John 16 — It Is to Your Advantage

Today’s Passage: John 16

He has told them He is going. Their hearts are filled with sorrow. Then the sentence they cannot yet believe: it is to your advantage that I go. Unless I go, the Advocate will not come. The Spirit who convicts the world and guides them into all truth is not a second lesson. He is why the going is gain. The sorrow that turns to joy, and the peace in tribulation, are that same going seen from the other side. Read it as that one advantage.

As you read, hold this: It is to your advantage that I go.

John 16:1–4 (BSB)

¹ “I have told you these things so that you will not fall away. ² They will put you out of the synagogues. In fact, a time is coming when anyone who kills you will think he is offering a service to God. ³ They will do these things because they have not known the Father or Me. ⁴ But I have told you these things so that when their hour comes, you will remember that I told you about them. I did not tell you these things from the beginning, because I was with you.

He opens with honesty, not false comfort. He forewarns them so they will not fall away. The coming persecution will be social and lethal: expulsion from the synagogues, and death at the hands of men who will imagine they are offering a service to God. Murder dressed as worship. He traces it to its root: they have not known the Father or Him. He gives the reason twice. When the hour comes, they will remember that He told them, and His foreknowledge will steady them. He had not pressed all this from the beginning because, while He was present, the shock was His to absorb. Now He is leaving. They must be ready. The warning itself is part of the advantage. He does not go without telling them what the going will cost.

John 16:5–7 (BSB)

⁵ Now, however, I am going to Him who sent Me; yet none of you asks Me, ‘Where are You going?’ ⁶ Instead, your hearts are filled with sorrow because I have told you these things. ⁷ But I tell you the truth, it is for your benefit that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you.

Grief has turned them inward. So absorbed are they in the loss that none of them asks where He is going. They cannot see past the departure to the destination. He names their state plainly and gently: your hearts are filled with sorrow. Then the counterintuitive sentence: it is for your benefit that I am going away. How could losing Jesus be gain? Because His going opens the way for the Helper. Unless I go, the Advocate will not come. The paraklētos of chapter 14, another of the same kind, a Person and not a force, would not be poured out on all His people everywhere until the Son had finished His work and returned to the Father. He is not abandoning them. He is exchanging bodily nearness for a nearer, universal, indwelling presence. The trade looks like loss, and yet it is the advantage.

John 16:8–11 (BSB)

⁸ And when He comes, He will convict the world in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment: ⁹ in regard to sin, because they do not believe in Me; ¹⁰ in regard to righteousness, because I am going to the Father and you will no longer see Me; ¹¹ and in regard to judgment, because the prince of this world has been condemned.

This is why the going is gain toward the world. The Spirit will convict (ἐλέγχω) elenchō, pronounced eh-LENG-kho. Strong's G1651, to expose, convict, reprove, bring to light. Elenchō is a strong verb. It can mean to expose, to bring something hidden into the light. It can mean to convict in the legal sense, to prove guilt the accused cannot answer. It can mean to convince, to press the truth on the conscience until it cannot be denied. The aim is never mere shaming. Elenchō presses toward acknowledgment and, where possible, repentance. The same word describes the light of Christ exposing deeds done in darkness (Ephesians 5:11, 13) and the loving discipline of the Lord (Hebrews 12:5; Revelation 3:19). Here it names the Spirit’s work on the conscience of the world: not to condemn merely, but to make the truth about sin, righteousness, and judgment impossible to evade. , and He does it on three counts. Concerning sin: the deepest sin is not this or that misdeed but the refusal to believe, “because they do not believe in Me.” Concerning righteousness: Jesus’ return to the Father is His vindication. The One the world condemned is justified by God, and the Spirit makes that verdict felt. Concerning judgment: “the prince of this world has been condemned.” At the cross Satan’s defeat is sealed, and the Spirit announces it as accomplished fact. This is not the Spirit browbeating sinners. It is the Spirit graciously making the truth inescapable, so that conviction can become repentance and faith. A Jesus confined to one body in one place could not do this work everywhere. The Advocate can.

John 16:12–15 (BSB)

¹² I still have much to tell you, but you cannot yet bear to hear it. ¹³ However, when the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all truth. For He will not speak on His own, but He will speak what He hears, and He will declare to you what is to come. ¹⁴ He will glorify Me by taking from what is Mine and disclosing it to you. ¹⁵ Everything that belongs to the Father is Mine. That is why I said that the Spirit will take from what is Mine and disclose it to you.

