Authentic Christianity, John 16:12-15

Today’s message is entitled “Authentic Christianity.”  This is a subject that I feel very strongly about, and I believe the Lord feels very strongly about it as well.  The meaning of  the word “authentic” is of undisputed origin, genuine, true, the real deal.  And as we study John’s gospel I believe this theme is emphasized over and over again. I believe authentic Christianity is very important to God.  And so it should be very important to us.  

God doesn’t want superficial Christianity.  He is not moved by lip service.  He is not interested in rituals and ceremonies and observing holy days which are supposed to honor the Lord, but in reality act as a facade for carnal hearts. In fact, Jesus said to the church of Laodecia in Revelation 3:15, “I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot; I wish that you were cold or hot. So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth. Because you say, “I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing,” and you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked, I advise you to buy from Me gold refined by fire so that you may become rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself, and that the shame of your nakedness will not be revealed; and eye salve to anoint your eyes so that you may see. Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline; therefore be zealous and repent.”  

Now that’s some pretty harsh talk for a bridegroom to say to His bride, is it not?  And yet this is how the Lord feels about superficial, sanctimonious churches that are not acting according to the truth.  David said in Psalm 51:6, “Behold, You desire truth in the innermost being, And in the hidden part You will make me know wisdom.”  God cares about the integrity of His people. Truth is important to God. The word truth is used in the Bible 235 times.  And in the book of John it is used 27 times.  

John 3:33 says that God is true.  Jesus said in John 14:6 that “I am the way, the truth and the life.”  He calls the Holy Spirit the Spirit of truth in John 14:17, John 15:26, and John 16:13. And Jesus says that the word is truth in John 17:17.  I would suggest that God defines Himself as truth.  He cares about truth.  God has declared absolute truth.  And so He cares that we walk in the truth. (2John 1:4)  So without question truth is important to God.

And truth is important to me.  It’s the reason that I preach the gospel.  It is because of a desire to know the truth, and that the truth would be known.  Many of you are familiar with my story.  But for those that aren’t - I am a preacher’s kid.  Preacher’s kids have it tough for a whole host of reasons that I won’t elaborate on today.  But be that as it may, as a genre we are notorious for rebelling and going astray.  And I was no exception. My dad had been an Army sergeant in the paratroopers before he got saved, and he brought us up by very strict standards.   So by 21 or so I had decided to leave home and try to find out if the world was as fun as it looked.  Long story short, I ended up getting as far away from God and my dad’s ministry as I could get.  I ended up in Redondo Beach, California. After a few years, I realized one day that I couldn’t remember the last time I had gone to bed sober.  I had explored all of the deviant pleasures that the world had to offer and still ended up empty and miserable.  And along the way, my love for God had become so cold I wasn’t even sure what I believed anymore.

To add to my problems, I had come to know someone that was a Seventh Day Adventist.  And in the process of discussing religion with them, I found that many of the things that I thought to be true about Christianity I really did not have any basis for believing, other than that was how I had been raised. Which caused me to have serious doubts about what was really the truth.  And so one day all of this culminated in a bout of some serious soul searching.  I became under conviction of the Holy Spirit.  I knew I needed to get right with God, but I spent all day walking the beach, trying to shake it off. Eventually though, God got me alone in my garage that evening, and I began to pour out my heart to the Lord and ask for forgiveness and express my need to have Him take over my failed life.

Especially though because of the questions I had developed due to my exposure to Seventh Day Adventism, I wanted to  know the truth.  And so I prayed to God that if He would show me the truth, I would do it.  Even if it meant that everything I had been raised to believe was wrong, I wanted to know the truth.  And I asked God to show me.  

I had always heard that when someone comes to the Lord he should read the book of John.  And so after I threw away my drugs and alcohol and cigarettes, I found a little New Testament, and began reading the book of John.  And a couple of hours later or so, I came upon this verse we are looking at in our text today.  Verse 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.”   I believe the Holy Spirit specifically illuminated that phrase, “He will guide you into all the truth…”  And I have been pursuing that truth for about 40 years now.

So I believe God wants authentic Christians. Jesus said in John 4:24, “God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”  To that end, God has given us the Spirit of Truth, so that we might worship Him as He wants to be worshipped.  

I saw a sign at a local church the other day which had a quote from Bishop Desmund Tutu. The sign said “Different faiths help us to realize the immensity of God.” But such a definition of God means that this big God doesn’t care how He is represented.  He must not care how we worship Him.  It must mean that He has not declared who He is. But that belief offends the very concept of an Almighty God.  God has manifested Himself to the world in the person and words of Jesus Christ, who said they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and truth. 

