01.05. Spirit's Threfold Conviction (Boardman)
V. THE SPIRIT’S THREEFOLD CONVICTION. BY GEORGE DANA BOARDMAN, D.D., I,L.D.
"When he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: of sin, because they believe not on me; of righteousness, because I go to my Father, and ye see me no more; of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged." John 16:8-11. This pregnant paragraph sets forth the three chief *- offices of the Paraclete in his relations to men in this seen. When he is come, he will convict the world, first, in respect of sin, because they believe not on Christ; in other words, the Spirit is to bring to the world the conviction that there is such a thing as sin, and that sin consists in the refusal to believe on Jesus Christ. The Spirit is to convict the world, secondly, in respect of righteousness, because Jesus has gone to the Father, and we behold him no more; in other words, the Spirit is to bring to the world the conviction that there is such a thing as righteousness, and that righteousness consists in Christ’s incarnate career, as demonstrated by his return to heaven. The Spirit is to convict the world, thirdly, in respect of judgment, because the prince of this world hath been judged; in other words, the Spirit is to bring to the world the conviction that there is such a thing as judgment, and that judgment consists in the triumph through Christ of righteousness over sin. In this paragraph, therefore, is compacted an outline of man’s guilt, Christ’s righteousness and Jesus’ final victory over Satan; that is to say, a compendious moral history of the world from the Eden that has been to the Eden that is to be. And now let us ponder the profound paragraph in detail.
I. The Spirit’s Conviction of Sin. And first, the Spirit’s Conviction of Sin:" Of sin, became they believe not on me."
1. This is not society’s definition of sin: according to society, sin means crime, vice, immorality. Neither is it the philosopher’s definition of sin: according to the philosopher, sin means misdirection, abuse, disease. Neither is it the theologian’s definition of sin: according to the theologian, sin means transgression of God’s law, coming short of God’s glory, hereditary guilt. But it is Christ’s definition of sin: according to Christ, sin means unbelief on himself, unbelief in Jesus as the Christ and Son and Image and Revealer of the Father. "’Of sin, because they believe not on me." And this is sin indeed. For the Word made flesh is Immanuel, God-with-us. To disbelieve on Jesus, then, is to disbelieve on Deity himself. Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father (1 John 2:23). Christlessness in a Christian land is atheism. Sin, therefore, became a new thing when Jesus came into the world. Recall what he himself had just said: " If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no excuse for their sin." (John 15:22.) Therefore it is that disbelief on Christ is the sin of sins, ay, sin itself.
2. Observe now that of this sin of sins the Spirit is the sole convicter. When he is come, he will convict the world in respect of sin, because they believe not on Jesus. And no other power can. The preacher cannot do it; conscience cannot do it; even holy scripture cannot do it. Remember the difference between sins and sin. A jury may convict me of crimes: conscience may convict me of sins. But no power less than the Holy Spirit can convict me of sin. No barb but his can pierce to the root of my nature; no flash but his can show me to myself as a ruined sinner. And the argument he wields in convicting me of sin is this very fact that I do not believe on Jesus. Calvary, not Siuaj, is the Spirit’s mightiest artillery. Listen to Jehovah’s word through his prophet Zechariah:
I will pour upon the house of David, And upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, The spirit of grace and of supplication; And they shall look unto him whom they have pierced:And they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, And shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his first-born. Zechariah 12:10.
Thus it was on the day of Pentecost, when Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, charged on his hearers the crime of the crucifixion so boldly that they were pierced to the heart, and cried, "What shall we do?" And so also it has ever been the experience of every consciously awakened sinner. He feels that John Newton echoes his own experience when he confesses:
I saw One hanging on a tree, In agony and blood, Who fixed his languid eyes on me, As near the cross I stood.
Sure, never till my latest breath, Can I forget that look: It seemed to charge me with his death, Though not a word he spoke. My conscience felt and owned the guilt, And plunged me in despair; I saw my sins his blood had spilt, And helped to nail him there.
JOHN NEWTON. But what avails it to be convicted of sin, unless at the same time we are also convicted that there is somewhere righteousness, and that this righteousness can be made available to ourselves?
