John 16:20

Joh_16:20-22

Verily, verily! say unto you, that ye shall weep and lament

Sorrow and joy

I.

THE FORETOLD SORROW, arising, i.e

1. From their own sense of loss and bereavement. In the death of Jesus these men lost for a season their dearest, most honoured, and trusted Friend.

2. From their sympathy with their Lords sufferings. His betrayal, humiliation, agony, crucifixion, went to their hearts.

3. From the disappointment of their hopes. Looking forward to the establishment of a Messianic kingdom, they were overwhelmed with dismay at what they saw.

II. THE FORETOLD JOY. This, when it came, was, perhaps, all the livelier and brighter by contrast with the gloom from which these sensitive and sympathizing natures emerged. It was the joy of

1. Renewed friendship. Then were the disciples glad when they saw the Lord.

2. Hope revived. The cloud was dispersed, the sun shone again. Once more they trusted that He would redeem Israel.

3. Victory. Their Lord was Conqueror, and in triumph there is ever gladness and rejoicing.

4. New humanity. In the resurrection of Christ was born the regenerated race. By the first throes of anguish came into being the Church of the Redeemer, the inheriter of earth and heaven.

5. Eternal, which none could take from them. (Family Churchman.)

Sorrow at the cross turned into joy

It is most instructive that the apostles do not speak of the death of our Lord with any kind of regret. The Gospels mention their distress during their actual occurrence, but after the Resurrection, and Pentecost, we hear of no such grief; on the contrary, there are many expressions which treat of the Crucifixion in the spirit of exalting joy. God forbid that I should glory, &c. The three hours agony, the darkened church, the altar in mourning, the tolling of a bell, and all the other mock funereal rites of superstition, have not the least encouragement from the spirit and language of the apostles.

I. THE DEATH OF OUR LORD WAS AND IS A THEME FOR SORROW.

1. It was so, because to the disciples

(1) It was the loss of His personal presence. They felt that they would be sheep without a shepherd: orphans bereft of their best friend and helper. What would you think if your best earthly friend was hurried away from you by a shameful death?

(2) The world would be rejoicing because their Lord was gone. You know when you are in sorrow, how bitter is the coarse laugh of an adversary who exults over your misery and extracts mirth from your tears. This made the disciples smart at their Lords death.

(3) His death was for a time the disappointment of all their hopes. They at first had fondly looked for a temporal kingdom. How can they be happy who have seen an end of their fairest life-dream?

(4) Added to this was the sight which many of them had of their beloved Master in His agonies.

2. Now, even at the recollection of what our Lord endured, every Christian feels sympathy with Him. You cannot read the story without feeling that the minor key befits your voice at such a time, if you at all attempt to sing. One of the sharpest points about our sorrow is this--that we were the cause of it. We virtually crucified the Lord, seeing it was because we were sinners that He must needs be made a sacrifice.

II. THIS SORROW IS CHANGED INTO JOY. Not exchanged for joy, but actually transmuted, so that the grief becomes joy.

1. That Jesus died for our sins is a sharp sorrow: and yet this is the greatest joy of all. If each one of us can say, He loved me, and gave Himself for me, we are truly happy. Because God hath condemned sin in the flesh of Jesus Christ, therefore He will no more condemn us.

2. Jesus has now suffered all that was required of Him. That He should suffer was cause for grief, but that He has now suffered all is equal cause for joy. When a champion returns from the wars bearing the scars of conflict by which he gained his honours, does any one lament over his campaigns? Let us not mourn, then; for Christs agony is all over now, and He is none the worse for having endured it.

3. Our Lord has survived His pains. He died a real death, but now He lives a real life. The Lord is risen indeed. He has lost no dominion, He claims superior rights and rules over a new empire. He is a gainer by His losses, He has risen by His descent.

4. The grand end which His death was meant to accomplish is all attained, viz

(1) The putting away of sin by the sacrifice of Himself.

(2) The salvation of His chosen.

(3) The glory of God.

5. The greatest possible blessings accrue to us, because He was made a curse for us. Through His death came pardon, reconciliation, access, acceptance, heaven.

6. Because He died there is a kingdom set up in the world, which never can be moved.

7. This joy is

(1) Right hearty joy. Ours is no superficial mirth.

(2) Abiding joy. Your joy no man taketh from you.

III. THE GENERAL PRINCIPLE INVOLVED IN THIS ONE PARTICULAR INSTANCE, viz., that in connection with Christ you must expect to have sorrow, But whatever sorrow you feel there is this consolation--the pangs are all birth-pangs, they are all the necessary preliminaries of an ever-increasing joy.

1. Since you have come to know Christ you have felt a smarter grief on account of sin. Let it continue with you, for it is working holiness in you, and holiness is happiness.

2. You have felt a keener sensibility on account of the sins of those around you, do not wish to be deprived of it, it will be the means of your loving them more, and seeking more their good.

3. Perhaps you have had to bear a little persecution, hard words, and the cold shoulder. Do not fret, for all this is needful to make you have fellowship with Christs sufferings that you may know more of Him, and may become more like Him.

4. You sometimes see the cause of Christ as it were dead, and you are grieved about it, as well you may be. It is well, but in that very feeling there should be the full persuasion that the truth of Christ cannot long be buried, but waits to rise again with power.

5. By and by will come your last sorrow. Look forward to it without the slightest alarm. Death is the gate of endless joy, and shall we dread to enter there? Conclusion: The world shall rejoice: Ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy. Now, what is implied there to complete the sentence? Why, that the worlds joy shall be turned into sorrow. There is not a pleasure which the ungodly man enjoys but what will curdle into grief and be his sorrow for ever. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Joy and sorrow mingled

Joy lives in the midst of the sorrow; the sorrow springs from the same root as the gladness. The two do not clash against each other or reduce the emotion to a neutral indifference, but they blend into one another; just as in arctic regions, deep down beneath the cold snow, with its white desolation and its barren death, you shall find the budding of the early spring flowers and the fresh green grass; just as some kinds of fire burn below the water; just as in the midst of the barren and undrinkable sea here may be welling up some little fountain of fresh water that comes from a deeper depth than the great ocean around it, and pours its sweet streams along the surface of the saltwaste. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)

Sorrow turned into joy

I. THE PROMISE OF A JOY WHICH IS A TRANSFORMED SORROW, Your sorrow shall be turned into joy, not merely that the one emotion is substituted for the other, but, as it were, becomes the other. This can only mean that that which was the cause of the one reverses its action. Of course the historical and immediate fulfilment of these words lies in the double result of Christs Cross upon His servants. That Cross, which for some few hours was pain, and all but ruin, has ever since been the centre of the deepest gladness and confidence of a thousand generations.

1. Estimate the value as an evidence of the historical veracity of the Gospel story, of this sudden and complete revolution in that handful of believers. A dead Christ was the Churchs despair; a dead and risen Christ the Churchs triumph.

2. This principle covers the whole ground of devout mens sorrows. Every thunder-cloud has a rainbow lying in its depths when the sun smites upon it. And our purest and noblest joys are transformed sorrows. The sorrow of contrite hearts becomes the gladness of pardoned children; the sorrow of bereaved empty hearts may become the gladness of hearts filled with God. Every stroke of the ploughshare, and every dark winters day are represented in the broad acres waving with the golden grain.

