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5 but now I am going to him who sent me. None of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ 6 Rather, you are filled with grief because I have said these things. 7 But very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. 8 When he comes, he will prove the world to be in the wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: 9 about sin, because people do not believe in me; 10 about righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; 11 and about judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned. ~ John 16:5-11
According to v.5-6, the disciples were very distraught over the Lord Jesus’ leaving them. They were distraught and in great danger of being distracted by the lesser things in this life. Like us, even our most painful moments are redeemable by God.
According to v.7, the Lord Jesus addresses the disciples' sorrow. It is the Lord Jesus, Himself, not the circumstances of this life, that must navigate us to the fulfilling life He offers. The Lord Jesus is confronting His followers potential disbelief. And, in order to see this, He is convincing them that His departure is to their advantage.
Like those first followers of the Lord, we are never going to be able to truly hear the voice of God or even trust the promises God if we are locked into a myopic focus on our pain. It is not until we see our lives through His eyes that we begin to get it. And, the Holy Sprit's primary responsibility in our lives is to turn our vision to what God wants to do through our circumstances.
Interestingly enough, the Lord Jesus speaks if the Holy Spirit as coming to believers in v.7. During the course of restoration work on Leonardo da Vinci's painting, The Last Supper, the leader of the project discovered that the face of the Lord Jesus in the painting had been distorted by five hundred years of grime, glue, and plaster. Her work with high-powered microscopes, surgical scalpels, and special solvents has revealed the face of Jesus as Leonardo portrayed it.
This is what the Holy Spirit does for us. Our understanding of the Lord Jesus gets distorted, but the Holy Spirit hones for us our perspective of the Lord Jesus and what He wants to accomplish for us, in us and through us.
Now, in v.8, the Lord Jesus turns our attention to the Spirit’s relationship to the world. The Holy Spirit convicts the world of three things: sin, righteousness and judgment. He convicts the world of what it has (sin), what it doesn't have (righteousness) and the effect of what it does have and doesn't have (judgment).
The word “convict” is a legal term that means to expose guilt. This word is used here specifically in relationship to the world, not to believers. In fact, there is no example in Scripture of the use of this word “convict” with reference to believers. Therefore, the word “convict” doesn’t apply to us, because Christ took our guilt on His cross.
Believers in the Lord Jesus do not have to prosecute the world. Our responsibility is to tell people what we know about Jesus. The Holy Spirit takes care of the rest. First, the Holy Spirit convicts the world of their sin, because they don't believe in Jesus. They have rejected God. The way to God is faith in Jesus Christ. If they believed in Christ, no conviction regarding sin would be called for, because they would not be guilty of sin. Christ was condemned in place of all believers; he absorbed our guilt. But unbelievers are guilty of sin. The Holy Spirit convicts them of this guilt so that they will receive the forgiveness God offers in His Son, Jesus Christ.
Notice that the word “sin” is singular, not plural. He is putting forth the idea that mankind is innately sinful. The world is guilty before God and separated from Him because sin has separated them from Him.
The reason he says the world needs to be convicted of sin is that “they do not believe in Me.” Part of what unbelief does is deny sinfulness. The Holy Spirit exposes the sin of the world mainly through our proclamation of the gospel. In our teaching of the truth, and through our relationship with the Lord Jesus.
The Holy Spirit, also, convicts the world of righteousness. If convicting the world of sin is convincing it of something it does have, convicting the world of righteousness is convincing it of something it doesn’t have. Righteousness means right standing before God.
In addition, the Holy Spirit convicts the world of judgment, “because the prince of this world now stands condemned.” The Lord Jesus speaks of this judgment as having already been done, but it is actually going to happen the next day, when He goes to the cross to defeat Satan once and for all and judge him. His saying it has already happened simply means that it is such a sure thing that He can speak of it as done even beforehand. It’s a very common device in the literature of the day.
Some of the most effective witnesses are those who have gone through painful, trying circumstances. Those who rise above their circumstances understand that God uses every experience for good, that any situation we face is under the authority of a kind, and loving Father. Through life's circumstances, God reveals to us opportunities for impacting people with the gospel. These are often chances we wouldn’t have had apart from those trying circumstances.
I close with a slight take on something Winston Churchill once said: We will fail at being witnesses if we stop and throw stones at all the dogs that bark.