II. The Spirit’s Conviction of Righteousness. And so we pass, secondly, to the Spirit’s conviction of Righteousness: "When he is come, he will convict the world in respect of righteousness, because I go to the Father, and ye behold me no more."
1. " Of righteousness." What is this righteousness of which our Lord here speaks? Whose righteousness is it? (a) Certainly not the world’s. For the world is quite swift enough to detect its own merits. No Holy Spirit does it need to convince it of its own virtues. A very Narcissus it is, seeing everywhere the reflection of its own beauties and worshipping itself. But let us look at this matter a little more deeply, noting what the world’s conception of righteousness really is. The clearest and loftiest phase of righteousness among an educated, thinking people will be found, one would suppose, in the object selected as the main purpose or end of life. What then is the object which we Americans set before ourselves as the goal of life? Is it righteousness clearly and distinctively righteousness? Or is it something less unworldly, to which righteousness is made tributary in way of means to end? Is not success the principal thing which we Americans set before us, the grand motto which we give our children when we send them forth into the world; success in trade, in politics, in literature, in society? True, we admire and value righteousness. But why do we admire it? Because it is righteousness? Or because, in a civilized, well-ordered community, righteousness is one of the conditions of success? Do we not, practically speaking, secretly feel that Thomas Carlyle has hit the truth when in his " Heroes and Hero-Worship " he virtually tells us, Success is virtue; might makes right? Let righteousness but stand in the way of success, and let the choice lie between the two; and then see which the world will choose. Yes, the world crucified, and, were he to return, would virtually crucify again, the only absolutely righteous One the world has ever seen.
(6) Whose then is the righteousness the conviction of which the Spirit is to bring to the world? Evidently Christ’s righteousness. The antithesis is manifestly between the world’s sin " In respect of sin, because they believe not on me " and Christ’s righteousness " In respect of righteousness, because I go to the Father, and ye behold me no more." But what part or element of Christ’s righteousness is the righteousness of which he here speaks? Evidently, righteousness in the general, complete sense of the word; the sum total of all that God requires; the righteousness of a perfect character. In other words, the righteousness of which the Lord here speaks is the righteousness which was incarnated in his own blessed person and career and character and work. And of this righteousness Christ’s departure and present invisibility are both the illustration and the proof:" Of righteousness, because I go to the Father, and ye behold me no more."
2. "Because I go to the Father." This going to the Father involves several profound things. First, it involves Christ’s own death. We ourselves often speak in a similar way: for example, we speak of a dying saint as one who is going home, and, when the last throe is over, we exclaim, " Home at last! " And why did Jesus Christ die, and so go home? Just because he was righteous, and lived in a world which did not believe on him. His very righteousness crucified him.
Again: This going to the Father involves Christ’s resurrection. And why was Jesus Christ raised from the dead? Just because he was righteous: he was declared to be the Son of God with power by his resurrection from the dead (Rom. 1:4). What though his own righteousness had slain him? His own righteousness also raised him. Once more: This going to the Father involves Christ’s ascension and heavenly enthronement. And why was Jesus Christ exalted to the right hand of the Majesty on high? Just because he was righteous; his exaltation being the reward of his incarnate obedience. Listen to a classic paragraph, the pivotal word of which is the conjunction " wherefore:"
Christ Jesus, existing in the form of God, counted not the being on an equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men; and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, becoming obedient even unto death, yea, the death of the cross: WHEREFORE also God highly exalted him, and gave unto him the name which is above every name; that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven and things on earth and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Php 2:6-11.
What though Christ’s very righteousness had crucified him? Christ’s very righteousness also raised him from the dead, and exalted him to the right hand of the Father Almighty. Thus Christ’s going to the Father was both a revelation and a demonstration of Christ’s righteousness.
