Most certainly I tell you that you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice. You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will be turned into joy. A woman, when she gives birth, has sorrow because her time has come. But when she has delivered the child, she doesn’t remember the anguish any more, for the joy that a human being is born into the world. Therefore you now have sorrow, but I will see you again, and your heart will rejoice, and no one will take your joy away from you.
“In that day you will ask me no questions. Most certainly I tell you, whatever you may ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you. Until now, you have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be made full. I have spoken these things to you in figures of speech. But the time is coming when I will no more speak to you in figures of speech, but will tell you plainly about the Father. In that day you will ask in my name; and I don’t say to you that I will pray to the Father for you,
John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv20–26 20. You will weep and lament. He shows for…
20. You will weep and lament. He shows for what reason he foretold that his departure was at hand, and, at the same time, added a promise about his speedy return. It was, that they might understand better that the aid of the Spirit was highly necessary. “A hard and severe temptation,” says he, “awaits you; for, when I shall be removed from you by death, the world will proclaim its triumphs over you. You will feel the deepest anguish. The world will pronounce itself to be happy, and you to be miserable. I have resolved, therefore, to furnish you with the necessary arms for this warfare.” He describes the interval that elapsed between his death and the day when the Holy Spirit was sent; for at that time their faith, so to speak, lay prostrate and exhausted.
Your sorrow will be turned into joy. He means the joy which they felt after having received the Spirit; not that they were afterwards free from all sorrow, but that all the sorrow which they would endure was, swallowed up by spiritual joy We know that the apostles: so long as they lived, sustained a severe warfare, that they endured base reproaches, that they had many reasons for weeping and lamenting; but, renewed by the Spirit, they had laid aside their former consciousness of weakness, so that, with lofty heroism, they nobly trampled under foot all the evils that they endured. Here then is a comparison between their present weakness and the power of the Spirit, which would soon be given to them; for, though they were nearly overwhelmed for a time, yet afterwards they not only fought bravely, but obtained a glorious triumph in the midst of their struggles. Yet it ought also to be observed, that he points out not only the interval that elapsed between the resurrection of Christ and the death of the apostles, but also the period which followed afterwards; as if Christ had said, “You will lie prostrate, as it were, for a short time; but when the Holy Spirit shall have raised you up again, then will begin a new joy, which will continue to increase, until, having been received into the heavenly glory, you shall have perfect joy.”
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv25–26 The holy Ghost which was poured upon the Apostles…
The holy Ghost which was poured upon the Apostles after the Ascension of Christ, instructed both them in all chiefest mysteries and secrets of our salvation, and also by them the Church, and will also instruct it to the end of the world.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv20–26 20 Verily, verily, I say unto you, That ye…
20 Verily, verily, I say unto you, That ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice: and ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy.
Ver. 20. Ye shall weep and lament] So long as ye abide in this valley of tears, as the Septuagint render that, Psa 86:6; εις την κοιλαδα του κλαυθμωνος. In hoc exilio, in hoc ergastulo, in hac peregrinatione, in hac valle lachrymarum, In this banishment, in this prison, in this sojourn, this valley of tears, as Bernard hath it. "My tears have been my meat," saith David, Psa 42:3, alluding to the hart, which, being pursued, sheds tears. These, instead of gems, were the ornaments of David’s bed, saith Chrysostom. The Church’s eyes are as the pools of Heshbon, ever glazed with the tears of compunction or compassion, Son 7:5. Tertullian speaketh of himself, that he was born to nothing else but sorrow and mourning. Athanasius, by his tears, as by the bleeding of a chafed vine, cured the leprosy of that tainted age. Jerome, writing of his own life, saith that there were furrows in his face and icicles from his lips with continual weeping.
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But the world shall rejoice] The merry Greeks of the world laugh themselves fat, and are so afraid of sorrow that they can never find time to be serious; counting it no sport unless they may have the devil their playfellow; no mirth but madness; no venison sweet but that which is stolen. These are forbidden to rejoice in anything, Hos 10:1. Etiam si laeta tibi obveniant omnia, non est tamen quod laeteris. Even if your gladness exceed in all respects, it is not yet true gladness. (Ribera.) But if they do, there is a snare or cord in the sin of the wicked, to strangle their joy with; "but the righteous sing and rejoice," Pro 29:6. Woe be to mirth mongers, that fleer {a} when they should fear, Luk 6:25.
But your sorrow shall be turned into joy] God shall soon give you beauty for ashes, the oil of gladness for the spirit of heaviness, &c.; he shall turn all your sighing into singing, all your laments into laughter, your sackcloth into silks, your ashes into ointments, your fasts into feasts, your wringing of hands into applauses, &c.
{a} To laugh in a coarse, impudent, or unbecoming manner. ŒD
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv20–26 Our Saviour’s reply is no literal answer to their…
Our Saviour’s reply is no literal answer to their question, or exposition of the term which appeared so difficult to them to understand; but yet it is a substantial answer, by which he lets them know, that he should be absent from them for some time, which time would be to them a time of mourning and sadness, as he had before told them; that when the Bridegroom should be taken from them, then they should mourn; that that time would be to the wicked part of the world a time of mirth and jollity: but their sorrow should be turned into joy when they should see him again, both upon his resurrection, and in the general resurrection. The time of this life is the worldling’s hour, and for the most part the power of darkness to such as love and fear God; but as the worldling’s joy shall at last be turned into sorrow, (they compass themselves about with sparks, but they shall at last lie down in sorrow, Isa 50:11), so the godly man’s sorrow shall be turned into joy: Christ will say to the good servant, Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord, Mat 25:23.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain On vv23, 25, 26 At the first reading of Joh 16:23 there seems…
At the first reading of Joh 16:23 there seems to be a contradiction in the words.
Christ tells them in the former part of the verse, that they shall ask him nothing in that day; and yet promises that whatever they ask shall be given them, in the latter part of the verse.
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To resolve this, know that there is a two-fold asking, one by way of question, the other by way of petition.
The former is asking that we may know, or be informed in, what we doubt; the latter is asking that we may receive, and be supplied with what we want.
Now when Christ saith, In that day ye shall ask me nothing; it is as much as if he had said, "At present you understand but little of the mysteries of religion, and therefore ye put questions about many things: but, in that day, when the Comforter comes, ye shall be so clearly enlightened by him, that ye shall not need to ask me any more questions." But when Christ saith, Whatever ye ask of the Father in my name, he will give it; the meaning is, "In that day when I have left the world, and ascended to my Father, you shall not need to address your prayers to me, but to my Father in my name."
But what is it to pray in the name of Christ?
Answer, it is more than to name Christ in prayer: it is easy to name Christ in prayer, buy no easy thing to pray in the name of Christ.
To pray in the name of Christ, is,
1. To look up to Christ, as having purchased for us this privilege, that we may pray: for it is by the blood of Christ that we draw near to God, and that a throne of grace is open to us.
2. To pray in the name of Christ, is to pray in the strength of Christ, by the assistance of his grace, and the help of his Holy Spirit.
3. To pray in the name of Christ is to pray by faith in the virtue of Christ’s mediation and intercession, believing that what we ask on earth, he intercedes for and obtains in heaven. To pray thus is no easy matter: and unless we do pray thus, we do not pray at all.
Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name Joh 16:24; that is, explicitly and expressly in my name, or by me, as mediator betwixt God and man, and with respect to my merits. Do this after my death, resurrection, and intercession at the right hand of God, and you shall receive such answers as will fill you with joy; for the saints of God under the Old Testament, and the apostles themselves under the New, and hitherto put up all their petitions in the name of the Messiah, though not in the name of Jesus.
But now he exhorts them to eye his mediatory office in all their addresses to God, and promises them whatsoever he had purchased of the Father by his sufferings and satisfaction, they should obtain it for the sake of his prevailing intercession.
Learn hence, that it is a mighty encouragement to prayer, that now, under the gospel, the person of the Mediator is exhibited in our flesh, has satisfied divine Justice in our nature, and in that nature intercedes as mediator, for whatever he purchased as our surety.
Hence is the encouragemnt; Whatsoever ye ask the Father in my name, he will give it you.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On v23 An answer to their askings is here promised, for…
An answer to their askings is here promised, for their further comfort. Now there are two ways of asking: asking by way of enquiry, which is the asking of the ignorant; and asking by way of request, which is the asking of the indigent. Christ here speaks of both.
I. By way of enquiry, they should not need to ask (Joh 16:23): "In that day you shall ask me nothing;" ouk erōtēsete ouden - you shall ask no questions; "you shall have such a clear knowledge of gospel mysteries, by the opening of your understandings, that you shall not need to enquire" (as Heb 8:11, they shall not teach); "you shall have more knowledge on a sudden than hitherto you have had by diligent attendance." They had asked some ignorant questions (as Joh 9:2), some ambitious questions (as Mat 18:1), some distrustful ones (as Mat 19:27), some impertinent ones, (as Joh 21:21), some curious ones (as Act 1:6); but after the Spirit was poured out, nothing of all this. In the story of the apostles' Acts we seldom find them asking questions, as David, Shall I do this? Or, Shall I go thither? For they were constantly under a divine guidance. In that weighty case of preaching the gospel to the Gentiles, Peter went, nothing doubting, Act 10:20. Asking questions supposes us at a loss, or at least at a stand, and the best of us have need to ask questions; but we should aim at such a full assurance of understanding that we may not hesitate, but be constantly led in a plain path both of truth and duty.
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Now for this he gives a reason (Joh 16:25), which plainly refers to this promise, that they should not need to ask questions: "These things have I spoken unto you in proverbs, in such a way as you have thought not so plain and intelligible as you could have wished, but the time cometh when I shall show you plainly, as plainly as you can desire, of the Father, so that you shall not need to ask questions."
1. The great thing Christ would lead them into was the knowledge of God: "I will show you the Father, and bring you acquainted with him." This is that which Christ designs to give and which all true Christians desire to have. When Christ would express the greatest favour intended for his disciples, he tells them that it would, show them plainly of the Father; for what is the happiness of heaven, but immediately and everlastingly to see God? To know God as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is the greatest mystery for the understanding to please itself with the contemplation of; and to know him as our Father is the greatest happiness for the will and affections to please themselves with the choice and enjoyment of.
2. Of this he had hitherto spoken to them in proverbs, which are wise and instructive sayings, but figurative, and resting in generals. Christ had spoken many things very plainly to them, and expounded his parables privately to the disciples, but, (1.) Considering their dulness, and unaptness to receive what he said to them, he might be said to speak in proverbs; what he said to them was as a book sealed, Isa 29:11. (2.) Comparing the discoveries he had made to them, in what he had spoken to their ears, with what he would make to them when he would put his Spirit into their heart, all hitherto had been proverbs. It would be a pleasing surprise to themselves, and they would think themselves in a new world, when they would reflect upon all their former notions as confused and enigmatical, compared with their present clear and distinct knowledge of divine things. The ministration of the letter was nothing to that of the Spirit, Co2 3:8-11. (3.) Confining it to what he had said of the Father, and the counsels of the Father. what he had said was very dark, compared with what was shortly to be revealed, Col 2:2.
3. He would speak to them plainly, parrēsia - with freedom, of the Father. When the Spirit was poured out, the apostles attained to a much greater knowledge of divine things than they had before, as appears by the utterance the Spirit gave them, Act 2:4. They were led into the mystery of those things of which they had previously a very confused idea; and what the Spirit showed them Christ is here said to show them, for, as the Father speaks by the Son, so the Son by the Spirit. But this promise will have its full accomplishment in heaven, where we shall see the Father as he is, face to face, not as we do now, through a glass darkly (Co1 13:12), which is matter of comfort to us under the cloud of present darkness, by reason of which we cannot order our speech, but often disorder it. While we are here, we have many questions to ask concerning the invisible God and the invisible world; but in that day we shall see all things clearly, and ask no more questions.
II. He promises that by way of request they should ask nothing in vain. it is taken for granted that all Christ's disciples give themselves to prayer. He has taught them by his precept and pattern to be much in prayer; this must be their support and comfort when he had left them; their instruction, direction, strength, and success, must be fetched in by prayer. Now,
1. Here is an express promise of a grant, Joh 16:23. The preface to this promise is such as makes it inviolably sure, and leaves no room to question it: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, I pledge my veracity upon it." The promise itself is incomparably rich and sweet; the golden sceptre is here held out to us, with the word, What is thy petition, and it shall be granted? For he says, Whatsoever you shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it to you. We had it before, Joh 14:13. What would we more? The promise is as express as we can desire. (1.) We are here taught how to seek; we must ask the Father in Christ's name; we must have an eye to God as a Father, and come as children to him; and to Christ as Mediator, and come as clients. Asking of the Father includes a sense of spiritual blessings, with a conviction that they are to be had from God only. It included also humility of address to him, with a believing confidence in him, as a Father able and ready to help us. Asking in Christ's name includes an acknowledgment of our own unworthiness to receive any favour from God, a complacency in the method God has taken of keeping up a correspondence with us by his Son, and an entire dependence upon Christ as the Lord our Righteousness. (2.) We are here told how we shall speed: He will give it to you. What more can we wish for than to have what we want, nay, to have what we will, in conformity to God's will, for the asking? He will give it to you from whom proceedeth every good and perfect gift. What Christ purchased by the merit of his death, he needed not for himself, but intended it for, and consigned it to, his faithful followers; and having given a valuable consideration for it, which was accepted in full, by this promise he draws a bill as it were upon the treasury in heaven, which we are to present by prayer, and in his name to ask for that which is purchased and promised, according to the true intent of the new covenant. Christ had promised them great illumination by the Spirit, but they must pray for it, and did so, Act 1:14. God will for this be enquired of. He had promised them perfection hereafter, but what shall they do in the mean time? They must continue praying. Perfect fruition is reserved for the land of our rest; asking and receiving are the comfort of the land of our pilgrimage.
