(ii) ‘So I send you’—discourse B (John 15:1–16:33)

(ii)    ‘So I send you’—discourse B (15:1–16:33)

    [15:1] “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. [2] Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. [3] Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. [4] Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. [5] I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. [6] If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. [7] If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. [8] By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. [9] As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. [10] If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. [11] These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.
    [12] “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. [13] Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. [14] You are my friends if you do what I command you. [15] No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. [16] You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. [17] These things I command you, so that you will love one another.
    [18] “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. [19] If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. [20] Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. [21] But all these things they will do to you on account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me. [22] If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have been guilty of sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. [23] Whoever hates me hates my Father also. [24] If I had not done among them the works that no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin, but now they have seen and hated both me and my Father. [25] But the word that is written in their Law must be fulfilled: ‘They hated me without a cause.’
    [26] “But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me. [27] And you also will bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning.
    [16:1] “I have said all these things to you to keep you from falling away. [2] They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God. [3] And they will do these things because they have not known the Father, nor me. [4] But I have said these things to you, that when their hour comes you may remember that I told them to you.
    “I did not say these things to you from the beginning, because I was with you. [5] But now I am going to him who sent me, and none of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ [6] But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart. [7] Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. [8] And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment: [9] concerning sin, because they do not believe in me; [10] concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you will see me no longer; [11] concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.
    [12] “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. [13] When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. [14] He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. [15] All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.
    [16] “A little while, and you will see me no longer; and again a little while, and you will see me.” [17] So some of his disciples said to one another, “What is this that he says to us, ‘A little while, and you will not see me, and again a little while, and you will see me’; and, ‘because I am going to the Father’?” [18] So they were saying, “What does he mean by ‘a little while’? We do not know what he is talking about.” [19] Jesus knew that they wanted to ask him, so he said to them, “Is this what you are asking yourselves, what I meant by saying, ‘A little while and you will not see me, and again a little while and you will see me’? [20] Truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice. You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy. [21] When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world. [22] So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you. [23] In that day you will ask nothing of me. Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you. [24] Until now you have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.
    [25] “I have said these things to you in figures of speech. The hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figures of speech but will tell you plainly about the Father. [26] In that day you will ask in my name, and I do not say to you that I will ask the Father on your behalf; [27] for the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God. [28] I came from the Father and have come into the world, and now I am leaving the world and going to the Father.”
    [29] His disciples said, “Ah, now you are speaking plainly and not using figurative speech! [30] Now we know that you know all things and do not need anyone to question you; this is why we believe that you came from God.” [31] Jesus answered them, “Do you now believe? [32] Behold, the hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, each to his own home, and will leave me alone. Yet I am not alone, for the Father is with me. [33] I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”
(John 15-16 ESV)
Jesus’ second upper-room discourse is the last major teaching section in the gospel. The opening paragraph has been particularly popular with expositors over the centuries due to its arresting imagery. This very fascination awakens the danger of detaching it from its larger context, a danger which arises for these discourses in their entirety. The context, the post-Easter mission of the disciples, gives an impressive unity to this whole body of ‘upper-room’ teaching. Discourse A, which is primarily concerned with allaying the disciples’ fears, lays the foundation for their education in mission, the explicit centre in discourse B. Within discourse B Jesus does three things. First, he confronts the disciples (and ourselves) with the cruciality of mission, and some of the basic principles of its effective pursuance (15:1–17). Secondly, he warns about the cost of mission (15:18–16:4). Thirdly, he points to the resources available in the work of mission (16:5–33). This framework will not enclose all the strands in these chapters, but it does allow the major themes to be clearly expressed and creates a helpful unity overall.

[John, Page 219]

    1. The cruciality of mission and principles of effective mission (15:1–17).

[15:1] “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. [2] Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. [3] Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. [4] Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. [5] I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. [6] If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. [7] If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. [8] By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. [9] As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. [10] If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. [11] These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.
    [12] “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. [13] Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. [14] You are my friends if you do what I command you. [15] No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. [16] You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. [17] These things I command you, so that you will love one another.
    [18] “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. [19] If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. [20] Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. [21] But all these things they will do to you on account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me. [22] If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have been guilty of sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. [23] Whoever hates me hates my Father also. [24] If I had not done among them the works that no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin, but now they have seen and hated both me and my Father. [25] But the word that is written in their Law must be fulfilled: ‘They hated me without a cause.’
    [26] “But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me. [27] And you also will bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning.
   

The earliest indication of the coming ‘disciple mission’ was noted at 13:20. Its full statement occurs in 17:18 and 20:21. Its centrality for this discourse is signalled at 14:31. Dodd notes that in normal Greek usage this phrase implied, ‘Let us go to meet the advancing enemy,’49 a meaning exactly right for this setting. Jesus has just asserted that ‘the prince of this world is coming’. They now go to engage him. It is a call to arms. ‘The gracious indwelling of God with his people is not an invitation to settle down and forget the rest of the world: it is a summons to mission, for the Lord who dwells with his people is the one who goes before them in the pillar of fire and cloud.’50
    The image of the vine serves the ‘mission’ theme in two important ways. In the first place, it was the supreme symbol of Israel. A great golden vine trailed over the temple porch, and the coinage minted in Israel during the revolt against Rome (AD 68–70) also bore a vine symbol. The Old Testament has many pertinent allusions.51 Possibly the most important in connection with Jesus’ claim, I am the true vine (1), is Psalm 80, which blends talk of Israel as ‘the vine out of Egypt’ (Ps. 80:8) with ‘the son of man you have raised up for yourself’ (Ps. 80:17).
    But the vine ‘is burned with fire’ (Ps. 80:16). Israel has failed God in the long-term role she was called to fulfil, that of being ‘a light for the Gentiles’ (Is. 49:6), to bring God’s salvation ‘to the ends of the earth’. ‘The election of Israel coincides with God’s promise of blessing for the nations’ (H. H. Rowley). Israel, however, was more attracted by the gods of the surrounding nations than by her potential for penetrating them as a missionary. Her centuries-long declension from God’s purpose now reaches its nadir in the rejection and crucifying of the Messiah and the repudiation of the kingship of God (19:15). But God’s purpose, from which Israel turns in final apostasy, does not fall to the ground. It is grasped anew by the one who stands in the midst of Israel, and among the disciples. In contrast to the vine which has destroyed itself by disobedience, Jesus is ‘the true vine’. He is the obedient Son through whose sacrifice and consequent mission the age-old purpose of Israel would find fulfilment, the nations would be reached, and ‘all the families of the earth shall bless themselves’ (Gn. 12:3).
    The image of the vine has a second, less theological, pointer to mission. The vine is an essentially utilitarian plant; it exists to bear [John, Page 220] fruit. Temple eloquently portrays the fruit-bearing function of the vine. ‘The vine lives to give its life-blood. Its flower is small, its fruit abundant, and when that fruit is mature and the vine has become, for a moment, glorious, the treasure of the grapes is torn down and the vine is cut right back to the stem.’52 This function is reflected in Jesus’ stress on fruit-bearing (explicitly in verses 2, 4–5, 8, 16). We should therefore beware of interpretations of this passage which concentrate solely on our inward relationship with the Lord. Its real thrust is the renewal of the mission of Israel through Jesus the Messiah and the disciple community. While more ‘subjective’ aspects are not entirely absent (cf. Jesus’ references to ‘love’ and ‘obedience’ to his commands; 10, 12, 17), the primary focus remains bracingly objective and missionary. Jesus by his exaltation in death and resurrection will be removed tangibly from the world. The disciples are sent into the world, as was Jesus, to carry on the task in his ‘absence’. That is the principal implication of Jesus’ saying, I am the vine; you are the branches (5).
    The purpose of this fruit-bearing function is stated—this is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit (8). This links with 13:31, the statement which is the ‘text’ of these entire discourses: ‘Now is the Son of Man glorified and God is glorified in him.’ The ultimate purpose of the coming of Jesus, viz. the glorifying of the Father (12:28; 17:4; etc.), is realized primarily through the effective mission of the disciple community. ‘The fruitfulness of believers is part and parcel of the way the Son glorifies the Father.’53 To seek the glory of God will therefore imply a commitment to mission, and, not least, world mission. As elsewhere in the New Testament, worship and evangelism become one.54 Further, it is by involvement in mission and becoming ‘fruit-bearers’ that we show ourselves to be authentic disciples (8). ‘True grace is never idle.’55
    Having clarified the centrality of mission, Jesus identifies the secrets of effective mission.
    ‘Pruning’ by the Father (2) is the first secret. The ministry of the Father as the vine-dresser is a double one. ‘The vine-dresser does two things to ensure that there will be as much fruit as possible—in the winter, he cuts off the dry and withered branches and in the spring he removes the rank and useless growths from the branches.’56 The Greek actually plays on similar-sounding verbs for the two functions. Newbigin suggests that some branches he ‘clears off’, and some he ‘cleans up’ (p. 197).
    The more drastic case is referred to again in verse 6: branches [John, Page 221] which do not remain in me and end up in the fire. Jesus may have in mind the tragic case of Judas, who had appeared as a branch indistinguishable from the others, but the coming of the winter frosts of temptation exposed him as a withered and dead branch, fit only to be ‘thrown away’. Within every disciple community there are probably those who at the last will be exposed as dead branches. Let each one make his or her ‘calling and election sure’ (2 Pet. 1:10).
    The Father’s other, positive function is to prune the branches to make them more fruitful (2). The following verse (3) refers to the cleansing, purging effect of Christ’s word. That word now embedded in the corpus of Scripture is God’s primary means of pruning disciples’ lives. As that word works in us we become in a new way attractive and authentic in our Christian living and witness.
    In his pruning the Father also uses hard circumstances and trials. None of these appear ‘pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest’ (Heb. 12:11). ‘Pain produces’ is one of the primary laws of spiritual growth. It is a commonplace both of horticulture and of Christian experience that the harder the pruning, the greater the fragrance and beauty which will later be released. Our heavenly Father is hungry for fruit from his vine, and in order to produce it will often in his pruning cut deeper than we should ever have chosen. At the harvest, however, both ‘the sower and the reaper may be glad together’! (4:36).
    The second secret of effective mission is to remain in me, the Son (4, 5). Jesus had earlier encouraged the disciples by speaking of the wonderful new relationship with him which will be theirs through the agency of the Holy Spirit after his exaltation (14:20). Here he teaches them that their relationship with him is also fundamental to fruit-bearing. Indeed, no branch can bear fruit by itself (4). Fruit-bearing for God is not a human possibility; it is Christ’s work through us. The alternatives are starkly expressed: separate from Christ, ‘no fruit’; united to Christ, much fruit (5). A continual dependence upon a living Saviour, ‘communing’ with him through the Holy Spirit, and submission to him in all things—these are the characteristics of a life in which God is glorified through the bearing of fruit to his praise.
    Jesus makes clear, however, that this relationship is a moral one (cf. 10, if you obey my commands, you will remain in my love). Jesus here draws a parallel between our ‘remaining’ in him and his ‘remaining in the Father’, a relationship characterized in his case by obedience. ‘Remaining’ is conditional upon ‘obeying’. ‘Abiding (or remaining) in Christ’ must not be reduced to a subjective, mystical, inner state. The mark of an abiding heart is not only, or even principally, a sense of inward serenity, but a ‘conscience clear [John, Page 222] before God and man’ (Acts 24:16). It is allowing Jesus’ words to remain in us (7).
    This obedience is not, however, a grim, forbidding thing, I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete (11). To submit to Christ is no hardship. Rather is it the road to liberation. It therefore brings joy, the joy of Christ’s presence welling up in our hearts (1 Pet. 1:8). The reference to joy in the context of the vine image is appropriate, for, as Newbigin observes, ‘the “fruit of the vine” is celebrated in the Psalms as that which God has given “to gladden the heart of man”.’57 But again it is joy with a moral basis, the joy of submission and wholehearted obedience. The connection with fruit-bearing is obvious, for the joy of the Lord in the lives of his people is supremely attractive to the non-Christian world.
    In emphasing the missionary perspective of this section, however, we must not over-press this application. ‘Fruit-bearing’ is primarily here the winning of the lost, but it is not exclusively so. In Isaiah chapter 5 the same imagery is applied to social justice (Is. 5:7). Nor can we forget Paul’s employment of it in Galatians 5:22: ‘the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control’. The fruit-bearing which glorifies the Father, and is the product of ‘pruning’ and ‘remaining’, is finally inclusive of all the works, graces and ministries of the living Lord in his people. Wherever the Son is seen the harvest has ripened and the Father is glorified.
    The third secret of mission is praying in Jesus’ name (7, 16). The range of the promise is remarkable: whatever you wish (7), whatever you ask (16). At first sight this seems a surprising relinquishment of responsibility on the part of the Lord of the mission. But there is a condition—if you remain in me (7). When we ‘remain in Christ’ we are in such harmony with God’s purpose that the yearning of our hearts accords with his divine concerns and so prayer is answered ‘according to his will’ (1 Jn. 5:14).
    Prayer is crucial to the effective mission of the people of God. Sadly, the truth of many churches is expressed in a penetrating sentence in James 4:2, ‘You do not have, because you do not ask God.’ Not that prayer is a talisman which in itself ensures successful, fruit-bearing mission. There is prayer and prayer. Jesus acknowledges elsewhere the possibility of ‘vain repetition’ (Mt. 6:7, AV). But where hearts are set to conform to his will, and open to share his yearning for the world, prayer’s potential is limitless. In the work of mission, the church advances on its knees.

