Notice -

I. WHENCE HE CAME. "I came out from the Father." This implies:

1. Unity or oneness of nature. It is not "I came from the presence of the Father," or "from a near point to him," but "I came out from him" - an expression which would be highly improper to be used by any one but by him who is equal and one with the Father, one in nature and essence. It is clearly the language of an equal, and not of an inferior.

2. Nearness of relationship. The human relationship which best expresses the relationship of the "eternal Word" to the Godhead is that of father and son, and this is used. It must not be carried too far, but we are grateful for it, as it sheds some light on Christ with regard to the Godhead; he stands in the most near and natural relationship to him, and this relationship is not outward, accidental, and transient, but inward, essential, and everlasting - the relationship of nature and essence.

3. The most intimate fellowship and acquaintance. The Divine nature is social. We like the idea of the unity of God, one supreme Being fulfilling the idea of perfect oneness; and we like also the idea of a Trinity which deprives mere unity of its dreariness, loneliness, anti monotony, and fills it with the joys and delights of society - the royal and Divine society of the Divine nature. "I came out from," etc. Their fellowship must be most intimate, inspiring, and pure, and their acquaintance perfect.

4. The warmest friendship. What must be the mutual friendship of the Father of love with the Son of his love? It must be the warmest, intensest, sweetest, and most delightful. The purest and most loving human friendships fade before this.

5. The most dignified and glorious position. "From the Father." The most glorious position in the universe. His position was equal with that of the eternal Father, his glory was as resplendent, his throne as majestic, his scepter as universal, and his throne as dignified.

6. A Divine procession. It is difficult, in human language, to describe the Divine movements, and to add anything in explanation to the simple statement of our Lord, which to him was quite plain. "I came out," etc. But there must be a special movement of the Divine nature on the part of the Son, a coming out from the Father, a partial but temporary separation, and a procession of him whose goings forth have been from of old.

II. WHITHER WE CAME. As we see the first movement of the eternal Son, we are inclined to ask whither will he go? Doubtless to one of the largest planets, in one of the most glorious systems in the universe. No; but he came into the world. He was in the world before, but now came to it, and came into it in a usual, natural way, by birth. This implies:

1. A great distance. From the Father into the world. The physical distance must be great, but the moral distance greater still. From the Divine to the human, from the sphere of Divine glory, purity, and life, to the sphere of shame, sin, sorrow, and death. The distance was infinite, and the journey was long.

2. A great change. There is a change of air, from the pure air of the Father's presence to the foul air of this world. A change of sceneries, of society, of associations, of relationships. The old ones were only partially left, but new ones were formed. A new nature was assumed; new conditions, circumstances, and employments under-token. The nature of the creature was assumed by the Creator, the nature of the sinner was assumed by Divine purity, and the nature of weakness was assumed by infinite power. The Son of God became the Son of man, the form of God was exchanged for the form of a servant, and the Lord of heaven became the tenant of this wretched, insignificant, and rebellious world. What a change! What a change from the throne to the manger, from the crown to the cross, from the society of the Father and angels to that of the rebellious children of the Fall, from the sweet music of heaven to the malignant execrations of earth!

3. A great mission. "Am come into the world." This suggests that he came as an Ambassador; and the very fact that he came from the Father into the world proves that he came upon a most important mission - a mission which deeply affected the very heart of the King, the honor of his throne, and the well-being of his subjects. His important mission was to effect reconciliation between earth and heaven; to condemn sin and save the sinner; to conquer forever the prince of this world and the powers of darkness, and create a new heaven and a new earth. His mission affected not merely this world, but the whole universe.

4. A great sacrifice. This was required to meet the demands of justice and law, and the need of the world. And his mission was a sacrifice from beginning to end; from the first movement, the coming out from the Father, the coming into the world, his life in it, and his departure from it through the ignominious death of the cross, - all this was an infinite sacrifice sufficient to answer the purposes of Divine love involved in the mission of the Son in the world.

