Of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged.
Of JUDGMENT, because the prince of this world is (or 'hath been') judged. By taking the word "judgment" to refer to the judgment of the great day-as is done even by good interpreters-the point of this glorious assurance is quite missed. Beyond all doubt, when it is said, "The prince of this world hath been judged" х kekritai (G2919)] - or, in our Lord's usual sense of that term, condemned-the meaning is the same as in a former chapter, where, speaking of His death, He says, "Now shall the prince of this world be cast out х ekbleetheesetai (G1544) exoo (G1854)]; and in both places the meaning clearly is, that the prince of this world is, by the death of Christ, judicially overthrown, or condemned to lose his hold, and so, "cast out" or expelled from his usurped dominion over men who, believing in the Son of God, are made the righteousness of God in Him: so that, looking to Him who spoiled principalities and powers, and made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in His cross, they need henceforth have no fear of his enslaving power. (See Colossians 2:15; Hebrews 2:14; 1 John 3:8.)
Thus is this three-fold office of the Spirit entirely of one character. It is in all its departments Evangelical and Saving: bringing home to the conscience the sense of sin, as all consummated and fastened down upon the sinner who rejects Him that came to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself; the sense of perfect relief in the righteousness of the Father's servant, now taken from the earth that spurned Him to that bosom where from everlasting He had dwelt; and the sense of emancipation from the fetters of Satan, whose judgment brings to men liberty to be holy, and transformation out of servants of the devil into sons and daughters of the Lord Almighty. To one class of men, however, all this will carry conviction only; they "will not come to Christ" - revealed though He be to them as the life-giving One-that they may have life. Such, abiding voluntarily under the dominion of the Prince of this world, are judged in his judgment, the visible consummation of which will be at the great day. But to another class this blessed teaching will have a different issue-translating them out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of God's dear Son.