II. THIS IS A JOY FOUNDED UPON THE CONSCIOUSNESS THAT CHRISTS EYE IS UPON US.

1. I will see you again, &c. Elsewhere the form of the promise is the converse--Yet a little while and ye shall see Me. Ye shall see Me fixes attention upon us and our perception of Him. I will see you fixes attention upon Him and His beholding of us. Ye shall see Me speaks of our going out after Him and being satisfied in Him. I will see you speaks of His perfect knowledge, loving care, tender, ever-watchful eye.

2. And so it requires a loving heart to find joy in such a promise. He sees all men, but unless our hearts cleave to Him, then I will see you again is a threat. I know thy works brought no joy to the lukewarm professors at Laodicea, nor to the church at Ephesus. But to the faithful souls in Philadelphia and Sardis it was blessedness and life.

3. Is there any joy to us in the thought that the Lord Christ sees us? Oh, if our hearts are really His, then all that we need will be given to us, in the belief that His eye is fixed upon us. There be many that say, who will show us any good, &c. One look towards Christ will more than repay and abolish earths sorrow. One look from Christ will fill our hearts with sunshine. All tears are dried on eyes that meet His. If one could take a bit of the Arctic world and float it down into the tropics, the ice would all melt, and the grey dreariness would disappear, and a new splendour of colour and light would clothe the fields, and an unwonted vegetation would spring up where barrenness had been. And if you and I will only float our lives southward beneath the direct vertical rays of that great Sun of Righteousness, then all the dreary winter and ice of our sorrows will melt, and joy will spring.

III. NOTE HOW OUR LORD SETS FORTH HIS DISCIPLES JOY AS ONE BEYOND THE REACH OF VIOLENCE AND INDEPENDENT OF EXTERNALS. No man taketh it from you.

1. Much of our joy, of course, depends upon our fellows, and disappears when they fade. And much of our joy depends upon the goodwill and help of our fellows, and they can snatch away all that so depends. But no man but myself can put a roof over my head to shut me out from God and Christ. And as long as I have a clear sky over head, it matters very little how high may be the walls, and how close, that foes pile around me.

2. And much of our joy necessarily depends upon and fluctuates with external circumstances of a hundred different kinds. But we do not need to have all our joy fed from these surface springs. We may dig deeper down. If we are Christians, we have, like some beleaguered garrison in a fortress, a well in the courtyard that nobody can get at.

3. But remember, though externals have no power to rob us of our joy, they can interfere with that faith which is the essential condition of our joy. They cannot force us away from Christ, but they may tempt us away. The sunshine did for the traveller in the old fable what the storm could not do; and the world may cause you to think so much about it that you forget your Master. Its joys may compel Him to hide His face, and may so fill your eyes that you do not care to look at His face.

IV. THIS LIFE OF JOY IS MADE CERTAIN BY THE PROMISE OF A FAITHFUL CHRIST. Verily! verily! I say unto you.

1. He was accustomed to use that impressive and solemn formula when He was about to speak words beyond the reach of human wisdom or of prime importance. He tells these men, who had nothing but His bare word, that the astonishing thing which He is going to promise them will certainly come to pass. He puts His own character, so to speak, in pawn. His words are precisely equivalent in meaning to the solemn Old Testament words which are represented as being the oath of God--As I live, saith the Lord. So Christ puts His whole truthfulness at stake, as it were; and if any man that has ever loved Jesus Christ and trusted Him aright has not found this joy unspeakable and full of glory, then Jesus Christ has said the thing that is not.

2. Then why is it that so many professing Christians have such joyless lives? Simply because they do not keep the conditions. If you know but little of this joy it is your fault, and not His. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)

Your Joy no man taketh from you

Christian joy

I. THAT OUR HAPPINESS IS LARGELY IN THE POWER OF OTHER PEOPLE. is a conviction which we reach very early.

1. The child, the merchant, the thinker, the public man, are all illustrations of this. No man can shut his gates and say, I will find my happiness only in myself, and what I find no man shall take away. It seems as if all our social arrangements and relationships were not more fitted to make us furnishers of joy to one another than they are to give to every man the chance to pluck away our happiness. Husband and wife, father and child, teacher and scholar, master and servant--how they all hold each others pleasures at their will I This view of life, which is perpetually presenting itself, stands up face to face with the thought, which all self-reliant and strong men try to keep hold of, viz., self-suffciency. To have the sources of all happiness in our own lives is a thought which no man can wholly cast away. It never finds its realisation; it always meets the interference of our brethren. Practically, almost all mens lives vacillate between the two.

II. IN THE MIDST OF A BEWILDERMENT LIKE THIS CHRIST COMES IS WITH THESE WORDS. There is a limit to our power over one another; there is a chamber of our inner selves where we may turn the key and no one can come in. The very fact that there is such a limit interests us.

1. We can see how good it is that, while there should be great regions of happiness which are involved with what others are and do, there should be also others which no one but ourselves can touch. The completest house is one whose outer rooms are hospitably open, but which has inner chambers where only the master of the house and his household have a right to enter. The best stock of ideas which any man can keep is that which, while it is subject to the influence of others, yet has at its heart convictions, which are the mans own, and which no other can invade. It is the same with regard to happiness. There would be something terrible if each of us held his power of happiness untouchable. Think how much of the finest of our intercourse, how much of the purest motive for self-sacrifice would be lost if we had no power of interfering with each others joy. It would be almost a world of chartered selfishness. The necessary condition of your filling your childs life with sunshine is the power of darkening it with a heavy cloud. What would you care for any mans sympathy or approbation if all the while you knew that that same mans sneer or coldness would not give you even a twinge of pain?

2. And yet we can see just as clearly how dreadful it would be if this power reached in to our deepest happinesses. All of us practically insist that there shall be some enjoyments with which no man shall interfere, and which no human malice can poison.

3. Now hear what Jesus says to His disciples.

(1) Nature was not to be changed in their case nor even their relations with their fellow-men to be robbed of the power of painfulness. Still, if you stabbed them they would bleed, if you burnt them they would smart. But behind all this His words revealed to them a something which no fellowman could touch. As I think about their after lives, I can see them letting other joys go and not hating the hands which robbed them of them in the consciousness of this inmost joy, which no intrusion could invade.

(2) Jesus tells His disciples that the power of this secret joy is to be His presence with them--I will see you again, &c. It is not that they are to develop some interior strength, or to drift into calm indifference where the influences of their fellow-men shall not touch them any longer. It is that they are to come to a new life with Him.

(3) How natural this is! Only the association of some higher and stronger person can save one from the contamination of lower persons who are swamping and ruining his life. Suppose you have a boy who is being overwhelmed and lost by and through his faculties of companionship. Have you not learned that it is through these same faculties of companionship that he must be saved? It will not be simply by forbidding him to have connection with his base companions, nor by shutting him in upon himself, that you will save him. A stronger person must be his saviour. Now this is just what Jesus did. Some men make the influence of Jesus a mere sentimental thing. They dwell upon the love which He poured out upon His friends. Other men talk about the mastery of Christ. He gave His servants things to do. He shaped their lives into new habits. It was not either of these alone. Until we grasp them both into one thought we have not understood His power. He brings love, awakening love, and authority demanding obedience. Let us try to bear this in mind as we pass on now to speak of

III. SOME OF THE INTERFERENCES WITH THE PLEASURES OF LIFE WHICH COME FROM OUR FELLOW-MEN, AND OF THE WAY IN WHICH THE SOULS LIFE WITH CHRIST PUTS THOSE SAME PLEASURES OUT OF THE REACH OF ANY FELLOW-MANS INTRUSION.