[John, Page 223]

    A fourth secret is love for fellow disciples (9–10; 12–17).58 A Christ-like love between Christians is a further fundamental of effective mission. We noted that ‘only Christ can draw others to Christ’, but Christ is revealed when his people love one another. The meaning of love is again spelled out. We are to love as I have loved you. The verb here is surprisingly in the aorist tense, implying a completed action. ‘So imminently does the cross stand in view.’59 His love is demonstrated in his laying down his life for his friends (13). Hence, by implication, ‘we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers’ (and sisters; 1 Jn. 3:16).
    No greater dignity could be conferred upon us, or greater evidence of love shown us, than Christ’s dying for us. Indeed, we are no longer servants but friends (15). The proof of this divine friendship is not only the cross on which he died, but the truth which he has revealed. I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you (15). His truth shared is an evidence of his love given. Never were friends so generously provided for, or so signally honoured. ‘There is nobody so rich, so strong, so independent, so well off, so thoroughly provided for, as the person of whom Christ says, “This is my friend.” ’60 Nor is this remote from the work of mission, for when the dignity of our status as the friends of Jesus is imprinted on our hearts, we shall be more effective ambassadors for our Lord and Master. And what better inducement to share the gospel with others than the recognition that he offers them also the supreme honour of becoming the friends of Jesus (14).
    Lest all this should create an undue self-importance, Jesus reminds the disciples of their election. You did not choose me, but I chose you (16). Their standing and relationship with him is a matter of grace. Therein, however, lies the ultimate encouragement in mission. We go, not because we are worthy, or equipped, or attractive, or skilled, or experienced, or in any way suitable and appropriate. We go because we have been summoned and sent. Since he has called us he will equip and enable us for our witness. As with Israel his choice is with a view to service. We are chosen to go and bear fruit.
    Their being chosen is followed by their being ‘set apart’ (16). NIV omits this, seeing the verb for ‘set apart’ as simply a repetition of ‘choose’. This is unfortunate as the verb is clearly distinct. It is used in verse 13 for Jesus’ ‘setting apart’ his life for us. It has other New Testament usage in the context of people being set apart for special service within the church (Acts 13:46–47; 1 Tim. 1:12). [John, Page 224] Formal ‘ordination’ need not be exclusively in mind, although Jesus does appear to be thinking of a specific occasion when God’s choice results in acknowledgment and submission. During times of testing which inevitably arise in the course of mission, and which Jesus warns about in the following paragraph, such ‘ordination’ moments have a ministry of reassurance.
    The quality of the fruit should also be noted: fruit that will last (16). Such fruit honours God. It is a mark of a worldly church and of a worldly discipleship when we are content with short-lived ‘fruit’ that feeds the fallen appetite for praise, but effects no long-term changes. That there are those who respond with a sudden burst of enthusiasm and then die away is, as Jesus himself acknowledges, a regrettable fact of human nature and missionary experience (Mt. 13:20–21; cf. Jn. 6:66). The fruit that honours God is the fruit that will last, and bring glory to the Father and the Son on the coming harvest day. For such fruit we need have no hesitation to pray (16).


    2.  The opposition to mission (15:18–16:4).

    [18] “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. [19] If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. [20] Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. [21] But all these things they will do to you on account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me. [22] If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have been guilty of sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. [23] Whoever hates me hates my Father also. [24] If I had not done among them the works that no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin, but now they have seen and hated both me and my Father. [25] But the word that is written in their Law must be fulfilled: ‘They hated me without a cause.’
    [26] “But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me. [27] And you also will bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning.
    [16:1] “I have said all these things to you to keep you from falling away. [2] They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God. [3] And they will do these things because they have not known the Father, nor me. [4] But I have said these things to you, that when their hour comes you may remember that I told them to you.
    “I did not say these things to you from the beginning, because I was with you.
(John 15:18-16:4 ESV)

