John chapter 16

vs 1

Even though they are disciples, Jesus still wants to prepare them for a hard road ahead; he still wants to prepare them so that they do not stray. That might hurt a little to hear, but it is a good thing to do. As we know, Peter strayed. We don't think of him as losing his salvation generally, and we probably all know some people who we thought were genuine Christians that for some reason or another aren't living life the way they should. Focus has gone from Christ to something else, I guess, whether that be family, work, love life etc.

vs 2

Paul thought just that. Things have gotten bad when you're getting killed, and people killing you think they're doing a service. Far out, are Christians so horrible? Obviously that shows us the close link that religion had to social stability. We occasionaly hear talk in Christian circles of doom and gloom, when this will happen again in the western world. The truth is, I don't think it's going to. But if you want proof that it will happen, go to Pakistan, or Saudi Arabia, or China, where Christians are being persecuted plenty already.

vs 3

The Jews were epecially heinous, because they thought they were serving God by killing Christians. And yet it proved how little they even knew of God.

vs 4

Since Jesus won't be with them directly when this is happening, he wants to tell them beforehand. Now, he didn't tell them this when they first joined him, and that is a very interesting point. Jesus doesn't even tell them he's going to die early in the piece. Sometime during his ministry his does, sure. But not until the very end does he tell them about the suffering they are going to endure. Just a thought for those people who think that people can't become followers of Jesus without hearing the "full gospel" of doom and gloom straight up.

vs 5-6

They will start asking, but he is pointing out that for the moment they are just upset that he's going anywhere that they can't go. Those that had worked out he was going to die are probably particularly upset. Even the fact that one of them is going to betray him, and Peter is going to disown him, those are all upsetting things. It's a tearjerker's festival.

vs 7

As far as Jesus was concerned, it was worth him leaving for us to get the Holy Spirit. Do we think of it like that? I'll bet we would rather have Jesus walking around and attending out church. Or would we? I mean, do we really want Jesus stirring up trouble in our church, and having people come into the building to drag him out and stone him every few days? Do we really want Jesus to be sitting up on a mountain somewhere as some sort of swammi, who people politely ignore, or at best that we have to log onto the internet to see live webcam of? Better that we all have instant access to the Holy Spirit residing within us, surely.

vs 8

Jesus came into the world to save. The Spirit comes into the world to convict. Then Jesus will return to judge. That seems to be the pattern that is forming here. A conviction about spiritual things comes not from our own reasoned logical processes, but from God's inner workings.

vs 9

I guess the greatest rejection of God since the Garden of Eden is the crucifixion of Jesus, and so that is the mark of sin now, and rather than us saying "Well, we all have taken the fruit and eaten it, metaphorically speaking", we now say "Well, we have all nailed Jesus to that cross".

vs 10

Don't shoot me on this one, but I am guessing that the meaning here is that since Jesus, our perfect example of righteousness, is going to the Father and hence all we've got to use him as an example are the gospel records, the Holy Spirit will now step in and convict us of what is and isn't righteous. So while an example of Jesus is good, remember that the Holy Spirit itself will convict you, which to me sounds at least just as good.

vs 11

Even at this point, Jesus sees Satan as condemned. He hasn't even died yet, but I guess he knows he's going to. He hasn't been resurrected yet, but I guess ditto. The resurrection really does mean judgement. It means that Jesus is coming back at some point in time, and that then judgement's a coming. And the Holy Spirit will convict us of that. For non-Christians, I guess that conviction should make them seriously consider changing sides. For Christians, it's both a joy and a kick in the ass to get back to work. Sounds like we all need these convictions.