Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript – Reformation Covenant Church
## Pastor Dennis Tuuri

No, I don’t think so. I’ll leave it there in case you do. Turn that off. Thank you. Yeah. Today’s scripture reading is found in John 16, beginning in the last half of verse 4, proceeding through verse 15. John 16:4-15.

As you’re turning to your scriptures, let me just note that today is the first Sunday in Lent. We had our Ash Wednesday service last Wednesday. One of the directions in liturgical books on the season of Lent and Ash Wednesday is to make an austere worship environment.

So the Lord God has given us a little different worship environment this morning. Because of this environment, I would ask you that have younger children to be very sensitive to the noise they make, particularly during the sermon, so that others who have difficulty hearing may not be distracted by their voices. So for young children, we’re going to ask you in a heightened way to try to not talk or make a lot of noise during the sermon—it’s already difficult enough to hear.

And parents, please be sensitive and remove the children if you can’t keep them quiet if you think they’re being a distraction to those around you. All right, let’s stand for the reading of God’s word. John 16, beginning in the last half of verse 4 through verse 15.

“And these things I did not say to you at the beginning because I was with you, but now I go away to him who sent me and none of you asked me, ‘Where are you going?’ But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart.

Nevertheless, I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away. For if I do not go away, the helper will not come to you. But if I depart, I will send him to you. And when he has come, he will convict the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment, of sin because they do not believe in me. Of righteousness because I go to my father and you see me no more. Of judgment because the ruler of this world is judged.

I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. However, when he, the Spirit of truth, has come, he will guide you into all truth. For he will not speak of his own authority, but whatever he hears, he will speak. And he will tell you things to come. He will glorify me, for he will take of what is mine and declare it to you. All things that the Father has are mine. Therefore, I said that he will take of mine and declare it to you.”

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for this text. We thank you for the immediate application of it as we ask you to ensure that your Holy Spirit would help us to understand what we read here. We know that without the Spirit leading us into the truth of this passage, we will labor in blindness. And we know that without the Spirit of holiness empowering us for further acts of holiness and our commitment to it by the Spirit’s grace, that we will use whatever knowledge we do gain improperly.

So we pray that your Spirit may indeed do what Jesus said he would do. Lead us into the truth of this passage that we may be empowered to wage war on the fallen world by means of a spirit-empowered witness to the truth of the Lord Jesus Christ. We ask this for the sake of his kingdom, not ours. And we ask it through his name. Amen.

Please be seated. You know, I’m always at such an advantage over the congregation as we sing our songs because I know what I’m going to say. I’ve meditated on the text for at least a week. I pick the songs usually with some idea of what I’ll be saying, but it really comes home to me the way God has put the worship service together every Lord’s day as we sing the songs.

And the songs we sang today about the Holy Spirit are good songs. They are good songs of direction to what the normal perception is of the Holy Spirit’s work. They were songs of strength and the power of the Holy Spirit and the war that the Holy Spirit wages on the world through the conviction of these things that we’ve just read about.

Today’s text combined with the other texts we’ve looked at from the Gospel of John and the Holy Spirit—I think that probably these texts are the fullest exposition of the work of the Holy Spirit that we have in the scriptures, at least one of the most thorough expositions of what it is specifically that the third person of the trinity does. And by the way, that last verse was a very important text, was it not? Affirming the trinitarian faith of the scriptures. This text clearly tells us that this text clearly speaks of the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Son: “I will send this spirit,” he says.

Why is it that for 2,000 years—well, it would be correct to ask—why is it that it took the church in its creeds and confessions so long to formalize the procession of the Spirit? And why was it such a point of controversy in the early church? Well, I think our text tells us why: the Spirit is about bringing us into truth in a progressive way. The church is always catching up to the Bible, and today’s text reminds us of that.

So this text is a wonderful exposition of the Holy Spirit’s work. It comes into context. It’s been a number of Sundays since I’ve preached in the Gospel of John. I’ve once more provided this outline—well, I guess I have. We don’t have an outline today. If I had an outline, I would have once more shown you this progressive structure, this kayastic structure. Hopefully, you’ve got it pretty down in your minds.

Now, remember that the Gospel of John is in two halves. “He came to his own, his own received him not. But to many who received him, to them he gave the right to become children of God, even to those that believe on his name.” In chapters 1 through 12 he comes to his own and his own reject him. In chapters 13 through 17, the whole focus is the disciples. It’s the Upper Room discourse. It’s Monday Thursday—it’s preparation for Good Friday and further preparation for his resurrection and ascension. This whole unit has at its very center—that we said is the stuff in John 15—about abiding in Christ. Either side of that, there are these difficulties with the world that we will encounter that we’ll be able to work our way through only as we abide in the institutional church with faithful believers in Christ abiding in Christ in his work.

And on either side of that, as we work our way in the structure in this Upper Room discourse, are two significant statements about the work of the Holy Spirit. So this section kind of complements an earlier section in this Upper Room discourse about the Holy Spirit. That section was about him coming and helping them or enabling them for love and obedience and preparing them for the sort of struggle that they would have with the world.

There’s a sense in which the first section of the Holy Spirit addressed his defensive work for the church. It addressed the ability of the church to withstand the trials and tribulations of the world. The Spirit is the strengthener in a defensive way. But now as we get to this last section of the Holy Spirit, there’s a sense in which it presents an offensive message—the offensive task of the Holy Spirit.

Now, although the context is the trials and tribulations in the last chapter of 15 and the first few verses of 16, that’s the immediate context that the Spirit comes in relationship to. Now, however, the Spirit is said to wage war to convict the law through the Spirit-empowered witness of the church. So instead of just protecting us and keeping us abiding with Christ, we now see that the Spirit empowers us for positive ministry in terms of evangelization and discipleship of the nations. It equips us for mission.

That’s the flow of what we’re doing here in this Upper Room discourse. There’s a sense in which then he was the strengthener of those who are going to suffer persecution—discussed in chapter 14. The persecution was then described. The abiding with Christ is central to the Upper Room discourse. That’s what enabled us to do everything else. And then the persecution was described again. We talked about this last section of scripture just before this section—on anti-abortion day of the Lord. Remember the persecution of the world to Christians and ultimately to Christ. And now he had this offensive message and its effect upon the persecutors.

