I Was Just Thinking … About Convicted Strength

During the Last Supper, Jesus spoke more specifically about the lives of his followers after his resurrection and ascension: “If I go, I will send the Paraclete to you. When he comes, he 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 behold me; and concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world has been judged” (John 16:7–11).

Pentecost Sunday is the day we celebrate the official fulfillment of God’s promise that goes as far back as Abraham (Genesis 17:7): God’s people will be given God’s Spirit. One place in the New Testament where we read this promise is John 16. The word of God for us in this declaration by Jesus is that we can be joyfully confident in our faith as we encounter a world that doesn’t love the Lord by paying attention to the work of discernment the Holy Spirit performs in the Lord’s absence.

In John’s vocabulary, the term “world” refers to those people who do not rejoice in the God who created and sustains them, who rebel against his rule in their lives, who refuse to recognize that their stance is wrong, and who are, therefore, subject to his wrath. The term “world” indicates the people of the lie.

When we encounter challenges to our faith and need our souls restored, the Holy Spirit works as the judge in our souls, pronouncing the Christian’s understanding of reality right and the world’s wrong. Jesus tells us that the Holy Spirit is not working directly in the hearts of worldly people, but rather in the lives of the disciples. His work of conviction is to help us, his disciples, just as Jesus would have helped were he with us in the flesh. Therefore, it seems more appropriate to understand that the word “convict” means exposing to Christ’s disciples the world’s error concerning the items Jesus mentioned.

He shows us the world’s error and restores our confidence in the truth that gives us hope. The World’s view of sin is not related to Jesus. But not trusting Jesus to mediate God’s grace to us is the essence of sin. The World doesn’t think righteousness has anything to do with how God views our relationship with him. But Jesus’ being in God’s presence proves he was correct about how to be right in God’s eyes. The World thinks judgment will never come. However, it has already begun. When people in the World make claims that disquiet our hearts, the Paraclete not only exposes their error, but he also keeps guiding us into all the truth, restoring our confidence in Jesus and our joy in his glory.

Today, we celebrate the fulfillment of the promise that came at Pentecost. We are the recipients of the benefits Jesus offered to the original disciples. The only difference between them and us is that some of what the Spirit does for us, he does through what he did for the disciples. We do not receive revelation as the apostles did. But there the difference ends. The Spirit works in our hearts so that we see and appreciate the glories of the truth revealed in Scripture. Then, as we walk and talk about the light this glorious truth sheds on our path, all the erroneous ideas of the people who live around us are exposed. Because of this, we may even become a means by which the Spirit opens their hearts to respond with delight to the God to whom we bear witness.

This means that, in order to open ourselves to the convicting influence of the Spirit of Truth, we must saturate ourselves in what he has revealed in Scripture, and we must pray that he will cause us to delight in and live by the truth about the God we find there. Our strong, joyful confidence in the midst of animosity will be possible as the Spirit proves that just as Jesus did not leave the first disciples alone, he has not left us alone either.