Hated, harassed, hunted - but helped (15:17-16:16)

HATED, HARASSED, HUNTED, but HELPED

Having told his disciples that he is leaving to return to the father, and having dealt with their anxious questions, Jesus has taught them about their future new relationship with the three members of the Godhead. He has given them his peace, and then taught them how to abide in him. There is a strong emphasis on love for one another, in His closing comments on abiding. The reason for that now becomes apparent: they will need that loving community to sustain each other against the hatred and persecution of the world. And they will need the very best Advocate!

The world’s hatred of Christ's servants

The world, in this instance, does not just mean the total of human humanity, or worldly temptations. .t refers to a real but spiritual kingdom in implacable opposition to the Kingdom of heaven. There is no de militarised soon between these two kingdoms, no coexistence or compromise. While it might seem that people hated Jesus "without a cause", in fact their hatred was implanted by this kingdom of darkness.

This kingdom, ‘the world’, has a ruler: the prince of this world, also known as the prince of the power of the air’ (Eph 2:2), whose spirit operates through ‘the sons of disobedience’ - human beings who are sold out to him.. He has a hierarchy of spiritual forces beneath him: we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places (Eph 6:12).

This kingdom of darkness can distinguish those who have genuinely been chosen out of it by Christ (Acts 19:15), and sees us as servants of another Master: to be persecuted just as He was, to be believed (or disbelieved) just as He was (v20). They think they are safe, and indeed justified, in doing so, because they do not recognise that Jesus was sent by Almighty God (v21).

Recognising that we are in a spiritual battlefield every day of our lives, is really important to understanding the difficult things that happen along our way. When we experience seemingly unexplained hatred and opposition, especially in spiritual things, we are simply experiencing the same as Jesus. We are "sharing in the fellowship of his sufferings”. As the Body of Christ, in the absence of Jesus Satan pours out his wrath on us instead (Rev 12:17). We see this in the worldwide persecution of Christians, especially in places such as Iran and North Korea. Because we live in relative ease in the UK, we tend to forget that our nation’s Christian heritage, which is so under threat at the moment, was originally won at the cost of great sacrifice.

Having told the disciples about they coming experience of the wonderful loving communion within the Godhead, and the love this will engender between believers, Jesus does not hide from them, or from us, the tremendous personal cost in their daily lives. When he called Saul of Tarsus, he told Annas, "He is a chosen vessel of Mine to bear My name before Gentiles, kings, and the children of Israel. For I will show him how many things he must suffer for My name’s sake.” (Acts 9:15). Paul was hounded from place to place by posses of Jews and nearly killed on several occasions: no wonder he referred to the Judaisers as ‘dogs’(Phil 3:2). Subsequently, Paul received thirty-nine lashes (one less than could kill a man) five times from his Jewish detractors (2Cor 11:24). These would have been administered in the synagogue wherever he was at the time, in front of all the local Jews. Each time, he would have remembered that Jesus’ back was torn to ribbons by the Romans’ weighted scourge, for our sakes: ‘by His stripes we are healed’ (Isa 53:5). Truly, he knew what it meant to share the fellowship of Christ’s sufferings: in those terrible experiences, he knew Christ’s Presence in a deeper way.

If Jesus hadn’t come and preached to them, the Jews would at least have been innocent of guilt for rejecting Him. They would not have prayed that terrible, self-imprecatory prayer, “His blood be upon us, and upon our children” (Matt 27:25). But now, says Jesus, they are utterly without excuse. There are no mitigating factors whatsoever. Not only have they heard His words, they have observed the Father doing mighty miracles through Him, things which they knew only Messiah could do: so that in rejecting Him, they were directly rejecting God Himself. Jesus had not given them the slightest reason to hate Him: He had in fact fulfilled the Old Covenant so completely, that they had been unable to make a single charge stick against Him (8:46).

The issue of stumbling

Jesus's purpose in forewarning them was to protect them from ‘stumbling’ (16:1). The Greek word is ‘scandalizo’ - so we might read it as, to protect them from being scandalised. When a scandal occurs, we lose faith in the individual concerned: this is the essence of the word’s meaning. Someone whose faith was strong and upright, is tripped up by a life event that makes them question what they have believed, and they are left lying on the ground badly bruised or injured.

It is a word that comes up many times in the Jesus’s teaching, but often with a different English translation - ‘taking offence’. All the following references use this same word, either as a verb or a noun:-

• Our own sinful desires, expressed in what we do with our hands or our eyes, can cause us to stumble (Matt 5:29,30)

• Others may deliberately entrap us into sin, in order to make us stumble - like Balak did by using his teenage girls to seduce the Israelite men and bring God’s curse on them (Num 23-25; Rev 2:14).

