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Joh_16:23-24. Happy result of this spiritual reunion in reference to the disciples’ official relationship: illumination—granting of prayer.
ἐν ἐκείνῃ τ . ἡμ .] On the day that I shall again be seen by you (spiritually), not: “if the disciples shall spiritually have given birth in themselves to the living Christ” (De Wette); not: on the never-ending day which is to begin with Easter in their souls (Lange), to which the interpretations of Ebrard and Hengstenberg also substantially amount, comp. Brückner.
ἐμὲ οὐκ ἐρωτ . οὐδέν ] Because, that is, the enlightenment through the Paraclete will secure you so high a sufficiency of divine knowledge, that you would have no need to question me (note the emphatic ἐμέ ) about anything (as hitherto has been the case so frequently and so recently, Joh_16:19). The discourse of Peter, Act_2:14 ff., is a living testimony of this divine certainty here promised, which took the place of the want of understanding.[182] Chrysostom, Grotius, and several others, including Weizsäcker and Weiss, incorrectly take ἘΡΩΤ . to mean pray. Comp. Joh_16:19; Joh_16:30.
ἀμὴν ἀμὴν , κ . τ . λ .] The further good to be promised is introduced with emphatic asseveration in the consciousness of its great importance.
In adopting the reading ΔΏΣΕΙ ὙΜῖΝ ἘΝ Τῷ ὈΝΌΜ . ΜΟΥ (see the critical notes), we must explain: He will give it you, in virtue of my name, by its power as the determining motive (Winer, p. 362 [E. T. p. 575]), because then you have not prayed otherwise than in my name (see on Joh_14:13). The interpretation: in my stead (Weiss), yields a paradoxical idea, and has opposed to it Joh_16:24.
ἕως ἄρτι , κ . τ . λ .] Because, that is, the higher illumination was wanting to you, which belongs thereto, and which will be imparted to you through the medium of the Paraclete only after my departure. You are wanting up to this time in the spiritual ripeness and maturity of age for such praying, as the highest step of prayer that may be heard. This reason appears in harmony with the text from the reciprocal relation of ἘΝ ἘΚΕΊΝῌ Τ . ἩΜΈΡᾼ and ἝΩς ἌΡΤΙ , if we note that by ἘΜΈ ΟὐΚ ἘΡΩΤ . ΟὐΔΈΝ that very divine clearness and certainty is expressed, which is still wanting to them ἝΩς ἌΡΤΙ . The reason, therefore, is not to be determined in this wise, that Christ had not yet been glorified (Luthardt), and had accordingly not yet become to the disciples that which He was to become (Hofmann, Schriftbew. II. 2, p. 358, comp. Hengstenberg).
ἵνα ] Divinely ordained object of the ΛΉΨΕΣΘΕ .
Ἡ ΧΑΡᾺ ὙΜ ] Joh_16:22. It is to be filled up, i.e. to be complete, that nothing may be wanting to it. Comp. Joh_15:11. There is thus fulfilled in the disciples, after their reception of the Spirit through the granting of their prayers, the consolatory picture of the bearing woman in her joy after the sorrow she has surmounted. Luthardt also transposes Joh_16:23-24 into the time before the last future; but necessitated to this, he should not have referred Joh_16:16 ff. to the Parousia.
[182] Scholten’s view is a misunderstanding of an enthusiastic kind, to the effect that this saying overthrows the entire Protestant principle of Scripture.