Birthing salvation (16:16-33)

Jesus ends His teaching about the disciples’ new relationship with all three members of the Trinity; about how to maintain their indwelling; and about the persecution they will face as Christ’s ambassadors once He’s gone.

He brings them back to face the reality of His departure, His ‘going to the Father’: but this time, with an assurance that they will physically see Him again. Although He had answered their anxieties about His departure by teaching them about knowing and abiding in Him, nevertheless they get anxious again, questioning amongst themselves what He might mean.

When we don't understand

Jesus knows their confusion and anxiety. He doesn't leave them struggling, but goes on to tell them that the next few days will be an emotional rollercoaster. Their agony at the crucifixion will be like that of a woman in labour just before delivery - overwhelmed by pain.

In Jewish thought, the present age was wholly bad; but there would be the ‘age to come’, the golden age of Messiah’s reign. In between these would be ‘the Day of the Lord’, a great and terrible day - which they often referred to as ‘the birth-pangs of the days of Messiah’.

Jesus Himself is only an hour away from terrible distress in the Garden of Gethsemane. He knows that strong emotion can block our ability to hear God. But He does not tell them they should keep a stiff upper lip, or pretend their emotions are not real.  They will have sorrow: Sorrow because of losing a dear friend in a horrific way; because of the world’s gloating over His crucifixion; because of their dashed hopes.

But just as the moment of birth changes the cries of labour into wonder, joy, and instant love, so His resurrection will change their sorrow into joy. We see this in the story of the disciples on the Emmaus Road. From discussing their dashed Messianic hopes and the strange report from the womenfolk, all of a sudden they found their hearts burning with joy (Lk 24:13-33).  As He broke bread, their eyes were opened and they recognised Him.

He later acknowledges that He has been speaking enigmatically (v25). But the day would come, when He would teach them plainly about the Father. Everything about His death, resurrection and ascension would become clear through His teaching in the forty days after His resurrection, and the ongoing ministry of the Spirit of Truth. The apostles later realised that it was the Father who had pre-planned His arrest, trial & crucifixion (Acts 1:23), having foretold Messiah’s suffering through the prophets (Acts 3:18); the Father who had raised Him from death (Acts 1:24) and exalted Him to His right hand (Acts 1:33), giving Him the Spirit to pour out on mankind. It was the Father who had declared Jesus to be both Lord (God) and Christ (Acts 2:36), giving Jesus the Name above every name (Phil 2:9-11)

In their confusion they had questioned each other as to what He meant, but the problem was that they hadn’t asked Jesus!

As Paul says to the Philippians, “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus”. The world gives peace by distractions & pleasures, psychological self-management techniques and the like: Jesus gives us His peace when we entrust all our cares fully into His hands. We need to get into the psalmist’s habit of bringing our doubts and fears to Him and letting the truth soak into our spirits again.

Resurrection Joy

Greek has several words for ‘seeing’, each with different nuances. The disciples use a different word for seeing, than Jesus uses. Jesus here uses ‘hopsomai’ - meaning physical vision, but also perception and understanding.  They use ‘theoreo’, meaning to view attentively, or to ‘see’ as in to visit someone. (The same word Jesus had used in 14:9.)

It is clear that He is talking about them seeing Him physically, not ‘just’ spiritually. But what He is saying, is not only that they will physically see Him, but that they will ‘get’ who He is.

