In chapter 16 a further step is taken in the revelation of this grace. The
Holy Ghost is looked upon as already here below.
In this chapter the Lord declares that He has set forth all His instruction
with regard to His departure; their sufferings in the world as holding His
place; their joy, as being in the same relationship to Him as that in which
He had been while on earth to His Father; their knowledge of the fact that
He was in the Father and they in Him, and He Himself in them; the gift of
the Holy Ghost, in order to prepare them for all that would happen when He
was gone, that they might not be offended. For they should be cast out of
the synagogues, and he who should kill them would think that he was serving
God. This would be the case with those who, resting in their old doctrines
as a form, and rejecting the light, would only use the form of truth by
which they accredited the flesh as orthodox to resist the light which,
according to the Spirit, would judge the flesh. This would they do, because
they knew neither the Father nor Jesus, the Son of the Father. It is fresh
truth which tests the soul, and faith. Old truth, generally received and by
which a body of people are distinguished from those around them, may be a
subject of pride to the flesh, even where it is the truth, as was the case
with the Jews. But fresh truth is a question of faith in its source: there
is not the support of a body accredited by it, but the cross of hostility
and isolation. They thought they served God. They knew not the Father and
the Son.
Nature is occupied with that which it loses. Faith looks at the future into
which God leads. Precious thought! Nature acted in the disciples: they
loved Jesus; they grieved at His going away. We can understand this. But
faith would not have stopped there. If they had apprehended the necessary
glory of the Person of Jesus; if their affection, animated by faith, had
thought of Him and not of themselves, they would have asked, "Whither goest
thou?" Nevertheless He who thought of them assures them that it would be
gain to them even to lose Him. Glorious fruit of the ways of God! Their
gain would be in this, that the Comforter should be here on earth with them
and in them. Here, observe, Jesus does not speak of the Father. It was the
Comforter here below in His stead, to maintain the testimony of His love
for the disciples, and His relationship to them. Christ was going away: for
if He went not away, the Comforter would not come; but if He departed, He
would send Him. When He was come, He would act in demonstration of the
truth with regard to the world that rejected Christ and persecuted His
disciples; and He would act for blessing in the disciples themselves.
With regard to the world, the Comforter had one only subject of testimony,
in order to demonstrate the sin of the world. It has not believed in
Jesus-in the Son. Doubtless there was sin of every kind, and, to speak
truth, nothing but sin-sin that deserved judgment; and in the work of
conversion, He brings these sins home to the soul. But the rejection of
Christ put the whole world under one common judgment. No doubt every one
shall answer for his sins; and the Holy Ghost makes me feel them. But, as a
system responsible to God, the world had rejected His Son. This was the
ground on which God dealt with the world now; this it was which made
manifest the heart of man. It was the demonstration that, God being fully
revealed in love such as He was, man would not receive Him. He came, not
imputing their trespasses unto them; but they rejected Him. The presence of
Jesus was not the Son of God Himself manifested in His glory, from which
man might shrink with fear, though he could not escape; it was what He was
morally, in His nature, in His character. Man hated Him: all testimony to
bring man to God was unavailing. The plainer the testimony, the more he
turned from it and opposed it. The demonstration of the sin of the world
was its having rejected Christ. Terrible testimony, that God in goodness
should excite detestation because He was perfect, and perfectly good! Such
is man. The testimony of the Holy Ghost to the world, as God's to Cain of
old, would be, Where is my Son? It was not that man was guilty; that he was
when Christ came; but he was lost, the tree was bad.
[see note #62]
But this was God's path to something altogether different-the demonstration
of righteousness, in that Christ went to His Father, and the world saw Him
no more. It was the result of Christ's rejection. Human righteousness there
was none. Man's sin was proved by the rejection of Christ. The cross was
indeed judgment executed upon sin. And in that sense it was righteousness;
but in this world it was the only righteous One condemned by man and
forsaken by God; it was not the manifestation of righteousness. It was a
final judicial separation between man and God (see chapters 11 and 12: 31).
If Christ had been delivered there, and had become the King of Israel, this
would not have been an adequate consequence of His having glorified God.