• John the Baptist, discouraged by his long imprisonment by Herod and Jesus’s failure to seek his release, sent messengers to Jesus asking for reassurance that He was indeed the Messiah. In their presence, Jesus fulfilled Isaiah’s description of Messiah by healings, raising the dead, and preaching the gospel: then He sends them back with this message for John: “Blessed is he who is not offended because of Me’ (Matt 11:21)

• Persecution can cause us to be offended or to stumble. In the parable of the sower, the seed which lands in stony ground never develops the deep root required to withstand tribulation or persecution, and so ‘immediately he stumbles’ (Matt 13:21).

• His own neighbours in Nazareth took offence when He claimed that the Spirit of the Lord was upon Him (Mk 6:3, Lk 4:1)

• The Pharisees were offended by Jesus describing their traditions as ‘the commandments of men’ (Matt 15:12), even though in general He went out of His way not to cause offence (Matt 17:27).

• Jesus warns His disciples severely about the consequences of causing one of ‘His little ones’ to stumble (Matt 18:6): this is the theme Paul takes up when he discusses whether or not to eat food offered to idols.

• Jesus tells the disciples that they will all be stumbled by His arrest and crucifixion: they will be scattered like sheep without a shepherd (Matt 26:31). When Peter claims he will never stumble, Jesus says, ‘Oh yes you will: you will deny Me three times before tomorrow morning’.

• The preaching of the Cross is described as ‘a stumbling block to the Jews’ (1Cor 1:23). They couldn’t get over the fact that Paul was telling them their religious righteousness was worthless, and that only Jesus’s sacrifice would satisfy God’s wrath.

• In the ‘Great Tribulation’, Christians will be universally hated. There won’t be a single country where they are safe from persecution and martyrdom. Many will be so fearful - so stumbled - that they will start to betray one another in order to save their own skins, and will hate the Christians who do stand firm (Matt 24:9,10)

Stumbling others, and stumbling or being stumbled ourselves, is a major risk for Christian disciples. We will need deep roots, pure hearts, loving care for others, and strong faith to withstand everything the world will throw at us. But knowing that Jesus told us this would happen, will be an anchor for our souls when it does (16:4).

The Spirit will collaborate with the apostles to glorify Jesus, and to unpack His truth

Having told them the worst, Jesus now tells them what the advocacy of the Holy Spirit will mean in practice. Three of the five sections in which he refers to the Spirit’s work, are in these verses (15:26-16:15), the previous two being John 14:16-18 and 14:25-26. These three instances seem to apply specifically to the apostles, whereas the earlier ones are of more general application. When He speaks about the Spirit testifying, and them witnessing, in both cases the word is ‘marturion’ - the word from which we get our words ‘martyr’ and ‘martyrdom’. All the other apostles apart from John eventually died a martyr’s death: Peter and Paul both being crucified in Rome. This was their ultimate witness - that they were willing to follow their Lord even in this.

Jesus says they must bear witness, because they had been with Him from the beginning (v27). This statement means He is speaking solely to the remaining eleven apostles. Their eye-witness accounts would be essential for the four gospel records, and to establish the truth of His resurrection. When they came to appoint Judas’s replacement, this was their primary criterion: it must be someone who could be an eye-witness of everything Jesus had said and done (Acts 1:15-22).

As well as being their indwelling Advocate (14:16) and their Teacher (14:26), sent by the Father at Jesus's request, His primary concern will be to glorify Jesus (16:14). One means of doing so will be to produce the God-glorifying fruits of the Spirit in individual lives; but another will be to empower the apostles’ witness, both by bringing conviction of sin, righteousness and judgement to their hearers (vs8-11), and also by unpacking the truths He was only able to pre-figure (vs12-13).

The Spirit is the genuine Spirit, the Spirit of truth. That is so precious in these days when everyone supposedly has their own truth and ‘alternative ‘facts' and conspiracy theories are rampant. He never lies to us (1Jn 2:27) but continually teaches us truth in our inmost being: He writes the Law of Christ on our hearts and minds, as was promised in the New Covenant (Ezek 36:26,27).

The Person of the Spirit

Jesus also tells them more about the Person of the Spirit, and His relationship to the Father and the Son.

