When he has come, he will convict the world about sin, about righteousness, and about judgment;
Parallel Translations
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When he has come, he will convict the world about sin, about righteousness, and about judgment;
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And when he is come he will rebuke the worlde of synne and of rightwesnes and of iudgement.
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And when he is come, he will reproue the worlde of sinne, and of righteousnesse, and of iudgement.
Cross-references (7)
Passages linked to John 16:8 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Acts 2:37 Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?”
- Jude 1:15 to execute judgment on all, and to convict all the ungodly of all their works of ungodliness which they have done in an ungodly way, and of all the hard things which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.”
- Zechariah 12:10 I will pour on David’s house, and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplication; and they will look to me whom they have pierced; and they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for his only son, and will grieve bitterly for him, as one grieves for his firstborn.
- John 8:9 They, when they heard it, being convicted by their conscience, went out one by one, beginning from the oldest, even to the last. Jesus was left alone with the woman where she was, in the middle.
- Acts 16:29-30 He called for lights, sprang in, fell down trembling before Paul and Silas, brought them out, and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”
- 1 Corinthians 14:24 But if all prophesy, and someone unbelieving or unlearned comes in, he is reproved by all, and he is judged by all.
- John 8:46 Which of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me?
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain 8. And when he is come. Passing by the…
8. And when he is come. Passing by the diversity of expositions, which we have received in consequence of the obscurity of the passage, I shall only state what appears to me to be in accordance with Christ’s true meaning. He had promised his Spirit to the disciples; and now he praises the excellence of the gift from its effect, because this Spirit will not only guide, support, and protect them in private, but will extend more widely his power and efficacy.
He will convince the world; that is, he will not remain shut up in you, but; his power will go forth from you to be displayed to the whole world. He therefore promises to them a Spirit, who will be the Judge of the world, and by whom their preaching will be so powerful and efficacious, that it will bring into subjection those who formerly indulged in unbounded licentiousness, and were restrained by no fear or reverence.
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It ought to be observed, that in this passage Christ does not speak of secret revelations, but of the power of the Spirit, which appears in the outward doctrine of the Gospel, and in the voice of men. For how comes it that the voice proceeding from the mouth of a man penetrates into the hearts, takes root there, and at length yields fruit, changing hearts of stone into hearts of flesh, and renewing men, but because the Spirit of Christ quickens it? Otherwise it would be a dead letter and a useless sound, as Paul says in that beautiful passage, in which he boasts of being a minister of the Spirit, (2 Corinthians 3:6,) because God wrought powerfully in his doctrine. The meaning therefore is, that, though the Spirit had been given to the apostles, they would be endued with a heavenly and Divine power, by which they would exercise jurisdiction over the whole world. Now, this is ascribed to the Spirit rather than to themselves, because they will have no power of their own, but will be only ministers and organs, and the Holy Spirit will be their director and governor.
Under the term world are, I think, included not only those who would be truly converted to Christ, but hypocrites and reprobates. For there are two ways in which the Spirit convinces men by the preaching of the Gospel. Some are moved in good earnest, so as to bow down willingly, and to assent willingly to the judgment by which they are condemned. Others, though they are convinced of guilt and cannot escape, yet do not sincerely yield, or submit themselves to the authority and jurisdiction of the Holy Spirit, but, on the contrary, being subdued they groan inwardly, and, being overwhelmed with confusion, still do not cease to cherish obstinacy within their hearts.
We now perceive in what manner the Spirit was to convince the world by the apostles. It was, because God revealed his judgment in the Gospel, by which their consciences were struck, and began to perceive their evils and the grace of God. for the verb ἐλέγχειν here signifies to convince or convict; and, for understanding this passage, not a little light will be obtained from the words of the Apostle Paul, when he says,
If all shall prophesy, and an unbeliever or unlearned man enter, he is convicted by all, he is judged by all, and thus shall the secrets of his heart be made manifest, (1 Corinthians 14:23.)
In that passage Paul speaks particularly of one kind of conviction, that is; when the Lord brings his elect to repentance by the Gospel; but this plainly shows in what manner the Spirit of God, by the sound of the human voice, constrains men, who formerly were not accustomed to his yoke, to acknowledge and submit to his authority.
A question now arises, For what purpose did Christ say this? Some think that he points out the cause of the hatred which he had mentioned; as if he had said, that the reason why they will be hated by the world is, that the Spirit, on the other hand, will earnestly solicit the world by means of them. But I rather agree with those who tell us that the design of Christ was different, as I stated briefly at the commencement of the exposition of this verse; for it was of great importance that the apostles should know that the gift of the Spirit, which had been promised to them, was of no ordinary value. He therefore describes its uncommon excellence, by saying that God will, in this way, erect his tribunal for judging the whole world.
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 He will so reprove the world, that the worldlings…
He will so reprove the world, that the worldlings shall be able to present no excuse.
The Spirit of God worketh so mightily by the preaching of the word, that he constraineth the world, will it, nill it, to confess its own unrighteousness, and Christ’s righteousness and almightiness.
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He respecteth the time that followed his ascension, when as all gainsayers were manifestly reproved through the pouring out of the holy Ghost upon the Church: So that the very enemies of Christ were reproved of sin, in that they were constrained to confess that they were deceived, in that they believed not, and therefore they said to Peter, Acts 2, Men and brethren, what shall we do?
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain 8 And when he is come, he will reprove…
8 And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment:
Ver. 8. And when he is come, &c.] This text had been easy, had not commentators made it so knotty.
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He will reprove] Or undeceive the world, by refuting those odd conceits and erroneous opinions, that men had before drunk in, and were possessed of, ελεγξει. Ita ut nihil habeat, quod praetexat. He shall clearly convince them of the hatefulness of sin, of the necessity of getting righteousness, both imputed and imparted; both that of justification, inherent in Christ, imputed to us, and that of sanctification also, imparted by Christ, inherent in us; this latter is here called judgment, as it is likewise Mat 12:20. Till he bring forth (εκβαλη) judgment to victory; that is, weak grace (called before a broken reed, smoking wick) to perfect conquest over corruption. Cum vi quadam, frustra obsistente Satana. Compare with this text that of the apostle, 1Co 6:11; Such were some of you ( scilicet, mundus immundus), but ye are (in general) washed from your sins, of the hatefulness whereof ye are now clearly convinced; and (in particular) ye are sanctified by the Spirit of our God, and ye are justified in the name, that is, by the merit, of the Lord Jesus the righteous, who is the propitiation for our sins.
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 When the Holy Spirit is come in the days…
When the Holy Spirit is come in the days of Pentecost, he, by his inward operation in men’s hearts, and by his gifts bestowed upon you that are his apostles,
will reprove the world.
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By the world here, may be meant all men and women, as it is used in some texts; neither is the operation of the Spirit here mentioned to be restrained to carnal and wicked men.
The word translated
reprove:
1. Lets us know, that the Holy Ghost is here mentioned, not in the notion mentioned Joh 14:16, as a Comforter, but in the larger notion, (there mentioned), as an Advocate; which possibly had been a better translation of it, Joh 16:7, than Comforter, as we translate it; for it is not the proper work of the Spirit considered as a Comforter to reprove, but it is proper enough to the notion of an Advocate to do it.
2. The word here translated reprove doth often so signify, and is so translated, Luk 3:19; Joh 3:20; Eph 5:11,13. It signifieth real rebukes, Heb 12:5; Rev 3:19. But it also signifieth to convince, Joh 8:9,46; 1Co 14:24; 2Ti 4:2; Tit 1:9; and in several other texts. Yet it is one thing to convince the understanding and judgment; another thing to prevail upon the will, by reason of the total corruption of our souls; so that we will not embrace what we confess is truth, nor do what we know is best; but, through the stubbornness of our will, we resist the light and conviction of our understandings.
The Holy Spirit is here promised, not only (as before) to lead men into truth, by a work of illumination, but to bow the hearts and wills of some in the world, to the embracing of it, and living up to it, while others yet remain without excuse. The things of which the Spirit is promised to convince the world, are
sin, righteousness, and judgment, which are further opened in the following verses.
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 In these and the following verses our Saviour acquaints…
In these and the following verses our Saviour acquaints his disciples with the advantages that will redound by the coming of the Comforter.
First, the advantage to the world.
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Secondly, to the apostles.
And, thirdly, to himself.
To the world, 1. He shall convince them of sin, righteousness, and judgment. Of sin: that is, of their sinful state and nature, of the large extent of sin, and particularly of the sin of unbelief.
Learn hence, 1. That the Spirit of God is the author of conviction of sin, and that all convictions of sin do either mediately or immediately flow from him.
2. That unbelief is a sin of the greatest malignity against Christ, and of the greatest danger to a Christian’s soul: He shall convince the world of sin, because they believe not on me.
Secondly, Of righteousness; that is, of the insufficiency of all human righteousness, and of the necessity of the righteousness of a mediator; by which alone we are to expect acceptance with God; or of a complete and perfect righteousness in me, imputable to sinners for their perfect justification: and that it is so, appears because I go to the Father, and ye see me no more.
As if Christ had said, "Hereby you may be satisfied, that by my active and passive obedience I have fully satisfied my Father’s justice for you, and you shall never be charged or condemned; because, when I go to heaven, I shall abide there in glory with my Father, and never be sent back again, ye shall see me no more, as I must have been, if anything had been omitted by me."
Note farther, that none are convinced of righteousness who are not first convinced of sin. None will come to Christ by faith, till convictions of sin have awakened and distressed them.
Thirdly, Of judgment: that is, the Spirit shall convince the world, that Jesus is both Lord and Christ, that he had power to judge Satan the prince of the world, and that he did by his death put down the kingdom of darkness.
Learn hence, 1. That Satan is a prince who by unjust usurpation, and sinners voluntary consent, has exercised a tyrannical power over the world.