2. Here is an invitation for them to petition. It is thought sufficient if great men permit addresses, but Christ calls upon us to petition, Joh 16:24.
(1.) He looks back upon their practice hitherto: Hitherto have you asked nothing in my name. This refers either [1.] To the matter of their prayers: "You have asked nothing comparatively, nothing to what you might have asked, and will ask when the Spirit is poured out." See what a generous benefactor our Lord Jesus is, above all benefactors; he gives liberally, and is so far from upbraiding us with the frequency and largeness of his gifts that he rather upbraids us with the seldomness and straitness of our requests: "You have asked nothing in comparison of what you want, and what I have to give, and have promised to give." We are told to open our mouth wide. Or, [2.] To the name in which they prayed. They prayed many a prayer, but never so expressly in the name of Christ as now he was directing them to do; for he had not as yet offered up that great sacrifice in the virtue of which our prayers were to be accepted, nor entered upon his intercession for us, the incense whereof was to perfume all our devotions, and so enable us to pray in his name. Hitherto they had cast out devils, and healed diseases, in the name of Christ, as a king and a prophet, but they could not as yet distinctly pray in his name as a priest.
(2.) He looks forward to their practice for the future: Ask and you shall receive, that your joy may be full. Here, [1.] He directs them to ask for all that they needed and he had promised. [2.] He assures them that they shall receive. What we ask from a principle of grace God will graciously give: You shall receive it. There is something more in this than the promise that he will give it. He will not only give it, but give you to receive it, give you the comfort and benefit of it, a heart to eat of it, Ecc 6:2. [3.] That hereby their joy shall be full. This denotes, First. The blessed effect of the prayer of faith; it helps to fill up the joy of faith. Would we have our joy full, as full as it is capable of being in this world, we must be much in prayer. When we are told to rejoice evermore, it follows immediately, Pray without ceasing. See how high we are to aim in prayer - not only at peace, but joy, a fulness of joy. Or, Secondly, The blessed effects of the answer of peace: "Ask, and you shall receive that which will fill your joy." God's gifts, through Christ, fill the treasures of the soul, they fill its joy, Pro 8:21. "Ask for the gift of the Holy Ghost, and you shall receive it; and whereas other knowledge increaseth sorrow (Ecc 1:18), the knowledge he gives will increase, will fill, your joy."
3. Here are the grounds upon which they might hope to speed (Joh 16:26, Joh 16:27), which are summed up in short by the apostle (Jo1 2:1): "We have an advocate with the Father."
(1.) We have an advocate; as to this, Christ saw cause at present not to insist upon it, only to make the following encouragement shine the brighter: "I say not unto you that I will pray the Father for you. Suppose I should not tell you that I will intercede for you, should not undertake to solicit every particular cause you have depending there, yet it may be a general ground of comfort that I have settled a correspondence between you and God, have erected a throne of grace, and consecrated for you a new and living way into the holiest." He speaks as if they needed not any favours, when he had prevailed for the gift of the Holy Ghost to make intercession within them, as Spirit of adoption, crying Abba, Father; as if they had no further need of him to pray for them now, but we shall find that he does more for us than he says he will. Men's performances often come short of their promises, but Christ's go beyond them.
(2.) We have to do with a Father, which is so great an encouragement that it does in a manner supersede the other: "For the Father himself loveth you, philei humas, he is a friend to you, and you cannot be better befriended." Note, The disciples of Christ are the beloved of God himself. Christ not only turned away God's wrath from us, and brought us into a covenant of peace and reconciliation, but purchased his favour for us, and brought us into a covenant of friendship. Observe what an emphasis is laid upon this "The Father himself loveth you, who is perfectly happy in the enjoyment of himself, whose self-love is both his infinite rectitude and his infinite blessedness; yet he is pleased to love you." The Father himself, whose favour you have forfeited, and whose wrath you have incurred, and with whom you need an advocate, he himself now loves you. Observe, [1.] Why the Father loved the disciples of Christ: Because you have loved me, and have believed that I am come from God, that is, because you are my disciples indeed: not as if the love began on their side, but when by his grace he has wrought in us a love to him he is well pleased with the work of his own hands. See here, First, What is the character of Christ's disciples; they love him, because they believe he came out from God, is the only-begotten of the Father, and his high-commissioner to the world. Note, Faith in Christ works by love to him, Gal 5:6. If we believe him to be the Son of God, we cannot but love him as infinitely lovely in himself; and if we believe him to be our Saviour, we cannot but love him as the most kind to us. Observe with what respect Christ is pleased to speak of his disciples' love to him, and how kindly he took it; he speaks of it as that which recommended them to his Father's favour: "You have loved me and believed in me when the world has hated and rejected me; and you shall be distinguished yourselves." Secondly, See what advantage Christ's faithful disciples have, the Father loves them, and that because they love Christ; so well pleased is he in him that he is well pleased with all his friends. [2.] What encouragement this gave them in prayer. They need not fear speeding when they came to one that loved them, and wished them well. First, This cautions us against hard thoughts of God. When we are taught in prayer to plead Christ's merit and intercession, it is not as if all the kindness were in Christ only, and in God nothing but wrath and fury; no, the matter is not so, the Father's love and good-will appointed Christ to be the Mediator; so that we owe Christ's merit to God's mercy in giving him for us. Secondly, Let it cherish and confirm in us good thoughts of God. Believers, that love Christ, ought to know that God loves them, and therefore to come boldly to him as children to a loving Father.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv20–26 And ye now therefore have sorrow,.... This is the…
And ye now therefore have sorrow,.... This is the application of the preceding case. As it is with a woman in travail, when her hour is come, so it was now with them, and would be when Christ was removed from them; and as it is with every believer, when Christ is absent: for though there are many things that cause sorrow now, as sin, Satan, and afflictive dispensations of providence, yet nothing more sensibly touches believers to the quick, and gives them more uneasiness, than when Christ is out of sight: the reasons are, because he is so nearly related to them, being their everlasting Father, kind husband, loving brother, and faithful friend; and because they are so strongly affected to him, there is none like him in their esteem in heaven and in earth: he is the person whom their souls love; he is the very life of their souls; his favour, his gracious presence is life to them, and his absence is as death; nor can they be easy, but are restless, and upon the inquiry after him, until he returns to them, which he does in his own time; and therefore this sorrow is but now, for the present, it is not perpetual.
But I will see you again; as he did see his disciples upon his resurrection once and again, for the space of forty days, at certain times, by intervals: and so, in a spiritual sense, he comes and sees his people, makes them a visit, manifests himself unto them, and abides with them: they are always under his omniscient eye; he always sees them as God; and they are always under his eye of love, grace, and mercy, as Mediator: but this means such a seeing of them, as that they see him as well as he sees them; and is expressive of a delightful intercourse between Christ and them, than which nothing is more desirable:
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and your heart shall rejoice: as did the hearts of the disciples, when they saw Christ risen from the dead; and as the hearts of believers do, when Christ so looks upon them that they can view him with an eye of faith; such a sight is a heart rejoicing one. To see the glory and beauty of Christ's person, the fulness and suitableness of him as a Saviour; to have an appropriating view of him as such; or to see him so as to have sensible communion with him, must needs fill the heart of a believer with joy unspeakable, and full of glory: such a sight of Christ will rejoice the heart under a sense of sin, the pollution and guilt of it, when tempted by Satan, or under God's afflicting hand, and even in the view of death and eternity.
And your joy no man taketh from you. The joy of the hypocrite is but for a moment, and the joy of the chief priests, Scribes, and Pharisees, was a short lived one, on account of Christ's death; for Jesus was soon raised from the dead, and the apostles were filled with the Spirit, and went forth boldly preaching in the name of Christ, to the great grief of these men. But the joy of the disciples was durable; their risen Lord would never die more; the blessings of grace, such as redemption, pardon, righteousness, and atonement, would, and do ever remain as the foundation of solid joy: nor could a stranger intermeddle with it; "not one", either man or devil could take it away, not by all the reproaches they could cast upon them, or persecutions they could follow them with: and so, though a believer's joy may be damped by sin, and Satan, and the world, it may not be always in lively exercise; yet the matter of it always remains in Christ, and the principle of it in themselves can never be destroyed, but will issue in everlasting joy in another world.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv20, 22, 23, 24, 26 Ye will weep and lament - When ye see…
Ye will weep and lament - When ye see me dead; but your sorrow will be turned into joy - When ye see me risen.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv20–26 Verse 20. Ye shall weep and lament] To see…
Verse 20. Ye shall weep and lament] To see me crucified and laid in the grave.
But the world shall rejoice] The chief priests, scribes, Pharisees, and persecuting Jews in general, will triumph, hoping that their bad cause is crowned with success.
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But your sorrow shall be turned into joy.] When ye see me risen from the dead.
It is very evident that our Lord uses the word world, in several parts of this discourse of his, to signify the unbelieving and rebellious Jews.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv23, 25 Joh 16:23-24. In that day ye shall ask me…
Joh 16:23-24. In that day ye shall ask me nothing — Εμε ουκ ερωτησετε ουδεν, you shall not inquire any thing of me, or, as Dr. Campbell renders it, you will put no questions to me. That is, when I have sent the Holy Spirit to lead you into all truth, you shall have no need to ask for information in any thing as now you do, or to inquire after the sense of any thing suggested to you by the Spirit. as you now sometimes ask the meaning of my words. Verily, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father, &c., in my name — And if ever you stand in need of instruction, or assistance, or any other blessing, whether for the propagation of the gospel or your own salvation, the Father will immediately supply you with it, upon your asking it in my name. The word αιτησητε, rendered, ye shall ask, in this latter clause, is different from that used in the former, and properly signifies, to present a request, as the other word does to make inquiry, or ask questions. Hitherto ye have asked nothing in my name — Not having been used to regard me under the character of a Mediator between God and man; but then, having received a fuller revelation of the doctrine of my intercession, you may come with a cheerful boldness to the throne of grace, and freely ask whatever shall be necessary, or conducive to the success of your great undertaking, or your support and comfort amidst your temporal discouragements; and, I assure you, you shall receive such gracious answers as will exceedingly increase your joy.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv20, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26 Ye shall weep ... - At my crucifixion, sufferings,…
Ye shall weep ... - At my crucifixion, sufferings, and death. Compare Luk 23:27.
The world - Wicked men. The term world is frequently used in this sense. See Joh 16:8. It refers particularly, here, to the Jews who sought his death, and who would rejoice that their object was obtained.
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Shall be turned into joy - You will not only rejoice at my resurrection, but even my death, now the object of so much grief to you, will be to you a source of unspeakable joy. It will procure for you peace and pardon in this life, and eternal joy in the world to come. Thus their greatest apparent calamity would be to them, finally, the source of their highest comfort; and though then they could not see how it could be, yet if they had known the whole case they would have seen that they might rejoice. As it was, they were to be consoled by the assurance of the Saviour that it would be for their good. And thus, in our afflictions, if we could see the whole case, we should rejoice. As it is, when they appear dark and mysterious, we may trust in the promise of God that they will be for our welfare. We may also remark here that the apparent triumphs of the wicked, though they may produce grief at present in the minds of Christians, will be yet overruled for good. Their joy shall be turned into mourning, and the mourning of Christians into joy; and wicked men may be doing the very thing - as they were in the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus - that shall yet be made the means of promoting the glory of God and the good of his people, Psa 76:10.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv20, 22, 23, 24, 26 Your sorrow shall be turned into joy, chiefly at…
Your sorrow shall be turned into joy, chiefly at the end of your mortal life; then you shall have a joy, never to be taken from you. (Witham)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv23–26 In that day--of the dispensation of the Spirit (as…
In that day--of the dispensation of the Spirit (as in Joh 14:20).
ye shall ask--inquire of
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me nothing--by reason of the fulness of the Spirit's teaching (Joh 14:26; Joh 16:13; and compare Jo1 2:27).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv20–26 20. Weep and lament—A description of the grief of…
20. Weep and lament—A description of the grief of the apostles between the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. It is a stronger expression of grief than that of Mar_16:10—they mourned and wept, which describes the same grief.
The world shall rejoice—The hostile Jewish world. But this narrow hostile world is a representative of the entire world hostile to Christ, which crucifies him, buries him, and rejoices in his supposed destruction and in the sorrow of his friends. Worldliness and infidelity, in all ages, share this joy, and suffer its reverse in the triumph of Christ.
