Holy Ghost Stories (4): The Counselor -- October 25, 2009

"Now I am going to him who sent me, yet none of you asks me, 'Where are you going?' Because I have said these things, you are filled with grief. But I tell you the truth: It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. When he comes, he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment: in regard to sin, because men do not believe in me; in regard to righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; and in regard to judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned.

"I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you. All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will take from what is mine and make it known to you.

"In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me."

(John 16:5-16)

You can't handle the truth! Do you remember that great line delivered by Jack Nicholson a few years back in the moving A Few Good Men? It was a court scene. It's Jack Nicholson against Tom Cruise. Nicholson's character is on the stand. Tom Cruise is for the prosecution. It's a court marshal that crescendos to that memorable line of Nicholson's, You can't handle the truth! But what's so poignant about that scene is that Nicholson's character delivers that line in a last ditch effort to cover up a lie.

And the Father of all Lies, that Hater of our souls, the Enemy, tries to pass the same lie off to us, You can't handle the truth! The truth, especially the truth about ourselves, the truth of this world, can be ugly. Sometimes the truth is painful. Sometimes the truth seems insurmountable. And amongst the many soul-shrivelling lies the Hater whispers into our ears, perhaps none is as insidious, destructive and spiritually damaging as this: You can't handle the truth!

In our passage this morning, Jesus is about to leave His friends. And He wasn't about to go on any vacation, either. He was about to go to the Cross. It was and is better for them and for us that He goes - so that Jesus could set in motion God's rescue mission for the world, and that He would send us another Counselor, the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth. A couple of weeks ago, we looked at a passage, very similar to this one, in John 14 where Jesus promises the Holy Spirit to come - and we learned a couple of weeks ago that He would come as Someone who would come alongside of us, One who would stand in our corner in solidarity with us.

But here in John 16 we discover another role for the Holy Spirit - a role, I believe, that will shock, surprise and perhaps even offend some of us. But that's just like the Holy Spirit: Sometimes He will comfort, console and heal. But there are other times when He will shock, surprise and even offend. You see, this is really the only time in all of Scriptures where the Holy Spirit is described as performing a work in the world. There are references galore in the Bible to what the Holy Spirit does in believers, but as Australian scholar Leon Morris points out, this is the only place in the Bible where it talks about the Holy Spirit's work in the world. So what is His work in the world? What does He do? The Holy Spirit convicts. The Holy Spirit convicts, though, for a purpose ... .

Look with me at vs.8-11: "When he comes, he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment: in regard to sin, because men do not believe in me; in regard to righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; and in regard to judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned. "Isn't that amazing? It's as if the Holy Spirit, the Counselor, the Advocate, now takes the role of Prosecutor. It's a sobering thought. It's a troubling thought. But not every truth of the Gospel is there to comfort & console; some truth is there to convict and to transform - and this is one of those cases.

There was a famous exchange between Charles Spurgeon and one who felt as though they couldn't handle the truth. They said to Spurgeon, "I could not rest comfortably if I believed the orthodox doctrine of the ruin of men. "And to this the great preacher responded, "Most true, but what right have we to rest comfortably."

In this connection, Sri Lankan theologian Ajith Fernando writes, "Because so many Christians are afraid of bad feelings, conflict, and inward struggle when they believe in the absolute uniqueness of Christ, they don't like to face up to its implications. ... they forget that some of the most relevant preachers in the Bible were the Old Testament prophets. Part of their relevance was that they diagnosed the problem of the people accurately - it was a problem of sin. They also recommended the ideal solution - repentance and obedience to God, which involved the tough challenge of giving up the life they enjoyed living. When people are living in sin, among the most relevant messages given to them would be those that highlight their sin and its consequences and that call them to repentance." (A. Fernando, Sharing the Truth in Love, pg.198, 199)

So the Holy Spirit takes the role of prosecution here - but I want to suggest that His ultimate goal is to liberate, not imprison. And that the Holy Spirit convicts to set us free in Jesus. And He does that in three distinct ways. Vs.8 says He will come to convict the world in regard to sin, in regard to righteousness, and in regard to judgment. And I checked four different translations of the Bible when researching this message, and all four used the same exact words - sin, righteousness, and judgment - I can't remember that ever happening before, but I think it's because these three areas of conviction are so important.