Jesus now focuses on the context in which the disciples’ mission must be conducted—the identical context to his own, viz. the world. In its rebellion against God, the world has rejected Jesus, and because their mission is the continuation of his, they can expect no different treatment. The context of mission is opposition. ‘Mission sooner or later leads into passion … Every form of mission leads to some form of cross … the very shape of mission is cruciform. We can understand it only in terms of the Cross.… ’61
    Jesus says at least four things about this opposition to the disciples’ mission.
    Opposition is, first, inevitable (18–25). Jesus does not want disciples under false pretensions (4). As a teacher who is the embodiment of integrity he wants every disciple to be clear about the cost of bearing Jesus’ name in a sinful world. The opposition has three sources.
    One is the disciples’ new nature (19). Christ died for the world and the Father still loves it, but it remains in a state of spiritual rebellion against him. If we were still of the world we would be ‘loved’ by it because the world, not surprisingly, loves its own kind (19). But we have been chosen … out of the world (19) and are not part of the opposition. We are from a different place and are going to a different place and so we are ‘hated’ rather than loved (19).
    A second source of opposition is our association with Jesus (21). [John, Page 225] As disciples we share his life. Hence the way the world treats Jesus will be the way it treats us. He cites again the principle stated in 13:16, No servant is greater than his master.… Earlier it had meant being committed to humble service one of another. Here it means being ready to be persecuted. True, some did submit to Jesus’ words, and we too will have some positive response (20), but in general the results will be no different. Being identified with Jesus makes opposition inevitable. ‘God has called you to Christ’s side, and the wind is now in Christ’s face in this land; and since you are with him you cannot expect the sheltered or the sunny side of the hill.’62 Jesus is implying that the opposition comes not because people do not recognize Christ in us but precisely because, intuitively, they do. The world still crucifies Jesus.
    A third source of opposition is our exposure of evil. Jesus disclosed evil during his ministry by his words (22) and his works, including his miracles (24). He is the light of the world by whose coming the shameful deeds of darkness are exposed (3:19–20). As Christians we are called to be ‘the light of the world’ (Mt. 5:14–16). If we are living consistent lives our ‘works’ and ‘words’ will regularly contradict the lifestyles of those around us. By our code of practice in the workplace, by our attitudes to work, by our personal ethical standards, by our life-goals and values, we shall inevitably, without consciously setting out to do so, expose the unfruitful works of darkness (Eph. 5:11). Like our Master, the integrity of our speech, our unwillingness to spread slander, our words of kindness and forgiveness, will at times provoke opposition. Shakespeare’s Iago says of Cassio, ‘He hath a daily beauty in his life that makes me ugly.’ It can be a short step from that to hatred.
    The world’s reaction to Jesus and his disciples is its judgment. In the coming of the light the darkness is opened to view. Here is disclosed the irrationality of evil, its foul perversity. The only perfect life of love ever lived ends on a gibbet. They have no excuse (22). In words of Ignatius of Antioch, writing a few decades after John, ‘Christianity is not a matter of persuasiveness, but of true greatness when it is hated by the world.’
    Secondly, Jesus teaches that opposition to the disciples’ mission may be terrible (16:2). Since the treatment of Jesus is the standard for the treatment of his disciples the opposition may take the form of murder. The first-century Christians to whom John wrote had already experienced that. During the succeeding years of the Roman empire, men, women and even children would at different times be hounded, abused, beaten, tortured in the most appalling ways [John, Page 226] and slaughtered by the thousand, at times with a refinement of cruelty which numbs the mind.
    Martyrdom for Christ, however, is not confined to the first century. Indeed, by any estimate the supreme century of the martyrs for Jesus has been our own one. It is estimated that in the twentieth century to date somewhere in the region of 26 million Christians have lost their lives for Christ’s sake, in places like China, the Soviet bloc, Cambodia, Mozambique, Angola, Ethiopia and Uganda.63 Faced with Jesus’ teaching and these contemporary realities, those who profess Christ’s name in the comfortable West need to hear the words of Yugoslavian evangelical leader Peter Kusmic. ‘So much popular Western evangelical religiosity is so shallow and selfish. It promises so much and demands so little. It offers success, personal happiness, peace of mind, material prosperity; but it hardly speaks of repentance, sacrifice, self-denial, holy lifestyle and willingness to die for Christ.’64 Every reader of this commentary, along with its author, needs to face the question soberly—am I ready to die for Christ? It is not a theoretical question: Jesus has the clear right to ask it of us, and he gives no guarantee that he will not. Following Jesus is not a game.

[John, Page 227]

    Jesus teaches further that opposition to the disciples’ mission may be respectable (16:2). He recognizes a variety of motives in those who will oppose the Christian mission. One is religion. Jesus is referring to official Jewish opposition in particular. Rabbinic citations from the first century show that his assessment was well founded; cf. ‘everyone who pours out the blood of the godless is like one who offers a sacrifice.’65 By the time John wrote, his readers, if they were Jews by upbringing, were faced with expulsion from the synagogue and possibly worse if they committed themselves to Jesus Christ. In our own time Muslim fundamentalists among others have authorized persecution of Christians, which is motivated by a concern for God’s name. Sadly, in the centuries which followed the writing of this gospel, Christians, or at least those nominally identified with Christ, were to repay the persecution at the hands of the Jews with interest many times over.
    The principle, however, needs to be recognized. Not all who oppose the missionary witnesses of Jesus are depraved, half-crazed persecutors brandishing machine guns. They may be outwardly fine people, upright, high-minded and with religious scruples, like a Jewish Pharisee in the first century named Saul from Tarsus. But they are nonetheless enemies of Christ until they, like Paul, find mercy (cf. 1 Tim. 1:13–16).
    Finally, Jesus urges that opposition to the disciples’ mission is nonetheless endurable. It is so for at least three reasons. The first is because God remains Lord in spite of it. That is the force of the citation of Scripture in verse 25. Centuries before, the Word of God had anticipated this very opposition. It is ‘to fulfil what is written in their Law’, i.e. the very Scriptures which the Jews revere and profess to follow prophesied their rejection.
    Opposition is also endurable because in the midst of it we experience ‘the fellowship of [Christ’s] sufferings’ (Phil. 3:10, cf. 19). ‘The implacable hatred of the world for the friends of Jesus is the sign of the verity of that friendship.’66 In our experience of persecution, however slight, we are assured of Christ’s presence. The mission is his through us and hence to suffer for him is in the end to suffer with him. This is the clear implication of Jesus’ words to Saul on the Damascus road (Acts 9:4), ‘why do you persecute me?’ (my italics). ‘The persecution of Christians is not only patterned after the persecution of Jesus, but the persecution of Christians is the persecution of Jesus.’67 Such has been the testimony of those who have suffered for Christ in every generation. Let Yosif Bondarenko speak for many. He was imprisoned by the Soviet [John, Page 228] authorities for nine years in Riga, Latvia, for preaching Christ. During a moment of deep personal crisis in his confinement cell, he recalls that ‘suddenly I saw a light in the darkness of my cell, and in the light two hands reaching out to me; I saw they were the hands of Jesus.’
    Again, opposition is endurable because our being opposed is a confirmation of our belonging to Christ (19). The attitude of the world to the Christian disciple is evidence that we have indeed been ‘chosen out of the world’ to belong to him. ‘Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven’ (Mt. 5:11–12).
    Moreover, we are able to endure because the Holy Spirit also testifies with us (26). Jesus will teach more fully about the resource of the Holy Spirit in the following paragraph. Here we note that our witness to Jesus in the world is not the primary one. The Spirit’s witness precedes ours (26). Our witness to an individual is neither the first witness borne to them nor the most important. It is not ‘all up to us’. This is not an argument for reneging on Christ’s command to be his witnesses, you also must testify (27), but it is to recognize, particularly when we are being opposed, and when our witness seems dismissed out of hand, that God the Holy Spirit is the great senior partner in the work. Not only can he sustain us in face of the opposition, but he can work in the heart even of persecutors like Saul of Tarsus, and turn them to Christ. He can do it even if our witness, like that of Stephen, has apparently been fruitless and ineffectual (Acts 7:54–58; 22:20).
    This leadership of the Spirit needs to be underlined. ‘The Spirit is not the Church’s auxiliary. The promise made here is not to a Church which is powerful and “successful” in a worldly sense. It is made to a Church which shares the tribulation and humiliation of Jesus, a tribulation which arises from faithfulness to the truth in a world which is dominated by the lie. The promise is that, exactly in this tribulation and humiliation, the mighty Spirit of God will bear his own witness to the crucified Jesus as Lord and Giver of life.’68 

    [16:1] “I have said all these things to you to keep you from falling away. [2] They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God. [3] And they will do these things because they have not known the Father, nor me. [4] But I have said these things to you, that when their hour comes you may remember that I told them to you.
    “I did not say these things to you from the beginning, because I was with you. [5] But now I am going to him who sent me, and none of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ [6] But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart. [7] Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. [8] And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment: [9] concerning sin, because they do not believe in me; [10] concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you will see me no longer; [11] concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.
    [12] “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. [13] When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. [14] He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. [15] All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.
    [16] “A little while, and you will see me no longer; and again a little while, and you will see me.” [17] So some of his disciples said to one another, “What is this that he says to us, ‘A little while, and you will not see me, and again a little while, and you will see me’; and, ‘because I am going to the Father’?” [18] So they were saying, “What does he mean by ‘a little while’? We do not know what he is talking about.” [19] Jesus knew that they wanted to ask him, so he said to them, “Is this what you are asking yourselves, what I meant by saying, ‘A little while and you will not see me, and again a little while and you will see me’? [20] Truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice. You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy. [21] When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world. [22] So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you. [23] In that day you will ask nothing of me. Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you. [24] Until now you have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.
    [25] “I have said these things to you in figures of speech. The hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figures of speech but will tell you plainly about the Father. [26] In that day you will ask in my name, and I do not say to you that I will ask the Father on your behalf; [27] for the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God. [28] I came from the Father and have come into the world, and now I am leaving the world and going to the Father.”
    [29] His disciples said, “Ah, now you are speaking plainly and not using figurative speech! [30] Now we know that you know all things and do not need anyone to question you; this is why we believe that you came from God.” [31] Jesus answered them, “Do you now believe? [32] Behold, the hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, each to his own home, and will leave me alone. Yet I am not alone, for the Father is with me. [33] I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”
(John 15-16 ESV)

