John 16:33

These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(33) These things I have spoken unto you . . .—At the conclusion of the discourse He sums up in a single thought what was the object of it, “Peace in Him. In the world, indeed, tribulation, but this as conquered in Him, and not interrupting the true peace in Him.” The thought is closely allied to that of the last verse, “Alone and not alone;” “Troubled, and yet having peace.” He had spoken of this from John 14:1 onwards, and from John 15:18 to John 16:4 specially of the tribulation which awaited them. (Comp. St. Paul’s experience of these contrasts in 2Corinthians 4:8 et seq.)

That in me ye might have peace.—Comp. Notes on John 14:27; John 15:7.

In the world ye shall have tribulation.—The reading of the better MSS. is, “In the world ye have tribulation.” It is the general statement of their relation to the world. The two clauses answer to each other—the one defining the origin of their inner, the other of their outer life. The life in the world is but the life as it is seen by others; the true life is that which is in communion with God through Christ, and that is one of never-failing peace, which no tribulation can ever affect. Peace is the Christian’s birthright, and his joy no one taketh from him (John 16:22, John 14:27).

But be of good cheer: I have overcome the world.—The pronoun is strongly emphatic, “I have Myself overcome the world.” He speaks of the assured victory as though it were already accomplished. (See Note on John 16:11 and John 12:31; John 13:31.) Here is the reason why they should take courage and be of food cheer. He is the Captain of their salvation, and has already won the victory. The enemies they fear, the world in which they have tribulation, are already captives following in the Conqueror’s train. They themselves have pledges of victory in and through His victory.

MacLaren's Expositions

John

PEACE AND VICTORY

John 16:33.

So end these wonderful discourses, and so ends our Lord’s teaching before His passion. He gathers up in one mighty word the total intention of these sweet and deep sayings which we have so long been pondering together. He sketches in broad outline the continual characteristics of the disciples’ life, and closes all with the strangest shout of victory, even at the moment when He seems most utterly defeated.

We shall, I think, best lay on our hearts and minds the spirit and purpose of these words if we simply follow their course, and look at the three things which Christ emphasises here: the inward peace which is His purpose for us; the outward tribulation which is our certain fate; and the courageous confidence which Christ’s victory for us gives.

I. Note, then, first, the inward peace.

‘These things have I spoken unto you that in Me ye might have peace.’ Peace is not lethargy; and it is very remarkable to notice how, in immediate connection with this great promise, there occur words which suggest its opposite-tribulation and battle. ‘In the world ye have tribulation.’ ‘I have overcome’-that means a fight. These are to go side by side with the peace that He promises. The two conditions belong to two different spheres. The Christian life bifurcates, as it were, into a double root, and moves in two realms-’in Me’ and ‘in the world’ And the predicates and characteristics of these two lives are, in a large measure, diametrically opposite. So here, without any contradiction, our Lord brackets together these two opposite conditions as both pertaining to the life of a devout soul. He promises a peace which co-exists with tribulation and disturbance, a peace which is realised in and through conflict and struggle. The tree will stand, with its deep roots and its firm bole, unmoved, though wildest winds may toss its branches and scatter its leaves. In the fortress, beleaguered by the sternest foes, there may be, right in the very centre of the citadel, a quiet oratory through whose thick walls the noise of battle and the shout of victory or defeat can never penetrate. So we may live in a centre of rest, however wild may be the uproar in the circumference. ‘In Me. . . peace,’ that is the innermost life. ‘In the world. . . tribulation,’ that is only the surface.

But, then, note that this peace, which exists with, and is realised through, tribulation and strife, depends upon certain conditions. Our Lord does not say, ‘Ye have peace,’ but ‘These things I have spoken that you may have it.’ It is a possibility; and He lays down distinctly and plainly here the twofold set of conditions, in fulfilment of which a Christian disciple may dwell secure and still, in the midst of all confusion. Note, then, these two.

