Jesus told his disciples, and us, these things for a reason. It was so they would not be offended. It is so we will not be offended. As I write out the notes of my studies, we live in an age where almost everyone is offended. It seems like many view this minor affectation as the truth these days. It is not. Instead of dealing sternly with this emotional weakness, many bow the knee to it. Jesus did more with his words than merely forewarn his disciples and those of us who live in these troubling times. He forearmed his disciples. He forearmed his adherents also in this day and age.
Let us stop here and consider the nature of being offended. I will start with a simple illustration. A man goes to the gym for the first time. On the first day, he exercises vigorously. That night his body aches terribly. He is offended. The action that results from his distressed frame of mind is that he goes no more to the gym. He ceases all exercise because he equates exercise with pain. Let me, then, transfer those elements into a situation of new faith. The man will reach a point that tests his resolve. It will not be easy. There will be distress. What will he choose to do? Will he bow the knee to a minor affectation? No, he will not. He has been forearmed. He has that with which to address the difficulties of the moment. He may overcome the obstacle and remain true to the chosen course. Look around at all the people of this world. Think about all the individuals who never rise above the present situation because they allow themselves to be ruled by their discomfort and distress.
Look at all the offended people of the world. They are people who hold back the advancement of humanity's spirituality. How will we ever grow as one when all the individual mind ever sees is its own distress? The tragedy of the matter is this – people ascribe offense as the actions that others perpetrate against them rather than honestly admitting that the offense is just an emotional response in their personal thinking. In other words, it's all in their heads. Consider the frame of mind upheld in a certain other religion. The orientation is toward 'honor'. While that so-called honor is never adequately defined, much less deserved through such righteous deeds as inclusive forgiveness, it is, nevertheless insisted upon and enforced through acts of physical revenge. That seems to me to be a spirit from which the best parts have been amputated.
All of this stems from the first verse of chapter sixteen in John. In verse two, Jesus explains. His disciples were Jewish. Being allowed into the synagogues was a core element in their Jewish constitution. By that, I mean that it was a highly coveted privilege of the 'chosen people' frame of mind. To be put out of the synagogues would have been tantamount to being stripped of their status as the chosen people of God. What an offense! Right? Well, what about the Christians of our day? What would it mean to us not to be allowed to worship or fellowship? Christians around the world are being deprived of just that. They are tortured and killed for their faith. Those who persecute and martyr the Christians are those who oppose the Christian faith.
Jesus told his disciples a thing I have always found curious. “The time will come when those who kill you will think they are doing God a service.” Obviously, then, the persecutors are godly men. It is not the Atheists or Agnostics who persecute Christians in our modern era. By and large, that distinction goes to the Muslims – men who claim to be godly, who claim their actions are a matter of faith. Let's see – faithful people persecuting faithful people – no. I just don't get it. No doubt, the men of the Sanhedrin, men of intense faith in God, thought the persecution of Jesus was a service to God. Nothing destroys the rightness of faith more than 'offense.'
The communist Chinese persecute Christians, among other faiths. The Chinese are not wholly nonreligious. They have faith but their Government feels the need to control or sanction what the people believe and practice. Wikipedia tells us This. The ruling Communist Party of China officially espouses state atheism and has conducted anti-religious campaigns to this end. China's five officially sanctioned religious organizations are the Buddhist Association of China, the Chinese Taoist Association, the Islamic Association of China, the Three-Self Patriotic Movement and the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association. These groups have been overseen and controlled by the United Front Work Department of the Communist Party of China since the State Administration for Religious Affairs' absorption into the United Front Work Department in 2018. Unregistered religious groups—including house churches, Falun Gong, Tibetan Buddhists, underground Catholics, and Uyghur Muslims—face varying degrees of harassment, including imprisonment, torture, and forced religious conversion to atheism. Seems like Atheism, in China, is an actual religion.
That is a good example of how governments, collectively, project their offenses (feelings of discomfort and distress, emotional affectations) into fears which, in turn, are projected into actions of repression. Look at the so-called faithful Baptist church that harasses the gay people in American society. I get that they are offended but there are better ways to deal with their personal feelings. Offenses account for much of the turmoil in everyday life. Antisemitism is a matter of someone's personal offense not properly dealt with. Islamophobia is a matter of someone's personal offense not properly dealt with. Racism is a matter of someone's personal offense not properly dealt with.
