John 16:19 Commentary and Bible Study

He had read their thoughts. He had done it before. Here he is rehearsing to them the very things that they had been saying in private one to another, and they are astonished, and yet it is still a veiled explanation; they cannot yet understand this.‘Verily, verily,’ I most solemnly assure you, ‘that ye shall weep and lament.’ Of course they will, at his arrest, his humiliation, his being taken to Calvary, his suffering and death. ‘He has died, he has gone. Our Lord has gone, and surely that means Israel can no longer be restored.’ They thought he was going to set up an earthly kingdom. He had explained it to them many times and it had never shifted out of their minds. They had never understood he was setting up a heavenly kingdom. ‘The earthly kingdom, the great reformation of the Jews, it cannot happen because he is dead and gone. Our Lord has gone and our reformation has gone. Have we followed him for nothing?’ And they are so deeply sorry.‘Ye shall weep and lament, but the world,’ that is the chief priests, the scribes and the Pharisees, or anyone in any age who does not believe in Christ – ‘the world shall rejoice.’ The chief priests will be delighted. No more trouble from Christ. No more crowds going after him and believing in him. No more their own position as clergy threatened by the possibility of some grassroots reformation. They had got rid of him. ‘But your sorrow will be turned into joy.’ It would begin to happen with the resurrection appearances, but once the Holy Spirit came and they realised they were going to see Christ in a new sense by faith, spiritually, then they would rejoice.