2. That Christ by his death did judge, condemn, and overcome, this mighty prince, and hath made his conquest evident to the consciences of men, by the convictions of his Holy Spirit: The Spirit shall convince of judgment: that is, that Satan the prince of this world is judged.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain And when he is come,.... The coming of the…
And when he is come,.... The coming of the Spirit here, chiefly designs his descent upon the apostles, at the day of "Pentecost": as the things ascribed to him, and which were then done by him, clearly show; though it may also include his coming along with, and by the ministration of the Gospel, into the hearts of his people at conversion, in all after ages of time:
he will reprove the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment: by "the world" is principally meant, the Jews; the world among whom Christ personally was, who knew him not, disbelieved him, rejected him as the Messiah, hated and persecuted him, even unto death; though not to the exclusion of the Gentiles, the whole world that lies in wickedness; since both joined, and were concerned in these things, and reproved of them; which "reproving", as it may respect different persons, may intend both such reproofs and convictions, as are not attended with conversion, and issue in salvation; and such as are powerful, spiritual, and to saving purposes: the several things the Spirit of God is said to reprove of, being repeated in the following verses, with reasons or specifications annexed to them, will be there considered.
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 He - Observe his twofold office; toward the world,…
He - Observe his twofold office; toward the world, ver. 8, &c.; toward believers, ver. 12, &c.: will convince - All of the world - Who do not obstinately resist, by your preaching and miracles, of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment - He who is convinced of sin either accepts the righteousness of Christ, or is judged with Satan. An abundant accomplishment of this we find in the Acts of the Apostles.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 8. He will reprove] ελεγξει, He will demonstrate…
Verse 8. He will reprove] ελεγξει, He will demonstrate these matters so clearly as to leave no doubt on the minds of those who are simple of heart; and so fully as to confound and shut the mouths of those who are gainsayers. See Ac 2:1, c.
The world] The Jewish nation first, and afterwards the Gentile world for his influences shall not be confined to one people, place, or time.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain He will reprove - The word translated “reprove” means…
He will reprove - The word translated “reprove” means commonly to demonstrate by argument, to prove, to persuade anyone to do a thing by presenting reasons. It hence means also to convince of anything, and particularly to convince of crime. This is its meaning here. He will convince or convict the world of sin. That is, he will so apply the truths of God to men’s own minds as to convince them by fair and sufficient arguments that they are sinners, and cause them to feel this. This is the nature of conviction always.
The world - Sinners. The men of the world. All men are by nature sinners, and the term the world may be applied to them all, Joh 1:10; Joh 12:31; 1Jo 5:19.
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 He will convince[2], or convict the world. Others translate,…
He will convince[2], or convict the world. Others translate, he will reprove the world of sin, &c. These words have occasioned a great many expositions. I here follow St. Cyril, that the Holy Ghost will condemn the Jews, and all obstinate unbelievers, of their sin, in not believing, after so many miracles, and so many pregnant motives, that ought to induce them to submit to the Christian faith. 2ndly, Of justice, by shewing the justice and innocence of Christ, and also, that true justice and sanctification cannot be obtained, but by his grace. 3rdly, Of judgment, by shewing that the world, and the prince of this wicked world, the devil, is justly condemned, his empire in a great measure destroyed, and that all the wicked will be justly condemned, and punished with him. (Witham) --- The Holy Ghost, by his coming, brought over many thousands, 1st, To a sense of their sin, in not believing in Christ. 2ndly, To a conviction of the justice of Christ, now sitting at the right hand of his Father. And 3rdly, To a right apprehension of the judgment prepared for them that choose to follow Satan, who is already judged and condemned. (Challoner) --- The Greek text, in addition, has Greek: oti ou pisteuousin eis eme. Because they have not believed in me. This accusation and conviction of sin, cannot naturally fall on any, but the incredulous Jews. St. Augustine, Ven. Bede, St. John Chrysostom, Theophylactus, and many others, are of opinion, that this sin was their unbelief in Jesus, after all the miracles he had done in their presence, after so many prophecies so clearly accomplished in his person, after so many prodigies and wonders, which happened at his death, at his resurrection, and after his resurrection. They are accused, and convinced of sin, particularly by sensible effects of the Holy Spirit, in the apostles, by the gift of miracles and tongues, and that supernatural knowledge, which was communicated, not only to the apostles, but also to all the first Christians. These are the means, which the Paraclete, the consoling and assisting Spirit, makes us of, to condemn, and convince the world of sin; that is, of incredulity, which is the source and foundation of all other sins. The world had calumniated and despised its Saviour. It had condemned him, as a liar, as a seducer, magician, a man possessed by the devil, a destroyer of the law of God. To which the Son of God made no resistance; he only replied, that he did not wish to take the execution of justice upon himself, and that he was not come into the world to judge the world. Therefore, he committed all to the Holy Spirit, who, in the persons of the apostles, did justice to the Son, by shewing to the whole world, his doctrines, his life, his miracles, and the accomplishment of all the ancient prophecies in his person. All that the apostles preached, they confirmed by most stupendous miracles, gained the hearts of pagans to believe Jesus as their Redeemer, and called down imprecations upon the heads of the incredulous Jews, who had rejected a prophet, visibly sent by God, a Saviour and Redeemer of his people, who, in his person, bore all the characters of the divinity. (Calmet)
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[BIBLIOGRAPHY]
Arguet mundum, Greek: elegxei, which St. Cyril expounds by Greek: katakrine. See St. Augustine interpretation on that verse, tract 95. p. 733.
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 And when he is come, he will, &c.--This is…
And when he is come, he will, &c.--This is one of the passages most pregnant with thought in the profound discourses of Christ; with a few great strokes depicting all and every part of the ministry of the Holy Ghost in the world--His operation with reference to individuals as well as the mass, on believers and unbelievers alike [OLSHAUSEN].
he will reprove--This is too weak a word to express what is meant. Reproof is indeed implied in the term employed, and doubtless the word begins with it. But convict or convince is the thing intended; and as the one expresses the work of the Spirit on the unbelieving portion of mankind, and the other on the believing, it is better not to restrict it to either.
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 8. When he is come—This gift is not a…
8. When he is come—This gift is not a mere fluid or emanation shed off from the divine essence or person; it is a He, the essence or person himself. It is not an influence shed from the Spirit, but it is the influencing Spirit. It is not a vapour, but a living Being and Person. The qualities, actions, efficiencies of a living agent are, through the whole passage, ascribed to this Comforter. There is no alternative left but either to pervert the passage, or to acknowledge herein the presence of the third person of the adorable Trinity.
Will reprove—Will demonstrate, (so the word signifies,) so that the conscience and mind cannot but more or less clearly perceive the truth. By this Spirit’s power responsibility is made possible. The inability, natural to the human heart, either to perceive or obey divine truth, is more or less dissipated. The Spirit shows to the soul the things of Christ; salvation is brought within its reach, and condemnation for rejection becomes just.
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The world—The world viewed as apart from the redemptive scheme; the race as it is left in Adam without Christ. This is a fallen world, and it is the purchased Spirit that comes to reconstruct it. Over this world a prince (Joh_16:11) has usurped a dark despotic rule, and the aim of Father, Son, and Spirit is that he be judged, cast out, (Joh_16:31,) and finally sent to the bottomless pit. This, however, is not to be done by immediate force, but by the conviction which the Holy Spirit may work by his gentle dealings with the free volitional spirits of men.
Sin… righteousness… judgment—These are the three great topics presented by the Holy Spirit to the human conscience and intellect.
Sin, from rejection of Christ; righteousness, through the ever-living intercession of Christ; judgment upon persistent sin, executed by Christ.
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 8. The threefold office of the Advocate towards those…
8. The threefold office of the Advocate towards those who do not believe but may yet be won over. And He when He is come will convict the world concerning sin, and concerning righteousness, and concerning judgment.
he will reprove] ‘Convince’ (as the margin) or convict is to be preferred (see on Joh_3:20). This rendering gives additional point to the rendering ‘Advocate’ for Paraclete. To convince and convict is a large part of the duty of an advocate. He must vindicate and prove the truth; and whoever, after such proof, rejects the truth, does so with responsibility in proportion to the interests involved. The word occurs once in S. Matthew (Mat_18:15) and once in S. Luke (Luk_3:19); but is somewhat frequent in the Epistles. Comp. 1. Cor. Joh_14:24; Tit_1:9; Tit_1:13; Tit_2:15; Jas_2:9; Judges 15, [22], &c.
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The conviction wrought by the Advocate may bring either salvation or condemnation, but it must bring one of the two. It is given to men ‘for their wealth;’ but it may ‘be unto them an occasion of falling,’ if it is wantonly set aside.
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 (8) And when he is come, he will reprove…
(8) And when he is come, he will reprove the world.—Better, as in margin, convince the world. (Comp. Joh_3:20; Joh_8:46.) The only other passages where it occurs in the Gospels are in Mat_18:15, and Luk_3:19. It is not in the better reading of Joh_8:9; but it occurs not unfrequently in the Epistles. (See especially Note on 1Co_14:24.) This conviction of the world is by witness concerning Christ (Joh_15:26). It is the revelation to the hearts of men of the character and work of Christ, and, therefore, a refutation of the evil in their hearts. The result of this conviction is two-fold, according as men embrace it, accept its chastening discipline, and are saved by it; or reject it, and in the rejection harden their hearts, and are thus condemned by it. (Comp. 2Co_2:15-16.) The effect of St. Peter’s sermon on the Day of Pentecost is the first great historical comment on this verse; but the comment is continued in the whole history of the Church’s work. The remainder of the verse enumerates the three steps in this conviction, which are more fully defined in the three following verses.
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 And he, when he is come (elywn). A right…
And he, when he is come (elywn). A right royal assurance. The Holy Spirit will come, as my grace and the result of my sending. He will convict the world. Little doubt is now entertained that this elegcov implies the refutation of error, the discovery of wrong-doing, the bringing it home to the person convinced, and thus convicted; (Joh_3:20 Joh_8:9, 1Co_14:24 Tit_1:9 Jam_2:9) making such a one see that he is open to the condemnation of conscience, or of men, or of the Law of God. This conviction may in some cases lead to conversion and deliverance, but is distinct from it, and sometimes also may issue after such a manifestation in hardness and impenitence. The patristic interpretation (Authorized Version and Hengstenberg), "He will reprove," might pass as a fair translation of the word, in its reference to sin, but would have small meaning as applied to righteousness or judgment. Meyer, Godet, Luthardt, Lange, Westcott, Stier, and Moulton agree that elegxei means more than "reprove," less than "convince." The world is spoken of, not Jews merely, or their leaders. Humanity itself, with its false standards of judgment, and its self-complacency, is to be convicted of being in the wrong; all kings, princes, potentates, priests, and publicans, who are out of harmony with God, wilt be convicted by the Paraclete. The conviction of the world is threefoldin respect of sin, in respect of righteousness, and in respect of judgment. The three great categories of thought, custom, and conduct; the three themes where the world is in infinite need of being compelled to see that it is altogether in the wrong. The disciples are to overcome the whole world by the intensity with which they will be instrumentally the occasion of this conviction. The world under the depressing and distracting influence of its own principles, as well as its passions, has misconceived the whole nature of "sin," the entire mystery of righteousness," the certainty of retribution, and the things and principles on which condign "judgment" must fall. The Advocate, the Divine, indwelling Spirit of the truth, whom Christ will send into his disciples as compensation for his own absence, will through them do this strange and tremendous work. Our Lord does not hero promise the conversion of mankind, but such a conviction that the blessed consequence may follow. The first great step will be taken.