How may a person deal properly with their personal offense? It is essential that a person recognize a basic truth. Their feelings are not caused by other people. Their feelings are their own. They may accept them or reject them. The responsibility for their reactions or feelings may never be projected onto others as if they are the cause. They are not. An individual's mindset is the sole cause of that individual's feelings. That individual who is offended is solely responsible for how he or she deals with their personal feelings. When the offense reaches beyond the realm of feelings into the arena of responses, what has always been true still holds true. That is, simply put – there are a right way and a wrong way to go about things. If a person chooses the right way, it is that person's personal choice. If a person chooses the wrong way, it is that person's personal choice.
Verse three deals with people making the wrong choice. What is the true nature of persecuting another because of your own offense? When it comes to the persecution of faithful people because their faith seems offensive, Jesus said this. “And these things will they do unto you because they have not known the Father, nor me.” The Hebrews that persecuted Jesus did not have a valid connection to God. The Hebrews who persecuted disciples and Christian converts did not have a valid connection to God. The modern Christian who persecutes a person of another faith, non-faith, or differing sexual orientation does not have a valid connection to God. A Muslim who persecutes another person of faith does not have a valid connection to God. What is the faith of a Christian? It is a faith of love and forgiveness. Righteousness must be practiced within those boundaries. Anyone who has a faith, not of love or forgiveness, will be seen to practice a faith in revenge, hatred, fear, and repression.
In verse four, Jesus stated that he had fulfilled his obligation. He had forewarned and forearmed. When the things he mentioned begin to happen, we may recall that Jesus told us so. In that regard, will we be unseeing until the events are irrevocably upon us or will we prepare our minds in advance? How will we order our lives knowing what is to come? What attitudes will we adopt knowing the types of people who work against us? One thing is certain. We cannot say that we were not tipped off.
On a more personal note, Jesus reminds his disciples that it is his time to move on. He accuses all of them of falling short of the moment. They had stopped being seekers. They failed to keep in step with the conversation. Why? It was because Jesus reminded them of his imminent death. Instead of moving forward, they stopped and sorrowed. In other words, they were offended. Why didn't they ask, at the very least, 'where are you going?' Jesus brushed aside their failure for he still had something to tell them.
While they were sad about his death (which was a matter of their personal sense of loss), the truth of the matter was that his death would work in their favor. The next phase of God's will and work could not begin until the present phase had come to an end. Jesus must die for the Comforter to come. It was a big and necessary change order-of-business-wise. The Holy Spirit of Truth would do a great work. For the Comforter to continue the work of Jesus, Jesus had to be out of the way. Still, we must assume, that was no early retirement or vacation for Jesus. Jesus had to assume the reigns. There were preparations to make – preparations for his return.
What Jesus says about the Comforter are some of my favorite verses in the Bible. The work and purpose of the Comforter are explained in verses eight through fourteen of chapter sixteen in the book of John. The Comforter is shown to have one major work that is divided into three parts. He will reprove the world. Let us, here, recall the meaning of the word. According to the dictionary, reprove has this definition: to scold or correct usually gently or with kindly intent, also to express disapproval of: to censure. More archaic applications, which would fall closer to the meaning from a biblical point of view, would be to disprove, refute, convince, and convict. As an intransitive verb, it would be to express rebuke or reproof.
The Holy Spirit of Truth is tasked with correcting the world, by which I put forth the word 'world' to mean the worldly mindset. In this regard, the worldly must be clearly shown three basic truths. These truths are 'sin' 'righteousness' and 'judgment.' I would like to be diligent and give due time and consideration to each of these important topics.
Sin. When the Holy Spirit of Truth addresses the worldly mindset about sin, it will boil down to an issue of personal choice. Every individual in the world shall receive information about Jesus. Some will believe and some will not believe. The sin that some will be reproved about is the sin of deliberately choosing, for whatever reason, not to believe in Jesus. For those who do believe, what are they believing, exactly? To believe in Jesus is to believe in God. To believe in the Son is to believe in the Father. To believe in man is to believe in the spirit placed in him. To believe in the messenger is to believe in the message. Jesus is the word sent by God. Jesus is the example to the common man of the existence of the Spirit of God within mankind. A man simply cannot buy into himself apart from the greater spirit that enlivens, enables, and animates him. That greater spirit is a package deal – to accept the benefits of the package one must also accept the responsibilities of the package.