5. A great fact. What is this? That the Son of God was incarnate in this world, and it includes all the great facts of his earthly history, which are summed up here in one, "Am come into the world." This is the greatest in this world's history - the fact of the greatest glory, interest, and consequences in all its annals. It has made this world a center of interest, meditation, and wonder for all the intelligent universe.

6. A great responsibility. If the Son of God was in this world, and for it lived and died in order to bring it into allegiance with heaven, in the face of such a condescension, expense, and sacrifice, its responsibility is infinite.

III. WHITHER HE WENT.

1. He left the world.

(1) His stay here was not intended to be long. When he came, he came only for a short time. He was a pilgrim in the land rather than a permanent resident. He came as an Ambassador, to perform a special work, and his hard work bespoke a short stay.

(2) He accomplished his work here. He came to the world, not to enjoy, but to work; not to rest, but to toil; not to live, but rather to die. He worked hard, and finished his work early; then he left - there was no more to do here. The world tried to send him away before his work was finished, but failed. Not before he cried, "It is finished!" he gave up the ghost.

(3) He had a work to do in another place - within the veil. He could not do that work here. He could not be idle. If there was no work here, he would go where it was. He was bound to time and special employments.

2. He went to the Father - to the same place as he came from.

(1) This was in the original plan. It was one of the conditions of his departure that he should soon return to the same place and to the same glory. The inhabitants could not be long happy without him. Heaven was not the same during his absence.

(2) His mission was fulfilled to the Father's entire satisfaction. Jesus was fully conscious of this, otherwise he would not speak with such confidence and delight of returning to his Father. This is the last thing a disloyal and inefficient ambassador will do. The sweet voice ever rang in his soul, "I have both glorified, and will glorify thee."

(3) His return was most natural and sweet to him, to the -Father, and to all. He was never so far and so long from home before, and his return was most gratifying to the Divine heart, and it fulfilled the Divine love. Never had a conquering hero such welcome on his return. Welcome was the language of all the happy family, and the sweet burden of every strain which streamed from harps of gold. It was specially delightful to him. After the hardships of his earthly campaign, home must be indeed sweet; but all the sufferings he forgot in the ecstasy of Divine welcome and the delight of triumph.

LESSONS.

1. All the promises of Christ to faith will be fulfilled. He had promised it plainer revelations of the Father, and the text is the first installment. Christ's light is ever in proportion to the strength of the eye, and his revelations, in substance and language, suitable to the capacities of faith - now in proverbs, now in plainer language and with greater confidence, introducing to it deeper mysteries and brighter visions.

2. All the movements of Christ in connection with the great scheme of redemption were purely voluntary. Those indicated in these words were so. "I came out from the Father," etc. He had perfect control over all his movements, and they were invariably the results of his sovereign and free will.

3. When he went to the Father he took the cause of the world, especially that of his disciples, with him - in his nature, in his heart, and will never leave nor forget it.

4. When he left the world he left the best part of himself behind. He left the precious results of his life and death, his example, his pardoning love, his Spirit, his blessed gospel with all its rich contents.

5. As he went to the -Father, this indicates the direction we should go, and ever look for him. We know where he is. He left not his disciples in ignorance of his destination; he left his full address, and in its light we have a Father, and an Almighty Advocate with him. - B.T.

These majestic and strange words are the proper close of our Lord's discourse, what follows being rather a reply to the disciples' exclamation.

I. THE DWELLING WITH THE FATHER. The most probable reading is more forcible. "I came forth out of the Father" implies a far deeper and closer relation than even that of juxtaposition, companionship, or outward presence. In these words there is involved that, during His earthly life, our Lord bore about with Him the remembrance and consciousness of an individual existence prior to His life on earth. "Before Abraham was, I am." But beyond that, they are the assertion of a previous, deep, mysterious, ineffable union with the Father. If this fourth Gospel be a genuine record of the teaching of Jesus Christ (and, if it is not, what genius was he who wrote it?), then nothing is more plain than that. Over and over again He reiterated this tremendous claim to have dwelt in the bosom of the Father long before He lay on the breast of Mary. Note that the meekest, most sane and wise of religious teachers made this claim, which is either true, and lifts Him into the region of the Deity, or else is fatal to His pretensions to be a teacher that it is worth our while to listen to.