Vers. 8, 9. Conviction of sin.
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Looking forward to the dispensation of the Spirit, the Lord Jesus described by anticipation the work of the Spirit in the world. It cannot be overlooked that this work has been, and ever must be, connected with the publication of the gospel of salvation through the Divine Redeemer. It is not to be supposed that we exalt the office of the Spirit when we neglect or depreciate the Word with which and through which the Spirit acts.
I THE SIN OF WHICH THE SPIRIT CONVICTS THE WORLD. By the world we understand humanity at large, as alienated from God, and as in rebellion against him. Our race has been the prey of sin. However the form of sin has varied, the principle has remained the same. But the most striking and the most awful proof of the presence and the power of sin in the world is its rejection of Christ. "They believe not on me." For Christ was goodness incarnate; a greater sin it was not within the power of man to commit than to reject the Holy One and the Righteous. Jesus foresaw how he was about to be treated by his fellow-countrymen the Jews, and by the Romans.
II THE MANNER IN WHICH THE SPIRIT CONVICTS THE WORLD OF SIN. In the Mosaic dispensation very much was done to introduce into men"s minds the Divine estimate, the Divine abhorrence, of sin. The Law and the prophets ever kept this in view, and their work was doubtless that of the Spirit. But in the later and completer dispensation the Spirit has made manifest in many ways the exceeding sinfulness of sin. We may instance the emphatic condemnation of sin in our Lord"s words, in which it is come, red to darkness, to bondage, to death; and yet more in the contrast presented to a sinful world by the spotless character and perfect moral example of the Son of man. Yet to the Christian mind the world"s sin is brought home most effectively by the provision of redemption. Jesus was the Sin Offering; he condemned sin in the flesh; he redeemed the sinner at the priceless cost and ransom of his life. The Spirit, accompanying the gospel which conveys these tidings, has rendered sin obviously and flagrantly such in the view of all who are capable of judging. Especially the sin of unbelief, of willfully rejecting the Savior, has been charged upon the human conscience in such a manner as to lead multitudes to contrition and repentance.
III THE RESULTS WHICH HAVE FOLLOWED THE CONVICTION OF THE SINFUL WORLD BY THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST. There is something paradoxical in attributing such a result as conviction of sin to the Paraclete, the Comforter. Yet it is not to be questioned that the consciousness of sinfulness is essential in order to its forgiveness. It is the Spirit of God who renders the sinner not merely aware of his state and of his danger, but contrite and penitent; whilst contrition and penitence are necessary and indispensable in order to pardon and acceptance. There is for the sinner no true consolation which does not come by way of conviction. T.
Vers. 8, 10. Conviction of righteousness.
In order to moral improvement there must be a sense of sin and its degradation and misery, and there must be some apprehension of righteousness and holiness accompanied by both admiration and aspiration. It is an evidence of the divinely wise provision of the gospel of Christ, that there is secured for man, in the influences of the Spirit of God, not only a power which dissatisfies men with sin, but a power which impels men to righteousness.
I THERE IS A CLOSE CONNECTION BETWEEN CONVICTION OF SIN AND CONVICTION OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. The knowledge of the Law gives the knowledge of sin. Obedience and disobedience are correlative. The good man by his goodness enforces the excellence of the Law he obeys, and at the same time suggests the flagrant enormity of defying and despising that Law. There is nothing inconsistent in the performance by the same Spirit of this twofold office. In a world where sin abounds the functions cannot be separated.
II THE HOLY SPIRIT CONVINCES OF RIGHTEOUSNESS IN THE RECORD OF CHRIST"S JUST AND HOLY LIFE. The narratives of the evangelists are expressly attributed to the Spirit of Christ, who brought all that it concerned the Church and the world to know concerning Jesus to the minds of the inspired and sympathetic writers. What a record these memoirs constitute! Jesus fulfilled all righteousness, magnified the Law, was holy, harmless, and undefiled, was actively and benevolently good. It is one thing for righteousness to be expressed in the Law; another thing for it to be embodied in a life. Wherever the record of our Savior"s ministry is read, there the Spirit testifies to the reader"s heart of a righteousness faultless and peerless, fitted to command reverence and adoration.
III THE DEPARTURE AND ASCENSION OF CHRIST WERE THE OCCASION OF THIS CONVINCING WITNESS OF THE SPIRIT. His going to the Father and his consequent concealment from the bodily eyes of men were mentioned by himself as thus connected with the conviction of the world. How this was so we, as a matter of fact and history, can see. A completed life was crowned by a sacrificial death and by a triumphant ascension; the Representative and Savior of man was accepted by the Father; his work was secured beyond all possibility of failure. The personal animosity which beset the Incarnate One came then to an end; the protest against sin, and the exhibition of righteousness, both of which were perfected in Christ, were now presented to men with a completeness which was impossible during his ministry. Righteousness had been resented and rejected when it conflicted with personal interests, when it visibly and audibly set itself against individual and national sins. It was necessary that this should be so for a season. But the time came when the protest of Christ was heard from heaven as the authoritative voice of God himself. The Holy Spirit works with this now historical and ideal exhibition of righteousness, in order to make it a mighty factor in the moral life of humanity.
IV THE HOLY SPIRIT HAS BEEN DURING THIS DISPENSATION CONVICTING THE WORLD OF ITS SIN IN REJECTING THE SUPREMELY RIGHTEOUS. The Jews would not have this Man to reign over them; his justice, his truth, his purity, his spirituality, were an offence to them; they slew him whose presence was to them a perpetual rebuke. But to how many was the preaching of the gospel by the apostles a convincing of sin? When these fearless heralds, under the guidance of the Divine Spirit, charged upon the nation their sin and guilt, many were "pricked to the heart," feeling as if their own hands had slain the Prince of Life; many sought mercy for their unjust and fearful sin. They saw the righteousness of the Redeemer in a new light. The sick had slain their Physician, the enslaved their Liberator. Thus did the Spirit bring the enemies of righteousness to seek for themselves the righteousness they had despised when it had come to them in the Person of the Son of God. And in this the action of these aroused, repentant Israelites was an earnest of the turning unto God which should follow upon the preaching of Christ to the Gentiles also.
V IT IS THE GRACIOUS OFFICE OF THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST TO LEAD THE WORLD TO SEEK AND TO APPROPRIATE THE RIGHTEOUSNESS IT HAS SCORNED. It would not have been in harmony with the character of our Redeemer to have laid stress upon righteousness as rejected, and to have lost sight of righteousness as acquired and appropriated. The Holy Spirit does indeed convince men that they have violated righteousness in their denial and contempt of Christ. But in this is no gospel. And Christ died, and the Holy Spirit was given, for the good of man, for the salvation and not for the condemnation of the sinner. Accordingly, it is by these heavenly influences exerted by the Spirit of God that men are led not only to lament their deficiency, but to seek that that deficiency may be supplied. Jesus becomes to us who believe "the Lord our Righteousness;" he is "made unto us of God Righteousness." And it is for the Spirit that we must give thanks for leading us into the possession and enjoyment of "the righteousness which is by faith. T.
Vers. 8, 11. Conviction of judgment.
It is usually said that the sin of which the Spirit convicts is the sin of the world; that the righteousness is that of Christ; and that the judgment is the judgment of Satan. In this last reference our Lord"s language must be regarded as anticipatory. Satan"s power was never so awfully evinced as in the condemnation and crucifixion of the Son of God; yet the hour of his apparent triumph was in reality the hour of his fall. Translated into ordinary language, this grand saying of Jesus affirms that the Holy Spirit convinces those who ponder the facts upon which the Christian religion is based, that the world is indeed beneath a moral government, and that the righteous rule of the Eternal has been and will be vindicated.
I THE MORAL NECESSITY THERE WAS THAT THE PRINCE OR RULER OF THIS WORLD SHOULD BE JUDGED.
1. The power of evil had already had a long and prosperous course. In the lapse of centuries and millenniums every possible form of sin had flourished in one community or another. Satan had had things almost his own way.
2. Yet the ruler of this world de facto was not its ruler de jure; he was a usurper meeting with too ready a submission on the part of men.
3. Neither the operation of natural laws nor the occasional judgments and interpositions of the Supreme had been sufficient to arrest the downward progress of humanity. The laws of society, the Law given by Moses, nay, the very law embodied in the constitution of human affairs, had been effective chiefly as a protest against disobedience and iniquity.
II THE FACT THAT THE PRINCE OF THIS WORLD WAS JUDGED IN THE CRUCIFIXION AND RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. It is a grand and solemn hour when an evil ruler or an unjust, perfidious prince is brought to trial and to the block. How great is the solemnity and awe attached to the scene, the time, when the power of evil was met on the field, discomfited, and crippled by the irresistible might of God"s own Son! This was the issue of the combat, as foreseen by Christ himself. As the struggle approached, the Lord Jesus realized its momentous character and its glorious results. He saw Satan as lightning fall from heaven. "Now," said he, "is the judgment of this world; now is the prince of this world cast out." The hour of Christ"s death was the hour when he "destroyed him that had the power of death." In his resurrection Jesus led captivity captive, and robbed death of its sting. The sinful, unbelieving world was judged in its prince. The sentence against the prince of darkness was pronounced; the execution of that sentence should follow.
