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This is the only passage in which the Saviour has expressed the process of the Spirit's action in regenerating the world. It forms Christ's own history of the silent progress of the spiritual life. The first step in the Divine life is the sense of sin. That sense is excited by the conviction of the heart's unbelief in the Christ who died. Then the sense of sin must pass into the belief in righteousness. The Spirit reveals righteousness in the Christ who rose. And from this twofold revelation must spring the belief that evil is conquered and that sin shall finally pass away; for the Spirit reveals its overthrow in the Christ who lives and reigns. Mark the mission of the Comforter in —

I. AWAKENING THE SENSE OF SIN.

1. The ground on which the charge of sin is founded — "because they believe not on Me." This may seem strange at first sight. But on examination we shall see that no charge but this can awaken a real deep sense of sin. Take the other grounds on which men have attempted to bring home the conviction.

(1) The innate depravity of man. Of its awful truth, indeed, there can be no question. But in what does the enforcing of this issue? Do not the questions rise — Who made me thus? Why was I born in sin? Am I responsible?

(2) The evil of a man's actions may be felt by him, and yet he may say, "It is not I that do those things. There are two powers in me, 'For that which I do I allow not,'" &c.

(3) Or you may awaken simply a confession of self-reproach: "I have erred, and played the fool exceedingly," but you have not made the man feel that he — the personal self — has deliberately endorsed the action as his own.

(4) Still further, you may preach the doctrine of everlasting condemnation, and you produce either a cowardly confusion of suffering with sin, defiant unbelief, or abject despair.

2. Take now unbelief in Christ, and see what the rejection of Him implies. Whatever excuses a man may make for committing sin, he knows that it creates an alienation from God, that its effects on the soul are devastating. Now the Cross stands as the sign of reconciliation with God, and therefore of healing and blessedness. But by unbelief, refusing Christ's deliverance, I affirm my antagonism to the Divine. There is the revelation of sin. Man defying the supremest love.

II. THE CONVICTION OF RIGHTEOUSNESS IN THE ASCENDED SAVIOUR. The first deep glance into life's evil overcomes a man with hopeless sorrow. It is vain to tell him "to let the dead past bury its dead." Forgetfulness would not destroy, but only cover with a thin veil the evil He has found — a veil that death would rend in twain. It is useless to say, "Obey conscience, and become righteous." Conscience has no power to raise; it can only point out the right and condemn the wrong. It is a flaming terror until a man finds Christ. Thus awakened, the great cry of the heart is this, Can I ever be cleansed? Can those memories be banished into eternal forgetfulness by the forgiveness of God? Unless these cries are answered, it were a cruel punishment to convince man of his evil. But the Comforter does answer them. "There is righteousness because Christ is gone to the Father, and ye see Him no more." It is not, therefore, Christ crucified only, but Christ risen and ascended, who reveals a righteousness for man, Why is this so? and how does the Comforter inspire this conviction? There are three requisites which must be fulfilled before man, as a sinner, can feel the possibility of His righteousness. And these are all met by the truth that Christ has gone to the Father.

1. The assurance of forgiveness for the past. Explain it how we may, there is no conviction more profound and universal than that sin is death, and that its pardon necessitates the death of a pure and unstained life. The world's altars, laden often with human victims, bear witness to this. There is in conscience an inner witness to the rectitude of the law that condemns, and it gives man no peace till he feels that a Holy Being, who was yet one with Him, has "become obedient unto death," and thus manifested the sanctity of the commandment. But suppose Christ had vanished in death, who would have known that He had finished the work He had undertaken? But He rises and ascends to "His Father and our Father," and becomes the eternal Priest, dispensing forgiveness to the world. This is the truth revealed by the Comforter. Touched by the Spirit's power, we accept Christ's sacrifice as our sacrifice, and find pardon.

2. The removal of the terrors of the future. It is the double curse of sin that, while it narrows our range of vision, it clothes immortality with terror. We feel sin is barring our entrance into those bright abodes. We need a Deliverer who shall open for us those barred and everlasting doors. Christ ascended to heaven to be our Brother and Intercessor there. The grand assertion, "In My Father's house are many mansions," &c., falls like music from the sky that received Him. This, then, is the truth revealed by the Comforter, which, by removing the terrors of the future, deepens the conviction of righteousness.