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Sorrow shall be turned into joy—He says not merely that their sorrow shall be followed by joy; but the very sorrow shall be transformed into joy. For the death of Christ is the source alike both of the sorrow and the joy.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv20–26 20. ye shall weep and lament] In the Greek…
20. ye shall weep and lament] In the Greek ‘ye’ comes last in emphatic contrast to the world. The verbs express the outward manifestation of grief. Comp. Joh_20:11; Luk_23:27. The world rejoiced at being rid of One whose life was a reproach to it and whose teaching condemned it.
and ye shall be sorrowful] Here we have the feeling as distinct from the manifestation of grief. Omit ‘and.’
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sorrow shall be turned into joy] Not merely sorrow shall be succeeded by joy, but shall become joy. The withdrawal of the bodily presence of Christ shall be first a sorrow and then a joy. We have the same Greek construction of the rejected stone becoming the head of the corner (Mat_21:42; Act_4:11), of the mustard sprout becoming a tree (Luk_13:19), of the first man Adam becoming a living soul (1Co_15:45).
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv20–26 (20) Verily, verily, I say unto you.—Comp. Note on…
(20) Verily, verily, I say unto you.—Comp. Note on Joh_1:51.
That ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice.—Comp. Joh_20:11, and Luk_23:27. In the original the contrast between the sorrow of the disciples and the joy of the world is rendered the more striking by the order of the words, “Weep and lament shall ye, but the world shall rejoice.” The tears and the scoffs at the cross were the accomplishment of this prophecy.
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And ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy.—The expression is a full one. It is not simply that they shall pass from sorrow to joy, but that the sorrow itself shall become joy. They will rejoice in the presence of the Lord, when after a little while they will see Him and will feel that the separation necessarily went before the union, and that the sorrow was itself a matter of joy because it was the necessary cause of the joy (Joh_16:7, and Joh_20:20).
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv20–26 There is no exact or categoric reply to the…
There is no exact or categoric reply to the very inquiry which he has heard and cited, but there is more of prophecy and help than if he had said, "Tomorrow I die and shall be laid in the grave, and on the third day I shall rise again." He had often said this, and they refused to understand. It was not merely a resurrection of the body, but the glorification in the Father of his entire Personality, for which he wished them to be prepared. A simple restoration like that of Lazarus would not have secured him from the malice of those who sought to put Lazarus also to death. Verily, verily, I say unto you, that weep and lament you shall, and the world shall rejoice. Here is his own account of the effect upon them of that he said, "A little while," and you will behold me, as you think, no more. The world will rejoice, because to some extent it will be the world"s doing, and it will fancy for a little while that it has got its way and succeeded excellently well The world will roll a stone to his sepulcher, and make it as sure as they can, sealing the stone and setting a watch. Pharisaism will exult that this demand for a higher righteousness than its own is for ever hushed; Sadduceeism will rejoice that this troublesome witness to unseen and eternal things is silenced; the hierarchy will boast that now no danger prevails of the Romans taking away their place and nation; the world will praise the deed of blood; but all this rejoicing will last "a little while." Christ reaffirms their grief, and even for "a little while" justifies it, so long as they can hear the jubilate of the world over their personal burden of unutterable sorrow. He continues: You shall be sorrowful, but in a little while your sorrow shall be (egeneto eiv , Act_4:11 Act_5:36) turned into joy. Clearly because "you shall see me." It cannot be said that our Lord here positively asserts his resurrection; but when we remember how "the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord," how Mary ran "with great joy to bring his disciples word," we feel that here was the simple solution of the mystery, and that our Lord"s intercourse with them in his resurrection-body was the great prelibation of the method of his continuous abiding with them in the power of his Spirit and the glorification of his body we cannot doubt that this was his meaning and the purpose of the evangelist in recording it.
Grief and gladness.
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Our Lord gave his apostles to understand that he was no enemy to the emotions that are characteristic of humanity. By becoming his disciples men did not exempt themselves from the common sorrows, nor did they forfeit the common joys, of human life. But these emotions were to be excited by greater and worthier occasions than those met with in ordinary experience. To be a Christian is to know profounder sorrow, and to rise to loftier joy, than falls to the lot of the unspiritual. And our Lord"s first disciples were to prove this at the very outset of their spiritual life.
I THE GRIEF OCCASIONED BY THE LORD"S ABSENCE. Probably had the twelve been perfectly informed, perfectly sympathetic, and perfectly patient, they would not have undergone all the distress which came upon them when their Lord was seized, insulted, and crucified, and whilst his body lay in Joseph"s tomb. But as it was, their experience was more like our own, and therefore more instructive and helpful.
1. The disciples sorrowed because of their own loss. Jesus was everything to them, and they were about to lose him; this they knew, and the consciousness of this loss, which was imminent, seems to have occupied and absorbed their souls, to the exclusion of considerations which might have brought consolation. Thus it has often been with all of us; grief is so close to the heart that it shuts out the vision of aught beyond.
2. The disciples sorrowed through sympathy with the sorrow of their Lord. He was to be hated, to be persecuted, to lay down his life. Yet he was not only innocent, he was the Friend and Benefactor of men. The treatment he received from the world was a proof of monstrous ingratitude. Those who were nearest to him, and who knew him best, could not but sympathize with him, and in some measure, though very imperfectly, share his grief.
3. The disciples sorrowed because of the cloud which gathered over their hopes. These hopes were to some extent indefinite; yet they looked forward to a Messianic kingdom of which their Master should be the Head, and in which they should hold place and sway and honor. They trusted that he should redeem Israel; and they could not understand how such a fate as that which was, according to his own words, about to overtake him, could be reconciled with the prospect which they had been cherishing. Hence their weeping and lamentation.
II THE GLADNESS TO BE CREATED BY THE LORD"S RETURN. There was only one antidote to sorrow such as that which was oppressing the apostles" hearts, and which was to deepen into anguish and terror. If their Lord was all to them, their minds could only be relieved by the prospect of reunion with him.
1. Jesus promised that after "a little while" his friends should again behold his form and hear his voice. How this prospect was consistent with the assurance that he was about to be slain, these inexperienced and bewildered friends of Jesus could not see. But events were to teach them. That the Resurrection came upon them as a surprise, the narrative makes abundantly clear. But the disciples were "glad when they saw the Lord.
2. This fellowship for a brief season to be accorded to the disciples was an earnest of a spiritual communion never to cease, and of a final and perfect reunion in a higher state of being. There were in our Lord"s last discourses and conversations many intimations of this glorious prospect. Very inadequately did these simple learners grasp truths so great and so new, that only time, experience, and the Holy Spirit"s teaching could possibly bring them home to their hearts. The revelation was too grand to be grasped at once. Yet it was a revelation which was to nourish the faith, impel the consecration, and inspire the patience, of the Church of Christ through the long ages of the spiritual dispensation. What joy the spiritual fellowship with the unseen Savior enkindled in the souls of his faithful people, we know from their recorded experience and from their confident admonitions. "Joy unspeakable and full of glory" was, in the view of the apostles, the proper portion of those who believed in Jesus. "Rejoice evermore!" was the exhortation with which gloom was rebuked, with which privilege and hope of immortal progress were indissolubly connected. T.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv20, 23, 25, 26 Verily, verily! say unto you, that ye shall weep…
Joh_16:20-22
Verily, verily! say unto you, that ye shall weep and lament
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Sorrow and joy
I.
THE FORETOLD SORROW, arising, i.e
1. From their own sense of loss and bereavement. In the death of Jesus these men lost for a season their dearest, most honoured, and trusted Friend.
2. From their sympathy with their Lords sufferings. His betrayal, humiliation, agony, crucifixion, went to their hearts.
3. From the disappointment of their hopes. Looking forward to the establishment of a Messianic kingdom, they were overwhelmed with dismay at what they saw.
II. THE FORETOLD JOY. This, when it came, was, perhaps, all the livelier and brighter by contrast with the gloom from which these sensitive and sympathizing natures emerged. It was the joy of
1. Renewed friendship. Then were the disciples glad when they saw the Lord.
2. Hope revived. The cloud was dispersed, the sun shone again. Once more they trusted that He would redeem Israel.
3. Victory. Their Lord was Conqueror, and in triumph there is ever gladness and rejoicing.
4. New humanity. In the resurrection of Christ was born the regenerated race. By the first throes of anguish came into being the Church of the Redeemer, the inheriter of earth and heaven.
5. Eternal, which none could take from them. (Family Churchman.)
Sorrow at the cross turned into joy
It is most instructive that the apostles do not speak of the death of our Lord with any kind of regret. The Gospels mention their distress during their actual occurrence, but after the Resurrection, and Pentecost, we hear of no such grief; on the contrary, there are many expressions which treat of the Crucifixion in the spirit of exalting joy. God forbid that I should glory, &c. The three hours agony, the darkened church, the altar in mourning, the tolling of a bell, and all the other mock funereal rites of superstition, have not the least encouragement from the spirit and language of the apostles.
I. THE DEATH OF OUR LORD WAS AND IS A THEME FOR SORROW.
1. It was so, because to the disciples
(1) It was the loss of His personal presence. They felt that they would be sheep without a shepherd: orphans bereft of their best friend and helper. What would you think if your best earthly friend was hurried away from you by a shameful death?
(2) The world would be rejoicing because their Lord was gone. You know when you are in sorrow, how bitter is the coarse laugh of an adversary who exults over your misery and extracts mirth from your tears. This made the disciples smart at their Lords death.
(3) His death was for a time the disappointment of all their hopes. They at first had fondly looked for a temporal kingdom. How can they be happy who have seen an end of their fairest life-dream?
(4) Added to this was the sight which many of them had of their beloved Master in His agonies.
2. Now, even at the recollection of what our Lord endured, every Christian feels sympathy with Him. You cannot read the story without feeling that the minor key befits your voice at such a time, if you at all attempt to sing. One of the sharpest points about our sorrow is this--that we were the cause of it. We virtually crucified the Lord, seeing it was because we were sinners that He must needs be made a sacrifice.
II. THIS SORROW IS CHANGED INTO JOY. Not exchanged for joy, but actually transmuted, so that the grief becomes joy.
1. That Jesus died for our sins is a sharp sorrow: and yet this is the greatest joy of all. If each one of us can say, He loved me, and gave Himself for me, we are truly happy. Because God hath condemned sin in the flesh of Jesus Christ, therefore He will no more condemn us.
2. Jesus has now suffered all that was required of Him. That He should suffer was cause for grief, but that He has now suffered all is equal cause for joy. When a champion returns from the wars bearing the scars of conflict by which he gained his honours, does any one lament over his campaigns? Let us not mourn, then; for Christs agony is all over now, and He is none the worse for having endured it.
3. Our Lord has survived His pains. He died a real death, but now He lives a real life. The Lord is risen indeed. He has lost no dominion, He claims superior rights and rules over a new empire. He is a gainer by His losses, He has risen by His descent.
4. The grand end which His death was meant to accomplish is all attained, viz
(1) The putting away of sin by the sacrifice of Himself.
(2) The salvation of His chosen.
(3) The glory of God.
5. The greatest possible blessings accrue to us, because He was made a curse for us. Through His death came pardon, reconciliation, access, acceptance, heaven.
6. Because He died there is a kingdom set up in the world, which never can be moved.
7. This joy is
(1) Right hearty joy. Ours is no superficial mirth.
(2) Abiding joy. Your joy no man taketh from you.
III. THE GENERAL PRINCIPLE INVOLVED IN THIS ONE PARTICULAR INSTANCE, viz., that in connection with Christ you must expect to have sorrow, But whatever sorrow you feel there is this consolation--the pangs are all birth-pangs, they are all the necessary preliminaries of an ever-increasing joy.
1. Since you have come to know Christ you have felt a smarter grief on account of sin. Let it continue with you, for it is working holiness in you, and holiness is happiness.
2. You have felt a keener sensibility on account of the sins of those around you, do not wish to be deprived of it, it will be the means of your loving them more, and seeking more their good.
3. Perhaps you have had to bear a little persecution, hard words, and the cold shoulder. Do not fret, for all this is needful to make you have fellowship with Christs sufferings that you may know more of Him, and may become more like Him.
4. You sometimes see the cause of Christ as it were dead, and you are grieved about it, as well you may be. It is well, but in that very feeling there should be the full persuasion that the truth of Christ cannot long be buried, but waits to rise again with power.
5. By and by will come your last sorrow. Look forward to it without the slightest alarm. Death is the gate of endless joy, and shall we dread to enter there? Conclusion: The world shall rejoice: Ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy. Now, what is implied there to complete the sentence? Why, that the worlds joy shall be turned into sorrow. There is not a pleasure which the ungodly man enjoys but what will curdle into grief and be his sorrow for ever. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Joy and sorrow mingled
Joy lives in the midst of the sorrow; the sorrow springs from the same root as the gladness. The two do not clash against each other or reduce the emotion to a neutral indifference, but they blend into one another; just as in arctic regions, deep down beneath the cold snow, with its white desolation and its barren death, you shall find the budding of the early spring flowers and the fresh green grass; just as some kinds of fire burn below the water; just as in the midst of the barren and undrinkable sea here may be welling up some little fountain of fresh water that comes from a deeper depth than the great ocean around it, and pours its sweet streams along the surface of the saltwaste. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
Sorrow turned into joy
I. THE PROMISE OF A JOY WHICH IS A TRANSFORMED SORROW, Your sorrow shall be turned into joy, not merely that the one emotion is substituted for the other, but, as it were, becomes the other. This can only mean that that which was the cause of the one reverses its action. Of course the historical and immediate fulfilment of these words lies in the double result of Christs Cross upon His servants. That Cross, which for some few hours was pain, and all but ruin, has ever since been the centre of the deepest gladness and confidence of a thousand generations.
1. Estimate the value as an evidence of the historical veracity of the Gospel story, of this sudden and complete revolution in that handful of believers. A dead Christ was the Churchs despair; a dead and risen Christ the Churchs triumph.
2. This principle covers the whole ground of devout mens sorrows. Every thunder-cloud has a rainbow lying in its depths when the sun smites upon it. And our purest and noblest joys are transformed sorrows. The sorrow of contrite hearts becomes the gladness of pardoned children; the sorrow of bereaved empty hearts may become the gladness of hearts filled with God. Every stroke of the ploughshare, and every dark winters day are represented in the broad acres waving with the golden grain.
II. THIS IS A JOY FOUNDED UPON THE CONSCIOUSNESS THAT CHRISTS EYE IS UPON US.
1. I will see you again, &c. Elsewhere the form of the promise is the converse--Yet a little while and ye shall see Me. Ye shall see Me fixes attention upon us and our perception of Him. I will see you fixes attention upon Him and His beholding of us. Ye shall see Me speaks of our going out after Him and being satisfied in Him. I will see you speaks of His perfect knowledge, loving care, tender, ever-watchful eye.
2. And so it requires a loving heart to find joy in such a promise. He sees all men, but unless our hearts cleave to Him, then I will see you again is a threat. I know thy works brought no joy to the lukewarm professors at Laodicea, nor to the church at Ephesus. But to the faithful souls in Philadelphia and Sardis it was blessedness and life.
3. Is there any joy to us in the thought that the Lord Christ sees us? Oh, if our hearts are really His, then all that we need will be given to us, in the belief that His eye is fixed upon us. There be many that say, who will show us any good, &c. One look towards Christ will more than repay and abolish earths sorrow. One look from Christ will fill our hearts with sunshine. All tears are dried on eyes that meet His. If one could take a bit of the Arctic world and float it down into the tropics, the ice would all melt, and the grey dreariness would disappear, and a new splendour of colour and light would clothe the fields, and an unwonted vegetation would spring up where barrenness had been. And if you and I will only float our lives southward beneath the direct vertical rays of that great Sun of Righteousness, then all the dreary winter and ice of our sorrows will melt, and joy will spring.
III. NOTE HOW OUR LORD SETS FORTH HIS DISCIPLES JOY AS ONE BEYOND THE REACH OF VIOLENCE AND INDEPENDENT OF EXTERNALS. No man taketh it from you.
1. Much of our joy, of course, depends upon our fellows, and disappears when they fade. And much of our joy depends upon the goodwill and help of our fellows, and they can snatch away all that so depends. But no man but myself can put a roof over my head to shut me out from God and Christ. And as long as I have a clear sky over head, it matters very little how high may be the walls, and how close, that foes pile around me.
2. And much of our joy necessarily depends upon and fluctuates with external circumstances of a hundred different kinds. But we do not need to have all our joy fed from these surface springs. We may dig deeper down. If we are Christians, we have, like some beleaguered garrison in a fortress, a well in the courtyard that nobody can get at.
3. But remember, though externals have no power to rob us of our joy, they can interfere with that faith which is the essential condition of our joy. They cannot force us away from Christ, but they may tempt us away. The sunshine did for the traveller in the old fable what the storm could not do; and the world may cause you to think so much about it that you forget your Master. Its joys may compel Him to hide His face, and may so fill your eyes that you do not care to look at His face.
IV. THIS LIFE OF JOY IS MADE CERTAIN BY THE PROMISE OF A FAITHFUL CHRIST. Verily! verily! I say unto you.
1. He was accustomed to use that impressive and solemn formula when He was about to speak words beyond the reach of human wisdom or of prime importance. He tells these men, who had nothing but His bare word, that the astonishing thing which He is going to promise them will certainly come to pass. He puts His own character, so to speak, in pawn. His words are precisely equivalent in meaning to the solemn Old Testament words which are represented as being the oath of God--As I live, saith the Lord. So Christ puts His whole truthfulness at stake, as it were; and if any man that has ever loved Jesus Christ and trusted Him aright has not found this joy unspeakable and full of glory, then Jesus Christ has said the thing that is not.
2. Then why is it that so many professing Christians have such joyless lives? Simply because they do not keep the conditions. If you know but little of this joy it is your fault, and not His. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
Your Joy no man taketh from you
Christian joy
I. THAT OUR HAPPINESS IS LARGELY IN THE POWER OF OTHER PEOPLE. is a conviction which we reach very early.
1. The child, the merchant, the thinker, the public man, are all illustrations of this. No man can shut his gates and say, I will find my happiness only in myself, and what I find no man shall take away. It seems as if all our social arrangements and relationships were not more fitted to make us furnishers of joy to one another than they are to give to every man the chance to pluck away our happiness. Husband and wife, father and child, teacher and scholar, master and servant--how they all hold each others pleasures at their will I This view of life, which is perpetually presenting itself, stands up face to face with the thought, which all self-reliant and strong men try to keep hold of, viz., self-suffciency. To have the sources of all happiness in our own lives is a thought which no man can wholly cast away. It never finds its realisation; it always meets the interference of our brethren. Practically, almost all mens lives vacillate between the two.
II. IN THE MIDST OF A BEWILDERMENT LIKE THIS CHRIST COMES IS WITH THESE WORDS. There is a limit to our power over one another; there is a chamber of our inner selves where we may turn the key and no one can come in. The very fact that there is such a limit interests us.
1. We can see how good it is that, while there should be great regions of happiness which are involved with what others are and do, there should be also others which no one but ourselves can touch. The completest house is one whose outer rooms are hospitably open, but which has inner chambers where only the master of the house and his household have a right to enter. The best stock of ideas which any man can keep is that which, while it is subject to the influence of others, yet has at its heart convictions, which are the mans own, and which no other can invade. It is the same with regard to happiness. There would be something terrible if each of us held his power of happiness untouchable. Think how much of the finest of our intercourse, how much of the purest motive for self-sacrifice would be lost if we had no power of interfering with each others joy. It would be almost a world of chartered selfishness. The necessary condition of your filling your childs life with sunshine is the power of darkening it with a heavy cloud. What would you care for any mans sympathy or approbation if all the while you knew that that same mans sneer or coldness would not give you even a twinge of pain?
2. And yet we can see just as clearly how dreadful it would be if this power reached in to our deepest happinesses. All of us practically insist that there shall be some enjoyments with which no man shall interfere, and which no human malice can poison.
3. Now hear what Jesus says to His disciples.
(1) Nature was not to be changed in their case nor even their relations with their fellow-men to be robbed of the power of painfulness. Still, if you stabbed them they would bleed, if you burnt them they would smart. But behind all this His words revealed to them a something which no fellowman could touch. As I think about their after lives, I can see them letting other joys go and not hating the hands which robbed them of them in the consciousness of this inmost joy, which no intrusion could invade.
(2) Jesus tells His disciples that the power of this secret joy is to be His presence with them--I will see you again, &c. It is not that they are to develop some interior strength, or to drift into calm indifference where the influences of their fellow-men shall not touch them any longer. It is that they are to come to a new life with Him.
(3) How natural this is! Only the association of some higher and stronger person can save one from the contamination of lower persons who are swamping and ruining his life. Suppose you have a boy who is being overwhelmed and lost by and through his faculties of companionship. Have you not learned that it is through these same faculties of companionship that he must be saved? It will not be simply by forbidding him to have connection with his base companions, nor by shutting him in upon himself, that you will save him. A stronger person must be his saviour. Now this is just what Jesus did. Some men make the influence of Jesus a mere sentimental thing. They dwell upon the love which He poured out upon His friends. Other men talk about the mastery of Christ. He gave His servants things to do. He shaped their lives into new habits. It was not either of these alone. Until we grasp them both into one thought we have not understood His power. He brings love, awakening love, and authority demanding obedience. Let us try to bear this in mind as we pass on now to speak of
III. SOME OF THE INTERFERENCES WITH THE PLEASURES OF LIFE WHICH COME FROM OUR FELLOW-MEN, AND OF THE WAY IN WHICH THE SOULS LIFE WITH CHRIST PUTS THOSE SAME PLEASURES OUT OF THE REACH OF ANY FELLOW-MANS INTRUSION.
1. The pleasure of energetic action, which makes life bright to the best men. Oh, the poor creatures whom their fathers money or their own sluggish wills have robbed of the great human delight of action! But opposition, criticism, and ingratitude are the ways in which other men meet an active man, and make his work a drudgery. Here is a man in public life. The happiness of dealing with the states affairs is what his soul is full of; he has dreamed of it while he was a boy, and now all his manhood triumphs in it. But other men have stepped across his path, and hindered him from doing what he meant to do; or have told the world and him how far what he has done is from what it ought to be; or those for whom he laboured have gone away, giving him curses instead of thanks. Now he may still work on from habit or duty, but the joy is departed. Is there any help for that? If not it is a dreadful world to live and work in. But now suppose that Christ had been with that man; that behind every other motive there had been the love of Christ. Would that have made no difference? Like an electric atmosphere poured around the shrine in which a jewel rests, so that no hand can be thrust through to steal it; so round the work, full of its joy, is poured the love of Christ, out of which no man can snatch it.
(1) Suppose that some opponent hinders him in doing what he wants to do--he knows that no man can thwart his Masters will.
(2) Suppose that men taunt him with his actions incompleteness. The incompleteness of his action is absorbed in the larger completeness of his Master.
(3) Suppose that men turn from Him with ingratitude. Christ says, Well done, and that is the only praise he really values. To every consecrated labourer who works for Christ there is a joy in working which no man can take away from him.
2. See how all this is true of Christian thought and the struggle after truth. These are the best joys of the best men. To make some few steps forward on the journey which stretches out into eternity; to add some new stone to the structure whose lines already prophesy an infinite height for the far topstone,--he has not lived who has not felt this pleasure. But yet every thinking man discovers that the joy of thought is one that lies peculiarly within the power of our fellow-men. And why? It is not that our fellowmen may contradict and abuse our opinions. If we do really hold it perfectly as true, that is a little thing. But the trouble is that the more one thinks and studies, the more he becomes aware how infinite is truth. The truth which he has learned on any subject, he becomes aware, is not the whole. Every time, then, that any reasoner impugns our truth it starts up this consciousness. We see how far we are, even upon the subject which we know best, from having reached the end of things and laid our faith securely. This is the reason why so many people, when their faith is once attained, keep it not merely as a very precious but as a very frail and brittle thing. They will not talk with any one about it. They will not read anything upon the other side. We know this is not good; and yet we very often do not see how it is to be escaped. The real escape, I think, lies here. The Christian faith is primarily a belief in Christ. All truth which we believe, we believe in and because of Him. We know that though we have taken Him for our Master, He is very far yet from having told us all that He has to tell. That knowledge does not decrease our satisfaction in believing Him; it increases it; for it binds us to Him not merely by what He has already taught us, but by the far greater truth which He is keeping for us, which it is a pleasure to wait for now, as it will be a pleasure to take it when the time shall come. Now, let a believer have this consciousness; and then let the unbeliever come up to him, to pluck away his joy. Always it is the surrounding of the doctrinal faith by the personal faith that keeps the joy of the doctrinal faith safe from attack or theft.
3. Follow our subject into the region of character. Can a man have such joy in his own character that no other man can take his joy away from him? Just as soon as we ask that, how our imperfections and sins start up before us! What idlest chatterer cannot pluck away our self-satisfaction, and steal the last trace of joy in our own characters? And yet, with all this true, it is not all the truth. There are two different conceptions of character, one of which looks at it in itself; the other looks at it as it is involved with the powers which are at work upon it to make it what it is capable of being. A block lying alone upon a hill-top may be uninteresting. The same block brought into a sculptors workshop, though his hands may not have touched it, or may have only rudely blocked out his design, may be a thing to reverence. And can we not think that as it lies upon the hil-top it may be ready to accept everybodys disesteem; but when it comes into the sculptors hands, it may gain such new sense of its capacity under that wise and loving power that no mans sneer can cloud the pleasure that it feels in the new revelation and hope of its true self which, under those hands, have come to it? Row read the parable. I am a poor, weak, wicked man; I know it; I do not need that you should tell me of it. Any small joy in myself which I have been able to conceive, your well-deserved scorn can steal from me in an instant. But now suppose that Christ takes me into His hands. I am a poor dull block still, but I am His, and His great hands have just begun to shape His purpose in me. Is not the whole thing changed? Now there is a joy in character which is not present consciousness, but certain prophecy. (Phillips Brooks, D. D.)