II. THE VOLUNTARY COMING INTO THE WORLD. We all talk in a loose way about men coming into the world when they are born; but the weight of the words and the solemnity of the occasion, and the purpose, forbid us to see such a mere platitude as that in the words here. "I am come rote the world There has been a Man who chose to be born. Now this voluntary entrance of Jesus Christ into our human life —

1. Underlies the whole value of that life. It underlies, e.g., the personal sinlessness of Jesus, and hence His power to bring a new beginning of pure and perfect life into the midst of humanity. All the rest of mankind, knit together by, that mysterious bond of natural descent which only now for the first time is beginning to receive its due attention on the part of men of science, by heredity have the taint upon them. And unless Christ came in another fashion from all the rest of us, He came with the same sin as all the rest of us, and is no deliverer. The stream is fouled from its source, and flows on, every successive drop participant of the primeval pollution. But down from the white snows of the eternal hills of God there comes into it an affluent which has no stain on its pure waters, and so can purge that into which it enters. Jesus Christ willed to be born, and to plant a new beginning of holy life in the very heart of humanity which henceforth should work as leaven.

2. Unless we preserve this clear in our minds and hearts, the power to sway our affections is struck away from Christ. Unless He voluntarily took upon Himself the nature which He meant to redeem, why should I be thankful to Him for what He did? We talk about kings leaving their palaces and putting on the rags of the beggar, and learning "love in huts where poor man lie," and making experience of the conditions of their lowliest subjects. But here is a fact infinitely beyond all these legends. And we may learn there what it is that gives Him His supreme right to our devotion and our surrender — viz., that, being in the form of God, He thought not equality with God a thing to be covetously retained, "but made Himself of no reputation," &c.

III. THE VOLUNTARY LEAVING THE WORLD.

1. The stages of that departure are not distinguished. They are threefold in fact.(1) There was a voluntary death. We have our Lord's own words about His having power to lay down His life. We have in the story of the Passion hints that His relation to death was altogether different from that of ours. "Into Thy hands I commit My Spirit"; and He gave up the Spirit. We have hints of a similar nature in the very swiftness of His death and unexpected brevity of His suffering, to be accounted for by no natural result of the physical process of crucifixion. The fact is, that Jesus Christ is the Lord of death, and was so even when He seemed to be its servant, and that He never showed Himself more completely the Prince of Life and the Conqueror of Death than when He gave up His life and died, not because He must, but because He would.(2) There was a voluntary resurrection, for although Scripture represents His rising sometimes as being the Father's attestation of the Son's finished work, it also represents it as being in accordance with His own claim of "power to lay down My life, and to take it again;" the Son's triumphant egress from the prison into which, for the moment, He willed to pass.(3) And there was a voluntary ascension. There was no need for Elijah's chariot, nor any external agency. The cords of duty which bound Him to earth being cut, He rose to His own native sphere; and the natural forces of His supernatural life bore Him, by inverted gravitation, upward to the place which was His own.

2. And thus, by a voluntary death, He became the Sacrifice for our sins; by the might of His self-effected resurrection proclaimed Himself the Lord of death, and the Resurrection for all that trust Him; and by that ascending up on high draws our heart's desires after Him, so that we, too, as we see Him lost from our sight, behind the bright Shekinah cloud, may return to our lowly work with great joy, and set our affections on things above, where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God.

IV. THE DWELLING AGAIN WITH THE FATHER. But that final dwelling with God is not wholly identical with the initial one. The earthly life was no mere parenthesis. He carried with Him the manhood which He had assumed into the glory in which the Word had dwelt from the beginning. And this is the true consolation which Christ offered to these His servants, and which He still offers to us His waiting children. And if that be so, it is no mere abstract dogma of theology, but it touches our daily life at all points, and is essential to the fulness of our satisfaction and our rest in Christ.

1. Our brother is elevated to the throne, and He makes the fortunes of the family, and none of them will be poor as long as He is so rich. He sends us from the far-off land where He is gone precious gifts of its produce, and He will send for us to share His throne one day.

