ministerial, to the perfectness and perfect counsels of God, in gift. The Spirit is supreme in this; that is, in revelation ministerial. So accordingly we, as by command; our silence but little of the Spirit.
But there is another difference. There is no limit now, all the glory being Christ's, but the measure of His communication, for He is the word (of life), treasured in the Scripture. Actually He communicates it by the Spirit, according to the counsels of God and ministration of the Father. Whatever is to be said for the profit of the Church He speaks from that source, revelation chiefly also, in one sense, but knowledge, doctrine, or reproof may take its place; but properly revelation of the mind of God from above, as now between us and Him. And besides these He shall declare to you things to come. This may be by speaking, but not, I think, necessary.
But besides revealing the matter of our present association with God, and testifying to it as from God, that is, “whatsoever he shall hear," He will also show us the coming things. Now this may be the whole extent further of the things to come, the scene before us; but it is not to mellonta simply; that is, the things of the dispensation to come as contrasted with the present, the to enestota; but, though including them, not as a distinct dispensation, but the things coming as contrasted with the present associations with God. And this is the special portion of the Church of God. He speaks simply present things. He declares to you “things to come," though all this be in the Church. So Abraham: “Shall I hide? " So the disciples: “I have called you friends." And here I think we are led into the word prophecy, the latter being the specific character of it, but the whole coming as used under this. I say, underneath this, for prophecy is but the utterance and expression of the portion of the Church, and of God's mind in it; and this explains to one this word generally.
The general office of the Spirit is then declared, in which all these are comprehended, but the general object specifically stated: “He shall glorify me; for he shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you." In revelation of, in declaring, things to come, He glorifies Christ, for He is declaring Christ's things. But in this there is no separation from the Father, for it is as " all things that the Father hath " are Christ's. He says " receive of mine "; and this unity of possession, as in all else, is the very blessing of the Church; for were it not so (as indeed it must) in receiving or hearing of Christ's things it might not have known or received the Father's; but in knowing, spiritually knowing, His we know the Father's. So we shall know the Father's glory in the day when He appears, for He shall appear in it. This then is the great subject of the Spirit's operation; it glorifies Christ; it is " of mine," " whatsoever things are mine," as between Him and the Father; but we know " in detail," though the Spirit searcheth all things, and shall not till that day know all, that is, collectaneously as known, but in part, and so prophesy in part "of mine," and the Spirit communicatively and ministerially receives (which note) and declares. He searches all.
Having stated the circumstances connected with the blessing of the Comforter, He proceeds to speak of what concerns His own Person. He was not going to die, so to speak, but to go to His Father; and because He was going to His Father, He was about to be unseen by them soon. Yet "a little while, and ye shall not see me; and again a little while, and ye shall see me." This of the disciples too. This was true in a partial, momentary illustration on His resurrection; for though He had not gone to the Father He was there because He went to Him, being raised by the glory of the Father, and it showed the real, personal seeing of Him. It would be but the visibility of Christ was reinstated in the resurrection, and at any moment He might appear; and His appearance and appearableness had its date from then (which note). He was not dead and buried merely, but He went to the Father, and therefore they saw Him no more; and in a little while they would see Him again, being risen again. He was that Son of Man, that risen security of the mercies of David, the Second Adam who was to appear. His actual manifestation was the form and pledge of this, and therefore verified their hopes. They were begotten again to a living hope, though the great result and reality to be brought out of blessing was the day in which, after a little while, He should appear to their joy.
Thus then, as regards the Remnant, it had accomplishment, or rather exhibition, in His being seen after His resurrection. For this was not to all the people, but [only to] witnesses chosen before of God. As to them, their sorrow was turned into joy; they knew and saw the risen Jesus. As regards the nation, and the results, the Man that was to be born into the world was to be when the world to come should be, or introduce it however. And here we get the force, I think, of the birth of the Man Child. He was born to the hope and knowledge of the Church and Remnant when Jesus was raised, and appeared to the Jewish believing few visibly so born. But as regards the nation He would not be till the day of His appearing; they say in that day, beholding His glory, "Unto us a child is born, to us a Son is given." And so as regards the world subordinately, and as they were in sorrow now; and then at the resurrection of Jesus their sorrow was turned into joy. So of the people in that day, they will be in the “tribulation," but forget the trouble for the abundance of joy when the Son is given to them. They recognize that the Child was born to them, coming in by faith, even as the Gentiles did, who, seeing the glory and the Lord, had to be taught faith: "I am Jesus," that One that was slain. But the whole was the personal presence of Jesus to the Jewish body, now known only in a Remnant, for they had rejected Him; and then indeed a Remnant not made a nation, they had sorrow in knowing His rejection by the nation. So in the latter day the sorrow of faith as to who He was. But He would see them again, and their heart would rejoice, and none be able to take it away, for Jesus gave it.
The Church was built upon this joy, for it was by those who had seen Jesus. It was taught to wait for it; for that on which it was so founded was not seen. Hence its ambiguous position. We have the joy of known and seen resurrection, and glory; now the grief of an absent Savior and the joy of hope of seeing Him; yea, and being with Him in the glory; then its joy fulfilled.
