Truth For Life

Guest (Male): There are things the apostles didn't understand until after Christ's resurrection, things they didn't understand until after they had received the Holy Spirit, and some things they never understood this side of heaven. In the same way while we have the advantage of having God's Word at our fingertips, most of us still have a lot of questions. And today on Truth For Life, Alistair Begg explains how our needs are met in Jesus, even when questions remain.

Alistair Begg: Truly, truly Jesus says, "I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice. You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy." That is the 20th verse of John chapter 16 and it is the focus of our study this morning. Jesus has been preparing his disciples for the fact that he's going to be leaving them. Classically and perhaps best known of all the beginning of chapter 14 where he tells them that he's going away to prepare a place for them, and if he goes and prepares a place for them, he will come again and he will take them to himself.

And that of course is not met by an immediate sense of affirmation, but is followed up by a bunch of questions, notably on the part of Thomas, "We don't really know where you're going, how can we possibly know the way?" He says to them later in 14, "I will not leave you as orphans, I will come to you." What in the world can that possibly mean they're saying? "It is to your advantage that I go away," he says here in the seventh verse of chapter 16.

Now in rehearsing that, it becomes clear that his followers are having a really hard time grasping what he's saying. And so it's no surprise that we read in the 12th verse here of 16, if your Bible is open, that Jesus says to them, "You know, I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. I've been telling you these things and it's clear that you're not on track and there are more things that I have to say to you, but now is not the time for that."

And then he explains when that time will be, under the agency of the Holy Spirit. Verse 13: "When the Spirit of Truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth. For he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine, therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you."

Now it's important that we pause just for a moment and make sure we understand what is being said here. This little phrase "he will lead you into all truth" is notoriously misinterpreted in all kinds of contexts, as if somehow or another the fact of the work of the Holy Spirit to do what we're asking him to do this morning, namely illuminate our minds, clear away the mist from our eyes, open the ears of our understanding, open the pathways of our heart. In asking that, that we are actually being the beneficiaries of what is being said here, that he will lead us into all truth.

It's become very contemporary hasn't it for people to talk about "my truth". "Well of course that's just my truth." And as those who want to believe the Bible we understand away from such a notion, we know that truth is found in Jesus and in Christ ultimately alone. That does not mean that there is no other truth elsewhere, but that any truth that is real truth finds its reality there. And yet in local Bible studies you often find people saying, "Well my truth, my feeling in relationship to this," and it's more often than not my feeling, so that experience trumps truth.

"Oh I know the Bible says this about divorce, but my feeling on this is... I know it says we should be this, but my feeling about this," and so on. So what is Jesus promising there? He's promising the fact that that which the disciples do not grasp, when the Holy Spirit comes, they will be then led into all the truth. And having been led into all the truth, they will then preach the truth, they will then record the truth, they will then provide the truth to the generations that are to come. And where is that truth to be found? It's to be found in the Scriptures.

It's not a looking into ourselves as is a contemporary perspective, but it is looking out from ourselves to the objective truth that is provided for us in the Scriptures. That is what Jesus is dealing with here in verse 13. He's pointing out to these folks that the ministry of the Holy Spirit will more than compensate for his physical absence. And so it is that you come to verse 16 and Jesus' somewhat enigmatic statement in verse 16, "A little while and you will see me no longer and again a little while and you will see me." It gives rise to a discussion.

There it is, verse 17. So some of his disciples said to one another, "What is this that he says?" They don't immediately get it. He keeps saying this "little while, no little while, little while." And so they were saying, verse 18, "What does he mean by a little while?" And classically, we do not know what he is talking about. The greatest teacher ever known to man speaking. It's true of all of us. We are by nature blind and we're deaf. "Open up my eyes that I may see."

I wonder has God opened your eyes? And again I say to you, you may be wondering about the things of Jesus and the gospel. So let me encourage you. Let me encourage you. Don't go looking for some feeling in your tummy. Read your Bible. You get a feeling in your tummy that's okay, but that's not the issue. No, you're going to have to read the Bible because your mind matters. You're going to have to read, mark, learn what is in the Bible. You're going to have to dig, learn, study, think, because the truth of the gospel is not the discovery of the casual inquirer. And you will seek me and you will find me when you search for me with all your heart.

Now Jesus joins in this little discussion by in verse 19 saying to them, he could tell that they wanted to ask him. I don't think we have to make this supernatural. You would if you're in company with a group of people you can overhear conversation. He knows they desperately want to try and get an answer, none of them wants to put up their hand, and so he says, "Is this what you're asking yourselves, what I meant by saying a little while and you will not see me and again a little while and you will see me?"

The discussion then gives rise to Jesus' declaration. That was the second one, which is our "truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep and lament." That's the first thing they need to know. You will weep and lament. They knew their Old Testament. There's a time to be born, there's a time to die, there's a time to weep, there's a time to laugh, there's a time to mourn and there's a time to dance. That is the reality of human experience both in Christ and outside of Christ.

But it is particularly here mentioned in this regard. When they find themselves after the crucifixion in despair, then they will display their sadness in their tears and in their lament. We can't delay on this, but it is perhaps useful just to make a little note in your notes, the disciples were not stoics. The idea that somehow or another Christianity, the reality of who Jesus is and what he's done transforms us entirely from the experiences of life, from the sadnesses, the pains, the disappointments, the bereavements, the heartaches, all of that. The Christian experiences all of that and Jesus legitimizes the tears by his own tears.

If fear is simply an expression of unbelief, then what do we make of the hesitancy of Jesus? "Father, save me from this hour." "You will weep, you will lament." Secondly, he says, "And the world will rejoice, the world will rejoice." In other words he says, "I want you to know that while you enter into the reality of sadness and disappointment and so on, you should be aware of the fact that what's going on around you will not be sharing it with you. In fact it is the very antithesis of that. You will weep and you will lament, but the world will delight in apparently having disposed of him in such a decisive fashion."

