College Press Bible Study Textbook Series

John 16:25-33

HIS VEILED SAYINGS WILL SOON BE MADE PLAIN

These things have I spoken unto you in dark sayings: the hour cometh, when I shall no more speak unto you in dark sayings, but shall tell you plainly of the Father.

In that day ye shall ask in my name: and I say not unto you, that I will pray the Father for you;

for the Father himself loveth you, because ye have loved me, and have believed that I came forth from the Father.

I came out from the Father, and am come into the world: again, I leave the world, and go unto the Father.

His disciples say, Lo, now speakest thou plainly, and speakest no dark saying.

Now know we that thou knowest all things, and needest not that any man should ask thee: by this we believe that thou camest forth from God.

Jesus answered them, Do ye now believe?

Behold, the hour cometh, yea, is come, that ye shall be scattered, every man to his own, and shall leave me alone: and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me.

These things have I spoken unto you, that in me ye may have peace. In the world ye have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.

Queries

What are the dark sayings and when were they made plain?

Was Jesus critical of the belief of the disciples (John 16:31)?

Why would they soon scatter and leave Jesus alone?

Paraphrase

I have spoken to you during My ministry, and especially these last hours, in veiled and disguised sayings. But the time is coming very soon when I shall come to you again no longer speaking in this veiled way but reporting to you plainly concerning the Father. When that time comes I shall no longer have to treat you as children who do not know how to pray to the Father for themselves as they ought, but you will have matured and know to pray in My namein accord with My will and purpose for you. And you will have your requests answered by your loving Father and He has such love toward you because you have loved Me and have believed that I came from the presence of the Father. It is indeed true that I came from the very presence of the Father and came into the world to accomplish My mission. Now, having almost completed My mission, I am about to leave the world and return unto the presence of the Father. His disciples then said, Ah, now you are no longer speaking to us in veiled sayings but in plain words. Now we know that every hidden thing is known by you and you have no need of anyone to ask you a question before you know what he is thinking. Because of this demonstration of omniscience we believe you have come from God. Jesus replied, Are you now so sure of Me as you thinkdo you now really believe? I say to you the time is very nearly here when you shall all be scattered, each going to his own interests, leaving me alone. However, I shall not really be left alone at all for My Father is with Me. I have told you all of these things so that your faith in Me may be strengthened and thus you may have peace in Me. In the world you have anxiety and pressure but be courageous for I have conquered the world and all its fears and anxieties.

Summary

Jesus promises that the time is coming very soon when all His dark sayings will be made plain. The disciples will not be able to endure the brutal frankness of some of it and will be temporarily scattered.

Comment

The these things of John 16:25 refers especially to what Jesus had been teaching His disciples that very night concerning His going away and coming again. And, as a matter of fact, He had been speaking the truth of God to them with a veil upon it all through His public ministry (cf. Matthew 11:25-30; Matthew 13:10-17). In Matthew 13:10-17 Jesus quotes Isaiah 6:1-13and gives one reason it was necessary for Him to speak in riddles, parables and veiled sayingsthe hardness of the hearts of those who listened. Another reason is given in Matthew 11:25-30 and that is the concern of the Lord for the spiritually immature. The disciples fell into one or the other of these categories practically all of their days with Jesus before the resurrection. They had cluttered their minds with thoughts of an earthly kingdom and they were not prepared to be taught plainly (although Jesus did speak plainly with them at times) all the things Jesus had to teach them concerning His relationship to the Father and the Kingdom of God. Of course, Jesus was also prevented from speaking plainly about the whole work of redemption because the whole work of redemption had not yet been accomplished. He had spoken previously in veiled sayings concerning:

His resurrectionraising up the temple in three days.

His crucifixionlifted up as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness.

Partaking of His divine natureeating His flesh and drinking His blood.

The indwelling of the Holy Spiritthe water of life which flows out from future believers.

