John 16 - The New International Commentary
16:1 For the third time (as in 14:25 and 15:11), Jesus signals a momentary pause with the expression, “These things I have spoken to you.” He has forewarned them of hatred and persecution, he says, “so that you will not be made to stumble” (16:1). The words “made to stumble”* are not unexpected, for Jesus warned in the eschatological discourse in Matthew that “you will be hated by all the Gentiles for my name’s sake, and then many will be made to stumble, and will hand over each other and hate each other” (Mt 24:9–10, italics added). A natural consequence of the world’s hatred and persecution is that believers themselves “stumble” and fall away, treating each other in much the same way that the hostile world treats them. And in a context similar to the present one, Jesus warns the disciples just after leaving for the Mount of Olives that “you will all be made to stumble,” prompting Peter to claim that even if the others are, he will not be (see Mk 14:17–19//Mt 26:31–33). Here, instead of predicting outright that the disciples will “stumble,” Jesus simply states his own firm intention that they do not. At this point in Mark and Matthew, his prediction made it virtually certain that they would in fact fail him in the time of crisis. Here the outcome remains unclear.
2 The preceding verse, introduced by “These things I have spoken to you,” leads us to expect a further reason why the disciples need not “stumble,” and such a reason will be given shortly (v. 4). But Jesus interrupts himself, taking the opportunity to speak more explicitly of two dangers facing them, excommunication and martyrdom. “They will put you out of synagogue,” he begins (v. 2a). To be put “out of synagogue”* now becomes no longer a mere threat of temporary discipline (as in 9:22 and 12:42), but a decisive break with the Jewish community. Here if anywhere the Gospel of John looks beyond the setting of Jesus’ ministry to conditions which may have prevailed at the time the Gospel was written—not necessarily the so-called
It comes as no surprise that Jews executed Christians in the first century. Not only do the martyrdoms of Stephen (Acts 7) and James (Acts 12), and the frenzied efforts of Saul of Tarsus to bring Jewish Christians to justice provide evidence of this, but the Gospel of John itself offers repeated glimpses of the efforts of Jewish leaders to kill Jesus (beginning at 5:18; see also 7:1, 19, 25; 8:37, 40, 59; 10:31; 11:50), and at least one of his disciples (Lazarus, 12:10).* Jesus has surely prepared his disciples for possible martyrdom metaphorically in speaking of the “dying” grain of wheat (12:24), and literally in adding that “The person who loves his life loses it, and the person who hates his life in this world will keep it to life eternal” (12:25). Also, as we have seen, the metaphor of eating his flesh and drinking his blood (6:53–56) seems to have pointed in the same direction. More surprising is the notice that “everyone who kills you will think he is offering worship* to God.” While it is not difficult to imagine such a thought motivating Saul, with his “zeal” for the God of Israel and the “ancestral traditions” (see Gal 1:14; Phil 3:6; Acts 22:3; 26:9–11), he never quite makes it explicit.* If such a motivation existed among Jews, whether in reality or in rhetoric, it is likely to have gone back to traditions about Phinehas, who averted a plague against the people by killing a fellow Israelite who brought a foreign woman into the camp, gaining for himself “a covenant of a lasting priesthood because he was zealous for the honor of his God, and made atonement for the Israelites” (see Num 25:13, NIV). Phinehas was remembered in connection with Mattathias, and the killing of the king’s officer and a Jew about to offer pagan sacrifice on the altar in Modein, precipitating the Maccabean revolt (see 1 Maccabees 2:23–26), and in later rabbinic tradition as well.*
3 “And they will do these things,” Jesus adds, “because they did not know the Father or me” (v. 3). With this, he repeats almost verbatim the charge that “all these things they will do to you … because they do not know the One who sent me” (15:21). His point is not to make allowance for their actions on the ground of ignorance (as in Lk 23:34, or Acts 3:17), for he has already stated plainly that they have no “excuse” (15:22), and that they do what they do “without cause” (15:25). Rather, he is underscoring the irony that although they claim to be “offering worship to God” (v. 2), they do not even know God, for God can be known only as Jesus’ Father, or “the One who sent” Jesus (again see 7:28–29; 8:19, 55).
4 “But these things I have spoken to you,” Jesus continues, resuming what he started to say about his intention that they not “stumble” (v. 1). He has spoken of “these things,” he says, “so that when their hour* comes you might remember them that I told you” (v. 4a). The repetition of “their” and “them”* is confusing.* The antecedent of the second “them” is quite clearly “these things,” that is, all the predictions of hatred, persecution, excommunication, and martyrdom (15:18–16:3). But what about the first (that is, “their hour”)? Does it also refer to the things predicted—that is, their “hour” to be fulfilled? Or does it refer to the unidentified “they” (the people of “the world,” or possibly “the Jews”) who have been the object of the whole series of warnings, from “If they persecuted me” (15:20) right up to “And they will do these things because they did not know the Father or me” (16:3)—that is, their “hour” to carry out their evil plans? Most commentators favor the latter option, pointing to Luke 22:53, where Jesus says to those who come to arrest him, “this is your hour,* and the authority of darkness.”* Yet it is odd that the two instances of the same word* so close together have different antecedents. Clearly, what Jesus wants his disciples to “remember” are his words of warning (as in 13:19), not his enemies.* While difficult to decide, it is marginally more likely that “their hour” also refers to Jesus’ words (in 15:18–16:3) and to the time for them to be fulfilled, not to the anonymous haters and persecutors. A passage from Luke should not be determinative here. The expression, “when their hour comes,” is therefore best understood simply as the equivalent of “when it happens” (as in 13:19; 14:29).*
This is consistent with what comes next, as Jesus continues to focus on “these things”: “And these things I did not tell you from the beginning, because I was with you” (v. 4b).* The implication is that he knew “these things” all along (for example, “he knew them all … he himself knew what was in the person,” 2:23; “he knew who they are who do not believe, and who it is who will hand him over,” 6:64). But there was no need to warn the disciples of persecution because he also knew that he was its primary target, not they,* and that in any event he would keep them safe as long as he was “with” them (see 6:39, 10:28, and especially 17:12, “when I was with them”). Yet even with this in mind, the last clause, “because I was with you,”* brings the reader up short. While it will be quickly explained by what follows (“But now I am going to the One who sent me,” v. 5), it still sounds strange, for it seems to imply that he has already gone away. It is as if he speaks as the Risen One, looking back at his ministry on earth (as in Lk 24:44, “while I was still with you”). Both here and in 17:12, he stands so close to the “hour” of his departure (see 13:1) that he can speak as if he is with the Father already.*
5 Jesus immediately confirms this, while at the same time remarking on the disciples’ prolonged silence: “But now I am going to the One who sent me, and none of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ ” (v. 5). “But now” has temporal significance here (in contrast to 15:22 and 24): “now,” as distinguished from an earlier time when “I was with you” (v. 4b). His imminent departure changes things, making it necessary to warn the disciples of what is ahead. The notice that “none of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ ”* provides one of the pillars for the theory of two distinct farewell discourses, 13:36–14:31 and 15:1–16:33, for Jesus seems to have no recollection here of the disciples’ plaintive refrain in the so-called “first” discourse: “Lord, where are you going?” (13:36), “Lord, we do not know where you are going” (14:5), and “Lord, show us the Father” (14:8).* If there are in fact two farewell discourses, and if the second was composed as an alternative to the first, the contrast is indeed striking, as if the one is consciously distancing itself from the other. But even if this is the case, it does not relieve us of the responsibility of making sense of the text as it stands. As we have seen, the disciples have been silent for a long time (all the way back to 14:22), and it would not be at all odd for Jesus to comment on their silence, and the reason for it. He could have said, “I am going to the One who sent me, and none of you says anything,” but instead he builds on what they had been saying earlier: thus, “none of you asks me—as you repeatedly did before—‘Where are you going?’ ” The announcement, “Where I am going you cannot come” (13:33), had prompted a string of questions. Now the announcement that “I am going to the One who sent me” draws no response at all. The accent is not on their failure to ask a particular question, but on their failure to say anything at all. Why the long silence, after so many questions? What has happened in the meantime?