III THE OFFICE OF THE SPIRIT WAS TO CONVINCE THE WORLD THAT ITS ANCIENT USURPER HAD BEEN DETHRONED BY CHRIST. The two kingdoms that of sin and darkness, and that of light and holiness could not exist side by side. The stronger must needs prevail over the weaker. Immediately upon the resurrection and ascension el Jesus, and upon the gift of the Holy Spirit, the kingdom of Christ began to prosper, and to prevail against that of the adversary. The demoniacs who were set free from Satanic possession were the earnest of the liberation of the ransomed humanity. When the idols were abolished, the kingdom of error and of sin felt the blow. When worshippers of cruelty and lust transferred their homage to the holy Savior, the contest issued in victory for God. And every human soul in which the Spirit has wrought the work of enlightenment and enfranchisement is a new trophy won for Christ. The day shall surely come when every foe shall be beneath the Master"s feet, when "the kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms of our God and of his Christ. T.
Vers. 8-11. The convicting work of the Spirit.
Here surely is the true and abiding blessing for those who labor to look under the surface, and see Jesus dealing with the deep, ancient, and malignant causes of all human trouble. Jesus came teaching, proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of disease and all manner of sickness. The blessing of his incarnate ministry was just as deep, just as shallow, as the recipient chose to make it. But when the incarnate Jesus departs to make room for the Paraclete, the work must be deep, or practically it is nothing. You shall know the Spirit"s blessing only as you accept the two-edged sword piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit, and joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intents of the heart. The Spirit can only bless as it works into the very depths of the conscience and affections.
I NOTE WITH WHOM THE SPIRIT HAS TO DEAL. His work is with all who are comprised under that wondrous and frequent word in this Gospel, "the world." Elsewhere Jesus speaks of the world hating the disciples. But that very world which hates is not merely to have its malignities warded off; its hatred must, if possible, be changed to friendship, its opposition must give way to support. The spirit of the world in all of us is to be beaten down and starved out by the persuasions of a nobler Spirit ever striving to make friends with the conscience within. This word "reprove," or "convict," is a grand word. It shows us what noble thoughts God has of us. There is no true submission to God in Jesus unless through persuasion. The door of the heart must ever be opened from inside.
II THE OBJECTS OF HIS CONVINCING WORK.
(1) Sin;
(2) righteousness;
(3) judgment.
The connection of these three words is obvious. The presence of sin is the absence of righteousness, and vice versa. And the possibility of sin and the possibility of righteousness mean the coming of a judgment which shall settle with authority whether sin has overcome righteousness or righteousness overcome sin. The Spirit comes, making it clear to men what is the deep, underlying cause of all human unrest and weariness. The work of conviction as to sin, righteousness, and judgment all goes on together. It is, of course, not so much an appeal to the intellect, though the intellect cannot be left out of the operation. The process is one in which there goes on contemporaneously a revelation of self and a revelation of Jesus. Old words have to be emptied of old, insufficient meanings. When the Holy Spirit brings the word "sin," he brings no new word. The old covenant was full of it, the thoughts of men were full of it, but as of something which could be easily put away by the blood of some slain animal. The Holy Spirit makes us ask the question why we are so different from Jesus. The image of Jesus to our understandings should always be a rebuking image, filling us with a deep sense, in no way to be removed by mere lapse of time, of our shortcomings and pollutions. The greatest miracle about Jesus is his pure and perfect character, and the more intense becomes our desire after likeness to him in this respect the more it is evident that the convicting work of the Spirit is going on in us. Ever the humbler we become at the sight of ourselves, the more hopeful shall we become at the sight of Jesus. For, as Jesus goes on to say in a sentence or two later, the Spirit"s work is not only a revelation, but a guidance. Y.
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 And when He is come, He will reprove the…
Joh_16:8-11
And when He is come, He will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment
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The mission of the Comforter
This is the only passage in which the Saviour has expressed the process of the Spirits action in regenerating the world.
It forms Christs own history of the silent progress of the spiritual life. The first step in the Divine life is the sense of sin. That sense is excited by the conviction of the hearts unbelief in the Christ who died. Then the sense of sin must pass into the belief in righteousness. The Spirit reveals righteousness in the Christ who rose. And from this twofold revelation must spring the belief that evil is conquered and that sin shall finally pass away; for the Spirit reveals its overthrow in the Christ who lives and reigns. Mark the mission of the Comforter in
I. AWAKENING THE SENSE OF SIN.
1. The ground on which the charge of sin is founded--because they believe not on Me. This may seem strange at first sight. But on examination we shall see that no charge but this can awaken a real deep sense of sin. Take the other grounds on which men have attempted to bring home the conviction.
(1) The innate depravity of man. Of its awful truth, indeed, there can be no question. But in what does the enforcing of this issue? Do not the questions rise--Who made me thus? Why was I born in sin? Am I responsible?
(2) The evil of a mans actions may be felt by him, and yet he may say, It is not I that do those things. There are two powers in me, For that which I do I allow not, &c.
(3) Or you may awaken simply a confession of self-reproach: I have erred, and played the fool exceedingly, but you have not made the man feel that he--the personal self--has deliberately endorsed the action as his own.
(4) Still further, you may preach the doctrine of everlasting condemnation, and you produce either a cowardly confusion of suffering with sin, defiant unbelief, or abject despair.
2. Take now unbelief in Christ, and see what the rejection of Him implies. Whatever excuses a man may make for committing sin, he knows that it creates an alienation from God, that its effects on the soul are devastating. Now the Cross stands as the sign of reconciliation with God, and therefore of healing and blessedness. But by unbelief, refusing Christs deliverance, I affirm my antagonism to the Divine. There is the revelation of sin. Man defying the supremest love.
II. THE CONVICTION OF RIGHTEOUSNESS IN THE ASCENDED SAVIOUR. The first deep glance into lifes evil overcomes a man with hopeless sorrow. It is vain to tell him to let the dead past bury its dead. Forgetfulness would not destroy, but only cover with a thin veil the evil He has found--a veil that death would rend in twain. It is useless to say, Obey conscience, and become righteous. Conscience has no power to raise; it can only point out the right and condemn the wrong. It is a flaming terror until a man finds Christ. Thus awakened, the great cry of the heart is this, Can I ever be cleansed? Can those memories be banished into eternal forgetfulness by the forgiveness of God? Unless these cries are answered, it were a cruel punishment to convince man of his evil. But the Comforter does answer them. There is righteousness because Christ is gone to the Father, and ye see Him no more. It is not, therefore, Christ crucified only, but Christ risen and ascended, who reveals a righteousness for man, Why is this so? and how does the Comforter inspire this conviction? There are three requisites which must be fulfilled before man, as a sinner, can feel the possibility of His righteousness. And these are all met by the truth that Christ has gone to the Father.
1. The assurance of forgiveness for the past. Explain it how we may, there is no conviction more profound and universal than that sin is death, and that its pardon necessitates the death of a pure and unstained life. The worlds altars, laden often with human victims, bear witness to this. There is in conscience an inner witness to the rectitude of the law that condemns, and it gives man no peace till he feels that a Holy Being, who was yet one with Him, has become obedient unto death, and thus manifested the sanctity of the commandment. But suppose Christ had vanished in death, who would have known that He had finished the work He had undertaken? But He rises and ascends to His Father and our Father, and becomes the eternal Priest, dispensing forgiveness to the world. This is the truth revealed by the Comforter. Touched by the Spirits power, we accept Christs sacrifice as our sacrifice, and find pardon.
2. The removal of the terrors of the future. It is the double curse of sin that, while it narrows our range of vision, it clothes immortality with terror. We feel sin is barring our entrance into those bright abodes. We need a Deliverer who shall open for us those barred and everlasting doors. Christ ascended to heaven to be our Brother and Intercessor there. The grand assertion, In My Fathers house are many mansions, &c., falls like music from the sky that received Him. This, then, is the truth revealed by the Comforter, which, by removing the terrors of the future, deepens the conviction of righteousness.
3. The creation of a new manhood in the present. When the past is forgiven and the future brightened, we want to become righteous men. And here we approach the doctrine of imputed righteous-ness--a righteousness not ours, but Christs. But the idea of a transference of spiritual states is only a figurative expression of a great truth. We become righteous only when we feel that we are nothing, have nothing, can do nothing, and trusting solely on Christ, yield ourselves to Him. Then the old forces of sin die. The love of Christ possessing us recreates us, and God, seeing in that life of faith the first beginnings of a purity which shall become perfect and everlasting, regards us as righteous in Christ Jesus.
III. The belief which completes and renders perfect the new nature--THE BELIEF IN JUDGMENT THROUGH THE CONQUEST OF THE PRINCE OF THIS WORLD. This passage is frequently interpreted as though it referred to the final judgment. But this destroys the connection between the three convictions, and the words have a present meaning--is judged. The judgment, therefore (see Joh_12:31), is that conquest which Christ should gain on His cross. Taking it in that sense, we perceive at once why the belief in judgement must follow the belief in righteousness. For when we have been freed from sin, and made righteous in Christ, we find that we have entered on a life-long struggle with evil; and as the one thing to keep us true, we need the assurance of final victory. These words present two thoughts:
1. Christs conquest over the kingdom of evil.
(1) The kingdom of evil as opposed to the Saviour. The prince of this world suggests the majesty of the power that He overcame for man. This world expresses the collective forces that are opposed to God; Prince manifestly implies that evil forces are not separated, but combined, and form a great living power, a kingdom of wrong. But the phrase points to a personal evil spirit as lord of that evil kingdom. This was the kingdom that opposed itself to the Son of man. Evil spirits confronted Him constantly. It seemed as if the dark spiritual world were stirred through all its depths by the appearance of the Perfect Man. The whole world was groaning in the throes of spiritual death. The light of Divine revelation was dying out. All the evil influences that touch the human soul gathered themselves against the Perfect Soul to turn Him aside and tear Him from His self-chosen path of dedication for the world.
(2) The Saviours conquest. For this two things were requisite
(a) Christ must overcome the essence of evil by a means common to humanity. Now, the essence of evil is self-will. Its first expression was the
I will of man opposing itself to the Thou shalt not of God. Christ must conquer sin through the might of a Divine obedience, and yet occupy a battle-ground common to humanity. And where was this so perfectly accomplished as in His life and death?