And in these last hours He had spoken of the resting places He was going to prepare; of seeing the Father in Him; of abiding in Him as branches in the Vine; of His going away and coming again by send-in the Comforter; of the hatred of the world but His conquest of the world. All the truth represented by these parables and allegories would have been even less comprehensible to the disciples had it been spoken bluntly and plainly. Their immature but growing faith in Jesus might have been wounded beyond healing had He spoken openly. It is highly possible that they would have been so offended (cf. Matthew 16:21-28) at continued plain teaching about His death and the spiritual kingdom as to leave Him never to return.

But Jesus knew just how plain and just how veiled to be with these men and thus fan the spark of faith within their hearts into a fire that would endure. And this fire, after being refueled with the power of the resurrection and the Holy Spirit, would radiate and empower them to spread the flame of the gospel to the whole world.

One only need turn from the parabolic teachings of Jesus in the Gospels to the plain and unveiled teachings of Jesus (through the apostles) in the epistles to see the fulfillment of the promise in John 16:25. The atonement, justification, the church, godlinessall are made plain in the epistles. When the Spirit came He led them into all truth. He made the way so plain that even the wayfaring men would not err therein (cf. Isaiah 35:8). The way to come into covenant relationship with the salvation provided by Christ is plain enough for children to understand in the book of Acts. Exhortations on living the Christian life are just as plainly stated in the epistles. Someone has said that the epistles are amplifications and interpretations by the Spirit openly of all that Jesus taught parabolically and in guarded form in the gospels. There seems to be some justification for this idea in a comparison of the gospels with the epistles.

Be that as it may, one of the important points to notice here is that the One who is going to make the dark sayings to become plain is none other than Jesus Himself returned to the disciples in the Spirit.

Besides the fact that upon His return in the Spirit will they have the hidden made plain, they will also pray with a new frankness and openness. Before they did not know how to pray as they ought (cf. Luke 11:1-4 ff). Jesus had to teach them the things that were within the scope of His purpose and will for which they should pray. He had to teach them how to praypersistently, humbly, and forgivingly. And so He informs them that in that day (the day when He should come in the Spirit) they would not only know how to pray and what to pray for in His name (according to His will), but they would also enjoy a new relationship to the Father through the atonement which Jesus would accomplish for them. Jesus will be their High Priest, constantly interceding on their behalf, but they will approach the Father directly through Him. All barriers would be removed. By prayer they, themselves, might henceforth come into the very presence of God their Father, whereas before His atonement all men were prohibited from the presence of God and approached Him only through an earthly priest.

This new relationship of the disciples with the Heavenly Father is founded upon the Father's love for them because of Jesus. It is interesting to see the eternal love triangle worked out here in John 16:27. God sent His Son Jesus and loved us first that we might be drawn to love Him. When we then love His Son and believe that He came forth from God, God loves us even more because of our love for His Son, (cf. 1 John 4:9-10).

In one concise statement (John 16:28) Jesus sums up the central act of redemption. He relinquished the glories of heaven for a season to become the obedient servant (cf. 2 Corinthians 8:9; Philippians 2:5-11). He came into the world in flesh incarnate and revealed the love of God. He is about to leave the world by the cross, the resurrection and the ascension. This statement is direct and clear. It is more direct than the statement in John 16:16 which caused so much consternation among the disciples (John 16:17). So the disciples are highly pleased that He is now speaking plainly. Their pleasure turns into amazement and then into a profession of increased belief of the deity of Jesus as they realize that Jesus did not need to ask any man anything. In John 16:16-18 we find them discussing what Jesus had said in John 16:16 which was such a puzzle to them. Beginning in John 16:19 Jesus begins to answer their questions without asking them what their questions were. Jesus read their hearts like an open book. Suddenly it dawned on them that they were in the presence of One who had truly come forth from God and so they said, Now we believe.

