Глава 16

1–33. The end of Christ's farewell conversation with the apostles: about the coming persecution; the removal of Christ to the Father; activity of the Holy Spirit; the happy outcome of the trials to which the apostles will be subjected; hearing their prayers; the dispersion of Christ's disciples. In the first 11 verses, which represent the end of the second consolatory speech, Christ warns the apostles about the persecution awaiting them from the Jews and then, again announcing His departure to the Father, He promises that in the event of His departure, the Comforter will come to the apostles, Who will expose the world hostile to Christ and the apostles. John 16:1. I told you these things so that you would not be tempted. "This", i.e. about the persecution awaiting the apostles (John 15:18 et seq.). "So that you are not tempted." It is useful to know about future suffering, since the expected does not surprise us as much as the unexpected. John 16:2. They will drive you out of the synagogues; the time even comes when everyone who kills you will think that he is serving God. “They will drive you out of the synagogues” - see comments on John 9:22, 34. The apostles, in the eyes of the Jews, will appear as apostates from their fatherly faith. "Whoever kills you". From this it is clear that the apostles will be outlawed, so that anyone who meets them will have the right to kill them. Subsequently, in the Jewish Talmud it was directly established (tractate Bemidbar Rabba, reference in Holtzman - 329, 1) that whoever kills an unrighteous person thereby makes a sacrifice to God (cf. Acts 12:3, 23:12 et seq.) 36 . John 16:3. They will do this because they have not known either the Father or Me. Christ repeats (cf. John 15:21) that the reason for such a hostile attitude of the Jews towards the apostles will be that they, the Jews, did not know as they should either the Father or Christ. John 16:4. But I told you this so that when that time comes, you will remember what I told you about it; I didn’t tell you this at first, because I was with you. The Lord did not tell them about the suffering awaiting the apostles at the beginning of their following Christ. The reason for this was that He Himself was constantly with them. In case of any troubles that could befall the apostles from the Jews, Christ could always calm them down. Yes, such troubles had never happened to them before. But now He is moving away from the apostles, and they must know everything that awaits them. From here there is reason to conclude that the evangelist Matthew, in the speech of Christ spoken to the apostles when sending them to preach (Matthew 10:16-31), placed predictions to the disciples about the suffering awaiting them, not because the Lord had already acquainted the disciples with the fate awaiting them, but simply because he wanted to combine in one section all of Christ’s instructions to the disciples as preachers of the Gospel. John 16:5. And now I go to Him who sent Me, and none of you asks Me: Where are you going? John 16:6. But because I told you this, your heart was filled with sorrow. The Lord’s words about His removal deeply struck the disciples, but first of all they felt sorry for themselves, and not for the Teacher. They thought about what would become of them, but they did not ask themselves and Him about what fate awaited Christ. They now seemed to have forgotten about Thomas’ question, overwhelmed by grief at the removal of Christ (cf. John 14:5). John 16:7. But I tell you the truth: it is better for you that I go; for if I do not go, the Comforter will not come to you; and if I go, I will send Him to you, John 16:8. and He, having come, will convict the world about sin and about righteousness and about judgment: The Lord condescends to this state of the disciples and wants to dispel their depressing sorrow. “It is better for you,” He tells them, “that I now leave you: in that case, the Comforter will appear to you.” This Comforter, whose activity in relation to the apostles and other believers Christ spoke above (John 14:16, 15:26), is now depicted in its meaning for the unbelieving world. However, interpreters disagree on the question of to whom the Holy Spirit will appear as an accuser or witness of Christ: before the world or only before believers. Some say that here the Lord is saying that thanks to the activity of the Holy Spirit, the truth of Christ and the unrighteousness of the world will become clear only to the consciousness of believers. “All the sin of the world, all its unrighteousness and the destruction to which it is condemned will be revealed to them... And what could the Spirit reveal to the spiritually deaf and blind, what could He tell the dead? But He could indicate them to those who could perceive Him” (Silchenkov). We cannot agree with such an interpretation, because, firstly, the Lord above (John 15:26) has already said that the Spirit will testify to the world about Christ, and secondly, it would be strange to assume that the world, which was so loved by the Father (John 3:16-17) and for the salvation of which the Son of God came (John 1:29, 4:42), would be deprived of the influence of the Holy Spirit. If some point out that the world did not heed the reproof, which is noted here, however, as an accomplished fact, as having come to fruition (“will convict”, verse 8), then it must be said that the Greek verb used here ἐλέγχειν (“convict”) does not mean “to bring a person to the full consciousness of his guilt,” but only “to present strong evidence, which, however, may not be taken into account by the majority of