Commentary - John 16:1-4

Bird's-eye view

In this brief but potent passage, Jesus concludes His instructions from the previous chapter and provides the foundational reason for them. He is issuing a severe warning, not to terrify His disciples, but to prepare them. This is a pastoral inoculation against future shock. He tells them plainly that the world's opposition, driven by the religious establishment, will escalate from excommunication to execution. Crucially, He reveals the motive behind this persecution: the killers will sincerely believe they are serving God. The root of this murderous piety is a profound and culpable ignorance of both the Father and the Son. Jesus gives this warning so that when the terrible day arrives, the disciples' faith will not be shipwrecked by surprise. Instead, the fulfillment of His words will serve as a powerful confirmation that He is sovereign, He is truthful, and His plan is proceeding exactly as He said it would.

This is the kindness of a king who arms his soldiers before sending them into battle. He does not hide the cost of discipleship; He reveals it. The entire warning is predicated on His imminent departure. While He was with them, He was their shield. Now, His prophetic word must become their anchor in the storm that is coming upon them. This passage is a permanent lesson for the church on the nature of persecution and the means of perseverance.

Outline

Context In John

This passage is a crucial hinge in the Upper Room Discourse. It directly follows Jesus' teaching on the vine and the branches and the world's hatred in John 15. Having just told them, "If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you," and "they will persecute you," He now specifies what that persecution will look like and why it is essential they know this beforehand. This warning sets the stage for what immediately follows: the promise of the coming of the Holy Spirit (John 16:5-15). The disciples are about to be told that they will not face this intense, religiously-motivated hatred alone. The Comforter, the Paraclete, is coming to be with them, to convict the world, and to guide them into all truth. The severity of the warning in verses 1-4 creates the necessary pastoral space for the grandeur of the promise in verses 5-15. You don't appreciate the need for a divine Helper until you understand the true nature of the battle you are in.

Key Issues

The Kindness of a Severe Warning

We live in a soft age, and we tend to think that love is always soft. We imagine that the most loving thing to do is to shield people from hard truths. Jesus operates on a completely different principle. He is about to go to the cross, and His disciples are about to have their world turned upside down. The most loving thing He can do for them is to tell them the unvarnished truth about what is coming. This is not fear-mongering; it is fortification. A good shepherd does not tell his sheep that the valley ahead is full of daisies when he knows it is full of wolves. A good shepherd tells them about the wolves, and in so doing, prepares them to trust him through the valley.

Jesus' words here are a great kindness. He is treating His disciples as men, as soldiers who need to know the battle plan. The Christian life is not a playground; it is a battlefield. And the central conflict is not between the religious and the irreligious, but rather between those who know God through the Son and those who, in their religion, fight against the one true God. This is the great antithesis, and Jesus lays it out for His men with stark clarity.

Verse by Verse Commentary

1 “These things I have spoken to you so that you may be kept from stumbling.

Jesus begins with His purpose statement. "These things" refers back to the whole discourse, particularly the hard teachings about the world's hatred in chapter 15. The goal of this difficult sermon is entirely pastoral. It is to prevent them from "stumbling." The Greek word is skandalizō, from which we get our word scandalize. It means to be tripped up, to have an obstacle placed in your path that causes you to fall. In a spiritual context, it means to have your faith overthrown, to fall away from Christ. Jesus knows that persecution, when it comes as a surprise, can shatter a naive faith. A believer might think, "This wasn't supposed to happen! I thought following Jesus meant blessing and success. God must have abandoned me." To prevent that catastrophic conclusion, Jesus tells them beforehand that tribulation is not a deviation from the plan; it is the plan.

2 They will put you out of the synagogue, but an hour is coming for everyone who kills you to think that he is offering service to God.

Here He gets specific, outlining a two-stage escalation. First, excommunication. "They will put you out of the synagogue." For a first-century Jew, this was a devastating blow. It meant being cut off from the center of your community, your family, your social life, and your economic life. It was social and spiritual death. But it gets worse. The second stage is literal death. "An hour is coming for everyone who kills you to think that he is offering service to God." This is the most chilling part of the warning. Their murderers will not be cackling villains; they will be zealous, sincere, religious men. The word for "service" is latreia, which refers to the sacred service of worship offered to God in the temple. They will kill the apostles and believe they are presenting a pleasing sacrifice to God. This is the ultimate religious deception, the apex of satanic delusion. We see this perfectly exemplified in Saul of Tarsus, who was "zealous for God" while breathing out threats and murder against the Lord's disciples (Acts 22:3-4).

3 These things they will do because they did not know the Father or Me.

What is the source of such a monstrous, upside-down morality? Jesus provides the diagnosis, and it is simple. It is ignorance. But this is not an innocent, blameless ignorance. It is a culpable, willful blindness. "They did not know the Father or Me." Notice the connection. To fail to know Jesus is to fail to know the Father. This is a central theme of John's Gospel. All their religious activity, their Scripture memorization, their fasting, their prayers, were utterly worthless because they did not know God. They had constructed a god in their own image, a god who would be pleased by the murder of his own Son's messengers. Their zeal was not for the true God, but for their idol. And when you serve an idol, you become like it. A bloodthirsty god creates bloodthirsty worshippers.

4 But these things I have spoken to you, so that when their hour comes, you may remember that I told you of them. These things I did not say to you at the beginning, because I was with you.

Jesus circles back to His pastoral purpose. He is giving them a tool for the future: the tool of remembrance. "When their hour comes", the hour of the persecutors, an hour appointed and limited by God's own sovereignty, they are to remember. The memory of this night, the memory of His words, will be their anchor. When the excommunication papers are served, when the stones are being picked up, they will not think, "It's all falling apart." They will think, "This is it. This is what He said would happen. He is still on the throne." The fulfillment of the prophecy will become the confirmation of their faith. He then explains the timing. He did not burden them with this hard teaching at the beginning of His ministry because He was physically with them. He was the buffer, the one who absorbed the brunt of the opposition. But now He is leaving. They are the ones who will stand on the front lines, and they need the heavy armor. He gives them the truth they need, precisely when they need it.

Application

First, we must understand that this warning from Jesus is timeless. The fundamental conflict between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of this world has not changed. The world, and particularly the world of false religion, still hates the true Christ and those who belong to Him. We should not be surprised when opposition comes. Surprise is a sign of a naive faith. A faith that has been instructed by the words of Jesus is a faith that is prepared for trouble, and therefore a faith that can endure trouble.

Second, we must be profoundly wary of sincere religious zeal that is detached from a true knowledge of the Father and the Son. History is littered with the wreckage caused by people who were absolutely convinced they were doing God a service. Sincerity is no test of truth. Our zeal, our worship, and our service must be constantly measured by the Word of God and flow from a genuine, submissive relationship with Jesus Christ. Any other kind of zeal is a dangerous fire.

Finally, our confidence in the face of opposition is not rooted in our own cleverness or strength. It is rooted in the sovereign foresight of our King. He knew it all beforehand. He told us it was coming. And He has promised to be with us through His Spirit. When hardship comes, we are to remember His words. That remembrance is not just a mental exercise; it is a profound act of faith. It is looking at the storm and saying, "My King told me this storm would be here, and He is the one who commands the winds and the waves."