A
Study of the Book of John
“That You May Believe”
Sermon
#43
“The Work Of The Holy Spirit”
John 16:5-15
Because there are denominational groups who
spend a great deal of time talking about the Holy Spirit, we sometimes become reactionary
in that we don't like to talk about the Holy Spirit very much at all. But Jesus talked
about the work of the Holy Spirit in no uncertain terms in the hours just preceding his
death, thus teaching that this is a subject of preeminent importance for us to consider.
We have now come in
our study to the evening just prior to the crucifixion. It is 10:30 or 11:00 p.m. on
Thursday night. In just a few minutes Jesus will go to the Garden of Gethsemane to pray. A
few minutes after that Judas will kiss his cheek and set in motion the whole cycle of
events that lead to the crucifixion.
Begin reading with me in verse six. “But now I go away to Him who sent Me, and none of you
asks Me, ‘Where are You going?’ (6) But because I have said these things to you,
sorrow has filled your heart. (7) Never-theless I tell you the truth. It is to your
advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if
I depart, I will send Him to you.”
We need to remember that Jesus is talking to
his disciples on the night before he is crucified. The disciples are heart-broken to hear
that he is leaving. They are scared to death. They are shocked and baffled, confused and
disoriented. Their master, their Lord, the only begotten Son of God, is going to be taken
away from them. Nothing about this makes sense to them. They literally huddle like scared
sheep around their shepherd in the blackness of night. They are scared to leave him.
Of course the Lord
knows all of this and as He speaks to his grieving disciples He speaks not only of the
troubles the disciples will face but of the resource they will have in the person of the
Holy Spirit.
You will recall that
in John 14:16-18 Jesus made his first promise of the Holy Spirit when He said, “And I will pray the Father
and He will give you another helper, that He may abide with you for ever. (17) the Spirit
of Truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but
you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you. (18) I will not leave you
orphans; I will come to you.”
They are waiting for an explanation. It was
indeed necessary for the Lord to explain why it was important for them that He return to the Father.
In verse seven Jesus says, “Neverthe-less I tell you the
truth. It is to your advan-tage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will
not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you.”
Perhaps no words were ever harder to receive
and believe for the disciples. How could that possibly be true? How could anything be
better than the physical presence of the Son of God? In their hearts they no doubt
believed they would much rather have the Lord’s physical presence with them than the
promise of an invisible Holy Spirit. In fact I am fairly certain that if we took a vote
and asked, “Would you rather have the Holy Spirit inside you or
have Jesus sitting next to you?’, all of us would vote to have Jesus, the Son
of God, right here so we could talk to him. That's under-standable. We all think it's
better to have the Son of God in our midst.
But Jesus said it is “to your advantage”
or literally “it is expedient
for you” that I should go away. But how could it possibly be expedient for
them to lose their greatest source of support and hope? Jesus said, it is better for you
that I should go because if I don't go I cannot send the Holy Spirit, but if I do go I
will send the Holy Spirit, He will not only be with you but He will be in you. If the Lord remained with them as
they desired, they would have His physical presence from time to time. But if He went
through with the program and plans of the Father, then in due time the Holy Spirit would
be given, and He would be with them without interruption. We still don’t understand
completely why it was necessary for Jesus to go away in order for the Spirit to
come. It is enough for us to know that this was so.
This morning I simply want to address one
question: What
is the Holy Spirit doing in the world today? I cannot pretend to cover the
doctrine of the Holy Spirit in this one sermon. But we do find in our text today the
longest discussion of the ministry of the Holy Spirit found in the gospel of John. This
morning we will discover two things about the Holy Spirit’s Ministry.
