Jesus keeps warning His disciples about what is coming — synagogues that will expel them, executioners who will think they are doing God a favor, a world that will hate them the way it hated Him. And in the same breath, He keeps promising exactly the opposite: a Comforter who will guide them into all truth, a sorrow that will flip into joy the way labor pains flip into the joy of a birth, and a peace strong enough to survive every bit of the tribulation He has just described. He ends with a claim that sounds almost absurd given what is about to happen to Him in a few hours: be of good cheer, He says. I have already overcome the world.
A study in John 16 · Arthur Baldwin · StandUp4Jesus.Org · 27 min read
It Is Expedient For You That I Go Away
“These things have I spoken unto you, that ye should not be offended. They shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service. And these things will they do unto you, because they have not known the Father, nor me.”
John 16:1-3
The worst part of coming persecution, Jesus warns, will not be recognizing it as evil. It will be watching people who sincerely believe they are serving God do it to you.
“Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you. And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment.”
John 16:7-8
“‘When He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment.’ The preaching of the word will be of no avail without the continual presence and aid of the Holy Spirit. This is the only effectual teacher of divine truth. Only when the truth is accompanied to the heart by the Spirit will it quicken the conscience or transform the life.”
Ellen G. White · The Desire of Ages, p. 671
The bluntest sermon in the world does not, by itself, change a single heart. Something has to open the door from the inside, and that is the work Jesus describes here as belonging entirely to the Spirit.
“Of sin, because they believe not on me; Of righteousness, because I go to my Father, and ye see me no more; Of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged.”
John 16:9-11
Each of the three convictions the Spirit brings points somewhere specific — unbelief points back to Christ Himself, righteousness points to His ascension to the Father, and judgment points to Satan’s own defeat, already settled even though it does not yet look that way.
Your Sorrow Shall Be Turned Into Joy
“I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come. He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you.”
John 16:12-14
“Jesus had opened before His disciples a vast tract of truth. But it was most difficult for them to keep His lessons distinct from the traditions and maxims of the scribes and Pharisees. … Jesus saw that they did not lay hold of the real meaning of His words. He compassionately promised that the Holy Spirit should recall these sayings to their minds.”
Ellen G. White · The Desire of Ages, p. 670
Jesus is not withholding truth to be mysterious. He is pacing it to what men exhausted by grief and fear can actually absorb in one sitting, trusting the rest to a Teacher who has not yet arrived.
“A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again, a little while, and ye shall see me, because I go to the Father. … They said therefore, What is this that he saith, A little while? we cannot tell what he saith.”
John 16:16-18
They will spend the next three days utterly confused by a sentence that, in hindsight, could not be simpler — the cross is the first “little while,” the resurrection is the second.
“Verily, verily, I say unto you, That ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice: and ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy. A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come: but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world. And ye now therefore have sorrow: but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you.”
John 16:20-22
He does not promise the sorrow will be avoided. He promises it will end in something the pain itself was actually working toward, the way labor is not a detour from birth but the very shape it takes.
I Came Forth From The Father
“And in that day ye shall ask me nothing. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you. Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full.”
John 16:23-24
A door that has stood closed their whole lives — direct access to the Father, in Christ’s own name — is about to swing open, and Jesus tells them so before it happens rather than leaving them to discover it on their own.
“These things have I spoken unto you in proverbs: but the time cometh, when I shall no more speak unto you in proverbs, but I shall shew you plainly of the Father. At that day ye shall ask in my name: and I say not unto you, that I will pray the Father for you: For the Father himself loveth you, because ye have loved me, and have believed that I came out from God.”
John 16:25-27
This is not a demotion of Christ’s own mediating work — it is a description of how completely the Father Himself already loves those who love the Son, with no reluctance for the Son to overcome on their behalf.
“I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world: again, I leave the world, and go to the Father.”
John 16:28
One sentence traces His whole mission from before Bethlehem to past Calvary — the same eternal Word this Gospel opened by naming, describing His own arrival and His own departure in a single breath.
Be Of Good Cheer; I Have Overcome The World
“His disciples said unto him, Lo, now speakest thou plainly, and speakest no proverb. Now are we sure that thou knowest all things, and needest not that any man should ask thee: by this we believe that thou camest forth from God. Jesus answered them, Do ye now believe?”
John 16:29-31
Their confidence is sincere, and Jesus’s question is not sarcasm. He knows exactly how fast that confidence is about to be tested, within the very hour.
“Behold, the hour cometh, yea, is now come, that ye shall be scattered, every man to his own, and shall leave me alone: and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me.”
John 16:32
“In their indignation and fear, Peter proposed that they save themselves. Following this suggestion, ‘they all forsook Him, and fled.’ But Christ had foretold this desertion, ‘Behold,’ He had said, ‘the hour cometh, yea, is now come, that ye shall be scattered, every man to his own, and shall leave Me alone: and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with Me.’”
Ellen G. White · The Desire of Ages, p. 697
This is not a guess about human weakness in general. Within hours, in a garden not far from where He is speaking, it happens exactly as He says, word for word.
“These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.”
John 16:33
“‘These things I have spoken unto you,’ He said, ‘that in Me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.’ Christ did not fail, neither was He discouraged, and His followers are to manifest a faith of the same enduring nature.”
Ellen G. White · The Desire of Ages, p. 679
Said before the arrest, before the trial, before the cross, “I have overcome” is not wishful thinking about a future victory. It is spoken in the past tense by the only Person in history entitled to speak of His own death that way, before it has even happened.