This joy is the joy of the Emmaus disciples, whose hearts ‘burned within them. It’s the joy of John Wesley, when his heart ‘was strangely warmed’ within him. It is the bubbling up of the life of the Spirit within us. This joy is impregnable: Like the peace of God, it passes understanding. It comes from knowing that Jesus is risen from the dead, and He is Lord. It is the joy of the Lord:

• “In your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Ps 16:11)

• “This day is holy to our Lord. And do not be grieved for the joy of the Lord is your strength” (Neh 8:10)

• “The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; He will exult over you with singing” (Zeph 3:17)

• “These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full” (15:11)

New intimacy with the Father

They have been asking Him lots of questions for the last three chapters! But now, they will ask Him nothing because the Holy Spirit will explain everything to them and lead them into all truth. Two different words for asking are used here.  In the Resurrection era, they won’t need to ask Jesus about anything - but they will be able to ask the Father for anything, in Jesus’s name. (14:13, 15:7, 15:16, 16:26-27). The Father will no longer be distant or unapproachable. Yes, anyone who recognises Jesus recognises the character of the Father perfectly imaged in Him. But now they will know the Father Himself, much more intimately. This is ‘being in the bosom of the Father’, if you will.

There will be no need for Jesus to ask on their behalf, because the Father Himself loves them. “See what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called the children of God!” (1Jn 3:1). All who believe in Jesus are given the right (or authority) to become children of God. Children have special rights - they can ask things of their father, that no-one else’s child could ask. Jesus encourages the disciples to ask for all their needs, in specific prayer. Such requests are not beneath God’s dignity.

Not asking, often comes from subconscious distrust. Maybe childhood experiences of being the unfavourite child, or of deep disappointment that a parental promise wasn’t kept. But now, any fear of disillusionment, will have gone (Matt 7:9-11, Lk 11:9-11)). The Father’s generosity is limitless: Ask, and it shall be given unto you: ‘good measure, pressed down, heaped up and running over’!

Answered prayer brings fullness of joy. Abiding leads to constant prayer for everything (15:7) and the answers to prayer are ‘fruit’ (15:8) which glorifies the Father. In fact when we stand at the Bema seat, it is only the things wrought in God which will count (3:21).

Note that this does not preclude us from praying to Jesus. Paul prays directly to Christ, pleading for the thorn in His flesh to be removed (2Cor 12:8)

Praying in Jesus’s name

What does ‘In My Name’ really mean?

None of the great prayers recorded in the New Testament end with the words, ‘In the Name of Jesus’. We just don’t hear Paul or Peter or John using that phrase in prayer: whereas it is used in healing and deliverance (Acts 3:6; Acts 16:18). We don’t need to remind the Father of His Son’s rank - but we may need to remind the enemy.

The name of someone, in the sense that the Bible authors used it, was what the person stood for, the substance of their character, or their authority. When we pray in the name of Jesus or baptize in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, what we are doing is acting in their authority, in their stead, according to their command, and consistent with their desires.

Sometimes however, we can unconsciously begin to use it a bit like a magic incantation. Jesus was a very common name in first-century Israel. But where there is no faith, no relationship, no submission to His lordship, the name Jesus is nothing but a word: as the Sons of Sceva found out (Acts 19:13-17). The authority is not in the words, but in the relationship we have with the Named One.

There are three main strands of meaning in the words, “in My Name”:-

1. Representing My wishes, on My behalf.

Ambassadors speak in their King’s name, representing his view(s). Their words carry weight, because they are representing a someone of power. They will have consulted with their King before ever speaking on His behalf.

In our passports it says, ‘Her Britannic Majesty’s Secretary of State requests and requires in the Name of His Majesty all those whom it may concern to allow the bearer to pass freely without let or hindrance, and to afford the bearer such assistance and protection as may be necessary.”   Just as our passports reveal the set will of our Monarch, we can confidently pray anything that Jesus prayed for us, or anything in Paul’s recorded prayers.  But we can also pray anything that we know is in line with Jesus's heart.

2. With My authority

When a policeman says, "Stop in the name of the law." he can do so because he is standing in the place of the law and speaking on its behalf. To the degree that he speaks for the law, then he can enforce the law and he has authority. When he steps outside of the law, he has lost his authority even if he still says, "Stop in the name of the law."