It is peace, if we have it at all, in Him. Now you remember how emphatically and loftily, as one of the very key-notes of these discourses, our Lord has spoken to us, in them, of ‘dwelling in Him’ as the prerogative and the duty of every Christian. We are in Him as in an atmosphere. In Him our true lives are rooted as a tree in the soil. We are in Him as a branch in the vine, in Him as the members in a body, in Him as the residents in a house. We are in Him by simple faith, by the trust that rests all upon Him, by the love that finds all in Him, by the obedience that does all for Him. And it is only when we are ‘in Christ’ that we rest, and realise peace. All else brings distraction. Even delights trouble. The world may give excitement, the world may give vulgar and fleeting joys, the world may give stimulus to much that is good and true in us, but there is only one thing that gives peace, and that is that our hearts should dwell in the Fortress, and should ever be surrounded by Jesus Christ. Brother! let nothing tempt us down from the heights, and out from the citadel where alone we are at rest; but in the midst of all the pressing duties, the absorbing cares, the carking anxieties, the seducing temptations of the world, and in the presence of all the necessity for noble conflict which the world brings to every man that is not its slave, let us try to keep the roots of our lives in contact with that soil from which they draw all their nourishment, and to wrap ourselves round with the life of Jesus Christ, which shall make an impenetrable shield between us and ‘the fiery darts of the wicked.’ Keep on the lee side of the breakwater and your little cock-boat will ride out the gale. Keep Christ between you and the hurtling storm, and there will be a quiet place below the wall where you may rest, hearing not the loud winds when they call. ‘These things have I spoken that in Me ye might have peace.’

But there is another condition. Christ speaks the great words which have been occupying us so long, that they may bring to us peace. I need not do more than remind you, in a sentence, of the contents of these wonderful discourses. Think of how they have spoken to us of our Brother’s ascension to Heaven to prepare a place for us; of His coming again to receive us to Himself; of His presence with us in His absence; of His indwelling in us and ours in Him; of His gift to us of a divine Spirit. If we believed all these things; if we realised them and lived in the faith of them; if we meditated upon them in the midst of our daily duties; and if they were real to us, and not mere words written down in a Book, how should anything be able to disturb us, or to shake our settled confidence? Cleave to the words of the Master, and let them pour into your hearts the quietness and confidence which nothing else can give. And then, whatsoever storms may be around, the heart will be at rest. We find peace nowhere else but where Mary found her repose, and could shake off care and ‘trouble about many things,’ sitting at the feet of Jesus, wrapt in His love and listening to His word.

II. Then note, secondly, the outward tribulation which is the certain fate of His followers.

Of course there is a very sad and true sense in which the warning, ‘In the world ye shall have tribulation,’ applies to all men. Pain and sickness, loss and death, the monotony of hard, continuous, unwelcome toil, hopes blighted or disappointed even in their fruition, and all the other ‘ills that flesh is heir to,’ afflict us all. But our Lord is not speaking here about the troubles that befall men as men, nor about the chastisement that befalls them as sinners, nor about the evils which dog them because they are mortal or because they are bad, but of the yet more mysterious sorrows which fall upon them because they are good, ‘In the world ye have tribulation,’ is the proper rendering and reading. It had already begun, and it was to be the standing condition and certain fate of all that followed Him.

I have already said that the Christian life moves in two spheres, and hence there must necessarily be antagonism and conflict. Whoever realises the inward life in Christ will more or less, and sooner or later, find himself coming into hostile collision with lives which only move on the surface and belong to the world. If you and I are Christians after the pattern of Jesus Christ, then we dwell in the midst of an order of things which is not constituted on or for the principles that regulate our lives and the objects at which we aim. And hence, in that fundamental discordance between the Christian life and society as it is constituted, there must always be, if there be honesty and consistency on the side of the Christian man, more or less of collision between him and it. All that you regard as axiomatic the world regards as folly, if you take Christ for your Teacher. All that you labour to secure the world does not care to possess, if you have Him for your aim. All that you live to seek it has abandoned; all that you desire to obey it will not even consult, if you are taking Christ and His law for your rule. And therefore there must come, sooner or later, and more or less intensely in all Christian lives, opposition and tribulation. You cannot get away from the necessity, so it is as well to face it.