    3.  The resources which God makes available for the work of mission (16:5–33). In view of the enormous challenge identified in these last verses the disciples are again in urgent need of encouragement. Their deepest concern continues to be the prospect of Jesus’ departure (5–6), re-awakened no doubt by his warnings about coming opposition from the world. Jesus therefore concludes his discourse with an exposition of the resources available to them in his service. We can broadly distinguish two aspects as far as [John, Page 229] resources are concerned, though the two are inseparable. They are the Spirit (5–15) and the Son (16–33).
    First, the gift of the Spirit (16:5–15). The essence of the disciples’ mission is to ‘do the work of an evangelist’, to proclaim the good news of Jesus to the world.69 In this task the disciples will not be alone. The Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, will also be at work ‘testifying’ to Jesus (15:26–27). He will in fact be the real evangelist; he is ‘God the Evangelist’.70 Jesus now expounds the evangelistic ministry of the Spirit. It encloses three basic elements: preaching (5–7); counselling (8–11); and discipling (12–16).
    Preaching (5–7). Jesus has chided the disciples for not asking him about his destination (5). In a sense they have already done so, of course (cf. 13:36), so we must presume either that the earlier query had been only cursory, or, more probably, that it is now obliterated from their minds due to their personal anxiety about Jesus being taken from them. Either way, they need to stop focusing on themselves and consider what Jesus’ going away will mean for him. Immediately they do so they will find encouragement because his going away will permit the coming of the Holy Spirit (7).
    Unless I go away, the Counsellor (the Holy Spirit) will not come to you (7) is a crucial saying for an understanding of the Spirit’s work. Jesus is not implying that the two persons of the Godhead cannot be co-present. The triunity of God means that both (all three) persons are always co-present. The crucial phrase is go away. This is not so much a spatial movement as a spiritual exaltation. Jesus will now ‘go away’ through death and resurrection to the glory of the Father’s presence! It is this going away which will make the ministry of the Spirit possible, and, in default of this going away, the Spirit’s ministry is rendered impossible. The ministry of the Spirit is accordingly not a vague impartation of spiritual energy, but the specific ministry of proclaiming, and applying to the disciple community, the triumphant procession of Jesus through death and resurrection to the right hand of the Father. The ministry of the Spirit is the unleashing of the powers of the promised kingdom of God in the world. The effects of the kingdom’s coming are clear in the Old Testament.71 These realities will now be actualized through them in the world. It therefore is for your good that Jesus departs, since his departure will obtain these promised blessings.
    Like John the Baptist ‘who was sent … as a witness to testify concerning that light’ (1:6), the Holy Spirit will testify to the good [John, Page 230] news of the death and resurrection of Jesus, proclaiming it like a preacher (14). Unlike John the Baptist, however, he will not only point to Jesus but will bring him to them (17–33). He will not only proclaim the coming of the kingdom but actually impart it. The Spirit’s preaching will be incomparable, like that of Jesus, whose ‘word was with power’ (Lk. 4:32, AV).
    Counselling (8–11). This ‘evangelist’ is unique. As we have noted, he imparts as well as proclaims. He does not remain in a pulpit or behind a podium, but comes down among the congregation. This ‘coming down’ is the Spirit’s ministry in the world, i.e. in the hearts of the listening, and in this case, unbelieving, congregation (8f.). He is an evangelist who also does the counselling, by applying his message personally to his hearers. Specifically, the Spirit will convict the world of guilt (8). The verb literally means ‘to show someone his sin and summon him to repentance’.72 ‘Expose’ is probably the best single term. The force is caught in 3:20, ‘Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed’ (my emphasis).
    This exposure will be with reference to three realities: sin, righteousness and judgment (8). In relation to sin, the Spirit will expose guilt, because men do not believe in me (9; cf. 1:11; 3:19; 15:22). The guilt which the Spirit exposes is that hidden guilt which we refuse to own up to, even to the point of crucifying God’s Son rather than admitting it (because they do not believe in me). This ‘exposing’ ministry of the Spirit occurred classically at Pentecost. ‘Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God … as you yourselves know’, and ‘they were cut to the heart’ (Acts 2:22, 37). The Holy Spirit, working through the preaching of Peter, brought to the surface their suppressed resistance to the light of the world, the rebellious refusal to trust in him as Saviour and Lord. Sin, at root, is a refusal of grace, the proud titanic assertion that we can atone for ourselves.
    In relation to righteousness the Holy Spirit will expose the guilt of the human heart, because I am going to the Father (10). The death and resurrection of Jesus (by which he goes to the Father) vindicate Jesus as the Righteous One of God. The Jewish authorities claimed that executing Jesus would be a ‘righteous’ act. ‘It is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish’ (11:50). It was ‘better’ since it preserved the nation, and with it the temple worship and the sacred law. It was therefore a ‘righteous act’, even ‘offering a service to God’ (2). But all the while, their hearts spoke another language.
    The Holy Spirit will expose this suppressed guilt, as he did at [John, Page 231] Pentecost: ‘you … put him to death … But God raised him from the dead,’ and ‘God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ’ (Acts 2:24, 36). ‘They were cut to the heart’ (Acts 2:37). Jesus’ going to the Father, a journey proved by the resurrection, exposed their guilt in having him crucified. Thus their flimsy claim to ‘righteousness’ is torn aside, as are all standards of ‘righteousness’ which rationalize our guilty rebellion against God, and our refusal to acknowledge Jesus as the Righteous One, the embodiment of everlasting righteousness.
    The Spirit exposes the guilt of the human heart in respect of judgment (11), because the prince of this world now stands condemned. The Jews submitted Jesus to the process of a legal tribunal and sought to pass judgment upon him. The Spirit in testifying to the gospel shows that the one judged on the cross was Satan, and with him all who are his children and slaves (8:42–47). The devil ‘has no hold’ on Jesus (14:30) and so was ‘driven out’ (12:31) by the perfect obedience of Jesus. He now stands condemned, anticipating his final ‘driving out’ at the last judgment (Rev. 20:10).
    Thus at Pentecost they who accused (Acts 2:23, 36) now accuse themselves (Acts 2:37), and can only ask in despair, ‘Brothers, what shall we do?’ (37). The cross for them, as for the devil, was the decisive moment of judgment. They now have no standing with God and no means of atonement. They are under judgment and without hope. To them the Spirit brings the answer of the sheer grace of God, unearned and unsought, ‘Repent and be baptised,… in the name of Jesus Christ’ (Acts 2:38).
    In these ways the Holy Spirit, like a personal counsellor, applies the good news of Jesus to the hearts of individuals. ‘Once more we see that the Spirit is not the domesticated auxiliary of the Church, he is the powerful advocate who goes before the Church to bring the world under conviction.’73
    These three ideas, sin, righteousness and judgment, belong to the common stock of ethical concepts which jostle in today’s pluralistic society. In the prevailing relativistic atmosphere, ethical absolutes are dismissed. People claim the right to determine for themselves what will count as sin, what will be their standard of righteousness, and where judgment has, or has not, been properly expressed. Jesus, through the Holy Spirit’s witness, challenges this ethical autonomy, uncovers the rebellion against God which underlies it, and confronts the world with the true character of sin, the true meaning of righteousness and the true place of judgment. Through the Spirit of God the human heart is summoned to repentance and then offered the salvation which is life indeed.

[John, Page 232]

    Discipling (12–16). Finally, this evangelist is also a discipler, so that the ‘follow-up’ ministry is also engaged. The Holy Spirit as the Spirit of truth will guide into all truth (13). In essence this is a reportorial ministry: he will speak only what he hears. Jesus cannot say everything they need to hear at this point, since they are in no position to receive or grasp it. Later they will be, and the Spirit will share Jesus’ words with them. This promise is made to the apostles as the assurance of a special future ministry of the Spirit, which will bring to completion the truth Jesus wants his disciples in every generation to know. Thus the Spirit will unfold what is yet to come (13), including ‘the total revelatory and redemptive work of Jesus in his ministry, death and resurrection, sending of the Spirit of the Kingdom, and the consummation of life and judgment at the end.’74 In view of subsequent claims to the Spirit’s revelation through church tradition and the like it needs to be clearly recognized that this promise applies primarily and uniquely to the apostles. The ‘you’ of 14:26, as here at 16:13, refers to that special inspiration of the apostles which enabled the composition of the books of the New Testament, not least this Gospel of John.
    The Holy Spirit’s ministry as the teacher of his converts today consists essentially in leading them to understand and apply the normative truths of Scripture. Although this ministry is not innovative in the terms of his earlier enlightenment of the apostles, it is nonetheless a glorious and powerful ‘discipling’ function which will bring glory to Jesus by unveiling the greatness and fullness of his salvation (14). The Father has put everything at Jesus’ disposal (5:19–20) and now the Spirit will share that fullness with his disciples (15).
    The second resource which God provides for us is the gift of the Son (16:16–33). The work of the Spirit culminates in his glorifying Jesus through ‘taking from what is mine and making it known to you’ (14). In context this refers to the truth of Jesus which the Spirit will share with the disciples after his exaltation. But Jesus teaches that it has another and greater dimension, for the Spirit will share not only Christ’s truth but Christ himself! You will see me (16). Jesus’ absence will be only for a little while. He who is leaving will return! Of all the resources made available to the church in its mission none is comparable to this; Jesus himself is among us!75 The mission is his, not ours. We go forth not so much for him as with him; and that means joy.