6 Jesus answers his own implied question: “But because I have spoken these things to you, grief has filled your heart” (v. 6).* Here again (as in vv. 1 and 4), the expression “these things I have spoken to you”* recalls his warnings of hatred and persecution, and more explicitly excommunication and martyrdom (15:18–16:3). No such dire predictions had accompanied his first announcement of his imminent departure (13:33), and they are the reason, he now tells the disciples, that “grief* has filled your heart,” leaving them speechless. Ironically, the same expression, “these things I have spoken to you,” a chapter earlier introduced his ultimate intention for them “that your joy might be fulfilled” (15:11), but now we learn that “grief” comes first and then “joy” (see vv. 20–22).*
7 Again Jesus promises the Advocate: “I, however, am telling you the truth:* it is to your advantage that I am going away,* for unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you” (v. 7). Here, as in the preceding chapter (see 14:12, 28), Jesus accents the benefits of his departure—and beyond that, its sheer necessity. “Unless” he goes away, “the Advocate will not come,” but “if” he goes, he will send the Advocate (for the sentence structure, again compare 12:24). For this reason, his departure should be a cause of rejoicing, as he has said before (14:28), not grief. It is not simply an act of resignation by which he gets out of the way so that Another can take his place. Rather, as the two uses of the emphatic “I” suggest (“I, however,” and “I am going away”), it is the positive means by which he makes “greater” things possible (compare 14:12). This is the only instance in which Jesus does not further identify “the Advocate” as “the Spirit of truth” or “the Holy Spirit,” probably because the identification in 15:26 is presumed to be still in the reader’s mind. Just as in 15:26, Jesus (not the Father) “sends” the Advocate, who is thereby identified as One who will “come,” or not come, to the disciples, depending on whether or not Jesus goes away. The disciples, however, do not have a choice: Jesus will “go away,” the Advocate will “come to you,” and it will turn out “to your advantage.”* Jesus has already explained why (see especially 14:26), but he will tell them more, particularly in relation to the dangers they face in, and from, “the world.”
8–11 Confirming that the Advocate will in fact “come,” Jesus continues, “And he, when he comes, will convict the world of sin, and of justice, and of judgment” (v. 8). Then he expands briefly on each of the three: “Of sin because* they do not believe in me” (v. 9); “and of justice* because I am going to the Father and you no longer see me” (v. 10); “and of judgment because the ruler of this world has been judged” (v. 11). Even though the Advocate will come to the disciples (v. 7),* his activity is directed through them to “the world” (v. 8), just as in 15:26–27. Interpreters have defined his role here as that of a prosecuting attorney, in contrast to a defense attorney. Using judicial language, Jesus claims that the Advocate will “convict* the world of* sin.” The verb “convict” in the sense of “expose,” or “bring to light” (see 3:20), is particularly appropriate with “sin,” its first object here (see 8:46, “Who among you convicts me of sin?”).* To “convict the world of sin” probably does not mean to bring the world to a conscious recognition of its sin, and consequently to repentance, but simply to expose it before God as sinful. This is what Jesus himself has done (see 9:41; 15:22). “Sin” is defined here, in characteristically Johannine fashion, not as moral failure or the transgression of law, Jewish or otherwise, but simply as rejecting Jesus and his message (see 15:22–24; also 8:24).