3. "And ye no longer behold me." Why did not the risen Lord remain on earth? Why is he not here now, to be a terror to his foes, a comfort to his friends? We behold him no more in order that we may the better understand what righteousness truly is. For righteousness is not a bulk so many inches cubic; not a weight so many pounds avoirdupois. Righteousness is a quality, a character. This is one of the reasons why it was expedient for us that Jesus should go away and the Paraclete come; such an exchange gave us a universal and spiritual Saviour instead of a local and bodily one.
Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed. John 20:29. In other words, the visible Jesus gives way to the invisible Christ, in order that we may the more easily discern and perfectly appreciate what righteousness truly is:" Of righteousness, because I go to the Father, and ye behold me no more."
4. And of this righteousness the Holy Spirit is the sole convicter:" When he is come, he will convict the world in respect of righteousness." And precisely here it is that the world needs conviction. What its conception of righteousness is we have already seen. It may also be admitted that the world does in a certain sense admire Christ’s character. Few eulogies are more eloquent, so far as language goes, than the eulogies which eminent unbelievers have pronounced on the Nazarene. But admiration is one thing: loyalty is another thing. There is a tremendous difference between aesthetic admiration and practical devotion; between assent to Christ’s teaching and consent with Christ’s character. And what the world needs is to have such a profound conviction of Christ’s personal) conspicuous, distinctive righteousness as to yearn for it, crying, O Jehovah, be thou my righteousness (Jeremiah 22:6). And this conviction no power but the Paraclete can effect. Conscience cannot do it: all that conscience can do is to reproach and terrify; conscience brings us no divine pardoner, justifier, redeemer. The Bible cannot do it: all that the Bible can do is to set before us right and wrong, heaven and hell; the Bible plants in our hearts no Lord our Righteousness. The means of grace Sundays, preaching, sacraments, prayer cannot do it: all that the means of grace can do is to acquaint us with duty; means of grace do not make us actual sharers in Christ’s righteousness. Only one power can do it: it is the promised Paraclete. Listen to St. Paul:
I give you to understand, that no man speaking in the Spirit of God saith, Jesus is anathema: and no man can say, Jesus is Lord, but in the Holy Spirit. 1 Corinthians 12:3. When Jesus was in the region of Csesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying: Who do men say that I the Son of man am? Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jonah: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father who is in heaven. Matthew 16:13-17.
No; neither civilization, nor education, nor philosophy, nor Sunday-school, nor preaching, nor revival effort, nor Bible, can convict us of righteousness. No power can effect this but the Holy Spirit:" When he is come, he will convict the world concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and ye behold me no more."
III. The Spirit’s Conviction of Judgment. But what avails it to be convicted of righteousness, unless at the same time we are convicted that righteousness will be victorious? And so we pass, thirdly, to the Spirit’s conviction of Judgment:" When he is come, he will convict the world in respect of judgment, because the prince of this world hath been judged."
1. " The prince of this world" If you ask me why Satan was allowed to enter this world and usurp its throne, my only answer is this: I do not know. Here is one of those secret things which belong to Jehovah our God (Deuteronomy 29:29). Where Holy Scripture is silent, there let me be silent also. Of one thing, however, I am only too sure. Satan is the prince of this world. A usurped principality though it is, the principality is nevertheless his. See how he lords it over man’s moral nature, as disclosed in the various religions of the world. Look, for example, at the world’s idolatries; at its Apis, its Baal, its Dagon, its Mithras, its Siva. Look at the Greek and Roman mythologies:
"Gay religions full of pomp and gold, And devils to adore for deities." John Milton.
Or, to keep within our own land, look at the idolatry of second causes, the worship of antecedent and consequent, the adoration of the powers of nature. What is materialism but a sort of sublimated fetichism? Ay, it is to these and such as these that cultivated Americans shout, " These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt." (Exodus 32:4). Again: See how Satan lords it over man’s psychical nature over the capacities and affections and desires of men, instigating to all passions of pride and selfishness and ambition and hate and lust. Once more: See how Satan lords it over man’s bodily nature, driving his thorns in the flesh to buffet us; bringing disease and pain and death and grave. In fine, look at this world as it actually is; its crimes, frauds, robberies, hates, falsehoods, perfidies, oppressions, cruelties, sensualities, blasphemies; its griefs and woes and deaths: look at all these and similar instigations and works of the devil, and tell me, Is not Satan the prince of this world? Aye, "The trail of the serpent is over them all." Thomas Moore.
