Pentecost Sunday is May 19, 2024.

This is the final Sunday in Eastertide, the Easter season.

Readings for Year B can be found here.

My exegesis for the Epistle, also designated as the First Reading, Acts 2:1-21, can be found here.

The Gospel is as follows (emphases mine):

John 15:26-27; 16:4b-15

15:26 “When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who comes from the Father, he will testify on my behalf.

15:27 You also are to testify because you have been with me from the beginning.

16:4b “I did not say these things to you from the beginning, because I was with you.

16:5 But now I am going to him who sent me; yet none of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’

16:6 But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your hearts.

16:7 Nevertheless I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.

16:8 And when he comes, he will prove the world wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment:

16:9 about sin, because they do not believe in me;

16:10 about righteousness, because I am going to the Father and you will see me no longer;

16:11 about judgment, because the ruler of this world has been condemned.

16:12 “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.

16:13 When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.

16:14 He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

16:15 All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

Commentary comes from Matthew Henry and John MacArthur.

John 14 through John 17 are some of the richest and most penetrating chapters in the Bible. They contain our Lord’s discourse to the Apostles after He banished Judas from the Last Supper and end in prayers for them and for all believers.

Many passages from those chapters are in the Lectionary. In Year B, 2024, we heard and read John 15:1-8 and John 15:9-17 on the Fifth and Sixth Sundays of Easter, respectively.

In today’s verses, Jesus explains to the Apostles that He will send the Holy Spirit to them to act in His stead.

In discussing the final two verses of John 15, John MacArthur rightly laments the present-day dishonour that many churches show towards the Third Person of the Holy Trinity:

The modern evangelical church shows very little interest, or limited interest, in the glory of the Holy Spirit, third member of the Trinity. Pragmatism doesn’t need Him, worldly ministry doesn’t want Him, and emotionalism dishonors Him with folly. The true glory of the Holy Spirit is very often dismissed and unknown. That is, again, a tragic failure in worship. The text before us – just two verses really – opens up our understanding to the true ministry of the Holy Spirit so that we can glorify Him, worship Him in a way that He deserves.

Jesus said that when the Advocate, the Spirit of truth — the Holy Spirit — comes, whom He (Jesus) would send from the Father, He will testify on His behalf (verse 26).

At this point, Jesus had just given the Eleven a brief discourse on the persecution they — and many believers throughout history — would experience. MacArthur delivered this sermon in 2015 with persecution statistics available at the time:

At the same time that we are loved by God, we are hated by the world. We are hated by the world because we’re not of the world, and the world belongs to Satan. We’re hated because they hated our Lord before they hated us. We’re hated because they don’t know God. That’s what our Lord said in verses 18 to 25.

So on the one hand, we are lavishly loved by God and we are strongly hated by the world. God pours out all blessing on us; the world pours out all its anger and persecution on us, even to the degree where believers through history are killed. And I was telling you last week that currently as we speak, there are about 100 million professing Christians in the world today under some form of persecution; most of it from 41 Muslim nations, but there are others as well. This is not surprising; this is not new. We’re not even surprised when persecution begins to develop in our own country, because the whole world lies in the lap of the evil one …

If you go back to chapter 14, He says in verse 16, “I will ask the Father, He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever. That is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive because it doesn’t see Him or know Him. But you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you.” Who is going to be the one who will fulfill all the promises? None other than the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God, who will come to you and be with you forever. In fact, not just with you, but in you.

MacArthur explains verse 26:

The ministry of the Holy Spirit is to take all that the Lord promised to us and deliver it to us; that is His ministry. All that the Lord promised to give, all the blessings that He pledged to provide, the Holy Spirit will dispense, the Holy Spirit will bring, the Holy Spirit will give …

So the question rises in verse 26: “How do we hope to have any success?” And the answer is, “Because the Helper comes, you will testify, and you will testify, empowered by the Holy Spirit.” This is a powerful and wonderful promise. And, again, it’s kind of the capstone on the reality that all that heaven sends down to us is dispensed to us, dispersed to us, revealed to us, empowered in us by the Holy Spirit, by the Holy Spirit. This is His ministry.