1. The pleasure of energetic action, which makes life bright to the best men. Oh, the poor creatures whom their fathers money or their own sluggish wills have robbed of the great human delight of action! But opposition, criticism, and ingratitude are the ways in which other men meet an active man, and make his work a drudgery. Here is a man in public life. The happiness of dealing with the states affairs is what his soul is full of; he has dreamed of it while he was a boy, and now all his manhood triumphs in it. But other men have stepped across his path, and hindered him from doing what he meant to do; or have told the world and him how far what he has done is from what it ought to be; or those for whom he laboured have gone away, giving him curses instead of thanks. Now he may still work on from habit or duty, but the joy is departed. Is there any help for that? If not it is a dreadful world to live and work in. But now suppose that Christ had been with that man; that behind every other motive there had been the love of Christ. Would that have made no difference? Like an electric atmosphere poured around the shrine in which a jewel rests, so that no hand can be thrust through to steal it; so round the work, full of its joy, is poured the love of Christ, out of which no man can snatch it.

(1) Suppose that some opponent hinders him in doing what he wants to do--he knows that no man can thwart his Masters will.

(2) Suppose that men taunt him with his actions incompleteness. The incompleteness of his action is absorbed in the larger completeness of his Master.

(3) Suppose that men turn from Him with ingratitude. Christ says, Well done, and that is the only praise he really values. To every consecrated labourer who works for Christ there is a joy in working which no man can take away from him.

2. See how all this is true of Christian thought and the struggle after truth. These are the best joys of the best men. To make some few steps forward on the journey which stretches out into eternity; to add some new stone to the structure whose lines already prophesy an infinite height for the far topstone,--he has not lived who has not felt this pleasure. But yet every thinking man discovers that the joy of thought is one that lies peculiarly within the power of our fellow-men. And why? It is not that our fellowmen may contradict and abuse our opinions. If we do really hold it perfectly as true, that is a little thing. But the trouble is that the more one thinks and studies, the more he becomes aware how infinite is truth. The truth which he has learned on any subject, he becomes aware, is not the whole. Every time, then, that any reasoner impugns our truth it starts up this consciousness. We see how far we are, even upon the subject which we know best, from having reached the end of things and laid our faith securely. This is the reason why so many people, when their faith is once attained, keep it not merely as a very precious but as a very frail and brittle thing. They will not talk with any one about it. They will not read anything upon the other side. We know this is not good; and yet we very often do not see how it is to be escaped. The real escape, I think, lies here. The Christian faith is primarily a belief in Christ. All truth which we believe, we believe in and because of Him. We know that though we have taken Him for our Master, He is very far yet from having told us all that He has to tell. That knowledge does not decrease our satisfaction in believing Him; it increases it; for it binds us to Him not merely by what He has already taught us, but by the far greater truth which He is keeping for us, which it is a pleasure to wait for now, as it will be a pleasure to take it when the time shall come. Now, let a believer have this consciousness; and then let the unbeliever come up to him, to pluck away his joy. Always it is the surrounding of the doctrinal faith by the personal faith that keeps the joy of the doctrinal faith safe from attack or theft.

3. Follow our subject into the region of character. Can a man have such joy in his own character that no other man can take his joy away from him? Just as soon as we ask that, how our imperfections and sins start up before us! What idlest chatterer cannot pluck away our self-satisfaction, and steal the last trace of joy in our own characters? And yet, with all this true, it is not all the truth. There are two different conceptions of character, one of which looks at it in itself; the other looks at it as it is involved with the powers which are at work upon it to make it what it is capable of being. A block lying alone upon a hill-top may be uninteresting. The same block brought into a sculptors workshop, though his hands may not have touched it, or may have only rudely blocked out his design, may be a thing to reverence. And can we not think that as it lies upon the hil-top it may be ready to accept everybodys disesteem; but when it comes into the sculptors hands, it may gain such new sense of its capacity under that wise and loving power that no mans sneer can cloud the pleasure that it feels in the new revelation and hope of its true self which, under those hands, have come to it? Row read the parable. I am a poor, weak, wicked man; I know it; I do not need that you should tell me of it. Any small joy in myself which I have been able to conceive, your well-deserved scorn can steal from me in an instant. But now suppose that Christ takes me into His hands. I am a poor dull block still, but I am His, and His great hands have just begun to shape His purpose in me. Is not the whole thing changed? Now there is a joy in character which is not present consciousness, but certain prophecy. (Phillips Brooks, D. D.)

When Christ is present believers should rejoice

I have been so long away from England that I do not know where our Queen is residing just now; but if I had the wings of a dove, and could mount into the upper air, I would soon find out. I should look for the royal standard. I should see it floating over Windsor or Osborne, and by this token I should espy the royal abode. Fling out the banner to the breeze when the King is within. Is the King at home with you, dear brother? Do not forget to display the standard of holy joy. Hoist it, and keep it flying. Ring the joy-bells! (C. H.Spurgeon.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

John

SORROW TURNED INTO JOY

Joh 16:20 - Joh 16:22.

These words, to which we have come in the ordinary course of our exposition, make an appropriate text for Easter Sunday. For their one theme is the joy which began upon that day, and was continued in increasing measure as the possession of Christ’s servants after Pentecost. Our Lord promises that the momentary sadness and pain shall be turned into a swift and continual joy. He pledges His word for that, and bids us believe it on His bare word. He illustrates it by that tender and beautiful image which, in the pains and bliss of motherhood, finds an analogy for the pains and bliss of the disciples, inasmuch as, in both cases, pain leads directly to blessedness in which it is forgotten. And He crowns His great promises by explaining to us what is the deepest foundation of our truest gladness, ‘I will see you again,’ and by declaring that such a joy is independent of all foes and all externals, ‘and your joy no man taketh from you.’

There are, then, two or three aspects of the Christian life as a glad life which are set before us in these words, and to which I ask your attention.

I. There is, first, the promise of a joy which is a transformed sorrow.

‘Your sorrow shall be turned into joy,’ not merely that the one emotion is substituted for the other, but that the one emotion, as it were, becomes the other. This can only mean that that, which was the cause of the one, reverses its action and becomes the cause of the opposite. Of course the historical and immediate fulfilment of these words lies in the double result of Christ’s Cross upon His servants. For part of three dreary days it was the occasion of their sorrow, their panic, their despair; and then, all at once, when with a bound the mighty fact of the resurrection dawned upon them, that which had been the occasion for their deep grief, for their apparently hopeless despair, suddenly became the occasion for a rapture beyond their dreams, and a joy which would never pass. The Cross of Christ, which for some few hours was pain, and all but ruin, has ever since been the centre of the deepest gladness and confidence of a thousand generations.

I do not need to remind you, I suppose, of the value, as a piece of evidence of the historical veracity of the Gospel story, of this sudden change and complete revolution in the sentiments and emotions of that handful of disciples. What was it that lifted them out of the pit? What was it that revolutionised in a moment their notions of the Cross and of its bearing upon them? What was it that changed downhearted, despondent, and all but apostate, disciples into heroes and martyrs? It was the one fact which Christendom commemorates to-day: the resurrection of Jesus Christ. That was the element, added to the dark potion, which changed it all in a moment into golden flashing light. The resurrection was what made the death of Christ no longer the occasion for the dispersion of His disciples, but bound them to Him with a closer bond. And I venture to say that, unless the first disciples were lunatics, there is no explanation of the changes through which they passed in some eight-and-forty hours, except the supernatural and miraculous fact of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. That set a light to the thick column of smoke, and made it blaze up a ‘pillar of fire.’ That changed sorrow into joy. The same death which, before the resurrection, drew a pall of darkness over the heavens, and draped the earth in mourning, by reason of that resurrection which swept away the cloud and brought out the sunshine, became the source of joy. A dead Christ was the Church’s despair; a dead and risen Christ is the Church’s triumph, because He is ‘the Christ that died. . . and is alive for evermore.’