“Sin” and “justice” and “judgment” are carefully linked into a deliberate triad.* If so, all three—the latter two as much as the first—are given distinctively Johannine interpretations. The verb “convict” is obviously less appropriate with “justice” and “judgment” than with “sin,” for the latter two are not wrongful deeds to be “exposed,” or crimes of which one can be “convicted.” The point is rather that the Advocate will “reprove” the world, or prove it wrong, about both “justice” and “judgment,” thereby proving Jesus right.* “Justice,” or “righteousness,” is mentioned only here (vv. 8 and 10) in John’s Gospel, and its connection to the promise that “I am going to the Father and you no longer see me” (v. 10) is not immediately obvious. Its only occurrences in 1 John (2:29; 3:7) have to do simply with right behavior, which does not particularly fit the present context.* Rather, it seems to mean something more like justification, or vindication.* Jesus is proven right by going to the Father, so that the world—and, we now learn, even the disciples—no longer sees him. Earlier he said, “the world no longer sees me, but you see me” (14:19). Now he acknowledges that even his own disciples “do not see me,” at least for a time. He will explain this shortly (vv. 16, 19–22). His point is not to relegate the disciples to a position no better off than the world (as he seemed to do back in 13:33), but simply to emphasize that he is literally leaving the world by “going away” to the Father, hidden from human view.* To put it in terms more characteristic of other New Testament writers, Jesus will be “justified,” or vindicated against the world, in his resurrection and ascension (see 14:19–20).*
He makes much the same point with regard to “judgment”* (vv. 8 and 10). “Judgment,” or condemnation (unlike “justice,” or righteousness), has been mentioned explicitly before as something that takes place in connection with the coming of Jesus, or that which he has been given the authority to carry out (see 3:19; 5:22, 27, 30; 8:16; 12:31). Here he claims that the Advocate will prove the world wrong about “judgment” by proving that “the ruler of this world”—not Jesus—“has been judged.” With this, he draws together the two affirmations of 12:31: “Now is the judgment of this world,” and “Now the ruler of this world will be driven out.” From Jesus’ standpoint, the “exorcism” of Satan, the world’s ruler, was a work in progress. Even after the departure of Judas, Satan’s instrument, he still had to warn his disciples that “the ruler of the world is coming,” and remind them that “in me he has nothing” (14:30). From the future perspective of the Advocate, however, Satan’s defeat is an accomplished fact. “The ruler of this world,” and consequently “the world” itself, is “judged,” or condemned,* just as surely as “whoever does not believe is already judged, because he has not believed in the name of the One and Only Son of God” (3:18). “Judgment” too (like “justice”) is accomplished through Jesus’ departure to the Father and the coming of the Advocate. In short, the Advocate will redefine three familiar terms (familiar especially to the Jews), each one in relation to Jesus: “sin” as rejecting Jesus, “justice” as what God has done for Jesus, and “judgment” as what Jesus carries out by his death.
12 Pausing for a moment before continuing to describe the Advocate’s ministry, Jesus tells the disciples, “I have still much more* to say to you, but you are unable to bear it now” (v. 12).* While this might appear to contradict 14:30, “I will no longer speak with you very much,” in actuality it does not, for Jesus is simply explaining why he will not have much more to say. Not because there is nothing left to say, nor even because he is about to leave, but because the disciples are “unable to bear it now.” The verb “to bear,” or endure, is appropriate in view of Jesus’ grim warnings of hatred and persecution (15:18–16:3).* He implies that he could have spoken of these at greater length and in more detail, but did not do so because the Father did not tell him to.* There is much that the disciples will face in the course of their mission for which they are not prepared, and for which it would be premature to try to prepare them. Above all, their mission will reach beyond the “world” of Judaism to that of the Gentiles. Jesus in this Gospel has confined his warnings mainly to the former,* with little explicit attention to the fate awaiting them in the Graeco-Roman cities, and at the hands of the Roman authorities.
13 By itself, Jesus’ announcement that “I have still more to say to you” (v. 12) could imply further revelation beyond what he reveals in the Gospel—that is, that the Advocate (vv. 7–11) is “not only his interpreter, but also his ‘successor,’ who will continue his revelation.”* Jesus had promised earlier that the Advocate “will teach you all things and remind you of all things that I said to you” (14:26), but now his role seems to have expanded, so that “when that one comes, the Spirit of truth, he will lead you* in all the truth” (v. 13a). The phrase, “in all the truth,”* surely the most sweeping statement of the Spirit’s ministry to be found anywhere in the New Testament, must obviously be read in context. “All the truth” is not the scientific or philosophical truth about the natural world, not the things humans can learn on their own by rational inquiry or observation. Rather, as Jesus will quickly point out, it is his truth, in the sense of the truth the Father has given him to make known, the “still much more” that is left to say (v. 12). But before defining “the truth” more explicitly as “what is mine” (see vv. 14 and 15), Jesus continues to describe the Advocate’s ministry, a ministry remarkably like his own: “For he will not speak on his own, but whatever he hears* he will speak, and he will announce to you the things to come” (v. 13b). The first two of these characteristics match perfectly Jesus’ own self-revelation, for he too does not speak “on his own” (see 5:19; 7:17–18; 12:49; 14:10), and he too says only what he has “heard” (that is, from the Father; see 5:30; 8:26, 40; 15:15). The third is more distinctive. Although Jesus has shown that he can predict the future “before it happens” (13:19; 14:29; also 16:4), he has for the most part left “the things to come”* to the Advocate.* Whether that phrase refers to eschatological events (such as those described in the book of Revelation),* or simply to more detailed instruction about what the disciples will face in their mission to the world and how to face it, is uncertain. Possibly no distinction is intended between those two alternatives. In any event, Jesus provides here the reason why he is not saying all that he has to say or could say (v. 12). Rather, the disciples will take their directions from “that one* … the Spirit of truth.”
14–15 “That one will glorify me,” Jesus continues, “because he will take from what is mine and announce it to you” (v. 14). Why “from what is mine”? Has Jesus not said that the Advocate would speak “whatever he hears” (v. 13b)—presumably from the Father, not Jesus? And before that, that he would lead the disciples “in all the truth” (v. 13a)? How can he characterize “all the truth” as “mine,” or claim that the Advocate will “glorify me”?* Even though Jesus has spoken this way before,* an explanation is required, and he is quick to supply it: “All things that the Father has are mine; that is why I said that he takes from what is mine and will announce it to you” (v. 15). He defines “all the truth” (v. 13) as “All things that the Father has,” which he then explicitly claims in turn as “mine” (in keeping with 3:35, “The Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hand”). “All the truth” is Jesus’ truth, or the truth about Jesus—the only truth that matters in the Gospel of John. The added explanation (v. 15) functions in much the same way as the Gospel writer’s classic narrative asides, and some have regarded it as such.* Yet the fact that it is placed on Jesus’ own lips can hardly be overlooked. Whether it comes from Jesus or the Gospel writer, the writer clearly wants us to regard it not as his comment but as Jesus’ own explanation of what he has just said, in much the same way that Jesus will almost immediately utter a riddle (v. 16) and then explain it (vv. 19–22).
16 If what he has just said (vv. 14–15) sounded like a riddle followed by an explanation, then what Jesus says next is another riddle, this time without explanation, well calculated to draw a response from the long silent disciples: “A short time,* and you no longer see me, and again a short time,* and you will see me” (v. 16). The disciples have heard something like this before (“Yet a short time, and the world no longer sees me, but you see me,” 14:19).* This time, by contrast, there are two “short times,” which can be understood in at least three possible ways:
(a) The two “short times” are consecutive, and of roughly equal length. The first is the brief interval before Jesus dies, and the second the interval between his death and his resurrection, when the disciples will see him once more (see 2:19, “in three days”). On this view, the reader’s impression is that of living in the age of the resurrection, with Jesus present in the Spirit, having already gone away and returned.