Righteousness. Jesus was a man in possession of the full package. When we think of the Holy Spirit of Truth reproving our simple worldly take on the matter, we must know that at some point, we will be reminded of Jesus. We will be reminded that Jesus was filled with the mind of God. That does not necessarily mean that we are not. It means that Jesus accepted the full package. He did not pick the parts he liked and reject the parts he did not like. Each of us has as much in us of the spirit but, sadly, most of us only accept the part that is about us – the independent individual. The full package includes so much more. To put it simply, the full package not only includes the part about us, it includes the part about others, as well. It includes our responsibility to love others, to forgive them, to work with them, include them, help them, and demonstrably care about them – all of them. The full package includes the parts that God really likes. The full package includes God. So, when we are reminded of Jesus, a man with a Godly mindset, we are shown someone who did not camp around the bottom of the ladder. We are shown a man who actually reached the top. You can't reach the top without trying. You will not try unless you have the mind to.
Judgment. When the Holy Spirit of Truth reproves our half-package minds about judgment, it is not the judgment of you or me. It is actually the judgment of the prince of this world. We must begin our understanding of this with the definitions of two concepts – judgment and the prince of this world. It falls to the willing to know as much as possible about the topics we are making our minds up about. We may not assume that we know just because. I turn to the dictionary for the word “judged.” I turn to Wikipedia for information about the prince of this world. Let us have the facts on our side.
Judged. Surprisingly, the definition of the word 'judged' has more to do with one's mindset than it does with actions or emotions. Simply stated, judged means that you have formed an opinion or conclusion. You have decided. Some related words are appraised, assessed, gauged, rated, examined, eyed, scrutinized, inspected, investigated, reviewed, surveyed. Let us go with one word in particular – the word examined. Let us say the prince of this world has been examined. That entails that we no longer take things at face value, we no longer blindly take the word of others. We stop and take it upon ourselves to investigate the matter. Each of us must personally take the necessary steps to rightly discern and each of us must accept personal responsibility for our own final determination of the available facts. In short, it is our job to know. The Holy Spirit of Truth will compel us.
The prince of this world. Who or what is being referred to? Wikipedia tells us that A prince is a male ruler (ranked below a king, grand prince, and grand duke) or member of a monarch's or former monarch's family. Prince is also a title of nobility (often highest), often hereditary, in some European states. The feminine equivalent is a princess. The English word derives, via the French word prince, from the Latin noun princeps, from primus (first) and capio (to seize), meaning "the chief, most distinguished, ruler, prince".
This gives us a lot to consider. Two words immediately caught my attention – primus, and capio. I see in this a former order as in a member of a former monarch's family. I also see a sort of Yin and Yang where the dark half gives way to the light. The wheel turns. The pendulum swings. The tide turns. We may quickly jump to the identification of the principal face of the old order as the devil. A point I wish to bring up here is the match against equal contenders. Jesus is also a prince. If the Prince of Peace takes a stand against the Prince of this World, what does that say about opposing natures? It says to me that the prince of this world is the prince of non-peace. A logical line of thought may be employed at this point.
If, as scripture states, Jesus is the Truth, the Holy Spirit (mind) of Truth is the continuation of all that the Truth originally advocated. That would be the spiritual qualities and physical applications that are pleasing to God. We have all that the light side of the wheel stands for taking action against all that the dark side of the wheel stood for. We have peace against non-peace, we have transparency and disclosure against secrecy and misuse. We have reality against party lines. We have understanding and love against fear and rejection. Everything about the old way will be brought into the light of examination. The mind that is reproved by the Truth will ask questions. Why? Why do brothers war instead of standing together? Why do men arbitrarily divide faith? There are too many 'whys' that are crying out for diagnosis. The spirit in man seeks resolution and discernment. The Holy Spirit of Truth will convict a mind to establish truth and dispel falsity.