So earlier in this discourse, the effect of the Spirit the strengthener upon his people in terms of their persecution coming upon them. Now the centrality—the central message of this—is the effect of the Holy Spirit upon the persecutors. Okay.

And as we move from a consideration of the trials and sufferings of Christ to Easter and then Pentecost, this is really the movement of our text today as we’ll know.

Now, I’m going to deal with this text in three sections. The first few verses, Jesus says, “I’m going away, but it’s to your advantage. I’m going to send the Spirit.” Right? So that’s the first section. The middle section is the section that says that the Spirit will convict the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment. Very interesting language. Probably many of you have recollections of these couple of verses—the conviction of the world of sin, justice, and righteousness, or sin, righteousness, and judgment—because you’ve read these texts and they seem very orderly to you and they are. And when we get to that, we’ll see that.

So that’s the second part of the message. And the third part of this text is now the work of the Spirit again to the disciples, leading them into all the truth. So he promises the Spirit in the first few verses. The Spirit convicts the world in the middle verses. And at the end, the Spirit’s work to the disciples will be emphasized again. So there’s a structure to this section as well: Spirit of the disciples, Spirit of the world rather, Spirit and the disciples.

So we can say that really the central theme here is the Spirit’s effect upon the world. The central theme in the first section of the Holy Spirit in chapter 14 was the effect of Holy Spirit upon believers directly in face of persecution from the world. So we move from defense to offense. We move from being protected and strengthened to persist to now strengthening and protecting us to wage war against the old creation—the ungodly world—through a Spirit-empowered witness to the word of Jesus Christ. That’s what this text is all about. That’s its place contextually in John’s Gospel and specifically in this Upper Room discourse.

Now remember, your Bibles say he is the comforter. You’ve heard that probably in most of your versions. He is the comforter. And that’s repeated here again. This is the predominant word used of the Holy Spirit in the Upper Room discourse, which has a number of statements about the Spirit. The predominant word is this word that’s translated “comforter.” Remember, we said that “comforter” comes from “comfort” and “strength.” The old word “to comfort” meant to give strength, a sturdy bracing to somebody in the midst of difficulty. It didn’t mean to pat you on the head and say, “Well, isn’t it too bad?”

Now, the Spirit does that. I don’t want—I probably should, you know, say it the way I just did. The Spirit certainly consoles us. But the word here means the Spirit comes along as our advocate and our strength and our mission. There was a text of an English monastery in the middle ages and it mentioned that a certain schoolmaster quote “fortified or strengthened the boys with a stick.” So the comforting that the schoolmaster brings to the boys is fortifying them with a stick.

So the Spirit works sometimes in that way to bring comfort and strength to his people. You comfort a young man by laying a cane across his backside. You give him strength to do what he’s supposed to do. You can screw up his courage through the application sometimes of a good kick in the posterior. So it’s this kind of comfort and strengthening, this strength of the Holy Spirit, that’s being discussed in our text.

He strengthens his people both in terms of persecution upon them but also in terms of empowering them to this Spirit-empowered witness of the truth. And this is a great message, as I’ve said, as we transition from Lent into the Easter season. As we consider these things, this movement is what Jesus is specifically talking about here.

Now, this doctrine of the Holy Spirit—I guess what I want to say first is that as we get into the actual text, we’ll see that contrary to much modern teaching and thought, the Spirit is not solely involved in the life of the church. You know, there’s this idea that the Spirit of God is all about the church and not involved in the world. Well, here very emphatically, the central part of this text is the Spirit’s effect upon the world. So that’s a correction to our understanding of what the Holy Spirit is doing here. Okay?

Another correction is to understand that the Spirit is self-effacing in this text. I mean, in other words, he will not glorify himself. He will not speak of himself. Rather, he focuses on the centrality of the Lord Jesus Christ. Okay? The Spirit comes to minister the things of Christ to us.

R.J. Rushdoony writing on this said that the relative ignorance of the Bible regarding the Spirit is intentional in part. We cannot replace the centrality of the Son. In other words, the Bible doesn’t give us as much about the Spirit as it does about the Son. It gives us some very small sections and the Reformed confessions, for instance, have a much fuller description of the work of Christ and very shortened things about the work of the Spirit. And you know, it’s easy to think, “Well, that’s just not right. What we need to do today, in the charismatic world in which we live, is to heighten the doctrine of the Spirit, bring the Holy Spirit out, focus upon the Holy Spirit a lot.” But the Spirit’s whole job is self-effacing. The Spirit’s manifestation of the fullness of the Spirit is a Christ-centered life that’s evident in people’s lives and in church’s lives. Okay.

So the Spirit is not, you know, just a consoler of people. The Spirit is not removed from working in the world, and the Spirit is not evident by his own exultation of himself. He is self-effacing. And these are all corrections to us in terms of modern views of the Spirit. The Spirit does not go one step beyond Jesus Christ. He comes to minister the things of Christ to us. The Spirit is tied to the word.

All right. Now let’s get into these three specific sections of the text itself.

And first, Jesus talks about his departure and the coming of the strengthener in verses 4 through 7. “These things I did not say to you at the beginning because I was with you. But now I go away to him who sent me and none of you asked me ‘Where are you going?’ But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart.

Nevertheless, I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away. For if I do not go away, the helper will not come to you. But if I depart, I will send him to you.”

This is the first section. Jesus says he’s going away and that their hearts are filled with sorrow and they’re not asking him anymore, “Where are you going?” Now, I want to say a couple of things about this first section.

First of all, our Savior, I think, gives to some extent a bit of a rebuke to the disciples. He is correcting them. He says, “I’m going to go away. He’s going to go to the cross and through the cross, resurrection, and ascension. I go away to him who sent me and none of you ask me ‘Where are you going?’” Instead, he says, “Your hearts are filled with sorrow.” And I think what we can read here is that the disciples are self-absorbed about the difficulties they’re going to be facing. They’re going to have great loss of personal communion with the Savior in his body and fatherly presence.