But, more generally, let me remind you how this very same principle, which applies directly and historically to the resurrection of our Lord, may be legitimately expanded so as to cover the whole ground of devout men’s sorrows and calamities. Sorrow is the first stage, of which the second and completed stage is transformation into joy. Every thundercloud has a rainbow lying in its depths when the sun smites upon it. Our purest and noblest joys are transformed sorrows. The sorrow of contrite hearts becomes the gladness of pardoned children; the sorrow of bereaved, empty hearts may become the gladness of hearts filled with God; and every grief that stoops upon our path may be, and will be, if we keep near that dear Lord, changed into its own opposite, and become the source of blessedness else unattainable. Every stroke of the bright, sharp ploughshare that goes through the fallow ground, and every dark winter’s day of pulverising frost and lashing tempest and howling wind, are represented in the broad acres, waving with the golden grain. All your griefs and mine, brother, if we carry them to the Master, will flash up into gladness and be “turned into joy.”

II. Still further, another aspect here of the glad life of the true Christian is, that it is a joy founded upon the consciousness that Christ’s eye is upon us.

‘I will see you again and your heart shall rejoice.’ In other parts of these closing discourses the form of the promise is the converse of this, as for instance-’Yet a little while, and ye shall see Me.’ Here Christ lays hold of the thought by the other handle, and says, ‘I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice.’ Now these two forms of putting the same mutual relationship, of course, agree, in that they both of them suggest, as the true foundation of the blessedness which they promise, the fact of communion with a present Lord. But they differ from one another in colouring, and in the emphasis which they place upon the two parts of that communion. ‘Ye shall see Me’ fixes attention upon us and our perception of Him. ‘I will see you’ fixes attention rather upon Him and His beholding of us. ‘Ye shall see Me’ speaks of our going out after Him and being satisfied in Him. ‘I will see you’ speaks of His perfect knowledge, of His loving care, of His tender, compassionate, complacent, ever-watchful eye resting upon us, in order that He may communicate to us all needful good.

And so it requires a loving heart on our part, in order to find joy in such a promise. ‘His eyes are as a flame of fire,’ and He sees all men; but unless our hearts cleave to Him and we know ourselves to be knit to Him by the tender bond of love from Him, accepted and treasured in our souls, then ‘I will see you again’ is a threat and not a promise. It depends upon the relation which we bear to Him, whether it is blessedness or misery to think that He whose flaming eye reads all men’s sins and pierces through all hypocrisies and veils has it fixed upon us. The sevenfold utterance of His words to the Asiatic churches-the last recorded words of Jesus Christ-begins with ‘I know thy works.’ It was no joy to the lukewarm professors at Laodicea, nor to the church at Ephesus which had lost the freshness of its early love, that the Master knew them; but to the faithful souls in Philadelphia, and to the few in Sardis, who ‘had not defiled their garments,’ it was blessedness and life to feel that they walked in the sunshine of His face.

Is there any joy to us in the thought that the Lord Christ sees us? Oh! if our hearts are really His, if our lives are as truly built on Him as our profession of being Christians alleges that they are, then all that we need for the satisfaction of our nature, for the supply of our various necessities, or as an armour against temptation, and an amulet against sorrow, will be given to us, in the belief that His eye is fixed upon us. There is the foundation of the truest joy for men. ‘There be many that say, Who will show us any good? Lord, lift Thou up the light of Thy countenance upon us. Thou hast put gladness in my heart more than in the time when their corn and their wine abound.’ One look towards Christ will more than repay and abolish earth’s sorrow. One look from Christ will fill our hearts with sunshine. All tears are dried on eyes that meet His. Loving hearts find their heaven in looking into one another’s faces, and if Christ be our love, our deepest and purest joys will be found in His glance and our answering gaze.

If one could anyhow take a bit of the Arctic world and float it down into the tropics, the ice would all melt, and the white dreariness would disappear, and a new splendour of colour and of light would clothe the ground, and an unwonted vegetation would spring up where barrenness had been. And if you and I will only float our lives southward beneath the direct vertical rays of that great ‘Sun of Righteousness,’ then all the dreary winter and ice of our sorrows will melt, and joy will spring. Brother! the Christian life is a glad life, because Christ, the infinite and incarnate Lover of our souls, looks upon the heart that loves and trusts Him.

III. Still further, note how our Lord here sets forth His disciples’ joy as beyond the reach of violence and independent of externals.

‘No man taketh it from you.’ Of course, that refers primarily to the opposition and actual hostility of the persecuting world, which that handful of frightened men were very soon to face; and our Lord assures them here that, whatsoever the power of the devil working through the world may be able to filch away from them, it cannot filch away the joy that He gives. But we may extend the meaning beyond that reference.

Much of our joy, of course, depends upon our fellows, and disappears when they fade away from our sight and we struggle along in a solitude, made the more dreary because of remembered companionship. And much of our joy depends upon the goodwill and help of our fellows, and they can snatch away all that so depends. They can hedge up our road and make it uncomfortable and sad for us in many ways, but no man but myself can put a roof over my head to shut me out from God and Christ; and as long as I have a clear sky overhead, it matters very little how high may be the walls that foes or hostile circumstances pile around me, and how close they may press upon me. And much of our joy necessarily depends upon and fluctuates with external circumstances of a hundred different kinds, as we all only too well know. But we do not need to have all our joy fed from these surface springs. We may dig deeper down if we like. If we are Christians, we have, like some beleaguered garrison in a fortress, a well in the courtyard that nobody can get at, and which never can run dry. ‘Your joy no man taketh from you.’

As long as we have Christ, we cannot be desolate. If He and I were alone in the universe, or, paradoxical as it may sound, if He and I were alone, and the universe were not, I should have all that I needed and my joy would be full, if I loved Him as I ought to do.

So, my brother! let us see to it that we dig deep enough for the foundation of our blessedness, and that it is on Christ and nothing less infinite, less eternal, less unchangeable, that we repose for the inward blessedness which nothing outside of us can touch. That is the blessedness which we may all possess, ‘For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us’ from the eye and the heart of the risen Christ who lives for us. But remember, though externals have no power to rob us of our joy, they have a very formidable power to interfere with the cultivation of that faith, which is the essential condition of our joy. They cannot force us away from Christ, but they may tempt us away. The sunshine did for the traveller in the old fable what the storm could not do; and the world may cause you to think so much about it that you forget your Master. Its joys may compel Him to hide His face, and may so fill your eyes that you do not care to look at His face; and so the sweet bond may be broken, and the consciousness of a living, loving Jesus may fade, and become filmy and unsubstantial, and occasional and interrupted. Do you see to it that what the world cannot do by violence and directly, it does not do by its harlot kisses and its false promises, tempting you away from the paths where alone you can meet your Master.

IV. Lastly, note that this life of joy, which our Lord here speaks of, is made certain by the promise of a faithful Christ.