[John, Page 233]

    In this section we can distinguish three reasons for our joy, which are at the same time ways in which Jesus is our mission resource.
    First, we have Jesus’ personal presence (16–22). When a great leader passes from the human scene we are left with a store of memories and the treasured memorials of his or her life (such as desk, books, slippers, or handwriting), to be guarded and displayed, amid the pathos of the leader’s absence. Jesus, the supreme leader, is different; he has not left us! Like the grieving of Mary and Martha, the disciples’ sorrow would turn into joy, for Jesus would come back to them.
    Interpreters divide over what he meant when referring to their seeing him (16). We can perhaps be forgiven our uncertainty since clearly the disciples were not a little confused! (17–19). Many, following Augustine and, later, Calvin, see the second little while (16) as a reference to the age of the church, the present period in redemptive history, and hence Jesus’ statement, then … you will see me, refers to his visibility at his glorious return. Many more recent scholars prefer to interpret the saying as a promise of his return to the disciples after the resurrection. It is certainly notable that the little while in the former case (16a) was only a matter of hours, the time between his present speaking with them and their last sight of him in the Garden of Gethsemane. Hence the second little while is arguably also a short time, the two to three days until Easter Sunday evening and their ‘seeing’ him as the risen Lord.
    Jesus captures the experience of the disciples in a vivid parable, which has Old Testament echoes—a woman in childbirth whose pain is transformed into joy at the coming forth of her child (21). The clearest Old Testament passage is Isaiah 26:16–21,76 which combines a reference to ‘a little while’ with a clear anticipation of the resurrection of the dead. This transformation from pain into wondering joy is repeated daily around the world in every hospital delivery room, and every home where a baby is safely born. It is an elemental human joy which can be known fully only by those who have endured the pain and experienced the subsequent relief and exultation. This, says Jesus, is the condition of the disciple after the resurrection. ‘In whom … believing, [you] rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory’ (1 Pet. 1:8, AV).
    Because the presence of Christ is rooted in the resurrection, an event which has happened in history and which therefore can never be undone, it is a joy no-one will take away from us (22). No power in heaven, earth, or hell can separate us from the love, and the presence, of the Risen One. ‘You may take away from me my [John, Page 234] life, but you can never take Christ from my heart.’77
    This wonderful promise, ‘I will see you,’ is given to those to whom he was shortly to say, ‘As the Father has sent me, I am sending you’ (20:21). The enjoyment of his presence is bound up with mission in his name. At this point mission merges imperceptibly into celebration. Those who long for a deeper experience of the presence of Christ may find here the road to that blessing, a new commitment to serve the world in his name. He is the Lord of the mission and is to be found still at the frontiers where his people confront and minister to the wounds of the world.
    Secondly, we have Jesus’ boundless provision (23–28). Jesus mentions a further source of joy, answered prayer (24). Until this point the disciples have brought their requests directly to Jesus and have been encouraged by his prayers for them to the Father. With his ‘going away’ the entire terms of their relationship with the Father will be changed. By his death and rising he will remove the barrier of sin and establish a new relationship in which they will be able, with utter confidence, to address the Father directly through him (23). On the basis of Jesus’ name, which means a trusting reliance on his sacrifice to cover their unworthiness, and a sincere commitment to seek only those things which would accord with his glory, they can be assured that my Father will give you whatever you ask in my name (23). Here is all that the disciples or ourselves can ever long for; enough for all and for ever.
    To experience the meeting of our needs in answer to our prayers in Jesus’ name is also a source of supreme joy, because it assures us that the Father loves us (27). Calvin aptly comments, ‘we have the heart of God as soon as we place before him the name of his Son.’78 It also proves that Jesus truly has prevailed in his death and resurrection, and that he is now the exalted Lord at the right hand of the Father.
    It is to be greatly regretted that too often Christians confine prayer either to such vague generalities that it would be difficult to identify any specific answer on the Father’s part, or to specific requests which are so self-centred that to tag ‘Jesus’ name’ on to them shows a failure to understand what that sacred phrase implies. For our encouragement we note that this great promise was first made to a group of very ordinary and fallible disciples who were soon to desert their Master. Like them we may take this promise to ourselves, pray specifically to the Father in Jesus’ name, and discover the joy that he has promised. Observe that the model of [John, Page 235] prayer which Jesus commends here is prayer to the Father through the Son. All Christian prayer should be offered through Jesus Christ. The addition of ‘in Jesus’ name’ is not some pedantic formality. It witnesses to the only basis of all intercession, namely the earthly sacrifice and heavenly intercession of Jesus, by which alone to all eternity we may draw near to ‘the throne of the heavenly grace’. Calvin even asserts that to bypass Christ in our prayers is a ‘profanation of God’s name’.79
    Prayer directly to the Son is not excluded in the New Testament (cf. 2 Cor. 12:8, where ‘Lord’ is, surely, the Lord Jesus Christ). It is, however, the exception. Like Paul, the early Christians customarily knelt ‘before the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and earth derives its name’ (Eph. 3:14–15). We need to be sensitive to the dangers of an exclusive focus on Christ in worship and prayer which lacks the support of the Scriptures and which, not surprisingly, tends to imbalances in Christian experience.
    Thirdly, we see Jesus’ triumphant position (29–33). Jesus summarizes his message to his disciples in the last sentence (28): ‘I came from the Father and entered the world; now I am leaving the world and going back to the Father.’ There is an attractive simplicity and directness here to which the disciples respond with acclaim. Now you are speaking clearly … Now we can see that you know all things … This makes us believe that you came from God (29–30). Their enthusiasm is touching, but insecurely based. ‘Like young recruits, they had yet to learn that it is one thing to know the soldier’s drill and to wear the uniform, and quite another thing to be steadfast in battle.’80 Jesus will not allow them the dangerous assumptions of self-confidence. You believe at last! (31) is probably sadly ironical. This ‘faith’ is shortly, like themselves, to be scattered to the four winds (32). Jesus’ prediction of their coming defection echoes Zechariah 13:7 (cf. Mk. 14:50). The Scripture must be fulfilled.
    All is not despair, however. His final note is exultant: I have overcome … (33). It is so for two reasons. The first is that his Father is with him (32). Here is his supreme consolation, the secret, inner communion of the Godhead, refined through the experience of the incarnation, the unshakeable ground of his life and mission. It will not fail him through the dark waters which stretch ahead.
    The second reason for his exultation is that he will triumph. The last word does not lie with the evil one who draws ever nearer, nor with the tragic, rebellious world in its flight into the darkness. It lies with the Father, and hence with the one who came as the Father’s everlasting Son and Servant. Through his obedience unto [John, Page 236] death, death itself will fall defeated, and with it all the rebellious powers of darkness and sin. But take heart! I have overcome the world! (33).
    ‘In the end he can say this word, and only he. The victory is wholly his. At the end the triumph song is not “We have overcome”, but “Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain” (Rev. 5:12).’81 And say it he does! ‘I have conquered!’ And in this triumph the disciples too will share, and so by grace may we. Their apostasy will be fearfully real, but it will not be the end of them. Their struggle in the mission of Jesus with the evil powers abroad in the world will be long and bloody, and bring most of them to a martyr’s grave. In this world you will have trouble (33). Through it all, however, the victory will be theirs (and ours) in the gift of peace through our union with him who has for ever conquered in the battle (33). But before that final conflict is engaged one more ministry remains to be performed: the holy work of prayer.

(i) ‘Let not your hearts be troubled’—discourse A (John 13:31–14:31)

c.    The farewell discourses (13:31–16:33)

(i)  ‘Let not your hearts be troubled’—discourse A (13:31–14:31)
(ii)  ‘So I send you’—discourse B (15:1–16:33)
    The departure of Judas permits Jesus’ final discourses. Within this block of teaching a break of some sort is indicated at the end of chapter 14, Come now let us leave (14:31). The material of chapters 15–16 would then perhaps have been shared during the progress through the city to the Garden of Gethsemane. More plausibly, the injunction to let us leave was not immediately acted upon until the teaching was completed and Jesus had offered his prayer (17). This latter view would accord with 18:1: ‘Jesus left with his disciples and crossed the Kidron Valley.’ Either way we should recognize a break at the end of 14 which is confirmed by the content, and so divide the material into two distinguishable parts.

[John, Page 205]

    A more general question concerns the essential focus of these chapters. What does Jesus have in view in his instruction of his disciples here? We have already indicated the emergence at this point of what could be referred to as a minor motif in the earlier music, the mission of the disciples. While it is stated only in a preliminary way at 13:20, and will not emerge fully until the second discourse in chapters 15–16, it is arguably the underlying theme throughout. Jesus is preparing the disciples for their post-Easter work. If this perspective is correct, then these discourses have an urgent relevance to a church facing the enormous challenge of world evangelization at a time of exploding population and diminishing resources. Viewing the discourses in this way also, one hopes, removes them from the rather esoteric and enclosed atmosphere in which they have been traditionally set, and allows us to bring them out into the marketplace where they and this whole gospel surely belong.

(i)    ‘Let not your hearts be troubled’—discourse A (13:31–14:31)

[A New Commandment]
    [31] When he had gone out, Jesus said, “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him. [32] If God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself, and glorify him at once. [33] Little children, yet a little while I am with you. You will seek me, and just as I said to the Jews, so now I also say to you, ‘Where I am going you cannot come.’ [34] A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. [35] By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
[Jesus Foretells Peter's Denial]
    [36] Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, where are you going?” Jesus answered him, “Where I am going you cannot follow me now, but you will follow afterward.” [37] Peter said to him, “Lord, why can I not follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.” [38] Jesus answered, “Will you lay down your life for me? Truly, truly, I say to you, the rooster will not crow till you have denied me three times.
[I Am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life]
    [14:1] “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. [2] In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? [3] And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. [4] And you know the way to where I am going.” [5] Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” [6] Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. [7] If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”
    [8] Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” [9] Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? [10] Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works. [11] Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else believe on account of the works themselves.
    [12] “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father. [13] Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. [14] If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.
[Jesus Promises the Holy Spirit]
    [15] “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. [16] And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, [17] even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.
    [18] “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. [19] Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. [20] In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. [21] Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.” [22] Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, “Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world?” [23] Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. [24] Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine but the Father's who sent me.
    [25] “These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you. [26] But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. [27] Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. [28] You heard me say to you, ‘I am going away, and I will come to you.’ If you loved me, you would have rejoiced, because I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. [29] And now I have told you before it takes place, so that when it does take place you may believe. [30] I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming. He has no claim on me, [31] but I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father. Rise, let us go from here.
(John 13:31-14:31 ESV)

    1.  The absence of Jesus (13:31–38).

[A New Commandment]
    [31] When he had gone out, Jesus said, “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him. [32] If God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself, and glorify him at once. [33] Little children, yet a little while I am with you. You will seek me, and just as I said to the Jews, so now I also say to you, ‘Where I am going you cannot come.’ [34] A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. [35] By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
[Jesus Foretells Peter's Denial]
    [36] Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, where are you going?” Jesus answered him, “Where I am going you cannot follow me now, but you will follow afterward.” [37] Peter said to him, “Lord, why can I not follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.” [38] Jesus answered, “Will you lay down your life for me? Truly, truly, I say to you, the rooster will not crow till you have denied me three times.