(b) Christ must show by His conquest that the facts which seem to prove the perpetuity of evil are really signs of its overthrow. The darkest lie of the evil one is this--that evil is an eternal power. Before the advent of the gospel, the world was beginning to believe in the omnipotence of wrong, and men were losing faith in anything which could conquer evil. Just note the two great facts which, as the results of sin, lay at the root of this state. First, Suffering. It seemed to belie the goodness of God and prove sin to be irresistible. Now suffering, in all its deepest dreadfulness, Christ endured. He was perfected through sufferings, and thus revealed it to man as the education of a Father. Secondly, Death--the sign-manual of sins dominion. Christ became subject to its power. It seemed to conquer Him. But, rising from the grave, He ascended to the heavens, thus consecrating death for all men as a pathway to the Fathers home. Such was Christs conquest. It was the crisis of earths history--the judgment and overthrow of the prince of this world.
2. Christs conquest as a pledge of victory for man. There are three ways in which this is revealed by the Comforter.
(1) The fact itself is a power. We are strengthened by the belief that some one has known our difficulties and subdued them. On this deep principle of human nature Christs conquest lays hold. Like us He fought. By a strength which we may share He conquered. Look at the early Church, when the meaning of this fact was revealed by the descending Comforter. Men awoke with new power. The old tyranny of evil was broken; and hoary apostolic men, kindling with the energies of youth, went forth to do battle with it in the world which had so long groaned under its sway.
(2) Christ is Gods promise. Through His life Gods voice speaks to us now. If we conflict like Him, like Him we shall conquer. We must copy His instant resistance to temptation, and His prayerful submission in suffering, if we would share the glory of His victory.
(3) Christ a present friend. We do not always realize His presence, but sometimes amid the pauses of the battle, we feel Him near in that peace which passeth understanding, and hear Him saying, Be faithful unto death, and I will give you a crown of life. (E. L. Hull, B. A.)
The object of the mission of the Comforter
To reprove the word of sin is one thing; but (as the original expression implies) to convince is quite another. The reproof of sin has been the practice of philosophers, the object of poets, the office of moralists, the aim of satirists, in every age. Parents reprove their children; silent virtue reproves obtrusive vice. But sin may be reproved, and yet not be eradicated; be silenced by exposure, and yet not subdued. Hence the reproofs of the world have fallen upon the sins of the world too often, as the winds fall upon the bleak hill, or the waves of the sea beat upon the solid rock--leaving no impression behind. Now to convince, or to convict means to bring home sin to ones judgment, and to render all denial impossible; to ones conscience, and to render all evasion impracticable; to unveil sin in its own hiding-place; to detect it when it lurks in the core of the most exquisite bud, or when it nestles in the bosom of the most fragrant and beautiful flower; to fix upon it the sinners eye so intently, that he shall see it lying where he never suspected it to be before, nestling amidst the affections he thought holy, clinging to the habits he thought beautiful, and staining all his nature so entirely by its venom, that he shall feel that none but the Omnipotent Spirit of God can enable him to get rid of it. It is easy to convince a man of outward offences, none but the Eternal Spirit can convince the honourable, the great, the moral, that all their excellencies are like flowers and leaves torn from the root, and doomed soon to fade, and that the only excellencies that will survive the storm, and bid defiance to the grave, are those which spring from the living principle imparted by the Holy Spirit of God. Many have tried to convince of sin, besides the Holy Spirit.
1. Conscience. But it fails to do so with any sensible results. No man sins without hearing the remonstrances of that solemn monitor; but you have defied it, mastered it, bribed it, and now it has become more or less stupefied. Or if not it has recourse to the only other expedient to those atoning efficacies said to be in all the relics and prescriptions of an absurd superstition.
2. Public opinion. But while this reproves some sins, it connives at others.
3. The law of Sinai. This commands, in the accents of thunder, the duties which it reveals by the lightings flash; but that law only speaks of outward acts; it lops off branches, it cuts off a main stem--but as soon as it has done so, a thousand shoots start from the root. The only being, then, that can convince of sin savingly, really, deeply, is the Holy Spirit. He shall convince the world
I. OF SIN: of one special sin; not intemperance, avarice, or selfishness. These are of flagrant enormity, but there is one which outweighs them all in its guilt--a sin that lies too at every mans door--at the door of philanthropist and of the felon, a sin that ties to us all sins, and prevents their forgiveness; unbelief in Christ. This is just the sin of which we have no conception, except by the teaching of the Holy Spirit. Conscience does not accuse you of it; society will not denounce you for it.
1. How this can be so heinous a sin? Because it is rejecting the great remedy for all sin; it is suspecting the love, doubting the mercy, disputing the sufficiency of the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is not a sin merely against God as a judge, but against God as a Saviour. And those persons approach more or less to the guilt of this sin, who have doubts whether Christ will have mercy on them that appeal to Him; lest His blood be not adequate to cleanse them; that He would thrust them away if they were to make the experiment. If there be a single obstruction between the greatest sinner and the bosom of God, it is not in God--it is in your hearts alone.
2. What is it to believe in Christ? It is to feel that if God were to sink you to the very depths of hopeless ruin, He would not inflict a punishment greater than your sins have deserved; but, on the other hand, it is to feel that if, in the name and through the righteousness of Christ, He were to raise you to a glory too brilliant for mortal eye to look on, God would not bestow upon you a greater boon than Christs merits entitle you to.
II. OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. He opens our ears, that we may hear the curse, but He opens our ears, that we may hear the music of the blessing also. Sin shall not have dominion over you: Be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee. And when the Spirit convinces of righteousness, it is not that Christ is simply a righteous man; that would be no comfort to me, but He was righteous for us. Hence our justifying righteousness is not a faint imitation of what Christ is, but an acceptance of what Christ has bequeathed. Imitate what Christ is, and there is your model; but to be justified you must believe on and embrace by faith what Christ has done, and that alone, as your title and your righteousness in the sight of God. Just as Christ was condemned for my sin, so I am justified because of Christs righteousness.
III. OF JUDGMENT. The first promise was, The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpents head; the Spirit of God convinces His people that this process of bruising goes on--that the earth now, while under grace, is also partly under judgment, and that those things which the world cannot explain by what is called the law of nature, are the judgments of God. For instance, disease, decay, and death, the world calls the laws of nature: the Christian calls them the judgments of God. Death does not belong to nature; it is a disruption of nature. It is sin that is the cause of all the headaches and the heart-aches which our mortality is heir to. And therefore the Spirit of God and He only will convince that they are the judgments and decrees of God. Wherever you see a Christian happy amid oppression, there you have an evidence that the prince of this world is judged. And is it not still becoming more and more true that humility is dignity, and that holiness is strength? And the time is coming more and more, I trust, when the prince of this world, being judged, shall be cast forth from the cabinets of queens and from the councils of statesmen, from the press and from the pulpit, from all mens hearts and from all mens homes--and the joy and holiness and happiness of God shall, overflow the world, like a mighty and deepening river, Oh! that the Spirit of God may then convince us of this! (J. Cumming, D. D.)
The hardened sinner
Angelo Marie, a Jesuit librarian at the Vatican, made the discovery, many years ago, that some of the ancient MSS. had more than one layer of writing upon them. By certain chemical experiments, he succeeded in making legible the ancient writing. Archbishop Whately has suggested the theory, now generally admitted, that this was done on account of the expensiveness or scarcity of parchment in the middle ages. De Quincy, in his Confessions, has given us a chapter on the subject, applying it to signify different layers of thought and emotion that have at different times passed upon the heart, and become apparently covered over completely with some other. So it is with the hardened sinner. How many a layer of conviction after conviction and partial reformations has he known, yet still how thick a case covers his hardened heart!
The spirit of fire
Suppose a blacksmith were sent for to mend a number of old broken iron vessels, and told that he must do it without fire, what would he say to the proposal? Yet sinners hearts are as hard and cold! and just as foolish are they who think that all that is needed is to begin and go on hammering at them, and that will convert them. No! heat the iron, and it may be mended and remoulded. Melt the soul with the Spirit of burning, or we are without hope of seeing any saving change.
The awful evil of sin
Oh sirs, if I had a dear brother who had been murdered, what would you think of me if I valued the knife which had been crimsoned with his blood?--if I made a friend of the murderer, and daily consorted with the assassin, who drove the dagger into my brothers heart? Surely I, too, must be an accomplice in the crime! Sin murdered Christ; will you be a friend to it? Sin pierced the heart of the Incarnate God; can you love it? Oh, that there was an abyss as deep as Christs misery, that I might at once hurl this dagger of sin into its depths, whence it might never be brought to light again! Begone, O sin! (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The threefold conviction
I. OF SIN--in that they believe not on Me.
1. The worlds conduct towards Christ is the decisive proof of its sinfulness. His Cross manifests, as nothing else, what the bad element in human nature is capable of. So it must needs be. When the Holy One comes into a world of sinners they must either renounce their sins or contradict Him. And if He endures their contradiction they must hate Him; and if He still braves their hatred it is but another step to slay Him. If I had not come they had not had sin, &c. In conflict with the light darkness is known for darkness indeed.
2. Therefore, the gist of the Spirits charge lies simply in this: that the world does not believe in Christ. All the rest, the insolence and outrage, &c., was nothing more than the logical outcome of unbelief. Here is the root of the matter. For the rest Christ could say, Father, forgive them, &c.
3. On this point the Paraclete has to convince the world. The rejection of Jesus was virtually the act of the race. Herod, &c., were not fiends but men. We can understand them because we are so much like them. All the vices that culminated in the Crucifixion are those of every generation, nay, of ourselves.
4. The present world thinks that it would have acted differently. Let it not be too sure: Your fathers killed the prophets, &c., and so the ungodly world may be garnishing the sepulchre of Him whom it treats as a dead Christ, in so far as it does not believe in Him.
5. Just as all good works are at the bottom acts of faith, so every kind of evil doing runs up into unbelief. The first sin began here, Hath God said? And so the ripened form of human sin reproduces naturally the seed from which it sprang. And this is the condemnation of the whole world: They have not believed Me.
6. One day this conviction of sin will have penetrated to the worlds very heart. It will look on Him whom it has pierced and mourn, as it confesses that it has not yet believed on Him.
II. OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. In the thought of sin, man is the central subject, as himself sinful; in the thought of righteousness, Christ as alone righteous.
1. The personal righteousness of Christ was at stake in the controversy between Himself and the world, and everything depended on clearing that first of all. Only as it appreciated that could the world understand righteousness. Of this the world is now convinced. But Christ could not have waited for this vindication, which without other proof would never have been brought about. And besides, the Father was concerned to vindicate Himself and the Son of His good pleasure by some immediate and unanswerable demonstration. This was seen in His going to the Father. So He says, If ye loved Me ye would rejoice, &c.
because He would be glorified and the world put to shame, convinced of His righteousness, convicted of its sin.