Having glorified God His Father, He was going to sit at His right hand, at
the right hand of the Majesty on high, to be glorified in God Himself, to
sit on the Father's throne. To set Him there was divine righteousness (see
chapter 13: 31, 32, and 17: 1, 4, 5). This same righteousness deprived the
world, as it is, of Jesus for ever. Man saw Him no more. Righteousness in
favour of men was in Christ at God's right hand-in judgment as to the
world, in that it had lost Him hopelessly and for ever.
Moreover Satan had been proved to be the prince of this world by leading
all men against the Lord Jesus. To accomplish the purposes of God in grace,
Jesus does not resist. He gives Himself up to death. He who has the power
of death committed himself thoroughly. In his desire to ruin man he had to
hazard everything in his enterprise against the Prince of Life. He was able
to associate the whole world with himself in this, Jew and Gentile, priest
and people, governor, soldier, and subject. The world was there, headed by
its prince, on that solemn day. The enemy had everything at stake, and the
world was with him. But Christ has risen, He has ascended to His Father,
and has sent down the Holy Ghost. All the motives that govern the world,
and the power by which Satan held men captive, are shewn to be of him; he
is judged. The power of the Holy Ghost is the testimony of this, and
surmounts all the powers of the enemy. The world is not yet judged, that
is, the judgment executed-it will be in another manner; but it is morally,
its prince is judged. All its motives, religious and irreligious, have led
it to reject Christ, placing it under Satan's power. It is in that
character that he has been judged; for he led the world against Him who is
manifested to be the Son of God by the presence of the Holy Ghost
consequent on His breaking the power of Satan in death.
All this took place through the presence on earth of the Holy Ghost, sent
down by Christ. His presence in itself was the demonstration of these three
things. For, if the Holy Ghost was here, it was because the world had
rejected the Son of God. Righteousness was evidenced by Jesus being at the
right hand of God, of which the presence of the Holy Ghost was the proof,
as well as in the fact that the world had lost Him. Now the world which
rejected Him was not outwardly judged, but, Satan having led it to reject
the Son, the presence of the Holy Ghost proved that Jesus had destroyed the
power of death; that he who had possessed that power was thus judged; that
he had shewn himself to be the enemy of Him whom the Father owned; that his
power was gone, and victory belonged to the Second Adam, when Satan's whole
power had been arrayed against the human weakness of Him who in love had
yielded to it. But Satan, thus judged, was the prince of this world.
The presence of the Holy Ghost should be the demonstration not of Christ's
rights as Messiah, true as they were, but of those truths that related to
man-to the world, in which Israel was now lost, having rejected the
promises, although God would preserve the nation for Himself. But the Holy
Ghost was doing something more than demonstrating the condition of the
world. He would accomplish a work in the disciples; He would lead them into
all truth, and He would shew them things to come; for Jesus had many things
to tell them which they were not yet able to bear. When the Holy Ghost
should be in them, He should be their strength in them as well as their
teacher; and it would be a wholly different state of things for the
disciples. Here He is considered as present on the earth in place of Jesus,
and dwelling in the disciples, not as an individual spirit speaking from
Himself, but even as Jesus said, "As I hear I judge," with a judgment
perfectly divine and heavenly: so the Holy Ghost, acting in the disciples,
would speak that which came from above, and of the future, according to
divine knowledge. It should be heaven and the future of which He would
speak, communicating what was heavenly from above, and revealing events to
come upon the earth, the one and the other being witnesses that it was a
knowledge which belonged to God. How blessed to have that which He has to
give!
But, further, He takes here the place of Christ. Jesus had glorified the
Father on earth. The Holy Ghost would glorify Jesus, with reference to the
glory that belonged to His Person and to His position. He does not here
speak directly of the glory of the Father. The disciples had seen the glory
of the life of Christ on earth; the Holy Ghost would unfold to them His
glory in that which belonged to Him as glorified with the Father-that which
was His own.
They would learn "in part." This is man's measure when the things of God
are in question, but its extent is declared by the Lord Himself: "He shall
glorify me, for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you. An
that the Father hath is mine: therefore, said I, He shall take of mine, and
shall shew it unto you."