No doubt the form of antagonism varies. No doubt the more the world is penetrated by Christian principles divorced from their root and source, the less vehement and painful will the collision be. But there is the gulf, and there it will remain, until the world is a Church. No doubt some portion of the battlements of organised Christianity has tumbled into the ditch, and made it a little less deep. Christians have dropped their standard far too much, and so the antagonism is not so plain as it ought to be, and as it used to be, and as, some day, it will be. But there it is, and if you are going to live out and out like a Christian man, you will get the old sneers flung at you. You will be ‘crotchety,’ ‘impracticable,’ ‘spoiling sport,’ ‘not to be dealt with,’ ‘a wet blanket,’ ‘pharisaical,’ ‘bigoted,’ and all the rest of the pretty words which have been so frequently used about the men that try to live like Jesus Christ. Never mind! ‘In the world ye have tribulation.’ ‘I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus,’ the branding-iron which tells to whom the slave belongs. And if it is His initials that I carry I may be proud of the marks.

But at any rate there will be antagonism. You young men in your warehouses, you men that go on ‘Change’, we people that live by our pens or our tongues, and find ourselves in opposition to much of the tendencies of the present day-we have all, in our several ways, to bear the cross. Do not let us be ashamed of it, and, above all, do not let us, for the sake of easing our shoulders, be unfaithful to our Master. ‘In the world ye have tribulation’; and the Christian man’s peace has to be like the rainbow that lives above the cataract-still and radiant, whilst it shines above the hell of white waters that are tortured below.

III. Lastly, notice the courageous confidence which comes from the Lord’s victory.

‘Be of good cheer!’ It is the old commandment that rang out to Joshua when, on the departure of Moses, the conduct of the war fell into his less experienced hands: ‘Be strong, and of a good courage; only be thou strong and very courageous.’ So says the Captain of salvation, leaving His soldiers to face the current of the heady fight in the field. Like some leader who has climbed the ramparts, or hewed his way through the broken ranks of the enemies, and rings out the voice of encouragement and call to his followers, our Captain sets before us His own example: ‘I have overcome the world,’ He said that the day before Calvary. If that was victory, what would defeat have been?

Notice, then, how our Lord’s life was a true battle. The world tried to draw Him away from God by appealing to things desirable to sense, as in the wilderness; or to things dreadful to sense, as on the cross; and both the one and the other form of temptation He faced and conquered. It was no shadow fight which evoked this paean of victory from His lips. The reality of His conflict is somewhat concealed from us by reason of its calm and the completeness of His conquest. We do not appreciate the force that drives a planet upon its path because it is calm and continuous and silent, but the power that kept Jesus Christ continually faithful to His Father, continually sure of that Father’s presence, continually averse to all self-will and selfish living, was a power mightier then all others that have been manifested in the history of humanity. The Captain of our salvation has really fought the fight before us.

But mark, again, that our Lord’s life is the type of all victorious life. The world conquers me when it draws me away from God, when it makes me its slave, when it coaxes me to trust it, and urges to despair if I lose it. The world conquers me when it comes between me and God, when it fills my desires, when it absorbs my energies, when it blinds my eyes to the things unseen and eternal. I conquer the world when I put my foot upon its temptations, when I crush it down, when I shake off its bonds, and when nothing that time and sense, with their delights or their dreadfulnesses, can bring, prevents me from cleaving to my Father with all my heart, and from living as His child here. Whoso thus coerces Time and Sense to be the servants of his filial love has conquered them both, and whoso lets them draw him away from God is beaten, however successful he may dream himself to be and men may call him.