2. By the death of Christ the case as between Him and the world was transferred to the final court of appeal, After death, judgment. His accusers had said, This Man is a sinner, and by crucifying Him they invited the Divine judgment. And thither with His dying breath He made His own appeal, Into Thy hands I commit My spirit. Those appeals were answered, and in three days Jesus lived again, and in due time went where He was before; and all the angels worshipped Him, and the Father set Him at His own right hand where every word He said is justified, every claim He made established, and where heaven and earth combine to adore Him as Jesus Christ the Righteous.
3. And if righteous, then Divine. It is no discrepancy that the Evangelist should report the officer as saying, This Man was righteous, and He was Son of God. Every one knew that this was the capital charge against Him; and, indeed, if He was a righteous man He was Son of God; if He was not Son of God, He was not even a righteous Man. Therefore He was declared Son of God with power by the resurrection of the dead, and His righteousness is not simply that of the righteous man, but a manifestation of that of the righteous Father whom the world had not known, but of which it had to be convinced.
4. And if tie is righteous, then the great ideal has been realized, the hunger after righteousness may be assuaged; for righteousness has appeared in concrete human form. There is hope of righteousness for the sinful world. He died the just for the unjust, &c. He goes to the Father, and so we have an Advocate with the Father, &c. Well may we then, through the Spirit, wait for the hope of righteousness by faith.
III. OF JUDGMENT. Because the prince, &c. The death of Christ caused a judgment to be passed on Satan, which he and his kingdom felt to be a virtual overthrow. Christ saw again and again behind all human forces another antagonist guiltier and mightier. He who knew what was in man recognized lurking behind Judas, Peter, the Pharisees, &c., him whom He thrice called the prince of this world. It was his works that He came to destroy, and His death-fearing subjects He meant to deliver. And the strong man armed knows who it is that has entered his domain. Calvary is to be the decisive battle-field. He was allowed to reach the height of his apostasy in his lying temptation, and failing that, in his murder of the Incarnate Son, and from this height he fell instantly, utterly, as lightning from heaven. He is judged, has failed, is doomed. Henceforth he waits with fearful expectation till the kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our God, &c. Slowly, yet surely, this sentence is taking effect. After dispossession comes punishment. What else meant the terror of demons at the voice of Christ, and the dreadful words (Mat_25:41) re-echoed in the Apocalypse (Joh_20:10)? He is judged already, butthe day shall declare that judgment. But, alas! he is not the only subject. The judgment that fell upon him cannot but strike those who choose their part with him (Rev_21:8). (Geo. G. Findlay, B. A.)
The Holy Spirits threefold conviction of men
Observe what the Holy Spirit did as an Advocate. The passage cannot be fully understood except we give it three renderings. A promise is here made to the servants of Christ, that when they go forth to preach the gospel the Holy Ghost will be with them
I. TO REPROVE MEN. By this is meant, not so much to save them as to silence them. Another advocate appears in court, whose pleadings would make it hard for men to resist the truth. Observe how this reproof was given with regard to
1. Sin. On the day of Pentecost when Peter stood up to preach to the assembled multitude, the signs and wonders wrought by the Spirit in the name of Jesus were a witness which they could not refute. The evidence was brought home to them that they had with wicked hands crucified the Lord of glory: and so they stood reproved. All the subsequent miracles went to prove the same thing.
2. Righteousness. Jesus was gone, and His Divine example no longer reproved their darkness, but the Holy Spirit attested that righteousness, and compelled them to feel it. A fresh standard of morals was set up, and it has never been taken down; it stands in its place to rebuke, if not to improve.
3. Judgment.
(1) They were made to feel that somehow the life and the death of Jesus of Nazareth had made a crisis in the worlds history, and condemned the way and manner of the ungodly. All historians must confess that the turningpoint of the race is the cross of Christ. It would be impossible to fix any other hinge of history. From that moment the power of evil received its mortal wound. It dies hard, but from that hour it was doomed. Systems of false worship, so firmly rooted in prejudice and custom, that it seemed impossible that they should ever be overthrown, were torn up by their roots by the breath of the Lord.
(2) Moreover, the thought flashed upon humanity more clearly than ever it had done before--that there would be a day of judgment. The dim forms of Rhadamanthus on a cloudy judgment seat, and of the assembly before his throne, and of the crowds divided according to their lives, now began to assume another and far more definite shape. The Holy Spirit attested the teaching of the apostles. Henceforth man is accused and rebuked by the great Advocate. He who rejects human testimony when it is true is foolish; but he who despises the witness of the Holy Ghost is profane. Let him beware lest he so sin against the Holy Ghost as to never have forgiveness.
II. TO CONVINCE MEN
1. Of sin.
(1) He comes on purpose to convince men that they are so guilty that they are lost and ruined; to remind them of their enmity to the God of love. He does not come to make sinners comfortable in their sins, but to cause them to grieve over them. He comes to wound so that no human balm can heal; to kill so that no earthly power can make us live.
(2) This work is most necessary, because without it there is no leading men to receive the gospel. We cannot make headway with certain people who profess faith very readily, but are convinced of nothing. But get near a real sinner, the man who mourns in his inmost soul that he is so, and you find one who will welcome the Saviour. To him the news of pardon will be as cold water to a thirsty soul.
(3) The Spirit comes to convince men of sin, because they never will be convinced of sin apart from His Divine advocacy. A natural conscience may show a man his faults, make him uneasy, and may bring about reformation; but it is only the Spirit of God that to the full extent convinces a man of sin so as to bring forth repentance, self-despair, and faith in Jesus.
(4) The Holy Spirit dwells upon one point in particular, They believe not on Me. None see the sin of unbelief except by His light. For a man thinks, Well, if I have not believed in Christ, that is a pity, perhaps; but still, I was never a thief, or a liar, &c. Unbelief is a matter of little consequence; I can met that square at any time. But the Holy Spirit makes a man see that not to believe in Christ is a crowning sin, since it makes God a liar. He who believes not on Christ has rejected Gods mercy, and has done despite to the grandest display of Gods love. In this he has dishonoured God on a very tender point: His only begotten Son.
2. Of righteousness--that is to show them that they have no righteousness of their own, and no means of working it, and are condemned. Thus He leads them to value the righteousness of God which is upon all them that believe.
(1) Among men, if a person is convicted of wrong-doing, the next step is judgment. A young man has embezzled money: he is convicted by process of law, and found guilty. Then judgment is pronounced, and he must suffer. But observe how God interpolates another process. Truly, His ways are not our ways! He shall convince of sin The next step would be judgment; but no, the Lord inserts a hitherto unknown middle term, and convinces of righteousness. Be amazed at this. The Lord takes a man, even when he is conscious of sin, and makes him righteous on the spot, by putting away his sin and justifying him by a righteousness which comes to him by the worthiness of another. This seems to be a thing so impossible that it needs the Spirit of God to convince men of it.
(2) Note well the great point of the Spirits argument, Because I go to My Father, and ye see Me no more. Our Lord was sent into the world to work out a righteousness, but He would not go till He had fulfilled His covenant engagements. Behold, then, Christ has finished a righteousness which is freely given to all them theft believe, and all those who trust in Christ are for His sake regarded as righteous before God, and are in fact righteous, so that, Who is He that condemneth? It is Christ that died, &c.
3. Of judgment. The Father hath committed all judgment unto the Son. The true penitent feels that the great enemy of his soul must be dethroned, or else forgiveness itself will afford him no rest. He must be rescued from the power as well as from the guilt of sin, or else he abides in bondage. Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil; and on the cross our Redeemer judged Satan, and cast him down. He is now a condemned criminal, a vanquished rebel. His reigning power over all believers is broken. Though it will cost you many a conflict, the Lord shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly, for He has already bruised him under His own feet on your behalf.
III. TO CONVICT MAN.
1. The world stands a prisoner at the bar, and the charge is that it is and has been full of sin. In courts of law you are often surprised with what comes out. The prisoner seems to be a respectable person, and you say, I should not think he is guilty. But, as the evidence proceeds, you say to yourself, That is a villain. Now hear the Spirit of God. The Spirit came into the world to make all men know that Jesus is the Christ, and He attested that fact by miracles, and by the conversion of myriads. But this wicked world nailed Christ to a cross. By this the world is convicted, its guilt is proven beyond question. The wrath of God abideth on it.
2. What follows? The trial is viewed from another point. The world has declared that the gospel is not righteous, that the system which our Lord has come to establish is not true. But, by sanctifying men through the gospel so that they lead gracious lives, the Holy Spirit proves that the gospel is righteous. This process grows more and more complete as time rolls on. Were not the world unrighteous it would long ago have yielded to the holy message and its holy Messenger. But it will be forced to own the truth one day.
3. When the world shall see Jesus enthroned at last on the clouds of heaven, what conviction will seize on every mind! Not a sceptic will be found in that day! Christ seen at the Fathers right hand will end all unbelief. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The Spirits threefold conviction
I. THE SPIRITS CONVICTION OF SIN. And first, the Spirits conviction of sin--Of sin, because they believe not on Me.
1. This is not societys definition of sin: according to society, sin means crime, vice, immorality. Neither is it the philosophers definition of sin: according to the philosopher, sin means misdirection, abuse, disease. Neither is it the theologians definition of sin: according to the theologian, sin means transgression of Gods law, coming short of Gods glory, hereditary guilt. But it is Christs definition of sin: according to Christ, sin means unbelief on Himself, unbelief in Jesus as the Christ and Son and Image and Revealer of the Father. To disbelieve on Jesus, then, is to disbelieve on Deity Himself. Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father (1Jn_2:23). Christlessness in a Christian land is atheism. Sin, therefore, became a new thing when Jesus came into the world Joh_15:22).
2. Observe now that of this sin of sins the Spirit is the sole convicter. When He is come, He will convict the world in respect of sin, because they believe not on Jesus. And no other power can. The preacher cannot do it; conscience cannot do it; even holy scripture cannot do it. Remember the difference between sins and sin. A jury may convict me of crimes: conscience may convict me of sins. But no power less than the Holy Spirit can convict me of sin. No barb but His can pierce to the root of my nature; no flash but His can show me to myself as a ruined sinner. And the argument he wields in convicting me of sin is this very fact that I do not believe on Jesus. Calvary, not Sinai, is the Spirits mightiest artillery. But what avails it to be convicted of sin, unless at the same time we are also convicted that there is somewhere righteousness, and that this righteousness can be made available to ourselves?