The concept of truth has various dimensions, depending on how it is used.  But as it relates to worshipping God, to being a disciple of Christ, Jesus indicates that the knowledge of the truth is progressive.  Jesus said in vs.12, “I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth.” 

What Jesus is indicating there is that the disciples had a limited capacity to understand the truth.  They were still struggling with the basic truths of the gospel as He had been teaching them.  The commentator Ellicott said,  “The revelation of Christ is not an imperfect revelation which the Holy Spirit is to supplement. It is a full revelation imperfectly received, and His office is to illumine the heart, and bring home to it the things of Christ.” 

So for the disciples to understand fully the truth of God, God had to give them a Helper to illumine their hearts and lead them to the truth.  And He did that through the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit is the guarantee of authenticity.  His ministry in the life of a believer is like the seal that is placed on an item that guarantees it as being authentic, the real deal.   Ephesians 1:13

speaks of that seal, saying, “In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation—having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise.”

So as the disciples come to believe truth of Christ, and trust that truth and act upon it, then they will be capable of receiving more truth which will be administered through the Spirit of truth.

That principle of progressive truth is taught throughout the scriptures.  Psalm 119:105 says, “Your word is a lamp to my feet, And a light to my path.”  What that teaches is the nature of truth. A lamp in those days was an oil burning lantern.  It did not shine a beam of light like a flashlight.  But it cast a glow a few feet in front of you.  And that is the nature of truth.  It is revealed as we walk in it.  As we are obedient to the truth revealed at that step, God will reveal the next step.  As so we walk in the truth, step by step.

But Jesus is also indicating that they will receive another teacher of the truth.  As He has been their teacher for 3 years, now the time has come when He is going to be handing off their discipleship to another teacher who will take them to the next level of truth.  At this point, Jesus has taken them as far as they can go.  They are not able to bear the next level of truth at that point. And the reason is that they haven’t yet proved, or tested that truth.  

For instance, for all that Jesus has taught them concerning Himself, His divinity, His death and resurrection, the disciples have not fully understood what He was saying.  But as the next few days unfold, they will witness His death, they will witness His resurrection, and they will receive the Holy Spirit.  Those events will exponentially increase their level of comprehension.  It’s one thing to believe Christ is God in theory.  But when they see His resurrected body those theories will be proven to be actionable truth that God will build upon through the guidance of the Spirit.

That is the idea that Jesus was expressing in the quote from Revelation to the church at Laodecia I mentioned earlier.  Jesus said, “I advise you to buy from Me gold refined by fire so that you may become rich.”  There is  truth that is refined by the fire of experience, or refined by the fire of persecution or trial that proves the truth of the scriptures in a way that enables us to take the Christian walk to the next level.  It is possible to learn a biblical principle, but then God causes events to transpire in such a way that it tests your faith in that principle, so that you will really come to comprehend it.  And that testing then increases your faith.

But the main point Jesus is making is that He is ending His time with them as a teacher, and He is handing over that responsibility to the Holy Spirit who will continue to lead them and guide them as He had done for the last 3 years.  

Notice how Jesus describes the Spirit.  He calls Him the Spirit of truth.  In fact, three times Jesus refers to the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of truth.  (John 14:7, John 15:26, and of course now in 16:13) Now that’s important because it stresses the principle that the Holy Spirit will always act in accordance to the truth.  Nothing that claims to be of the Spirit should ever be relied upon if it is not in accordance with the truth of God’s word. That is how we can recognize whether or not something is of the Spirit. We may have some kind of experience which we think is spiritual, but if it doesn't agree with the revealed truth of God in scripture, then it must be dismissed as a false spirit.  John said in 1John 4:1, “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.”  So you can test the spirits by the word of God.  The Bible is the revealed truth of God.

He also is called the Spirit of truth because He is the means of God conveying the truth of scripture.  Peter said in 2Peter 1:20, “But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.” And Paul also in  2Timothy 3:16 says, “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.”  Inspiration means “God breathed.”  And it’s interesting that the word in Greek for spirit is pneuma, which means breath of air.  So the scripture is breathed by God through the Holy Spirit to the agency of human writers.  That is why He is called the Spirit of Truth.  

And in this description of the Spirit’s ministry, once again Jesus refers to this principle we mentioned earlier of progressive revelation.  He says “He will guide you in to all the truth.”  To guide is to lead.  Sort of like leading someone by the hand. It is not a once and done operation.  But continually being filled with the Spirit’s leading, by being yielded to the Spirit’s teaching.

