Commentary on the Gospel of John

                                 Chapter Sixteen

                                                                                                                                               Verses 4-6

Jesus began to fill in many of the details about His death and resurrection, and the work of the Holy Spirit in His Church and in the world. Jesus gave these details to His followers all at once so that when some of His followers began to write the New Testament, the Holy Spirit could make them remember Jesus' sermons just prior to His crucifixion. Jesus' writers would be able to remember these sermons better because of the intensity of the situation. Jesus did not teach many of these details to His disciples during His ministry because all they needed to know was that He was their Comforter and leader. If Jesus had stretched His teaching of these details over the time of His ministry, His disciples would have had much more trouble remembering them. But when the time would come for some of His followers to write the New Testament, the Holy Spirit would cause the writers to more easily remember these details because Jesus crammed them all into precise sermons near the end of His ministry. The Apostle Paul wrote much of the New Testament, but he had to have gotten the details of Jesus' teachings from the memory of some of Jesus' disciples. Even so, the writers of the Gospels did a good job of remembering, by listening to the Holy Spirit, the miracles and the teachings of Jesus during His public ministry.

Jesus informed His disciples that He was going away to be with His Father, and He wondered why His disciples did not ask Him where He was going. They probably did not ask Him because they were confused about much of what Jesus had taught them. Sorrow filled their hearts because they thought Jesus was going away never to return. Jesus knew that they were confused, and so He began to give them more details about how He would return to His Church in the form of the Holy Spirit to be their Comforter and Teacher. John 14:18.