II. THE SPIRITS CONVICTION OF RIGHTEOUSNESS.
1. Of righteousness. What is this righteousness of which our Lord here speaks? Whose righteousness is it?
(1) Certainly not the worlds. For the world is quite swift enough to detect its own merits. No Holy Spirit does it need to convince it of its own virtues. A very Narcissus it is, seeing everywhere the reflection of its own beauties and worshipping itself. But let us look at this matter a little more deeply, noting what the worlds conception of righteousness really is. True, we admire and value righteousness. But why do we admire it? Because it is righteousness? Or because, in a civilized, well-ordered community, righteousness is one of the conditions of success? Do we not, practically speaking, secretly feel that Thomas Carlyle has hit the truth when, in his Heroes and Hero-worship, he virtually tells us, Success is virtue; might makes right? Let righteousness but stand in the way of success, and let the choice lie between the two; and then see which the world will choose. Yes, the world crucified, and, were He to return, would virtually crucify again, the only absolutely righteous One the world has ever seen.
(2) Whose then is the righteousness the conviction of which the Spirit is to bring to the world? Evidently Christs righteousness, But what part or element of Christs righteousness is the righteousness of Which He here speaks? Evidently, righteousness in the general, complete sense of the word; the sum total of all that God requires; the righteousness of a perfect character. In other words, the righteousness of which the Lord here speaks is the righteousness which was incarnated in His own blessed person and career and character and work. And of this righteousness Christs departure and present invisibility are both the illustration and the proof: Of righteousness, because I go to the Father, and ye behold Me no more.
2. Because I go to the Father. This going to the Father involves several profound things. First, it involves Christs own death. And why did Jesus Christ die, and so go home? Just because He was righteous, and lived in a world which did not believe on Him. His very righteousness crucified Him. Again: This going to the Father involves Christs resurrection. And why was Jesus Christ raised from the dead? Just because He was righteous: He was declared to be the Son of God with power by His resurrection from the dead (Rom_1:4). Once more: This going to the Father involves Christs ascension and heavenly enthronement. And why was Jesus Christ exalted to the right hand of the Majesty on high? Just because He was righteous; His exaltation being the reward of His incarnate obedience. His going to the father was both a revelation and a demonstration of Christs righteousness.
3. And ye no longer behold Me. Why did not the risen Lord remain on earth? Why is He not here now, to be a terror to His foes, a comfort to His friends? We behold Him no more in order that we may the better understand what righteousness truly is. For righteousness is not a bulk--so many inches cubic; not a weight--so many pounds avoirdupois. Righteousness is a quality, a character.
4. And of this righteousness the Holy Spirit is the sole concictor: When He is come, He will convict the world in respect of righteousness. It may also be admitted that the world does in a certain sense admire Christs character. Few eulogies are more eloquent, so far as language goes, than the eulogies which eminent unbelievers have pronounced on the Nazarene. But admiration is one thing: loyalty is another thing. There is a tremendous difference between aesthetic admiration and practical devotion; between assent to Christs teaching and consent with Christs character. And what the world needs is to have such a profound conviction of Christs personal, conspicuous, distinctive righteousness as to yearn for it, crying, O Jehovah, be Thou my righteousness (Jer_22:6). And this conviction no power but the Paraclete can effect.
III. THE SPIRITS CONVICTION OF JUDGMENT. But what avails it to be convicted of righteousness, unless at the same time we are convicted that righteousness will be victorious?
1. The prince of this world. If you ask me why Satan was allowed to enter this world and usurp its throne, my only answer is this: I do not know. Here is one of those secret things which belong to Jehovah our God Deu_29:29). Of one thing, however, I am only too sure. Satan is the prince of this world. A usurped principality though it is, the principality is nevertheless his. See how he lords it over mans moral nature, as disclosed in the various religions of the world. Look, for example, at the worlds idolatries: at its Apis, its Baal, its Dagon, its Mithras, its Siva. Look at the Greek and Roman mythologies. Or, to keep within our own land, look at the idolatry of second causes, the worship of antecedent and consequent, the adoration of the powers of nature. What is materialism but a sort of sublimated fetichism? Again: See how Satan lords it over mans psychical nature--over the capacities and affections and desires of men, instigating to all passions of pride and selfishness and ambition and hate and lust. Once more: See how Satan lords it over mans bodily nature, driving his thorns in the flesh to buffet us; bringing disease and pain and death and grave. In fine, look at this world as it actually is; its crimes, frauds, robberies, hates, falsehoods, perfidies, oppressions, cruelties, sensualities, blasphemies; its griefs and woes and deaths: look at all these and similar instigations and works of the devil, and tell me, Is not Satan the prince of this world?
2. But is this to be so always? God be praised, no! for the prince of this world hath been judged. To us indeed Christs judgment of Satan seems to be a process still going on. But this is only because we are finite: for this idea of process, or succession in time, is one of the tokens of human weakness. But to the eye of the Son of God the overthrow of Satan was a single act, and an act already accomplished (Luk_10:17). But how was this judgment on Satan affected?
(1) To answer, first, in a general way: it was effected by the Incarnation. To this end was the Son of God manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil (1Jn_3:8). The Incarnation itself was a judgment
(2) But to give a more particular answer: Satan was judged by Christs own death. Accordingly, a few days before, Jesus exclaimed: The hour is come, that the Son of Man should be glorified Now is the judgment of this world; now shall the prince of this world be cast out: and I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Myself. This He said, signifying by what manner of death He should die (Joh_12:28-33).
3. And this judgment on Satan is a judgment of which the world needs to be convicted: and this, not merely in way of intellectual apprehension, but, especially and emphatically, in way of moral conviction.
(1) Thus each Christian needs this conviction for himself. For he is exposed to a thousand discouragements: for example, the sense of infirmity, the enigma of delays and disappointments and adversities, the prevalence of iniquity, the enmity of Satan himself. Verily he does not yet see all things subjected to Jesus Christ (Heb_2:8). Hence he needs the saving power of hope (Rom_8:24). He needs the conviction that Christs grace within him is omnipotent; that the life in Jesus will not be a failure; that the Christians victory, if he holds steadfast, is a matter of certainty. What he needs is to be sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, which is an earnest of our inheritance unto the redemption of Gods own possession, unto the praise of His glory (Eph_1:14).
(2) And as each Christian needs this conviction for himself in order to his own salvation and victory, so does the Church of the Lamb need it in order to her own going forth and battling under inspiration of assured triumph. What she needs is the certain conviction that the Churchs triumph is a foregone conclusion in the Divine mind; that in virtue of her joint-heirship with Jesus Christ (Rom_8:17), the appointed heir of all things Heb_1:3): she will share His sovereignty, even already owning this world by a sort of reversionary right.
4. But how shall this conviction be wrought? By no power less than the Holy Spirit. When He is come, He will convict the world concerning judgment, because the prince of this world has been judged. Conscience cannot work this conviction: all that conscience can do is to make us aware that we are under Satans power. Neither can philosophy work this conviction: all that philosophy does is to try to make us believe that there is not, and never has been, any Satan at all; that hell is only the obverse side of heaven, or heaven seen in a side-light. The philosopher does, indeed, talk of a golden age. But what kind of a golden age is it? An age when all that is now anomalous and discordant and monstrous shall give way to universal law and order and beauty; in brief, when the world shall develop into a godless paradise, from which Satan and Jesus shall be alike aliens. (G. D.Boardman, D. D.)
Conviction
The idea is complex. It involves the conceptions of authoritative examination, of unquestionable proof, of decisive judgment, of punitive power. Whatever the final issue may be, he who convicts another places the truth of the case in dispute in a close light before him, so that it must be seen and acknowledged as truth. He who then rejects the conclusion which this exposition involves, rejects it with his eyes open and at his peril. Truth seen as truth carries with it condemnation to all who refuse to welcome it. The different aspects of this conviction are brought out in the usage of the word in the New Testament.
1. There is the thorough testing of the real nature of the facts (John Eph_5:13).
2. The application of the truth thus ascertained to the particular person affected (Jam_2:9; Jdg_15:22; 1Co_14:24; 2Ti_4:2; cf. Mat_18:15; Joh_8:9).
3. And that in chastisement (1Ti_5:20; Tit_1:9; Tit_2:15; cf. Eph_5:11); or with a distinct view to the restoration of him who is in the wrong (Rev_3:19; Heb_12:5; Tit_1:13). The Gospel of St. John itself is a monument of the Spirits conviction of the world concerning
I. SIN (Joh_3:19-21; Joh_5:28, &c.; Joh_5:38-47; Joh_8:21, &c.; Joh_8:34-47; Joh_9:41; Joh_14:27; Joh_15:18-24).
II. RIGHTEOUSNESS (Joh_5:30; Joh_7:18; Joh_7:24; Joh_8:28; Joh_8:46; Joh_8:50; Joh_8:54; Joh_12:32; Joh_14:31; Joh_18:37).
III. JUDGMENT (Joh_12:31; Joh_14:30; Joh_18:15). (Bp. Westcott.)
The facts which convince the world
Our Lord has just been telling His disciples how He will equip them, as His champions, for their conflict with the world. He now advances to tell them that the three-fold conviction which they, as counsel for the prosecution, will establish as against the world at the bar, will be based upon three facts: a truth of experience, of history, of revelation, all three facts having reference to Christ and His relation to men. Now these three facts are--the worlds unbelief; Christs ascension and session at the right hand of God; and the judgment of the prince of this world. These three facts are the staple and the strength of the Christian ministry. These are misapprehended, and have failed unless they have driven home to our consciences and understandings the triple conviction of my text.
I. THE REJECTION OF CHRIST AS THE CLIMAX OF THE WORLDS SIN.
1. This is the most striking instance of the gigantic self-assertion of our Lords. The world is full of all manner of evils, but Christ passes them all by and points to a mere negative thing, and says, There is the worst of all sins.
