The Coming Storm and the Unflinching Word Text: John 16:1-4
Introduction: No Fine Print
We live in an age that loves disclaimers and fine print. Every offer, every promise, every contract comes with a long list of exceptions, conditions, and escape clauses, usually in a font size designed for ants. Our culture is built on the soft sell, the therapeutic promise, the assurance that if you just sign up, everything will be easy. But when you come to the Lord Jesus Christ, you find that there is no fine print. He puts the hardest parts in the boldest font, right up front. He is not a salesman trying to move a faulty product; He is a King recruiting soldiers for a war. And a good king tells his men what they are marching into.
This passage is part of the Upper Room Discourse, which is Christ's final briefing to His officers before He goes to the cross. He is preparing them for His departure and for the great task He is leaving them: the evangelization of the world. But He knows that the world is not a neutral party, politely waiting to be persuaded. The world is an occupied territory, under the sway of a hostile power. And so, Jesus does not promise His disciples a victory parade. He promises them a fight. He does not promise them acceptance, but rejection. He does not promise them comfort, but conflict.
The modern church, particularly in the West, has become allergic to this kind of talk. We want a Christianity that is palatable, respectable, and, above all, safe. We want the crown without the cross, the resurrection without the crucifixion, and the peace of Christ without the enmity of the world. But Jesus will not have it. He loves His disciples too much to lie to them. He tells them plainly what is coming, not to frighten them, but to arm them. This is not a disclaimer; it is a battle plan. It is a sovereign declaration from the Captain of our salvation that the coming storm, however fierce, is entirely under His command.
The Text
"These things I have spoken to you so that you may be kept from stumbling. 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. These things they will do because they did not know the Father or Me. 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."
(John 16:1-4 LSB)
A Gracious Inoculation (v. 1)
Jesus begins by stating the purpose of His stark warnings.
"These things I have spoken to you so that you may be kept from stumbling." (John 16:1 LSB)
The word for "stumbling" here is the Greek word from which we get "scandalize." It doesn't mean a minor trip or a momentary lapse in composure. It refers to a catastrophic fall, a complete falling away into apostasy. Jesus is saying, "I am telling you about the coming hatred, rejection, and violence so that when it arrives, your faith will not be shipwrecked." This is a profound act of pastoral care. A shock can cause a system to fail. An unexpected blow can shatter faith. But a blow that you have been told is coming, a blow that your Commander has predicted and accounted for, is a blow that can be endured.
Forewarning is a form of grace. Jesus is inoculating His disciples against the disease of surprise. When the world shows its teeth, when the religious authorities excommunicate them, when the executioners come, the disciples are not to think, "Something has gone terribly wrong. The plan has failed. Jesus must not have known." No, they are to think, "This is it. This is exactly what He told us would happen. He is Lord not just over the calm, but over the storm as well." The fulfillment of this difficult prophecy becomes a rock for their faith, not a stumbling block. It proves that their Lord is not a victim of history, but the sovereign author of it.
The Nature of the Attack (v. 2)
Next, Jesus details the two-pronged assault they will face: religious exclusion and religious violence.
"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." (John 16:2 LSB)
First, they will be put out of the synagogue. For a first-century Jew, this was not a small thing. This was excommunication. It meant being cut off from the covenant community, from your family, from your social standing, and from your entire religious world. It was a kind of living death. But in the economy of God, this act of exclusion was actually an act of clarification. The synagogue system, by rejecting the Messiah, was rendering itself obsolete. The true temple was now the body of Christ, and the true assembly was the Church. Their being cast out was God's way of showing where the true covenant community was now located. The old wineskin was bursting, as it had to.
But the opposition escalates from exclusion to extermination. And here we come to one of the most chilling and insightful diagnoses of fallen human nature in all of Scripture. "An hour is coming for everyone who kills you to think that he is offering service to God." Notice, the persecutor is not an atheist. He is not a nihilist who kills for sport. He is a worshipper. He is devout. He kills you as an act of piety. He murders you as a sacrifice to his god.
This is the most dangerous man on the planet: the man who serves a false god with a whole heart. His conscience, which ought to be a brake, becomes an accelerator. His zeal, which ought to be for truth, is harnessed to destruction. He believes he is doing God's work, which makes him capable of any atrocity. We see this perfectly in the person of Saul of Tarsus, who consented to the stoning of Stephen and breathed out threats and murder against the Lord's disciples, all the while believing he was zealous for the God of his fathers (Acts 26:9-11). This is the terrifying end-point of all religion that is not grounded in the person and work of the true Son of God. It is idolatry, and idolatry always, eventually, demands blood.
The Root of the Rage (v. 3)
Jesus then provides the ultimate diagnosis for this murderous piety. It is not a problem of excessive zeal, but of profound ignorance.
"These things they will do because they did not know the Father or Me." (John 16:3 LSB)
This is the central presuppositional claim. The actions of these persecutors are not random or inexplicable. They flow logically from their foundational error: they do not know God. They may know about God. They may have memorized the Scriptures. They may be experts in the law. They may be scrupulous in their religious observances. But they do not know the Father, because to know the Father is to know the Son whom He has sent (John 17:3). And they have rejected the Son.
This is not an innocent, excusable ignorance. It is a culpable, willful blindness. The light has come into the world, and they have loved the darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil (John 3:19). They have the Father's testimony in the Scriptures, but they refuse to come to the Son that they might have life. Therefore, the God they claim to serve is an idol of their own making, a projection of their own self-righteousness and hatred. When they kill a Christian to serve "God," they are merely serving the god of their own rebellious heart. To reject the Son is to lose the Father. There is no middle ground. There is no generic, common-denominator God that Christians and their persecutors both worship in their own way. There is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and there are idols. And the service of idols is always a bloody business.
Prophetic Remembrance (v. 4)
Jesus concludes by reiterating His purpose and explaining the timing of His revelation.
"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." (John 16:4 LSB)
Again, the purpose is remembrance. When the hour of trial comes, "their hour," the disciples are to reach back into their memory and pull out this promise, this warning. And in that moment, the persecution will not be evidence of God's absence, but a stunning confirmation of Christ's prophetic power. He knew. He told us. He is in control. This remembrance is a potent weapon against despair.
Why didn't He tell them this at the beginning? "Because I was with you." While He was physically present, He was the lightning rod. The hatred of the world was focused primarily on Him. He absorbed the brunt of the assault. But now, He is leaving. And the world's hatred of the Master will be transferred to the servants. The world is a predator, and when the Shepherd is struck, the flock will be scattered and attacked. He is preparing them for this new reality. While He was with them, His presence was their primary shield. Now that He is ascending, His prophetic Word will be their shield. They must learn to live by His promises, not by His physical proximity.
Conclusion: Armed and Ready
The message for us is precisely the same. The fundamental conflict between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of this world has not been resolved by the passage of two thousand years. The world still hates the Christ it does not know, and it therefore hates those who bear His name. And the most virulent hatred often comes, as it did then, from the realm of misguided religion.
Today, this religion often wears secular robes. It is the fanatical devotion to the god of the self, the god of the state, the god of sexual autonomy. And this religion has its high priests, its dogmas, and its inquisitors. It will excommunicate you from the public square. It will cancel you. And given the power, it will do far worse, believing it is offering a service to "progress," "equality," or "humanity."
We are not to be surprised by this. We are not to be scandalized. We are to remember that our Lord told us of these things. He did not promise us a playground, but a battlefield. But He also promised that He has overcome the world (John 16:33). Our task is not to evade the conflict, but to be faithful in the midst of it, armed with the unflinching Word of our sovereign King, who has told us all things beforehand.