“And He, when He comes, will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment; concerning sin, because they do not believe in Me; and concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father and you no longer see Me; and concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world has been judged” (John 16:8 – 11).
A fundamental challenge in seeing, in some measure, what Jesus is saying is that we live as if we are of this world, not as citizens of the heaven, not as those looking for that City which is to come (Philippians 3:20; Hebrews 11:8 – 16). This is a tragic irony of the “Christian” worldview movement, it does not reinforce our separation from the world, it does not recognize that the world is under judgment (Psalm 2, Daniel 2), it does not teach as Jesus does that we are in the world but not of the world (John 15:18 – 21; 17:14 – 16).
This movement thinks that if we can change the way people think that all will be well. Of course, its ultimate tragedy is that the Person of Jesus Christ is not its focus, He has been displaced. Having a “Christian” worldview, whatever that may mean, does not mean that a person knows Jesus. Getting someone to think a certain way is not the same as bringing someone to know Jesus. The worldview movement is a Nehushtan. It once likely had a reasonable place in our lives, we have now made it an idol. It was once our servant, now we serve the idol.
John writes, “We know that we are of God, and that the whole world lies in the power of the evil one” (1 John 5:19).
It has been pointed out that the work of the Holy Spirit toward the world in John 16:8 - 11 is not the same as His work in the People of God. In the Upper Room we see the Holy Spirit revealing Jesus to His People, the Holy Spirit is our Helper, our Paraclete, our Advocate. However, regarding the world, the Holy Spirit is not an Advocate but a Prosecutor. Let’s recall that when we considered 15:18 – 4 we saw that the Holy Spirit in us testifies of Jesus, and that in testifying of Jesus we encounter opposition, persecution, and suffering – the testimony of the Holy Spirit and the People of God are One.
Jesus says, “Now judgment is upon this world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out” (John 12:31).
My sense is that John 16:8 speaks of the Holy Spirit convicting the world of its collective sin, its identity in sin, its soul of sin, its ocean of sin. The holy Prosecutor is proclaiming, “You have been convicted, and your conviction will stand, your judgment will stand.”
The righteousness of 16:8 is of course the righteousness of Jesus Christ, the Lamb who knew no sin. The Lamb comes into the Presence of the Father because He is altogether holy. While we may not see Him in one sense, we most assuredly love Him (1 Peter 1:8).
The judgment of the enemy is final (see also Colossians 2:15; 1 Corinthians 15:20 – 28).
What I think we see in John 16:8 – 11 is something primarily judicial in the Court of Heaven that is manifested on earth. I do not get the sense than we are looking at the subjective conviction of individuals that can lead them to repentance and following Jesus Christ, but rather the blanket conviction of fallen and rebellious humanity. The judgment on Satan in 16:11 is final and is being worked out, and the judgment of rebellious humanity in 16:9 is also final and is being worked out.
“The ruler of the world is coming, and he has nothing in Me” (John 14:30).
The conviction of righteousness in 16:10 is tied to both the judgment of the world’s sin and the judgment of the ruler of this world. “Your throne O God, is forever and ever, and the righteous scepter is the scepter of His [Christ’s] Kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness; therefore God, Your God, has anointed You” (Hebrews 1:8 – 9).
As Jesus says in John 15:22, because of Him the world no longer has a cloak or excuse for sin.
The book of Revelation portrays a kaleidoscopic unfolding of these realities in generation after generation – at some point the trajectory of the world, the flesh, and the devil will terminate, while the trajectory of the Lamb, the Father, and the City will gloriously flourish into ages upon ages.
The final words of Jesus on the Cross that John records are, “It is finished.” The work of Jesus Christ is final, He is the Omega, He is the Completion, He is the Perfection and Consummation of all things.
“He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He proposed in Him with a view to an administration suitable to the fulness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth” (Ephesians 1:9-10, NASB).
John 16:8 – 11 has a finality about it; the world has been convicted, the righteousness of Jesus Christ has been declared, the ruler of this world has been judged. We are to live in this final and present reality.
We are to live in Jesus Christ.
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