the listeners" (cf. John 8:46, 3:20, 7:7). In view of what has been said, it is better to adhere to the opinion that we are talking here mainly about the attitude of the Comforter to the unbelieving and hostile world towards Christ, before which the Comforter will act as a witness. What will the Comforter convict or testify of? About sin in general, about truth in general, about judgment in general (all the Greek nouns standing here - ἀμαρτία, δικαιοσύνη, κρίσις - are without an article and, therefore, denote something abstract). The world does not understand these three things as it should. He does evil and, however, is sure that it is not evil, but good, that he does not sin. He confuses good with evil and considers immorality to be a natural phenomenon, showing by this that he has no concept of truth or righteousness at all, and does not even believe in its existence. Finally, he does not believe in the divine court, at which the fate of everyone must be decided in accordance with his deeds. It is these truths, alien to the understanding of the world, that the Comforter Spirit must clarify to the world and prove that sin, truth, and judgment exist. John 16:9. about sin, that they do not believe in Me; How will the Spirit make all this clear to the world? The existence of sin can be clarified by the example of the unbelief that the world has discovered in relation to Christ (instead of “that they do not believe,” it is more correct to translate “because they do not believe,” the particle ὁτι, in the context of speech, here has the meaning of cause). Sin was not revealed in anything so clearly as in the world’s unbelief in Christ (cf. John 3:20, 15:22). The world hated Christ not because there was anything worthy of hatred in Christ, but because the sinfulness that took possession of people forced them to reject the high demands with which Christ addressed people (cf. John 5:44). John 16:10. about the truth that I go to My Father, and you will no longer see Me; The Holy Spirit will also testify to the existence of truth, again also in relation to the fate of Christ. The fact that Christ, moving away from His disciples, goes to the Father, clearly proves that righteousness exists both as a property of God, who rewards great deeds with exaltation, and as a property or work of Christ, Who by His exaltation will prove that He is righteous and holy (1 John 2:1, 29; Acts 3:14, 7:52; 1 Pet. 3:18), although According to the Jews, He was a sinner (John 9:24). The Holy Spirit, mainly through preachers about Christ, will reveal this meaning of Christ’s removal from the eyes of even those close to Him, the apostles, who now themselves attribute a sad rather than a joyful meaning to this removal. After the Comforter Spirit descends on them, they will begin to explain the true meaning of this removal of Christ as proof of the existence of truth in general. First of all, the Apostle Peter spoke to the Jews with such explanations (Acts 2:36, 3:15). John 16:11. about judgment, that the prince of this world is condemned. Finally, the existence of judgment in general will be explained to the world by the Holy Spirit using the example of the trial of the author of Christ’s death (John 13:2, 27) - the devil, the prince of this sinful world. Since the Lord considers His death as already accomplished, He also speaks about the condemnation of the devil, which was pronounced by Divine truth over him for this bloody and unrighteous deed (he killed the One Whom He had no right to take life as a sinless one, cf. Rom. 6:23), as an existing fact (“condemned”). It is very likely that such a condemnation of the devil was revealed in the primal Church in those cases of casting out demons that took place in the activities of the apostles, who performed these miracles by the power of the Holy Spirit. In addition, in the Apostolic Epistles the devil is depicted as already cast out from the society of people who have believed in Christ: he only walks around the Church, like a roaring hungry lion (1 Pet. 5:8), and places his nets again outside the Church to catch believers who may leave the boundaries of the Church (1 Tim. 3:7). In a word, the condemnation of the devil, the victory over him was an accomplished fact for the consciousness of believers, and they convinced the whole world of this. John 16:12. I still have a lot to tell you; but now you cannot contain it. From verse 12 to verse 33 comes the third consoling speech of Christ. Here He speaks to the apostles, on the one hand, about the future sending down of the Holy Spirit to them, who will enlighten them regarding all truth, and on the other hand, about His coming or return to the apostles after His resurrection, when they will learn much from Him that they did not know before. If they now feel quite strong in faith thanks to what they have already heard from Christ, then this strength of faith in them is not yet so great as to save them from fear at the sight of what will happen to their Teacher. Christ ends His speech by calling his disciples to courageously endure the coming trial. Christ now cannot tell the disciples everything that he had to tell them. While, in their present state, it is difficult for them to perceive this “much” that Christ has in store. It is very likely that this “much” included what the Lord revealed to the disciples during His appearances within forty days after the resurrection (Acts 1:3) and which later formed a fundamental part of Christian Tradition. John 16:13. When He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all truth: for He will not speak from Himself, but He