John 16:8-10

THE REPROOF OF THE COMFORTER

‘And when He is come, He will reprove the world of sin … because they believe not on Me.’

John 16:8

How does the Comforter convict us of sin? It is written, ‘Of sin, because they believe not in Me.’

I. The serious element in all sin is that it means the rejection of Christ.—You remember what Christ said of the Pharisees: ‘If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin; but now they have no cloke for their sin.’ Once we have seen or heard Christ we are left without excuse for any sin.

II. As all true holiness comes from trusting Jesus, so all sin comes from failing to believe in Him.—Covetousness is the valuing ‘uncertain riches’ more than the living God Whose blessing maketh rich. Worldliness is the filling the heart with the love of pleasure, so that there is no room for the love of Christ. Selfishness and pride are just saying, ‘All of self and none of Christ.’ Yes, the evil of sin is that it closes the heart to Christ. A little more faith in His love, and you would not shrink from placing your whole life at His disposal. A little more confidence in His all-sufficiency, and you would lose all fear of men, and know that He can satisfy every longing of your heart, without any of the pleasures of sin, without any of the gains of unrighteousness.

III. The Comforter is the Advocate of Jesus in our hearts, it is His work to bring Jesus before us, to make us see Jesus, to keep us in remembrance of His perfect love.

This, then, is the reproof of the Comforter—not that our flesh is corrupt, our hearts unclean, our affections sordid, our resolution weak, but that whereas there is for us in Christ a perfect remedy for all this, we through our unbelief avail ourselves of it so little. We fail to enter into the fullness of blessing because we believe not in Christ.

—Rev. F. S. Webster.