It is for your good that I go: the Spirit's work and sorrow turned to joy

This chapter ends the Farewell Discourse that Jesus gives the eleven on the night before his death. It repeats a theme from the earlier chapters, the Spirit's coming, and adds a long warning about persecution that has parallels in the other Gospels. In Mark 13:9 to 13, Matthew 10:17 to 20 and Luke 12:11 to 12 and 21:12 to 19, Jesus also warns that his followers will be handed over to councils and synagogues and that the Holy Spirit will speak through them. John places the same teaching on the last night and expands it into a reflection on the Spirit. Scholars of the synoptic problem, who study how Matthew, Mark and Luke relate to each other (most hold that Mark was written first and that Matthew and Luke used it, with a sayings source commonly called Q; others defend different solutions), disagree whether John knew those Gospels. Raymond Brown thought he wrote independently, while C. K. Barrett and Bauckham think he knew Mark at least.

Verse 2, 'They will put you out of the synagogues', is central to a debate about the Gospel's date and setting. J. Louis Martyn argued in 1968 that this and 9:22 and 12:42 reflect a break between the Johannine community and local synagogues, linked to a revised synagogue prayer against heretics around AD 85 to 90. Later scholars have questioned whether that prayer was aimed at Christians then and whether formal expulsions were so widespread. A cautious reading is that the Gospel reflects real conflict, which the first followers already knew (Acts 8:1-3; 26:9-11), and that Jesus here foretells it. The Gospel is traditionally attributed to John the son of Zebedee, written late in the first century, though some date it earlier and some attribute it to a disciple of his circle. The audience is Christians, Jewish and Gentile, living between the first generation and the second.

John 16 continues the farewell speech and its question-and-answer shape. The disciples' bewilderment about 'a little while' (verses 16 to 19) is typical of the Gospel: they hear Jesus on one level and he answers on a deeper one. The chapter should be read as a unit with chapters 14 and 15. The same Advocate appears in 14:16, 14:26, 15:26 and 16:7, and each passage adds something. Chapter 14 stressed his abiding and teaching, chapter 15 his witness, and chapter 16 his convicting work and guidance.

Two interpretive principles matter here.

• First, the promises about the Spirit are addressed in the first place to the eleven. 'You cannot yet bear it', 'He will guide you into all truth' and 'declare to you what is to come' are about the apostles, whose witness became the New Testament. Applying them to later believers must keep that in view, and traditions do so differently (see the note).
• Second, the words 'convict' and 'world' belong to a legal picture. The Gospel treats the whole ministry of Jesus as a trial in which the world tries Jesus and the Spirit later reverses the verdict. Reading verses 8 to 11 against that background clarifies what is meant.

Verses 1-4a. 'I have told you these things so that you will not fall away.' The verb (skandalizo) means to stumble or be tripped. Jesus names two dangers: being 'put out of the synagogues' (a word, aposynagogos, used only in John in the New Testament) and being killed by people who think they are 'offering a service to God'. The Greek for 'service' is the one used for worship, so the killers will believe they perform a sacred duty. Paul, before his conversion, describes himself in these terms (Acts 26:9-11). Jesus says it is for their sake: 'when their hour comes, you will remember that I told you'.

Verses 4b-11. 'Yet none of you asks Me, 'Where are You going?'' Peter had asked in 13:36, and Thomas in 14:5, but now sorrow has closed their questions. Jesus tells them 'it is for your benefit that I am going away', for the Advocate cannot come unless he goes (compare 7:39). The Spirit 'will convict the world', a verb (elencho) that means to expose, prove wrong or bring to the light. The three counts follow. In regard to sin, 'because they do not believe in Me': the root of sin is refusing the one God sent. In regard to righteousness, 'because I am going to the Father and you will no longer see Me': the Father's reception of Jesus shows that the world's verdict on him was wrong and that he is the righteous one. In regard to judgment, 'because the prince of this world has been condemned': the cross is the defeat of the power behind the world's rebellion (12:31).

Verses 12–15

'I still have much to tell you, but you cannot yet bear to hear it.' The Spirit 'will guide you into all truth', a verb (hodegeo) that means to lead along a road. He 'will not speak on His own', as the Son did not (5:19; 12:49), but 'what he hears'. The Greek pronoun for 'He' is masculine although 'spirit' is neuter, which suits a personal reading. 'He will declare to you what is to come' includes the meaning of the cross and resurrection and the shape of the new age. Verse 14, 'He will glorify Me by taking from what is Mine', gives the Spirit's aim. Verse 15 joins all three persons: 'Everything that belongs to the Father is Mine.'