‘Verily, verily, I say unto you,’-He was accustomed to use that impressive and solemn formula, when He was about to speak words beyond the reach of human wisdom to discover, or of prime importance for men to accept and believe. He tells these men, who had nothing but His bare word to rely upon, that the astonishing thing which He is going to promise them will certainly come to pass. He would encourage them to rest an unfaltering confidence, for the brief parenthesis of sorrow, upon His faithful promise of joy. He puts His own character, so to speak, in pawn. His words are precisely equivalent in meaning to the solemn Old Testament words which are represented as being the oath of God, ‘As I live saith the Lord,’ ‘You may be as sure of this thing as you are of My divine existence, for all My divine Being is pledged to you to bring it about.’ ‘Verily, verily, I say unto you,’ ‘You may be as sure of this thing as you are of Me, for all that I am is pledged to fulfil the words of My lips.’

So Christ puts His whole truthfulness at stake, as it were; and if any man who has ever loved Jesus Christ and trusted Him aright has not found this ‘joy unspeakable and full of glory,’ then Jesus Christ has said the thing that is not.

Then why is it that so many professing Christians have such joyless lives as they have? Simply because they do not keep the conditions. If we will love Him so as to set our hearts upon Him, if we will desire Him as our chief good, if we will keep our eyes fixed upon Him, then, as sure as He is living and is the Truth, He will flood our hearts with blessedness, and His joy will pour into our souls as the flashing tide rushes into some muddy and melancholy harbour, and sets everything dancing that was lying stranded on the slime. If, my brother, you, a professing Christian, know but little of this joy, why, then, it is your fault, and not His. The joyless lives of so many who say that they are His disciples cast no shadow of suspicion upon His veracity, but they do cast a very deep shadow of doubt upon their profession of faith in Him.

Is your religion joyful? Is your joy religious? The two questions go together. And if we cannot answer these questions in the light of God’s eye as we ought to do, let these great promises and my text prick us into holier living, into more consistent Christian character, and a closer walk with our Master and Lord.

The out-and-out Christian is a joyful Christian. The half-and-half Christian is the kind of Christian that a great many of you are-little acquainted with ‘the joy of the Lord.’ Why should we live half way up the hill and swathed in mists, when we might have an unclouded sky and a visible sun over our heads, if we would only climb higher and walk in the light of His face?

Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

16:20 At the crucifixion, the world thought it had won a victory over the light. The shock of the cross would cause the disciples to weep and mourn, but their sorrow would change to joy when Jesus defeated the grave (20:20).

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Joh 16:20. Εἰς, into) Sorrow not merely shall beget joy; but shall itself be turned into joy, as the water into the wine. This very thing, which now seems sorrowful to you, shall be perceived to be matter for joy.

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Joh_16:20-22. He gives no explanation of the meaning, but depicts the interchange of sorrow and joy, which the not seeing and seeing again will bring with them. In this way they might, with the correct apprehension and hope, advance towards the approaching development.

κλαύσετε κ. θρηνήσ. ὑμεῖς] ὑμεῖς with peculiar emphasis, moved to the end, and placed immediately before ὁ δὲ κόσμ. The mourning and lamentation, this loud outburst of the λύπη of the disciples over the death of Jesus (not: over the community of Christ given up to death, Luthardt), becomes yet more tragic through the contrast of the joy of the world.

εἰς χαρὰν γενήσεται] will be turned into joy, namely, when that ὄψεσθέ με takes place.

Joh_16:21. ἡ γυνή] the woman; the article is generic, comp. ὁ δοῦλος, Joh_15:15.

ὅταν τίκτῃ] when she is on the point of bringing forth.

ἡ ὥρα αὐτῆς] her hour of distress, ὥρα βαρυώδινος, Nonnus. Comp. afterwards τῆς θλίψεως, which denotes the distress during the occurrence of birth.

ἄνθρωπος] a man. In this lies a self-consciousness of the maternal joy.

εἰς τὸν κόσμ.] born and therewith come into the world (Joh_1:9, Joh_18:37). An appeal to the Rabbinical בוֹא בעוֹלָם is not required.

The picture of the woman bringing forth, to set forth the sorrow which issues in joy, is also frequent in the O. T. (Isa_21:3; Isa_26:17; Isa_66:7; Hos_13:13; Mic_4:9-10). Its importance in the present passage Jesus Himself states, Joh_16:22, definitely and clearly, and in regard to it no further exposition is to be attempted. In accordance with this view, the grief and the joy of the disciples is the sole thing depicted, not also the passage of Christ through death to life (Brückner), as the birth of the new fellowship for the disciples, and the like. There is much arbitrary interpretation in Chrysostom, Apollinarius, Theophylact, Euth. Zigabenus, Ruperti, and several others, including Olshausen, according to whom the death of Christ is said to appear as the sorrowful birth-act of humanity, out of which the God-man comes forth, glorified to the eternal joy of the whole; even in De Wette the living Christ is subjectively a child of the spiritual productivity of the disciples. Similarly Tholuck, also Lange, in conformity with his explanation of Christs resurrection, understanding this as involving the birth of the new humanity out of the birth-sorrow of the theocracy; comp. Ebrard, who finds depicted the resurrection of the Lord as the birth of the community, which is begotten and suckled from His heavenly life. Since, further on, the Parousia is not referred to, and the ὑμεῖς, Joh_16:22, are the disciples, we must not, with Luthardt, explain it of the passage of the community into the state of glorification at the future coming of Christ (Rev_21:4), so that the community is to be thought of as bringing forth in its death-throes the new state of things.

Joh_16:22. According to the amended reading (see the critical notes): you also will consequently (corresponding to this παροιμία) now indeed (over my death, which is immediately impending) have sorrow; but again I shall see you, etc. That here Christ does not again say ὄψεσθέ με, as in Joh_16:19, is only a change in the correlate designation of the same fact (Godets explanation is an artificial refinement, which, expressed in Joh_16:19; Joh_16:22 according to both its aspects, is, by means of vers. 23 and 25, obviously designated, neither as the Parousia,[181] nor as the return by the resurrection, or at least as taking its beginning from this (see on Joh_14:18), but as the communication of the Paraclete). The exalted Christ, returning to them and the Holy Ghost, sees them again.

αἴρει] represents the certain future as present. Climax of the representation. Then your joy will be incapable of being taken from you, on account of the renewed fellowship, like this itself (Mat_28:20).

[181] In interpreting it of the Parousia, the assumption is forced on one, that with ἀμὴν, ἀμὴν λέγω, κ.τ.λ., a new section of the discourse commences, which refers to the intermediate time until the Parousia. See especially Luthardt and Lechler, p. 225. This is certainly opposed, and decisively, by the ἐν ἐκείνῃ τ. ἡμέρᾳ, ver. 26, which is solemnly repeated, and points back to ver. 23. And the above assumption is, in and of itself, entirely arbitrary. Comp. the ἀμὴν, κ.τ.λ., ver. 20. In interpreting it of the Resurrection, Ebrard sees himself necessitated to give to οὐκ ἐρωτήσ. οὐδέν the limitation: in the sense of ver. 19. A pure importation.