My friends! there is a lesson for Manchester people. Jesus Christ was not a very successful man according to the standard of Market Street and the Exchange. He made but a poor thing of the world, and He was going to be martyred on the cross the day after He said these words. And yet that was victory. Ay! Many a man beaten down in the struggle of daily life, and making very little of it, according to our vulgar estimate, is the true conqueror. Success means making the world a stepping-stone to God.

Still further, note our share in the Master’s victory-’I have overcome the world. Be ye of good cheer.’ That seems an irrelevant way of arguing. What does it matter to me though He has overcome? So much the better for Him; but what good is it to me?

It may aid us somewhat to more strenuous fighting, if we know that a brother has fought and conquered, and I do not under-estimate the blessing and the benefit of the life of Jesus Christ, as recorded in these Scriptures, even from that, as I conceive it, miserably inadequate and imperfect point of view. But the victory of Jesus Christ is of extremely little practical use to me, if all the use of it is to show me how to fight. Ah! you must go a deal deeper than that. ‘I have overcome the world, and I will come and put My overcoming Spirit into your weakness, and fill you with My own victorious life, and make your hands strong to war and your fingers to fight; and be in you the conquering and omnipotent Power.’

My friends! Jesus Christ’s victory is ours, and we are victors in it, because He is more than the pattern of brave warfare, He is even the Son of God, who gave Himself for us, and gives Himself to us, and dwells in us our Strength and our Righteousness.

Lastly, remember that the condition of that victory’s being ours is the simple act of reliance upon Him and upon it. The man who goes into the battle as that little army of the Hebrews did against the wide-stretching hosts of the enemy, saying, ‘O Lord! we know not what to do, but our eyes are up unto Thee,’ will come out ‘more than conqueror through Him that loved him.’ For ‘this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.’

Benson Commentary

John 16:33. These things I have spoken, that ye might have peace — “I have said these things to you concerning my departure out of the world, the coming of the Holy Ghost, my resurrection from the dead, the Father’s hearing your prayers, and concerning the great trial you are to be exposed to, in order that you may have consolation in the prospect of the benefits you are to receive, and not be terrified when afflictions draw nigh which are to overtake you. The truth is, you shall have great tribulation in this present life, because the malice of men will everywhere pursue you; nevertheless, be not discouraged, rather take heart, by reflecting how, through constancy and patience, I have overcome the malice of the world, and that I am able to make you overcome it in like manner also.” — Macknight.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

16:28-33 Here is a plain declaration of Christ's coming from the Father, and his return to him. The Redeemer, in his entrance, was God manifest in the flesh, and in his departure was received up into glory. By this saying the disciples improved in knowledge. Also in faith; Now are we sure. Alas! they knew not their own weakness. The Divine nature did not desert the human nature, but supported it, and put comfort and value into Christ's sufferings. And while we have God's favourable presence, we are happy, and ought to be easy, though all the world forsake us. Peace in Christ is the only true peace, in him alone believers have it. Through him we have peace with God, and so in him we have peace in our own minds. We ought to be encouraged, because Christ has overcome the world before us. But while we think we stand, let us take heed lest we fall. We know not how we should act if brought into temptation; let us watch and pray without ceasing, that we may not be left to ourselves.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

In me - In my presence, and in the aid which I shall render you by the Holy Spirit.

In the world - Among the men to whom you are going. You must expect to be persecuted, afflicted, tormented.

I have overcome the world - He overcame the prince of this world by his death, John 12:31. He vanquished the great foe of man, and triumphed over all that would work our ruin. He brought down aid and strength from above by his death; and by procuring for us the friendship of God and the influence of the Spirit; by his own instructions and example; by revealing to us the glories of heaven, and opening our eyes to see the excellence of heavenly things, he has furnished us with the means of overcoming all our enemies, and of triumphing in all our temptations. See the notes at John 14:19; also Romans 8:34-37; 1 John 4:4; 1 John 5:4; Revelation 12:11. Luther said of this verse "that it was worthy to be carried from Rome to Jerusalem upon one's knees." the world is a vanquished enemy; Satan is a humbled foe; and all that believers have to do is to put their trust in the Captain of their salvation, putting on the whole armor of God, assured that the victory is theirs, and that the church shall yet shine forth fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners, Sol 6:10.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

33. These things I have spoken unto you—not the immediately preceding words, but this whole discourse, of which these were the very last words, and which He thus winds up.

that in me ye might have peace—in the sublime sense before explained. (See on [1868]Joh 14:27).