2. This elevation fills heaven for our faith, our imagination, and our hearts. Without an ascended Christ we recoil from the cold splendours of an unknown heaven, as a savage might from the unintelligible magnificence of a palace. But if we believe that He is at the right hand of God, then the far-off becomes near, and the vague becomes definite, and the unsubstantial becomes solid, and what was a fear becomes a joy, and we can trust ourselves and the dear dead in His hands, knowing that where He is they are, and that in Him they and we have all we need.

(A. Maclaren, D. D.)

I. CHRIST HAS BEEN HERE AND GONE.

1. This is one of the best attested facts in the world's history. It is attested by contemporaries and by the accumulating moral and social influences of eighteen centuries.

2. It is the most glorious fact in the world's history. Nothing has so blessed the world. It was the creation of a sun in man's moral heaven, the opening of a fountain in man's moral desert. All that is wholesome in the governments, pure in the morals, benevolent in the institutions, holy in the spirit and manners of the world owes its existence to this fact. Insignificant as this planet is compared with other orbs, the fact that Christ has trod its soil has given it a lustre that pales the brightness of them all.

II. CHRIST HAS BEEN HERE AND GONE BY HIS OWN CHOICE. Who else could have said this! All others have been sent, Christ came. He fixed His own time, birthplace, country, parentage, circumstances. In the same way He departed — "I leave" — when I please; now or in the future; how I please; by a natural or violent death — "I have power to lay down My life," &c. We are sent away, often by means most revolting, and at a time most dreaded.

III. CHRIST IN VISITING THIS EARTH AND DEPARTING FROM IT WAS THE CONSCIOUS MESSENGER OF THE FATHER. The language suggests —

1. The life of true souls. Coming from the Father with our motives, inspirations, and directions from His service, and returning with the results of our labours. As rivers have their existence by rolling from ocean to ocean, so the true life of souls is unconsciously moving from God to God — the cause and end of all activities.

2. The interference of the world with this life. Christ speaks as if, when in the world, He was away from the Father. At times the Father's face seemed eclipsed, "Why hast Thou forsaken Me?" So with us the power of the senses, physical suffering, secular enjoyments, and social trials often interrupt Divine communion. But when we leave the world we shall be for ever with Him.Conclusion:

1. With what holy gratitude should we celebrate Christ's advent and departure!

2. Alas! how many who come into this world depart not to the Father, but to the devil.

(D. Thomas, D. D.)

Jesus, DisciplesJerusalemForth, Leave, Leaving1. Jesus comforts his disciples by the promise of the Holy Spirit, and his ascension;
23. assures their prayers made in his name to be acceptable.
33. Peace in Jesus, and in the world affliction.

John 16:28

     2018   Christ, divinity
     2045   Christ, knowledge of
     2505   Christ, ascension
     2530   Christ, death of
     8848   worldliness

Presence in Absence
Eversley, third Sunday after Easter. 1862. St John xvi. 16. "A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again, a little while, and ye shall see me, because I go to the Father." Divines differ, and, perhaps, have always differed, about the meaning of these words. Some think that our Lord speaks in them of His death and resurrection. Others that He speaks of His ascension and coming again in glory. I cannot decide which is right. I dare not decide. It is a very solemn thing--too solemn …
Charles Kingsley—All Saints' Day and Other Sermons

November 6 Evening
Lead me in thy truth, and teach me--PSA. 25:5. When . . . the Spirit of truth is come, he will guide you into all truth.--Ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things. To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.--All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness; That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto …
Anonymous—Daily Light on the Daily Path

November 29 Evening
Do ye now believe?--JOHN 16:31. What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him? Faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac: and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son. Accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead.--Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar? Ye see then how that …
Anonymous—Daily Light on the Daily Path

May 14 Morning
The fellowship of His sufferings.--PHI. 3:10. It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master, and the servant as his lord. He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.--In the world ye shall have tribulation.--Because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. I looked for some to take pity, but there was none.--At my …
Anonymous—Daily Light on the Daily Path

December 21 Morning
The days of thy mourning shall be ended.--ISA. 60:20. In the world ye shall have tribulation.--The whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.--We that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened: not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of …
Anonymous—Daily Light on the Daily Path