Not only that, he has told them that they’re going to deny him and they’re going to sin against him. And not only that, but he said that the synagogues, the world—which is the church at the time, the visible church and the Jews—that’s who are going to kick you out of the synagogues, not the Romans. That church is going to persecute you and some of you will even have to die. So they are thinking about their problems. And instead, Christ calls them to a consideration of what he is going to do. “I’m going away and you’re not asking me, ‘What about you, Satan? Where are you going? What will you have to go through?’” Instead, your hearts are filled with sorrow.

Now, this same kind of gentle rebuke, so to speak, was found earlier in chapter 14, verse 28, when he said, “You have heard me say to you, ‘I’m going away and coming back to you. If you love me, you would rejoice because I said I’m going to the Father.’” Right? So earlier in the text, he had told them that one of their huge problems as they tried to listen to what he said was their own selfishness, their own reflection on their difficulties, trials, and tribulations instead of rejoicing that he’s going to the Father.

And if the manner by which he is going to affect that going to the Father is his crucifixion, I think he’s calling us to consider—at least by way of application—that there should be a proper meditation not ultimately on our sufferings but on our sufferings. As we said Wednesday at Ash Wednesday, they are to cause us to a contemplation of the Savior’s sufferings. What is he going to have to go through? Are they concerned about his coming death for them? His betrayal the next day that evening, his crucifixion, his being scourged, his taking upon himself the sins of all the elect, him doing all those things that we read about in the Isaiah responsive reading today?

Is there a consideration of thought for the Savior? And if there is not, then doesn’t that ring like a stirring rebuke to the selfishness of the disciples as we go through the Lenten season?

Those of you that are following up on what we started Wednesday night—a consideration of the penitential psalms, a consideration of the reflection on our sufferings understood in relationship to the sufferings of Christ—this all leads up to a consideration of Christ’s sufferings at Good Friday. And God wants us to contemplate and meditate on the sufferings of our Savior. We sang about it, did we not? “Do we regard sin as too light a thing?” We do, if we don’t meditate on the sufferings of the Savior. Because if I don’t go away, the Spirit won’t be given.

Now, I have kind of a silly illustration of what he’s saying here. I think you remember all the people who have seen Fantasia—or some of you young people have seen it. There’s a cartoon, a sorcerer’s apprentice with Mickey Mouse. He’s got the apprentice of the sorcerer. He’s got his magic book and he gets out a wand and he doesn’t want to sweep the floor, mop it, whatever it was. So he does the magic spell and he has these brooms that are going to do the work for him. He’s happy about that. But then the brooms multiply. He wants to stop it and so he starts trying to kill the brooms. But as you knock the brooms down and knock them into splinters, all the splinters come back to life. And now there’s hundreds and thousands—or can be thousands of brooms doing their thing and there’s water all over. I don’t remember the whole thing.

But the point is, this is what our Savior is sort of saying. There is, you know, Jesus comes in his bodily form. Jesus, you know, he comes incarnate to produce a work on the cross that will lead to the coming of the Spirit. The Spirit wasn’t given because Jesus had not yet been glorified, not yet been crucified and resurrected and ascended. The Spirit comes on Pentecost in relationship to the ascension of Christ.

And when the Spirit comes, now we’ve got a multiplication of the effects of Christ, his teaching through the church. Jesus says, “You’re not going to believe, you know, the value to you of my departure. The Spirit will come, will minister me to you, and you will be my Spirit-empowered witness.” And what happens the first day of this is the Spirit descends and is poured out from heaven onto the disciples on the day of Pentecost. 3,000 people commit themselves to the faith of Jesus Christ in a solid way and the church begins to grow and multiply.

But Jesus is telling them that, you know, don’t be sorrowful about this. Ultimately, recognize that beyond that Wednesday and Threshold is the resurrection, and beyond the resurrection is the ascension. And that means the pouring out of the Spirit to provide power and strength that will fill this earth. But now the Lord will cover the earth the way the waters will cover the ocean.

And so Jesus is coming telling them that in the context of this first section as well. He calls them to consider himself and his sufferings, but to recognize that those sufferings are ultimately for deliverance. We looked at these penitential psalms Wednesday night and over and over again some sins are referred to as suffering, but over and over there’s references to the enemies. And God is going to deliver them from their enemies.

So a contemplation of the sufferings of Christ is a contemplation of the means by which God provides victory and deliverance to his people. But as I said finally in the Lord’s portion there, the Lord Jesus says that he will send the Spirit to us. The church is always catching up to the Bible, as it was.

You know, I spoke to someone earlier today before the service started. I won’t mention her name. No, I won’t give permission. And she said, “Well, we got something different. We’ve got, you know, causing up here. No, she hadn’t noticed it.” You see?

Now, what is that? Well, I’m sure those of you who read your scriptures daily or on a very regular basis have had that same thing. You’ve read a text many times in the course of your life. But today you read it and all of a sudden it jumps off the page at you. It means something significant to you. My wife has this all the time. She reads your Bible daily over years, 50 years of Bible reading. And the Spirit of God will take a text and all of a sudden bring it up, make you aware of it. This was here all the time. But today someone noticed it. You see?

Benefit: what Jesus does here is he’s going to send the Spirit that they might notice these things. Some in the church doesn’t notice the procession of the Holy Spirit from Christ. And it takes them a while to get there and mature, you know, four or five centuries to a doctrinal statement of that. Well, this is the way life works. And it’s very important what we’re going to say in the third section of this—the idea that the Spirit brings to our mind things and continues to manifest truth in the truth. Okay.

So that’s Jesus’s departure and the promise of the powerful, victorious Spirit.

Secondly, now this middle section—we could call it Jesus’s departure and the coming of the weakener. And we talked about the strengthener, but now we’re going to talk about the effect of the Holy Spirit upon the world. R.J. Rushdoony talked about in his commentary that the Spirit of God is a warrior in the war of the Lord. A warrior in the war of the Lord. And this is verses 8 through 11. And this is the section—probably some of you remember this—you could almost recite it because it’s so orderly and structured.

“When he has come, the idea is that in his coming, with the coming of the Spirit, this is what immediately happens. He will convict the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment. Of sin because they do not believe in me. Of righteousness because I go to my Father and you see me no more. Of judgment because the ruler of this world is judged.”

