Congregational Bible Experience Day #32: John 16-18

Like a rich tapestry of interwoven threads, John 16 continues with Jesus' final words of comfort, encouragement and warning to His disciples before He 'departs'.  In all He says, Jesus intends that His disciples, will first, understand that He must leave them to fulfil His Father's will (v5,10,17,28), which He knows this will cause them grief (v6,20, 22-23), if only for a short time for He will quickly come back (v16). Furthermore, He must return to the Father so that He can send them the Holy Spirit to be their comfort and make Jesus' presence real to them (v7; see also 14:16-18).  In His human body Jesus will always be external to them; but with the giving of the Spirit to His people, He will dwell within them, and so Jesus will always be with them.  Third, Jesus speaks to prepare them ahead of time to face up to the hostile opposition they should expect because of their relationship to Him (16: 1-4). Finally, He wants to reassure them that despite His absence, the Spirit will not only teach them what they need to know to live lives of continual faithfulness (v12-14; see also 14:25-26), but also that the Spirit will go ahead of them working in the hearts of those who will hear the Gospel they will proclaim (16: 8-11).

It has been said, that "if you really want to know someone, listen to them pray".  John 17 gives us insight into the heart of Jesus as He fervently prays that the Father may be glorified in the Son (now that His time has come, v1b,4), in the lives of His disciples (v10,16-19), and in the lives of all His future believers and followers (v20-22).  Indeed, in His prayer, Jesus looks beyond the agony of the next hours and asks the Father to glorify Him with the glory He had known before the creation of the world (v5).  (Think this through!)

In praying for the disciples, it is perhaps unexpected that Jesus does not pray that they would be isolated from the hostility of the surrounding world (v14), but that as they are sent into this world that hates them (v14, 18) they will be protected and kept pure by the power of God (v11) and the Word of God (v17,19). The inference is that believers are more spiritually secure as they serve the Lord 'in the world' - trusting and obeying God's word - than they would be simply isolated from the world.  (Think this one through!)

As the Passion narrative begins properly in chapter 18, notice the many - almost overlooked - little details John includes that demonstrate that this is more than a mob lynching: reference to the Kidron river (v1), which carried away the blood of the animal sacrifices and the water from ritual cleansings that drained from the altar area in the Temple, pointing to…?;  the arresting soldiers (John uses a technical word suggesting between 2-600 guards!) who fall backwards probably sensing something of the divine presence in Jesus (v5-6), He could have walked away;  the reminder that while Jesus is in the murderous hands of ungodly men, what is happening comes from the hand of God (v11, 37b); the irony of Caiaphas' statement that it would be good if one died for all (v14); that Peter was not alone in the High Priest's courtyard, for the "other disciple" had clearly let the girl know he was with Jesus and was not ashamed to do so (v16); the hypocrisy of Jews who take Jesus to the Palace to be condemned to death but who do not enter because they do not wish to become unclean (v28); and the people's natural preference for the rebel who broke God's law (one of their own) rather than for the visiting King in their presence who was fulfilling it (v36, 39-40).