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Joh 16:20 . ἀμὴν … ὅτι κλαύσετε καὶ θρηνήσετε ὑμεῖς , “ye shall weep and lament”; θρηνέω is commonly used of lamentation for the dead, as in Jer 21:10 , μὴ κλαίετε τὸν τεθνηκότα , μηδὲ θρηνεῖτε αὐτόν ; 2Sa 1:17 ; Mat 11:17 ; Luk 7:32 . Here it is weeping and lamentation for the dead that is meant. ὁ δὲ κόσμος χαρήσεται , but while you mourn, the world shall rejoice, as achieving a triumph over a threatening enemy. ὑμεῖς δὲ λυπηθήσεσθε , “and ye shall be sorrow-stricken, but your sorrow shall become joy”. Cf. ἀπὸ πένθους εἰς χαράν , Est 9:22 , and especially Joh 20:20 , ἐχάρησαν οἱ μαθηταὶ ἰδόντες τὸν Κύριον .

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Verse 20. Ye shall weep and lament] To see me crucified and laid in the grave.

But the world shall rejoice] The chief priests, scribes, Pharisees, and persecuting Jews in general, will triumph, hoping that their bad cause is crowned with success.

But your sorrow shall be turned into joy.] When ye see me risen from the dead.

It is very evident that our Lord uses the word world, in several parts of this discourse of his, to signify the unbelieving and rebellious Jews.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

20. You will weep and lament. He shows for what reason he foretold that his departure was at hand, and, at the same time, added a promise about his speedy return. It was, that they might understand better that the aid of the Spirit was highly necessary. “A hard and severe temptation,” says he, “awaits you; for, when I shall be removed from you by death, the world will proclaim its triumphs over you. You will feel the deepest anguish. The world will pronounce itself to be happy, and you to be miserable. I have resolved, therefore, to furnish you with the necessary arms for this warfare.” He describes the interval that elapsed between his death and the day when the Holy Spirit was sent; for at that time their faith, so to speak, lay prostrate and exhausted.

Your sorrow will be turned into joy. He means the joy which they felt after having received the Spirit; not that they were afterwards free from all sorrow, but that all the sorrow which they would endure was, swallowed up by spiritual joy We know that the apostles: so long as they lived, sustained a severe warfare, that they endured base reproaches, that they had many reasons for weeping and lamenting; but, renewed by the Spirit, they had laid aside their former consciousness of weakness, so that, with lofty heroism, they nobly trampled under foot all the evils that they endured. Here then is a comparison between their present weakness and the power of the Spirit, which would soon be given to them; for, though they were nearly overwhelmed for a time, yet afterwards they not only fought bravely, but obtained a glorious triumph in the midst of their struggles. Yet it ought also to be observed, that he points out not only the interval that elapsed between the resurrection of Christ and the death of the apostles, but also the period which followed afterwards; as if Christ had said, “You will lie prostrate, as it were, for a short time; but when the Holy Spirit shall have raised you up again, then will begin a new joy, which will continue to increase, until, having been received into the heavenly glory, you shall have perfect joy.”

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

(20) Verily, verily, I say unto you.—Comp. Note on Joh_1:51.

That ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice.—Comp. Joh_20:11, and Luk_23:27. In the original the contrast between the sorrow of the disciples and the joy of the world is rendered the more striking by the order of the words, “Weep and lament shall ye, but the world shall rejoice.” The tears and the scoffs at the cross were the accomplishment of this prophecy.

And ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy.—The expression is a full one. It is not simply that they shall pass from sorrow to joy, but that the sorrow itself shall become joy. They will rejoice in the presence of the Lord, when after a little while they will see Him and will feel that the separation necessarily went before the union, and that the sorrow was itself a matter of joy because it was the necessary cause of the joy (Joh_16:7, and Joh_20:20).

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

20. ye shall weep and lament] In the Greek ‘ye’ comes last in emphatic contrast to the world. The verbs express the outward manifestation of grief. Comp. Joh_20:11; Luk_23:27. The world rejoiced at being rid of One whose life was a reproach to it and whose teaching condemned it.

and ye shall be sorrowful] Here we have the feeling as distinct from the manifestation of grief. Omit ‘and.’

sorrow shall be turned into joy] Not merely sorrow shall be succeeded by joy, but shall become joy. The withdrawal of the bodily presence of Christ shall be first a sorrow and then a joy. We have the same Greek construction of the rejected stone becoming the head of the corner (Mat_21:42; Act_4:11), of the mustard sprout becoming a tree (Luk_13:19), of the first man Adam becoming a living soul (1Co_15:45).

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And ye now therefore have sorrow,.... This is the application of the preceding case. As it is with a woman in travail, when her hour is come, so it was now with them, and would be when Christ was removed from them; and as it is with every believer, when Christ is absent: for though there are many things that cause sorrow now, as sin, Satan, and afflictive dispensations of providence, yet nothing more sensibly touches believers to the quick, and gives them more uneasiness, than when Christ is out of sight: the reasons are, because he is so nearly related to them, being their everlasting Father, kind husband, loving brother, and faithful friend; and because they are so strongly affected to him, there is none like him in their esteem in heaven and in earth: he is the person whom their souls love; he is the very life of their souls; his favour, his gracious presence is life to them, and his absence is as death; nor can they be easy, but are restless, and upon the inquiry after him, until he returns to them, which he does in his own time; and therefore this sorrow is but now, for the present, it is not perpetual.

But I will see you again; as he did see his disciples upon his resurrection once and again, for the space of forty days, at certain times, by intervals: and so, in a spiritual sense, he comes and sees his people, makes them a visit, manifests himself unto them, and abides with them: they are always under his omniscient eye; he always sees them as God; and they are always under his eye of love, grace, and mercy, as Mediator: but this means such a seeing of them, as that they see him as well as he sees them; and is expressive of a delightful intercourse between Christ and them, than which nothing is more desirable:

and your heart shall rejoice: as did the hearts of the disciples, when they saw Christ risen from the dead; and as the hearts of believers do, when Christ so looks upon them that they can view him with an eye of faith; such a sight is a heart rejoicing one. To see the glory and beauty of Christ's person, the fulness and suitableness of him as a Saviour; to have an appropriating view of him as such; or to see him so as to have sensible communion with him, must needs fill the heart of a believer with joy unspeakable, and full of glory: such a sight of Christ will rejoice the heart under a sense of sin, the pollution and guilt of it, when tempted by Satan, or under God's afflicting hand, and even in the view of death and eternity.

And your joy no man taketh from you. The joy of the hypocrite is but for a moment, and the joy of the chief priests, Scribes, and Pharisees, was a short lived one, on account of Christ's death; for Jesus was soon raised from the dead, and the apostles were filled with the Spirit, and went forth boldly preaching in the name of Christ, to the great grief of these men. But the joy of the disciples was durable; their risen Lord would never die more; the blessings of grace, such as redemption, pardon, righteousness, and atonement, would, and do ever remain as the foundation of solid joy: nor could a stranger intermeddle with it; "not one", either man or devil could take it away, not by all the reproaches they could cast upon them, or persecutions they could follow them with: and so, though a believer's joy may be damped by sin, and Satan, and the world, it may not be always in lively exercise; yet the matter of it always remains in Christ, and the principle of it in themselves can never be destroyed, but will issue in everlasting joy in another world.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

20 Verily, verily, I say unto you, That ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice: and ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy.