Thus we have the gift of the Holy Ghost variously presented in connection
with Christ. In dependence on His Father, and representing His disciples as
gone up from among them, on their behalf, He addresses Himself to the
Father; He asks the Father to send the Holy Ghost (chap. 14: 16).
Afterwards we find that His own name is all powerful. All blessing from the
Father comes in His name. It is on His account, and according to the
efficacy of His name, of all that in Him is acceptable to the Father, that
good comes to us. Thus the Father will send the Holy Ghost in His name
(chap. 14: 26). And Christ being glorified on high, and having taken His
place with His Father, He Himself sends the Holy Ghost (chap. 15: 26) from
the Father, as proceeding from Him. Finally, the Holy Ghost is present here
in this world, in and with the disciples, and He glorifies Jesus, and takes
of His and reveals it to His own (chap. 16: 13-15). Here all the glory of
the Person of Christ is set forth, as well as the rights belonging to the
position He has taken. "All things that the Father hath" are His. He has
taken His position according to the eternal counsels of God, in virtue of
His work as Son of man. But if He has entered into possession in this
character, all that He possesses in it is His, as a Son to whom (being one
with the Father) all that the Father has belongs.
There He should be hidden for a while: the disciples should afterwards see
Him, for it was only the accomplishment of the ways of God; it was no
question of being, as it were, lost by death. He was going to His Father.
On this point the disciples understood nothing. The Lord develops the fact
and its consequences, without yet shewing them the whole import of what He
said. He takes it up on the human and historical side. The world would
rejoice at having got rid of Him. Miserable joy! The disciples would
lament, although it was the true source of joy for them; but their sorrow
should be turned into joy. As testimony, this took place when He shewed
Himself to them after His resurrection; it will be fully accomplished when
He shall return to receive them unto Himself. But when they had seen Him
again, they should understand the relationship in which He has placed them
with His Father, they should enjoy it by the Holy Ghost. It should not be
as though they could not themselves draw nigh to the Father, while Christ
could do so (as Martha said, "I know that whatsoever thou wilt ask of God,
he willgive it thee"). They might themselves go directly to the Father,
who loved them, because they had believed in Jesus, and had received Him
when He had humbled Himself in this world of sin (in principle it is always
thus); and asking what they would in His name they should receive it, so
that their joy might be full in the consciousness of the blessed position
of unfailing favour into which they were brought, and of the value of all
that they possessed in Christ.
Nevertheless the Lord already declares to them the basis of the truth-He
came from the Father, He was going away to the Father. The disciples think
they understand that which He had thus spoken without a parable. They felt
that He had divined their thought, for they had not expressed it to Him.
Yet they did not rise really to the height of what He said. He had told
them that they had believed in His having come "from God." This they
understood; and that which had taken place had confirmed them in this
faith, and they declare their conviction with regard to this truth; but
they do not enter into the thought of coming "from the Father," and going
away "to the Father." They fancied themselves quite in the light; but they
had apprehended nothing that raised them above the effect of Christ's
rejection, which the belief that He came from the Father and was going to
the Father would have done. Jesus therefore declares to them, that His
death would scatter them, and that they would forsake Him. His Father would
be with Him; He should not be alone. Nevertheless He had explained all
these things to them, in order that they should have peace in Him. In the
world that rejected Him they should have tribulation; but He had overcome
the world, they might be of good cheer.
This ends the conversation of Jesus with His disciples on earth. In the
following chapter He addresses His Father as taking His own place in
departing, and giving His disciples theirs (that is, His own), with regard
to the Father and to the world, after He had gone away to be glorified with
the Father. The whole chapter is essentially putting the disciples in His
own place, after laying the ground for it in His own glorifying and work.
It is, save the last verses, His place on earth. As He was divinely in
heaven, and so shewed a divine heavenly character on earth, so (He being
glorified as man in heaven) they, united with Him, were in turn to display
the same. Hence we have first the place He personally takes, and the work
which entitles them to be in it.
