The Help of the Holy Spirit
John 16:5-15
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
St. John 16:5-8 5 “But now I go away to Him who sent Me, and none of you asks Me, ‘Where are You going?’ 6 But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart. 7 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. 8 And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment.”
Dear fellow redeemed in Christ our Lord… Jesus’s eleven apostles were sorrowful when they heard Jesus talk about His imminent departure as they walked with Him to the Garden of Gethsemane. They had no idea where He was going or why. And they couldn’t imagine how it could be a good thing that He was going away at all.
You and I can understand that. Just imagine what it would be like if Jesus had never gone away, if He had remained on earth and were still dwelling in Israel or somewhere else in the world. Just imagine what it would be like… Hardly anyone would know Him. There would be no world-wide Christian Church, just the church that met where Jesus was. If Jesus had never gone away, then He would still be in one place on earth, and you would have to go to that place to find Him and to receive help from Him. If Jesus had never gone away, then prayers to Jesus would have to be in person, as they were during His earthly ministry, and Baptism and Holy Communion wouldn’t even exist as means of grace. There would be no preachers anywhere except where Jesus was, and even if there were, their preaching would fall on deaf ears all the time, because it would have no divine power to create faith or to save.
If Jesus had never gone away, then no one else on earth could forgive sins; no one else on earth could reconcile sinners with God. If Jesus had never gone away, it might be wonderful for the relatively few people who could live close to Him and interact with Him. But for the billions and billions of others, Jesus would always be far, far away.
And that is why He had to go away. As our Lord explains to His apostles in our Gospel, “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.”
Our Lord’s “going away” on Maundy Thursday night also included His going away to suffer and die on the cross. The need for Jesus’ death and the need for His resurrection from the dead is crystal clear. He had to go away to the cross and shed His blood as the atoning sacrifice for the world’s sins. He had to rise from the dead in order to apply His blood to sinners through faith and to impart His righteousness to all who would believe in Him for our justification. But how does that happen?
Well, it happens as the Helper, the Holy Spirit, brings Jesus and His righteousness to the world in a different way, a better way. And understanding that way, that manner in which the Holy Spirit works, is crucial. He works through the Word; He works through the preaching of the Gospel, which is, as Paul says, “the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes” (Rom 1:16). Why is it the power of God? Because it is the powerful tool of the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit sets the Son of God before our eyes in the Gospel, right now, in the present tense, so that the preaching and teaching that you hear actually has the power to bring you to faith in Christ Jesus and to work forgiveness of sins, life and salvation. Without the Holy Spirit, there is no Absolution, there is no Baptism, there is no Holy Communion, there is no power of God in the preaching of the Gospel, there is no divine help in the building of the Church. But with the Holy Spirit, there is all of that.
Through the preaching of the Gospel, the Helper will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: of sin, because, Jesus says, they do not believe in Me. Jesus is making a distinction here between the unbelieving world and His saints, His believers, His Church.
The Holy Spirit will convict or rebuke the world concerning sin because the world does not believe in Jesus. We preach the Law of God, His commandments, His moral requirements, to the world. We proclaim what is right and wrong, and we proclaim that all have sinned against God’s Law.
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Where there is faith in Christ, there the blood of the Lamb of God has been applied and sins have been washed away so that they aren’t counted against believers. But where there is no faith, people are still held accountable for their sin—all of it. So through the Christian preaching that goes on throughout the world, the Holy Spirit rebukes the world for its sin—for not believing in the only One who takes away sin. And He threatens eternal condemnation.
Christians also have the law preached to them, but differently. It is not so that believers in Christ should imagine they are now condemned again and outside of God’s grace; no. The Christian hears the law so that he too may know that he stands only by faith, and that apart from faith in Christ no one could stand for one minute before the holy God and His holy Law. The Law makes no one righteous before God; it does, however, reveal our sin. And that revelation of sin results in condemnation for everyone who does not believe in Christ. So, in the preaching of the Law to Christian, the urgency is revealed of continuing to cling to Christ our Redeemer all the way to the end of our lives. For those who are in Him, there is now no condemnation.