He proceeds from the Father (15:26), He is ‘of one substance’ with the Father, having the same character glories of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness and self control. He is the outflowing of the essence, wisdom and power of God. He proceeds, in order to act, to do things. He is the carrier of the ongoing mission of God. He proceeds in royal procession, from the Father to you and me. Truly, as the Creed says, He is to be worshipped along with the Father and the Son.

As we saw in the Prologue, the Son is ‘eternally begotten from the Father’. He is God, but He is also with God - continuously, even during His incarnation. He is completely One with the Father, being His exact image, sharing all His attributes, equal in power and glory, holiness, eternity and love. The thing that distinguishes the Father from the Son is not any difference in roles, for all three Persons of the Trinity work together in all the acts of God. Rather, it is their relationship. The Father always has and always will be the Father, showing the Son everything that He is doing. The Son always has been and always will be the Son, saying and doing only what He hears and sees the Father saying and doing. This eternal relationship of begotten-ness is expressed in history in the Incarnation.

But the Spirit's relationship to the Father is different. He proceeds from the Father. In general usage this means ‘to go out from’; but the Spirit is never disconnected from the Father, never leaves Him. Nevertheless, He eternally proceeds from Him. During the BBC coverage of the Queen’s funeral, the camera panned back along the procession further and further into the distance, until it was lost from view. So it is with the procession of the Spirit.

Theologians use the word ‘spiration’ to describe what it means for the Spirit to proceed from God. He is sometimes referred to as ‘the Breath of God’. The same Greek word for spirit, can also mean wind or breath; and in English we use ‘in-spiration’ to mean breathing in, and ‘a-spiration’ to mean sucking out. Just as Jesus breathed on the disciples and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit’, ‘spirating’ the Spirit into them (20:21), giving them a spiritual ‘kiss of life’, so God breathes spiritual life into us by His Spirit proceeding from Him into us. And just as Jesus’s eternal begotten-ness was supremely manifested in history in the Incarnation, the Holy Spirit’s eternal spiration was supremely manifest in history at Pentecost.

The issue of whether the Spirit proceeds only from the Father, or from the Father and the Son

The extent, and limits, of the Spirit’s role in revelation

The Holy Spirit, being One with the Father, knows God’s heart. We could not have imagined what God has prepared for those who love Him, but the Holy Spirit searches the deep things of God, then reveals them to us believers, Spirit to spirit. (1Cor 2:10-12). In this passage it seems clear that Jesus’s remarks are primarily addressed to the remaining eleven apostles, though they also have a much wider application.

Like the Son, He never seeks His own glory. Rather, He always glorifies Christ. ‘The Spirit of prophecy is the testimony of Jesus’ (Rev 19:10). He loves to glorify Jesus and is delighted when that happens - just as the Father is delighted when His Son is honoured. Within the Godhead there is this glorifying and honouring of one another, which is to be the pattern for all our earthly relationships: husbands and wives, children and parents, bosses and workers. Mutual love, honouring and working together, all go together in the unity of the Spirit with the Father and the Son.

Like the Son, the Spirit never acts on His own authority. He takes what He has heard from Christ, who in turn has heard from the Father (vs13-15). The Father reveals all things to the Son, who passes them on to the Spirit to teach us. In Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (Col 2:3). The Holy Spirit takes these treasures of Christ, and reveals them to us (16:14). Jesus says that there is much He hasn’t yet been able to tell the disciples (16:12), much still hidden in Him which the Spirit will declare

The New Testament certainly contains much that Jesus never taught explicitly. Paul calls these truths ‘mysteries’, not meaning esoteric secrets of the Illuminati or anything like that, but things that had not previously been revealed. For example,

• the mystery of the rapture ((1Cor 15:51);

• the plan of God to bring everything together under Christ (Eph 1:9);

• the mystery of the Gentiiles’ incorporation into the Church (Eph 3:5,6);

• the mystery of the Jews’ temporary blindness (Rom 9:25);

• the mystery of the Gospel itself (Rom 16:25, Eph 6:19);

• the mystery of the Body of Christ (Eph 5:30-32); and

• the mystery of the Lawless one (1Thess 2:7).

He counts himself, along with the other apostles, as ‘stewards of the mysteries of God’ (1Cor 4:1). These are the crown jewels of God's revelation, and we have been charged with keeping them safe but also displaying them to the world. We are not some secret society dedicated to keeping truths to ourselves. But nevertheless, knowledge of these mysteries does create a bond of fellowship (Eph 3:9).