(b) The two “short times” are consecutive, but not necessarily of equal length. The first is the brief interval before Jesus’ death and resurrection, and the second the whole present age, after which Jesus will be seen again. On this view, the reader’s impression is that Jesus has gone away and will soon return.*
(c) The two “short times” are not consecutive, but are in fact the same “short time” viewed in two different ways—first through the eyes of “the world” (14:19, “the world no longer sees me”), and then through the eyes of the disciples (14:19, “but you see me”). The adverb “again” does not imply succession, or introduce a second “short time,” but simply presents a different way of looking at the “short time” already mentioned.* On this view, the reader’s impression is that of living within this “short time,” a time in which Jesus has literally gone away, yet is still accessible to the believer through faith, prayer, and the ministry of the Advocate (see 20:29, “Blessed are those who did not see, and yet believed”).
The third alternative perhaps requires further explanation. As we have seen, Jesus emphasized earlier that the disciples and “the world” perceive things differently, for they will see him (as the Risen One) even when the world no longer does (see 14:19). Here, by contrast, he acknowledges that at one level the disciples’ perception is no different from the world’s. As he has just said (v. 10), the Advocate will convict the world “of justice because I am going to the Father and you no longer see me” (not simply that “the world” no longer sees him). In short, Jesus’ absence is real, just as real to the disciples as to the world.* Yet absence is not the last word, for he quickly adds, “And again a short time, and you will see me.” Thus, in one sense “you no longer see me,” while in another “you will see me.” Obviously, the disciples are confused by Jesus’ riddle (see vv. 17–18). But this is not one of those instances in which the reader clearly understands while the disciples do not. Rather, the riddle remains a riddle, not only to the disciples on the scene but even to the readers of the Gospel. They, no less than the disciples, stand to benefit from the detailed explanation Jesus will give (vv. 20–24).
17–18 If Jesus’ riddle (v. 16) was designed to elicit a response from the disciples, it succeeds. The Gospel writer describes their confusion over it at some length. First, “So some of his disciples said to each other, ‘What is this that he is saying to us? “A short time, and you do not see me, and again a short time, and you will see me”?* And “because I am going to the Father”?’ ” (v. 17). Then, somewhat redundantly, “So they said, ‘What does this “short time” mean? We don’t know what he is talking about’ ” (v. 18). In contrast to earlier questions voiced by single individuals and directed to Jesus as “Lord” (13:36; 14:5, 8, 22), these questions are spoken “to each other” (v. 17), like the questions and murmurings of Jesus’ antagonists in the first half of the Gospel (see, for example, 6:41–43, 52, 60–61; 7:35–36; see also 7:15, 25–27; 8:22; 10:19–21). Yet this hesitancy to speak directly to him is not unprecedented even for the disciples (see v. 5; also 4:27, 33; and compare 21:12). Jesus has noticed it already, and attributed it to their “grief” (vv. 5–6). The writer is less kind, accenting the disciples’ bewilderment by the use of repetition and redundancy. First, they quote the riddle in full, asking “What is this that he is saying to us?” Then, drawing on something Jesus said earlier, they cite the reason why they would not see him: “because I am going to the Father” (v. 10; this shows that they have heard more than just the final riddle). Not content with that, they continue, “What does this ‘short time’ mean? We don’t know what he is talking about.” In just two verses they speak of “a short time,” “again a short time,” and “this ‘short time,’ ” asking twice, “What is this?” and concluding “We don’t know what he is talking about.” Their ignorance sounds almost invincible.
F. The Disciples’ Response (16:17–33)
So some of his disciples said to each other, “What is this that he is saying to us? ‘A short time, and you do not see me, and again a short time, and you will see me’? And ‘because I am going to the Father’?” So they said, “What does this ‘short time’ mean? We don’t know what he is talking about.” Jesus could tell that they wanted to ask him, and he said to them, “Are you questioning each other because I said, ‘A short time, and you no longer see me, and again a short time, and you will see me’? Amen, amen, I say to you that you will weep and mourn, but the world will rejoice. You will be grieved, but your grief will be turned into joy. The woman, when she gives birth, has grief because her hour has come. But when the child is born, she no longer remembers the distress on account of the joy that a human being is born into the world. And so you have grief now, but I will see you again, and your heart will rejoice, and no one takes your joy from you. And in that day you will ask me nothing. Amen, amen, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name he will give you. Up to now you have asked for nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy might be fulfilled.
These things I have spoken to you in parables. An hour is coming when I will speak to you no longer in parables, but I will report to you plainly about the Father. In that day you will ask in my name, and I am not saying to you that I will ask the Father on your behalf. For the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me, and have believed that I came forth from God. I came forth from the Father, and I have come into the world. Again, I am leaving the world and going off to the Father.”
His disciples said, “Look, now you are speaking plainly, and no longer telling a parable. Now we know that you know all things and have no need that anyone ask you. By this we believe that you came forth from God.” Jesus answered them, “Now you believe! Look, an hour is coming and has come that you will be scattered, each to his own home, and leave me all alone, and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me. These things I have spoken to you so that in me you might have peace. In the world you have distress, but take courage, I have overcome the world!”
Finally the disciples break their long silence. For the first time since Judas’s question (14:22), they offer a reaction to what Jesus has said. Yet in contrast to 13:36–14:31, they speak not as individuals, but as a group, and quite noticeably not to Jesus directly, but only “to each other” (v. 17). They express somewhat repetitiously (vv. 17–18) their confusion about what he has just said (v. 16), while ignoring all that preceded it (14:23–16:15). Jesus takes note of the fact that they have still not questioned him directly and summarizes their confusion yet again (v. 19). Then he offers by way of explanation a parable about a woman in labor (vv. 20–21), which he promptly interprets for them (vv. 22–24). Finally, picking up some threads of his preceding long discourse, he tries to get through to them once again (vv. 25–28). At last they answer him directly, claiming that “now” they understand what he is saying (vv. 29–30). Whether they actually do or not is unclear (vv. 31–33), for his final verdict on their faith and understanding awaits the next chapter.