In verses twelve through fourteen, Jesus told his disciples that they were not prepared to hear the things he had to say. He would have told them so much more but that would have to wait for the Comforter. Jesus would continue to speak to them through the Comforter. The Holy Spirit of Truth, as Jesus put it, would continue his work in them. The Comforter would guide them into 'all' truth. In other words, the Holy Spirit of Truth would convict their minds to establish truth and dispel falsity. The Comforter would have a limited dialog with them. By that I mean, the Comforter would only tell them the things he got directly from Jesus. After all, the Comforter is the mind of Jesus. “He shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you.” “He shall glorify me.” This follows in the same nature as Jesus doing all the things that pleased God. Finally, there is an intriguing part that I like the sound of, that fills me with hope in the light side of the wheel. Jesus said of the Comforter, “He will show you things to come.”
Continuing from verse fifteen, we see an explanation. Jesus explains to his disciples why he said, “He shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you.” He explains the broad scope of the previous statement in the addendum, “All things that the Father hath are mine: therefore said I, that he shall take of mine, and shall show it unto you.” Imagine the endless larder of the Holy Ghost. All things that belong to God are within his reach. All truth, all power, all empowering from the very beginning of existence to the furthest reaches of the future – if it belongs to God, it belongs to Jesus. Since we may assert that God is a spirit, as Jesus said, we may also say that if it belongs to the spirit, it belongs to the spirit-filled man. There will always be that connection which Jesus proved to the world – that Jesus was the exemplar of God in man. There is also the connection of spirit to spirit. I have maintained that the spirit and the mind are one and the same. Along this line of argumentation, one may see that the Holy Spirit of Truth (truth being a name given expressly to Jesus) is the Holy Mind of Jesus. That mind in Jesus is the same mind that is in God for, as he said, “I and my Father are one.” Since Jesus is the prime example of God in man, we may see the connection of our individual minds to the mind of God.
The riddle of verse sixteen. “A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again, a little while, and ye shall see me, because I go to the Father.” This all has to do with the transfer between the physical and the spiritual comforter. They will not see the body but they will see the mind. Jesus graduates up into the full connection between God and man. The small mind becomes the big mind. The trickle-down becomes the hope for all mankind. When Jesus said, “I and my Father are one,” he spoke of a process in which his physical death accomplished the ultimate culmination. This is in no way withheld from the ordinary man. Jesus will say later in chapter seventeen and verse twenty-one, “That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us.” We may see clearly in these two Jesus quotes that the mind of God occupies the mind of Jesus and that that same mind occupies the minds of not only the followers of Jesus but the followers of the followers of Jesus. All are one.
A step beyond the explanations. In verses seventeen through twenty-four, Jesus makes an allusion to a woman giving birth. He connects, in the minds of his disciples, a type of sorrow with a type of sorrow. He shows that both types of sorrow bring something forth that is the reason for joy. As the disciples faced the certain arrest and crucifixion of their master and comforter, it was likened to the pangs of childbirth, which is a matter that may not be gotten through easily. However, when they are delivered from the pain and struggle, they will see that they have accomplished something worthy of joy.
It is telling that Jesus says, “in that day ye shall ask me nothing.” They had been asking exclusively from Jesus for about three years. But now, after his departure, to whom would they turn to ask. Asking was their joy. They were lifted up by the answers they had received. Learning something new is, admittedly, uplifting. Imagine how much more joy they had received by learning to heal the sick and drive out devils and evil spirits. Imagine their personal loss in the absence of their source of joy. Jesus told them a new and greater joy was at hand. They would not be without a comforter; the difference was that the new comforter would be internalized. To finalize the matter, they would be able to ask God anything in the name of Jesus and be assured they would have their prayers answered by God. They would continue to receive just as they had received when they asked of Jesus. Their temporary sorrow would be transformed into a life-long full-on joy.