Jesus said the Holy Spirit “will convict the world of righteousness, because I go to My Father and you see Me no more.” The world either thinks it is already righteous, or it imagines that it can become righteous on its own. Ask just about any non-Christian you know, “Do you think you’re a good person? Do you think God would consider you a good person?” In our country, in our time, the vast majority would answer, “Yes!”, or at least, “I hope so!” or “I’m trying!” That’s because the world refuses to acknowledge that only Christ is righteous before God. Only Christ is a good Person in God’s eyes. So, the Holy Spirit convicts the world and rebukes it for its self-righteousness and declares that all righteousness is wrapped up in Christ, who has gone away to the Father.
So how can anyone on earth be righteous if the only Righteous One has gone to the Father? Again, it is the righteousness of faith. See what the Holy Spirit does. Jesus says that the Holy Spirit “will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you.” The Holy Spirit takes of what is Christ’s – He takes His righteousness, His record of obedience as God and Man – and declares it to you and me. He brought back the righteousness of the ascended Christ to the world on Pentecost. He applied the righteousness of Christ to those who were baptized – both then and now. He delivers His righteousness in the Sacraments and covers the penitent with it. That is now mankind’s only connection to the righteousness that counts before God; it is our only link to Christ and all that is His – the much-needed work of the Holy Spirit.
And He will convict the world of judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged. The unbelieving world’s judgment is severely flawed. People honestly think they can make up their own morality, make up their own rules, make up their own moral justice and get away with it all. They deny the God of Scripture. They reject His commandments and create their own. They reject His pure doctrine and create their own false doctrine. They rejected Christ when He was here on earth and they reject Him still. So, no matter what “god” people claim to worship, if they refuse to repent of their sin, if they reject Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the living God, then they have Satan for a ruler.
Thank God there is the Holy Spirit, preaching through the true Christian Church, rebuking the world for its faulty judgment. People think they can get away with it, but the fact is, the ruler of this world is judged. The Lord Christ has come and crushed him already by His death and resurrection, and He will come again and cast him out into outer darkness forever. That should send shivers down the spine of unbelievers.
Satan doesn’t win in the end. He has already lost. Their unbelievers god, their master, their leader and their ruler is condemned, and so will all who go along with him, unless…unless they repent, unless they heed the Holy Spirit’s rebuke and turn from their sin to the grace that is being offered in the Gospel.
You and I, dear fellow redeemed, have been called by the Holy Spirit through the Gospel. We have been enlightened by the Holy Spirit with His gifts of forgiveness, life, and salvation. We have the certainty that, by God-given faith and trust in Christ, our sins are forgiven and we have God’s salvation because of Christ. Satan is defeated for us by Christ alone.
And in this Christian Church, God daily and richly forgives all our sins and the sins of all believers. Each and every Lord’s Day we are gathered here in this place, first and foremost, to receive Jesus in all the ways He wants us to have Him. This day we celebrate the fact that two more of our young people, Stasia and Roman, will receive Jesus’ real and true body and blood for the first time in what will be a lifetime of reception of these gifts, in order that, through these gifts, the Holy Spirit will work to keep these two young Christians in the one true faith..
In Catechesis we refer to the means of Grace as “The Holy BAGS: “Baptism, Absolution, Gospel, and Supper.” These are the ways – and they are the only ways – that God delivers Christ’s forgiveness to us, the forgiveness He bought and paid for with His holy, precious blood and His innocent suffering and death. And today, Stasia and Roman have all the BAGS with us!
May our good and gracious God make us always thankful for His Holy Spirit’s help in our lives and in all the ways that He helps us, to then end that we all may be ushered into the life of the world to come. To God alone be the glory.
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