2. But is this to be so always? God be praised, no! for the prince of this world hath been judged. To us indeed Christ’s judgment of Satan seems to be a process still going on. But this is only because we are finite: for this idea of process, or succession in time, is one of the tokens of human weakness. But to the eye of the Son of God the overthrow of Satan was a single act, and an act already accomplished. In like manner, on the return of the Seventy, he had exclaimed, " I .beheld Satan fallen as lightning from heaven." (Luke 10:17). To his piercing vision he had already seen Satan falling a fall sudden, swift, flashing, profound, as the thunderbolt. But how was this judgment on Satan effected?
(a) To answer, first, in a general way: it was effected by the incarnation. To this end was the Son of God manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil (1 John 3:8). The incarnation itself was a judgment. Accordingly, Milton, in the burst of a true poet’s inspiration, represents the downfall of Satan’s empire and the birth of Bethlehem’s Babe as simultaneous:
" From this happy day The old dragon, underground, In straiter limits bound, Not half so far casts his usurped sway: And, wroth to see his kingdom fail, Swindges the scaly horror of his folded tail."
Hymn on the Nativity.
(6) But to give a more particular answer: Satan was judged by Christ’s own death. Accordingly, a few days before, Jesus exclaimed:’ ’ The hour is come, that the Son of man should be glorified. . . . Now is the judgment of this world; now shall the prince of this world be cast out: and I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto myself. This he said, signifying by what manner of death he should die " (John 12:28-33).
Observe the sharp contrasts: On the one hand, the prince of this world; on the other hand, the Son of man: On the one hand, the prince of this world cast out; on the other hand, the Son of man casting him out. Observe, also, the significant notation of time:" The hour is now come; now is the judgment of this world; now shall the prince of the world be cast out." It is as though the Lord had said:" Now is the crisis of this world: in the lifting up of myself on the cross it is about to appear whether this world belongs to Satan or to the Son of man; whether he is its prince or I. We know how the crisis was decided. Messiah’s heel, bruised for the moment on Golgotha, in the very fact of its being bruised, crushed eternally the dragon’s head (Genesis 3:15). And so " crisis " swept into "judgment." The prince of the world was judged; and so condemned. The Son of God, through his own death, brought to nought him who had the power of death, that is, the devil (Hebrews 2:14). Henceforth the world changed ownership. There, in the very act of being uplifted from the earth, while as yet his life-blood was ebbing, he despoiled the principalities and the powers, making a show of them openly, triumphing over them, nailing them to his cross (Colossians 2:14-15). The prince of this world was judged. And in this act of dying the parable of the Stronger than the strong was fulfilled: When the strong man, fully armed, guardeth his own court, his goods are in peace; but when a stronger than he shall come upon him, and overcome him, and bind him, he taketh from him his whole armor, wherein he trusted, and divideth his spoils. Luke 11:21-22.
Thus the vision of Patmos was realized:
There was war in heaven: Michael and his angels going forth to war with the dragon; and the dragon warred and his angels; and they prevailed not, neither was their place found any more in heaven; and the great dragon was cast down, the old serpent, he that is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world; he was cast down to the earth, and his angels were cast down with him. And I heard a great voice in heaven, saying, Now is come the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, who accuseth them before our God day and night. And they overcame because of the blood of the Lamb, and because of the word of their testimony; and they loved not their life even unto death. Therefore rejoice, O heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Revelation 12:7-12.
Thus the last book of the Bible declares fulfilled the doom which the first book of the Bible pronounced on Satan while yet in Eden:
I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; he shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. Genesis 3:1-5.
3. And this judgment on Satan is a judgment of which the world needs to be convicted: and this, not merely in way of intellectual apprehension, but, especially and emphatically, in way of moral conviction.