First, The Holy Spirit’s Reproving
Ministry (16:8-11)
Most people think that the work of the Holy
Spirit in the world today relates primarily to helping the Christian feel better about
themselves. Many people assume that the Holy Spirit was given to help us feel warm and
fuzzy on the inside. Perhaps in part because of the KJV translation of the promise of
coming of the Holy Spirit as “another Comforter” some Christian’s
may have come to believe that the function of the Holy Spirit is to make there lives more
comfortable. In verse eight the Lord explains what
the Holy Spirit will do when He comes into the world. “And when He has come,
He will convict the world of sin, and of righteous-ness, and of judgment (9) of sin,
because they do not believe in Me; (10) of righteous-ness, because I go to My Father and
you see Me no more; (11) of judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged”
That phrase “sin, righteousness and judgment” in verse eight simply seem to be three subjects that He just
pulls out of the air. But when you continue reading, you discover that Jesus explains each
word. He explains sin in verse nine, righteousness in verse ten, and judgment in verse
eleven.
(vv. 8-9) “He will convict the world
of sin… (9) of sin, because they do not
believe in Me”
The first work of the Holy Spirit in an individual’s
life is that of conviction. A person must see themselves as God sees them and become
conscious of their own lostness and desperate need.
In verse eight
the reader is told that the Holy Spirit will “… convict the world of sin…” I'd
like to encourage you to underline a phrase in verse eight – “he will convict the world of sin.”
Then circle the little word (convict.) This word is
translated in various ways in the various translations of the Bible, the KJV translates it
“reprove”
and New American Standard renders it “convince.” The problem is that there
is no one English word that can translate it adequately. This word (elegxei) comes to us from the court-room. It is a
word which describes what the prosecuting attorney does as all the evidence comes in and
he piles it up. Fact upon fact, until finally, the enormity of the evidence is so
over-whelming that the jury is forced to say, I find you guilty beyond any reasonable
doubt. It’s a word which means to convict of guilt in a court of law.
It means to amass the evidence to produce a guilty verdict!
But more than that, this word means to present the evidence in such an over-whelming fashion that even the defendant is compelled at the end of the trial to step up and say, “I admit it. I confess. I am guilty.” I think that the Apostle Paul had the same principle in mind when he wrote in Romans 3:19-20,
It sounds rather simplistic
but, No person is ready to be saved until they
first are convinced that they are lost.
In verse nine Jesus is
not saying the Holy Spirit will convict the world of sin in a general way (though he does
that). He is talking here about a very specific sin because He says, “because they do not
believe in Me.” There is one sin which in its effect is greater than all
the rest. It is the sin of refusing to believe in Jesus Christ. Yet people in the world
today would say it's foolish to talk about not believing in Jesus as if it were a sin. Does the average unbeliever look on unbelief as a
sin? Not at all, in fact if any-thing it is just the opposite. They often look
upon unbelief as a sign of intellectual super-iority. They think that is a matter of pride
that they are an agnostic or atheist.
But the fact is that
this is “the” sin that damns; the one unforgivable sin. God
will forgive us of all our sins except
the sin of refusing to believe in Jesus. John Philips makes this comparison, “It is like a man who has
a deadly but curable disease. He goes to the doctor who prescribes a remedy but the man
refuses to take it! He dies of his disease, not because he had the disease but because he
refused (spurned) the remedy…. Those who will not believe in the Son go to a lost
eternity – not because they are sinners but because they have refused God’s
remedy.” [John Philips. Exploring the Gospel of John.
(Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1989) p. 303]
“He will convict the world
…. (10) of righteousness, because I go to My Father and you see Me no more”
There seems to me to
be a two-fold implication to this verse. First, the Holy Spirit allows the individual to
see the inadequacy of their own
righteousness. The Apostle Paul writes in Romans 3:21-22, “But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is
revealed…. (22) even the righteousness of God, through faith
in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe….”
Secondly, the Holy Spirit shows the sinner
that the only sufficient righteousness is that of Christ alone.
(vv.8, 11) “He will convict the world…
(11) of judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.”
The word translated judgment is (krisis) and the verb here is perfect tense which
points to past action permanent results .