First of all, Jesus says in vs.9 that the Holy Spirit will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin "because (people) do not believe in me. "Now, this can actually be taken any one of three different ways. It can mean a), "He will convict the world (of wrong ideas) of sin, in that they do not believe. "And isn't it true? Especially over the last five or ten years, the world's ideas of what's wrong have changed immensely. It could mean b), "He will convict the world of its sin because they do not believe" - in other words, their unbelief in Jesus is the classic illustration or evidence of their sin. Or it could mean c) "He will convict the world of its sin (which consists in the fact) that they do not believe - in other words, their unbelief is their sin. Well, which one is it? A, B or C? Well, John has a way of layering his meaning, so the right answer may well be "all of the above".

But B is probably the correct answer here. The Holy Spirit will convict the world of sin because they do not believe - and the classic illustration of that unbelief is the refusal to believe in Jesus. Leon Morris puts it this way: "The basic sin is the sin which puts itself at the center of things and consequently refuses to believe. This is the world's characteristic sin and it received classic expression when God sent His Son into the world and the world refused to believe in Him."

So in this regard, the world stands condemned. The world is guilty. But it takes the Holy Spirit to bring this home to the individual. And when that happens, when that really happens, the result is change in that individual. When the Holy Spirit convicts a person, that person changes - from their own way, to God's way; from the broad road of destruction, to Jesus' narrow road leading to life. That change from one's own way to the way of Jesus is a change of mind, a change of lifestyle, a change of direction that truly brings life. As I said, if you don't get anything out of this message, get this: The Spirit convicts to set us free in Jesus!

But then notice a second the way the Spirit convicts: the Spirit will convict the world in regard to righteousness. Why? Jesus tells us why in vs.10. He says, "... because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer. "Well, what does Jesus ascending, going up to God the Father after dying and being raised from the dead have to do with righteousness? How does the Spirit convict the world through that?

To answer that, let's hit freeze frame for a moment and consider what this word "convict" really means. Indeed it means to convict in the sense of refute one's view or even one's position. But this word "convict" can also mean to convince someone about the truth of something. Well, how does Jesus going to the Father after His death and resurrection convict, or convince us about the truth of righteousness?

May I suggest that those facts about Jesus tell us about righteousness' true source. We tend to think righteousness comes from within. Nothing can be further from the truth! True righteousness comes from without, not from within - to use the old King James' language, real righteousness is imputed upon us from what God has done for us in and through Jesus Christ! I often smile when people who don't know me learn that I'm an ordained minister. "Ooooo," they say, "I better change my language around you," like I'm somehow righteous in and of myself. If they ever got into my head during rush-hour traffic they'd see I'm anything but righteous!!

No, true righteousness, real righteousness comes from without, it comes from what Jesus did on that Cross and through that Empty Tomb for you and me. By placing our trust in Him, having real confidence in the fact that He takes our sin on Himself at the Cross, gaining real hope that now He has ascended, been raised up bodily to God the Father - a fact that still blows my mind! - God makes us righteous in and through Him!!! It comes from without first, and then we take it in. And all over the globe, the Spirit convicts sinners, (this sinner included [pointing to self]), and makes us righteous in the sight of God - not through anything we've done, but only through what's been done for us through Jesus Christ! My friends, only the Holy Spirit could ever do that!!

I love the way Max Lucado once put it. He said, "You may be decent. You may pay your taxes and kiss your kids and sleep with a clear conscience. But apart from Christ you aren't holy. So how can you go to heaven?

"Only believe. Accept the work already done, the work of Jesus on the cross.

"Accept the goodness of Jesus Christ. Abandon your own works and accept his. Stand before God in his name, not yours.

"It's that easy? There was nothing easy about it at all. The cross was heavy, the blood was real, and the price was extravagant. It would have bankrupted you or me, so he paid it for us. Call it simple. Call it a gift. But don't call it easy.