will speak what He hears, and He will tell you the future. Above, Christ spoke about the activity of the Holy Spirit for the world. Now He speaks about the significance of the Spirit for the personal life of Christ's disciples. Here the activity of the Spirit will give so much that it will abundantly satisfy that thirst for knowledge of the truth, which it became impossible for the disciples to satisfy with the removal of the Teacher from them. The Holy Spirit, as the Spirit of truth (see John 14:17, 15:26), will give them complete knowledge of all truth, or, more precisely, all (πᾶσα) truth, which was previously communicated to them by Christ in only general outlines. However, these words do not mean that the disciples will actually master the entire content of the teaching about God, that there will be absolutely no defects in their knowledge. Christ only says that the Spirit will give it to them, and whether they will accept everything offered to them will still depend on how much they surrender to the leadership of the Spirit. The Spirit will be their guide when studying the realm of truth (instead of ὁδηγήσει, some ancient codes read ὁδηγός ἔσται). “For He will not speak from Himself.” The property of the Spirit, by virtue of which He is the source of revelation, is based on the fact that He, just as little as Christ (John 7:17, 14:10), will speak “from Himself”, i.e. to begin something new in teaching the disciples the truth, and will, like Christ (John 3:32, 8:26, 12:49), say only what he has received or “hears” (ἀκούει in Tischendorf, 8th ed.) from the Father (in our Russian translation - “will hear”, future tense). “And the future will tell you.” The special activity of the Spirit will be to reveal eschatological doctrines. The disciples of Christ could sometimes fall into a dejected state under the influence of those victories that evil often won in the world, and in this case the Spirit opened the curtain of the future before them and encouraged them, painting before their spiritual gaze pictures of the future final victory of good. John 16:14. He will glorify Me, because He will take of Mine and proclaim it to you. Christ again repeats that the Spirit will not found some new Church, but will only “glorify Christ,” i.e. to bring to the desired revelation that which, after the removal of Christ, remained undisclosed and incomplete in the Church of Christ. From this it is clear that all the talk of secular Russian theologians (for example, D.S. Merezhkovsky) about the possibility of the rapid opening of some new Church or Kingdom of the Spirit, which should take the place of the Kingdom of the Son or the Church of Christ, is deprived of any support in the Holy Scriptures (N. Rozanov. On the new religious consciousness. M., 1908). John 16:15. All that the Father has is Mine; therefore I said that he will take from Mine and tell it to you. Since verse 13 says that the Spirit will proclaim what he hears from the Father, and verse 14 says that He will take from the Son (“of Mine,” i.e., what I have), then in order to eliminate this apparent contradiction, Christ notes that the Son belongs to everything that also belongs to the Father (John 17:10; cf. Luke 15:31). Isn't the dignity of the Holy Spirit diminished, however, when it is said that the Spirit proclaims only what it hears from God the Father and God the Son? Hearing the speech of other Persons of the Holy Trinity does not exclude the Spirit’s own participation in the Divine Council. Moreover, the fact that the Spirit will proclaim the complete truth gives the right to conclude that He is essentially one with the Father and the Son (Silchenkov). Moreover, is there not a hint in the words “all that the Father has is Mine” that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son in the same way as He proceeds from the Father? No, Christ could not mean the procession of the Spirit from the Father here, because in this entire section from verse 7 He speaks about the activity of the Spirit, and not about His personal Property as a divine Hypostasis, He does not mean the relationship of the Persons of the Holy Trinity among themselves, but Their relationship to the cause of the salvation of mankind. John 16:16. Soon you will not see Me, and again soon you will see Me, for I am going to the Father. Turning now again to the question of His departure from the Father, which so frightened the apostles, Christ tells them to console them that they will soon see Him again, because He is going to the Father. As in John 14:18–19, it speaks of the Lord's appearance to the apostles after the resurrection. If the verse is read in the volume that it has in the Russian text, then for clarity it is better to surround the middle sentence, as an introductory one, with dashes and read everything like this: “soon you will not see Me” - “and again” (i.e. “but” or “although”) “soon you will see Me, - for I am going to the Father.” John 16:17. Then some of His disciples said to one another, “What is it that He says to us: Soon you will not see Me, and again soon you will see Me, and: I am going to the Father?” John 16:18. So they said, “What is it that He says, “soon”? We don't know what he says. The disciples could not reconcile in their minds all the sayings of Christ about His future meeting with them. Either He said that a lot of time would pass before He would see them, that they would have to go through various sufferings before that (John 16:2), then He said that He would soon come to them, as soon as He prepared for them mansions in heaven (John 14:3), so they could believe that the