While Jesus was on the Cross Satan threw
everything he had at Him and when Jesus died for a brief three days Satan may have had the
illusion that he had won. But then Jesus rose from the dead and according to Eph 4:8 He “took captivity captive.”
Satan stands judged, He is a
defeated foe.
Not Only the
Holy Spirit’s Reproving Ministry but …
Secondly, The Holy Spirit’s Revealing
Ministry (16:12-15)
“I still have many things to
say to you, but you cannot 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 on His own authority, but
whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. (14) He will glorify
Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you. (15) All things that the
Father has are Mine. Therefore I said that He will take of Mine and declare it to you.”
There are two key words used to describe the
revealing ministry of the Holy Spirit. The Apostle Paul states in 1 Cor 2:9-10, “Eye has not seen, nor ear
heard, Nor have entered into the heart of man The things which God has prepared
for those who love Him.” (10) But God has
revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes,
the deep things of God.”
I want to encourage you to circle that
word. This word in the original Greek is (hodegeo) meaning “to lead the way.” Warren Wiersbe puts it this way, “He teaches us the truths
we need to know, when we need to them and when we are ready to receive them.”
[Warrren Wiersbe. p. 58]
The Spirit will never guide in
contradiction to the written word of God. Sometimes someone will claim to have received a
special revelation from God, referred to a “word from God” which is contradicted by
the written word of God. It may be a revelation but if it is in contra-diction to the
written Word, it is not from the Holy Spirit!
That means that the Holy Spirit is never
going to give isolated truth. He will not come out with some startling, brand new,
different revelation which has never before been heard. You will not be receiving any new
truth, but rather as you grow in your dependence upon the indwelling spirit of Jesus, you
will begin to understand and see the things of God that have been there all along. And the
Holy Spirit is guiding God’s people to this day.
This word is found in verse fifteen,
“All things that the
Father has are Mine. There-fore I said that He will take of Mine and declare it to you.”
Circle the word “declare”
in your Bibles. The word “declare” is also translated “disclose” in
the NASV. This word carries
the idea of “announcement,” of the
unveiling or unpacking of all that has been declared by Christ.
Scofield in the notes in his reference
Bible states that Jesus in His last discourse with his disciples (The Olivet Discourse -
chap 14-17) outlines in advance the three elements that make up the New Testament; (1) historical
– “remind you of
everything I have said to you” – (14:26) The of course is the
substance of the Gospels (Matt, Mark, Luke and John) and Acts. (2) doctrinal- interpretation of the historical
facts - “teach you all
things” (14:26, 16:14) This is done in the Epistles, which tell us why
Jesus died and what the full implications of this are. and
(3) prophetic – “tell you what is yet to
come” (16:13) found in various place is the Gospels (Matt 24-25, 1 Cor
15), but particularly in the Book of Revelation.
[Scofield Reference Bible. (New York:
Oxford Press, 1909) note on John 16:12]
The reason all of these things are revealed
(historical, doctrinal and prophetic) are not just in order that the believer might “know”
these things but according to verse fourteen, “He will glorify Me, for He
will take of what is Mine and declare it to you.” These things are revealed in order that
Christ might be “glorified.”
That is the ministry of the Holy Spirit to bring glory to Jesus.
Application
I want to close this message with one simple
application. It is true that this passage is primarily about the work of the Holy Spirit.
It is the Holy Spirit who convicts men and women of sin, He nevertheless does it through
believers. I want us to take another look at what Jesus said in verse seven, “It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away,
the Helper will not come to you; but if
I depart, I will send Him to you.”
(8)
And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment.” This means that the Lord is sending the Holy Spirit to believers and that it is as He works through them that His work of convicting the world is accomplished. If you look at the book of Acts every recorded conversion is brought about by the Holy Spirit working through someone who was already saved. This is God plan, the power of the Holy Spirit working through human channels like you and me. So let me close by asking this one simple question, Are you His Instrument?