PM Home Bible Study Group; January 22, 2014
John 16:16-24
Theme: The basis of our joy is that we now live in the ‘new order’ that Jesus has brought about for us by His sacrifice for us..
(Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture references are taken from The Holy Bible, New King James Version; copyright 1982, Thomas Nelson, Inc.)
It’s always risky to do this; but I hope we may begin by engaging in some ‘sanctified speculation’ about the Lord Jesus Christ.
In the passage before us, the disciples had just been told by the Lord Jesus that He was about to leave them. An as He told them in this upper-room discourse, it would actually be better for them that He did so (John 16:7). But they certainly didn’t think it was better. It was greatly distressing to them that He was about to leave them. And so; what if He had seen the sorrow they were expressing, and chose instead to stay with them? He certainly loved them; and it would certainly have caused Him sorrow to see that they were sorrowing. What if He didn’t leave them; and instead comforted them by announcing that He would stay with them for the rest of their lives and never leave them? What joy that would have been to them—temporarily, anyway.
Instead of leaving them, what if He remained with them in His physical body? They would have had a life-time of hearing His teachings, and following His example, and seeing His miracles. Every day would have been spent in the blessed presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. Perhaps they would have traveled with Him to even further places, and saw Him speak to and teach other people groups. Or perhaps instead, they could have set up a place of private retreat with Him, and spent the rest of their days sitting at His feet—as the followers of other teachers of the day had done.. Perhaps in time, as they grew older, He would care for them in their times of physical need, and would gently close their eyes as they peacefully died. Again, this is speculation; but would it be that the Lord Jesus Himself—in His natural body—would have Himself grown old and died? We can suppose so.
That would have been a wonderful life for those disciples. It would—no doubt—been a life of profound joy. But the joy would only be temporary. It would not be eternal joy. It would not be complete joy. It would not have been the joy that comes from salvation; because Jesus would not, in that case, have been our Savior. That could only come about because of the fact that Jesus didn’t do what the disciples might have preferred—and that He instead left them, to die on the cross for them; and then raise from the dead and ascend back to the Father.
This passage is about the greater, eternal joy that the Lord Jesus has secured for us by the fact that He obeyed the Father and did—indeed— leave His disciples “for a little while”.
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Now; it’s important to see our passage in the light of the teaching the Lord had already given concerning about the Holy Spirit that He said He would send in His place. He mentions this in several places in His discourse with them. Most recently, in verses 5-15, He has told them about how it was better for them that He left; and this was because He would then send the Holy Spirit to them. It would be the Spirit’s ministry to help them (14:15-18), to teach and guide them (15:25-26), to bear witness through them (15:26-27); and—as we studied most recently—it would be His ministry to aid their witness by convicting the world of Him (16:8-11), and to show to them the things that are His (vv. 13-15). The Spirit would mediate the presence of Jesus to them while He was away from them. This is important to bear in mind. All that we are reading in this evening’s passage is meant to be understood in the context of our Lord (in the short term) leaving them in death, and returning to them in resurrection, and the (in the long term) leaving them again in ascension to the Father, sending His Spirit to minister in His place, and returning to this earth one day in glory to receive His followers to Himself.
We are living in the light of these promises today. Specifically, we’re living between the ascension and the promise of His return—and under the current ministry of the Holy Spirit He sent. And that means that the key note of full ‘joy’, that so clearly characterizes this passage, is ours to claim and experience.
I. JESUS’ STRANGE ANNOUNCEMENT OF DEPARTURE (vv. 16-19).
A. Jesus had announced to His disciples that He was leaving them; and it has been noted that they were sorrowful because of it (14:1, 16:6). And now, once again, He tells them, “A little while, and you will not see Me; and again a little while, and you will see Me, because I go to the Father” (v. 16). The better manuscripts do not contain the words at the end of verse 16—”because I go to the Father”. That He meant for His disciples to understand that He was indeed going to the Father is plain enough from verse 10; and also from 14:28; “You have heard Me say to you, ‘I am going away and coming back to you.’ If you loved Me, you would rejoice because I said, ‘I am going to the Father,’ for My Father is greater than I.” What’s more, the disciples clearly understood Him to be going to the Father; because that’s what they say they understood Him to mean in verse 17. But if those are not actually meant to be present in verse 16, then Jesus may have meant that they would have joy at seeing Him at His resurrection. And they did have joy at His resurrection! As John 20:20 tells us, He showed Himself to them alive after His resurrection; “Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord.”