separation would last only a few hours. Thus, the apostles were already confused by this expression “soon.” Then they were confused by the words of the Lord: “I am going to the Father.” Some were probably inclined to see in these words an allusion to the glorious departure of Christ to heaven, similar to that which the prophet Elijah was honored with, during whose departure from the earth “a chariot of fire and horses of fire” appeared from heaven (2 Kings 2:11). With such an assumption, it seemed incomprehensible what kind of imminent return Christ was talking about. Will His stay in heaven be short? But this was contradicted by what the Lord said to the apostles earlier (John 13:36–14:3). They could still imagine that Christ will appear to them at His last coming, when He comes to judge the world (Matthew 19:28). But this “soon” confused all their previously formed ideas. John 16:19. Jesus, realizing that they wanted to ask Him, said to them: Are you asking one another about this, that I said: A little while later you will not see Me, and again a short time later you will see Me? John 16:20. Truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice; you will be sad, but your sorrow will turn into joy. John 16:21. When a woman gives birth, she suffers sorrow, because her hour has come; but when she gives birth to a baby, she no longer remembers the sorrow for joy, because a man was born into the world. John 16:22. So now you also have sorrow; but I will see you again, and your heart will rejoice, and no one will take your joy away from you; Regarding the bewilderment expressed by the disciples about the meaning of Christ’s saying “soon you will not see Me, and again soon you will see Me,” the Lord again repeats that sadness and weeping over His death (in verse 20 the verb θρηνεῖν means weeping for the dead, cf. Matt. 2:18) will quickly be replaced among the disciples with rejoicing - due, of course, to the resurrection of Christ from the dead. The world will triumph, thinking that it has won victory over Christ, and this joy of the world will even more sadden the disciples of Christ, who were already struck by the death of the Teacher. But both will be very short-lived. The revolution will take place quickly and unexpectedly. So a woman unexpectedly, sometimes among those feasting or being busy with some kind of work, feels the onset of painful labor attacks! But Christ wants to portray not only the surprise of His resurrection for the disciples, but also its especially joyful character. The joy of the disciples when they see the risen Christ can be compared with the fullness of joy that a woman who has just been safely delivered from her burden feels. She immediately forgets about all the torment that she suffered during childbirth, and is completely filled with joy from seeing her child. Some interpreters continue the comparison begun by the Savior further. They compare Him to a newborn child, as one who entered new life after the resurrection, as a new Adam (1 Cor. 15:45). But we cannot agree with such an expansion of the image taken by Christ, because even if Christ can be called the Newborn, then the disciples in no case can have anything to do with the new birth of Christ: they least of all, as those who left their Teacher, took part in His birth into a new life. John 16:23. and on that day you will not ask Me anything. Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in My name, He will give it to you. John 16:24. Until now you have asked nothing in My name; ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be complete. The Lord depicts the happy consequences of His coming to the disciples after the resurrection. “On that day” (cf. John 14:20), i.e. during conversations with the risen Lord. "You will not ask Me anything." We know that even after the resurrection, the disciples asked the Lord about what especially interested them (for example, about the structure of the kingdom of Israel; Acts 1:6). Therefore, the expression οὐκ ἐρωτήσετε is better understood in the sense of “you will not constantly ask questions about every word of Mine that you do not understand, and even constantly repeat the same questions, as you did during this conversation of Mine with you” (verse 18). The position of the apostles at the present time - the position of inexperienced children who ask their elders about everything, will change after they see the risen Christ to the position of adults. “Whatever you ask the Father in My name, He will give it to you.” Here is another sign of the new position that the apostles will occupy in relation to God after the resurrection of Christ. Previously, under the weight of thoughts about the fate of the Son of God, they felt some kind of fear before the right hand of the Lord punishing so threateningly - for the sins of mankind - the innocent Christ. Then they will look upon this right hand as containing within itself all kinds of mercies for those redeemed by the sufferings of Christ. "Until now", i.e. until Christ entered the Father and received eternal glorification according to humanity, they did not ask for anything in His name (see John 14:13), i.e. in their prayers they turned directly to the Lord, the God of their fathers, without relying on the “name” of their Teacher and Lord. Then, after the glorification of Christ, they will be especially joyful that in their prayers they will call on the name of Christ, who is so close to them, and in this closeness of Him to them they will find a guarantee that their prayers will not remain unfulfilled. John 16:25. Hitherto I have spoken to you in