In the world ye shall have tribulation—specially arising from its deadly opposition to those who "are not of the world, but chosen out of the world." So that the "peace" promised was far from an unruffled one.

I have overcome the world—not only before you, but for you, that ye may be able to do the same (1Jo 5:4, 5).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

By peace here is not so much to be understood peace with God; which yet we have from Christ, and through Christ, according to Romans 5:1, Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ; nor yet peace of conscience, which is the copy of our peace with God; as a peace of mind, a quiet, serene, calm temper, which indeed is the effect of the other, as the cause: that you might not to troubled and disturbed, neither for my sake, nor yet for your own. Though in the world ye meet with troubles, which you will certainly do, because the world hateth you,

be of good cheer, ( saith he),

I have overcome the world; where by world is to be understood, all temptations from it, whether from the flatteries or from the frowns and troubles of it. We are said to overcome the world, but we overcome it as soldiers, fighting under Christ, who is the Captain of our salvation, and his victory is our victory, 1Jo 4:4 5:4,5. Christ overcame the prince of the world, and cast him out, as we heard before; and he hath overcome sin, and we in him, in the midst of all tribulations, are more than conquerors through him that loved us, Romans 8:37. This was our Saviour’s last sermon which we have upon sacred record in holy writ.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

These things I have spoken unto you,.... As this is the conclusion of our Lord's sermons to his disciples, these words may well enough be thought to have regard to all that he had said in general; as concerning his departure from them; his going to prepare a place for them; his union to them, and their communion with him; and the various persecutions and afflictions they should endure for his sake; and the many blessings both of grace and glory they should enjoy; and particularly what he had said in the context, concerning their forsaking him, which supposed tribulation, and would be a prelude of what they were afterwards to have in the world; and concerning the presence of his Father with him, and which they might also expect to have:

that in me ye might have peace; not in the world, in which they were to have tribulation: there is no true, solid peace, to be enjoyed in the world, and the things of it; the world can neither give it, nor take it away; nor have the men of it any knowledge and understanding of it; and much less enjoy it: nor in themselves; spiritual peace does not arise from any duties, services, and performances of men; no, not from an attendance on the Gospel, and the ordinances of it; nor even from the graces of the Spirit; for though peace may be enjoyed herein, and hereby, and through these, as means; yet does not come from them, but from Christ, in whose strength alone all duties are performed aright; who is the sum and substance of the Gospel, and the ordinances of it, and the object of all grace: it is in him, and in him only, in his person, blood, righteousness, and sacrifice, which speak peace, pardon, and atonement, that a soul finds any true, solid peace, rest, comfort, and joy; and here he may, and does find it, in opposition to the cry of sin, law, and justice, for wrath, ruin, hell, and damnation. There is a peace by Christ, which he has made for his people by the blood of his cross; and there is a peace in him, which is enjoyed through faith's looking to his blood for pardon, to his righteousness for justification, to his sacrifice for atonement and satisfaction; and by having communion with him, and discoveries of his love, and by seeing safety and security in him.