When Christ is present believers should rejoice
I have been so long away from England that I do not know where our Queen is residing just now; but if I had the wings of a dove, and could mount into the upper air, I would soon find out. I should look for the royal standard. I should see it floating over Windsor or Osborne, and by this token I should espy the royal abode. Fling out the banner to the breeze when the King is within. Is the King at home with you, dear brother? Do not forget to display the standard of holy joy. Hoist it, and keep it flying. Ring the joy-bells! (C. H.Spurgeon.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain On vv20, 22, 23, 25 20. Ye shall weep and lament, but the world…
20. Ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice. How sad were the broken-hearted disciples, as they wept at the tomb! At the same time their enemies were gloating over their triumph. Soon all was changed, for your sorrow shall be turned into joy. The glad news came, “The Lord is risen!” Then they heard that “all power was his,” saw him ascend into heaven, and “returned to Jerusalem with great joy.”
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v23 Joh_16:25. Proverbs, or parables.—Such as the vine, the woman…
EXPLANATORY AND CRITICAL NOTES
Joh_16:25. Proverbs, or parables.—Such as the vine, the woman in travail, etc. The time cometh, etc.—The Spirit after Pentecost would guide them clearly into all truth.
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Joh_16:26-27. At that day.—How different were the preaching and the prayers of the disciples after they were inspired of the Spirit! Then they did not ask so much as commit themselves joyfully to God (Act_4:23-31).
Joh_16:28. I came forth, etc.—Here the whole prologue is condensed into one sentence, and the passion into another. He was sent; He became incarnate (Joh_1:14); He died (Joh_19:30); He ascended to glory (Luk_24:50-51) (see Westcott, in loc.).
Joh_16:30. Now we are sure, etc.—The faith of the disciples was weak and grew slowly (Joh_2:11). They believed Jesus to be the Son of God; but they had not yet fully apprehended all that this implied. Yet His reading of their thoughts (Joh_16:19) was a further cause of strength to their faith. But they had much to learn, which the events at hand and the Spirit alone could teach, ere they understood clearly.
Joh_16:31. Do ye now? etc.—As if He had said to them, “Search your hearts.” You have faith; but is it strong enough and clear enough to endure what is to come? “Watch and pray.”
Joh_16:32. Behold, the hour cometh, etc.—An hour of testing to the faith of all—especially of one. Scattered to his own occupations (Joh_21:3).—Christ must tread the winepress alone. All fell away at this supreme hour. The multitudes who shouted Hosanna—those who believed at the tomb of Lazarus. Judas bad gone forth a traitor; Nicodemus, Nathanael, and others are unseen. The eleven remain, and the devout women. But in Gethsemane all forsake and flee; only John and Peter follow. Peter fell, and at the cross John and Mary, Mary the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene alone heard His last words as the lowly “Man of Sorrows,” “It is finished.”
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Joh_16:23-33
Joh_16:23-24 (see also Joh_15:11, Christian Joy). “Ask, and ye shall receive.”—A passage like this should rivet the attention of believers. The miner who has laboured for months in vain at his claim and who suddenly lights on a rich vein of the precious metal, the labouring man who suddenly falls heir to a fortune, think they have occasion to rejoice. Yet it may turn out that their fortune brings anything but a blessing to them, and even at the best they may never afterward enjoy the rude health and freedom they had before. But in these words of our Lord there is a promise of greater wealth than Burma’s mines, etc. “Whatsoever ye shall ask,” etc. Here is the promise of all true peace, joy, “every good and perfect gift.” And there is but one condition: “If ye shall ask anything in My name,” etc. In order to understand the meaning of this promise, see what it meant to the disciples.
I. The disciples had not yet learned the true spirit of believing prayer.—
1. The disciples were troubled. In spite of the grand promise of the Comforter, “sorrow had filled their heart.” They could not understand why Jesus must depart, even though He promised that they should see Him again. They had to learn that the time was coming when their fellowship with Jesus, though no longer material, would be yet more close.
2. The disciples had known Christ only “after the flesh” hitherto. The idea of His spiritual kingdom had not been fully grasped by them. Their thoughts and aspirations were still for the temporal and material manifestation of His kingdom. It was only when the day of enlightenment came, and the Spirit descended, that all became plain, and they went forth to preach Jesus and the Resurrection with power, and to labour to extend His spiritual kingdom.
3. Just because of all this they could not yet pray in the spirit of the Redeemer, i.e. the spirit of complete submission to the divine will. But when they went forth to do His work in His name after their spiritual enlightenment, then it was evident that they had learned to pray in His spirit as well as in His name.
4. Their whole after-history reflects this change in the spirit of their prayers. They had asked the Saviour to teach them to pray, but had not learned fully the meaning of the petition, “Thy kingdom come.” Hence their strife about priority, their anxiety to dissuade the Saviour from the way to the cross, etc. But read their recorded prayer after Pentecost (Act_4:23, etc.), and see how they had now learned to submit to the divine will, and thus to pray in the name of Jesus.
II. How may we realise this promise?—
1. The mere use of the form “for Jesus’ sake” is not sufficient. This may become a mere superstitious formula. We must realise that it is possible for us to approach God acceptably only through Jesus. God is the hearer of prayer; but before Jesus came men could come only in fear and trembling to Him. But Jesus has made the way open to the throne of grace, and men can come through Him with holy boldness and confidence as children to a father. Christ’s people are one with Him, partakers of the divine nature,—God loves them, and there is no need that Jesus should entreat for them (Joh_16:26). That love, in all its wealth and fulness, is theirs in Him.
2. Prayer in the name of Jesus is prayer in His spirit of trustful confidence in the love of the Father and His almighty power and providential care. Material and temporal blessings are to be asked for. It is said, “God does not stop the working of His laws to answer the man who prays.” God does not violate His laws in carrying out His purposes; but surely He can control those laws, which He has framed, to carry out His great and good designs. We must not limit the meaning of our Lord’s word whatsoever. The material as well as the spiritual, the temporal as well as the eternal, are included.
3. Prayer in the name of Jesus implies the spirit of submission to the divine will. We are not to seek selfishly for things and gifts merely for our own self-interest. We have a mediator with the Father; but will He intercede for what would merely increase our vanity, or minister to earthly ambition? Better that such prayers remain unanswered. “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.” We must banish from our desires and prayers all that will not fit in with our endeavours to advance the heavenly kingdom. The Spirit will help us to such unselfish prayer. In approaching God let us remember the weakness of our humanity (Jas_4:3), and ask the guidance of the Spirit in our intercessions.
III. This divine promise has been and is being daily fulfilled.—
1. Would the kingdom of God have advanced so far had believing prayer in Christ’s name not been answered? In our Christian lands to-day we are rejoicing in the answers to believing prayer. And it is because we do not ask earnestly enough that our joy is so far from full. We lament the poverty of our prayers. Let them be unselfish and sincere and they will be answered. God reads our thoughts, He translates our poor stammering words into heavenly speech, and gives, not as the world, but freely, bountifully in His love.
2. Those who thus come in faith to God, in the spirit of submissive confidence, will be filled with joy. They shall realise that all must be well, that even out of trial and sorrow good will come, and heavenly light rise on darkness.
3. Rejoice, because true prayer in the name of Jesus will in every way be answered. The vast all, the great universe, with all its mysteries of law and being, is under the guidance of the eternal Father, working out His purposes of love and mercy. So that all who are in Christ are in the line of His purposes, and will, must, receive everything needful to fit them for their place and action, in reference to the divine plan. In Christ dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, and they are complete in Him (Col_2:9-10).
Joh_16:23-30. What prayer in the name of Jesus leads believers to hope for.—The principal points for consideration in the passage are: prayer in Jesus’ name and the hearing of such prayer; the free access to the Father, and the love of the Father to those who believe in the Son; the increase of the knowledge and joy of believers through the clear revelation of Jesus and their experience of prayer heard.
Introduction.—Prayer is the vital breath of the soul; a soul which does not pray is dead. In prayer communion between man and God is carried into effect, and this communion is further deepened through prayer. It is therefore because men do not pray that they have no true inner spiritual life. The generation of to-day, to a great extent, professes to be ashamed of prayer, as foolishness. But is there ever a true child who in his father’s house speaks no word to his father, or is ashamed to speak with him before strangers? Others, again, do pray, but they pray like the Pharisee in the temple—rehearse before God their (supposed) goodness and benevolence; in their hearts also death reigns. They who would pray aright must pray in the name of Jesus, must not appeal to their own righteousness, but must lay hold by faith of the righteousness of Christ. They must also pray only for what is for their weal, submit to the divine will, and live in confidence that God will grant to His reconciled children according to their needs. Such prayer opens up a most joyful prospect. It leads them to hope for—
I. Free access to the divine Father’s heart.—
1. Without Jesus we stand as unreconciled sinners before God, whose holiness turns away His face from us.
2. Through faith in Jesus we are brought into the unity of His mystical body and are clothed with His righteousness, so that the Father, in beholding His Son, visits us also with His good pleasure and vouchsafes us a way of access to Himself—nay, calls and allures us to His heart of love.
II. Assured help in every time of need.—
1. Of themselves men are so weak and helpless, inwardly and outwardly, however highly they may be tempted to think of themselves, that without the divine protection they are not secure, and without the divine help they cannot be delivered from material or spiritual trouble.
2. But to those who pray in the name of Jesus the Father will give what is needful. Through prayer in Jesus’ name men fly under cover of God’s wings, where they are protected from all danger; they hasten to the heart of divine love, whence there flow to meet them streams of heavenly consolation; they speed to the refuge of divine strength, which will enable them to overcome all tribulation, and extricate them from all temporal and spiritual trouble.
III. Unspeakable joy at every new experience of prayer heard.—
1. God protects and saves those who call on Him in the name of His Son—not only giving them enough to satisfy their wants, so that they should not ever live in want and sorrow: He makes the life of His people pleasant; He desires also to bring joy into their hearts.
2. Every renewed experience of prayer heard assures Christians of their divine sonship, and shows them the glory of their heavenly King and the final victory of His kingdom.
3. Every new gift received strengthens them in the assurance that He will make all their enemies His footstool. This fills their hearts with heavenly joy, and makes them feel secure and contented on their pilgrimage through life.—J. L. Sommer, “Evang. Per.”
Joh_16:31-32. The loneliness of Christ.—There is no thought connected with the life of Christ more touching, none that seems so peculiarly to characterise His Spirit, than the solitariness in which He lived. Those who understood Him best only half understood Him. Those who knew Him best scarcely could be said to know Him. On this occasion the disciples thought, Now we do understand, now we believe. The lonely Spirit answered, “Do ye now believe? Behold, the hour cometh that ye shall be scattered, every man to his own, and shall leave Me alone.”
I. The loneliness of Christ was caused by the divine elevation of His character.—His infinite superiority severed Him from sympathy; His exquisite affectionateness made that want of sympathy a keen trial. There is a second-rate greatness which the world can comprehend. If we take two who are brought into direct contrast by Christ Himself, the one the type of human, the other that of divine excellence, the Son of man and John the Baptist, this becomes clearly manifest. John’s life had a certain rude, rugged goodness, on which was written, in characters which required no magnifying glass to read, spiritual excellence. The world on the whole accepted him: Pharisees and Sadducees went to his baptism; the people idolised him as a prophet; and if he had not chanced to cross the path of a weak prince and a revengeful woman, we can see no reason why John might not have finished his course with joy, recognised as irreproachable. If we inquire why it was that the world accepted John and rejected Christ, one reply appears to be that the life of the one was finitely simple and one-sided, that of the Other divinely complex. To the superficial observer Christ’s life was a mass of inconsistencies and contradictions. Hence it was that He lived to see all that acceptance which had marked the earlier stage of His career, as, for instance, at Capernaum, melt away. First the Pharisees took the alarm; then the Sadducees; then the political party of the Herodians; then the people. The apostles quailed; one denied, another betrayed, all deserted. They “were scattered, each to his own,” and the Truth Himself was left alone in Pilate’s judgment hall. Now learn from this a very important distinction. To feel solitary is no uncommon thing; to complain of being alone, without sympathy and misunderstood, is general enough. In every place, in many a family, these victims of diseased sensibility are to be found, and they might find a weakening satisfaction in observing a parallel between their own feelings and those of Jesus. But before that parallel is assumed be very sure that it is, as in His case, the elevation of your character which severs you from your species. Let us look at one or two of the occasions on which this loneliness was felt. The first time was when He was but twelve years old, when His parents found Him in the temple hearing the doctors and asking them questions. High thoughts were in the Child’s soul, expanding views of life: larger views of duty and His own destiny. That is a lonely, lonely moment, when the young soul first feels God—when this earth is recognised as an “awful place, yea, the very gate of heaven”—when the dream-ladder is seen planted against the skies, and we wake, and the dream haunts us as a sublime reality.
II. That solitude was felt by Christ in trial.—In the desert, in Pilate’s judgment hall, in the garden, He was alone; and alone must every son of man meet his trial-hour. The individuality of the soul necessitates that. Once more the Redeemer’s soul was alone in dying. The hour had come; they were all gone, and He was, as He predicted, left alone.