parables; but the time is coming when I will no longer speak to you in parables, but will tell you directly about the Father. John 16:26. In that day you will ask in My name, and I do not tell you that I will ask the Father for you: John 16:27. for the Father Himself loves you, because you loved Me and believed that I came from God. The Lord's speech comes to an end. The Lord says that all the sayings He had previously spoken during the farewell conversation (for example, John 13:32, 14:2, etc.) had the character of a parable, i.e. were similar to parables, after hearing which, the disciples usually turned to Christ with a request to clarify these parables (cf. Matthew 13:36). The time will soon come, however, when the Lord will “directly” tell the apostles what they need to know, so that Christ will not need to accompany His speech with special explanations. What time, however, does Christ have in mind here? Is it that relatively short period that passed from His resurrection to His ascension into heaven, or the entire period of His Church’s existence on earth? Since this speech refers primarily to the apostles - after all, they first had to learn everything under some additional cover - it is better to see in Christ’s promise an indication only of His personal treatment of the apostles after His resurrection, when He “opened their minds to understand the Scriptures” (Luke 24:45). “I do not tell you that I will ask the Father for you.” This does not mean that Christ’s intercession for the apostles will cease: love, as the apostle says, never ceases (1 Cor. 13:8) and always continues to intercede for loved ones. But the Lord wants to say by this that the apostles themselves will become in a new close relationship with God, for their love for Christ and faith in Him they will be awarded love from the Father. John 16:28. I came from the Father and came into the world; and again I leave the world and go to the Father. John 16:29. His disciples said to Him: Behold, now You speak plainly, and do not speak any parables. John 16:30 . Now we see that You know everything and have no need for anyone to question You. Therefore we believe that You came from God. In order to finally understand to the disciples the purpose of His removal from them, the Lord repeats once again that, just as He came from the Father, so He must return to Him. The disciples were completely satisfied with this statement from their Teacher, because the Lord correctly determined their real mood: it was precisely such a brief and precise statement on His part that they now felt the need for. This ability of Christ to penetrate into the very recesses of the human heart prompts the disciples to now confess once again their faith that He truly came from God and therefore has divine knowledge. He does not need to wait for questions to find out who needs to know what from Him. John 16:31. Jesus answered them: Do you believe now? John 16:32. Behold, the hour is coming, and has already come, that you will scatter, each in his own direction, and leave Me alone; but I am not alone, for the Father is with Me. In response to this confession, the Lord accepts their faith as a fact (instead of “do you now believe?” it is better to translate “yes, now you believe”), but says that this faith in the apostles will soon weaken so much that they will leave Christ (cf. Mark 14:27, 50). “However,” Christ notes, as if in order to reassure the apostles for the future, when they will consider the entire work of Christ lost, “I will not remain alone, the Father is always with Me.” John 16:33. I have spoken these things to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but take heart: I have overcome the world. Here is the conclusion to the discourses of chapters 15 and 16 (chapter 14 has its own special conclusion in its 31st verse). This is why the Lord kept the additional speeches placed in chapters 15–16, so that the apostles would have “peace in Him,” i.e. the peace that He has, with which He goes into suffering (cf. John 14:27). And this world, even among the apostles, must have its foundation in the same thing in which it has support in Christ, namely, Christ is confident in His victory over the world hostile to Him, which, one might say, now lies at His feet as defeated (cf. John 13:31). Likewise, the disciples should, in the thought of the victory won by their Teacher, draw strength to endure the coming sorrows (cf. verse 21). Some of the newest commentators consider the 15th and 16th chapters to be an insertion made by a later writer. The main basis for this opinion is the fact that in John 14:31 the Lord invites the apostles to “get up and go” from the upper room, thus recognizing the farewell conversation as over. But critics needlessly be embarrassed by this circumstance. As stated above (see comments on John 14:31), the Lord could continue His conversation with the disciples, seeing that they were directly unable to follow His invitation, could not, so to speak, rise from their seats due to great grief. In the same way, the other basis cited by critics who do not recognize the authenticity of these chapters has little force. Namely, they say that these chapters partly repeat what is already known from John 13:31–14:31 (Heitmüller). But is it surprising if the Lord, comforting His disciples, sometimes repeats the same thoughts? It is obvious that they needed such repetition that they did not understand something else clearly enough the first time... It is remarkable that the inquisitors also called the burning of heretics “a matter of faith” (auto-da-fe). You might be interested in: