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.
These things I have spoken unto you - not the immediately preceding words, but this whole discourse, of which these were the very last words, and which He thus winds up; That in me ye might have peace - in the sublime sense before explained on John 14:27.
In the world ye shall have tribulation, х hexete (G2192)] - but this reading has very slender support: the true reading undoubtedly is, 'In the world ye have tribulation' х echete (G2192)]; for being already "not of the world, but chosen out of the world," they were already beginning to experience its deadly opposition, and would soon know more of it. So that the "peace" promised was to be far from an unruffled one.
But be of good cheer; I have overcome the world - not only before you, but for you, that ye may be not only encouraged, but enabled to do the same. (See 1 John 5:4-5.) The last and crowning act of His victory, indeed, was yet to come. But it was all but come, and the result was as certain as if all had been already over-the consciousness of which, no doubt, was the chief source of that wonderful calm with which He went through the whole of this solemn scene in the upper room.
Remarks:
(1) The language in which the blessed Spirit is spoken of throughout all this last discourse of Our Lord is quite decisive of His DIVINE PERSONALITY. Nor does Stier express himself too strongly when he says that he who can regard all the personal expressions applied to the Spirit in these three chapters - "teaching," "reminding," "testifying," "coming," "convincing," "guiding," "speaking," "hearing," "prophesying," "taking" - as being no other than a long-drawn figure, deserves not to be recognized as an interpreter of intelligible words, much less an expositor of Holy Scripture.
(2) As there is no subject in Christian Theology on which accurate thinking is of more importance than the relation of the work of the Spirit to the work of Christ, so there is no place in which that relation is more precisely defined and amply expressed than in this chapter. For, first, we are expressly told that the Spirit's teaching is limited to that which He receives to communicate (John 16:13); that what He receives is "of that which is Christ's" х ek (G1537) tou (G3588) Emou (G1700)] - or, in other words, that the Spirit's teaching relates wholly to Christ's Person and Errand rate the world; and lest this should seem to narrow undesirably and disadvantageously the range of the Spirit's functions, we are told that Christ's things" embrace "all the Father's things" (John 16:15) - that is to say, all that the Father contemplated and arranged from everlasting for the recovery of men in His Son Christ Jesus. Thus are the Spirit's functions not narrow, but only definite: they are as wide in their range as the work of Christ and the saving purposes of God in Him; but they are no wider-no other. Accordingly, when our Lord lays out in detail the subject-matter of the Spirit's teaching, He makes it all to center in HIMSELF: "He shall convince the world 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 (by My "uplifting," John 12:31-32) the Prince of this world is judged."
But secondly, this being so, it clearly follows that the whole design of the Spirit's work is to reveal to men's minds the true nature and glory of Christ's work in the flesh, as attested and crowned by His resurrection and glorification; to plant in men's souls the assurance of its truth; and to bring them to repose on it their whole confidence for acceptance with the Father and everlasting life.
Thus, as Christ's work was objective and for men, the Spirit's work is subjective and in men. The one is what divines call the purchase, the other what they call the application of redemption. The one was done outwardly once for all, by Christ on earth; the other is done inwardly in each individual saved soul, by the Spirit from heaven. And thus have we here brought before us the FATHER, the SON, and the HOLY SPIRIT-one adorable Godhead, distinct in operation even as in Person, yet divinely harmonious and concurrent for the salvation of sinners. (3) How beautifully does Jesus here teach us to travel between the sense of His Personal absence and the sense of His spiritual presence. He would have us feel the desolating effect of His Personal absence, but not be paralyzed by it, inasmuch as His spiritual presence would be felt to be unspeakably real, sustaining, and consolatory. And by directing them to ask all things of the Father in His name, during the period of His departure, He would teach them to regard His absence for them in heaven to be vastly better for them than His presence with them as they then enjoyed it. At the same time, since even this would be a very inadequate compensation for His Personal Presence, He would have them to rest in nothing short of this, that He was coming again to receive them to Himself, that where He was, there they might be also.
(4) In Christ's being "left alone" in His last sufferings, may there not be seen a divine arrangement for bringing out in manifest and affecting fulfillment that typical provision for the great day of atonement: "And there shall be no man in the tabernacle of the configuration when he (the high priest) goeth in to make an atonement in the holy place, until he come out"? (Leviticus 16:17).
(5) How sweet is the summation of this wonderful discourse in its closing word-the last that Jesus was to utter to the whole Eleven before He suffered: "These things have I spoken unto you, that IN ME ye might have peace" - not untroubled peace, because "in the world they were to have tribulation;" but the assurance that "He had overcome the world" would make them too more than conquerors.