Jesus said in John 14:6, “I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father except by Me.” So Jesus is the way to God, He is he truth of God, and He provides life from God to those who believe in Him. This is the gospel in a nutshell. You either believe the truth as presented in Christ, or you don’t believe the truth, and what you are believing is a lie. That’s the choice that we have; believe the truth, or believe the lie of the devil.
Now to those who have believed that Jesus is the truth, and have accepted that all that He said and taught is the truth, they have received life as a gift from God. God recognizes their faith in His Son, and bestows upon them His grace, whereby their sins are forgiven, and they receive the life of God; spiritual life, eternal life, abundant life.
The disciples represent the first of those who believed in Christ. They believed in Him, that His words were the truth of God, the very words of life. Peter said in John 6:68, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life. We have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God.” So they became saved as a result of their belief. They received spiritual life. And so as we have studied the Upper Room Discourse over the last few weeks we have learned that Jesus has been talking to them in the last hours before His death about that life and what it will look like, and what will be the experience of it.
Jesus in these 4 chapters has talked about the fruit of the spiritual life, which we learned is to be like Him. He has talked about the works of spiritual life which He said is to love one another. He has talked about the persecution they could expect in this spiritual life. He has talked about the reward of the spiritual life. And interwoven throughout this entire discourse, Jesus has talked about the source of spiritual life, which is the Holy Spirit.
And what I would like to do to start our discussion of the Holy Spirit today is to read all the things that Jesus has to say about the Spirit of God. Because as John records it, it is interspersed over 3 chapters and sometimes we can lose sight of all that Jesus was saying because we don’t read this discourse in sequence. Some of these we have studied, some we haven’t. But I think as we look at these statements sequentially we can begin to tie all of this together this week and next week into one comprehensive doctrine concerning the ministry of the Holy Spirit. There is a sequence in Jesus’s statements that build one upon another, which is evident as you look at them together. So Jesus starts in chapter 14:16, saying: “I will ask the Father, and 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 does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you.”
Then in John 14:26 Jesus says, “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.
Then in John 15:26 He says, “When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, that is the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify about Me, and you will testify also, because you have been with Me from the beginning.”
And now in John 16:7 we read, “But 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 go, I will send Him to you. And He, when He comes, will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment;
concerning sin, because they do not believe in Me; and concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father and you no longer see Me; and concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world has been judged.”
And the last statement Jesus makes is in John 16:13 “But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of Mine and will disclose it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine; therefore I said that He takes of Mine and will disclose it to you.”
I believe the doctrine of the Holy Spirit is one of the most important doctrines in the gospel, and yet it is often the most misunderstood doctrine in the church today. I wish I had time to go line by line of each of those references, but we don’t have that luxury this morning. However, you can go to our website and look back over my sermons on each of those texts and put them all together if you like. But one thing that I must point out and that is that Jesus says in vs.14 the Holy Spirit will glorify Jesus Christ. That in and of itself disqualifies a lot of stuff that is represented out there as the work of the Holy Spirit. If it does not glorify Christ, then it isn’t of the Spirit, and it is not of God. There are deceitful spirits working in the church as well, so we are told to test the spirits. We know the Spirit of Truth because the Holy Spirit does not glorify Himself, but He glorifies Christ.
Spurgeon said it this way; “To begin, then, the HOLY SPIRIT IS OUR LORD'S GLORIFIER. I want you to keep this truth in your mind, and never to forget it; that which does not glorify Christ is not of the Holy Spirit, and that which is of the Holy Spirit invariably glorifies our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Now notice that Jesus identifies the Holy Spirit with two different titles which help us to understand the ministry of the Holy Spirit. He calls Him the Helper, which in the Greek is “parakletos”. “Parakletos” means to come alongside. That is what is meant by Helper. He comes alongside us to help us, to guide us and teach us. And the second title Jesus uses is the Spirit of Truth. I really like that title in particular. Because it teaches us the nature of ministry of the Holy Spirit. He helps us not by some feeling, or through some experience, but by revelation or explanation of the truth. He does that in two ways; first He authored the scriptures. 2Tim. 3:16, “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness.” And in 2Peter 1:21, it says, “For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” So the Spirit of Truth is the author of the scriptures. And in the New Testament, that was through the apostles, whom Jesus tells in John 14:26, “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.” That revelation of Christ through the Spirit was written down for us in the New Testament. And I believe that revelation in that sense has been completed. I don’t think the Bible teaches that revelation is ongoing. However, the Spirit does reveal the truth of revelation. Which is the second work of the Spirit of Truth.
So secondly, the Spirit of Truth works by revealing to us the truth as contained in scriptures. He illuminates our minds and hearts so we can see the truth of God. He shows us and guides us through the scriptures. John 16:13 says, “But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth… and John 16:15 says, “All things that the Father has are Mine; therefore I said that He takes of Mine and will disclose it to you.” Notice that the Spirit takes the words of Christ and discloses it to us. That is the premier work of the Spirit. To help us understand the scriptures.