III. The spirit or temper of that solitude.—The solitude of Christ was the solitude of a crowd. In that single human bosom dwelt the thought which was to be the germ of the world’s life—a thought unshared, misunderstood, or rejected. Can you not feel the grandeur of these words, when the Man, reposing on His solitary strength, felt the last shadow of perfect isolation pass across His soul?—“My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” Learn from these words self-reliance. “Ye shall leave Me alone.” This is self-reliance: to repose calmly on the thought which is deepest in our bosoms, and be unmoved if the world will not accept it yet. Remark the humility of this loneliness. Had the Son of man simply said, I can be alone, He would have said no more than any proud, self-relying man can say. But when He added, “because the Father is with Me,” that independence assumed another character, and self-reliance became only another form of reliance upon God. Be sure that often when you say, It is only my own poor thought, and I am alone, the real correcting thought is this, Alone, but the Father is with me; therefore I can live that lonely conviction. The practical result and inference of all this is a very simple, but a very deep one, the deepest of existence. Let life be a life of faith. Do not go timorously about, inquiring what others think, what others believe, and what others say. It seems the easiest, it is the most difficult thing in life to do this: believe in God. God is near you. Throw yourself fearlessly upon Him.—F. W. Robertson.
Joh_16:33. In the world tribulation.—All men must bear this yoke, some in greater degree than others. How then should it be borne so that it may become a discipline for the higher life in the case of God’s people?
I. As a means of strengthening faith.
1. This may seem a strange statement, almost a paradox. Does not affliction on the contrary often lead to despair? And do not many, when a load of tribulation weighs them down, lay violent hands on their own lives even? Not if they are genuine Christians, in whom the light of reason has not been extinguished. Despair, in its full meaning, is a word excluded from the Christian’s vocabulary. The healthy spiritual nature, which lives in conscious union with the Invisible, is all unharmed by tribulation. As the tests applied to bridges, and like structures in mechanical engineering, prove the strength of the structure; so tribulation tests the believer’s faith. But it does more than this. Like the keen mountain air amid the ice and snow of alpine regions, or the sharp medicine, it gives tone to the spiritual being, strengthening the believer for future trials and for more earnest work. There cannot be a doubt that this is so. An appeal to universal Christian experience will establish the truth of these affirmations. The seeming curse is turned into a blessing; the bane is transformed into a healthful and healing balm. But the faith that so transforms affliction must be a real unwavering faith, a trustful resting on the divine Father’s love and care. It was of His true children that Isaiah spoke when he said, “In all their afflictions,” etc.; and it was to those who had become members of the heavenly family in Himself that Christ said, “In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.”
2. Now, as of old, it is through faith, through resting on the divine strength, that we can endure; and our faith should be deeper in view of the greater manifestation of divine love granted to us. The angel of His presence saved God’s people in the morning of the Church’s history. But now the Son, become incarnate, suffered and died, gave the ultimate and unspeakable proof of divine love. Shall tribulation harm those who are in Him? Shall it separate them from the love of Christ? No, nor death with all its sorrows, nor life with all its troubles, can loosen the roots and fibres of faith that have sunk down to and twined about the eternal Rock. For “the world, the evil one, and death are vanquished and lie prone; heaven, righteousness, and life have the victory.” … Therefore we are not to “despise the chastening of the Lord,” but to remember that “whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth” (Heb_12:5); and that from it all He will bring blessing and the strengthening of our faith. As in storms the oak and other trees, with deep, spreading roots, only strike their roots more deeply down, to enable them to withstand the fiercest blasts; so through affliction, tribulation, trial, will He who sympathises with His own in all their sorrows strengthen their spiritual life, transform them into His image, and prepare them for His glory.
II. It should be an incentive to prayer.
1. For if our true strength and hope in tribulation are in God, then every trial should lead us into closer and more earnest fellowship with Him. So “in the days of His flesh, having offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears” (Heb_5:7), as in the garden He cried, “Father, save Me from this hour” (Joh_12:27), our Redeemer pointed us the way in which to obtain “grace to help in time of need.” And here again universal spiritual experience comes to us with corroborative evidence. There come to many seasons of tribulation, when no philosophic calmness of temper can sustain the soul, when even the convictions and reasonings of faith would be of no avail, unless the soul had this way of access to the holiest. And it has frequently been in an hour of overwhelming tribulation and sorrow that some, “to whom the cross of Christ had been a stumbling-block and foolishness, have been led to bring their sorrows there.” Oh what comfort is there here for the children of sorrow! When the pressure of affliction comes, when courage fails, when succour lingers, and the weight of care becomes intolerable, what solace to lean
“on Him who not in vain
Experienced every human pain:
He sees my wants, allays my fears,
And counts and treasures up my tears!”
2. For we know that the approach of faith to Him will not be in vain. Is it want that afflicts? Then the faithful have only to remember that the divine treasuries are full and overflowing, and that God is the benign giver of all good. Therefore the apostolic promise may be joyfully appropriated, “My God shall fully supply all your need according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus” (Php_4:19). Is it tribulation from the unrighteousness and enmity of men? Then let it be remembered that the Lord shall deliver His people from every evil work (2Ti_4:18). Is it physical pain and trouble? “Your light affliction,” etc. (2Co_4:17). Is it spiritual perplexity and darkness? Even the psalmist could triumph in this: “The Lord my God shall enlighten my darkness” (Psa_18:28). Is it bereavement and loneliness? He who is able to save us in our afflictions was touched with “the feeling of our infirmities” (Heb_4:15). He cried on the cross “Eloi, Eloi,” etc. Thus tribulation leads God’s children to prayer. “Oh, well for the souls who permit themselves to be driven, by these storms of affliction, to the haven of eternal peace in their God and Redeemer!”
III. It should lead to deeper love to God and more earnest service.—Why so?
1. Because it is a proof and evidence to us of our Father’s love and care. “Whom the Lord loveth,” etc. (Heb_12:6). Were He to leave us unreproved when we needed correction, to go on without hindrance in some way of danger, then we might be led to ask, Has God forgotten us? When the vine-branches are left unpruned to waste their strength in useless leafage, this should be a warning rather than a cause of joy. For the heavenly Husbandman prunes—purges—the true and living branches of His vine, so that they may bring forth fruit. The tribulation, therefore, permitted to enter the lives of God’s children is a token of His love, for “God doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men” (Lam_3:33).
2. But at the best all suffering, all affliction, all tribulation, are the result of sin. Were there no sin there would be no tribulation, no suffering; and as much of the affliction of individuals arises from, or is consequent on, personal sin and folly; so the best way in which to get rid of this element of personal responsibility for tribulation is to seek to rise ever higher in the divine service, ever nearer to the primal object of man’s creation, i.e. that he might glorify God and enjoy Him for ever.
3. But even though this element were eliminated, there would remain the tribulation that arises to Christ’s people from this present evil world. It was this that Christ endured; and His people in enduring also may be upborne and comforted with the thought that He has overcome the world to redeem His people—that now exalted on high, in all their afflictions He is afflicted, and sends help in time of need. Great cause then for warmer love and zeal, for more heart-felt service.
Joh_16:33. The purposes of tribulation.—Christ in His incarnation has become only more blessedly to His people, what He has been from the beginning—“the Saviour and the friend of man.” Of old, as the “angel of Jehovah’s presence,” He saved God’s people in their affliction and tribulation; but now in Him tribulation becomes no more a punishment, as it was frequently of those of old, but a discipline of the soul. So that as He Himself was “made perfect through suffering,” He gives His people power to triumph even through tribulation.
I. Affliction—tribulation—to the worldly man is not only unwelcome, but dreaded and execrated.—It conflicts with his ideas of happiness, which are bound up with the pleasures of this passing scene. Therefore the watchword of materialistic ethics is “The greatest happiness of the greatest number.” But this is a fatal, fundamental error. It is to put the effect in the place of the cause. “The greatest good of men” is the chief end to be aimed at; and this greatest good is to be found in concord with God, and a consequent divine service. When this is attained to, then the greatest happiness will be the result.
II. Toward this happy end of our greatest good, in our present imperfect state, affliction is often an important means (Psa_119:67).—The enduring of tribulation—of the “great fight of afflictions”—when borne in the divine strength, tends to brace and strengthen our spiritual nature. It is like the purifying flame refining the true and pure metal of our being from the dross and slag of earthly and impure elements. It is part of the Father’s discipline of His children, in training them for a better and higher life. Nor will He permit them to be overwhelmed by affliction. Now as ever it is true, “In all their afflictions He is afflicted,” and their Saviour is not afar.
III. But we must guard against misconception by pointing out that not to all men, and not in view of all afflictions, is this comfort sure.—There is express mention made of circumstances in which there can be no true peace in view of tribulation. “Let none of you suffer as a murderer, or as a thief, or as an evildoer, or as a busybody in other men’s matters.” “For what glory is it, if, when ye be buffeted for your faults, ye take it patiently?” (1Pe_4:15; 1Pe_2:20). Let us remember also that, although men might be horrified at the idea of some of those sins mentioned by the apostle, yet dispositions and thoughts may be cherished which in the sight of Heaven may be equally guilty. And let men be thankful when the restraining hand of God, even through affliction, prevents the growth in their nature of such hateful, poisonous plants, “roots of bitterness,” that if permitted “to spring up” would assuredly “trouble them.”
IV. But the tribulation and affliction which the children of God have to meet for the most part are those which arise, either from the nature of things, as at present constituted, such as bereavement, sickness, and so forth, or from the present evil world, the world of sinful men inimical to Him and His gospel, and therefore to His followers. This world it is which “by wicked hands has crucified and slain” the Lord Himself. And as He said to His disciples, “If they have persecuted Me, they will also persecute you” (Joh_15:20). But He did not leave them to imagine that tribulation was without its compensations; for among His closing words to His disciples were those so full of comfort, “In the world ye shall have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.’
HOMILETIC NOTES
Joh_16:23. Asking and receiving.—King William III. of Prussia was once unable to sleep in consequence of the pain caused by a broken bone. Whilst lying awake he thought, “Who has been most inimical to me during my life? I desire to forgive him, to do him a kindness.” It then occurred to him that perhaps it was one Colonel Massenbach, who, on account of his caricatures of the king, had been imprisoned long years. Immediately he gave the order for Massenbach’s release. The latter had now been for ten years confined in the fortress of Glatz, and during that time had left no stone unturned to procure his release, but all in vain. But as he was reading the story of a wonderful answer to prayer, he suddenly remembered that he had never prayed to the Lord of lords for freedom. He did so without delay; and next day an order came to the governor of the fortress for his release.
The power of Jesus’ name.—The name of Jesus is nothing less than the fulness of all the work of Jesus; and especially of that work wrought for us in Gethsemane and on Golgotha, and through which we are reconciled to God, not figuratively, but really and truly.
The spirit of prayer.—When the ancient Persians prayed, they had neither gold in their pockets nor gold rings on their fingers. And if thou wilt pray so that thou wilt be heard, thy heart must be withdrawn from the world and worldly things.
Praying in Jesus’ name guides our prayers.—Jesus means “Saviour”: how can you then ask in the name of your Saviour what would be inimical to your salvation and blessedness?
Prayer and labour.—Prayer is thy heavenly vehicle, labour thy earthly carriage—both bring many good gifts when they prosper on their journey.
Learn to understand fully what you pray for.—You will thus be able more easily to prevent wandering thoughts.
If you cannot find words for your prayer, let your thoughts speak, the anguish of your heart cry out. God will hear you. You must acknowledge that He knows your heart, and will give you not only what you ask with your mouth, but what your heart desires.
Those who pray best.—The best payers are those who pay their debts in few pieces or notes of great value; and those who pray best are those who present their prayers in few words, but in great earnestness and devotion.—J. J. Weigel.
Joh_16:24. Not to pray aright is as futile as not to pray at all.—If you desire not to bring down upon you God’s displeasure in your prayers, then ask from Him what such a King as He is is willing to bestow. Your worthiness will not help you, your unworthiness will not hinder you; and whilst mistrust will condemn you, confidence will bring you favour and success.
Joh_16:27. No prayer without true, faith in Christ.—Faith in Jesus—
I. Awakens the true impulse to prayer;
II. Points out the true way in prayer;
III. Reveals the true spirit of prayer;
IV. Inspires with the true hope and expectation in prayer.
Prayer in the name of Jesus—
I. All powerful with God;
II. Possible to faith alone (Joh_16:25-30);
III. On earth strong and invincible.—M. Herold.
Joh_16:28. There are two actions of Christ we should never forget.—The coming of Christ from heaven into the world; for by this He prepared a way for us: and the going of Christ from the earth into heaven; for by this He brings us on that way.
Joh_16:30. Why we need to ask of Christ.—Christ does not need that you should ask Him; but you yourself need to do so. For you do not ask Him in order that He should learn from you, but that you should learn from Him.
The faith of the holiest weak in its beginning.—Even among the saints faith does not become at once a great tree, but is like a grain of mustard seed. Yet a sick man is a man, a weak faith is still faith. But we must not be contented with this weakness; rather we should give diligence that the weak faith should be strengthened. And it will grow on the word of God as a child grows on the breast of his mother.—From various German sources.