“And in that day ye shall ask me nothing." The knowledge of the Son in resurrection puts them, in the knowledge of Him, into the use of new appointed relationship towards the Father. They were not to ask of Christ present, as strangers to the Father, but as knowing His place with them, and His place with the Father, " determined the Son of God with power," and their relationship with the Father by virtue of Him, they were to ask the Father in His name, and He would give. They could ask the Son from human knowledge of Him. They had never so seen the Father in Him, that by knowledge of the Son they could ask the Father for that they needed. Nor would it be merely at His persuasion of the Father, for the Father Himself loved them, but by virtue of their union with and the prevailing name of the Son. In and by Him they could so ask. He had spoken to them in parables. He had opened out to them the various ways of relationship, and shown it as the portion of the children, and what that portion was (in parables). But now He could declare Him boldly. He would cause them to know Him.
This would be fully developed when He Himself manifested the Father's glory. But it is not confined to this, because the Church is made cognizant of it by her spiritual perception of Christ as the Son in the glory, the Father being revealed by the Spirit; that is, in the Son, and all the glory of Christ testifying of this. He does not say, therefore, come out from the Father. This they had not really understood. They had believed His mission of God.
He then, in verse 28, describes the positive revelation. There were two things in utter contrast: the world and the Father. They could not unite. He left the Father, to come into the world; and left it, to go to Him. This relationship with the Father by the knowledge of the Son: in future in manifested glory and communion (which note); fort John shall be true then; now, by the testimony and revelation of the Spirit, of His oneness with the Father, and revelation of Him; and our oneness with Him, and the Father's love to us. So Christ does not ask the Father about us, but we loving Christ, the Father, His love centering on Him, loves us. They had believed that He came out from God, acknowledging Him.
But there was a further point: “I came forth from the Father." They had not understood the personal relationship. As the Son of the living God in the world they had owned, being given to own, Him; but they had not understood of Him as the Son with the Father, and coming forth from the Father. This was the great revelation of the Spirit, as it would be of the glory. When He, being gone back into the glory which He had with the Father before the world was, He in spirit could “show them plainly of the Father." The work being accomplished, and He, in His come glory among the Jews, being rejected, the full glory could be brought out. The shining through of any of this was the occasion of the rejection of Him in the other. Verse 28 is the declaration of the great leading truth which was behind all His dispensed manifestation. But their minds had not as yet really received it; for although they saw divine knowledge in His perception of and answering what their minds were working on, and giving this explicit answer as to being seen no more, etc., or that on which it was founded, they did not fathom the real revelation in it, the revelation of Person and mission; His Person antecedent to mission, His own glory and His Father's, and all flowing from this.
“Now thou speakest plainly, and speakest no proverb," but their perception went no further (not having the Spirit) than in this, "We believe that thou camest forth from God." This the Lord had already acknowledged as that which introduced them into the love of the Father. But into that love as yet they did not enter. It is the fruit of the perception of the Spirit; that is, as known. The whole showed the need of the Spirit in setting in the relationship. So consequently, “because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts," etc.; and here our Lord was thrown upon this very truth. He was not to be associated with them in His own glory, but delivered up; and of them He must say, “Do ye now believe?” As they said, “Now we believe." How little they knew themselves, or without the Spirit could go thr6ugh the trial of faith, or think that the flesh could go through the death of the flesh! He was thrown alone upon this personal relationship with the Father, and its truth proved the power of death was to come in, and they be scattered, the sustaining power of Him in life being gone, every man to his own. There was no power of vital fellowship with Jesus in His Sonship, and then man's support is natural, he goes " to his own." How true this is!
But where was Christ's “own"? Nowhere here. He had none. He was left alone, and to be alone; only this thus declared, “I am not alone” (this great truth He had been speaking of to them); “the Father is with me." When they were left alone (so far as regards the world) they would have this comfort of seeing Him so, but with this difference therefore, that He had overcome it alone in the conflict. In Him, though for profit's sake put through the conflict, they had peace. They could be of good courage, the world was overcome. Amen. Be of good cheer, glad to be in one which is the victory of Jesus. We can say Jesus is with us; the Son, He hath overcome for us.
The point of verse 32 is Jesus being completely thrown on the truth which He was disclosing, before the former truth was, so to speak, setting aside (though not before God). But the disciples were not beyond it, and the Lord therefore was thrown upon the intrinsic power of this, that alone in the trial He might receive, as having suffered through it, others into accepted, adopted fellowship of the blessing as the risen Lord, "declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead."
But let us follow the text. Here was the failure of all fleshly association even with Christ, because Christ relinquished the ground on which it was held by either suffering to take a better inheritance for them with Him, they wholly failing, so that there was none but He in it. But the Father was with Him; this was the consolation; and He gave them the same: “In me ye shall have peace; in the world tribulation; but be of good cheer; I have overcome," etc. It was said to set them on this ground: “in me." He was out of the world, and they in it. He turned out of it, so they would have tribulation in it. His comfort was in the presence of One not seen to the world, where He seemed to be alone. In Him they would have the same. He had overcome. Thus His statement made the moral passing through of the suffering of His lonely death and rejection; and on this ground He speaks in what follows.