So now the strengthener to the church becomes the one who is going to wage war to weaken in the world. He’s going to bring conviction to the world. The Spirit works. And I make the point, and I say it again, that he works through the church. Let’s remember that the context of this middle section is the promise of the Spirit to the disciples and then the effect of the Spirit on the disciples to minister Christ’s word to them.

And in between that, we have the effect of the Spirit on the world. He doesn’t come to the world really. He comes to the disciples, but in his coming to the disciples and to the church, he brings conviction to the world. So the Spirit works through the immediate agency of the church and believers to prosecute the moral and spiritual catastrophe of the world in which we live.

The Spirit comes to wage war on the old creation even as the Spirit is bringing into being and into existence the new creation, the new creation to replace the old.

Now, why sin, righteousness, and judgment? Tom McKinnon has noted that if you want to get a religious understanding of the nature of man, what do you need to figure out? A man’s religious status—what he believes in terms of faith or what he believes in terms of his relationship to some transcendent power? These are the terms you would use: sin, righteousness, judgment. What shouldn’t we do? Sin. What should we do? Righteousness. And what is the effect of that upon the world? Judgment. So there’s different perspectives on these three terms that are used. And this is one perspective. This is kind of a compilation by our Savior of the religious system of the world.

Now remember that the specific reference here to “world”—you remember what it is? What’s the world? The world is the same people that a few verses earlier was going to kick you out of synagogues. Romans didn’t do that. So in its first application, the world is being represented here by the visible church, by the Jews who reject Jesus Christ. He is critiquing their system also of sin—what they shouldn’t do—righteousness—what they should do—and judgment—what’s the effect of all that stuff?

He’s really talking about your source of law and your view of eschatology. What’s the standard negatively and positively? And what’s your eschatology? What’s the result of the application of that standard?

In a way, he’s talking about justification in the first. The doctrine of justification has been said to be “just as if I never sinned.” But that’s not enough. It’s not enough to have our sins forgiven. We also have to have the positive righteousness of Jesus Christ imputed to our account by God. So justification is “just as if I never sinned.” Why? The righteousness of Christ is imputed to me.

So if our view of morality is simply a list of what we don’t do, you see, we failed half the test. Justification is what we don’t do and what we should do. And we cannot make atonement for our sins and we cannot ultimately have righteousness that will grant us favorable standing with God. And so the righteousness of Christ is given to us by declaration to his people. And that is the basis for withstanding the judgment of God.

So both the passive obedience of Christ—his suffering of the cross for sinners—and his active obedience—of living a life in conformity to the law, a life of faithfulness, more than anything else, that’s reflected in a life of conformity to what the Father has required of him—as righteousness. Both his passive obedience and his active obedience are described in relationship to this conviction of the world.

A negative and a positive. He even frames phrases it that way. The negative: “sin.” He convicts the world of sin because they do not—negative—believe in him. And he convicts the world of righteousness because he positively goes to the Father. Okay. Negative—criminology? Positive—criminology? Sin—act of disobedience, something for our sins. Act of obedience—living a life of faithful obedience to God’s law given to us on the basis of his work. These are perspectives on these three terms.

Some people have said that this also describes the position of man. Man is a sinner. He has fallen. That’s his problem, right? He’s a sinner. He has fallen. There are two alternatives to man in a sinful state. Two alternatives. He either accepts the righteousness of Christ or he comes under the condemnation of the prince of this world, the devil. So sin has a direct reference to man. Righteousness has a direct reference to Christ in the text. And judgment has a direct reference to the representative of the world, the devil.

So if you’re a sinful man, you either accept the righteousness of Christ or you come under the condemnation of the prince of this world, who has been judged by Jesus’s work. Now I mentioned that the world here are the Jews. And in the first application of these three terms, we must remember that.

The Jews have called Jesus Christ a sinner. The Jews have declared their own righteousness to him. And the Jews are sending him to his judgment. And Jesus is convicting the world—represented by the Jewish unbelieving church—of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment. He is calling into question their entire moral order. Their entire religious nature is wrong in every aspect of it.

In John 9:24, they again call—this is the blind man. Remember, they called the man who was blind to the synagogue or to the court. They said to him, “Give God the glory. We know that this man is a sinner.” Jesus brings conviction to them. They thought he was a sinner, but he is not. They didn’t believe in him. And as a result, their sin is upon them.

In Luke 18:9, he spoke this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised others. You know the parable—the two people praying, the Pharisee and the publican. The Pharisee: “I’m much better than everybody else. Praise God, I’m not like this poor Mark over here.” Mark—he used to struggle a lot with his own sins. And the publican didn’t. “Lord have mercy upon me, a sinner.” Jesus declares to us through the Gospel of Luke that the Pharisees were those who thought themselves righteous in conformity to some kind of standard.

These Jews were on the verge of giving him over to judgment, crucifying him on the cross. Acts 3:15 says they killed the Prince of Life, whom God raised from the dead. Of which we are witnesses. John 18:30 they answered and said to him, “If he were not an evildoer, we would not have delivered him up to you.”

So this is a direct conviction of the Jews who thought he was a sinner, but they were sinners, of the Jews who thought they were righteous, but he was the righteous one, and of the Jews who would take the righteous one and send him to judgment. And in fact, they were the ones who were being judged in that very action.

God is sovereign. They thought they were doing these things—convicting him, declaring their own righteousness, and bringing judgment to the world. And in a way, they were. But it was exactly reverse of what they were doing, because God superintends his problems, his affairs, and he is indeed convicting these men of sin, but it’s a different group than they thought. He is indeed showing to them their lack of righteousness and the righteousness of Christ, because Christ will be raised from the dead. And he is indeed exerting and exercising judgment, but it is not a negative judgment on the Son. The prince of this world, the ruler of this world has been judged, Jesus said.

And all those who do not turn from him, from his deceit, his view of sin, his view of righteousness, they’ll suffer similar judgment. So that’s kind of an overview of these three terms: sin, justice, righteousness rather, and judgment.