Now as we continue in this week’s text Jesus gives us a further elaboration on the nature of the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Jesus has just finished telling the disciples of the hostility of the world towards them. And yet their response to that hostility, even in the face of persecution is that they will show the love of God towards the enmity of the world, and thus reflect Christ to the world. He tells them that the way they will be able to do this in the face of hostility will be through the power of the Holy Spirit. In 15:26, Jesus says the Spirit will testify of Me, and you will testify also. That is how we love the world.
Now in vs.7, He says it is to their advantage that He goes away, because then He will send the Holy Spirit to them to come alongside of them, to help them. That is such an understatement it’s easy to just pass right by it. But Jesus did not come to earth for His advantage, but He came for our advantage. He suffered and died for our advantage. Such a great principle. So in like manner He is dying, He will leave earth for our advantage, so that He might send the Spirit of Truth to lead us and guide us, wherever we are, however many of us there are, no matter what age we live in. It’s to our advantage to receive the Spirit, because then He will be in us, and be with us forever.
Now as we come to vs.8, it is a common misinterpretation to look at those verses without the context of vs.7. The common mistake is to take those verses to mean the Holy Spirit’s ministry to the world. But that is not what the context tells us. Looking at vs.7 more carefully, we see that Jesus doesn’t say He is sending the Holy Spirit to the world, but that He is sending the Spirit of Truth to the disciples. And the disciples are sent to the world. Vs.7, “But 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 go, I will send Him to you.”
Now that’s an important distinction. Because some have erroneously interpreted vs.8-11 as something that is only true about unbelievers. As if to say that conviction of sin is not something that pertains to Christians. But that is not actually what is being talked about here. What Jesus is talking about, is that the Spirit of Truth will come to the disciples, and through the disciples He will convince the world of sin, of righteousness and of judgment.
I want to spend the rest of our time explaining this testimony of the church to the world concerning sin, righteousness and judgment as enabled by the Holy Spirit. But first, let’s consider the word which is translated as convict, or concerning, depending on your translation. The Greek word is “elegchÅ”. And there are several different ways this word has been translated. In some other places in the Bible it is translated as rebuke, or reprimand, or expose, or reprove, and of course, convict. Some commentators seem to think that it would be better interpreted as convince. The distinction then being to convict is to bring a charge of guilt, whereas to convince is to persuade someone of the truth of a certain matter. I believe convince is more in keeping with what Jesus is teaching here. He isn’t charging the disciples to convict the world, though that may happen as a result of their preaching the gospel. But He is telling the disciples that through the Spirit of Truth they will convince the world of the truth, so as to enable them to fulfill their ministry, which is to go into the world and make disciples.
The Bible does say in 2Tim.2:25 that God grants repentance to the sinner. But that is not necessarily the primary thing Jesus is talking about here as we will see. He is talking about the disciples testimony to convince the world in regards to the truth of the gospel. The Holy Spirit will give conviction through the disciples words as to the truth of what they are preaching.
So the Spirit of Truth works through the disciples to produce three things in the world. First, He convinces the world of sin. Note that Jesus does not say, “of sins.” The point He is making is not enumerating individual, particular sins. He is talking about sin in general. And John records Jesus’s explanation of that sin in vs.9, “concerning sin, because they do not believe in Me.”
The Lord is saying that the sin is that they do not believe in Him. In other words the essence of sin is not what we do. The essence of sin is what we believe. And when we do not believe in the Lord Jesus that is the root of all sin. For example; when Eve sinned it was not just that she ate of the forbidden fruit. It was that she chose to believe the serpent rather than God. That was the root sin, the eating of the fruit was just an extension of that. The sin took place in her heart as she turned from belief in God to believing in the word of the serpent.
For instance, immorality is sin, but sin is the root of immorality. The reason men do the various acts of evil, whether it be adultery, murder, thievery, burglary, et cetera is ultimately because they do not believe. They sin in the heart by rejecting the truth and believing the lie. And as Jesus is the truth personified, they consequently reject God. They do not believe what He has said concerning life, and have chosen to believe something else.
That’s why in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said that if you lusted in your heart you were guilty of adultery. If you hated, you were guilty of murder. Sin finds it’s root in the heart. In belief or unbelief. In truth or the lie. All of the outward expressions of sin such as addiction or adultery or murder are simply symptoms of the heart’s condition. The person who is the sinner before God is the person who has not believed in the Lord Jesus Christ. And that is why our actions cannot be separated from our belief. It is not simply enough to say you believe but your life evidences your faith in the lie of the world. Our actions will reflect what we believe. Our faith is expressed by our actions. Thus James could say, “faith without works is dead.”
When the disciples, or by extension, when the church preaches the truth of Christ, then the world’s unbelief is exposed. Their sin of unbelief is exposed. But also that is the means of convincing them of the truth of Christ. 1Cor, 1:21, “For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.” So we preach the truth of God, either from a pulpit, or from a backyard fence, or from the water cooler at work. We preach the truth of God either by words or deeds and ultimately by both. And that is how we show the world the love of God as well by convincing the world of their sin. Love requires that we expose sin, not condone it. Because until the world is convinced of their sin, they have no recognition of their need for a Savior.