Verses 16–24

'In a little while you will see Me no more, and then after a little while you will see Me.' The disciples repeat the phrase among themselves in their confusion. Jesus takes the images of labour: 'A woman has pain in childbirth because her time has come.' The prophets used labour pains for the crisis before God's new age (Isaiah 26:17-19; 66:7-14; Micah 4:9-10), and Jesus uses it in Mark 13:8 too. The fulfilment of 'you will see Me' is at the resurrection, when they see the Lord and rejoice (20:20). 'No one will take away your joy.' Verses 23 to 24 return to asking in his name. The Gospel uses two verbs for asking, one of which means to put a question, so the 'you will no longer ask Me anything' may mean they will no longer need to question him, and the 'whatever you ask the Father' is their prayer.

Verses 25–30

Jesus has spoken in 'figures of speech' (paroimia) and will speak plainly. Verse 26 adds that he does not need to intercede for them, 'for the Father Himself loves you'. This is not a denial that he intercedes (compare Romans 8:34), but a statement that they can come to the Father directly. Verse 28 summarises the Gospel's story: 'I came from the Father and entered the world. In turn, I will leave the world and go to the Father.' The disciples answer that they now believe.

Verses 31–33

Jesus' reply, 'Do you finally believe?', can be a question or a statement, and either way it is gentle irony. Within hours they will scatter, as Zechariah 13:7 foretold and Mark 14:27 records. 'Yet I am not alone, because the Father is with Me' recalls 8:29. The last words give peace in him and tribulation in the world, and then the command 'take courage', the same call he gives on the sea in Matthew 14:27 and Mark 6:50. 'I have overcome the world' is in the perfect tense in Greek, a victory that stands, though the cross is hours away.

The chapter gives the fullest New Testament statement of the Spirit's work in the apostolic age. The Spirit is a person who hears, speaks, leads and glorifies, and who works in unity with the Father and the Son. His work toward the world is to convict, and toward the disciples to guide into truth and to glorify Christ. The doctrine of Scripture rests partly on this passage: the apostles' witness, Spirit-led, is the foundation of the New Testament canon (compare Ephesians 2:20). The chapter also shows how God's saving work depends on the order of events: Christ must go for the Spirit to come, so the ascension and Pentecost belong to redemption and are not extras (Acts 1:8-9; 2:33).

It also shows the Bible's account of suffering and victory. Persecution is promised (Acts 14:22; 2 Timothy 3:12), and so are peace and courage. 'In the world you will have tribulation' sits beside 'I have overcome the world', which 1 John 5:4 to 5 applies to everyone who believes that Jesus is the Son of God, and which Revelation 3:21 and 5:5 carry through. The pattern of sorrow turned to joy is the pattern of the gospel itself: the cross precedes the resurrection, as labour precedes birth. Prayer to the Father in Jesus' name, with direct access, also reflects Hebrews 4:16.

Christ speaks plainly of himself again. He is the one who sends the Spirit (16:7), and who has the same things as the Father (16:15). The Spirit's mission is to glorify him. He also sums up his own story in two sentences (16:28): from the Father into the world, from the world to the Father. This is the shape of the prologue (1:1-14) and of the hymn in Philippians 2:5 to 11, and it states the incarnation, the cross and the ascension together.

The pattern of sorrow turned to joy is the shape of his own death and resurrection. The disciples will weep while the world rejoices, and he will see them again (20:20, 22). The scattering of verse 32 recalls Zechariah 13:7, which Mark 14:27 applies to the disciples' flight from the shepherd. Verse 32 also contains a question. In John Jesus says he is not alone because the Father is with him, but in Mark 15:34 and Matthew 27:46 he cries out that God has forsaken him. John does not tell us the cry, and interpreters should not force the two accounts into one. Each Gospel gives a different aspect of the cross: John stresses the Son's unbroken communion and mastery, and Mark and Matthew stress the depth of the suffering he bore. Finally, in verse 33 he claims a victory that is already complete, 'I have overcome', which is the whole claim of the gospel.