Matthew Henry tells us how important this verse is:

Christ, having spoken of the great opposition which his gospel was likely to meet with in the world, and the hardships that would be put upon the preachers of it, lest any should fear that they and it would be run down by that violent torrent, he here intimates to all those that were well-wishers to his cause and interest what effectual provision was made for supporting it, both by the principal testimony of the Spirit (v. 26), and the subordinate testimony of the apostles (v. 27), and testimonies are the proper supports of truth.

I. It is here promised that the blessed Spirit shall maintain the cause of Christ in the world, notwithstanding the opposition it should meet with. Christ, when he was reviled, committed his injured cause to his Father, and did not lose by his silence, for the Comforter came, pleaded it powerfully, and carried it triumphantly. “When the Comforter or Advocate is come, who proceedeth from the Father, and whom I will send to supply the want of my bodily presence, he shall testify of me against those that hate me without cause.” We have more in this verse concerning the Holy Ghost than in any one verse besides in the Bible; and, being baptized into his name, we are concerned to acquaint ourselves with him as far as he is revealed.

1. Here is an account of him in his essence, or subsistence rather. He is the Spirit of truth, who proceedeth from the Father. Here, (1.) He is spoken of as a distinct person; not a quality or property, but a person under the proper name of a Spirit, and proper title of the Spirit of truth, a title fitly given him where he is brought in testifying. (2.) As a divine person, that proceedeth from the Father, by out-goings that were of old, from everlasting. The spirit or breath of man, called the breath of life, proceeds from the man, and by it modified he delivers his mind, by it invigorated he sometimes exerts his strength to blow out what he would extinguish, and blow up what he would excite. Thus the blessed Spirit is the emanation of divine light, and the energy of divine power. The rays of the sun, by which it dispenses and diffuses its light, heat, and influence, proceed from the sun, and yet are one with it …

2. In his mission. (1.) He will come in a more plentiful effusion of his gifts, graces, and powers, than had ever yet been. Christ had been long the ho erchomenos—he that should come; now the blessed Spirit is so. (2.) I will send him to you from the Father. He had said (ch. 14 16), I will pray the Father, and he shall send you the Comforter, which bespeaks the Spirit to be the fruit of the intercession Christ makes within the veil: here he says, I will send him, which bespeaks him to be the fruit of his dominion within the veil. The Spirit was sent, [1.] By Christ as Mediator, now ascended on high to give gifts unto men, and all power being given to him. [2.] From the Father: “Not only from heaven, my Father’s house” (the Spirit was given in a sound from heaven, Acts 2 2), “but according to my Father’s will and appointment, and with his concurring power and authority.” [3.] To the apostles to instruct them in their preaching, enable them for working, and carry them through their sufferings. He was given to them and their successors, both in Christianity and in the ministry; to them and their seed, and their seed’s seed, according to that promise, Isa 59 21.

3. In his office and operations, which are two:—(1.) One implied in the title given to him; he is the Comforter, or Advocate. An advocate for Christ, to maintain his cause against the world’s infidelity, a comforter to the saints against the world’s hatred. (2.) Another expressed: He shall testify of me. He is not only an advocate, but a witness for Jesus Christ; he is one of the three that bear record in heaven, and the first of the three that bear witness on earth. 1 John 5 7, 8. He instructed the apostles, and enabled them to work miracles; he indited the scriptures, which are the standing witnesses that testify of Christ, ch. 5 39. The power of the ministry is derived from the Spirit, for he qualifies ministers; and the power of Christianity too, for he sanctifies Christians, and in both testifies of Christ.

Jesus instructed the Apostles to also testify of Him because they had been with Him from the beginning (verse 27).

MacArthur says that the Apostles died for the faith. John, incidentally, was the one who did not as he was exiled to Patmos, where he wrote Revelation and died afterwards:

Now, I want you to think about the flow of thought in these simple two verses. Let me just break it down. Number One: Christian witness is to the world. Christian testimony is to the world. That’s the whole point here when He talks about testifying in verse 26, testifying in verse 27. We need to be reminded that He’s talking about the world: the hostile, godless, Christ-rejecting, Christian-hating, world. That is the subject here. This promise, in verses 26 and 27, is embedded between two passages about their hostility; 18 to 25 talk about persecution; 16, 1 to 3, talks about persecution, and even martyrdom.