(a) Thus each Christian needs]this conviction for himself. For he is exposed to a thousand discouragements: for example, the sense of infirmity, the enigma of delays and disappointments and adversities, the prevalence of iniquity, the enmity of Satan himself. Verily he does not yet see all things subjected to Jesus Christ (Hebrews 2:8). Hence he needs the saving power of hope (Romans 8:24). He needs the conviction that Christ’s grace within him is omnipotent; that the life in Jesus will not be a failure; that the Christian’s victory, if he holds steadfast, is a matter of certainty. It is not enough then, that he has it as a theological article that Satan has been judged: what he needs is to have this fact inwrought as a moral conviction into the depths of his own experience and consciousness. What he needs is to be sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, which is an earnest of our inheritance unto the redemption of God’s own possession, unto the praise of his glory (Ephesians 1:14).
(6) And as each Christian needs this conviction for himself in order to his own salvation and victory, so does the Church of the Lamb need it in order to her own going forth and battling under inspiration of assured triumph. What she needs is the certain conviction that the Church’s triumph is a foregone conclusion in the divine mind; that in virtue of her joint-heirship with Jesus Christ (Romans 8:17), the appointed heir of all things (Hebrews 1:3), she will share his sovereignty, even already owning this world by a sort of reversionary right; that the kingdom and dominion and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High (Daniel 7:27). What she needs is the absolute conviction that the prince of this world has been judged.
4. But how shall this conviction be wrought? By no power less than the Holy Spirit. When he is come, he will convict the world concerning judgment, because the prince of this world has been judged. Conscience cannot work this conviction:all that conscience can do is to make us aware that we are under Satan’s power. Neither can philosophy work this conviction:all that philosophy does is to try to make us believe that there is not, and never has been, any Satan at all; that hell is only the obverse side of heaven, or " heaven seen in a side-light." The philosopher does, indeed, talk of a golden age. But what kind of a golden age is it? An age when all that is now anomalous and discordant and monstrous shall give way to universal law and order and beauty; in brief, when the p world shall develop into a Godless paradise, from which Satan and Jesus shall be alike aliens. Whereas the true Golden Age is when the reign of Satan shall be confessedly supplanted by the reign of Jesus; when the whole earth shall become the paradise of his grace; when his righteousness, permeating all life, spiritual, mental, emotional, corporeal, shall mantle the world from pole to pole, and his infinite beauty girdle it as with a celestial zone. And the conviction that this shall be the final issue can be wrought by no power but the Holy Paraclete. No man can say, Jesus is Lord, but in the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:3). Nor are signs wanting that the final rout of the powers of darkness is approaching. In this mustering of the anti-Christian forces under the marshalship of unbelief; in this hurrying to and fro of principalities and powers; in these commingling banners and gleaming spears and trumpet-clangs; in the very fact of this Convention being summoned to ponder the office of the blessed Paraclete; in all this I think we are permitted to read signs that the God of peace shall bruise Satan under our feet shortly (Romans 16:20).
Such is the Lord’s promise of the Spirit’s threefold Conviction.
Review. In reviewing our paragraph, observe the order of the Spirit’s process. The first thing that we sinners need is to be convicted of sin. To whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little (Luke 7:47). No sense of sin, no conscious need of Saviour. But vain is the Spirit’s conviction of sin, unless at the same time he convicts us concerning Christ’s righteousness, and that his righteousness may become ours. This, in fact, is a frequent trouble with a convicted sinner. Jesus Christ seems to him a distant, intangible abstraction, a glittering phantom, a veritable ignis fatuus receding as he advances. It is needful then that the Spirit should show us to ourselves; it is no less needful that the Spirit should also show to us Jesus Christ. But vain is the Spirit’s conviction of righteousness, unless at the same time he convicts us concerning the certain victory of righteousness over sin; the righteousness being in fact the stately bridge whereon we pass from the devil’s bondage to the Christian’s victory. And to be convicted of these three things sin, righteousness, judgment as the Holy Spirit alone shows them to us, is to know the essence of Christianity, nay, to enter into the possession of it. Verily, it was expedient for us that Jesus should go away, that so the Paraclete might come (John 16:7).