The world is examined, convicted, convinced, as to its false theories of righteousness.
In Christ was the one absolute type of righteousness; from Him a sinful man must obtain righteousness. Just as sin is revealed by the Spirit to be something far different from the breaking of certain specific injunctions, so righteousness is revealed to be something far different from the outward fulfilment of ceremonial or moral observances (cf. Mat_5:20; Mat_7:33; Rom_3:21, &c.; Rom_10:3)
. (Bp. Westcott.)
The conviction of righteousness
It is a fit time for the Holy Ghost to convince God’s people of righteousness when they are convinced of sin before. Then they can relish Christ.
I. THE HOLY GHOST CONVINCES OF RIGHTEOUSNESS IN THIS ORDER
1. There must be a righteousness; for we have to deal with a God who is righteousness itself; and no unclean thing shall come into heaven Rev_21:7).
2. There is no such righteousness in any creature. Perhaps we may have a righteousness to satisfy the world, because we live civilly. But that will not satisfy conscience. And then there must be a satisfaction to the law, which condemns our thoughts, desires; but God is the most perfect of all.
3. This righteousness is to be had in Christ. The righteousness of Christ is that righteousness that is founded upon His obedience: active, fulfilling the law; and passive, discharging all our debts, satisfying God’s justice. The meritoriousness of both of them is founded upon the personal union of God and man; in reference to which union we may without blasphemy aver that God performed the law, God died for us.
4. This righteousness is our righteousness. The Spirit convinces that this belongs to all believers, and it is better than Adam had. His righteousness was the righteousness of a man, this righteousness is the righteousness of a mediator; and it is such a righteousness, that when we are clothed with it, we may go to the justice of God.
II. HOW DOTH THE HOLY GHOST “CONVINCE” THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF CHRIST? He presents to the soul the knowledge of this excellent righteousness, and then creates a hand of faith to embrace it. The Spirit doth not tell in general only that Christ is an excellent Saviour, but relates to a Christian soul, God gave Christ for thee. This sways the heart to rest upon Christ. And then as it is in marriage, the persons, by virtue of that relation, have interest in each other’s substance and estate; so when this mystical marriage is made up between Christ and us, we have a right unto Christ by all rights, by titles of purchase and redemption. All that Christ hath is ours; our sins His, and His righteousness ours.
III. WHY IS THE SENDING OF THE SPIRIT NECESSARY FOR THIS? Because
1. It is above the conception of man that there should be such a righteousness of God-man. A devil incarnate may know all things, and yet want to see. Only the Holy Ghost gives inward sight, and works faith to see Christ as mine.
2. He alone must make the conscience quiet, who is greater than the conscience. Conscience will clamour, “Thou art a sinner;” the Holy Ghost convinces, “In Christ thou art righteous.”
3. Flesh and blood are full of pride, and would fain have some righteousness of their own. The Jews were of this temper; and it hath been the greatest question from the beginning of the world till this day, what is that righteousness whereby we must stand before God?
IV. HOW SHALL WE KNOW WHETHER WE BE CONVINCED OF THIS RIGHTEOUSNESS OR NO?
1. By the method Christ uses in convincing. First, He convinces of sin, and then of righteousness. For a man to catch at righteousness before he be convinced of sin is but an usurpation.
2. By our hatred of sin, and the alteration of our bent, and by so making Christ sweet to us.
3. By the witness of the Spirit. The work of the Spirit hath a light of its own; as I know I believe, when I believe. Upon this apprehension that Christ is mine, the soul is constrained to love; whereupon ensues an enlargement of heart, and a prevalency of comfort above all discomfort, for love casteth out fear.
4. By inward peace and great joy suitable to the righteousness. As the righteousness is an excellent righteousness of God-man, so, that peace and joy that comes from it is unspeakable peace and joy (Rom_5:1-3).
5. It answers all objections. The doubting heart will object this and that, but the Spirit of God shows an all-sufficiency in Christ’s obedience; and that sets the soul down quietly in all crosses, and calms it in all storms in some degree (Rom_8:33).