B. But these words were strange and confusing to the disciples. John tells us, “Then some of His disciples said among themselves, ‘What is this that He says to us, “A little while, and you will not see Me; and again a little while, and you will see Me”; and, “because I go to the Father”?’ They said therefore, ‘What is this that He says, “A little while”? We do not know what He is saying'” (vv. 17-18). We should be careful of thinking that we can understand clearly centuries later what the apostles themselves struggled to grasp while in Our Lord’s presence. But it may help to consider the similar things that He had already said:
1. In John 7, when the Pharisees sought to have Him apprehended, He said, “I shall be with you a little while longer, and then I go to Him who sent Me. You will seek Me and not find Me, and where I am you cannot come” (John 7:33-34). They thought Him to be saying that He was going to the Gentiles. But He meant that He was going to the Father in such a way as they would not be able to find Him or follow after Him. Clearly here, He means His ascension after His resurrection.
2. In John 12:35-36, He told the crowds who were questioning Him and doubting Him, “A little while longer the light is with you. Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you; he who walks in darkness does not know where he is going. While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light”; and then we’re told “These things Jesus spoke, and departed, and was hidden from them.” Here, He was speaking to those who did not yet believe on Him; and “a little while” referred to “the light” of His physical presence and to the opportunity to believe on Him while they could—before He would be physically taken from them. He explained this later to His disciples in John 13:33; “Little children, I shall be with you a little while longer. You will seek Me; and as I said to the Jews, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come,’ so now I
say to you.” They didn’t seek Him after His ascension; because they saw where He went. This must refer, then, to His departure from them in through His arrest, crucifixion and burial.
3. Jesus spoke in similar terms to His disciples. Peter—obviously concerned over the news of the Lord’s promised departure—asked Him where He was going. Jesus didn’t answer that question; but instead told Him, “Where I am going you cannot follow Me now, but you shall follow Me afterward” (John 13:36). The context that follows makes it clear that He meant the death of the cross; and the fact is that Peter did indeed “follow” Him by laying down his life for the Lord. Jesus seems to make a distinction between the kind of ‘departure’ the world will experience from Him and the kind His disciples would experience from Him when He said to His disciples, “A little while longer and the world will see Me no more, but you will see Me. Because I live, you will live also. At that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you” (John 14:19-20). Here, it seems that He is speaking of His work for us as a whole. “A little while longer and the world will see Me no more, but you will see Me” seems to speak of His immediate death and resurrection. But His statement “Because I live, you will live also” seems to speak further to the promise of the resurrection of the saints at His second coming.
C. We can understand, then, why John goes on to say, “Now Jesus knew that they desired to ask Him, and He said to them, ‘Are you inquiring among yourselves about what I said, “A little while, and you will not see Me; and again a little while, and you will see Me”?'” (v. 19). We would desire to ask Him too. But it seems—based on all that He has said before; and because He speaks both of them seeing Him in the short term, and of His going to the Father—that He is talking about the whole work that He has accomplished in bringing about a new order of things in the short term by His death and resurrection, and then in the long term by His ascension to the Father, the sending of the Holy Spirit, and His promised return. They would sorrow at His departure from them by death, but would have joy at His resurrection; and they would be maintained in that joy by the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit in His place; and they would experience ultimate joy at His return for them in power and glory and their resurrection unto life. Their time of sorrow would only be for “a little while”; and then they would be brought into a new order of things that would be characterized by ever increasing joy—a new reality in which sin has been atoned for, favor with God has been secured, the indwelling and empowering Holy Spirit is given, death has been conquered, resurrection has been promised, and eternal life will be enjoyed in the presence of the Lord who loves us.
