John 16: The Trinity Revealed Again

In John 16, we will continue our talk about the Trinity. John 14-16 has been all about trinity. John 14 was the Trinity we are most familiar with. It’s the one between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, marked with a capital T. John 15 was a different trinity. This trinity was between God, Jesus and Christians, marked with a lowercase t. John 16 will get us back to talking about the Trinity with a capital T again. Yet John 16 will not be a full discussion on the Trinity. John 16 will focus on the person of the trinity we talked about the least so far: the Holy Spirit. But before we get into that, you’ll remember that John 15 I cut off at verse 17, explaining that verses 18 to 27 would fit better in chapter 16 than in chapter 15. So I’ll briefly go over the remaining verses in chapter 15 to set the scene, but then we’ll dive right into chapter 16.

John 15:18-25 is pretty much Jesus not trying to sugar-coat the dire situation the disciples would be facing. He reminds them of what he said just a few minutes earlier, as recorded in John 13:16: “No servant is greater than his master.” In its original context, it was simply Jesus calling the disciples to live a humbled life, for it was the only way to be truly great in the kingdom of God. Now Jesus says it again to state the obvious fact that if people hated the master, they will hate his servants as well. Jesus pretty much says to the disciples that every thing they see the Jews and the Romans do to Jesus, it will happen to them. Just as Jesus was persecuted, so the disciples will be persecuted. Just as Jesus was martyred, so the disciples will be martyred. Jesus tells the disciples not to take it personally because it’s really their hatred of the Father that results in the hatred towards them. But Jesus does add a flip side to all this negative talk. Anyone who listens to and receives the teachings of Jesus will also listen to the disciples’ teachings about the Father and the Son.

The last 2 verses of John 15 are the perfect transition to our talk about the Holy Spirit in John 16. In verse 26, the Holy Spirit is called the “Counselor.” Verse 26 tells us the Counselor is from the Father and is sent out by the Son. Putting together verses 26 and 27, we understand a job the Holy Spirit has. The Holy Spirit aids Christians in testifying about Jesus. Jesus specifically commands the disciples to testify because they have been with Jesus since the beginning. As we remember from John 1, some of the disciples were even there to witness the baptism of Jesus. The Holy Spirit was given to the disciples to help them remember everything about Jesus they witnessed, and the power to proclaim Jesus boldly in the face of persecution, for they are going to need it.

The first 4 verses of John 16 go back off the topic of the Holy Spirit and go back on the topic of the world hating the disciples. Once again, Jesus reminds of them of the persecution they will face. One of the persecutions they will face is being “put out of the synagogue.” This is not simply to be taken literally. This is excommunication, or shunning. Jews would treat anyone “put out of the synagogue” as if they were Gentiles. It was one of the greatest shames in the Jewish culture. The disciples would have to face this. Jesus goes on to say that not only will the disciples face execution, but even more so that the enemies of the disciples will think they are executing the disciples to please God. Once again, Jesus states the reason for giving them the bad news is to be realistic to them. He didn’t give the bad news right away because he knew the disciples weren’t ready for it yet, and He didn’t want them leaving merely because of it. But after hearing all this bad news, no wonder why the disciples will scatter during the Christ’s trials and crucifixion in John 18 and 19. No wonder the disciples will keep the doors locked after the resurrection in John 20. After hearing all this bad news, they seriously believe all the Jewish leaders will come after them next. And this bad news is starting to get to them. Jesus notices it in verse 6. If the disciples’ faces were sad in chapters 13 and 14, they are downright depressed in chapters 15 and 16.

Jesus tries to comfort the disciples by telling them that it is good for Jesus to leave them. If Jesus does not leave them, the Counselor will not come. Have you ever thought about if it was a good trade off to lose Jesus in order to gain the Holy Spirit? I think it was. The first and obvious reason that comes to mind is our access to God. If we had Jesus instead of the Holy Spirit right now, to see God, we’d probably have to get on a plane to Israel, get though the crowds in Jerusalem (you think it’s crowded in Jerusalem now, imagine how it crowded it could be with Jesus there), stand in a very long line to meet with Jesus, and then only get a few seconds or a couple of minutes, and then we’d have to move on and allow the next person his few seconds or couple of minutes. The relationship wouldn’t be that close. With the Holy Spirit, God comes to us and meets with us. Therefore, the relationship is closer and personal. Also, think about all the things the Holy Spirit equips and enables us to do. The Holy Spirit gives us spiritual gifts. The Holy Spirit aids in understand the Bible, the Word of God. The Holy Spirit guides us in prayer. The Holy Spirit encourages and strengthens us to evangelize. With Jesus still on earth, there’s no Holy Spirit, and we get none of them. It truly is for our own good that Jesus isn’t here.