3. The creation of a new manhood in the present. When the past is forgiven and the future brightened, we want to become righteous men. And here we approach the doctrine of imputed righteous-ness — a righteousness not our's, but Christ's. But the idea of a transference of spiritual states is only a figurative expression of a great truth. We become righteous only when we feel that we are nothing, have nothing, can do nothing, and trusting solely on Christ, yield ourselves to Him. Then the old forces of sin die. The love of Christ possessing us recreates us, and God, seeing in that life of faith the first beginnings of a purity which shall become perfect and everlasting, regards us as righteous in Christ Jesus.

III. The belief which completes and renders perfect the new nature — THE BELIEF IN JUDGMENT THROUGH THE CONQUEST OF THE "PRINCE OF THIS WORLD." This passage is frequently interpreted as though it referred to the final judgment. But this destroys the connection between the three convictions, and the words have a present meaning — "is judged." The judgment, therefore (see John 12:31), is that conquest which Christ should gain on His cross. Taking it in that sense, we perceive at once why the belief in judgement must follow the belief in righteousness. For when we have been freed from sin, and made righteous in Christ, we find that we have entered on a life-long struggle with evil; and as the one thing to keep us true, we need the assurance of final victory. These words present two thoughts:

1. Christ's conquest over the kingdom of evil.

(1) The kingdom of evil as opposed to the Saviour. The "prince of this world" suggests the majesty of the power that He overcame for man. "This world" expresses the collective forces that are opposed to God; "Prince" manifestly implies that evil forces are not separated, but combined, and form a great living power, a kingdom of wrong. But the phrase points to a personal evil spirit as lord of that evil kingdom. This was the kingdom that opposed itself to the Son of man. Evil spirits confronted Him constantly. It seemed as if the dark spiritual world were stirred through all its depths by the appearance of the Perfect Man. The whole world was groaning in the throes of spiritual death. The light of Divine revelation was dying out. All the evil influences that touch the human soul gathered themselves against the Perfect Soul to turn Him aside and tear Him from His self-chosen path of dedication for the world.

(2) The Saviour's conquest. For this two things were requisite —

(a) Christ must overcome the essence of evil by a means common to humanity. Now, the essence of evil is self-will. Its first expression was the "I will" of man opposing itself to the "Thou shalt not" of God. Christ must conquer sin through the might of a Divine obedience, and yet occupy a battle-ground common to humanity. And where was this so perfectly accomplished as in His life and death?

(b) Christ must show by His conquest that the facts which seem to prove the perpetuity of evil are really signs of its overthrow. The darkest lie of the evil one is this — that evil is an eternal power. Before the advent of the gospel, the world was beginning to believe in the omnipotence of wrong, and men were losing faith in anything which could conquer evil. Just note the two great facts which, as the results of sin, lay at the root of this state. First, Suffering. It seemed to belie the goodness of God and prove sin to be irresistible. Now suffering, in all its deepest dreadfulness, Christ endured. "He was perfected through sufferings," and thus revealed it to man as the education of a Father. Secondly, Death — the sign-manual of sin's dominion. Christ became subject to its power. It seemed to conquer Him. But, rising from the grave, He ascended to the heavens, thus consecrating death for all men as a pathway to the Father's home. Such was Christ's conquest. It was the crisis of earth's history — the judgment and overthrow of the "prince of this world."

2. Christ's conquest as a pledge of victory for man. There are three ways in which this is revealed by the Comforter.

(1) The fact itself is a power. We are strengthened by the belief that some one has known our difficulties and subdued them. On this deep principle of human nature Christ's conquest lays hold. Like us He fought. By a strength which we may share He conquered. Look at the early Church, when the meaning of this fact was revealed by the descending Comforter. Men awoke with new power. The old tyranny of evil was broken; and hoary apostolic men, kindling with the energies of youth, went forth to do battle with it in the world which had so long groaned under its sway.

(2) Christ is God's promise. Through His life God's voice speaks to us now. If we conflict like Him, like Him we shall conquer. We must copy His instant resistance to temptation, and His prayerful submission in suffering, if we would share the glory of His victory.

(3) Christ a present friend. We do not always realize His presence, but sometimes amid the pauses of the battle, we feel Him near in that "peace which passeth understanding," and hear Him saying, "Be faithful unto death, and I will give you a crown of life."

(E. L. Hull, B. A.)

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KJV: And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment:

WEB: When he has come, he will convict the world about sin, about righteousness, and about judgment;