Bible Commentaries
John 16

Verses 1-33

Throughout these discourses our Lord was preparing His disciples for all that He saw coming to them. He told them that they would have sorrow resulting from their suffering. Because of this, it was necessary that they have the Comforter, and He could come only after the bodily departure of the Lord Himself.

The world was still in the heart of Jesus, and He told His disciples in very clear terms what the office of the Spirit would be in the world. To gather up the teaching, we see that the testimony of the Spirit is to be wholly concerned with Christ, and is to convince the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment. As to His own, the Comforter will guide them into the truth, and into the perfect knowledge of Christ Himself. Here we see they displayed their ignorance, not understanding what He meant by "a little while." This, with great patience, He interpreted to them.

In the closing section of His discourse our Lord told them that He had been speaking in proverbs, but undoubtedly again referring to the coming Comforter, He declared that He was henceforth speaking to them plainly of the Father. All ended with the august words, "I came out from the Father, and am come into the world; again, I leave the world, and go unto the Father." In those sentences we have a declaration of the whole redemptive progress of the Son of God. From the Father into the world; from the world unto the Father.