Now let’s go back over this a little bit and talk about it a little bit more. He refers to sin specifically as unbelief. Unbelief. And remember, we said earlier that in John chapter 1, he came to his own, but his own received him not. Many who received of them heard of the trings of God, even to them that believe on his name. So the big question over our sin is: Are we going to believe Christ and walk in obedience as a result of that, or are we going to not believe Christ?

At the root of much of our sin is unbelief. And of all we try to view is actually on the external obedience aspect. We are falling into the trap that the Jews would lay for us. That’s what they thought. Their view of sin was a series of things you don’t do. Okay? But Jesus says that ultimately, sin is not related to the law as an abstract standard of morality. Sin is related to him personally. Sin is unbelief in him personally.

The reason why they do not obey the law is not because they don’t obey the law. It’s because they don’t believe in the giver of the law, who is reflected in that law. Very important distinction. He does the same thing with righteousness. You know, they make righteousness out of doing a bunch of things. They can make a list. “He did these things here.” And Jesus says there’ll be people who have done a lot of those things come to him in the judgment and he’ll say, “Depart from me. I never knew you. What about me in that list of things you’re doing?” They said to his name, but they never did it really for him or did him.

He says that he convicts the world of righteousness because he goes to the Father. Righteousness is a life of faithfulness and relationship and communion with the Father in heaven through Christ. Jesus is the touchstone both in terms of sin and of righteousness.

It’s no good to say, “I have a list of these things I shouldn’t have done and I avoided doing them.” No good to have a list—”these are things I should have done and this is my righteousness before God.” No, the judgment, the touchstone is Jesus Christ. Have you exercised belief in him, and your actions are related to that? Because then you sin frequently, and the reason why you do sin is because you don’t believe Jesus.

“Yeah, I know he tells me to submit to my mom and dad, but it makes no sense to me and I’m not going to do it. I’m going to belittle them or have a bad attitude,” because you don’t believe that Jesus Christ is King of Kings and Lord of Lords and he will judge you for that and he will chastise you.

You don’t believe that Jesus is sovereign and has given you your parents, your employer—who might be an old, you know, pagan rebel—that God has given you your husband who has all kinds of deficiencies, and so you do not trust enough to submit with honor to those in positions of authority over you. You don’t believe Jesus, and you don’t believe Jesus if you’re going to love your wife, do good work for your employer, or treat your employers well. “I don’t believe it when you tell me the best way to reach my children is the way the Bible teaches me to bring them up. I think it’s better to do it this way.” Why do we do that? Because we don’t believe Jesus is glorious. Unbelief is what Jesus brings the world—conviction of—in terms of sin. We fail to believe in him.

But he brings the conviction to us as well. A contemplation of our sufferings during the Lenten season will lead us to a recognition that some of them, at least, are related to our own lack of belief in Christ and result in sin and bad actions that we take as a result of that.

So Jesus says that sin is personal. It is an unbelief in him. And if we do not believe in Jesus, then we die in our sin. And so Jesus is the cut stone. Duty and honor abstracted from the Lord Jesus Christ will not cut it.

We had to watch that movie, you know, last week, “The End of All Wars”—that talks about the importance of sacrifice, importance of mercy, the importance of, you know, not retaliating and taking vengeance against his people. A series of concepts or principles which will make the world a better place. And it’s true to a certain extent. But the purpose of the movie is not to just talk about those things or affect societal change in the abstract, to create a world that is more sacrificial, more forgiving and merciful. No, the purpose of the movie, I think, is to cause us to reflect on those things. Those abstract concepts should be related to the work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

All other morality is pointless and is an offense to God—to try to have a good life, a good moral life, without relationship to Jesus Christ. It’s sin, and it’s sin that will result in your judgment and condemnation. Let you turn from. And so this text is a reminder of these things. It’s a call to consider in our contemplation of our sufferings the sufferings of the Savior, our relationship to him. Do we believe him? Do we trust him? And how can we improve our belief and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ?

I had another conversation with another person this last week from church and he said, “You know, it’s sort of like what people have to be willing to do is jump off a cliff and believe that Jesus will catch them at some point as they’re falling through the air.” That’s true. That’s true.

I mean, I know that much of our lives are filled with things we know the results of, but you know, there are—but if you can think of areas in your life that you struggle with sin in reference to a particular area, we all have them. And I think what you’ll find in many of those is you’re afraid of trusting God and doing what he simply and clearly tells you to do. The problem is an exercise of belief or unbelief in the Savior.

The good news is that Jesus has come here and he guarantees you that in the worst of circumstances, he will catch you at some point in your fall. You will fall. We’ve seen that in our kids over the last few years. Sometimes the trials and tribulations are long and you just got to keep doing the right thing. I remember a friend of mine said that after, you know, three or four months of doing the right thing in the midst of a very bad situation, it was like walking through mud. It was very difficult just to pick the leg up and put it back down, to do the next thing that God calls us to do.

But that’s what he does call us to do. He calls us to exercise the infinite word and thus move ahead in righteousness. And he calls us—he calls us to do this, and as we do this, as we proclaim the word of God, we bring conviction to the world.

Second area he talks about is righteousness. And as I said once more here, this is personal. He convicts him of righteousness because he goes to the Father, and he won’t see me. So he brings it home again to the centrality of who he is in the context of their relationship to him.

The lifting up of Jesus on the cross, as one commentator writes—which in the world’s eyes was the demonstration of Jesus’s unrighteousness—was none other than the means of his exaltation to heaven by the Father. As it was at once God’s reversal of the birth of men, so also his attestation of the innocence of Jesus over against the world’s allegations against him and his installation of Jesus into the splendor of the session at his right hand.

The justification of Jesus thus is the vindication of his righteousness and life and his entrance upon righteousness in glory with the Father. Scripture tells us that Jesus Christ was vindicated or declared to be the Son of God. Romans 1:4 says: with power according to the Spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the dead.

The righteousness of Christ is related to his ascent to the Father, because in his being raised up after the suffering, God is putting his good housekeeping stamp of approval on the work of the Lord Jesus Christ and declaring him to be righteous. So the resurrection is the vindication of the Lord Jesus Christ, and he calls them to a contemplation of that. And a failure to recognize him, the crucified and ascended Savior, resurrected and ascended Savior, is a demonstration of unrighteousness on the part of the world.