Ver. 20. Ye shall weep and lament] So long as ye abide in this valley of tears, as the Septuagint render that, Psa 86:6; εις την κοιλαδα του κλαυθμωνος. In hoc exilio, in hoc ergastulo, in hac peregrinatione, in hac valle lachrymarum, In this banishment, in this prison, in this sojourn, this valley of tears, as Bernard hath it. "My tears have been my meat," saith David, Psa 42:3, alluding to the hart, which, being pursued, sheds tears. These, instead of gems, were the ornaments of David’s bed, saith Chrysostom. The Church’s eyes are as the pools of Heshbon, ever glazed with the tears of compunction or compassion, Son 7:5. Tertullian speaketh of himself, that he was born to nothing else but sorrow and mourning. Athanasius, by his tears, as by the bleeding of a chafed vine, cured the leprosy of that tainted age. Jerome, writing of his own life, saith that there were furrows in his face and icicles from his lips with continual weeping.

But the world shall rejoice] The merry Greeks of the world laugh themselves fat, and are so afraid of sorrow that they can never find time to be serious; counting it no sport unless they may have the devil their playfellow; no mirth but madness; no venison sweet but that which is stolen. These are forbidden to rejoice in anything, Hos 10:1. Etiam si laeta tibi obveniant omnia, non est tamen quod laeteris. Even if your gladness exceed in all respects, it is not yet true gladness. (Ribera.) But if they do, there is a snare or cord in the sin of the wicked, to strangle their joy with; "but the righteous sing and rejoice," Pro 29:6. Woe be to mirth mongers, that fleer {a} when they should fear, Luk 6:25.

But your sorrow shall be turned into joy] God shall soon give you beauty for ashes, the oil of gladness for the spirit of heaviness, &c.; he shall turn all your sighing into singing, all your laments into laughter, your sackcloth into silks, your ashes into ointments, your fasts into feasts, your wringing of hands into applauses, &c.

{a} To laugh in a coarse, impudent, or unbecoming manner. ŒD

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Ye shall weep ... - At my crucifixion, sufferings, and death. Compare Luk 23:27.

The world - Wicked men. The term world is frequently used in this sense. See Joh 16:8. It refers particularly, here, to the Jews who sought his death, and who would rejoice that their object was obtained.

Shall be turned into joy - You will not only rejoice at my resurrection, but even my death, now the object of so much grief to you, will be to you a source of unspeakable joy. It will procure for you peace and pardon in this life, and eternal joy in the world to come. Thus their greatest apparent calamity would be to them, finally, the source of their highest comfort; and though then they could not see how it could be, yet if they had known the whole case they would have seen that they might rejoice. As it was, they were to be consoled by the assurance of the Saviour that it would be for their good. And thus, in our afflictions, if we could see the whole case, we should rejoice. As it is, when they appear dark and mysterious, we may trust in the promise of God that they will be for our welfare. We may also remark here that the apparent triumphs of the wicked, though they may produce grief at present in the minds of Christians, will be yet overruled for good. Their joy shall be turned into mourning, and the mourning of Christians into joy; and wicked men may be doing the very thing - as they were in the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus - that shall yet be made the means of promoting the glory of God and the good of his people, Psa 76:10.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Your sorrow shall be turned into joy, chiefly at the end of your mortal life; then you shall have a joy, never to be taken from you. (Witham)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

Our Saviour’s reply is no literal answer to their question, or exposition of the term which appeared so difficult to them to understand; but yet it is a substantial answer, by which he lets them know, that he should be absent from them for some time, which time would be to them a time of mourning and sadness, as he had before told them; that when the Bridegroom should be taken from them, then they should mourn; that that time would be to the wicked part of the world a time of mirth and jollity: but their sorrow should be turned into joy when they should see him again, both upon his resurrection, and in the general resurrection. The time of this life is the worldling’s hour, and for the most part the power of darkness to such as love and fear God; but as the worldling’s joy shall at last be turned into sorrow, (they compass themselves about with sparks, but they shall at last lie down in sorrow, Isa 50:11), so the godly man’s sorrow shall be turned into joy: Christ will say to the good servant, Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord, Mat 25:23.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

20. Weep and lament—A description of the grief of the apostles between the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. It is a stronger expression of grief than that of Mar_16:10—they mourned and wept, which describes the same grief.

The world shall rejoice—The hostile Jewish world. But this narrow hostile world is a representative of the entire world hostile to Christ, which crucifies him, buries him, and rejoices in his supposed destruction and in the sorrow of his friends. Worldliness and infidelity, in all ages, share this joy, and suffer its reverse in the triumph of Christ.

Sorrow shall be turned into joy—He says not merely that their sorrow shall be followed by joy; but the very sorrow shall be transformed into joy. For the death of Christ is the source alike both of the sorrow and the joy.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

There is no exact or categoric reply to the very inquiry which he has heard and cited, but there is more of prophecy and help than if he had said, "Tomorrow I die and shall be laid in the grave, and on the third day I shall rise again." He had often said this, and they refused to understand. It was not merely a resurrection of the body, but the glorification in the Father of his entire Personality, for which he wished them to be prepared. A simple restoration like that of Lazarus would not have secured him from the malice of those who sought to put Lazarus also to death. Verily, verily, I say unto you, that weep and lament you shall, and the world shall rejoice. Here is his own account of the effect upon them of that he said, "A little while," and you will behold me, as you think, no more. The world will rejoice, because to some extent it will be the world"s doing, and it will fancy for a little while that it has got its way and succeeded excellently well The world will roll a stone to his sepulcher, and make it as sure as they can, sealing the stone and setting a watch. Pharisaism will exult that this demand for a higher righteousness than its own is for ever hushed; Sadduceeism will rejoice that this troublesome witness to unseen and eternal things is silenced; the hierarchy will boast that now no danger prevails of the Romans taking away their place and nation; the world will praise the deed of blood; but all this rejoicing will last "a little while." Christ reaffirms their grief, and even for "a little while" justifies it, so long as they can hear the jubilate of the world over their personal burden of unutterable sorrow. He continues: You shall be sorrowful, but in a little while your sorrow shall be (egeneto eiv , Act_4:11 Act_5:36) turned into joy. Clearly because "you shall see me." It cannot be said that our Lord here positively asserts his resurrection; but when we remember how "the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord," how Mary ran "with great joy to bring his disciples word," we feel that here was the simple solution of the mystery, and that our Lord"s intercourse with them in his resurrection-body was the great prelibation of the method of his continuous abiding with them in the power of his Spirit and the glorification of his body we cannot doubt that this was his meaning and the purpose of the evangelist in recording it.

Grief and gladness.

Our Lord gave his apostles to understand that he was no enemy to the emotions that are characteristic of humanity. By becoming his disciples men did not exempt themselves from the common sorrows, nor did they forfeit the common joys, of human life. But these emotions were to be excited by greater and worthier occasions than those met with in ordinary experience. To be a Christian is to know profounder sorrow, and to rise to loftier joy, than falls to the lot of the unspiritual. And our Lord"s first disciples were to prove this at the very outset of their spiritual life.

I THE GRIEF OCCASIONED BY THE LORD"S ABSENCE. Probably had the twelve been perfectly informed, perfectly sympathetic, and perfectly patient, they would not have undergone all the distress which came upon them when their Lord was seized, insulted, and crucified, and whilst his body lay in Joseph"s tomb. But as it was, their experience was more like our own, and therefore more instructive and helpful.

1. The disciples sorrowed because of their own loss. Jesus was everything to them, and they were about to lose him; this they knew, and the consciousness of this loss, which was imminent, seems to have occupied and absorbed their souls, to the exclusion of considerations which might have brought consolation. Thus it has often been with all of us; grief is so close to the heart that it shuts out the vision of aught beyond.