ILLUSTRATIONS
Joh_16:24. No prayer “in the name of Jesus” unanswered.—To prayer in the name of Jesus an answer will be accorded—an answer consistent with the divine wisdom and omniscience, and with our need. There is no such thing in the long history of God’s kingdom as an unanswered prayer. Every true desire from a child’s heart finds some true answer in the heart of God. Most certain it is that the prayer of the Church of God since creation has not been the cry of orphans in an empty home, without a father to hear or answer. Jesus Christ did not pray in vain, or to an unknown God; nor has He spoken in ignorance of God or of His brethren when He says, “Ask and receive, that your joy may be full.”—Dr. Norman Macleod.
Joh_16:26. Coming to the throne of grace “in the name of Jesus” a prerequisite of Christian prayer.—“A prayer without faith is like the firing of a gun with blank cartridge, or like a painting—without life.” “All things whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive” (Mat_21:22). Whilst tears fall to the ground, faith must mount heavenwards. It is written of Samuel that he offered a sucking lamb to the Lord as a burnt offering, and cried unto the Lord for Israel, and the Lord heard him (1Sa_7:9). The sucking lamb was a type of Christ. If we desire to come to God in prayer, we must not leave behind the Lamb who bears away the sin of the world (Joh_1:29). Luther says somewhere, “If our prayer is founded on our own worthiness it is worthless, although we should sweat our hearts’ blood.” As Joseph’s brethren were to bring with them their brother Benjamin, as otherwise they would not see Joseph’s face, so when we in prayer would behold God’s gracious countenance we must not leave our brother Jesus behind. This He impresses upon our souls when He says, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, If ye shall ask anything of the Father in My name, He will give it you. Hitherto ye have asked nothing in My name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full.”—Translated from G. Nitsch.
Joh_16:27. The heavenly Father loves His children.—I do not say I will pray for you, says Jesus. There is no need for Me to act as Moses did on Mount Sinai. He had to pray lest the wrath of God should sweep away these people Why? Because God was dealing with them on the ground of their own disobedience. But now, through the perfect work of Jesus Christ, the saints are in such a position of blest security that there is no need. Jesus says: There is no need for Me to pray the Father to love you—He does; there is no need for Me to stand between you and an avenging Deity—that avenging Deity is now become your Father. Dear brethren, it is possible, I believe, for God’s children to fall into an error of Roman Catholicism in this respect: Rome put the Son in the place of the Father. What is the next thing? Rome has put the Virgin Mary in the place of the Son, and appeals to the awful mother to speak to the awful Son. Yes, and now they appeal to holy Joseph to intercede with holy Mary that she may speak to her holy Son. We have nothing whatever to do with that. We are free from that. But there is such a thing as a child of God failing to realise his position in Jesus, that he may appeal unto Jesus in almost as meaningless a way as the Roman Catholics do. There is no need for me to cry, Jesus, oh, speak for me to God! No, Jesus has accomplished the work. He has gone in as high priest there. He is Himself the intercessor. His presence there is the intercession. And so Jesus says: You may come with boldness; there is no need for Me to pray the Father to love you—He Himself does. Now take the word, “The Father Himself loves you.” Do not water it down. Do not dilute it. I know how difficult it is to realise it. There are times when I can only know it because God has said it; but it does seem so wonderful of God to love me. I could think of Him putting up with me, I could imagine His forgiving me, I could imagine His forbearing with me, but I cannot think of His loving me. Dare to take it because Jesus said it! If you believe Jesus because of His testimony, if you are one of the saints, the Father Himself loves you; yes, with an abiding love. He does not love you to-day and dislike you to-morrow, and then be reconciled to you on the Wednesday, and then drop His love on the Friday; He loves you day in, day out. It is unalterable love. There is such a thing as love being killed. Perhaps you may have loved, and you may have loved intensely, and the one you loved killed the love, and you felt a cold dagger go into your heart and your life, and then the love died in you. What a mercy it is that God’s love cannot be killed! God’s love does not die, although sometimes I seem to have done my best to murder it. It is like Himself, “the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever.” I believe that the Father’s love to His children is as perfect as His love to Christ Himself. It is Christ who says, “As the Father hath loved Me,” so dear soul, very dear to God, the love wherewith He loved His Son, such is His love to you. The Father Himself loveth you.—Rev. Arch. G. Brown, in “British Weekly,” August 31st, 1893.
Joh_16:31-32. Believing and abiding.—To feel the burden of our captivity is not the same thing as to be free from it; to love God in our better mind, or, as St. Paul calls it, according to the inward man, is not the same thing as to walk according to that love, and to show it forth in our lives and actions. So that though we may now believe, yet if the hour cometh when we shall be scattered every man to his own, assuredly we cannot reckon ourselves as belonging to that flock of the good Shepherd, who hear His voice, and also follow Him whithersoever He goeth, so that they never go astray from the fold. Then how shall we be made free? how shall we be able to love Christ always, to walk as well as to feel according to the Spirit, and not according to the flesh? The answer is, that we must attain to the Spirit of life which is in Christ Jesus; that the Spirit of God must abide in us, and change us into His own image, that we may be delivered from sin and the flesh, and serve them no more at all. And yet this great truth, on which our whole salvation depends, and without which Christ has died in vain for each of us, as far as we ourselves are concerned—this great truth is for ever forgotten; and of all the points which the gospel teaches us, this is, perhaps, the least regarded. So true are our Lord’s words of that blessed Spirit whom we thus continually despise, “that the world cannot receive Him, because it seeth Him not, neither knoweth Him.” We pray to God; few, very few, none of us there are, I trust, who do not pray to Him; but I greatly doubt whether the prayer for the gift of the Holy Ghost, the prayer for the real enjoyment of that blessing which Christ has promised to His true disciples, that the Comforter should abide with them for ever—whether this be so often the part of our addresses to God as it ought to be. But this is the very main thing of all. We are living, if I may so speak, under the dispensation of the Spirit: in that character God now reveals Himself to His people, as He did of old, by conversing visibly with the prophets and patriarchs; or in the latter times, when He became manifest in the flesh, in the person of Jesus Christ. He who does not know God the Holy Ghost cannot know God at all. Though we have known Christ after the flesh, says St. Paul, yet henceforth know we Him so no more: the divine presence is henceforth to be of a different kind, not less real, but only revealing itself to our minds instead of our bodily senses. We must pray, then, for the Spirit—the Spirit of holiness, the Spirit of liberty, the Spirit of peace and love and joy. As the apostles were changed by His influence, so even shall we be. When He had once entered into their hearts, we hear no more of their being scattered every man to his own, and leaving their Saviour alone. The words of Peter, which, spoken in his own unaided strength, were but an idle boast soon reproved by the event, “Lord, I will lay down my life for Thy sake,” were, after the Spirit had once made him free from the bondage of corruption, the words of truth, and soberness; and, according to his words, so did it happen to him. And may we not hope the very same thing in our own case; that we, who now make vain professions of faith and love to our Lord in the Church—vain, because they are so soon broken, however sincerely they were uttered at the time; that we who are scattered every man to his own, each after his several idols, which he worships with the service of his daily living; that we may no more go astray from our Shepherd; but even as we believe in Him when our hearts are most warmed within us, so we may also keep the assurance of our faith steadfast to the end?—Dr. T. Arnold.
Joh_16:33. Classes in the school of affliction.—It has been well said that there are four classes in the Christian school of affliction. In the first class men learn to say, I must endure tribulation. Suffering affliction is there regarded as a bitter necessity, an oppressive yoke, which men must be contented to bear, although murmuring and complaining, because it cannot be otherwise. In the second class the scholars learn by degrees to say, I will endure. There, bearing affliction becomes a duty which is willingly undertaken, a burden which truly is felt to be heavy, but which is taken up and borne in God’s name, with devout patience, and in childlike obedience. In the third class the purport of the lesson is better still: I am able to bear affliction. The enduring of tribulation has here become a discipline in which advance can be made from day to day. Whilst enduring the weight of the cross, the Christian experiences more and more the power of God, which is made perfect in our weakness; the comfort of the Holy Ghost, who is the true Comforter in every time of need; the refreshment of the divine word, which is a light on all our ways, even on the darkest; and the peace of Christ Jesus, which the world cannot give nor take away, and which becomes ever more blessed. The Lord lays a burden on us, but He helps us to bear it. And thus the believer is advanced into the fourth and highest class, in which the solution of all problems is reached, when he learns to say, I need to bear affliction. Here tribulation is seen to be an honour and even a cause of joy. The burden is no more a burden, but an honour, a mark by which God’s children are known and Christ’s disciples recognised; and they learn with St. Paul to say, “We glory in tribulations” (Rom_5:3), and understand the exhortation of another apostle (Jas_1:2), “Count it all joy,” etc.—After Gerok.
Joh_16:33. Marah.—In the history of the Exodus we read that the children of Israel on their desert march came to a water-supply which they could not drink, for it was very bitter. Because of this the place was called Marah, “bitterness.” The people murmured and complained, and said to Moses, “What shall we drink? And he cried unto the Lord; and the Lord showed him a tree, which when he had cast into the waters, the waters were made sweet” (Exo_15:23-25). In this ancient history may be found a beautiful parable for us all. We, too, on our pilgrimage through the deserts of this life come to many a place “Marah,” and many bitter springs of tribulation, where we murmur and complain and cry, How can we drink this? And not only before individuals among us (to you or me) may a bitter cup of tribulation be set, from which our inner nature shrinks back—a whole people also may come to such a field of Marah, where to them the sweet springs of well-being and enjoyment are made salt and bitter; when what seems a sea of troubles lies before them, and thousands, young and old, cry out, How can we come through it? For such bitter floods of tribulation and springs of tears, my brethren, the Lord our God has given us also a tree, by means of whose wood the bitter waters may become sweet. This tree is the cross of Christ. Through the cross of the Redeemer the cross of His people is made light, and even pleasant. From His Gospel flow such sweet and powerful rills of comfort, that whole seas of affliction are thereby made sweet, the unbearable is made bearable, what is insipid agreeable, and His people experience in reality what the hymn expresses:
“With sighs, and oft with weeping,
Is marked My journey here;
Yet Christ, in peace me keeping,
Thus sweetens every tear.”
Idem.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On vv20, 23, 25 Joh 16:20 - Joh 16:22.
John
SORROW TURNED INTO JOY
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Joh 16:20 - Joh 16:22.
These words, to which we have come in the ordinary course of our exposition, make an appropriate text for Easter Sunday. For their one theme is the joy which began upon that day, and was continued in increasing measure as the possession of Christ’s servants after Pentecost. Our Lord promises that the momentary sadness and pain shall be turned into a swift and continual joy. He pledges His word for that, and bids us believe it on His bare word. He illustrates it by that tender and beautiful image which, in the pains and bliss of motherhood, finds an analogy for the pains and bliss of the disciples, inasmuch as, in both cases, pain leads directly to blessedness in which it is forgotten. And He crowns His great promises by explaining to us what is the deepest foundation of our truest gladness, ‘I will see you again,’ and by declaring that such a joy is independent of all foes and all externals, ‘and your joy no man taketh from you.’
There are, then, two or three aspects of the Christian life as a glad life which are set before us in these words, and to which I ask your attention.
I. There is, first, the promise of a joy which is a transformed sorrow.
‘Your sorrow shall be turned into joy,’ not merely that the one emotion is substituted for the other, but that the one emotion, as it were, becomes the other. This can only mean that that, which was the cause of the one, reverses its action and becomes the cause of the opposite. Of course the historical and immediate fulfilment of these words lies in the double result of Christ’s Cross upon His servants. For part of three dreary days it was the occasion of their sorrow, their panic, their despair; and then, all at once, when with a bound the mighty fact of the resurrection dawned upon them, that which had been the occasion for their deep grief, for their apparently hopeless despair, suddenly became the occasion for a rapture beyond their dreams, and a joy which would never pass. The Cross of Christ, which for some few hours was pain, and all but ruin, has ever since been the centre of the deepest gladness and confidence of a thousand generations.
I do not need to remind you, I suppose, of the value, as a piece of evidence of the historical veracity of the Gospel story, of this sudden change and complete revolution in the sentiments and emotions of that handful of disciples. What was it that lifted them out of the pit? What was it that revolutionised in a moment their notions of the Cross and of its bearing upon them? What was it that changed downhearted, despondent, and all but apostate, disciples into heroes and martyrs? It was the one fact which Christendom commemorates to-day: the resurrection of Jesus Christ. That was the element, added to the dark potion, which changed it all in a moment into golden flashing light. The resurrection was what made the death of Christ no longer the occasion for the dispersion of His disciples, but bound them to Him with a closer bond. And I venture to say that, unless the first disciples were lunatics, there is no explanation of the changes through which they passed in some eight-and-forty hours, except the supernatural and miraculous fact of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. That set a light to the thick column of smoke, and made it blaze up a ‘pillar of fire.’ That changed sorrow into joy. The same death which, before the resurrection, drew a pall of darkness over the heavens, and draped the earth in mourning, by reason of that resurrection which swept away the cloud and brought out the sunshine, became the source of joy. A dead Christ was the Church’s despair; a dead and risen Christ is the Church’s triumph, because He is ‘the Christ that died. . . and is alive for evermore.’