Jesus goes on to tell the disciples about more of those roles the Holy Spirit has. One role the Holy Spirit has is to convict the world of sin. Notice the word is “convict” and not “condemn.” To condemn the world of sin would mean to say they world is beyond all hope of being saved from their sin. The Holy Spirit does not do that. The Holy Spirit simply convicts. To convict means “to present” or “to expose.” The Holy Spirit simply exposes that the world is in sinner. The task may seem simply, but in today’s society, we know it’s far from it. It seems like with every passing generation, more people adapt the theory that human beings are generally good creatures. They are born good, with a clean slate. Throughout their life, they make both good and bad choices on their own. By the end of their life, most people make more good choices than bad choices, making them good people. This is far from Biblical truth. The Bible tells us we were conceived in sin (Psalm 51:5), and born in sin (Genesis 8:21). We have a sinful nature, meaning our hearts are slaves to sin, always pulled to doing the wrong (Jeremiah 17:9, Romans 6:16,17). On top of that, we do sinful things. We have 3 strikes against ourselves: we are conceived/born in sin, we have a sinful nature, and we do sinful things. 3 strikes and we’re out. We are declared guilty from the start. And yet the world lies to us and tells us we’re good. As any AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) member will tell you, “admitting your problem is the first step.” The first step in the cure of sin is admitting you have a problem: you are a sinner. The Holy Spirit has a lot of work to do get a person to even recognize they are sinful.

On that same note, John 16:13 gives us another role of the Holy Spirit. This role is to guide human beings into all truth. That is why Jesus uses the title “The Spirit of Truth” for the Holy Spirit this time. “All truth” literally does mean “all truth.” Everything that is true the Holy Spirit will speak to the disciples. The Holy Spirit will speak and remind the disciples of God’s commandments and Christ’s teachings. But probably the most important truth the Holy Spirit gives goes back to the previous job. The most important truth is that the world has fallen into sin. But going back to all truth part, verses 13-15 once again show the active role of Trinity. When the Holy Spirit comes, he’s not going to teach on His own accord or His own will. He will not teach anything contradictory to what God has commanded or what Jesus has taught. He will only speak what He hears. What does the Holy Spirit hear? What Jesus spoke. And what did Jesus speak? Only what His Father taught Him to speak. It all goes around in this Trinity cycle.

On top of being saddened because Jesus is leaving, the disciples are also confused. Sometimes Jesus has been repeating himself in tongue twisters. Just look below, and I’ll show you what I mean. I’ll even bold it to draw it out.

John 16:16–19-
16 “In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me.” 17 Some of his disciples said to one another, “What does he mean by saying, ‘In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me,’ and ‘Because I am going to the Father’?” 18 They kept asking, “What does he mean by ‘a little while’? We don’t understand what he is saying.” 19 Jesus saw that they wanted to ask him about this, so he said to them, “Are you asking one another what I meant when I said, ‘In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me’?

I think in verses 19 to 22, Jesus is presenting the idea that the disciples might be confused because they are sad. Once again, Jesus does sugar-coat the reality. The truth is the disciples will get sadder, while the world becomes happier. This is referring to the crucifixion of Jesus, where the world will rejoice while the disciples mourn at Christ’s death. But Jesus turns it around by comparing it to a woman in labor. A pregnant woman giving birth goes through much pain to give birth. But after the baby pops out and she is holding the baby, she is no longer complaining about the pain, but rather she is glad that she brought the life into the world. After the pain of the crucifixion, the disciples will witness the resurrection, and their grief will turn into joy. In a way, I see this as a prophecy of Jesus, for that is exactly what will happen. The witnesses of the crucifixion will be brought to tears, but they will gladly rejoice when they see the resurrected Jesus Christ standing before them.

John 16:23-28 I see as happening post-resurrection and post-ascension, so I see it as a third role of the Holy Spirit. Jesus says the disciples will have the power to request anything in the name of Jesus, and they will get it. Now let’s make sure we get our head in the right place here. This doesn’t mean Christians can ask for worldly possessions, likes houses, cars or money and it will land right in front of them. This is where the “in the name of Jesus” comes into play. “In the name of Jesus” means that anything that is of God’s Will or Desire, that will further the kingdom and reign of God. Well, how will the disciples know God’s Will? That’s where the Holy Spirit comes in. The Holy Spirit will reveal the will of God to the disciples because the Holy Spirit is God. Then, because of the Holy Spirit, the disciples will know what to pray for, and they will receive it from God.

Somewhere between verse 19 and verse 28, the disciples finally get what Jesus is saying. They can understand his figurative language and other figures of speech. They understand so well, they don’t even have to ask questions. Now they know that Jesus knows all truth, and this is enough proof for them that Jesus has come from God. When the disciples finally recognize what Jesus is saying, Jesus recognizes that a true faith has entered the disciples. But he also notes that the disciples don’t have that full, true faith because in a little while, they will all scatter and desert Jesus. But Jesus isn’t going to take it that hard. Jesus knows the Father is with him, so even if no human is behind Him, He knows the Father is with him. In the closing verse of this chapter, Jesus once again reminds the disciples of all the troubles they will face being disciples of Jesus. But He also tells them to not get stuck on the idea. Jesus will overcome all those troubles, and so will the disciples.

In closing with this chapter, there wasn’t too much revealing of Jesus as the Son of God. The biggest sign was that the disciples recognized Jesus as one from God from His teachings, and that is fairly close to recognizing Jesus is God. It also is implicitly stated by seeing Jesus as a person of the Triune God. But I tend to think this chapter was a little bit more about the Holy Spirit. If anything, this chapter shows us the Holy Spirit is God, too. So it doesn’t matter if you say that “Jesus lives in me” or “The Holy Spirit lives in me” for they are both God living in you.