2. And some of us do not think it is sin at all; that man is no more responsible for his belief than he is for the colour of his hair. Well, what is it that a man turns away from when he turns away from Christ? And what does such an attitude indicate as to the rejecter? He stands in the presence of the loveliest revelation of the Divine nature, and he sees no light in it. Why but because he is incapable of seeing God manifest in the flesh he loves the darkness rather than the light. He turns away from the revelation of the most self-sacrificing love. Why but because he bears a heart cased with selfishness? He turns away from the offered hands heaped with the blessing that he needs. Why but because he does not care for the gifts that are offered? Forgiveness, cleansing, purity, a heaven which consists in the perfecting of all these has no attractions for him. The man who is blind to the first, who has no stirrings of responsive gratitude for the second and who does not care for the third, in turning away, manifests and commits a true sin.
3. Then our Lord here presents this fact of mans unbelief as a typical sin. In all other acts of sin you get the poison manipulated into various forms, associated with other elements, disguised more or less. However unlike they may be to one another--the lust of the sensualist, the craft of the cheat, &c.--all of them have this one common root: a diseased and bloated regard to self. The definition of sin is, living to myself and making myself my own centre. The definition of faith is, making Christ my centre and living for Him. And so, if you want to know what is the sinfulness of sin, there it is; it is all packed away in its purest form in the act of rejecting Christ. When you have summoned up the ugliest forms of mans sins, this one overtops them all, because it presents in the simplest form the mother-tincture of all sin, which, variously coloured and perfumed and combined, makes the poison of them all. A heap of rotting, poisonous matter is offensive to many senses, but the colourless, scentless, tasteless drop has the poison in its most virulent form, and is not a bit less virulent though it has been learnedly distilled and christened with a scientific name, and put into a dainty jewelled flask.
II. THE ASCENSION OF CHRIST AS THE PLEDGE AND THE CHANNEL OF THE WORLDS RIGHTEOUSNESS. Christ speaks as if the process of departure were already commenced. It had three stages--death, resurrection, ascension; but these three are all parts of the one departure.
1. The fact of an ascended Christ is the guarantee of His own complete fulfilment of the ideal of a righteous man. Suppose Jesus Christ never rose from the grave, would it be possible to believe that, however beautiful these records of His life, and however lovely the character they reveal, there was really in Him no sin at all? A dead Christ means a Christ who, like the rest of us, had His limitations and His faults. But if it be true that He sprang from the grave because it was not possible that He should be holden of it, and because in His nature there was no proclivity to death, since there had been no indulgence in sin; and if it be true that He ascended up on high because that was His native sphere, as naturally as the water in the valley will rise to the height of the hill from which it has descended, then we can see that God has set His seal upon that life by that resurrection and ascension.
2. And further, with this supernatural fact, stands or falls the possibility of His communicating any of His righteousness to sinful men. If there be no such possibility, what does Jesus Christs beauty of character matter to me? I shall have to stumble on as best I can, sometimes ashamed and rebuked, sometimes stimulated and sometimes reduced to despair, by looking at the record of His life. But there can come nothing other in kind, though, perhaps a little more in degree than comes from any other beautiful soul that has lived. But if He hath ascended up on high, then His righteousness is not a solitary, uncommunicative perfectness for Himself, but like a sun in the heavens, which streams out vivifying and enlightening rays to all that seek His face. If Christ be risen, His righteousness may be the worlds; if Christ be not risen, His righteousness is useless to any but to Himself.
III. THE JUDGMENT OF THE WORLDS PRINCE AS THE PROPHECY OF THE JUDGEMENT OF THE WORLD.
1. The world has a prince. That chaotic agglomeration of diverse forms of evil has yet a kind of anarchic order in it, and, like the fabled serpents locks on the Gorgon head, they intertwine and sting one another, and yet they are a unity. We hear very little about the prince of the world in Scripture. Mercifully the existence of such a being is not plainly revealed until the fact of Christs victory over him is revealed.
2. That prince is judged. The Cross did that, as Jesus Christ over and over again indicates. Since that Cross, the power of evil in the world has been broken in its centre; God has been disclosed, and new forces have been lodged in the heart of humanity, which only need to be developed in order to overcome the evil. Since that auspicious day when He spoiled the principalities and powers, &c., the history of the world has been the judgment of the world. Hoary iniquities have toppled into the ceaseless washing sea of Divine love which has struck against their bases. Ancient evils have vanished, and more are on the point of vanishing. A loftier morality, a deeper conception of sin, new hopes for the world and for men, have all dawned upon mankind; and the prince of the world is led bound, as it were, at the victorious chariot wheels. The central fortress has been captured and the rest is an affair of outposts.
3. A final judgment is coming and that it is, is manifested by the fact that Christ, when He came in the form of a servant and died upon the Cross, judged the prince. When He comes in the form of a King on the great white throne He will judge the world which He has delivered from the prince.
(1) That thought ought to be a hope to us all. Are you glad when you realize the fact that the righteousness which is in the heavens is going to conquer and coerce and clap under the hatches the sin that is riding rampant through the world? Men who did not know half as much of the Divine love and righteousness as we do, called upon the rocks and the hills, &c., to rejoice before the Lord, for He cometh to judge the world.
(2) It ought to be a hope; it is a fear. And there are some of us that do not like to have the conviction driven home to us.
(3) But hope or fear, it is a fact, as certain in the future as the Cross is sure in the past, or the Throne in the present. Have you learned your sin; have you opened your heart to Christs righteousness? Then, if you have, when mens hearts are failing them for fear, and they call on the rocks and the hills to cover them from the face of Him that sitteth upon the throne, we shall lift up our heads, for our redemption draweth nigh. Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness before Him in the day of judgment. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
The fixing of impressions
When Daguerre was working at his sun-pictures his great difficulty was to fix them. The light came and imprinted the image; but when the tablet was drawn from the camera the image had vanished. Our lamentations is like his--our want the same; a fixing solution that shall arrest and detain the fugitive impressions. He discovered the chemical power which turned the evanescent into the durable. There is a Divine agency at hand that can fix the truth upon the heart of man--Gods Holy Spirit. (J. Stoughton, D. D.)
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 8. Will reprove the world of sin, of righteousness,…
8. Will reprove the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment. The Revision more correctly renders, “Will convict the world in respect of sin.” There are three points concerning which the world would be convicted, concerning sin, righteousness, and judgment. The Holy Spirit would effect these important results through some means. If we would understand the methods we have only to turn over to the fulfillment of these predictions recorded in the Acts of the Apostles. In Acts 2:38, the Holy Spirit fell upon eleven apostles and they spoke as “the Spirit gave them utterance.” The words that they spoke were the words of the Holy Spirit. In the record of what was said by the mouth of Peter, we find that the Spirit convicted (1) of sin, in that those who heard had rejected the Lord of life and glory; (2) of righteousness, in that it was demonstrated by the manifestations of that hour that God had exalted the Lord whom they had condemned to his own right hand; (3) of judgment, in that they were assured of the “wrath to come,” and warned to “save themselves from this untoward generation.”
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.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain world kosmos = mankind. (See Scofield "Mat 4:8").
world kosmos = mankind. (See Scofield "Mat 4:8").
sin Sin. (See Scofield "Rom 3:23").
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 The reproof of the world:
The reproof of the world:
v. 8. And when He is come, He will reprove the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment:
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v. 9. of sin, because they believe not on Me;
v. 10. of righteousness, because I go to My Father, and ye see Me no more;
v. 11. of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged.
And that Person, the Holy Spirit, coming into the world, will convict the world. That is one special function and activity of the Spirit, to convict the unbelieving world on three counts, with regard to sin, justice, and judgment. This the Lord explains. Of sin the world stands accused and unable to deny the charge that they do not believe on Christ, because they willfully choose unbelief. That is the chief sin of the world, of the unbelievers, that they reject Christ and His Gospel. All other sins do not come into consideration if a person but believes in the forgiveness of sins. And therefore unbelief, which refuses to accept the forgiveness of sins, deliberately cuts itself off from salvation. This fact the Spirit impresses upon the minds and hearts of the unbelievers. "The world will not hear such preaching that they should all be sinners before God, and that their pious works have no value before Him, but that they rather through this crucified Christ must obtain mercy and salvation. Such unbelief against Christ becomes the sum and substance of all sins that lead a person into damnation, so that there is no help for him. " In close connection with this fact is the further truth that the Spirit convicts the unbelieving world of righteousness, since Jesus was going to the Father and would no longer be with them according to His visible presence. The true righteousness consists in this, that Christ, by His going to the Father, by His suffering, death, and resurrection, earned and prepared the righteousness which is acceptable with God. But the world wants nothing of Christ’s blood and righteousness, preferring its own self-righteousness. And so both righteousness and salvation are lost to them by unbelief, as the Spirit will impress upon them. And He will finally convict them of the judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged and condemned. The redemption of Christ sealed the devil’s doom; he has lost might and right with regard to mankind since sin was conquered by Jesus. This the Holy Ghost testifies to the hearts of the unbelievers, showing them that because of their unbelief they will have to share the doom of the devil, that they are condemned for rejecting the Conqueror of Satan. This also serves for the comfort of the believers, since they know that the world is even now convicted.
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 the Comforter will prove the world to be wrong…
the Comforter will prove the world to be wrong about sin ... righteousness ... I am going to the Father
When the Holy Spirit came, he began to show people that they are sinners.
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Comforter
This refers to the Holy Spirit. See how you translated this in John 14:16.
world
This is a metonym that refers to the people in the world.(See: Metonymy)
about sin, because they do not believe in me
"they are guilty of sin because they do not trust in me"
about righteousness, because I am going to the Father, and you will no longer see me
"when I return to God, and they see me no more, they will know that I did the right things"
Father
This is an important title for God. (See: Translating Son and Father)
about judgment, because the ruler of this world has been judged
"God will hold them accountable and will punish them for their sins, just as he will punish Satan, the one who rules this world"
the ruler of this world
Here "ruler" refers to Satan. See how you translated this in John 12:31. AT: "Satan who rules this world"
translationWords
world
sin
righteous
judge
believe
God the Father
rule
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 16:8-11 One of the Spirit’s roles is to convict…
16:8-11 One of the Spirit’s roles is to convict the world. Convict is a legal term: The world had conducted its trial of Jesus, examining the evidence for his case (his signs and claims). Now the world would stand trial before the Spirit, and its guilt would be proven.
16:8 The Spirit unveils to the world the real nature of its sin, the truth about righteousness found only in God, and the coming judgment, which has already dawned on the world as light penetrating the darkness.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.