June 15 Evening
The Spirit . . . maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God.--ROM. 8:27. Verily, verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you. Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full.--Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit. This is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us; and if we know that he hear us, whatsoever …
Anonymous—Daily Light on the Daily Path

August 15. "He Will Guide You into all Truth" (John xvi. 13).
"He will guide you into all truth" (John xvi. 13). The Holy Ghost does not come to give us extraordinary manifestations, but to give its life and light, and the nearer we come to Him, the more simple will His illumination and leading be. He comes to "guide us into all truth." He comes to shed light upon our own hearts, and to show us ourselves. He comes to reveal Christ, to give, and then to illumine, the Holy Scriptures, and to make Divine realities vivid and clear to our spiritual apprehension. …
Rev. A. B. Simpson—Days of Heaven Upon Earth

October 29. "Whatsoever Ye Shall Ask the Father in My Name, He Will Give it You" (John xvi. 23).
"Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, He will give it you" (John xvi. 23). Two men go to the bank cashier, both holding in their hands a piece of paper. One is dressed in expensive style, and presents a gloved and jeweled hand; the other is a rough, unwashed workman. The first is rejected with a polite sentence, and the second receives a thousand dollars over the counter. What is the difference? The one presented a worthless name; the other handed in a note endorsed by the president of …
Rev. A. B. Simpson—Days of Heaven Upon Earth

March 5. "I have Overcome the World" (John xvi. 33).
"I have overcome the world" (John xvi. 33). Christ has overcome for us every one of our four terrible foes--Sin, Sickness, Sorrow, Satan. He has borne our Sin, and we may lay all, even down to our sinfulness itself, on Him. "I have overcome for thee." He has borne our sickness, and we may detach ourselves from our old infirmities and rise into His glorious life and strength. He has borne our sorrows, and we must not even carry a care, but rejoice evermore, and even glory in tribulations also. And …
Rev. A. B. Simpson—Days of Heaven Upon Earth

Self-Help
ST. JOHN xvi. 7. It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you. This is a deep and strange saying. How can it be expedient, useful, or profitable, for any human being that Christ should go away from them? To be in Christ's presence; to see his face; to hear his voice;--would not this be the most expedient and profitable, yea, the most blessed and blissful of things which could befall us? Is it not …
Charles Kingsley—Discipline and Other Sermons

From' and 'to'
'I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world: again, I leave the world, and go to the Father.'--JOHN xvi. 28. These majestic and strange words are the proper close of our Lord's discourse, what follows being rather a reply to the disciples' exclamation. There is nothing absolutely new in them, but what is new is the completeness and the brevity with which they cover the whole ground of His being, work, and glory. They fall into two halves, each consisting of two clauses; the former half …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI

Peace and victory
'These things I have spoken unto you, that in Me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation; but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.'--JOHN xvi. 33. So end these wonderful discourses, and so ends our Lord's teaching before His passion. He gathers up in one mighty word the total intention of these sweet and deep sayings which we have so long been pondering together. He sketches in broad outline the continual characteristics of the disciples' life, and closes all with the …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI

Why Christ Speaks
'These things have I spoken unto you, that ye should not be offended. They shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service. And these things will they do unto you, because they have not known the Father, nor Me. But these things have I told you, that, when the time shall come, ye may remember that I told you of them. And these things I said not unto you at the beginning, because I was with you. But now I go My way to Him that …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI

The Guide into all Truth
'I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth: for He shall not speak of Himself; but whatsoever He shall hear, that shall He speak: and He will show you things to come. He shall glorify Me: for He shall receive of Mine, and shall show it unto you. All things that the Father hath are Mine: therefore said I, that He shall take of Mine, and shall show it unto you.'--JOHN xvi. 12-15. This is our Lord's …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI

Christ's 'little Whiles'
'A little while, and ye shall not see Me: and again, a little while, and ye shall see Me, because I go to the Father. Then said some of His disciples among themselves, What is this that He saith unto us, A little while, and ye shall not see Me: and again, a little while, and ye shall see Me: and, Because I go to the Father? They said therefore, What is this that He saith, A little while? we cannot tell what He saith. Now Jesus knew that they were desirous to ask Him, and said unto them, Do ye inquire …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI

'In that Day'
'And in that day ye shall ask Me nothing. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in My name, He will give it you. Hitherto have ye asked nothing in My name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full.'--JOHN xvi. 23, 24. Our Lord here sums up the prerogatives and privileges of His servants in the day that was about to dawn and to last till He came again. There is nothing absolutely new in the words; substantially the promises contained in them have appeared in …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI

The Joys of 'that Day'
'These things have I spoken unto you in proverbs: but the time cometh, when I shall no more speak unto you in proverbs, but I shall show you plainly of the Father. At that day ye shall ask in My Name: and I say not unto you, that I will pray the Father for you: For the Father Himself loveth you, because ye have loved Me, and have believed that I came out from God.'--JOHN xvi. 25-27. The stream which we have been tracking for so long in these discourses has now nearly reached its close. Our Lord, …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI

Glad Confession and Sad Warning
'His disciples said unto Jesus, Lo! now speakest Thou plainly, and speakest no proverb. Now are we sure that Thou knowest all things, and needest not that any man should ask Thee: by this we believe that Thou earnest forth from God. Jesus answered them, Do ye now believe? Behold, the hour cometh, yea, is now come, that ye shall be scattered, every man to his own, and shall leave Me alone: and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with Me.' --JOHN xvi. 29-32. The first words of these wonderful …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI

The Departing Christ and the Coming Spirit
Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send Him unto you. And when He is come, He will convince the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment.'--JOHN xvi. 7, 8. We read these words in the light of all that has gone after, and to us they are familiar and almost thread-bare. But if we would appreciate their sublimity, we must think away nineteen centuries, and all Christendom, …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI

The Convicting Facts
'Of sin, because they believe not on Me; Of righteousness, because I go to My Father, and ye see Me no more; Of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged.'--JOHN xvi. 9-11. Our Lord has just been telling His disciples how He will equip them, as His champions, for their conflict with the world. A divine Spirit is coming to them who will work in them and through them; and by their simple and unlettered testimony will 'convict,' or convince, the mass of ungodly men of error and crime in regard …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI

Nevertheless I Tell You the Truth; it is Expedient for You that I Go Away; for if I Go not Away
Nevertheless I tell you the truth; it is expedient for you that I go away; for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you. And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment; of sin, because they believe not on me; of righteousness, because I go to my Father, and ye see me no more; of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged. I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them …
Charles G. Finney—Lectures to Professing Christians

June the Second Our Spiritual Guide
"When He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth." --JOHN xvi. 7-14. How great is the difference between a guide-post and a guide! And what a difference between a guide-book and a companion! Mere instructions may be very uninspiring, and bare commandments may be very cold. Our Guide is an inseparable Friend. And how will He guide us? He will give us insight. "He will guide you into all truth." He will refine our spirits so that we may be able to distinguish "things that …
John Henry Jowett—My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year

Loved in the Beloved.
(Third Sunday in Advent, 1831.) TEXT: JOHN xvi. 27. "For the Father Himself loveth you, be cause ye have loved Me, and have believed that I came forth from the Father." THAT was a great word of the Saviour about Himself on which we lately spoke together, in which He represented Himself as from of old the one object of desire and longing to all the best part of mankind, to those who were nearest to God and had received most teaching from Him: but this is a still greater saying, in which He sets Himself …
Friedrich Schleiermacher—Selected Sermons of Schleiermacher

The Spirit not Striving Always.
"And the Lord said, My Spirit shall not always strive with man."-Gen. vi. 3. IN speaking from this text I shall pursue the following outline of thought, and attempt to show: I. What is implied in the assertion, My Spirit shall not always strive with man; II. What is not intended by the Spirit's striving; III. What is intended by it; IV. How it maybe known when the Spirit strives with an individual; V. What is intended by His not striving always; VI. Why He will not always strive; and, VII. Some consequences …
Charles G. Finney—Sermons on Gospel Themes

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