Commentary - John 16:16-22

Bird's-eye view

In this section of the Upper Room Discourse, Jesus prepares His disciples for the seismic shift that is about to occur. He speaks in what appears to them to be riddles, using the phrase "a little while" to describe His imminent departure and return. This passage is a profound meditation on the nature of Christian sorrow and joy. The disciples are standing on the knife's edge of history, about to witness the most horrific event imaginable, the crucifixion of the Son of God. But Jesus teaches them, and us, that this sorrow is not a pointless, pagan grief. It is, rather, a prelude to an indestructible joy. The central metaphor He uses is that of childbirth, a perfect illustration of agony giving way to overwhelming gladness. This is the pattern of the gospel: death before resurrection, the cross before the crown, sorrow before everlasting joy.

The world's joy is fleeting and based on rebellion, while the believer's joy is permanent and rooted in the triumphant return of the King. Jesus is not just giving them a pep talk to get them through a tough weekend. He is explaining the fundamental structure of reality in a fallen world that is being redeemed. The sorrow is real, the pain is sharp, but the joy that follows is of an entirely different order and quality. It is a joy that no one, no circumstance, no principality or power, can ever take away.

Outline

Context In John

This passage comes near the end of Jesus' final teaching session with His disciples before His arrest. He has washed their feet, instituted the Lord's Supper, and given them the great commandment to love one another. He has promised them the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, who will guide them into all truth. Now, He turns to the immediate future. The cross looms large. The disciples are still thinking in earthly, political terms. They are expecting a kingdom, but not one that comes through the death of their king. Jesus' words about leaving and returning are therefore baffling to them. This section serves as a crucial bridge, moving the disciples from a state of confusion and impending despair to a place of promised hope. It frames the crucifixion not as a tragic end, but as a necessary, albeit painful, step in God's glorious plan of redemption.

Clause-by-Clause Commentary

v. 16 “A little while, and you will no longer see Me; and again a little while, and you will see Me.”

Jesus begins with a statement that is deliberately paradoxical. He is speaking of His death and resurrection, but He frames it in terms of sight. For a "little while," their physical sight of Him will be cut off. This is the horror of Good Friday and Silent Saturday. He will be taken from them, executed, and buried. The world will have appeared to have won. But this is followed by another "little while," after which they will see Him again. This refers most immediately to His post-resurrection appearances, but it carries with it the greater weight of His ascension and the promise of His second coming. The Christian life is lived within this second "little while." We do not see Him now with our physical eyes, but we see Him by faith, and we await the day when we will see Him face to face. He is training His disciples to walk by faith, not by sight.

v. 17-18 Some of His disciples then said to one another, “What is this He is telling us, ‘A little while, and you will not see Me; and again a little while, and you will see Me’; and, ‘because I go to the Father’?” So they were saying, “What is this that He says, ‘A little while’? We do not know what He is talking about.”

The disciples' confusion is palpable and entirely understandable. They are not slow witted; they are simply operating on a completely different set of assumptions. They are like men trying to understand calculus using only an abacus. Their paradigm does not allow for a suffering, dying, and rising Messiah. They seize on the phrase "a little while" and turn it over and over, but it makes no sense. They also connect it to His statement about going to the Father, which He had mentioned earlier, but this only deepens the mystery for them. Their honest confusion is recorded for our benefit. It reminds us that the gospel is not something that can be deduced by unaided human reason. It is a divine revelation, and it shatters all our preconceived notions of how God ought to act.

v. 19 Jesus knew that they were wishing to question Him, and He said to them, “Are you deliberating together about this, that I said, ‘A little while, and you will not see Me, and again a little while, and you will see Me’?”

Here we see the tender omniscience of our Lord. They were whispering among themselves, perhaps hesitant to display their ignorance by asking Him directly. But He knows their hearts. He knows their desire to understand. He does not rebuke them for their lack of comprehension. Instead, He gently brings their private conversation out into the open. He repeats the very words that are troubling them, showing them that He is fully aware of their struggle. This is a great comfort. The Lord knows our doctrinal confusions, our spiritual anxieties, and our unspoken questions. He is not impatient with us, but rather invites us to bring our bewilderment to Him.

v. 20 “Truly, truly, I say to you, that you will cry and lament, but the world will rejoice; you will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will be turned into joy.”