2. The disciples sorrowed through sympathy with the sorrow of their Lord. He was to be hated, to be persecuted, to lay down his life. Yet he was not only innocent, he was the Friend and Benefactor of men. The treatment he received from the world was a proof of monstrous ingratitude. Those who were nearest to him, and who knew him best, could not but sympathize with him, and in some measure, though very imperfectly, share his grief.

3. The disciples sorrowed because of the cloud which gathered over their hopes. These hopes were to some extent indefinite; yet they looked forward to a Messianic kingdom of which their Master should be the Head, and in which they should hold place and sway and honor. They trusted that he should redeem Israel; and they could not understand how such a fate as that which was, according to his own words, about to overtake him, could be reconciled with the prospect which they had been cherishing. Hence their weeping and lamentation.

II THE GLADNESS TO BE CREATED BY THE LORD"S RETURN. There was only one antidote to sorrow such as that which was oppressing the apostles" hearts, and which was to deepen into anguish and terror. If their Lord was all to them, their minds could only be relieved by the prospect of reunion with him.

1. Jesus promised that after "a little while" his friends should again behold his form and hear his voice. How this prospect was consistent with the assurance that he was about to be slain, these inexperienced and bewildered friends of Jesus could not see. But events were to teach them. That the Resurrection came upon them as a surprise, the narrative makes abundantly clear. But the disciples were "glad when they saw the Lord.

2. This fellowship for a brief season to be accorded to the disciples was an earnest of a spiritual communion never to cease, and of a final and perfect reunion in a higher state of being. There were in our Lord"s last discourses and conversations many intimations of this glorious prospect. Very inadequately did these simple learners grasp truths so great and so new, that only time, experience, and the Holy Spirit"s teaching could possibly bring them home to their hearts. The revelation was too grand to be grasped at once. Yet it was a revelation which was to nourish the faith, impel the consecration, and inspire the patience, of the Church of Christ through the long ages of the spiritual dispensation. What joy the spiritual fellowship with the unseen Savior enkindled in the souls of his faithful people, we know from their recorded experience and from their confident admonitions. "Joy unspeakable and full of glory" was, in the view of the apostles, the proper portion of those who believed in Jesus. "Rejoice evermore!" was the exhortation with which gloom was rebuked, with which privilege and hope of immortal progress were indissolubly connected. T.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Ye will weep and lament - When ye see me dead; but your sorrow will be turned into joy - When ye see me risen.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

world

kosmos = mankind. (See Scofield "Mat 4:8").

The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

20. Ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice. How sad were the broken-hearted disciples, as they wept at the tomb! At the same time their enemies were gloating over their triumph. Soon all was changed, for your sorrow shall be turned into joy. The glad news came, “The Lord is risen!” Then they heard that “all power was his,” saw him ascend into heaven, and “returned to Jerusalem with great joy.”

B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.

20. Before λυπηθήσεσθε omit δέ (inserted to point a contrast with ὁ κόσμος χαρήσεται).

20. We have two contrasts; between the Apostles (ὑμεῖς last to emphasize the contrast) and ὁ κόσμος: and between their present sorrow and their future joy. Κλαύσετε (Joh 11:33, Joh 20:11) and θρηνήσετε (Luk 7:32; Luk 23:27) express the outward manifestation of grief: λυπηθήσεσθε expresses the feeling. The world will rejoice at being rid of One whose life was a reproach to it and whose teaching condemned it. Their sorrow shall not merely be followed by joy, but shall become joy. The loss of Christ’s bodily presence shall be first a sorrow and then a joy. Γίνεσθαι εἰς is used of the rejected stone becoming the head of the corner (Mat 21:42; Act 4:11), of the mustard sprout becoming a tree (Luk 13:19), of the first man Adam becoming a living soul (1Co 15:45). see on Joh 1:51.

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

20.] κλαύσ. κ. θρην. are to be literally taken: see Luk 23:27. They would mourn for Him as dead: see also ch. 20:11.

ὑμεῖς, emphatic, as opposed to ὁ κόσμος. And the joy of the world found its first exponent in the scoffs of the passers-by at the crucifixion.

λυπηθ.] This goes deeper than the weeping and wailing before: and plainly shews that the whole does not only refer to the grief while the Lord was in the tomb, but to the grief continually manifesting itself in the course and conflict of the Christian, which is turned into joy by the advancing work of the Spirit of Christ:—and, in the completion of the sense, to the grief and widowhood of the Church during her present state, which will be turned into joy at the coming of her Lord.

εἰς χαρ. γεν., not merely changed for joy, but changed into so as itself to become,—so that the very matter of grief shall become matter of joy; as Christ’s Cross of shame has become the glory of the Christian, Gal 6:14.

Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (1849–1861) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

20. In the answer which Jesus gives to the bewildered disciples, He fixes on the word μικρόν, which was the centre of their difficulty, and says nothing about the meaning of “I go to the Father.” Their short time of sorrow at His departure will be followed by a season of joy. That is enough for them to know at the moment.

ἀμὴν ἀμήν κτλ. See on 1:51.

κλαύσετε καὶ θρηνήσετε. These are the verbs used of the loud wailings and lamentations customary in the East after a death. They both occur Jer 22:10; for κλαίειν see on 11:31, and for θρηνεῖν cf. 2Sa 1:17. That the women lamented for Jesus (ἐθρήνουν αὐτόν) on the way to the Cross is told Luk 23:27; and that they were wailing (κλαίειν) on the morning of the Resurrection is mentioned Mar 16:10; cf. Joh 20:11 Μαριάμ … κλαίουσα. Pseudo-Peter (§ 12) adds that the apostles also exhibited their sorrow by weeping, ἡμεῖς … ἐκλαίομεν καὶ ἐλυπούμεθα. It is plain that κλαύσετε καὶ θρηνήσετε in the present passage refers to the grief which the disciples will display when their Master is taken from them.

ὁ δὲ κόσμος χαρήσεται: but the hostile world, i.e. the Jewish adversaries of Jesus, will rejoice that the Prophet whom they hate (15:18) has been removed.

ὑμεῖς λυπηθήσεσθε, referring to the inward grief which they will feel (cf. 21:17, the only other place where the verb is found in Jn.). ὑμεῖς is emphatic.

ἀλλʼ ἡ λύπη ὑμῶν εἰς χαρὰν γενήσεται. So it came to pass. ἐχάρησαν οἱ μαθηταὶ ἰδόντες τὸν κύριον (20:20). Cf. ἀπὸ πένθους εἰς χαράν (Est 9:22; and see Jer 31:13). See also 2 Ezr 2:27.

International Critical Commentary — older volumes (1896–1929), various authors — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Weep - lament - be sorrowful [κλαυσετε - θρηνησετε - λυπηθησεσθε] . Of these three words, the last is the most general in meaning, expressing every species of pain, of body or of soul, and not necessarily the outward manifestation of sorrow. Both the other words denote audible expressions of grief. Qrhnew marks the more formal expression. It means to utter a dirge over the dead. Thus Homer, of the mourning over Hector in Troy :

"On a fair couch they laid the corse, and placed Singers beside it leaders of the dirge [θρηνων] , Who sang [εθρηνεον] a sorrowful, lamenting strain, And all the women answered it with sobs."

"Iliad," 24 720 - 722.

The verb occurs Mt 11:17; Luk 7:32; Luk 23:27. Klaiw means audible weeping, the crying of children, as distinguished from dakruw, to shed tears, to weep silently, which occurs but once in the New Testament, of Jesus ' weeping (Joh 11:35). See on Luk 7:32.

Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (1887–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.