"Call it what it is. Call it grace. "(M. Lucado, quoted in Amazed by Grace, E. Kea, ed., pg.18) Righteousness comes from Jesus, and His work on the Cross - emphasized by the exclamation point of His ascending and going to His Father. Only the Holy Spirit can bring us this conviction which leads to true freedom in Jesus.

And then, finally, this: The Holy Spirit convicts the world of guilt in regard to judgment - and the reason for this is a most wonderful note to end on - as Jesus says in vs.11, "... because the prince of this world now stands condemned. "So wrapped up is Satan in this world-- in the ideologies of this world, the lies of our culture, the deadly scams of this present age - so wrapped up is Satan in the mortifying cover-ups of this world that he is actually called by Jesus the prince of this world. And do you know one of his greatest lies - he has a whole barrel full of them - but one of his greatest is this: You can't handle the truth: about the fact that you & I are sinners in desperate need of saving; about the fact that Christ is, indeed, the only real option there is; about the fact that Jesus has already won, and He wants to indwell us by His Spirit to be better, to be more and more like Him. The devil whispers to our souls, you can't handle that truth. But here's the Good News: the ol' devil, the prince of this world, already stands condemned. The prince of this world now stands condemned.

In vs.7 Jesus told His disciples, "It is for your good that I am going away. "It actually says, "It is expedient that I am going away..." Interesting word, that word expedient. The High Priest, Caiaphas used the exact same word in 11:50 when he said, "You do not realize it is expedient for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish. "Same word used - expedient. Caiaphas thought the Cross for Jesus was expedient - and it was & is - but in ways that old High Priest had never even dreamed of.

It was good, it was for the better, expedient for Jesus to die and then be lifted up to bring about a full salvation for men and women and boys and girls. That salvation is based solely on the atoning work of Jesus, the work of the Cross. It is because of that work that now, the prince of this world now stands condemned. The very one who slithers into our lives and lisps, you can't handle the truth, now stands condemned. It is for judgment the Spirit will convict the world of guilt, because the prince of this world now stands condemned. This was not merely some arbitrary feat of power, but a judgment. At the Cross, evil's greatest "victory" was actually a crushing defeat and the world's greatest good. Satan was defeated in what appeared outwardly to be the very moment of his triumph.

We tend to think at first blush that all this talk of sin and righteousness and judgment is oppressive, that it imprisons, that it enslaves. Nothing could be further from the truth! For the Spirit convicts to set us free in Jesus! The Spirit, sometimes thunders, but most often, perhaps, whispers to our hearts, confidently, redemptively, lovingly, You can handle the truth! (Long pause)

It was an emotionally charged court room. A South African woman stood listening to white police officers acknowledge atrocities in the name of apartheid. Officer van de Broek confessed his actions in the destruction of her life. He had shot her 18 year-old son at point-blank range, and then partied while his body burned. Eight years later van de Broek seized her husband and had her watch was they burned her husband to death. His last words were, "Forgive them."

Now van de Broek stood awaiting judgment. The court asked this woman what she wanted. "Three things," she said. "I want Mr. van de Broek to take me to the place where they burned my husband's body. I would like to gather up the dust and give him a decent burial.

"Second, Mr. van de Broek took all my family away from me, and I still have a lot of love to give. Twice a month, I would like for him to come to the ghetto and spend a day with me so I can be a mother to him.

"Third, I would like Mr. van de Broek to know that he is forgiven by God and that I forgive him, too. I would like someone to lead me to where he is seated so I can embrace him and he can know my forgiveness is real."

As this elderly woman was led across the courtroom, van de Broek fainted. Someone began singing "Amazing Grace." Gradually everyone joined in. (1001 Illustrations that Connect, Larson & ten Elshof, eds., pg.85)

Van de Broek couldn't handle the truth. But praise God, through faith & trust in Jesus, you and I can. We can handle the truth! But the Spirit's indwelling power, because He will convict the world, because Jesus has gone to the Father, because the prince of this world now stands condemned... we can handle the truth!!

For further study and discussion, see: Life Group questions.