In the middle of that comes this promise that “you will testify also.” And that was true; the disciples did. All but one of them were martyred, gave up their life as a sacrifice or testimony.

Henry discusses ‘from the beginning’ as Jesus intended but also includes a practical application for us in the present day:

You have been with me from the beginning. They not only heard his public sermons, but had constant private converse with him. He went about doing good, and, while others saw the wonderful and merciful works that he did in their own town and country only, those that went about with him were witnesses of them all. They had likewise opportunity of observing the unspotted purity of his conversation, and could witness for him that they never saw in him, nor heard from him, any thing that had the least tincture of human frailty. Note. (1.) We have great reason to receive the record which the apostles gave of Christ, for they did not speak by hearsay, but what they had the greatest assurance of imaginable, 2 Pet 1 16; 1 John 1 1, 3. (2.) Those are best able to bear witness for Christ that have themselves been with him, by faith, hope, and love, and by living a life of communion with God in him. Ministers must first learn Christ, and then preach him. Those speak best of the things of God that speak experimentally. It is particularly a great advantage to have been acquainted with Christ from the beginning, to understand all things from the very first, Luke 1 3. To have been with him from the beginning of our days. An early acquaintance and constant converse with the gospel of Christ will make a man like a good householder.

Now we come to John 16.

I am mystified as to why the Lectionary compilers did not give us verse 4 in full, as follows:

4 I have told you this, so that when their time comes you will remember that I warned you about them. I did not tell you this from the beginning because I was with you,

Jesus wanted the Apostles to remember that He warned them about the persecution to come and explained that He was telling them about it only after the Last Supper, because He had been with them (verse 4).

That meant He had been the one suffering persecution, not they.

MacArthur tells us:

… in verse 4 He says, “But these things I have spoken to you, so that when their hour comes” – similar to what He said in verse 1 – “you many remember that I told you of them,” essentially reiterating what He said in verse 1. “I don’t want you to be shocked. I want to fortify you in advance so that when it comes, you’re going to know this is exactly what I said would happen.”

Back in chapter 14, verse 29, He says, “Now I have told you before it happens, so that when it happens, you may believe.” One of the reasons that we believe in Christ is because He knows the future, and that is divine. Eventually Peter learned the lesson; and in 1 Peter, chapter 4, and verses 12 and 13, he wrote this: “Beloved, do not be surprised” – “do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you, which comes upon you for your testing, as though some strange thing were happening to you.” “Don’t be surprised. Don’t be surprised.”

And then He closes out verse 4 with this comment: “These things I didn’t say to you at the beginning, because I was with you.” What does that mean? Well, He certainly made some general reference to it in Matthew 5, and Matthew 10, and Luke 9, and He said, you know, “Blessed are you when you’re persecuted. And if they persecute the Master, they’ll persecute the servant.” He said things like that in general, but never with this kind of specificity, and never unpacking this kind of hate to this degree. Why? “Because I was with you.”

Well, what does that have to do with it? Because all the persecution came at Him. You don’t read anything up to this point in the gospels about anybody persecuting a disciple; there’s nothing there. It never says they persecuted Peter, or they persecuted James, or John, or Philip, or Andrew. As long as Christ was there, He took it all. It all came at Him. It all came at Him. The attack was directed at Him. If they wanted to stone anybody, they wanted to stone Him. If they wanted to throw somebody off a cliff, they wanted to throw Him off a cliff.

But now He’s not going to be there, and all of that hostility is going to come to those who have His name. That’s why Paul said, “I bear in my body the marks of Christ: all the whippings, all the thrashing with rods, all the beatings with whips, all the scarring from the stones.” All the rest of the things that he suffered, that he writes about in 2 Corinthians, were the marks of Christ. They couldn’t hit Christ because He wasn’t here, so they hit the one who bore His name. This is always going to be the case, always.