In the world ye shall have tribulation; this is certain from this declaration of Christ, who is the omniscient God, and truth itself; from the instance and example of Christ, who was all his life a man of sorrows; from the conformity of the members to the head; from the divine appointment that has so determined it; from the natural enmity of the world to the saints; from the experience of the people of God in all ages; from the usefulness of tribulation to try the graces, and bring about the temporal, spiritual, and eternal good of believers: and though they have tribulation in the world, yet not by way of punishment for sin, but as fatherly corrections and chastenings for their good, that they may not be condemned with the world; and it is only in this present world they have it; as soon as they have done with the world, they will have done with tribulation:

but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world; it is very observable how the phrase, "in the world ye shall have tribulation", stands, and is encompassed, before, with these words, "that in me ye might have peace", and behind, with these, "be of good cheer", &c. Believers, of all men, notwithstanding their tribulations, have reason to be of good cheer, since their sins are forgiven, the love of God is shed abroad in their hearts, their redemption draws nigh, and they have hopes of glory; and particularly, because as Christ here says, for their encouragement under all their tribulations in the world, "I have overcome the world": Satan, the god and prince of the world, with all his principalities and powers, which Christ has led captive, ransomed his people from, and delivers them from the power of; and all that is in the world, the lusts and sins of it, their damning power by the sacrifice of himself, and their governing power by his Spirit and grace; and the men of the world with all their rage and fury, whom he has trodden down in his anger, restrains by his power, and causes the remainder of their wrath to praise him; in all which conquests he makes his people share, and even makes them more than conquerors, through himself: so that they have nothing to fear from the world; nor any reason to be cast down by the tribulation they meet with in it.

Geneva Study Bible

{11} These things I have spoken unto you, that {h} in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.

(11) The surety and foundation of the Church depends only upon the victory of Christ.

(h) That in me you might be thoroughly quieted. For by peace is meant here that quiet state of mind which is completely contrary to disquietness and great sadness.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Meyer's NT Commentary

John 16:33. “That is the last word given, and struck into their hand by way of good-night. But He concludes very forcibly with this, and therefore has He finished the entire discourse,” Luther.

ταῦτα] pointing back, at the close of the whole discourses again resumed from John 14:31, to chap. John 15:16.

ἐν ἐμοὶ εἰρήνην … ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ θλῖψιν] exact correlates: in me (living and moving), i.e. in vital fellowship with me: Peace, rest of soul, peace of heart (comp. John 14:27); in the world, i.e. in your intercourse with the unbelieving; affliction (John 16:21, and see John 15:18 ff.).

ἐγώ] Luther aptly remarks: “He does not say: Be comforted, you have overcome the world, but this is your consolation, that I, I have overcome the world; my victory is your salvation.” And upon this victor rests the imperishability of the church.

νενίκ. τ. κόσμ.] The perfect states the victory immediately impending, which is to be gained through His glorification by means of death, as already completed. Prolepsis of the certain conqueror on the boundary of His work. Comp. John 12:31, John 13:31. But if He has overcome the anti-Messianic power of the world, how could His own, in spite of all θλῖψις, become dispirited, as though He would give up His work, which was to be continued by their means, and suffer His victory to fall to the ground? Comp. rather 1 John 5:4-5; 1 John 4:4. Therefore θαρσεῖτε. Paul especially is a living commentary on this θαρσεῖν. See e.g. Romans 8:37; 2 Corinthians 2:14; 2 Corinthians 4:7 ff; 2 Corinthians 6:4 ff; 2 Corinthians 12:9, his discourse before Felix and Festus, etc. Comp. Luther’s triumphant exposition.

Expositor's Greek Testament

John 16:33. ταῦτα … κόσμον. ταῦτα embraces the whole of the consolatory utterances from John 14:1 onwards. His aim in uttering them was “that in me” (cf. Paul’s use of “in Christ”) “ye may have peace”. ἐν ἐμοί ανδ ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ are the two spheres in which at one and the same time the disciples live, John 17:15, Colossians 3:1; Colossians 3:5. So long as they “abode in Christ” and His words abode in them, John 15:7, they would have peace, John 14:27. So long as they were in the world they would have tribulation, θλίψιν ἔχετε, “in the world ye have tribulation”.—ἀλλὰ θαρσεῖτε, “but be of good courage”. Cf. θάρσει τέκνον, Matthew 9:2; Matthew 14:27.—ἐγὼ νενίκηκα τὸν κόσμον. νικᾷν occurs only here in the Gospel, but twenty-two times in the Johannine Epistles and Apocalypse; only four times in the other N.T. writings; cf. especially 1 John 5:4-5. “I (emphatic) have overcome the world,” have proved that its most dangerous assaults can be successfully resisted; and in me you are sharers in my victory; in me you also overcome.