Jesus’ first words, Now is the Son of Man glorified and God is glorified in him (31), serve as a fitting title for the entire discourses, and indeed for the remainder of the gospel. That revealing of his glory has a clear focus, however—the hour of suffering. Son of Man echoes Daniel 7:13, but it is to be linked with the Servant who suffers.28 Now (31) implies that with Judas’ departure the trap is sprung; the sequence of the arrest, trial and crucifixion is already set in motion, a succession in relation to which Jesus must be submissive. But this very submission is the glorifying of the Father through him, and the completing of his work (17:4). ‘For the glory of God is not the self-glorification of a supreme monad; it is the glory of perfect love forever poured out and forever received within the being of the triune God. It is the glory of Sonship.’29
    The glory of the Son, and the Father through the Son, is so intimately one reality that it can be expressed the other way round, God will glorify the Son in himself (32). All this will happen ‘immediately’ in the events of the following hours. Possibly the ‘immediately’ can be interpreted in the sense of ‘at one moment’, i.e. at the same time. The glorification of the Son and the Father will be one indivisible act. The title of the Father here is ‘God’, but carries no implication of any subordination of being as far as [John, Page 206] Jesus is concerned. He is the one whose glorification is the glorification of God.
    Jesus’ endearing my children, or ‘my dear (little) children’,30 is appropriate to the Passover meal setting, which was celebrated according to the law, en famille. Jesus’ feelings of endearment towards the disciples are made more tangible as he recognizes that I will be with you only a little longer (33) and that they cannot, for the present, follow him. In this regard their case has some parallels to the Jews to whom Jesus had spoken in similar terms some months before (cf. 7:33–34; 8:21). It is in this context that Jesus shares the love commandment, A new commandment I give to you: Love one another, and adds the promise, All men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another (34–35).
    Here Jesus expresses the meaning of love. For a concept in such wide everyday use love is surprisingly poorly defined. In common usage the emotional aspect, ‘feelings of love’, is often paramount. Jesus’ definition focuses rather on loving action. Love is defined by what he has been and would soon be to his disciples. 13:1 links the exposition of love ‘to the full extent’ to the foot-washing, which is an acted parable of his washing away of sin through his sacrifice. Love is defined by the cross. It is love of that calibre which his disciples are called upon to express towards each other.
    This commandment is new, not because it is intrinsically different from the law of love of the Old Testament.31 Nor is it new because of Jesus’ redefining of ‘neighbour’ (Lk. 10:29–37), though that is certainly significant. The ‘newness’ lies rather in its being the law of the ‘new covenant’ which Jesus is to establish through his death, and which he has so recently proclaimed during the supper they have shared.32 The new covenant brings with it the new life in the Holy Spirit which will as never before enable the fulfilling of the law.33 It is ‘new’ also in the sheer depth and demand of the summons to love which Jesus issues. In the light of the cross all other descriptions and definitions of love pale into insignificance. Here indeed is love ‘so amazing, so divine’ (Isaac Watts). Yet according to Jesus this is the norm for Christian community.
    We note also the evangelistic power of love. A loving community, says Jesus, is the visible authentication of the gospel. Love is the ‘final apologetic’ (Francis Schaeffer). Jesus places no limit on this demonstration; all will recognize and know it. Unlike other associations [John, Page 207] which are based upon common interest or outlook, the church is to be marked by an inclusiveness which echoes the universal appeal of Jesus. It is designated as a community which welcomes all people, irrespective of background, age, gender, colour, moral history, social status, influence, intelligence, religious background or the lack of it. To love like Jesus is to love inclusively, indiscriminately and universally. When that kind of love flows within a congregation the world will take note that ‘they have been with Jesus’. Nor need this standard daunt us. Tertullian reported in the late second century the comment of the pagans in his day: ‘Behold, how these Christians love each other! How ready they are to die for each other!’ Their mutual love was the magnet which drew the pagan multitudes to Christ. It has the potential to do so still.
    Finally, there is here the promise of love. The immediate setting of the command is important; Jesus is about to leave the disciples. Here is the consolation for a community soon to be bereft of the tangible presence of its Lord—loving each other, in reflection of his love for them. ‘No-one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us’ (1 Jn. 4:12). In the caring and costly service of ‘the brothers and sisters’, we shall meet with Jesus himself (Mt. 25:31–45). Mother Teresa’s prayer has direct application within every Christian community. ‘Dearest Lord, may I see you today and every day in the person of your sick, and, whilst nursing them, minister unto you. Though you hide yourself behind the unattractive disguise of the irritable, the exacting, the unreasonable, may I still recognize you and say, “Jesus, my patient, how sweet it is to serve you.” ’34
    Peter, however, has no ears for Jesus’ sublime instruction. He is agitated by the talk of Jesus’ departure (36). Jesus assures him that while he cannot follow immediately, he will later; a reference to his future martyrdom (21:18–19). Peter, vociferously loyal as ever, expresses his willingness to die for Jesus (37). Like the others around him, however, he has no appreciation of the dark and terrible forces abroad that night in Jerusalem. Before the cock crows (38), these forces will search him and his colleagues to the very core and leave Peter, the confident, self-reliant leader, as a broken, Christ-denying failure. Even then the sheep will not be snatched from the shepherd’s grasp (10:28).
    It is important before concluding this section to note the parallels, as well as the contrast, between Judas and Peter. Both had [John, Page 208] associated with Jesus across the previous years. Both had seen his signs and heard his truth. To both he gave his love and extended his appeal. In the final hours of Jesus’ mission both abysmally failed him, and abandoned him in the hour of his greatest need. Both grieved Jesus’ heart and added to his pain. The failure of both was spectacularly public. Both are known today around the world for the failures they perpetrated. One, however, was lost and the other saved. One repented, sought Christ’s mercy, and went to heaven. One, overwhelmed with remorse, turned upon himself, took his own life, and went unforgiven to hell.
    The seeds of the failure of both Peter and Judas lie embedded in each of our hearts. We know what it is both to deny Jesus and to betray him. We can only cast ourselves daily on his limitless mercy, knowing that he will not cast away even one of all who come to him, and that not one will be lost of all that the Father has given him (6:37, 39).

because we are all
betrayers, taking
silver and eating
body and blood and asking
(guilty) is it I and hearing
him say yes
it would be simple for us all
to rush out
and hang ourselves

but if we find grace
to cry and wait
after the voice of morning
has crowed in our ears
clearly enough
to break our hearts
he will be there
to ask us each again
do you love me.35

    2.  The blessings of his ‘absence’ (14:1–31).

    [14:1] “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. [2] In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? [3] And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. [4] And you know the way to where I am going.” [5] Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” [6] Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. [7] If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”
    [8] Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” [9] Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? [10] Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works. [11] Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else believe on account of the works themselves.
    [12] “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father. [13] Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. [14] If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.
[Jesus Promises the Holy Spirit]
    [15] “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. [16] And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, [17] even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.
    [18] “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. [19] Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. [20] In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. [21] Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.” [22] Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, “Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world?” [23] Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. [24] Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine but the Father's who sent me.
    [25] “These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you. [26] But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. [27] Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. [28] You heard me say to you, ‘I am going away, and I will come to you.’ If you loved me, you would have rejoiced, because I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. [29] And now I have told you before it takes place, so that when it does take place you may believe. [30] I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming. He has no claim on me, [31] but I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father. Rise, let us go from here.