So then it is proper that there is a period of infancy in the Christian life.  After all, we are first born again by the Spirit.  But then we are to walk in the Spirit, and grow in the Spirit. It is proper to have a time when you feed on the milk of the word, but there should come a time when you begin to eat meat.  And then as you grow into maturity, you begin to feed others. 

The disciples were at this point only able to receive milk.  They couldn’t handle the meat because they were not mature.  The same situation was seen in Corinth, and Paul reprimands the church there because they should have graduated by this time to solid food, but they had not.   1Cor. 3:2, “I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able to receive it. Indeed, even now you are not yet able.”  Why?  Because they were still carnal.  They had not grown into maturity in Christ.

Listen, we are called to grow up in maturity and stature in the Lord.  We are to grow into the image of Christ.  That involves being trained in righteousness, taught in sound doctrine, and practiced in godly works.  That is what the Spirit wishes to lead us into, and it is incumbent upon us to yield to His leading.  We need to be obedient to the truth revealed thus far, and as we do that He will guide us into all the truth.  Far too many Christians have accepted the basic truth of Christianity so that they are born again, but that is as far as they have gone.  And as a result the church today is carnal, worldly, and ineffective.  Being filled with the Spirit is crucifying the flesh and being yielded to what the Spirit says through the word.

Now the other way we can authenticate the Spirit of truth,  is because Jesus says “He shall not speak of His own initiative.” In other words, He doesn’t speak of Himself.  He speaks the words of Christ and glorifies Christ in all He does.  Jesus uses the same method to determine the Spirit’s truth just as He validated the truth of His own words.  Jesus said in  John 14:10 “Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works.”  And in the 8th chapter, Jesus says that His words are the words of God, and that He does not glorify Himself but He glorifies God.  

So by the same standard He says the Spirit is true. Because the Spirit does not speak on HIs own initiative.  In other words, there is one source for truth and that is God.  And all the trinity is unified because as Jesus speaks the words of the Father, so the Spirit speaks the words of Christ.  They are in harmony with one another..  And I would add that they are in harmony with scripture.  

It’s important to note that Jesus teaches us that truth is not by man’s discovery, but by divine revelation.  Jesus says in vs.14, “He will take of Mine and will disclose it to you.”  We don’t need to go seeking truth on a mountain, or through some guru, or by some vision.  Truth is revealed to us through the revelation of God in the Bible, and the Holy Spirit illuminates our minds for us so that we might understand it as we believe it and are obedient to it.

I would like to make one more comment about vs.13 before we move too far from it.  And that is the truth, or all the truth, as Christ speaks of.  What is this truth?  It is not “all truth,” as some translations have it.  For the Holy Spirit does not reveal to us the truth of chemistry, or the truth of Algebra, or things of that nature.  We do not become experts on all truth by the power of the Holy Spirit.  But we are guided into all the truth.  All the truth of the gospel, and what pertains to spiritual life from God. 

That is the truth of God.  Jesus said, I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father except by Me.  So to be guided in all the truth is to be guided to a new way of life from God.  God is the source of life.  He holds all life in His grasp.  Nothing exists without Him or can exist outside of Him.  And Jesus came to show us the way to God, the way to the source of life.  That way is through coming to believe in the truth of God as revealed in Jesus Christ.  

That’s what I mean by saying authentic Christianity. Proverbs 14:12 says, “There is a way that seems right to a man, But its end is the way of death.”  God’s way is through Jesus Christ.  That’s what Christianity was called before they were called Christians.  It was called “The Way.”  And Christ’s way is by following the truth that leads to life.  Abundant life.  Eternal life.  Authentic life.  It doesn’t concern itself with just putting on a religious front. 

Authentic Christianity is not a self righteous life.  Authentic Christianity is not religious superficiality.  Authentic Christianity is rooted in the truth of God’s word.  The truth that mankind is fallen and cannot have fellowship with God.  The truth that Christ came to die for sinners, so that our sins might be forgiven and reconciled to God.  Authentic Christianity believes the truth and is made free from the penalty of sin and the power of sin.  And so we commit ourselves to the truth. We aren’t concerned about superficial, emotionally based, feel good Christianity without regard for the truth.  Authentic Christianity realizes that we are all fallen people and that we need to know the truth to be free from the snare and captivity of Satan.  

We know we have to walk in the truth to the best of our ability.  The devil wants to convince you that you can live life in neutral spiritually.  That is a lie of Satan.  Jesus said I wish you were either hot or cold.  Authentic Christianity requires staying hot.  Staying the course, regardless of the trials.  Persevering.  Even through suffering.  But all the while believing that this Way is the truth and it requires our daily commitment to it if we are going to succeed as God would have us to. 