V. THE REASON WHY THE COMFORTER CONVINCES OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. “Because I go to the Father.” Wherefore did He go to the Father?
1. To make application of what He had wrought. If Christ should not have gone to the Father, He could not have sent the Holy Ghost to us.
2. To clothe us with a sweet relation, to make the Father our Father (chap. 20:17). (R. Sibbes, D. D.)
The Convincer of righteousness
It has been made a question by men, whether the words “right” and “wrong” have any real meaning. Is there such a thing as right? If there is no right, there is no wrong; the one implies the other. Are they both delusions? Two opposite answers are given to these questions, the answer of the world and that of God. The world knows of expediency and inexpediency, of advantage and disadvantage, as connected with certain actions and courses of conduct; but of nothing beyond, of nothing deeper and more binding than the rules of expediency. God, on the contrary, tells us of good and evil, of right and wrong, apart from the dictates of prudence and expediency. One great object of all God’s dealings with men has been to convince them of the difference between right and wrong. The first part of the work of the Holy Ghost described in these verses is, as we have seen, the conviction of sin. But how can such a conviction be brought about? It is impossible, unless the conviction of righteousness is also produced. Sin is a negation; it is a departure from truth and righteousness; and therefore there can be no real conviction of sin, unless there is a conviction of that which sin denies and contradicts.
I. OF WHAT THE HOLY GHOST IS HERE SAID TO CONVINCE THE WORLD. “Of righteousness.” The expression is obviously incomplete. What must be supplied, in order to complete it? Shall we say, “of my righteousness,” or “of their righteousness”? Of both?
1. Of the personal righteousness of Christ. This must clearly be the first conviction produced by the operation of the Holy Spirit; because it lies at the foundation of the whole work of redemption. No more awful proof could be given of the blindness and depravity of mankind than the possibility of the righteousness of Christ being doubted. The teaching of our blessed Lord was opposed to the conventional morality of the times in which He lived. The popular notions of superior sanctity identified self-righteousness with righteousness, and reckoned a man good according to the outward display which he made. It was needful therefore to convince men of the righteousness of Jesus; needful, because they could bring themselves to doubt it; needful for man’s own sake, because unless there is a righteousness to be discovered in the life of Christ, it is nowhere to be found. The righteousness of Christ is the proof that righteousness is not impossible to man. But it is also the foundation of the Christian religion. How shall He be the Lamb without spot, unless He is personally “holy, harmless, undefiled?” The conviction of righteousness includes next
2. The justifying righteousness of Christ. We come now, from the righteousness which is the personal character of the God-Man, to that righteousness of His which in a sense belongs to the world. And this is clearly implied in the text. The conviction of sin is wrought in the conscience of men, not that they may be driven to despair, but in order that they may be led to amendment; and it is then only that justifying righteousness will be appreciated, when the conviction of sin is produced. We have no righteousness of our own. Such is the testimony of conscience as well as of revelation. In vain it is that men go about seeking to establish their own righteousness. But that which man cannot procure for himself,
God has provided for him. The Holy Ghost convinces men of sin, that He may show them how helpless and lost they are, and He convinces them of righteousness, that they may appropriate to themselves, by faith in Christ and by the grace of the Holy Ghost, the righteousness provided for them in the Redeemer. The Holy Ghost convinces men not only of the personal righteousness of Christ and of His justifying righteousness, but also of
3. The righteousness to be wrought in believers. The process of human salvation would be incomplete, unless this formed a part of it. The Holy Spirit convinces men that there is a righteousness from which they have departed, and thus He convinces them of sin; He tells them of a justifying righteousness in which they are accepted, to which they may flee and obtain the full pardon of all their sins; and He further convinces them of the need of righteousness in themselves, and of the provision which God has made for bestowing it. We are next to consider
II. BY WHAT MEANS THE CONVICTION OF RIGHTEOUSNESS IS PRODUCED. “Because I go to My Father, and ye see Me no more.” The work of the Comforter still points to the person and work of Christ.