He goes to the Father again. Relationship is central to everything in the Gospel of John. Jesus has come on a mission from the Father, and he ascends back to the Father, completing the mission that he has done. That’s righteousness. Righteousness is not keeping the commandments. Righteousness is fulfilling the Father’s mission.

As we said over and over again, Jesus says that he sends us as he was sent by the Father. You have relationship with the Father. Believe the reconciliation that Jesus Christ has affected between you and the Father in heaven and fulfill the Father’s mission in the world. Now the end result of that is obeying the Father’s word. But that is not our righteousness. Our righteousness is the righteousness of Christ—the faithfulness of Christ in relationship to his Father in heaven. And our righteousness gives faithfulness in that relationship. And that’s what ushers forth into the obedience that God requires of us in terms of his law.

One commentator said, “The majesty of the law, the power of obedience, and the reality of a divine fellowship stronger than death were made known once for all through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. A relationship stronger than death—relationship of Jesus and the Father. The Father raises Christ back up. The Spirit empowers and vindicates him through the resurrection.” And we see this fellowship, the iron fellowship, is stronger than death, that we’re already to enter into.

But it’s a good word message today to us, that we enter into that resurrection, that love that is stronger than death. Just as sin is far different from breaking of certain specific instructions, righteousness is shown to be something far different than the moral fulfillment of ceremonial and moral obligations.

So here the world is brought to conviction of the judgment with the reversal of what was attempted at the cross. Instead, Jesus Christ spoiled principalities and powers. He took them captive. The prince of the power of this world—the prince of this world rather—has been judged and dethroned.

And so, the scriptures tell us that the ruler of this world, who was coming, Jesus had told us in John 14. Jesus assured us in John 12:31, “Now is the judgment of this world. Now the ruler of this world will be cast out. And if I am lifted up from the earth I will draw all people to myself.”

The antithesis is affirmed here. There is a judgment. There’s not just abstract standards and relationships with no judgment. The judgment is certain, and the basis of the judgment is indeed, again, relationship with the true Prince of Life, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Second Corinthians 2 says that we are to God the fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing. For to the one we are the aroma of death leading to death, and to the other the aroma of life leading to life. And who is sufficient for these things? Well, we all are empowered by the Holy Spirit.

As we go about, the Spirit sends us to affect this conviction of sin, righteousness, and judgment. This conviction of the world—the world is weakened by Jesus. We are strengthened. The new humanity is strengthened. But the Spirit is also the weakener of fallen man.

The Spirit is—the words brought to you again—a warrior in the wars of the Lord. The Spirit keeps fallen men mindful—sinful of their condition. He keeps them—he keeps fallen men mindful rather of his condition. The Spirit is very active in the fallen world. To us he is an advocate, a comforter, a strengthener, but to fallen men he is a prosecutor and a terror to them.

We are to pray that the Spirit of God might convict men of their sins and bring them to their knees in repentance or bring them down ultimately to their own destruction and through that judgment that awaits them. Jesus tells his disciples that he has turned loose on the world an unrivaled force that brings terror and weakness to the Lord’s enemies.

This conviction that is spoken about can be measured in our world by the number of hours spent week by week, month by month, year by year by various people in psychiatrists and psychologist fashion. And as a godly—but you see the mind of man is twisted. And if he could get escape from this conviction of the Holy Spirit, then things would be fine, but he cannot. The Spirit has come specifically to bring conviction to this world.

How does he come to this world to affect that? He comes to this world, as I’ve said, through us. We’re going to talk about this last section in just a minute. But the point of it is, the Spirit comes to empower us and lead us into the truth. The point is that our job in terms of the fallen world, those outside of Christ, is to be part of the vehicle by which the Spirit brings this kind of conviction to men’s lives.

You know, there’s a C.S. Lewis space trilogy. There’s a great illustration of this. “Out of the Silent Planet” is the title of one of the books. And the idea is that this fellow finds himself taken away from Earth to Mars and Venus on a spaceship, and he kind of discovers the true reality of life. Turns out that all these planets have these angelic powers. I think they’re called Elils. I think who govern the world. The earth is a fallen planet, so it’s a silent planet. It doesn’t have the brightness and beauty of these other planets. But these governing angels who oversee them—and in this science fiction series, the powers who are servants of the great spirit God—have decided that unless the earth’s corruption through space travel is now going to other lands, so the bad guys going forth from earth to affect the other planets. So they decide they need to get rid of the evil on earth. And so these Elils come to earth to begin this process of waging a war upon the evil in earth.

And Ransom, who is the guy, the good guy in this thing—he sees one of them. And the thing is a big tall calm pillar of light spinning at an unfathomable speed. And it has this beauty, power, and force all wrapped up in this pillar of light. And the thing first thing he notices about it is it’s got a 10-degree tilt. You know, it’s not straight up and down. It’s tilted. And he realizes through his encounter with these things that they’re true vertical. They’re not off center. They’re not tilting. They’re right up. But the world in which these things have come to exhibit the wrath of the great Spirit and to drive out evil—it’s the one that ought to burn.

And as a result of the coming of these things, Ransom comes to know that the very floor he stands on and considered very level and stable is a slave. You see, he’s brought to a knowledge of the deviation from true vertical that the world has in it. We have a world in which sin abounds and we live. We grow up in the context of this. We grow up in the context of a world that is off-kilter. But because we’re in it, we don’t recognize it’s off-kilter. We don’t live, recognize that it’s really wrong.

Well, then the Spirit of God comes, Jesus says, to bring true vertical to the world, to convince the Jews that their view of sin, righteousness, and judgment was 180 degrees off. Not just 10 degrees. They’re way off. They’re upside down.

Well, that’s what we do. You see, we bring this word that the Spirit brings to us and draws us into increasing knowledge of it. We speak based on that word. We interpret the world based upon that word. We try to bring correction to our own lives, our families, our churches, our businesses, and politics. Because, after all, the ruler of this world is an—and in the phrasing of that is a condemnation of all the institutions and rules of men, rulers of men, civil, ecclesiastical, and vocational, that do not work in or impact a mission to the political order as well.