19 Noticing that they still have not spoken to him directly, “Jesus could tell* that they wanted to ask him, and he said to them, ‘Are you questioning each other* because I said, “A short time, and you do not see me, and again a short time, and you will see me”?’ ” (v. 19). The word-for-word repetition of the riddle, now for the third time (see vv. 16, 17), gently mocks the disciples, calling attention to their bewilderment. Yet at the same time Jesus gives them the benefit of the doubt, acknowledging that, far from ignoring him, they “wanted to ask him” but did not, whether out of grief (as in v. 6) or for some other reason. Therefore he will answer the questions they have asked each other, but could not bring themselves to ask him: “What is this that he is saying to us?” (v. 17), and “What does this ‘short time’ mean?” (v. 18).
20 The explanation begins with an “Amen, amen” saying, the twenty-third in the Gospel (and the first since 14:12): “Amen, amen, I say to you that you will weep and mourn, but the world will rejoice. You will be grieved, but your grief will be turned into joy” (v. 20).* The original riddle (v. 16) said nothing about “the world,” nor did the disciples in questioning each other about it. But now Jesus returns to the subject of “the world,” and the sharp contrast between what the “short time” (or “times”) of which he has just spoken will mean to “you” and what it will mean to “the world.” In that sense he revisits 14:19, where the contrast between the world’s perception and that of Jesus’ disciples was evident. But this time the contrast is not so much between two different perceptions of reality as between two different responses toward what is perceived. The reality is that Jesus is literally going away. He will be absent not only from the world, but also from the disciples. For a “short time” at least, they must put up with his absence, and consequently “weep and mourn.”* What differentiates them from the world is not the experience of Jesus’ “real absence” but their emotional response to it. The world will “rejoice”* at his absence, even as they are “grieved”* (v. 20a). This is not surprising in view of the earlier warning that “If the world hates you, you know that it has hated me before you” (15:18). Because he has been a thorn in the world’s side, exposing its sin (see 15:22), the world will rejoice that he is gone.*
That much is essentially an explanation of the first half of the riddle: “A short time, and you no longer see me.” As for the second half, “and again a short time, and you will see me,” Jesus addresses that with the promise, “but your grief will be turned into joy” (v. 20b). His intention for the disciples all along has been “joy” (see 15:11), but “grief” has gripped them instead, even before his departure (see v. 6). “You will be grieved” (v. 20a), he now says, but in fact they are already grieved at even the prospect of his absence, too grieved to question him directly (vv. 17–18). Yet his original intent “that my joy might be in you, and that your joy might be fulfilled” (15:11) will not be thwarted, for their grief “will be turned into joy.” What will be the turning point? Clearly, it has to do with the promise that they will “see” Jesus once more.* Taking our cue from 14:19–20, we suspect that it is his resurrection (see also 20:20, “so the disciples rejoiced, seeing the Lord”). This is confirmed in part by what is not said. He does not say that the world’s “joy” will turn to “grief,” suggesting that this turning point is something of which the world is not even aware—quite plausibly his resurrection (see 14:19, “the world no longer sees me”; also Acts 10:41–42). Still, the riddle is not quite solved. Will the disciples’ grief turn to joy after “a short time,” or after two successive “short times” (see v. 16). They are still puzzled. An illustration or parable of some kind is needed, and Jesus quickly supplies one.
21 The parable centers on the two key words, “grief” and “joy,” in connection with childbirth: “The woman, when she gives birth, has grief because her hour has come.* But when the child is born, she no longer remembers the distress, on account of the joy that a human being is born into the world” (v. 21). “The woman”* is generic. While childbirth was a common metaphor for eschatological “distress” or tribulation prior to “the day of the Lord” in Judaism and early Christianity, this is any woman giving birth (as in 1 Thess 5:3), just as “the slave” (8:35; 15:15) is any slave, or “the son” (5:19; 8:35) is any son.* She is not an allegorical figure representing either Israel or Jerusalem or the people of God (as, for example, in Isa 26:16–19; 66:7–9; Mic 4:9–10; 5:3; or Rev 12:2). Yet the parable does involve a comparison between her experience and that of the disciples. The comparison is a simple one: there is “grief” and then “joy,” but the joy far outweighs the grief.* Jesus’ point is much the same as Paul’s: “For I reckon that the sufferings of the present time are not worthy to be compared to the glory about to be revealed to us” (Rom 8:18), and “For this light temporary distress is achieving for us an immeasurable and eternal weight of glory” (2 Cor 4:17).* Most mothers will dispute the accuracy of the claim that “when the child is born, she no longer remembers the distress” (evidence perhaps that the Gospel writer was a man!), but the words are not intended literally. They are simply a way of making the point that the prospect of “joy” renders all the “grief” or “distress” that precedes it worthwhile (see Heb 12:2).
The parable comes as a surprise in one respect, in that the reason for the woman’s overwhelming joy is “that a human being* is born into the world.” To be born “into the world” is evidently a good thing, even in the face of all that has been said about “the world” hating the disciples (15:18–25) and rejoicing at their grief (see v. 20). The positive imagery recalls “the true [Light] that illumines every human being* who comes into the world” (1:9), reminding us that the dualism of this Gospel never lapses into world-denying Gnosticism. The disciples themselves, while not “of,” or “from” the world, are, and will be, emphatically “in” the world (see 17:11, 16), not only by virtue of having been “born” into it but by virtue of being “sent” (17:18), even as Jesus himself was both “born” (18:37) and “sent into the world” (for example, 3:17; 10:36). Yet implicit in the imagery is also an argument from the lesser to the greater, as the very real joy at physical birth hints at a greater joy transcending even that of a new mother.*
Jesus immediately makes the application explicit: “And so you have grief now, but I will see you again, and your heart will rejoice, and no one takes your joy from you” (v. 22). “Now” confirms that “grief” (as in v. 6) is a present experience for the disciples, not something that begins only after “a short time.” The “short time” has already begun, for they have already felt the pain of their Teacher’s absence and expressed it, first by their questions (13:36–14:22), and then by their confused silence (vv. 5–6, 17–18). Here at least—in keeping with option (c) above (see pp.