The second aspect of the ministry of the Holy Spirit is that He convinces the world concerning righteousness. And once again, we can run in all different directions on this unless we consider the explanation of Jesus in vs.10, “and concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father and you no longer see Me.” So the Spirit is not convincing the world of their righteousness or the lack of it, but rather, He convinces the world of the righteousness of Christ.
Now what is it about our Lord’s going to the Father that convinces the world of righteousness? Why does it convince the world of righteousness if the Lord Jesus goes to the Father?
I suggest it is because we preach the risen Christ. The resurrection of Christ establishes Christ’s righteousness. The resurrection is unique among all world philosophies and religions. It is a major tenet of our faith. Because the fact that Christ is risen proves the righteousness of Christ. Peter preaching on the day of Pentecost quotes David and says, “You will not allow your Holy One to see decay.” God declared the holiness of Christ before the hordes of hell and the hosts of heaven, and He declares through us the holiness of Christ as we tell the world that Christ is risen from the grave and now sits at the right hand of the Father. We declare the gospel to be true because Jesus was declared righteous by God in that He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at the right hand of the Father in heaven. And as we show the righteousness of Christ, then we show the standard of righteousness of God. And that standard of righteousness convinces the world of sin, because it shows what counts as righteousness in God’s eyes.
As we preach the gospel, implicit in it is the fact that our salvation is dependent not upon our righteousness, but upon the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ. Titus 3:4-7, “But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”
The third ministry of the Spirit of Truth is He will convince the world of judgment. Now the common application there is that He will convince the world of the judgment to come upon sinners. Though Jesus had much to say about hell and the judgment to come, He isn’t talking about the judgment of sinners in hell in this passage per se. But He says in vs.11, “concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world has been judged.”
Jesus is speaking of the judgment of sin as He looks forward to the cross. The hold that Satan has upon the world will be broken, because Jesus will take the sin of the world upon Himself as our substitute, and He will break the power of sin, and thus judge Satan. In 2Timothy 2:24 Paul speaks of preaching to the world and says, “The Lord’s bond-servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will.” Notice the snare of the devil holds captive those who are lost. And that snare is ignorance of the truth, or a lie substituted for the truth.
John said in 1 John 3:8 that “the devil has sinned from the beginning. The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil.” He destroys the lie by showing us the truth. So how Christ defeats Satan is by setting free those who Satan has kept captive, and transferring them to the kingdom of God. Colossians 1:13, “For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son.” And in Colossians 2:15, Paul declares that the judgment of the ruler of this world(Satan) has been made public at Christ’s resurrection. “When He had disarmed the rulers and authorities, He made a public display of them, having triumphed over them through Him.”
So the Holy Spirit convinces the world of sin, righteousness and judgment through Christ’s transformed people. The world cannot receive the ministry of the Holy Spirit. We receive the ministry of Holy Spirit, and we are the instruments by which the world is to be brought to the knowledge of sin, righteousness and judgment. And that is to be done through the walk of the Christian, through the witness of the Christian, through the prayers of the Christian, and through the worship of the Christian. We are the reflection of Jesus Christ to the world through our testimony, our preaching, and through our life.
This is an important principle that Jesus is teaching not only to the disciples but to us today as well. And that is this, that God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the wise. He has chosen the branches of the vine to be fruitful. He has chosen to use us to make His gospel known. He has chosen us to be the temple of the Holy Spirit, so that the works of Christ will be done through us.
I’ve said it many times before. When God does a work on the earth, He usually choses to do it through a man. Can God work without man’s participation? Of course. But we have been chosen to be co-laborors with Christ. He has given His Spirit to live in us that we might participate in the Kingdom expansion.
Examples in the scriptures abound. For instance, Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch. The eunuch had been to Jerusalem to worship. He had acquired somehow a scroll of the book of Isaiah. He was providentially reading at chapter 53. But God plucked Philip up and dropped him in the middle of the desert at just the right time to bring the man to the knowledge of the truth, and the eunuch was saved.
Could he not have been brought to faith by the word of God alone? Of course. God didn’t need Phillip, but God has in this age generally speaking, determined that individuals come to faith in Christ through the true church of Christ, through the witness, through the walk, through the worship, through the words of believers, so Jesus said, “The Holy Spirit whom I will send to you will convict the world of sin, righteousness and judgment.”
Another example is Cornelius. He was a good man in the eyes of the Jews. He was seeking to know the truth, to know God. And God appeared to Peter in a dream and told him to go to speak with Cornelius. Even on the road to Damascus, God used Ananias to teach and disciple Paul. So right at this very moment he is using me as I hope he uses you throughout this week to be an instrument in the communication of the message of God.
God wants to use you to be His representative here on earth. But He doesn’t give us a job to do without equipping us to do it. And so He has given us a Helper, the Spirit of Truth to be in us, and to be with us forever. We are the conduit, but He is the power of God working in us and through us, as we are being conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. I pray that starting today you will testify to the world through the agency of the Holy Spirit, convincing them of sin, and righteousness, and judgment. Convincing them of the truth of God that leads to life.
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