Jesus then addressed the Apostles’ sorrow at His departure, although they did not fully understand it at that point.

He said that He would be going to the Father, who sent Him, but not one of them asked where that was (verse 5).

Two of the Apostles — Peter and Thomas — had asked the question but, in their sorrow, did not press Him on it.

MacArthur says:

Oh, yes, back in 13:36, Peter had said, “Hey, where are you going, because I want to go.”

And back in chapter 14, Thomas said, “We don’t know where you’re going, and we want to go.” He told them, “You can’t go; I’m going, and none of you says, ‘Where are You going?’”

This is sad. This is really sad. This is selfish. He’s comforting them, pouring out all of heaven’s blessings, telling them everything that they’re going to be receiving. All of His promises made there is deposited in them by the Holy Spirit. “And now I’m going, I’m going back to heavenly glory and none of you even has a small interest in what that means to Me.” This is sad. Jesus is grieved. “You don’t have any interest in Me, none.”

Back in chapter 14, verse 28, He said, “If you loved Me, you would have rejoiced because I go to the Father. If you loved Me, you would have said, ‘Oh, Lord, we’re so glad to hear you’re going back. You’ve had enough, You’ve suffered enough, You’ve been through enough; we seek Your glory.” No; no.

Henry elaborates:

1. He had told them that he was about to leave them: Now I go my way. He was not driven away by force, but voluntarily departed; his life was not extorted from him, but deposited by him. He went to him that sent him, to give an account of his negotiation. Thus, when we depart out of this world, we go to him that sent us into it, which should make us all solicitous to live to good purposes, remembering we have a commission to execute, which must be returned at a certain day.

2. He had told them what hard times they must suffer when he was gone, and that they must not expect such an easy quiet life as they had had. Now, if these were the legacies he had to leave to them, who had left all for him, they would be tempted to think they had made a sorry bargain of it, and were, for the present, in a consternation about it, in which their master sympathizes with them, yet blames them, (1.) That they were careless of the means of comfort, and did not stir up themselves to seek it: None of you asks me, Whither goest thou? Peter had started this question (ch. 13 36), and Thomas had seconded it (ch. 14 5), but they did not pursue it, they did not take the answer; they were in the dark concerning it, and did not enquire further, nor seek for fuller satisfaction; they did not continue seeking, continue knocking. See what a compassionate teacher Christ is, and how condescending to the weak and ignorant. Many a teacher will not endure that the learner should ask the same question twice; if he cannot take a thing quickly, let him go without it; but our Lord Jesus knows how to deal with babes, that must be taught with precept upon precept. If the disciples here would have found that his going away was for his advancement, and therefore his departure from them should not inordinately trouble them (for why should they be against his preferment?) and for their advantage, and therefore their sufferings for him should not inordinately trouble them; for a sight of Jesus at the right hand of God would be an effectual support to them, as it was to Stephen. Note, A humble believing enquiry into the design and tendency of the darkest dispensations of Providence would help to reconcile us to them, and to grieve the less, and fear the less, because of them; it will silence us to ask, Whence came they? but will abundantly satisfy us to ask, Whither go they? for we know they work for good, Rom 8 28.

Jesus said that, because He had said these things to them, sorrow had filled their hearts (verse 6).

MacArthur tells us what Jesus had expected of them:

They were stuck on their own sorrow at the moment. They didn’t ask Him about death, burial, resurrection, ascension, exaltation, coronation – not on this occasion.

Henry reminds us that the Apostles had expected temporal glory with Jesus:

They were big with hopes of their Master’s external kingdom and glory, and that they should shine and reign with him: and now, instead of that, to hear of nothing but bonds and afflictions, this filled them with sorrow. Nothing is a greater prejudice to our joy in God than the love of the world; and the sorrow of the world, the consequence of it.

Jesus returned to the subject of the Holy Spirit, saying that He was speaking the truth; if He (Jesus) did not leave the disciples, then the Advocate could not go to them; however, if Jesus went from them, He would send the Spirit to them (verse 7).