The promise, “I will see you again,” also recalls Jesus’ terminology earlier in answering the questions of individual disciples: “I am coming back” (14:3), and “I am coming to you” (14:18, 28). The vocabulary of “not seeing” and “seeing” has now replaced that of “going away” and “coming,” yet the experience described is the same, and with the same ambiguities. There Jesus’ “coming” could refer either to his resurrection and the coming of the Advocate (14:18), or to his “second” coming at the close of the age (14:3), or it could be left uncertain (14:28). The same is true here. A reader who knows the end of the story will know that Jesus and the disciples saw each other again when he was raised from the dead (20:14, 18, 20, 25, 29), and that they “rejoiced” (20:20), yet it could hardly be said of them that “no one takes your joy from you.” Their life from then on was not uninterrupted joy, nor is that of the reader. Rather, grief and joy exist alongside each other in the present age, even after Jesus’ resurrection (see 21:17, “Peter was grieved”). The resurrection appearances of chapters 20 and 21 provide a glimpse of eternal joy, but only a glimpse. Turning from grief to joy is not something that happens once for all in the life of the disciple, but something that happens again and again. The “short time” in which we live as disciples of Jesus and readers of the Gospel can be a time of either grief or joy, depending on a variety of factors—external circumstances, our prayers, our faith, and above all the ministry of the risen Jesus in the person of the Advocate. As readers we will resonate at times with the first way of looking at it (“you do not see me”), and at other times (“again”) with the second (“you will see me,” or “I will see you”). Jesus is conspicuous among us, whether by his presence or his absence. Ambiguity is evident among the disciples in the rest of the chapter (see vv. 31–33), even as it doubtless was among the Gospel’s first readers, and no less so today.
23–24 Jesus’ explanation of the parable (v. 21) continues (vv. 23–24), confirming the conclusion that “your heart will rejoice, and no one takes your joy from you” (v. 22). “And in that day,” he promises, “you will ask me nothing” (v. 23a). “In that day” recalls an earlier promise that “In that day, you will come to know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you” (14:20). “Joy” rests on knowledge, and he has repeatedly promised the disciples knowledge (see also 15:15). “You will ask me nothing”* could mean either “you will ask me for nothing”—that is, in prayer,* or “you will ask me no questions.”* In support of the former, the emphatic “me” suggests to some translators that Jesus is distinguishing himself from the Father: the disciples will not need to pray to him or through him, but will have direct access to the Father (see vv. 26–27).* Yet the verb “to ask”* is used only of Jesus’ prayers in this Gospel (see 14:16; 16:26; 17:9, 15, 20), not of the prayers of disciples or believers (1 Jn 5:16 is a possible, though unlikely, exception). When the disciples are the subject, it normally means to ask questions (as in vv. 5 and 19; also 9:2). In the very next sentence, when the subject turns to prayer (v. 23b), a different verb for “ask” is used,* not once but three times. Here the meaning is, “you will ask me no questions”—not because they are too grieved (as in v. 6) or too confused to ask (as in v. 19), but because they will have no need to ask.* “In that day” (here as in 14:20) they will understand what they do not understand now. Their questions will have been answered. The emphatic “me” simply identifies Jesus as the Source of truth, who will reveal all things freely without being questioned (see v. 30).*
Another kind of “asking” is needed, however, even commanded. While the disciples will have no more need to ask questions (v. 23a), they will always need to “ask”* in prayer. Without hesitation Jesus continues: “Amen, amen, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name he will give you” (v. 23b). This twenty-fourth “Amen, amen” pronouncement in the Gospel does not introduce a new topic, but adds a necessary qualification to what has already been said. “Joy” (v. 22) rests on knowledge to be sure, but the transition from grief to joy is accomplished only through prayer. The pronouncement itself is nothing new, for he has already expressed his intent (in almost the same words) “that whatever you ask of the Father in my name he might give you”—this as the means by which the disciples would “go and bear fruit” (15:16). What he stated there as an intention is stated here as a fact. Prayer “in his name” will be answered because it is the prayer of those who know him, and do not have to be told what he would want.
The promise of answered prayer is for “that day”* (v. 23a) when Jesus will see them again (v. 22) and make himself known to them, yet he boldly invites them to claim it even now: “Up to now you have asked for nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy might be fulfilled” (v. 24).* The reference to “your joy” brings him full circle back to the application of the parable about the woman (“but I will see you again, and your heart will rejoice, and no one takes your joy from you,” v. 22), and back still further to his stated intention “that my joy might be in you, and that your joy might be fulfilled” (15:11). With this, he confirms that the transition from “grief” to “joy” is not limited to an eschatological moment, whether the resurrection of Jesus or his final coming, but is something that happens again and again, above all through the prayers of those who grieve.
25 Once again (as in 14:25; 15:11; 16:1, 4, 6), the expression “These things I have spoken to you”* marks a rhetorical pause in the discourse, drawing a distinction (as in 16:1) between the present and a future “hour” to come: “These things I have spoken to you in parables. An hour is coming when I will speak to you no longer in parables, but I will report to you plainly* about the Father” (v. 25). But here (in contrast to 16:2), Jesus speaks of the coming “hour” as a time not simply of persecution, but of open revelation and free access to God—all the more necessary, perhaps, because of persecution to come. The phrase “in parables”* is probably broad enough to refer both to the riddle that first aroused the disciples’ curiosity, “A short time, and you no longer see me, and again a short time, and you will see me” (v. 16), and to the actual parable that followed, about a woman giving birth (v. 21, like 10:1–5 a “parable of normalcy” in everyday life). The former confused them (vv. 17–19); the latter was an attempt to clarify, yet nothing in the text suggests that the clarification was successful. Confusion still reigns. But when “parable” gives way to “plain” speech, then (and only then) will they understand.
“Plainly” is the same word used earlier to mean “openly” or “publicly” (7:4, 13, 26).* The meaning, however, is closer to what was implied by the Jews at the Rededication, “If you are the Christ, tell us plainly” (10:24, in contrast to figurative language about shepherds and sheep), or to the instance in which Jesus, after referring to Lazarus as having “fallen asleep” (11:11), finally told the disciples “plainly” that “Lazarus died” (11:14). Here, by contrast, the promise to speak “plainly” looks beyond the present scene to a coming “hour” when Jesus will continue to speak to the disciples (see v. 12, “I have still more to say to you, but you are unable to bear it now”), but only through the Advocate (see v. 13, “But when that one comes, the Spirit of truth, he will lead you in all the truth”). In this way, he promises, “I will report to you plainly about the Father.” The verb “report,” or “report back,”* occurs only here in John’s Gospel,* but is particularly appropriate in a setting which seems to presuppose Jesus’ departure to the Father and his return in the person of the Advocate.* The content of his “report” is “about the Father,” in keeping with what has been the content of his revelation all along (see, for example, 8:28; 14:9, 24; 15:15). From here on (vv. 26–28) his emphasis is resolutely on “the Father.”