Clearly, the rulers of this world are all sinners. And what we are to do is to speak the message of Christ and convince the world that it is off, that it is nowhere near vertical. Our job is to do that. We’re not supposed to, through gentle moral persuasion, bring people to a more moral way of being and try to correct things.

Praise God that in his providence he has raised up a president who has used the word “evil.” You see, in our world, we had almost that word had almost gone from the vocabulary of nations, and metad fundamentalists running around and thought of evil. But the whole world has said, “No, okay. I’m okay. You’re okay. Saddam’s okay as long as he’s not doing something evil.” Then who knows, might be my good. Antithesis—you can condemn evil. “It’ll be obliterated,” and God has raised up a ruler now to speak in terms of evil, to talk about his personal prayer life and being on his knees before God in the morning.

But I don’t know if all his decisions are wise or good or not. And I don’t know what his motivation is. I don’t know if he has believed in Christ to sleep like he does. I don’t know if his righteousness is the righteousness, the imputed righteousness of the Savior. I don’t know about all that. I do know that God is using this man to do just this thing, to tell the United Nations, “You are off, children. This man is evil and has attacked a number of countries, raped and tortured people.”

You see, that’s what’s happening. You know, an ancient of God has come to bring conviction, and he looks goofier than all else. And now the crescendo of the world press and all the fundamentalist Christian president in America. “Oh, he’s a Christian. Oh, isn’t that awful?” You say, “Why?” Because God continues to do today what Jesus said he would do based upon his death and resurrection. The Spirit comes to convict the world of sin, to convict the world of righteousness, and of judgment.

The world knows it. Do not think that the Spirit will not do his job. The Spirit will do his job as you speak the truth of Christ, as our president the truth of Christianity to bear in these areas, the word. The Spirit will do his job. The people you speak to do know the truth. This says that their attempt to suppress the truth of God and righteousness has failed. The Spirit convicts them.

This is stuff. This is a text that should empower us to witness, should empower us to know that, you know, it’s not based upon our words, our abilities, or anything else. As Paul said, it’s based upon this promise that the Spirit of God comes to lead us into the truth of Christ, to make him central in our lives, to discern the future. He’ll tell us the future. Jesus says, to discern the future and interpret it based upon Christ’s word and the centrality of the person of Jesus Christ and the world’s response one way or the other to Jesus. That’s the basis of the judgment. That’s what the Spirit of God comes to do, regardless of our abilities. And it should be a tremendous encouragement to us.

You know, I was reading Robert Abraham’s had a sermon on this text. He said, “You know, if you read through the sermons of John Wesley, don’t seem to have no power in them. You read the sermons of Wesley,” he said, “compared to the sermons of Spurgeon, and Spurgeon’s are far more powerful. But Wesley was used in mighty ways of God. Spurgeon was—why? Because it isn’t up to the horse or the rider or our strengths or abilities. The Spirit of God worked through Wesley’s preaching to bring power and conviction of sin, unrighteousness, and judgment to people and thus caused growth in the church and revival.”

You see, it’s the Spirit of God. And that should be a wonderful truth for you to hear today. That should be gospel to you. Good news. I can open my mouth about Jesus. Not just about sacrifice, mercy, or justice, but about Jesus—Jesus, the sacrifice of the cross, about the justice of God’s word and the judgment that will come to people who do not believe in him, that establish their own righteousness, to feel good about them. I can say those things to my neighbors and my coworkers, and I can be assured that the Spirit of God is accompanying my message, and the Spirit will use me to bring a recognition that these guys are 10 degrees off.

Now, what the world does about that is something else. I mean, the judgment ultimately can be seen as being one way or the other. You brought judgment in the proclamation of Christ’s virtue. They’ll either stiffen and hate you more, as many people are doing, pushing, or they’ll come to repentance and acceptance of the weakening Christ. That’s up to the Spirit of God to do. But this text is a tremendous encouragement to us to be those shining agents of the great Spirit in the sky, bring the truth and light of the Holy Spirit and powered witness to Christ’s word and convict people of their own sin, unbelief, righteousness, and judgment.

So, and then the final passage here talks about the Spirit’s work to bring us into all the truth. Verse 12: “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. Parents, listen to that text. ‘I have many things to say to you. You cannot bear them now.’ Progressive sanctification over time. Jesus is gentle with his people. He knows our frame. God has not given us any temptation that’s too hard for us to overcome by his grace. He’s gentle. He knows us. May we treat each other that way. May we recognize that some of us can’t bear certain truths right now. There’s a progression in the Christian life that must cure.”

Jesus says that here. “I have many things to say. You can’t bear them. However, when the Spirit of truth has come, he will guide you into all the truth in a progressive fashion. He will not speak on his own authority. Whatever he hears, he will speak. He will tell you things to come. He will interpret the future for you based upon the centrality of me.”

Jesus says to the history of the world, “He will glorify me, for he will take of what is mine and declare it to you. All things that the Father has are mine. Therefore I said that he will take of mine and declare it to you.”

We can see this as a direct statement in his first application from the apostles. They would, under the divine inspiration of the Holy Spirit, produce the New Testament. They would produce this very Gospel by the coming of the Spirit. Remember, these are never going to figure things out. Jesus is walking with them. When the Spirit comes, they become those that God uses to produce the fulfillment of his written word to us.

But I think we can also see, at least an application to us, that this is what the Spirit does with us. This is how we bring this conviction to the world: by the Spirit guiding us into the truth, discerning the future based upon the centrality of Christ, and growing in our knowledge of the word. Now, this isn’t magic. This is related to a knowledge of the written word of Christ. This is what the spirit will—the Reformed is so emphatic about this. The Spirit will not go a foot beyond Jesus, as I said earlier. And the Spirit also will not go outside of the word of God. He ministers the word of Christ contained in the 66 books of the Bible to us.