1. Let us remark at the outset that the descent of the Holy Ghost, in itself, was a proof that Jesus had gone to the Father. The promised Gift was bestowed, the promised Spirit was given; and now they had not only their own testimony but His to the resurrection and ascension of their Lord. “We,” they could henceforth say, “are His witnesses of these things; and so is also the Holy Ghost, whom God hath given to them that obey Him” Act_5:32).
2. But what our text reminds us of is not so much, that the Holy Ghost, by His descent, proves the ascension of our Lord to heaven, but that His return to the Father is a vindication of His righteousness, both as a personal attribute, and as the justification and sanctification of His people.
(1) The Holy Spirit makes use of the ascension of Christ to prove His personal righteousness. Unless the apostles believed, unless they could in some manner demonstrate the righteousness of Him whom they preached, their whole mission must prove ineffectual. And how could they do it? They might remind their hearers of the words of truth, and beauty, and power, which He had spoken. But, alas, multitudes had listened to His words, and had failed to receive conviction from them, and how much less must be the effect of those words when repeated by others! They might ask whether the mighty works which He had wrought could have been accomplished by any but a perfectly righteous man; but they could not forget that in the performance of one of the chief of them He had been called a sinner. There was one other fact to be brought forward, to be testified to by the Third Person in the Holy Trinity Himself, the fact that He had gone to the Father, and while hidden from the world was placed at the right hand of the most High. At His transfiguration the same testimony had been borne. Then His righteousness was declared by a Voice; now it is proclaimed by a stupendous act. Then it was spoken in words which died away upon the ear; now it is uttered by the voice of His glory--a glory which is abiding and eternal at the right hand of His Father.
(2) But, further, the resurrection and ascension of our blessed Lord were not merely a proof of His personal righteousness, nor a mere evidence of the truth of His mission and the Divine origin of the gospel; they were the witnesses of His justifying righteousness. Jesus Christ was not a mere Teacher, nor a mere Worker, nor a mere Sufferer; nor all of these combined. He was the Second Adam, who represented the whole fallen family of the first Adam before God; and every act of His was not the act of a mere Individual, it was the act of a Substitute, a Representative, a Saviour. We do not forget the atonement which our Lord made by His death, when we say that His resurrection, or that whole process of exaltation which comprehended His resurrection and ascension, His rising from the grave into the presence of the Father, was the justification of mankind. It was His death that paid the penalty due for man’s transgression; but it was His resurrection that declared the penalty to be paid. He “was delivered for our offences, and raised again for our justification.” It was the evidence that His atoning work was complete; for death could no longer hold Him. It is the abiding proof that His offering on our behalf was accepted by God.
(3) But, once more, it is by this means that the Holy Ghost convinces us of the righteousness that is to be wrought in believers. From His throne in heaven our risen and glorified Redeemer dispenses the blessings of His kingdom, the pardon of sin, acceptance with God, and access into the holiest of all; and that which is the seal of all present blessings, the earnest and pledge of those which are to come, the Holy Ghost Himself, who applies all the blessings which God bestows.
Let us ask, in conclusion, what practical bearing these truths have upon ourselves. And first let us ask
1. Has the Holy Ghost convinced us of sin by showing us the righteousness of Christ? We are sinners. That is not only undeniable: as a general rule, it is not denied. But is it admitted in its full meaning? The patriarch Job felt that there was a moment in his experience in which he came to know God as he had never known Him before. “I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth Thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes” (Job_42:5-6). So it is with us.
2. But this is not all. Supposing that such a conviction of sin has been produced, let us ask again, has the Convincer of sin driven us to lay hold of the justifying righteousness of Christ? It is not enough to have a guilty conscience, and to know the deep and dark enormity of our past and our present. Judas was, in some sense, convinced of sin, but he went and hanged himself.
3. Instead of answering that question, let us for a moment consider another, which implies the answer to the former. Are we through Christ new creatures in heart and life? This is the grand proof of our being in a state of grace, of our having the good hope of being saved. (W. R. Clark, M. A.)