I would like to end with a story from Genesis chapter 24 as a way of illustrating this ministry of the Holy Spirit and summing up His purpose for us. You may remember in Genesis 24 there is the story of Abraham obtaining a bride for Isaac his son, and there is an unnamed servant, who is sent far away to Abraham’s distant relatives in order to find a bride for Isaac.  In this story, Abraham allegorically represents the Father, and Isaac of course represents Jesus, and the servant represents the Holy Spirit.  So it says Abraham sends out this unnamed servant who is to find a wife for his son. It’s interesting the servant doesn’t have a name. He has a title, but not a name. So the unnamed Spirit or the unnamed servant goes on this journey and comes to a well where a girl comes and waters his camels.  And there he is led by the Lord to Rebecca, who is the one whom the Lord has chosen to be the wife of Abraham’s son. 

Later that day  they gather around the table as they are getting ready to eat and the servant of Abraham says, “I will not eat anything until I have told you my business.” And with that he begins to tell of the glories of Abraham and the son. He says, “My master is a great man. He’s been made great, and furthermore he has given everything that he has into the hands of his son. And I’m here to obtain a bride for the son.”

Well that is exactly what the Holy Spirit does in his work of glorifying Jesus Christ. He glorifies the Lord Jesus Christ, and through his ministry He teaches us the truth of Christ, so that we might be joined to Christ as His bride, the church.  As Jesus says in vs.14-15, the Spirit takes the things of Christ and discloses them to us so that we might be a fit bride of Christ.  So that we might be taught the complete knowledge of Christ.  So that we might be conformed to Christ.  So that we might be matured in Christ, so that we might do the works of Christ,  that one day we might be glorified with Christ.  And He does that through leading us and guiding us in all the truth that is necessary for life and godliness.  

Ephesians 5:25 says, “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word,

That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.”  This is the ministry of the Spirit of truth, to present us to Christ, even as Abraham’s servant presented Rebecca to Isaac.  

At the beginning of this chapter, Jesus said in vs.1, “These things I have spoken to you so that you may be kept from stumbling.”  He has given us a guide to keep us from stumbling.  To present us faultless, without spot or wrinkle, that we might be the glorious church of Christ.  That is the ministry of the Spirit of truth.  To lead us and guide us into all the truth, so that we might not stumble.  So that we might be found a fit bride at Christ’s return.  

Convincing the world of sin, righteousness and judgment, John 16:5-11.

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, abundant life, eternal 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 the words of eternal life. We have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God.”   The disciples were 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 new 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 as we study the ministry 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 in this book, it is interspersed over 3 chapters and sometimes we can lose track of all that Jesus was saying because we don’t read this discourse in sequence.  Some of these statements 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 upon one 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 one of the most misunderstood doctrines in the church today.  I wish I had time to go line by line through 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 emphasize 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 attributed 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 in the book of James to test the spirits.  We know the Spirit of Truth because the Holy Spirit does not glorify Himself, but He glorifies Christ.

Charles 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 speaks of the nature of the ministry of the Holy Spirit.  The Spirit of Truth helps us not by some experience, but by revelation or explanation of the truth.  

The Spirit of Truth 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 1:20, it says, “But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is [a matter] of one's own interpretation,  for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.”  So the Spirit of Truth is the author of the scriptures.  And in the New Testament, that was given 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 opens our minds and hearts so we can understand the truth of God.  He leads 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.  The Spirit empowers the scriptures to us. Heb 4:12 “For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”

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 manifest love to 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 as 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.  And please understand that we receive the Spirit at salvation.  The disciples didn’t receive Him until Pentecost, but since Pentecost, all believers receive Him at salvation.  As Romans 8:9 says, “However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him.”

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 “elegchō”.  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.  But some commentators seem to think that it would be better interpreted as convince.  The distinction 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.  

Jesus 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 expression of that unbelief  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 the sin of unbelief 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 the lie of the world.

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 that actually you are believing 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 by raising Jesus from the dead, 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.

And as we preach the gospel, implicit in it is the fact that our salvation is not dependent upon our righteousness, but upon the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ.  2 Cor. 5:21 says, “God made Jesus, who knew no sin, to be sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.”  We are saved by faith, by which we believe God, and God grants us the righteousness of Jesus Christ to our account.

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 the witness of 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.  

There are many examples of this in scripture.  For instance, Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch. The eunuch had been to Jerusalem to worship.  He had acquired 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 so that he might be saved. 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 gospel 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 the 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 power of the Holy Spirit, convincing them of sin, and righteousness, and judgment.  Convincing them of the truth of God that leads to life.  

Rom 1:16 “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.”