The Promise of the Spirit witnessing of Christ in the world
I. There is to be a testifying of the Spirit in the world, corresponding to our testifying to the world. His testifying is an internal subjective influence or operation in the world, to which your testifying is an external objective address. For what is the Spirit's testifying work? What is His mode of witness-bearing? Of what sort is it? It is a work of reproof, or of conviction. "He shall reprove, or convince." What an awful issue is thus made to turn of your witness-bearing! When you speak to men about Christ, your own speech affects their present state and future prospects. They cannot go away from you, or send you away from them, without something left behind by you with them that must tell on them for weal or woe. That is a serious thought. But that is not all. In speaking to them, you ask in prayer for them that, in terms of this promise of the Lord, the Holy Spirit may apply and endorse what you say, by a work of His own in those to whom you speak.
II. Along with the powerful working of the Spirit in the world to which we testify, there is a gracious working in ourselves. The Spirit deals inwardly with those to whom we speak outwardly; so as to make our speaking tell on them. But more than that, He deals with us; with ourselves directly; so as to make our speaking to others tell for good on our own souls. His dealing is still in the line of discovery and enlightenment. In the course of our witnessing for Christ and of Christ, and in connection with our witnessing for Christ and of Christ, the Spirit enlarges our capacity of apprehending Christ, and enables us to receive more abundantly out of His abundance of grace and truth, "even grace for grace." This may be regarded as a sort of personal acknowledgment and recompense of our fidelity in witness-bearing. Like the "quality of mercy when not strained," that fidelity is twice blessed. A large increase of spiritual insight and sympathy, as regards Christ and all His fulness, is the appropriate recognition and reward of a full and faithful testifying for Christ.
R. S. Candlish, The Sonship and Brotherhood of Believers,p. 239.
The Two Witnesses to Christ
I. Consider first the witness of the Apostles. The Lord speaks of the Apostles as being His witnesses because they had been with Him from the beginning; in other words, they knew what Christ had said and what He had done, and they were able therefore to report the same to the world. They were witnesses;their great work, in life or in death, was still to shout in the ears of an unbelieving world the good news that Jesus Christ had come, and that He had died and risen again. As long as they lived, they had no other ambition than to tell their tale and persuade men to believe it; and if they died, they considered that nothing could be more joyful and blessed and honourable than the martyr's or witness's crown.
II. Nothing can be more simple than the words of the Lord in the second verse of the text, when taken alone. But the Lord has not put them alone. On the other hand, He has put them in very striking connection with the words of the first verse. There is to be another witness beside the Apostles, and one differing from them in most essential particulars. This witness is called emphatically the Spirit of Truth, by which I suppose we may understand not merely the Spirit who loves and speaks truth, to whom all hypocrisy and lies are an abomination, but the Spirit who spreads and propagates truth, who makes men love it, moves their hearts towards it, carries it into their minds, writes it upon their consciences. We may alone conclude from the fact of the Spirit of Truth being sent from the Father to testify of Christ, that His mission was absolutely necessary; that witness could not be borne to Christ to any good purpose without Him; that mankind would never come to an unanimous verdict, unless this witness were sent direct from heaven to give evidence in the court of men's hearts. Christ thus taught us that in the work of preaching His Gospel to the world, and converting men from the power of Satan unto God, there are two agents who must labour together; and that therefore it is neither wise nor right to disparage the part which has to be performed by one, in comparison of that which has to be performed by the other. There is the human work and the Divine work; the witness of man without, the witness of the Spirit within.
Bishop Harvey Goodwin, Parish Sermons,5th series, p. 217.
References: John 15:27. Clergyman's Magazine,vol. v., p. 32; Preacher's Monthly,vol. v., p. 27 2 John 1:1-4. A. B. Bruce, The Training of the Twelve,p. 434.John 16:1-7. W. Roberts, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xi., p. 26. John 16:5. Homiletic Magazine,vol. xviii., p. 227. John 16:5-14. Homiletic Quarterly,vol. i., p. 196. John 16:5-15. Clergyman's Magazine,vol. ii., p. 228; A. B. Bruce, The Training of the Twelve,p. 437. John 16:6; John 16:7. Bishop Browne, The Anglican Pulpit of To-day,p. 35.John 16:6-22. Clergyman's Magazine,vol. ii., p. 226.