But, more generally, let me remind you how this very same principle, which applies directly and historically to the resurrection of our Lord, may be legitimately expanded so as to cover the whole ground of devout men’s sorrows and calamities. Sorrow is the first stage, of which the second and completed stage is transformation into joy. Every thundercloud has a rainbow lying in its depths when the sun smites upon it. Our purest and noblest joys are transformed sorrows. The sorrow of contrite hearts becomes the gladness of pardoned children; the sorrow of bereaved, empty hearts may become the gladness of hearts filled with God; and every grief that stoops upon our path may be, and will be, if we keep near that dear Lord, changed into its own opposite, and become the source of blessedness else unattainable. Every stroke of the bright, sharp ploughshare that goes through the fallow ground, and every dark winter’s day of pulverising frost and lashing tempest and howling wind, are represented in the broad acres, waving with the golden grain. All your griefs and mine, brother, if we carry them to the Master, will flash up into gladness and be “turned into joy.”
II. Still further, another aspect here of the glad life of the true Christian is, that it is a joy founded upon the consciousness that Christ’s eye is upon us.
‘I will see you again and your heart shall rejoice.’ In other parts of these closing discourses the form of the promise is the converse of this, as for instance-’Yet a little while, and ye shall see Me.’ Here Christ lays hold of the thought by the other handle, and says, ‘I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice.’ Now these two forms of putting the same mutual relationship, of course, agree, in that they both of them suggest, as the true foundation of the blessedness which they promise, the fact of communion with a present Lord. But they differ from one another in colouring, and in the emphasis which they place upon the two parts of that communion. ‘Ye shall see Me’ fixes attention upon us and our perception of Him. ‘I will see you’ fixes attention rather upon Him and His beholding of us. ‘Ye shall see Me’ speaks of our going out after Him and being satisfied in Him. ‘I will see you’ speaks of His perfect knowledge, of His loving care, of His tender, compassionate, complacent, ever-watchful eye resting upon us, in order that He may communicate to us all needful good.
And so it requires a loving heart on our part, in order to find joy in such a promise. ‘His eyes are as a flame of fire,’ and He sees all men; but unless our hearts cleave to Him and we know ourselves to be knit to Him by the tender bond of love from Him, accepted and treasured in our souls, then ‘I will see you again’ is a threat and not a promise. It depends upon the relation which we bear to Him, whether it is blessedness or misery to think that He whose flaming eye reads all men’s sins and pierces through all hypocrisies and veils has it fixed upon us. The sevenfold utterance of His words to the Asiatic churches-the last recorded words of Jesus Christ-begins with ‘I know thy works.’ It was no joy to the lukewarm professors at Laodicea, nor to the church at Ephesus which had lost the freshness of its early love, that the Master knew them; but to the faithful souls in Philadelphia, and to the few in Sardis, who ‘had not defiled their garments,’ it was blessedness and life to feel that they walked in the sunshine of His face.
Is there any joy to us in the thought that the Lord Christ sees us? Oh! if our hearts are really His, if our lives are as truly built on Him as our profession of being Christians alleges that they are, then all that we need for the satisfaction of our nature, for the supply of our various necessities, or as an armour against temptation, and an amulet against sorrow, will be given to us, in the belief that His eye is fixed upon us. There is the foundation of the truest joy for men. ‘There be many that say, Who will show us any good? Lord, lift Thou up the light of Thy countenance upon us. Thou hast put gladness in my heart more than in the time when their corn and their wine abound.’ One look towards Christ will more than repay and abolish earth’s sorrow. One look from Christ will fill our hearts with sunshine. All tears are dried on eyes that meet His. Loving hearts find their heaven in looking into one another’s faces, and if Christ be our love, our deepest and purest joys will be found in His glance and our answering gaze.
If one could anyhow take a bit of the Arctic world and float it down into the tropics, the ice would all melt, and the white dreariness would disappear, and a new splendour of colour and of light would clothe the ground, and an unwonted vegetation would spring up where barrenness had been. And if you and I will only float our lives southward beneath the direct vertical rays of that great ‘Sun of Righteousness,’ then all the dreary winter and ice of our sorrows will melt, and joy will spring. Brother! the Christian life is a glad life, because Christ, the infinite and incarnate Lover of our souls, looks upon the heart that loves and trusts Him.
III. Still further, note how our Lord here sets forth His disciples’ joy as beyond the reach of violence and independent of externals.
‘No man taketh it from you.’ Of course, that refers primarily to the opposition and actual hostility of the persecuting world, which that handful of frightened men were very soon to face; and our Lord assures them here that, whatsoever the power of the devil working through the world may be able to filch away from them, it cannot filch away the joy that He gives. But we may extend the meaning beyond that reference.
Much of our joy, of course, depends upon our fellows, and disappears when they fade away from our sight and we struggle along in a solitude, made the more dreary because of remembered companionship. And much of our joy depends upon the goodwill and help of our fellows, and they can snatch away all that so depends. They can hedge up our road and make it uncomfortable and sad for us in many ways, but no man but myself can put a roof over my head to shut me out from God and Christ; and as long as I have a clear sky overhead, it matters very little how high may be the walls that foes or hostile circumstances pile around me, and how close they may press upon me. And much of our joy necessarily depends upon and fluctuates with external circumstances of a hundred different kinds, as we all only too well know. But we do not need to have all our joy fed from these surface springs. We may dig deeper down if we like. If we are Christians, we have, like some beleaguered garrison in a fortress, a well in the courtyard that nobody can get at, and which never can run dry. ‘Your joy no man taketh from you.’
As long as we have Christ, we cannot be desolate. If He and I were alone in the universe, or, paradoxical as it may sound, if He and I were alone, and the universe were not, I should have all that I needed and my joy would be full, if I loved Him as I ought to do.
So, my brother! let us see to it that we dig deep enough for the foundation of our blessedness, and that it is on Christ and nothing less infinite, less eternal, less unchangeable, that we repose for the inward blessedness which nothing outside of us can touch. That is the blessedness which we may all possess, ‘For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us’ from the eye and the heart of the risen Christ who lives for us. But remember, though externals have no power to rob us of our joy, they have a very formidable power to interfere with the cultivation of that faith, which is the essential condition of our joy. They cannot force us away from Christ, but they may tempt us away. The sunshine did for the traveller in the old fable what the storm could not do; and the world may cause you to think so much about it that you forget your Master. Its joys may compel Him to hide His face, and may so fill your eyes that you do not care to look at His face; and so the sweet bond may be broken, and the consciousness of a living, loving Jesus may fade, and become filmy and unsubstantial, and occasional and interrupted. Do you see to it that what the world cannot do by violence and directly, it does not do by its harlot kisses and its false promises, tempting you away from the paths where alone you can meet your Master.
IV. Lastly, note that this life of joy, which our Lord here speaks of, is made certain by the promise of a faithful Christ.
‘Verily, verily, I say unto you,’-He was accustomed to use that impressive and solemn formula, when He was about to speak words beyond the reach of human wisdom to discover, or of prime importance for men to accept and believe. He tells these men, who had nothing but His bare word to rely upon, that the astonishing thing which He is going to promise them will certainly come to pass. He would encourage them to rest an unfaltering confidence, for the brief parenthesis of sorrow, upon His faithful promise of joy. He puts His own character, so to speak, in pawn. His words are precisely equivalent in meaning to the solemn Old Testament words which are represented as being the oath of God, ‘As I live saith the Lord,’ ‘You may be as sure of this thing as you are of My divine existence, for all My divine Being is pledged to you to bring it about.’ ‘Verily, verily, I say unto you,’ ‘You may be as sure of this thing as you are of Me, for all that I am is pledged to fulfil the words of My lips.’
So Christ puts His whole truthfulness at stake, as it were; and if any man who has ever loved Jesus Christ and trusted Him aright has not found this ‘joy unspeakable and full of glory,’ then Jesus Christ has said the thing that is not.
Then why is it that so many professing Christians have such joyless lives as they have? Simply because they do not keep the conditions. If we will love Him so as to set our hearts upon Him, if we will desire Him as our chief good, if we will keep our eyes fixed upon Him, then, as sure as He is living and is the Truth, He will flood our hearts with blessedness, and His joy will pour into our souls as the flashing tide rushes into some muddy and melancholy harbour, and sets everything dancing that was lying stranded on the slime. If, my brother, you, a professing Christian, know but little of this joy, why, then, it is your fault, and not His. The joyless lives of so many who say that they are His disciples cast no shadow of suspicion upon His veracity, but they do cast a very deep shadow of doubt upon their profession of faith in Him.
Is your religion joyful? Is your joy religious? The two questions go together. And if we cannot answer these questions in the light of God’s eye as we ought to do, let these great promises and my text prick us into holier living, into more consistent Christian character, and a closer walk with our Master and Lord.
The out-and-out Christian is a joyful Christian. The half-and-half Christian is the kind of Christian that a great many of you are-little acquainted with ‘the joy of the Lord.’ Why should we live half way up the hill and swathed in mists, when we might have an unclouded sky and a visible sun over our heads, if we would only climb higher and walk in the light of His face?
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On vv20–21 kosmos = mankind. (See Scofield "Mat 4:8").
world
kosmos = mankind. (See Scofield "Mat 4:8").
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v23 The prayer that never fails:
The prayer that never fails:
v. 23. And in that day ye shall ask Me nothing. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in My name, He will give it you.
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v. 24. Hitherto have ye asked nothing in My name. Ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full.
v. 25. These things have I spoken unto you in proverbs; but the time cometh when I shall no more speak unto you in proverbs, but I shall show you plainly of the Father.
v. 26. At that day ye shall ask in My name; and I say not unto you that I will pray the Father for you;
v. 27. for the Father Himself loveth you, because ye have loved Me, and have believed that I came out from God.
v. 28. I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world; again, I leave the world, and go to the Father.
In that day, with the coming of the revelation through the Spirit, there will no longer be need to ask the Lord any questions. Though the personal intercourse between them and their Master had terminated, they would have the benefit and the certainty of a direct communion through the work of the Spirit. And solemnly Jesus assures them that their relation to the Father will be of a nature permitting them to go directly to Him with all their desires and needs, for their prayers will all be made in the name of Jesus. Because the atonement of Jesus has effected peace with the Father, has restored the believers to their position as children of God, they have but to refer to Jesus and His work, to appeal to His redemption, to be assured of the hearing of their prayers. The work of the Mediator and Savior had not been completed, and therefore the disciples had not prayed in His name. But now the road to the Father’s heart has been opened, and they shall entreat, they shall ask, knowing that they will receive, and thus have also the fulfillment of their joy. The efficacy of prayer depends upon faith in the Savior as the Substitute of mankind, by whom we have free access to the Father. In order to bring this truth home to the disciples still more strongly, the Lord frankly tells them that His teaching has been, to a large extent, in proverbial, parabolic sayings. But the hour is coming, after He will have entered into His glory, when He will speak to them without pictures or difficult figures, through the work of the Spirit. Then He will also teach them, announce to them plainly, what is meant by knowing the Father, by having the right understanding of His love and mercy. At that time prayer in the name of Jesus will be so strong, so efficacious, that there will not even be need of His special intercession for them. This is necessary, as a matter of course, to establish the right relation between God and the believers. See Rom 8:34. But so great is the Father’s love which has been evoked by the love of the believers in Christ and by their firm belief that He came into the world to reveal the Father, to be His Ambassador, that the Father will deal directly with His children and will grant their prayers. And this the disciples should once more be assured of: Jesus went forth from the Father and came into the world to carry into effect the plan of salvation for all mankind. And now He leaves the world and goes to the Father, thus signifying that the work which He intended to perform has been done. That fact establishes the relation between God and the believers, and renders all their prayers in the name of Jesus acceptable to Him. Note: Everything that the believers ask of God in the name of Jesus, by faith in His merit, He will give to them. For they pray as the children of God, that have the nature and manner of their Father. It is self-evident, therefore, that they pray only for such things as please the Father, 1Jn 5:14. That includes, above all, that they leave both the time and the manner of the hearing to His fatherly wisdom.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv22, 25, 26 your heart will be glad
your heart will be glad
Here "heart" is a metonym for a person's inner being. AT: "you will be very happy" or "you will be very joyful" (See: Metonymy)
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Truly, truly, I say to you
Translate this the way your language emphasizes that what follows is important and true. See how you translated this in John 1:51.
if you ask anything of the Father in my name, he will give it to you
Here the word "name" is a metonym that refers to the person and authority of Jesus. AT: "if you ask anything of the Father, he will give it to you because you belong to me" (See: Metonymy)
Father
This is an important title for God. (See: Translating Son and Father)
in my name
Here "name" is a metonym that refers to the person and authority of Jesus. The Father will honor the requests of the believers because of their relationship with Jesus. AT: "because you are my followers" or "on my authority" (See: Metonymy)
your joy will be fulfilled
You can translate this in an active form. AT: "God will give you great joy" (See: Active or Passive)
translationWords
joy
God the Father
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv20, 21, 23, 25, 26 16:20 At the crucifixion, the world thought it had…
16:20 At the crucifixion, the world thought it had won a victory over the light. The shock of the cross would cause the disciples to weep and mourn, but their sorrow would change to joy when Jesus defeated the grave (20:20).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.