What did Jesus mean by His reply in John 16:31? Does He mean to deny their belief? No. It is not that the Lord is denying what belief they have professed, but that He is warning them not to be too sure of their own estimates of themselves. Jesus constantly warned the disciples against overestimating their own strength and abilities (cf. Matthew 26:31-35; Mark 14:27-31; Luke 22:31-34; John 13:36-38). So now He says, I accept your confession as genuine and sincere, but will your belief be strong enough to weather the coming storm? When He should willingly surrender and allow Himself to be crucified as a common criminal would they still profess their belief in Him as One sent from the Father? It was not that Jesus was critical of what faith they had but He was fully aware of their weaknesses as well as their strengths. He was warning them against the fatal mistake of overestimating their own capabilities. What makes this so fatal is that one puts all his trust in his own capabilities and when failure comes (as it surely does to everyone) all hope for an overcoming power and all assurance of victory is gone. Paul the great apostle found this to be true in his own life. He found that in him dwelt no good thing. He came to the conclusion Wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me out of the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. (Romans 7:15-25). And then he went on to show how victory is possible in Christ (Romans 8:1-39).

Paul was constantly aware of the danger of overconfidence in oneself or the flesh and buffeted his body lest after preaching to others he himself might become a castaway (cf. 1 Corinthians 9:27).

There is a great lesson for ushere. We must beware of being too quick to say We are able (cf. Matthew 20:22). We must always remember the man who prayed, Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief (Mark 9:24).

There is a prophecy from Zechariah John 13:7 implied here in John 16:32. The prophecy was quoted by Jesus in Matthew 26:31 and Mark 14:27. When Jesus was arrested the disciples at first made good their promise to fight for Him to the death. Peter drew his sword and would have fought there and laid down his life for his King. But when they realized that Jesus was going to offer no resistance but that He was going to submit to such humiliation, they forsook him and fled (cf. Matthew 26:47-56; Mark 14:43-52).

Just what Jesus meant when He said they would all be scattered, every man to his own, is not certain. Probably He meant to say that each would return to his own home and daily pursuits. After having seen Him die they assumed that His work was defeated (cf. Luke 24:13-24) and when the women reported that the tomb was empty and that evidently someone had taken His body Peter and John assumed the women to be correct and went away again to their own home (cf. John 20:10). Luke 24:24 indicates their discouragement even at the empty tomb. They went away and left Him alone, but Jesus was not alone for the Father was with Him in the darkest hours and raised Him from the tomb.

Jesus has spoken these things, foretelling the future, showing the fulfillment of prophecy, so that after they come to pass their faith will be strengthened and thus find peace by trusting in His omniscience and omnipotence. There are two sides to the peace which the believer has in Jesus. First there is the judicial peace which Jesus accomplishes on behalf of man between God and man. This judicial peace is accomplished at the cross where in His body He suffered the sentence and penalty of sin and took out of the way all the commandments that were against man (cf. Ephesians 2:11-22; Colossians 2:8-15) which we appropriate by being buried with Him by baptism. Having been united with His death by faith and obedience (Romans 6:1-11; Galatians 3:26-27) and having appropriated that judicial peace to our souls, we find and realize that subjective peace of heart and soul which passes understanding (cf. Philippians 4:7).

We have this peace by trusting in Him even in the midst of a world filled with tribulation. Even though Christians must endure tribulation in the world they may be courageous and cheerful for Jesus has overcome the world. He has conquered and won the victory over all that the world can do. There is nothing that Satan or the world can do to defeat Jesus and His beloved children. Thus Jesus ends the dark and veiled sayings of this ominous night on a glorious note of victory! And the New Testament from the resurrection and appearances to the end of the book of Revelation is one grand shout of victory! (cf. for example Romans 8:31-39; 1 Corinthians 15:50-58; 2 Corinthians 4:16, John 5:21; 1 John 5:1-6).

The constant theme of the Old Testament prophets is that of God's ultimate victory over all His enemies.
Let this be the clarion call of twentieth century preachingVICTORY IN JESUS! Men and women need victory for living in the here and now and victory when death makes its pretense of defeat. The surest way to make the preaching of the gospel relevant for this generation is to convince people of VICTORY IN JESUS!

Quiz

Why did Jesus speak to the disciples in veiled sayings?

When and how were these veiled things made plain?

What did Jesus mean by saying He would not pray for them?

What was Jesus-' purpose in questioning their belief (John 16:31)?

How did they scatter and go each man to his own?

What theme was used to end His dark sayings this dark night?

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