Study inJohn’s Gospel

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Witness for the Prosecution

Chap 16v5-15

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IntroductionGod’s word encourages us to reckon our losses among our greatest gains. Often we do not believe this and so sorrow over what seems to be the great losses in our lives. This was true for the first disciples. After Jesus’ death God planned to send another comforter, and yet they were sorrowful. God had prepared a great gift for them, but they could focus only upon what they believed to be their great loss.

And so Jesus, recognising their sorrow, began to teach them about the Holy Spirit in a passage containing the longest discussion of the ministry of the Holy Spirit to be found in John's Gospel.

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Conviction of SinFirst, we learn that the Holy Spirit ‘convicts the world of sin’ v8 and Jesus immediately gives the explanation: “because men do not believe in me” v9. He will convict the world of its sin because, without this conviction, they do not believe. The place of conviction prior to salvation is the major theme of this passage.

Sin has a profoundly blinding quality. It turns us in upon ourselves and seeks to prevent us from seeing the true nature of our spiritual standing before God. It pulls down the blinds in the windows of our souls in order to persuade us of its attractiveness. Only when sin’s true identity is brought to light is salvation seen not only as desirable but necessary.

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Conviction of SinThe Holy Spirit convicts the world in two senses. First, like a prosecuting attorney he secures a verdict of “guilty” against the world. But secondly, the Holy Spirit brings this guilt home to the human consciousness so that men and women are disturbed by sin and seek alleviation from it.

An example of this ministry can be seen on the day of Pentecost. Peter had just preached his first sermon with its focus on who Jesus is and why he had died on the cross. We are then told that, "When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, "Brothers, what shall we do?" Acts 2v37. When Peter answered their question and three thousand believed and were saved.

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Conviction of SinThis was a remarkable response, but it wasn’t due to Peter's brilliant explanation of the gospel. If he’d preached the same sermon the day before, nothing would have happened. No one would have believed. He and the others would have been mocked and ridiculed. What then made the three thousand believe?

The answer is that the Holy Spirit had come and had begun to do his work of conviction of sin in the world. This is why they were "cut to the heart" and asked, "What shall we do?"

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Conviction of SinWe cannot convict men and women of sin. Neither can those to whom the gospel is preached convict themselves. The gospel is all of grace in the sense that man makes no move toward God unless God first convicts and then draws him.

R. A. Torrey was minister of the Chicago Avenue Church at the turn of the C20th. His office-bearers were so concerned that there was so little profound conviction of sin in their services thatthe suggestion was made that they meet from night to night to pray for this distinctive ministry of the Holy Spirit.

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Conviction of SinA few days later on a Sunday evening Torrey noticed a man in the congregation whom he had not seen before. After the service Torrey went to his vestry where he found this man in an agitated state. “I don't know what is the matter with me,” he groaned. “I feel awful. I never felt this way in my life...Oh, I don't know what is the matter with me.”

“I know what is the matter with you,” Torrey replied. “You are under conviction of sin, for the Holy Spirit is dealing with you.” This man was ready to be pointed to Christ as the one who had on the cross procured the forgiveness of all his sins and as a result the man entered into the peace of God.

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Conviction of SinJames Philip was studying theology at Aberdeen University. He sent an urgent message to his minister asking him to visit as soon as it was convenient for him to do so. His minister arrived and found him in a deeply agitated state. And all he could repeat over and over again were the words, “My sins, Oh my sins”.

Now he would have been considered a respectable young man but that notwithstanding for the first time in his life he had become the subject of the convicting work of the Holy Spirit and had been persuaded of his need of salvation. He went on to exercise an extremely fruitful ministry in Scotland.

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Conviction of SinThere is one more thing about this convicting work of the Holy Spirit in relation to sin. It is that the sin of which the Holy Spirit convicts men, when all is said and done, is the sin of unbelief. “Of sin, because men do not believe in me,” Jesus says.

Notice that it is not conviction of the sin of adultery, or drunkenness, or pride, or stealing, primarilybut the sin of refusing to believe on Jesus.

Why is this? It is not because the other sins are not sin or even that they are insignificant. Rather it is because belief in Christ, the one thing God requires for salvation and that is something that the natural man finds hard to acknowledge.

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Conviction of SinDoes the average unbeliever look on unbelief as sin? Not at all! If anything the opposite is true. He may look upon unbelief as a mark of intellectual sophistication. “I am glad that you feel that you can believe those things,” he says with an air of condescending superiority to his Christian friend.