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

33. These things] These farewell discourses.

might have peace] Better, may have peace. Christ’s ministry ends, as His life began, with a message of peace (Luke 2:14).

ye shall have] Rather, ye have; the tribulation has already begun.

I have overcome] The pronoun is very emphatic. At the very moment when He is face to face with treachery, and disgrace, and death, Christ triumphantly claims the victory. Comp. 1 John 2:13-14; 1 John 5:4. In His victory His followers conquer also.

Bengel's Gnomen

John 16:33. Ἵνα, that) expressing the scope of ‘these’ words which Jesus had ‘spoken.’—εἰρήνην, peace) which belongs to the ‘heart’ that is “not troubled:” ch. John 14:1.—νενίκηκα) I have overcome, even for you [τὸν κόσμον, the world) and so have overcome your ‘tribulations’ (straits), along with overcoming the world.—V. g.]

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 33. - These things have I spoken (ταῦτα; all the farewell discourses. The tone of these last triumphant words reminds them of the finest and noblest of his previous assurances, his promises of peace, courage, and victory over all the evil and power of this world) to you, that in me ye might have peace (see note, John 14:27, 28). The entire issue of the discourse is the conference on his disciples of his own secret of peace - the adequate support amid the crushing force and vehement hostility of the world (cf. Psalm 46:2-4, "Though the earth be removed.., there is a river," etc.). Peace is the balance of equilibrating forces; and man needs a Divine force behind and within him to encounter the tremendous odds arrayed against him, in mysteries of life, temptation of the devil, infirmity of the flesh, and antagonism of the world, so that we need not be surprised to hear him say, In the world ye have tribulation. It is the fundamental condition of Divine life in this world. Christ's disciples may take that for granted (see 1 Thessalonians 1:6; 1 Thessalonians 3:4), but the most striking and unique note of the true faith is that this sorrow is blended with an inward rapture which transforms it into peace. The blending of fear and love, of law with promise, of righteousness with mercy, of the sense of sin with that of pardon, of a great peace with a crushing tribulation, is one of the most constant tokens, signs, or marks of the mind of Christ. But be of good courage. This is the practical uprising of the soul into the joy of the Lord (cf. also John 14:1, 28). (The word itself is an ἅπαξ λεγόμενον in John, though found in Matthew 9:2 and Mark 10:49.) 'Αχο, I - very emphatic - have overcome the world. "A vous encore le combat, a mot des a present la victoire! Mats en mot la meme victoire a vous vous aussi" (Reuss). The royal sublimity of this last word, on the eve of the Passion, became one of the perpetually recurring thoughts of John (1 John 5:4 and Revelation 2, 3, where the ὁ νίκων is again and again referred to). Christ's victory already assured to him becomes theirs. So "by similar anticipation we have ἐνίκησαν in Revelation 12:11, and ἡ νικήσασα in 1 John 5:4." The victory had been, however, already achieved over the world's temptations, and over the bitterness of internal treachery, and the vast sum of human ingratitude; and this may in part explain the use of the perfect tense, "I have overcome."



John 16:33

Vincent's Word Studies

Ye shall have (ἕξετε)

The best texts read, ἔξετε, ye have.

Be of good cheer (θαρσεῖτε)

Only here in John.

I have overcome (νενίκηκα)

The verb occurs only three times outside of John's writings. Only here in the Gospel, and frequently in First Epistle and Revelation. Uniformly of spiritual victory.