It Is to Your Advantage
1 “I have said these things to you so that you wouldn’t be caused to stumble. 2 They will put you out of the synagogues. Yes, the time is coming that whoever kills you will think that he offers service to God. 3 They will do these things because they have not known the Father nor me. 4 But I have told you these things so that when the time comes, you may remember that I told you about them. I didn’t tell you these things from the beginning, because I was with you. 5 But now I am going to him who sent me, and none of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ 6 But because I have told you these things, sorrow has filled your heart. 7 Nevertheless I tell you the truth: It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I don’t go away, the Counselor won’t come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. 8 When he has come, he will convict the world about sin, about righteousness, and about judgment; 9 about sin, because they don’t believe in me; 10 about righteousness, because I am going to my Father, and you won’t see me any more; 11 about judgment, because the prince of this world has been judged. 12 “I still have many things to tell you, but you can’t bear them now. 13 However, when he, the Spirit of truth, has come, he will guide you into all truth, for he will not speak from himself; but whatever he hears, he will speak. He will declare to you things that are coming. 14 He will glorify me, for he will take from what is mine and will declare it to you. 15 All things that the Father has are mine; therefore I said that he takes of mine and will declare it to you.
He tells them his leaving is good news, and describes what the Spirit will do to the world and to them.
They will put you out of the synagogues. Yes, the time is coming that whoever kills you will think that he offers service to God.
The warning is specific and it came true — expulsion is what happened to the man born blind John 9:34, and a man who held the coats at Stephen's stoning later described himself as having been convinced he was serving God Acts 26:9.
That second clause is the darkest observation in the discourse. The danger is not from people who know they are doing wrong.
But now I am going to him who sent me, and none of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’
Peter had asked exactly that three chapters ago John 13:36, and Thomas had raised it too. What is meant is that nobody is asking now — they have stopped inquiring and started grieving, which is a different posture.
But because I have told you these things, sorrow has filled your heart.
He names it without reproaching them for it.
Nevertheless I tell you the truth: It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I don’t go away, the Counselor won’t come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.
The sentence is the hardest thing in the discourse to accept and it is stated as a plain fact. Better for them that he leaves — which cannot mean that the Spirit is preferable to him, since the Spirit is sent by him and takes what is his John 16:14.
What it means is a change of arrangement. A body is in one place; a presence given to each of them is not. What they have had for three years by walking beside him, everyone afterward has by the Spirit — and that is the difference between a movement of twelve and a church.
When he has come, he will convict the world about sin, about righteousness, and about judgment;
The verb is a courtroom word: to expose, to prove guilty, to bring to a person's own knowledge what they had denied. And the defendant is the world, which means the Spirit's first described work is not comfort to believers but a prosecution outside.
Each of the three is then defined, and none of the definitions is what a reader expects.
about sin, because they don’t believe in me;
Not a catalogue of offenses. The sin the Spirit presses is the refusal of the one who came, which is the root the rest grows from in this book.
about righteousness, because I am going to my Father, and you won’t see me any more;
The world had judged him a blasphemer; the vindication is the ascension, and it is invisible — so the Spirit's work is to establish a verdict nobody can watch being handed down.
about judgment, because the prince of this world has been judged.
The trial that mattered has already been held John 12:31, and it went the other way from how the week will look.
“I still have many things to tell you, but you can’t bear them now.
A remarkable restraint. There was more, and it was withheld — not because it was secret but because they had reached their capacity, which is a kind thing to say to men at the end of a long night.
However, when he, the Spirit of truth, has come, he will guide you into all truth, for he will not speak from himself; but whatever he hears, he will speak. He will declare to you things that are coming.
The promise is the ground of everything the apostles later wrote, and it comes with the same self-effacement the Son has claimed throughout: he does not speak on his own initiative either.
He will glorify me, for he will take from what is mine and will declare it to you.
The test of the Spirit's work is stated, and it is a direction. Whatever glorifies somebody else is not this.
settled What this mark means