I want to take a moment to consider the deliverer of the message. If Jesus was surrounded by his disciples as he spoke, it makes sense that they would have asked for immediate clarification on uncertain matters. Instead, we see that Jesus says a thing and the disciples question the meaning among themselves. Had Jesus wandered in, said a thing, and then wandered away? Was there distance between the disciples and Jesus so that a representative of the disciples went back and forth with questions and answers? How much time was involved in the exchange? Did the disciples move away into a huddle to discuss something Jesus said while Jesus was busy at some other task? For me, an encounter where there is nothing more going on than the exchange of words, the implication of that moment can be one of two things – focused and direct or casual. This encounter seems casual rather than immediate.
Another exchange occurs in verses twenty-five through thirty. Jesus says two things in verse twenty-five. First, he informs them that he has been telling them certain things using the format of the proverb. Then, he tells them that the time will come when he will drop that and speak to them plainly of the Father. He uses the word 'show' which indicates more of a demonstration than an explanation. What is a proverb, exactly? What is its purpose? Wikipedia says, A proverb (from Latin: proverbium) is a simple, concrete, traditional saying that expresses a perceived truth based on common sense or experience. Proverbs are often metaphorical and use formulaic language. Wiktionary gives the definition, A striking or paradoxical assertion; an obscure saying; an enigma; a parable.
The time will come. That is a point in the future. Jesus continues in verse twenty-six by saying, “At that day ye shall ask in my name.” This is a clear reference to verses twenty-three and twenty-four above. It is a reference to a time beyond the physical death of Jesus. It is the advent of the internalized comforter. The believer will ask of God the Father in the name of Jesus Christ the Son and God will gladly give what is asked for because the believer has loved Jesus and believed that Jesus came forth from God. It is asserted that God's love for the believers is due to the aforementioned truths about the believers. It will no longer depend on the prayers of Jesus on the behalf of the disciples. The assertion was that they had yet to truly believe.
When Jesus makes the claim, in verse twenty-eight, “I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world: again, I leave the world, and go to the Father,” the disciples answer with more immediacy than they did in the previous exchange where they reasoned among themselves. It also occurs to me that a part of the apostleship might have been the occasional test where they were required to interpret what Jesus said. Jesus knew that they would rather have just asked and got the answer but, perhaps, the reasoning among themselves was a sort of homework exercise. It was one of those “Aha!” moments when the disciples thought they had something figured out.
It was three years into knowing Jesus that the disciples said, “Now are we sure that thou knowest all things – by this, we believe that thou camest forth from God.” And Jesus is like, 'Oh, really?' He prefaces what he says in verse thirty-two by saying, “Do ye now believe?” That is like saying, 'this is what your premature confession of belief will lead to.' He predicts the outcome, “Behold, the hour cometh, yea, is now come, that ye shall be scattered, every man to his own.” He tells them that their faith has not yet arrived, that they will all desert him in his final hour. If you are going to make the claim that you truly believe, be prepared to carry through. Right? At any rate, Jesus told them that their desertion would not mean that he was alone because, as he concluded, “the Father is with me.”
On that note, I want to connect the dots to something Jesus said on the cross. He said, Matthew 27:46, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” We have to ask, is the Father with him or not? It is certain, from the reading of the gospels, that Jesus marched to death with purpose and deliberation. It was his plan all along. It is also certain that God was with Jesus and that Jesus was confident in that fact. Was Jesus merely quoting from the Psalms, as some claim? Is it not more likely that God had to abandon his son at that moment and that Jesus was genuinely horrified? In the garden, Jesus prayed that the cup be taken from him. Was that a reference to God's abandonment of Jesus known in advance? Why would God turn away from Jesus and leave him hanging, so to speak? Let me say this – Jesus could not have died our deaths for us unless he had been just as helpless as we would have been. The help could not be present. God had to forsake his son at that moment for the work of salvation to be effective.
Jesus concludes chapter sixteen of John in verse thirty-three. He gives a reason for his parting comments. He said, “These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace.” The connection is key. Jesus would leave them physically but return to them in the comforter. The Holy Spirit of Truth is the Holy Mind of Jesus. He would not leave them comfortless. Jesus would be internalized and in that connection only would they find peace and joy. In the world, as Jesus said, they would find only tribulation. They indeed had reason for joy and peace in the connection they would have with the Son of God. He had overcome the world – that power and victory would be internalized in them through the Holy Mind of Jesus.
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