The extent of the Spirit’s role in revelation runs from eternity past to eternity future, and covers everything that the Father has shown Jesus (16:15). All scripture is God-breathed (2Tim 3:16), because ‘Holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit’ (2Pet 1:21). There is nothing in the Bible that is solely the product of human thought or cultural insights of the time. Just as the spoken word cannot be vocalised without breath, the written word of God could not be expressed without the Breath of God.

As the Spirit had testified to Christ all the way through the Old Testament (5:46), so now He will testify with the apostles about Jesus’s earthly ministry - the history recorded in the Gospels and Acts. He will also take Christ’s doctrine - everything the Father had given Him - and expand and apply them in the doctrinal teaching of the Epistles and Pastoral letters. And finally He will prophesy things to come, which we see in Paul’s teaching on the Resurrection and the Second Coming, Peter’s teaching about Judgement Day, and John’s massive Revelation.

When Jesus says that there is much He would like to say, but they cannot yet bear (v12), is He saying there will be stuff of which the disciples hadn’t yet had even the slightest hint? Is He implying that the Spirit will reveal completely new truths to them - so-called ‘progressive revelation’? Many would have us believe so - for instance the Muslims, Mormons, or Moonies. Or indeed some of the modern-day counterfeit revivalists who claim to have had visions of angels and the like.

But if we are correct that this was addressed to the Eleven, and Jesus says the Spirit will guide them into all truth, then with the close of the apostolic era (and specifically with the Book of Revelation) all truth has been revealed. The church is built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, and a foundation defines the boundaries of a building. Individuals may well receive gifts of prophecy, or words of wisdom or knowledge - but the overall boundary of Christian revelation has been set (Rev 22:18,19).

The Spirit’s ministry to the world

The Spirit is the primary driver of all Christian mission. “He will testify of Me”, says Jesus, “and you also will bear witness”. Just as the Son was sent by the Father to bring men back to God, so the Spirit is sent for the same loving purpose of God. He ‘proceeds from the Father’ because the Father's heart is longing for His sons to return from the far-off country.

As well as empowering the apostles to witness to the authorities (Acts 4:1-10) and enduing them with boldness and clarity, the Holy Spirit also works in their hearers (16:8-11). We see this very clearly, in the accounts of the first sermons after Pentecost: when Peter preached, the massive crowd 'were cut to the heart, and said, What must we do?’

They were convicted by the Holy Spirit. The word can mean reprove, rebuke, or convince. It doesn't refer to obtaining a conviction in a court of law, and it is more than just proving the world wrong or intellectually convincing it. It is always associated with a sense of shame i.e. a degree off repentance. Perhaps a better translation would be, ‘bringing the world to the conviction that’ they have sinned, Jesus is righteous, and this world is under judgement.

• Despite their unbelief, the Spirit graciously brings them to the conviction that they have sinned by not believing in Christ. It is by grace we have been saved, through faith: and even that faith is not of ourselves, but through the prior work of the Holy Spirit. Many people will accept that things like lying, murder or adultery are sins; but few think of disbelieving Christ as a sin - and yet it is this sin that brings judgement. ‘This is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil’ (3:17-19).

• Since Jesus is no longer present to do so, the Spirit will henceforth be the one to bring conviction that their righteousness (washings, Temple, alms etc) is as filthy rags (Isa 64:5) by comparison with Jesus - who was utterly righteous. None of them had been able to convict Him of sin during His lifetime (8:46). And now God has declared Him righteous, by raising Him from the dead (Rom 1:4). Peter proves this to the Pentecost crowd, by pointing out that unlike King David, the tomb could not hold Him (Acts 2:29-36): there were no ‘wages of sin’ in His case.

• Lastly, the Spirit convicts men of judgement, because the Prince of this world is judged. Behind every earthly ruler there is a spirit-prince, a ‘world ruler of this present darkness’. And above all of them, is the Prince of darkness. The Sanhedrin, and Pilate, thought they had got rid of their enemy by crucifying Him. But He 'triumphed over them in the power of the cross’ (Col 2:15). Their supposed victory was seen to be utter defeat. And now, Christians sing the taunt song, “O death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory?” (1Cor 15:55). The knowledge that Jesus has defeated Satan and overcome the world, is really bad news for unbelievers. For it says that God has appointed a date and time when the Man Christ Jesus will judge the earth (Acts 17:31)

These are the three core truths of the gospel message that the Spirit wants us to bring, so that He can work behind the scenes in parallel with the spoken message.

Truly, it is good for us that Jesus went to the Father! (16:7)