II. JESUS’ ASSURING PROMISE OF JOY (vv. 20-22).
A. Given all this, it’s no wonder that our Lord goes on to tell them; “Most assuredly, I say to you that you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice; and you will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will be turned into joy” (v. 20). At the time of our Lord’s crucifixion, the disciples would indeed weep and lament. Their Lord would be taken from them, and their expectations would be dashed. When the resurrected Lord hid His identity from the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, they said that they were sorrowing because, “we were hoping that it was He who was going to redeem Israel” (Luke 24:21). And the unbelieving people of this world would indeed rejoice. They will have thought that they were finally rid of Him; and that He would no longer get in their way. But note that Jesus said that though the disciples would sorrow, their sorrow “will be turned into joy”. He didn’t say that their sorrow would be replaced by joy, but that the sorrow itself would be ‘become’ joy. They sorrowed that He died; but the resurrection would prove that His death was for their salvation. The basis of their sorrow then—that is, that He would be taken away from them by death—would be turned into the very basis of their eternal joy by His resurrection!
B. To illustrate this, Jesus goes on to say, “A woman, when she is in labor, has sorrow because her hour has come; but as soon as she has given birth to the child, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world” (v. 21). We all know how the mother-to-be is in a far different state of being coming out of delivery than she was going in. Going in, she is—in the words of the old King James translation—a woman “in travail”. But suddenly, the travail is over! A child is born! There’s laughter and tears and joy. In fact, the laughter and tears and joy completely overwhelm the pain, and anguish and labor that came before. As the apostle Paul once wrote, “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us” (Romans 8:18). As is told to us in one of the last promises that the Bible makes—in Revelation 21:4, when all the saints will be glorified in Christ and will stand together in their eternal home with Him—”And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.”
C. Finally, note that after setting before His disciples all these ways that His resurrection would give them joy, He adds, “Therefore you now have sorrow; but I will see you again and your heart will rejoice, and your joy no one will take from you” (v. 22). There are of course lots of other sources of joy in this world than Jesus. But they’re all temporary, and can be easily lost to us through circumstances, or trials, or even other people. But if our joy is based in a relationship with the resurrected Jesus Christ, it’s a joy that endures. It’s a joy that remains—even in the midst of difficult circumstances, or trials, or losses. No one can take it away from us, because no one can take Him away from us. As Jesus says later, “These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).
III. JESUS’ JOYFUL INVITATION OF PRAYER (vv. 23-24).
A. Now; all of this speaks of the new order of things we enjoy right now—a new “day”, as it were, that has been brought about by our Lord’s death, burial and resurrection. We have been united to Him by faith; and have been brought into such fellowship with the Father that we enjoy a love and liberty with Him that is as great as that enjoyed by His own Son. And so, Jesus could go on to tell His disciples, “And in that day you will ask Me nothing. Most assuredly, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in My name He will give you” (v. 23). Jesus goes on to explain this new reality further in verses 26-27; “In that day you will ask in My name, and I do not say to you that I shall pray the Father for you; for the Father Himself loves you, because you have loved Me, and have believed that I came forth from God.” What a privilege we have Jesus ‘went away’ for a brief while in death! Now, while He is with the Father—seated at His right hand and interceding for us (Romans 8:34); and now while the Holy Spirit has come in His place—interceding within us to the Father with groanings which cannot be uttered (Romans 8:26); we have the privilege of free access to the Father, and may come to Him directly for anything we need.
B. Jesus therefore gives us the invitation; “Until now you have asked nothing in My name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full” (v. 24). To ask ‘in Jesus’ name’ means to ask with His authority and as His representatives on earth—asking whatever it would be that He would ask of the Father. We are now brought into such a relationship with the Father that we can ask whatever Jesus would ask; and we will receive! As 1 John 5:14-15 puts it, “Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. and if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petition that we have asked of Him.” And this is ‘that our joy may be full’ (see also 15:11). This is perhaps best explained by what Jesus said in prayer for His followers in 17:13; “. . . and these things I speak in the world, that they may have My joy fulfilled in themselves.” Our joy is not ‘fulfilled’ or ‘completed’ in asking for our own wishes to be granted. Rather, it comes in being united to Jesus own wishes, and asking what He would want. Whatever the Lord Jesus would ask of the Father would most surely be granted; and if we make our desires His desires, then our joy will surely be fulfilled in the asking! This came about because Jesus departed for “a little while”—so that we could be united to Him forever!
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We are living today in the realm of this promised joy. We are living today in the “that day” that Jesus told His disciples would come only in “a little while”. We are living in the new order of things—the new day that Jesus has brought about for us.
What a difference it should make in our lives!