Now, I don’t mean by that it just makes new application of the text. I do believe in a progressive grow of the church’s knowledge of truth. I believe that the procession clause that I talked about earlier—procession of the Holy Spirit of the Father and the Son—is an example of the church being genuinely confused for at least a few centuries. And it cleared up. The church was genuinely confused. Well, what seems very clear to us in this text and clear to me, looking at these clauses every week, that they’re always there. This text, it’s very clear that the Trinity is a reality.

And yet, we struggled about that. Formulations had to be written. And the same thing’s going on today. It’ll always be this way. The church will always be catching up with the Bible and the power of the Spirit.

And I think that’s the context for understanding the discussions that are going on the last couple of years about the covenant. I talked about this. Remember, that the Westminster Standards are written to meet the great need of assurance: Does this God really love us? And then they have this need to know the world can be known. We know that. Now they have a need to know community. Can I have a successful marriage? Can we have a church that people don’t all turn out to be Judas’s concern?

Well, in that crisis, Jesus is addressing his disciples in a crisis. The crisis of despair over community—is the Spirit’s leading of his church into more and more truth. He’s leading us into the truth of the objective analysis of the covenant. He’s leading us into the truth of what this covenant theology is all about. You know, we believe in covenant theology for a long time. What does it mean? Well, nobody can really say. And what’s happening at our right time, I think, is the Spirit of God leading the church into truth based upon a view of the covenant that’s exceedingly important.

The Westminster Standards talk about the decree of God, and now it’s being talked about as the covenant of God—not in opposition to the decree, but a different perspective of God’s language. And just as that clock is so easily apparent to me every Sunday, all of a sudden somebody sees it. As you look at the texts that are being executed and exposed in the last 20 years about the covenant, it’s clear as day that this covenant, the relationship of divine fellowship of the Trinity that we talked about here—Father, Son, and Spirit—is what we’re brought into. That is an exceedingly clear doctrine in the New Testament.

This objective view of the covenant is clear. More importantly than that, the test of these things is the centrality of Christ. What did John say later? Test the Spirit on the basis of whether Jesus Christ came in the flesh. Is the Spirit-empowered application and further development of biblical truth? Not new truth in the sense of something totally new, but building on the scaffolding of the truth the church has been taught. Does it have at its center the work of the Lord Jesus Christ?

And this teaching—we’ll be talking more about it at camp in other venues. This understanding of the covenantal relationship that God has built into the context of the church, the importance of community. This is a truth that is centered upon the personal work of Jesus Christ, centered on a correct understanding and application of the sacrament. And is yet one more example that not just in our own personal life but the church all of a sudden notices, over a period of time, the Spirit leads us into the truth that we must take this understanding of the covenant and apply it, preach it, consider it gospel. That yes, indeed, community can be entered into, built, and enhanced through a conception of the Lord Jesus Christ, the body of Christ—not just the mystical body, that is, but the body of believers who gather at the table.

This is the centrality of the covenant teaching to us in answering this deep difficulty we have about humanity. And it’s an example of what the Holy Spirit does positively.

You know, ultimately, Jesus said, “I didn’t come to judge the world.” “I came to save the world.” The Spirit comes primarily not to judge the old world. But what we see in the judgment, the conviction of the world, is by the shadows cast by the light of the Holy Spirit coming in new creation by those that refuse to embrace that new world.

The Spirit’s job, Christ’s job, the Spirit’s job is bringing about a new creation. His job is all ultimately the disciples growing in their knowledge and praise to him of the truth of Jesus Christ. That’s what the new creation did. But a necessary component of that is the conviction of the old creation that refuses to walk in the new.

God tells us two things. One, he assures us that when creation is being affected by the work of the Spirit, and he assures us that the Spirit-empowered witness of the church is effective for the growth of the church and sanctification—praise God for you. And he tells us that any opposition we suffer in relationship to it—and there will always be opposition. The old guard will always fight the advance of truth—and any opposition we overcome by the Spirit of God bringing conviction over unbelief in Jesus Christ, failure to yield biblical text, a failure to appropriate the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ and his victory.

And God says that when we understand these things, then we either choose the judgment of the prince of this world or the judgment prince of life. God assures us the new creation is being established. We are an essential part of the establishment of that creation. It is our job to be these shining lights, bringing conviction to the world, but more importantly, bringing the newness of the creation, which centered upon the work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Jesus said earlier in John chapter 7 that out of your bellies will flow rivers of living water. This he spoke of the Spirit which had not been given yet because he had not yet been glorified. Now has been. Now Jesus says that out of your belly—the innermost part of your being—the Spirit of God flows out into all your associations, bringing conviction but bringing establishment in truth as well.

What is the overflow of your life? When I was down in Florida, I heard a sermon on the overflow of your life. The concept itself—the guy had a new house and he had a rent, and they’re going to move in the first day, and the toilet up there. Some kind of seal broke and it overflowed bad. Stuff all over the house, soaking through the rooms, excrement. It was an overflow that was not positive. Jesus says that what comes out of the midst of our being is this grace of the Spirit, focused upon the centrality of Christ, and that has this positive effect in the world of destroying the old creation and establishing the new.

I ask you today: the overflow. You look back on your last few weeks. You hope to bring conviction by living a good life, morality, and you open your mouth and talk about the centrality of the Christ whose righteousness, sinless atonement for sinners. May God grant us repentance from cowardice that fails to appropriate the power of the Spirit. May he grant us repentance and say, “Well, I don’t know enough about the Spirit. Does the Spirit work? The Spirit empower? Does—yes. It’s important to grow the truth, important to study the Scripture, but God says it clearly: You are just as Jesus sent into the world, Spirit of Christ, abiding with his word, and his word to Father coming together.”

Father, we thank you for today. We thank you for this day of moving in the context of forgiveness, discipleship, and admission into the world. We thank you, Lord God, for the high opportunity we have to consecrate ourselves and flesh to Jesus Christ, the power of the Spirit flowing through us—not to build up the Spirit, but rather to proclaim the centrality of Christ in the world and to bring praise to him.

We pray now that you would empower us through this, Lord God. May we each encourage each other with our words this week to be witnesses of Christ. In his name we ask. Amen.

Judgments come and say go away now. When I have time, I’ll call for you. One thing—where was that? Acts 24:25. Actually, what would self-control in this context mean? It seems like it is a definitely a reference.