All authority comes from above (Rom 13:1; Matt 8:8-10): it is given by God. Jesus said, ‘All authority is given unto Me, in heaven and on earth’. That happened supremely at His ascension: it was in a sense His coronation. But He had authority over demons before that, and He gave His disciples that same authority (Lk 10:19). Those who heard Him teach recognised that His teaching was different from the scribes & Pharisees, because He spoke with authority.

At the Name of Jesus, every knee will bow, just as when the Clerk of the Court says ‘Court, rise!’ Everyone stands in honour of the Judge. Name indicates rank and therefore authority. Jesus’s Name is ‘the Name above all names”, and He was given that rank by Father God because He had humbled Himself to be obedient even unto death.

3. Standing in My righteousness

Rather than tagging the phrase 'in Jesus's name' onto the end of our prayers, it would be better to start with something like this:- ”Father, I come before you, not in my own power, not in my own righteousness, not in my own capability. I come before you in the authority of Jesus, your Son, who gave me access in this faith in which I stand, because of His blood. I come on the merits of Jesus, not on my own merits." That's what praying in the name of Jesus is. When you come on the basis of Jesus' merits, then you are heard for Jesus' sake.

Prayer ‘in Jesus’s Name’ is thus yet another fruit of the Cross. Jesus could not have taught this before this point, which is perhaps why He doesn’t mention it when teaching them ‘the Lord’s Prayer’.

The other half of the Incarnation

Because I go to the Father’ is a recurring motif throughout the discourse. It covers the whole sweep from Gethsemane through the Cross, Christ's descent into Hades, and the resurrection, on to His ascension and coronation. John’s whole gospel can be summed up as ‘We beheld His glory’ - both in the signs, and the teaching, and in His passion and ascension.

And yet it seems that right up to this point the disciples struggled to grasp the truth of the Incarnation. It is only when Jesus simplifies His whole life story down to a return journey - ‘I came from the Father into the world: now I’m leaving the world and returning to the Father’ (16:28) - that they suddenly seem to have ‘got’ that He came from God, and was God Omniscient (v30).

Even then, it seems they only ‘got’ the first part: that He came from above. They will not be able to grasp, as it is happening, that the Cross is the start of Jesus’s journey back to the Father.

Why is it important for us to grasp the reality, that Jesus is now seated at the Father’s right hand?

• Jesus is seated, because His work is done: the victory has been won, all that remains now is for all His enemies to be brought under His feet. When we are struggling in the battle, we need to look up to His banner of victory, signifying that He has overcome and in Him, we will too.

• Our Advocate on earth is the Spirit, who lives in us and enables us to cry out ‘Abba, Father’ when we doubt our sonship. But Jesus is our heavenly Advocate, at Father's right hand so that He can intercede when we sin (1Jn 2:1), immediately reminding the Father that we are in Him and He is righteous.

• He is at the Father’s right hand, endued with all His authority. He has been given the Name above every name, the highest rank, with authority over everything life can throw at us - over Satan and his minions too (Phil 2:9-11). Because He is at the Father's right hand, we can pray using His authority.

• He is at His right hand so that He can receive from the Father the promise of the Spirit, pouring it out on all flesh (Acts 2:17,18) in dreams and visions to young and old alike, revealing what He is doing to those He calls friends (15:15), to His servants the prophets (Amos 3:7).

• From His throne, He appoints some to be apostles, some prophets, some pastors, some evangelists and teachers - carefully overseeing the development of His Body and equipping the saints for the work of ministry (Eph 4:7-16), maturing our faith and shaping us into His image.

Fixing our minds on these heavenly realities, and the fact that our true life is hidden with Christ in God, enables us to view our earthly lives from above, as it were (Col 3:1-17). We can see our bodily passions for what they really are, and shed them as an eagle sheds its old feathers. Anger, malice, bad language, lust and envy drop away, and our new plumage of grace, humility, patience, kindness and love emerges.