Now Jesus moves from the riddle to the reality it describes. He begins with the solemn "Truly, truly," signaling that a foundational truth is about to be declared. The disciples' immediate future contains weeping and lamentation. This is the sorrow of the cross. And in direct contrast, the world will rejoice. The world, which hates God and His Christ, will see the crucifixion as a great victory. They will have silenced the one who troubled their conscience. This is the fundamental antithesis. The world rejoices at the very thing that causes God's people to grieve. But the story does not end there. Jesus makes a promise that is the bedrock of Christian hope: "your sorrow will be turned into joy." Notice, He does not say their sorrow will be replaced by joy, as though one simply displaces the other. It will be turned into joy. The very instrument of their grief, the cross, will become the source of their unending gladness. The death of Christ is not an unfortunate event that God managed to salvage; it is the divinely ordained means of our salvation and joy.

v. 21 “Whenever a woman is in labor she has sorrow, because her hour has come; but when she gives birth to the child, she no longer remembers the suffering because of the joy that a child has been born into the world.”

To explain this transformation of sorrow into joy, Jesus uses one of the most powerful and universal of human experiences: childbirth. The analogy is perfect. A woman in labor experiences intense sorrow and suffering. Her "hour has come," a phrase John uses to refer to Jesus' own appointed time of suffering. The pain is all-consuming. But the moment the child is born, the entire experience is re-contextualized. The pain is not simply forgotten; it is rendered insignificant by the overwhelming joy of new life. The joy is not just a relief from pain; it is a positive, creative, and lasting gladness. The child is the result of the travail. So it is with the cross. The agony of the crucifixion gives birth to the new creation. The resurrection is the child born from the labor of the cross, and the joy of it eclipses the memory of the pain.

v. 22 “Therefore you too have sorrow now; but I will see you again, and your heart will rejoice, and no one will take your joy away from you.”

Jesus brings the analogy to a direct application. "Therefore," He says. Because this principle of sorrow-turned-to-joy is woven into the fabric of reality, it applies directly to you. "You too have sorrow now." He acknowledges their present and impending grief. He doesn't minimize it. But then comes the promise: "I will see you again." This is the resurrection. And the result? "Your heart will rejoice." This is not a superficial happiness, but a deep, cardiac joy. And most gloriously, this joy is permanent. "No one will take your joy away from you." The world could take Jesus' life, but they could not prevent His resurrection. And because our joy is tied to a risen and reigning Christ, it is beyond the reach of any thief. It cannot be stolen by circumstances, by persecution, by sorrow, or even by death. It is an indestructible joy because it is founded on an indestructible life.

Application

The pattern Jesus lays out here is the pattern for the entire Christian life. We live in the "little while" between the resurrection and the final return of Christ. And in this life, we will experience sorrow. We will grieve our sins, we will suffer for the sake of the gospel, and we will live as exiles in a world that rejoices in wickedness. It is a fool's errand to try to build a Christian life that avoids all sorrow.

But we must understand what this sorrow is. It is not the hopeless despair of the world. It is a pregnant sorrow, a sorrow that is leading to something glorious. It is the sorrow of the cross, which is always, always, always turned into the joy of the resurrection. Our sufferings are not pointless; they are the labor pains of glory. When we face trials, we should see them in this light. This is our "hour," and it is painful. But the joy that is coming is not just a compensation for the pain; it is the fruit of it.

Therefore, we can rejoice even in our sorrows, because we know where they are headed. Our joy is not dependent on our circumstances, because the one who secured it has conquered the grave and is seated at the right hand of the Father. No one can take that away. This is the solid ground on which we stand, and it enables us to face a hostile world not with fear, but with an unshakeable and triumphant joy.