He really means, “I could never believe that nonsense”. He thinks it a matter for pride that he is an agnostic or an atheist. Or, if he does not take that approach, he may look to his Christian friend for pity, saying; “I wish I could believe as you do, but I can't. There is something wrong with me.”

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Conviction of SinReal conversions take place when both these excuses wither away under the Spirit's heat. Torrey writes,

"When the Holy Spirit touches a man's heart, he no longer looks upon unbelief as a mark of intellectual superiority; he does not look upon it as a mere misfortune; he sees it as the most daring, decisive and damning of all sins and is overwhelmed with a sense of his awful guilt in that he had not believed on the name of the only begotten Son of God."

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Christ’s RighteousnessSecondly, the Holy Spirit will convict “of righteousness,” says Jesus, “because I am going to the Father where you can see me no longer” v10. There are two ways of understanding this. First, it can mean that the Holy Spirit will show the world what true righteousness is like. Christ being no longer around to demonstrate it.

The Holy Spirit therefore undermines our very human conception of goodness. We imagine that some men have 10% goodness, others have 30, 60 or 70%, and then there is Jesus, the best of all, who scores 100%. Many people think that Jesus’ goodness is not viewed as a standard but simply as an example to encourage us to try harder.

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Christ’s RighteousnessBut this is not what happens when men and women meet Jesus. Instead, they are faced with the fact that for them, righteousness is totally unattainable. Their reaction, rather than a renewed determination to try harder, is one of despair. The sheer holy otherness of Jesus is quite overwhelming. Listen to Peter’s words in his early encounter with Jesus,and after the miraculous catch of fish;

“Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.” Luke 5v8

And since Christ is no longer with us here on earth, it is the task of the Holy Spirit to create this awareness what ‘perfect righteousness’is in the world.

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Christ’s RighteousnessSecondly, Jesus’ words can also indicate that it is the task of the Holy Spirit to show us where the righteousness that God requires can be found. Not in us - ours is an imperfect human righteousness - but it is found in Jesus.

In human affairs, if convicted of wrongdoing, the next step is judgment. The prisoner is remanded into custody for sentencing at some later date.

But God's procedure is different. We are convicted, the reality of our guilt is inescapable but before sentence is passed, the Holy Spirit points to the remarkable provision of God. He directs us to the righteousness of Christ, so that the one who believes on Christ is clothed in his righteousness and saved from God’s judgment!

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Satan JudgedThe final aspect of the Spirit's work mentioned in these verses is to convict the world “of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged”. The Holy Spirit will convince the world that there is such a thing as judgment. Its inevitability is tied into the overthrow of the prince of this world - Satan through Christ’s victory on the cross.

And the cosmic irony of this is that when Satan, in the aftermath of the crucifixion, was shouting, “Hurrah I’ve won”; he was in fact being overthrown! No one wants to believe in judgment. We want to think that we can do what we wish with impunity and that no day of reckoning will come.

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Satan JudgedSometimes we are encouraged in this by the thought that God does not seem to judge immediately and that evil often seems to go unpunished. But this is false thinking. God is longsuffering in his judgments. Still, they come eventually and inevitably, and of this, God's judgment upon Satan is proof.

If an individual will not come to Christ, who has died for him in order that his sin might be forgiven and that God's own righteousness might be applied to his account, then he will experience such judgment. How much better it is to come to Christ now in this the day of grace.

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Human ChannelsNow while it is true that the Holy Spirit convicts men and women of sin, he nevertheless often does so through the ministry of God’s people. Jesus by sending his Holy Spirit to believers plans to work through them and in them. Every conversion recorded in the Book of Acts involved the agency of believing men and women. The apostles ‘bore witness’ on Pentecost and the days following. And even Paul’s remarkable conversion did not take place without some human involvement.

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Human ChannelsPrior to his conversion Paul had witnessed the stoning of Stephen and had heard his great sermon. This incident would have had a traumatic effect upon him. And even after the Damascus Road experience, while in Damascus, Ananias was sent to him as the human instrument through whom the Holy Spirit then did his work. This is God's way - by the power of his Spirit working through human channels.

Are you his instrument? You can be. Draw near to God, ask him to cleanse and equip you. Allow him to make of you an unobstructed channel through whom his grace can flow.

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