While there are obvious points of transition in this chapter (from verse 4 to 5; and 14 to 15) the material hangs together as a unified discourse around a specific theme. The theme is stated in the opening words, Do not let your hearts be troubled (1). We gather the exposition under two [John, Page 209] heads: first, why the disciples (and we) become ‘troubled’; and secondly, what brings peace to troubled hearts (27).
    The disciples are experiencing perceptible anxiety. The reasons for it are to hand.36 The most obvious is that Jesus has informed them he is about to leave them (13:33). Their whole world had been so wrapped up with Jesus over the last few years that the prospect of his departure must have been devastating. The image he uses for them is ‘orphans’ (18). Emotionally they can only contemplate the loss of Jesus as like a child’s loss of its parents. He had asked them to invest their whole future in following him and they had made the commitment he demanded. If they thought of the future at all during these years it was in terms of sharing the glory of his coming reign (cf. Mt. 20:20–24). A future without Jesus comes as a shattering prospect, despite his repeated attempts to prepare them for such an eventuality. A further cause of anxiety was Jesus’ foretelling Peter’s denial (13:38). It is not difficult to imagine the others arguing that if Peter was not going to stand the coming test, what hope had they? In addition to these immediate threats were the indicators that they, the disciples, had some great task to fulfil once Jesus was gone. True, with Jesus around they had undertaken a mission tour with some success (Mk. 6:7–13), but such activity without Jesus to direct them was a very different prospect. It was all deeply troubling.
    ‘Troubled hearts’ expresses the mind-state of multitudes in the modern world. Paradoxically many of these troubled folk live within western society, which is in most respects sheltered from the starker deprivations, such as the chronic lack of food, shelter and health care which plague the millions in the third world. Plenty, however, does not equal peace of mind. Even the followers of Jesus are frequently plagued with anxiety.
    Jesus addresses these ‘troubled hearts’ by urging them, first of all, to have faith (1). The answer to trouble is trust. The NIV, following earlier translations, uses trust here, which is defensible, though the Greek word is the basic verb for ‘believing’ (pistueoœ). While the manuscripts indicate some support for a reading such as ‘You already believe in God, now have the same faith in me’, a double imperative is probably correct: ‘Have faith in God; have faith in me.’ On any reading this reflects a high Christology. Jesus presents himself unambiguously as the object of faith. ‘For John there is only one faith and that is in Jesus and God at the same time.’37 Faith needs adequate grounding, however, if it is to experience [John, Page 210] serenity and to overcome the ‘troubled hearts’ of the disciples. The effectiveness and strength of faith are bound up with the greatness and dependability of the God in whom the faith reposes. ‘ “Have faith in God” means “hold God’s faithfulness” ’ (Hudson Taylor).
    Jesus accordingly relates the grounds for the disciples’ faith by showing them, in a series of thrilling paragraphs, that his leaving them is not the unmitigated disaster they imagine. On the contrary, all manner of remarkable blessings will flow from it. Jesus will even be able to assert in conclusion that his going away is something they can be glad about (28; cf. 16:7, ‘It is for your good that I am going away’).
    Jesus’ departure will have three major benefits for the disciples.
    1.  His going away will secure their future destiny (2–6). Jesus will continue in the fullness of his life, but in a different place. He is returning to life, he tells them, in my Father’s house (2). His going there will be by a specific route, through death and resurrection (10:17–18; 12:31–32). Thus his going to the Father is an act of power which will win eternal life for all who believe in him.38 In the terms of his ‘homely’ (literally) metaphor, his going will prepare rooms for the disciples in God’s eternal home, the transcendent dwelling of God depicted in Hebrews 12:22 as ‘the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God’ (cf. Rev. 21–22).39
    Jesus appeals to their knowledge of him. If there were no glorious dwelling for the children of God beyond the limits of this earthly life, Jesus, as the true Son who has come from the Father’s bosom, would certainly have warned them. The hope of life beyond the grave is thereby rooted in the most certain of realities, the veracity and trustworthiness of Jesus Christ. Jesus is going away to make that ready. By implication, if they resist his departure the ‘making ready’ will not take place. The price of their refusal to be ‘made orphans’ now through the departure of Jesus is finding themselves homeless orphans on the other side of death. Besides which, Jesus will not forget them in his departing. Having prepared their rooms, he will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am (3). Scholars have disputed what this ‘coming back’ refers to, whether his appearances after the resurrection, or the gift of the outpoured Spirit at Pentecost, or his repeated ‘coming’ [John, Page 211] through the sacraments or other moments when faith’s realities are especially vivid. The most obvious meaning is arguably the correct one. Jesus is referring to his glorious appearing at the end of the age, his ‘coming back’ at his parousia.
    John’s stress on the second coming of Christ is more muted than that of the other evangelists, who record many of Jesus’ parables about the end, and also give the details of his great eschatological discourse (cf. Mk. 13:1–37; etc.). Jesus’ glorious appearing is not ignored by John, however, as this verse makes clear (cf. also 5:25f., 28f.; 21:22f.). Though the centuries have stretched since this promise was made, its fulfilment is certain. The Lord is coming to take his people home to share his glory (17:24). History is not at the mercy of the whims or passions of politicians or tyrants. The reins are firmly in the hands of the Lord of history, and ‘he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice’ (Acts 17:31). That day was entered in the calendar of God when the world was made. It is drawing daily nearer.
    It is noteworthy that Jesus gives no details concerning that future state. It is simply being where he is. That, however, is sufficient; ‘Where Jesus is, ‘tis heaven there.’ This great blessing, the assurance of eternal life with Jesus in his heavenly home, is possible only because Jesus goes away from us through his cross, resurrection and ascension. If part of the reason for our ‘troubled hearts’ is the loss of dear ones through death, or our disillusionment with this present world, we are called to renew our trust in him and rediscover his gift of peace, in the confidence that he is coming as he promised and that he has prepared a place for all who love him, in the glory that will surely be.
    The way to this future life is known, Jesus asserts (4). But Thomas, nothing if not honest, expresses his ignorance not just of the way but of the destination itself. Clearly, what Jesus has been speaking about has passed Thomas by. While we cannot be glad for the dullness of the disciples (would we have done better?), we can be thankful that their questions not infrequently draw out an important response from Jesus, albeit none quite as memorable as this one: I am the way and the truth and the life (6).
    The stress falls on the way, since that is the issue in question. The way to heaven is Jesus himself. Faith in him shatters the barrier of sin and death, and blasts open the road to the eternal life of the kingdom of God. It is ‘the road that leads to life’ (Mt. 7:14).
    He is also the truth40 and the life.41 The reality and truth of God are incarnated in Jesus Christ, who embodies the indestructible life of the ever-living God. This audacious claim carries a major [John, Page 212] corollary, no-one comes to the Father except through me (6). The exclusivism of this statement must not be reduced. Peter makes exactly the same claim in Acts 4:12. ‘Salvation is found in no-one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.’ At a time when religious pluralism and syncretism are widespread, such claims are never going to be popular. Nothing less, however, is the implication of Jesus’ incarnation. If, in Jesus, God has come among us in person to reconcile his rebellious lost world, it follows necessarily that through him, and him alone, is the way to God. The exclusiveness of Christ’s salvation is simply the uniqueness of his divine person.
    To say that Jesus is the only way to God does not imply that every idea in non-Christian religion is devoid of value. Non-Christians may find that their conscience approves them, in terms of fulfilling this or that element of the law of God engraved upon their hearts, as Paul recognizes in Romans 2:14. In the same way non-Christians as religious seekers may at one point or another express a response which reflects a valid truth. Such factors, however, do not rescind the general biblical verdict that the non-Christian conscience also universally accuses, and so invariably needs Christ’s atonement and forgiveness (Rom. 3:23), or that non-Christian religion is idolatrous at its heart and cannot offer salvation. Jesus alone is the way to God, but he is the way for all, and so whatever the religious background of an individual, or lack of religion, Jesus in his grace welcomes every one of them to the Father if they will come through him. For them too he is ready to prepare a place in the Father’s house.
    2.  The second benefit for his disciples of Jesus’ going away is that it will complete his revelation of the Father (7–11). He again calls for faith to still the troubled hearts of the disciples, a faith rooted in the revelation of the Father which he has shared with them. The identity of Jesus with the Father, and hence the validity of the revelation of the Father through him, will be significantly enhanced from now on (7). Jesus is once again expressing his need to ‘go away’. Only thus can the world learn that I love the Father and that I do exactly what my Father has commanded (31). The revelation through Jesus is made possible by Jesus’ total submission to the Father, and his unswerving obedience to his commands. That obedience will be made complete in his ‘obedience unto death’. Thus it is the death of Jesus which will complete his revelation of the Father, and without it the world would not be able to say that it has truly known and seen God (7). Furthermore, the act of final obedience is also simultaneously an act of infinite love and holiness as Christ, the Sent One of the Father, bears the sins of his creatures. So, in a second sense, the revelation of the Father is completed in [John, Page 213] Jesus’ ‘going away’, since through it alone the wonder of the love of God, and the terror of the holiness of God, are made truly and fully known.
    Philip this time expresses the groping faith of the disciples. If they could only truly know and see the Father, that would be all they need (8). His plea articulates the longing of the heart of humanity across all the ages to see and to know the living God. Moses had uttered it centuries before when he communed with God in the tent of meeting, ‘Show me your glory’ (Ex. 33:18). How discouraging for Jesus, however, to be faced in these final moments of his instruction with this particular request, and with its obvious ignorance of his true relationship to the Father! Don’t you know ME (my emphasis), Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time?… Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? (9–10). This statement is ‘a linguistic way of describing the complete unity between Jesus and the Father’.42 It parallels ‘I and the Father are one’ (10:30), hence anyone who has seen me has seen the Father (9). The words and works of Jesus are the words and works of the Father in him. No other explanation of them is possible (10–11).
    Here Jesus touches another great cause of ‘troubled hearts’, not merely among these first disciples, but among his followers over the ages. Life at times does not appear to make discernible sense; the vastness of the universe oppresses us, the seemingly impersonal cycle of nature evidences no master plan, and the story of humanity rolls on generation after generation with little apparent meaning at the heart of it all. In our personal lives unexpected happenings break in unbidden, sometimes cruelly, and we find ourselves lisping the verdict of Macbeth, ‘Life is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.’ In such moods we cry out from our ‘troubled hearts’ for some word from beyond to reassure us that there is a meaning; that a heart of love still beats behind the cold indifference and arbitrariness of things.
    That word is spoken to us here. In Jesus and his coming, in his death and his rising, God speaks his Word of peace. There is meaning. Life can make sense, and purpose can be reborn for us amid the years. In this man, and his life of lowly service unto death, God is made known, a God in whom we can truly believe and find peace. The answer to the anxiety of troubled hearts is assured knowledge, and assured knowledge comes through Jesus.