Overcoming the world: when we let Jesus down

The disciples thought they’d finally ‘got’ what Jesus was saying (vs29,30).  But Jesus swiftly pricks the balloon of their self-deception (vs 31,32).  Within the hour, they would all desert Him.  Everything He had taught them about selfless love would be ignored as they each put their own interests first, each fleeing ‘to his own’.  Their team unity would be shattered, as they scattered.

Their faithlessness contrasted starkly with the faithfulness of the Father (vs32b):  He will always remain faithful, for He cannot deny Himself (2Tim 2:13).  Faithfulness is written all the way through His character.  So though they are about to be faithless, their Father will remain faithful.  They are about to have a salutary lesson in the deceitfulness of their own hearts.  But ultimately, they can have peace knowing that they are kept by the power of God, not by their own courage or resoluteness.

Peter would perhaps be the one who knew this most dramatically.  Having sworn he would never deny Christ, he then denied Him three times, just as Jesus had prophesied.  But Jesus had already interceded, "that your faith might not fail (completely)”.  And after the resurrection, He would face Peter with the shallowness of his love (21:15-19).  Peter would have to cling onto the truth that though Jesus knew his heart, & its self-deception, He also saw a seed of genuine love which would eventually germinate into a willingness to be crucified for Christ.

In the world, we will have tribulation: Jesus is quite clear about this. Tribulation means trouble or affliction of any kind - not just persecution. The word comes from a Roman word for a tool used to crush grain and separate it from the husks. An Old Testament example would be Lot, who was a "righteous man who was distressed by the filthy lives of lawless men" (2 Peter 2:7).  His neighbours "kept bringing pressure on [him] and moved forward to break down the door" of his house, trying to sexually abuse his guests (Genesis 19:9).  Paul lists the many forms of suffering he has endured (2Cor 11:22-29), amongst which he includes the suffering of his pastoral empathy for Christians who stumble.

But in addition to physical, mental and spiritual suffering caused by others, there is the internal suffering when we know we have let Jesus down. Maybe the things the world  loves, the not-of-the-Father loves - the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life - have temporarily held sway in our hearts. The spiritual battleground which is the world, has its beachheads in our fallenness - within us.

In such situations, Jesus says, “Be of good cheer”. Never let the enemy get double value for money, by causing you to beat yourself up, or doubt your own salvation. “Be of good cheer!” Why? “For I have overcome the world.”: This is Jesus’s very last word of teaching to his disciples.

Overcoming the world emerges in John’s subsequent writings as a major theme:-

• For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil. 9 Whoever has been born of God does not sin, for His seed remains in him; and he cannot sin, because he has been born of God. (1John 3:8-9)

• You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world (1Jn 4:4)

• For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. 5 Who is he who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? (1Jn 5:4)

Each of the letters to the Seven Churches ends with Jesus making a promise to those within the church who poercome. For example,

• And to those who overcome, He grants them to sit with Him on His throne, just as He also overcame and sat down with His Father of His throne (Rev 3:21)

‘Overcoming’ implies a real struggle, not a walkover victory. And our experience, if we are honest, is that that is the case. I have just watched Liverpool - the predicted underdog - overcome Chelsea in a cup final. The struggle swayed back and forth, up and down the pitch, till the last three minutes of extra time; but then Liverpool’s youngsters netted, and overcame. The whole team celebrated, with joyful hugs and high-fives all round, whilst the Chelsea players sat on the pitch, numb with defeat.

Our victory doesn’t depend on us:

• The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. (1Cor 15:57)

• But God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world (Gal 6:14)

• Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? … (In Paul’s time, the church was experiencing all these things, because they belonged to Jesus) … Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Rom 8:35-39)

Jesus overcame worldly desires, at the Temptation in the wilderness; and He overcame worldly fears in Gethsemane.  On the Cross, He triumphed over sin and death, and He gives us the victory over all the powers of darkness (Col 2:15).

Hallelujah! The Lion of Judah, the Root of David, has prevailed! (Rev 5:5).