26–27 “In that day,” Jesus continues, “you will ask in my name, and I am not saying to you that I will ask the Father on your behalf” (v. 26). “In that day” confirms the impression that he is speaking of a future time after his departure (as in v. 23 and 14:20), a “day” indistinguishable from that coming “hour” when he will speak “plainly” and not in parables (v. 25). It is, as we have seen, a day not for questions but for prayer (v. 23). He has invited the disciples even now to “Ask, and you will receive, that your joy might be fulfilled” (v. 24), but he implies that “in that day” their relation to the Father will be closer and more direct than it is now. “You will ask in my name,” he says, just as he has said all along (vv. 23–24; also 14:13; 15:16), but he goes on to define what that means, or more precisely what it does not mean. It does not mean that he will intercede for them with the Father, or that he will somehow take their prayers and present them to the Father. On the contrary, he says, “I am not saying that I will ask* the Father on your behalf.” In the following chapter, he will still be heard “asking” on the disciples’ behalf (see 17:9, 15, 20), but “in that day,” after he goes to the Father, he will no longer need to do so, for their own access to the Father will be immediate and direct.* He makes this explicit by adding, “For the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me, and have believed that I came forth from God” (v. 27). This implies that of course their prayers to the Father will be answered (as we knew already from v. 23), but there is no need to spell it out. The Father’s love for the disciples, of course, consists of far more than just answering their prayers.
The notion that the Father loves us because we love Jesus echoes 14:21 (“the person who loves me will be loved by my Father”) and 14:23 (“If anyone loves me, … my Father will love him”) almost verbatim.* The main difference is that there the proof that a person loved Jesus was keeping his “commands” (14:21), or his “word” (14:23), while the proof here, he says, is believing “that I came forth from God” (v. 27). The test is creedal here, not behavioral. Jesus’ acknowledgment that the disciples have in fact believed this can be grounded in Peter’s confession that “we believe and we know that you are the Holy One of God” (6:69), in light of Jesus’ subsequent self-identification as he “whom the Father consecrated [that is, “made holy”] and sent into the world” (10:36).
28 Jesus next expands the brief clause, “that I came forth from God,”* into a full summary of his mission that could serve admirably as a summary of the whole Gospel of John: “I came forth from the Father, and I have come into the world. Again,* I am leaving the world* and going off to the Father” (v. 28).* The first two clauses echo what he said long before to the Jews at the Tent festival (“I came forth from God, and here I am,” 8:42), while the first and last clauses state in his own words what the reader has known from the very beginning of the present scene (“that he had come from God and was going to God,” 13:3). This is the whole package, the sum of what he wants his disciples to understand and believe.
29 At long last the disciples are able to speak directly to Jesus: “His disciples said,* ‘Look, now you are speaking plainly, and no longer telling a parable. Now we know that you know all things and have no need that anyone ask you. By this we believe that you came forth from God’ ” (vv. 29–30). These are the only words the disciples as a group have addressed to Jesus in the entire farewell discourse. At first, some of them had spoken to him individually, addressing him repeatedly as “Lord” (13:6, 9, 25, 36; 14:5, 8, 22), but since then they have spoken only once, and that to each other, not to Jesus (vv. 17–18). Finally, they break their long silence, but these are also their last words before the discourse comes to an end. Have they understood, or not?
Clearly, the disciples think that “now” they understand Jesus. Their repetition of “now” (vv. 29, 30) has the effect of finishing his sentence for him. He has said, “An hour is coming”* (v. 25), and they in effect supply the conclusion, “and now is” (in keeping with 4:23 and 5:25). He spoke of a coming “hour” in which “I will speak to you no longer in parables, but I will report to you plainly about the Father” (v. 25), and their response is that the “hour” has already begun. The question is, Are they being premature. Have they “jumped the gun” with their jubilant claim? Earlier, the expressions “the hour is coming” and “the hour is coming and now is” could either be used interchangeably (as in 4:21, 23), or differentiated (as in 5:25, 28). In the present discourse, the shorter form (“the hour is coming”) seems to have been used for events that are future from the standpoint of Jesus, but present in the experience of the readers (vv. 2, 25). The question is whether or not the Gospel writer intends a sharp distinction between the experience of the readers of the Gospel and the experience of these original disciples on the scene. Probably not. The disciples’ impression that Jesus is “speaking plainly, and no longer telling a parable” (v. 29) is, after all, accurate. “I came forth from the Father, and I have come into the world,” and “I am leaving the world and going off to the Father,” are about as “plain” as speech can be.*
30 From the disciples’ recognition of “plain” speech a confession of faith emerges: “Now we know that you know all things and have no need that anyone ask you,” and “By this we believe that you came forth from God” (v. 30).* The acknowledgment “that you know all things and have no need that anyone ask you” is somewhat anticlimactic, for it simply repeats in the disciples’ own words something Jesus has said already: that “in that day you will ask me nothing” (v. 23). They seem to have understood that pronouncement correctly: “in that day” their questions will have been answered.* To a modern reader, the words, “you know all things and have no need that anyone ask you,” sound somehow wrong, for one expects, “you know all things and have no need to ask anyone.” But the notion that Jesus “knows all things” is not an abstract theological claim. It is closely linked to his role as Revealer. If he knows all things, he will reveal all things without being questioned. This he will do, he has implied, through the Advocate who “will lead you in all the truth” (see vv. 12, 13). The initiative in revelation rests with him, not with the disciples.
The use of questions to solicit divine revelation was a familiar technique in Jewish and Christian apocalyptic literature (and in later gnostic writings), and not least in this very Gospel (quite conspicuously in the four questions of Peter, Thomas, Philip, and Judas after the footwashing). But as the discourse moved toward its close, Jesus seized the initiative by answering the disciples’ unspoken questions without being asked (see vv. 19–22). This, he claimed, would be the model for the coming “day” when he would see them again (v. 23), and his disciples, echoing his words, now claim that it has already gone into effect. The same principle appears to be at work in the second-century Shepherd of Hermas, in which the prophet is told that “no spirit given by God is consulted,* but having divine power it speaks all things from its own authority, because it comes from above, from the power of the divine spirit. But the spirit that, when consulted, speaks in light of human desires is earthly and insubstantial, having no power. And it does not speak at all unless it is consulted.”* Here, too, the point seems to be that Jesus does not have to be “questioned” or consulted, but takes the initiative in revelation.