[John, Page 214]

Him will I find, though when in vain
I search the feast and mart,
The fading flowers of liberty,
The painted masks of art,

I only find him at the last
On one old hill where nod
Golgotha’s ghastly trinity—
Three persons and one God.
G. K. Chesterton

    3.  A third benefit for Jesus’ disciples is that his going away will equip them for living for him, and serving his mission in the world (12–26). At this point Jesus makes the first of his references to the Holy Spirit (15–17; 25–26).
    Before commenting on the title he uses, we first underline the context. Jesus is about to depart to the Father by way of exaltation in death and resurrection. This act of exaltation will secure the ministry of the Holy Spirit (16:7, ‘Unless I go away, the Counsellor will not come to you’, cf. 7:37–39). The Spirit (as Jesus will later teach them, 20:22) is nothing less than the life-breath of the exalted Jesus, who makes the victory of Jesus available for the people of God in history. The title Jesus uses is in Greek, parakleœtos, which (with the sole exception of 1 Jn. 2:1) occurs in its nominal form only in these chapters of John. Literally, a ‘paraklete’ is ‘one called alongside (to help)’. It has a legal context outside the New Testament, and is used in that sense in 1 John 2:1. The meaning in these farewell discourses is arguably wider, as in the verbal form of parakleœtos which occurs regularly throughout the New Testament, and is variously translated ‘exhort’, ‘comfort’, ‘entreat’ and ‘encourage’.
    The translators and commentators offer a range of equivalents including ‘counsellor’ (NIV), ‘helper’ (GNB), ‘comforter’ (AV) and ‘advocate’ (NEB). Perhaps the most important consideration is that expressed in verse 16:… give you ANOTHER (my emphasis) Counsellor. The Spirit will fulfil a role parallel to the role Jesus had fulfilled to this point; he is ‘another Christ’ (alter Christus: Luther). Such is the gift of the departed Jesus.
    Like the other answers to ‘troubled hearts’, this blessing also is utterly dependent on the ‘going away of Jesus’. This one gift encloses at least six more particular gifts which are mentioned in these verses.
    First, the Spirit imparts power for the service of Jesus (12–14). The Spirit’s enabling presence is put more specifically in a remarkable promise in verse 12: greater things than these you will do [John, Page 215] because I am going to the Father. Since Jesus’ things included spectacular healing and nature miracles, even the raising of the dead, we find ourselves struggling to interpret this saying. As a matter of historical fact the apostles were to perform nothing more spectacular in their ministries than Jesus had done in his, and so greater things obviously cannot mean ‘more spectacular miracles’. As D. A. Carson argues, the key probably lies in the link to the phrase because I am going to the Father, and the other reference to greater things in 5:20. This refers to the greater things which the Father will show the Son in the future, specifically judgment and resurrection (cf. 5:17, 24–26). The difference between Jesus and his disciples lies in the event which marks the boundary between the old and new aeons, the Easter triumph of Jesus. Because of that, the disciples will serve in the new time of the kingdom’s presence.
    This new thing is consequent upon the dawning of the kingdom, the era of salvation history in which the last judgment and the final resurrection are anticipated. It is the universal preaching of the gospel.43 The ‘greater works’ therefore are the works of the greater mission in ‘Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and to the ends of the earth’. “ ‘Greater works” means more conversions. There is no greater work possible than the conversion of a soul.’44 Such an interpretation is perfectly in keeping with the ‘mission’ perspective, which as we have already shown is the key to interpret this whole ‘last discourses’ section of the gospel. This interpretation does not imply that the church ought not to anticipate tangible demonstrations of the presence of the risen Lord in its midst. But it does not encourage unhealthy sensationalism, or unworthy arrogance on the part of the disciples. In the final analysis, the one who works in the church is its Head and Lord, and hence the powers of the kingdom are available only through believing prayer in Jesus’ name (13–14). The outcome then will be the glory of the Father through the Son (13).
    Secondly, another blessing of Jesus’ gift is that the Spirit will unite the disciples to the risen Jesus in a new intimacy of communion (17–21). Here is Jesus’ deepest reassurance to hearts troubled by his departure—he will not in fact leave them! Jesus himself will come to them through the Holy Spirit in an experience which a world confined within naturalistic categories can neither discern nor measure (17). They will not be bereft orphans: I will come to you … you are in me, and I am in you (18, 20).

[John, Page 216]

    Jesus speaks here of an intimacy which is without precedent or parallel. Even ‘the disciple whom Jesus loved’, leaning on his breast at the supper, could not make such a claim. The key to it is expressed in these terms, because I live, you also will live (19). Thus ‘Jesus comes at Easter to be reunited with his disciples and to lift to a new plane his relationship with them, for which that in the ministry could be only a preparation.’45
    A third gift is that the Spirit will also unite the disciples with the Father, who will make his home with them (23). The gulf separating Creator from creature, the Holy One from sinners, will be bridged. The fruit of the going away of Jesus will be the reconciling of those who believe with the living God, producing a life which fulfils the ancient divine purpose, ‘I will dwell among [them] and be their God.’46 Since the one whom Jesus sends is the indwelling Spirit (17), what Jesus is asserting is nothing less than that our poor and needy hearts will become the residence of the triune God, as all three persons of the Godhead make a home within us. It is difficult to do any justice in words to so immense a vision, or so rich a gifting.
    A fourth blessing is that the Spirit will support them in their loving obedience to the teaching of Jesus (21–24). The new life of communion with the risen Lord will be expressed under moral conditions. Love for Christ implies obedience to him (23). Conversely, obedience is the evidence of love (15, 21). Thus the promise of the prophets concerning the new covenant is fulfilled. It is fulfilled as ‘the Law’ written on the heart is fulfilled through the indwelling Spirit.
    We should note further that this loving response on the part of the disciples (15, 21, 23) is made possible because Jesus has made God known to them (9, 10). Here lies the answer to the bleak conclusion of Wittgenstein: ‘You cannot love God, for you do not know him.’ In Jesus the hidden God is made known, and we love him.
    A fifth blessing is that the Spirit will teach them (26). He is the Spirit of truth (17). His truth is inward and spiritual, not received or understood by the world (17). He will teach all things, and remind you of everything I have said to you (26). This function was to become especially critical for succeeding generations of Christians. Paul testified to a parallel divine inspiration in 1 Corinthians 2:6f. The imparting to these first chosen witnesses of a special insight and recollection concerning the words and works of Jesus ensured their preservation for the church in every generation. The [John, Page 217] fruit of that ministry is the New Testament. ‘The Spirit’s ministry in this respect was not to bring qualitatively new revelation, but to complete, to fill out, the revelation brought by Jesus himself.’47
    Sixthly, the Spirit will impart the gift of Jesus’ own peace (27). While the link to the Spirit is not explicit, the proximity of the reference to the Spirit and the gift of peace makes it a natural linkage, and the later New Testament does not lack explicit support for it (Rom. 14:17; Gal. 5:22). Peace is a category rich in meaning (cf. comment on 20:19). It is a summing up (Hebrew, shalom) of the blessings of the messianic age. Jesus was to use it in their hearing again as he met them after the resurrection (20:19, 21). The peace he imparts to them as the fruit of his Spirit is a unique and supernatural reality, not as that of the world (27).
    Few things are more sought after than peace. For some it amounts to no more than a longed-for release from the relentless pressures of business or home. In the first century the pax Romana was widely heralded, but it was a peace won and maintained by the brutal force of the sword. In that sense it typified the peace that the world gives. The human spirit, however, reaches beyond these lesser expressions for an inner tranquillity of spirit, not abstracted from the world of responsibility and relationships, but nourished and expressed in the midst of it. Such is the peace Jesus offers: MY (my emphasis) peace I give you, in the very face of unspeakable suffering. It is a peace born from a living personal relationship with Jesus, and deepened through a growing surrender of life to his gracious rule. This the Holy Spirit makes available to the troubled hearts of the disciples, and to ours.
    All of these remarkable gifts depend on the departure of Jesus. In the light of them we are summoned, like the disciples in the upper room, to trust in Jesus (1), to banish our anxiety and to face the challenge of God’s call to us.
    Before concluding the discourse Jesus has one further reason to offer the disciples why they should not be troubled. In the previous teaching he has concentrated wholly on the blessings which his going away will procure for them. In a sense he has appealed to their own self-interest. In a final comment he invites them to rise above what his departure is going to mean for them, to consider what it will mean for him. ‘I am going away and I am coming back to you.’ If you loved me, you would be glad that I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I (28). This can of course simply mean that Jesus’ presence with the Father is a further benefit to them because he will mediate in a more intimate way the Father’s sovereign power. But it may also imply, as we believe, that their [John, Page 218] love for Jesus should allow them to be happy for him that he is going away, since that journey, albeit through the horrors of the cross, will take him again to the intimacy of the Father’s bosom, and to the ‘glory I had with you before the world began’ (17:5). Let the disciples stop being preoccupied with their own loss, and in their love for Jesus think also of him and his coming joy (Heb. 12:2).
    On the Father is greater than I, Barrett comments helpfully, ‘The Father is the fons divinitatis in which the being of the Son has its source; the Father is God sending and commanding, the Son is God sent and obedient. John’s thought here is focussed on the humiliation of the Son in his earthly life, a humiliation which now, in his death, reached both its climax and its end.’48
    So Jesus concludes his first upper-room message. In the light of all that Jesus’ ‘going away’ will accomplish they can trust him. It is ‘for your good’. His time with them is almost finished. Satan is coming for his moment of apparent victory (30). He has no claim upon Jesus, however, and Jesus does not fear him. His grasp upon Jesus therefore will be only the grasp which is permitted for the world’s redemption, and which the Father commands for his love’s revealing. Even in the fire of hell he will be seen to be the Lord whose love for his own is matched only by his love for the Father.