MacArthur explains saying that the Holy Spirit could only come among us when Christ’s work on earth was complete, meaning His death and resurrection:

The gift of the Holy Spirit to the believer is a gift that heaven sends as a reward for Christ’s completed work. The Spirit can’t come until the work is done. The work must be done first before the Holy Spirit can be sent.

Peter said that on Pentecost, Acts 2:33, “Therefore, having been exalted to the right hand of the God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He has poured forth this which you both see and hear.” Once He was exalted to the Father because He finished the work, died and rose again; then the Father sends the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost. The gift of the Spirit then is the pledged and promised reward for Christ’s completed work. So the Spirit can’t come until the work is done. The Holy Spirit comes in response to the finished work of Christ.

Henry explains further:

I. That Christ’s departure was absolutely necessary to the Comforter’s coming, v. 7. The disciples were so loth to believe this that Christ saw cause to assert it with a more than ordinary solemnity: I tell you the truth. We may be confident of the truth of everything that Christ told us; he has no design to impose upon us. Now, to make them easy, he here tells them,

1. In general, It was expedient for them that he should go away. This was strange doctrine, but if it was true it was comfortable enough, and showed them how absurd their sorrow was. It is expedient, not only for me, but for you also, that I go away; though they did not see it, and are loth to believe it, so it is. Note, (1.) Those things often seem grievous to us that are really expedient for us; and particularly our going away when we have finished our course. (2.) Our Lord Jesus is always for that which is most expedient for us, whether we think so or no. He deals not with us according to the folly of our own choice, but graciously over-rules it, and gives us the physic we are loth to take, because he knows it is good for us.

2. It was therefore expedient because it was in order to the sending of the Spirit. Now observe,

(1.) That Christ’s going was in order to the Comforter’s coming.

[1.] This is expressed negatively: If I go not away, the Comforter will not come. And why not? First, So it was settled in the divine counsels concerning this affair, and the measure must not be altered; shall the earth be forsaken for them? He that gives freely may recall one gift before he bestows another, while we would fondly hold all. Secondly, It is congruous enough that the ambassador extraordinary should be recalled, before the envoy come, that is constantly to reside. Thirdly, The sending of the Spirit was to be the fruit of Christ’s purchase, and that purchase was to be made by his death, which was his going away. Fourthly, It was to be an answer to his intercession within the veil. See ch. 14 16. Thus must this gift be both paid for, and prayed for, by our Lord Jesus, that we might learn to put the greater value upon it. Fifthly, The great argument the Spirit was to use in convincing the world must be Christ’s ascension into heaven, and his welcome here. See v. 10, and ch. 7 39. Lastly, The disciples must be weaned from his bodily presence, which they were too apt to dote upon, before they were duly prepared to receive the spiritual aids and comforts of a new dispensation.

[2.] It is expressed positively: If I depart I will send him to you; as though he had said, “Trust me to provide effectually that you shall be no loser by my departure.” The glorified Redeemer is not unmindful of his church on earth, nor will ever leave it without its necessary supports. Though he departs, he sends the Comforter, nay, he departs on purpose to send him. Thus still, though one generation of ministers and Christians depart, another is raised up in their room, for Christ will maintain his own cause.

(2.) That the presence of Christ’s Spirit in his church is so much better, and more desirable, than his bodily presence, that it was really expedient for us that he should go away, to send the Comforter. His corporal presence could be put in one place at one time, but his Spirit is every where, in all places, at all times, wherever two or three are gathered in his name. Christ’s bodily presence draws men’s eyes, his Spirit draws their hearts; that was the letter which kills, his Spirit gives life.

Christ’s departure from the world was one thing I struggled to understand for decades. Even though I had religious instruction from primary school through university, the Holy Spirit’s role in carrying out Christ’s work on earth was never properly explained, even in Confirmation class.

I hope that what Henry and MacArthur have had to say here will clarify it for those who have been equally mystified and thereby make the recollection of the first Pentecost a more significant event for them.

I will stop here to resume with verses 8 through 11 tomorrow.