The recognition that Jesus knows and reveals all things triggers the disciples’ confession “that you came forth from God.”* In comparison to most confessions in this Gospel, it is a modest confession indeed, for it is not attributed to a particular person, nor does it draw on any of the great christological titles, such as “the Christ” (11:27), or “Son of God” (1:34, 49; 11:27), or “Holy One of God” (6:69), or “Lord” and “God” (20:28). It shows no advance, in fact, over what Nicodemus recognized almost from the beginning, that Jesus had “come from God as a teacher” (3:2)! In the present context, moreover, it too is anticlimactic, merely confirming what Jesus already said: “you have loved me, and have believed that I came forth from God” (v. 27). It does not begin to match the full confession he seemed to want to elicit from them when he added, “Again, I am leaving the world and going off to the Father” (v. 28)—much less the joyful affirmation that “I am coming back” (14:3), or “I am coming to you” (14:18, 28), or “I will see you again” (v. 22). Unless the reader is expected to fill in the gaps to encompass the full scope of Jesus’ mission to the world, their confession is not so much premature and overblown as weak, belated, and long overdue. Not much here for Jesus to build on, but build on it he will (see 17:6–8).
31 The disciples’ confession of what they “know” and “believe” (v. 30) will form the basis of Jesus’ long prayer in the following chapter, but first he pauses to remind them that they still have a long way to go (vv. 31–33). His ironic reply to their confession* can be read as either a question (“Do you now believe?”), or an exclamation, probably intended ironically (“Now you believe!”). Most English translations read it as a question,* yet Jesus has already stated without qualification that they do in fact believe precisely what they have just said they believe (see v. 27). It is unlikely that their confirmation of it (v. 30) would have led him to have second thoughts as to their sincerity. Their belief is real, but it is “now,” that is, temporary. It will not stand the test of time, and of persecution (see v. 2). In choosing a different word for “now” from the one his disciples have just used,* he avoids mocking them, yet his comment reminds them that their confidence is misplaced. “Now,” on their lips means “already,” while on Jesus’ lips it means “for the time being.” Hard times are coming, and they are not prepared.*
32 “Look,” he continues, “an hour is coming and has come that you will be scattered, each to his own home, and leave me all alone, and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me” (v. 32). For the third time in the chapter he uses the expression “an hour is coming,” recalling simultaneously his dire prediction of excommunication and death (v. 2) and the glad prospect of “plain” speaking and direct access to God in prayer (v. 25). In the second instance, as we have seen, the disciples virtually finished his sentence for him, announcing that the “hour” had already come (vv. 29–30). This time he finishes his own sentence (as in 4:23 and 5:25)—“an hour is coming and has come”*—revisiting instead the earlier warning of persecution (v. 2).
The focus of the prophecy is not on the specifics of what the disciples will suffer at the hands of either “the world” or “the Jews” (as in v. 2), but on the effect all this will have on them. “You will be scattered,”* Jesus tells them, “each to his own home, and leave me all alone.” Having warned them explicitly against being “made to stumble” (v. 1), he now acknowledges that they will in fact do exactly that. The prediction, “you will be scattered,” corresponds to Jesus’ words in Mark that “you will all be made to stumble” (Mk 14:27; also Mt 26:31). The verb “scattered,” in fact, recalls the accompanying biblical quotation in Mark and Matthew (from Zech 13:7): “I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered.” In John’s Gospel, as in the other two, the reference functions as an explicit prediction of the disciples’ desertion and flight at Jesus’ arrest (see Mk 14:50–51; Mt 26:56), even though in John’s Gospel, as we will see, that event is narrated differently (see 18:8–9). This is evident from the words, “and leave me all alone,” referring to Jesus’ suffering and death. Yet those “scattered, each to his own home” are not just the disciples on the scene but all believers everywhere, all those in danger of being “made to stumble” at the prospect of expulsion from the synagogue, or even death (see v. 2). Their time of being “scattered” is their time of “grief” (see vv. 20, 22). Not only will Jesus’ immediate disciples leave him “all alone”* in his passion, but they themselves, and their followers, will be left alone in the wake of his departure. He has said, “I will not leave you orphaned” (14:18), yet he now acknowledges times in their experience when their sense of his absence and their own isolation (temporary though it may be) will be very real and very strong.
Closing on a note of hope, Jesus adds, “and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me.” He has said as much twice before to the Pharisees at the Tent festival, first to enhance his authority to pass judgment (8:16), but then in a more sweeping way to assert a relationship that “always” exists: “And the One who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone, for I always do the things that please him” (8:29). If the Father has been with the Son throughout his ministry, there is no reason to believe that he will desert him just because the disciples do. And if the pronouncement holds out hope for Jesus in his passion, it does so for the scattered disciples as well. They have been told that “the Father himself loves you” (v. 27), and while it has not yet been made explicit, they have every reason to believe that as “children of God who are scattered” they will at last be “gathered into one” (see 11:52). Their grief will turn to joy, as we have seen, not once for all in a single moment but again and again, through prayer and through the ministry of the Advocate.
33 The expression, “These things I have spoken to you,”* finally does what the reader expected it to do all along. It brings the discourse to a close. Here (as in 15:11; 16:1, 4) it is followed by a purpose clause: “These things I have spoken to you so that in me you might have peace. In the world you have distress, but take courage, I have overcome the world!” (v. 33). Earlier, he stated his purpose both positively (to bring joy, 15:11), and negatively (to warn against “stumbling,” 16:1, 4). This time he combines warning and assurance, with the good news that in the end assurance and hope have the last word. He visualizes the disciples after his departure living simultaneously “in me” (as in 14:20; 15:2, 4–7), where they will have “peace,” and “in the world,” where “distress”* awaits them. His final word to them is “Take courage, I have overcome* the world.” If chapters 15 and 16 are indeed a “second” farewell discourse, as many have proposed, then the second discourse ends on a note reminiscent of Jesus’ words near the close of the first, “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let no one’s heart be shaken, nor let it be fearful!” (14:27). The dualism is evident in both places. Jesus and his disciples are at war with “the world,” and “the world” is already defeated in principle. His victory over the world is theirs as well, a victory confirmed and accomplished in the long prayer to follow (17:1–26), and explicitly claimed for Christian believers both in 1 John (see 2:13–14; 4:4; 5:4–5) and in the book of Revelation (see 3:21; 5:5; 12:11; 15:2; 17:14; 21:7). But as for the disciples on the scene, they are not heard from again.
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