And thirdly he says, "And you will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will be turned to joy." Now it's quite a lot isn't it? It's a lot for us just to think about it, but to be there in the immediacy of it and experiencing it and they're looking I would imagine at one another now and saying, "That was the answer to the question?" See Jesus didn't really answer their question, he answered their need. People say, "Well if he doesn't answer my questions..." Listen, you can have more questions than you've had hot dinners. Jesus comes to answer your need.

What is your need? Your need of him as a savior, as a lord and a king. All of us have questions. They look at one another and say, "Well this is it." So Jesus masterfully as a teacher provides third point, the illustration, the illustration. Discussion, declaration, illustration. "Truly, truly." And then he says, "Let's look at it this way. When a woman is giving birth she has sorrow because her hour has come. But when she's delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish for the joy that a child has been born into the world."

Now Jesus knew this by observation. He knew this by observation. We know from the Bible that he had siblings and that he presumably had at some level experienced the very reality about which he now speaks. I speak as a man with great hesitancy in an illustration like this. This is where our wives know what we don't know in terms of the subjective reality of it. You see the disciples were strangers to the notion, to the idea of death and resurrection. And so Jesus says, "Well listen, you're familiar with what happens when a baby's born aren't you?"

"Well then think about that. An expectant mother suffers with joy and with hope. The birth is the occasion of first of all pain and then secondly joy. She is there in anticipation of a reality whereby one not yet born will emerge from the womb." And so setting that picture in their minds he then goes on by way of explanation, which is our final heading. Discussion, declaration, illustration, explanation.

Notice "so", verse 22. "So also you. You have sorrow now, but I'll see you again and your hearts will rejoice and no one will take the joy from you." When he says "now" he's using this for those of you who are English majors proleptically. In other words, that which is yet to come, the impending cross, he speaks of it as though it is already present. "So you have sorrow now," he's speaking about the nature of what is about to be. Just as the birth is the cause of pain and the source of joy, that he says is true of the cross.

Just as this child eventually emerges from the womb, so he wants them to know that he himself will emerge from the tomb. And when that happens he says, "Your sorrow will be turned to joy and that joy," says Jesus, "is a joy that is unassailable. It is not a joy that emerges from circumstances being beneficial to our liking. Because so much of our lives are marked by things that impinge upon what we would regard as happiness and success and so on. Is there then a joy? Is it possible to be like C.S. Lewis "Surprised by Joy", by a reality about which Jesus is speaking here to disciples that are about to get it, but not yet?"

Some of us perhaps are about to get it too. If you follow what he says again, after the resurrection he says, "In that day you will ask nothing of me." You've all been filled with questions all the time. You're not going to be asking these questions as before. You won't be asking questions like, "What do you mean you're going to prepare a place for us? What do you mean that you will come again?" No, in that day when that happens, things will fall into line. And you will then pray and your prayers will be to the Father because up until now you've asked nothing in my name.

Now they're going to ask the Father for good things, who's delighted to give good things to them that ask him. They're going to ask the Father for the reality of the Holy Spirit that the Father is delighted to give to them, not only in their reality of Pentecost but in the ongoing experience of their Christian pilgrimage on the basis of all that Jesus is. You will ask in his name. And he says, "I want to encourage you, ask and you will receive that your joy may be full."

I need to say by way of conclusion just one thing, and it is this, that there is an interpretive question in all that we've been discussing this morning. I say discussing, the thought that there is something of a dialogue going on between us. The great dialogue of course is what's going on between God the Holy Spirit and each of us. The way in which I've unfolded this text is understanding that what Jesus is expressly addressing here is the time between the crucifixion and the resurrection.

"In a little while you will be sad, in another little while you will be happy. Your sorrow will be turned into joy on the basis that they see the risen Jesus." That's the way I've chosen to approach it. I've chosen not to front-load it with the question that I want to give to you now, not that we can unpack it but in order that you might know and can think these things through because apparently you're sensible people and so you can study the Bible and ask for God's help. Many, many commentators tackle this section in the way that I have tackled it, but not all do.

And some of the folks that don't are biggies, if that's okay. You say, "How big?" Calvin, Augustine, J.C. Ryle. They say, "No, what Jesus is not talking about here, he's not talking about Easter, he's talking about the Parousia. He's talking about the day when he returns. That is when your joy will be full, that is when all that will take place." Well of course that is perfectly true. But is that what he's talking about here? Would I even dare to have a different view from Augustine? Yeah.

It's just a different interpretation. The truth is the truth, the meaning is the meaning. The interpretation is what we fiddle with. No, I get it. I say I'm not convinced that we have to set them in opposition to one another. Easter is not the return of Jesus. There's no collapsing of Easter into the return. It's not as if the return of Jesus denudes Easter of its significance. No, it is Easter that gives impetus to the return of Jesus. It is Easter that gives rise to the ascension which gives rise then to the return.

Easter is a historical reality. It opens the door because it is true as Paul says at the end of 1 Corinthians 13, "Now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face." Well that's what the disciples experienced. You're gone, I'm gone, you weep and lament, but when you see me face to face... That was then. This is now. What do we anticipate? That we too will see him face to face. Then I shall know fully so that Augustine and Calvin and Ryle and Don Carson and all the others, we will then be able to sit together, have a cup of tea or whatever else it is and finally find out who was right on John 16:16-24.

Then I shall fully know even as I have been fully known. Because as he goes on to say, in fact by the time he gets to the end of chapter 16 he says, "In the world you will have tribulation, but I have overcome the world." Jesus is absolutely right. In that day you will rejoice. What a great prospect.

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