This is why the going is gain toward them. There is more to teach than they can bear now, for grief has shut the door, but the Spirit of truth will open it. “He will guide you into all truth.” This is the promise behind the apostolic witness that became the New Testament. Notice the Spirit’s self-effacement. He will not speak on His own, and He is no rogue voice introducing novelties. He speaks what He hears, in harmony with the Father and the Son. And His aim is Christ-centered: “He will glorify Me.” The Spirit never points to Himself; He always magnifies the Son. And what belongs to the Son is everything the Father has, so the Spirit’s disclosures are the very riches of God, opened to His people. He did not empty the Son of deity. He glorifies the Son by taking what is His and making it known.

John 16:16–22 (BSB)

¹⁶ In a little while you will see Me no more, and then after a little while you will see Me.” ¹⁷ Then some of His disciples asked one another, “Why is He telling us, ‘In a little while you will not see Me, and then after a little while you will see Me’ and ‘Because I am going to the Father’?” ¹⁸ They kept asking, “Why is He saying, ‘a little while’? We do not understand what He is saying.” ¹⁹ Aware that they wanted to question Him, Jesus said to them, “Are you asking one another why I said, ‘In a little while you will not see Me, and then after a little while you will see Me’? ²⁰ Truly, truly, I tell you, you will weep and wail while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy. ²¹ A woman has pain in childbirth because her time has come; but when she brings forth her child, she forgets her anguish because of her joy that a child has been born into the world. ²² So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy.

The riddle of the little while sends them into confused whispering. John lets us watch them grope: “We do not understand what He is saying.” It is an honest portrait of disciples who have heard everything and grasped almost nothing, which is precisely why the Spirit must come to guide them into all truth. For now the comfort is hidden in the smallness of the word: not a long while, only a little while.

He reads their unspoken question and answers it without flinching. “You will weep and wail while the world rejoices.” The cross will look, for a day, like the world’s victory. Then the reversal: your grief will turn to joy. This is not grief merely followed by joy, but grief transformed into it, the way labor is swallowed when the child comes. The anguish is severe and real, and He does not minimize it, yet it is productive anguish. “I will see you again and your hearts will rejoice,” and the joy is permanent, for “no one will take away your joy.” No persecutor, no grave, no power can rob the joy the risen Christ gives. The going includes the return. That too is the advantage.

John 16:23–28 (BSB)

²³ In that day you will no longer ask Me anything. Truly, truly, I tell you, whatever you ask the Father in My name, He will give you. ²⁴ Until now you have not asked for anything in My name. Ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be complete. ²⁵ I have spoken these things to you in figures of speech. An hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you this way, but will tell you plainly about the Father. ²⁶ In that day you will ask in My name. I am not saying that I will ask the Father on your behalf. ²⁷ For the Father Himself loves you, because you have loved Me and have believed that I came from God. ²⁸ I came from the Father and entered the world. In turn, I will leave the world and go to the Father.”

After the resurrection, in the age of the Spirit, a new access opens. They will come to the Father in His name, which is no magic formula but a standing on what He has won, in line with His will. The goal of the asking is fullness of joy. And He guards against a misunderstanding, for He does not mean they must coax a reluctant Father through a kindly Son. “The Father Himself loves you.” The Father is not won over by the Son; the Father and the Son are one in love for them. Then comes a sentence that compresses the whole gospel into a single arc: “I came from the Father and entered the world. In turn, I will leave the world and go to the Father.” It is descent and return, and the going is the second half of the mission. It is not the end of the story but the way the story reaches them.

John 16:29–33 (BSB)

²⁹ His disciples said, “See, now You are speaking plainly and without figures of speech. ³⁰ Now we understand that You know all things and that You have no need for anyone to question You. Because of this, we believe that You came from God.” ³¹ “Do you finally believe?” Jesus replied. ³² “Look, an hour is coming and has already come when you will be scattered, each to his own home, and you will leave Me all alone. Yet I am not alone, because the Father is with Me. ³³ I have told you these things so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take courage; I have overcome the world!”

They have a flush of confidence. It is sincere and shallow, and He answers it with gentle realism. “Do you finally believe?” Within hours they will flee Gethsemane and leave Him alone. Yet even in that abandonment He is not abandoned: “the Father is with Me.” Then the discourse gathers to its last word. Peace is located not in circumstances but in Him. As for tribulation, He promises no exemption from the crushing pressure of a fallen world. “But take courage; I have overcome the world.” He speaks it on the threshold of the cross as though the triumph were already complete, because it as good as is. Their courage will not rest on their own strength. It will rest on a battle already won by the Lord who went away for their advantage, the same Lord who did not leave them as orphans when He went.