John 16:4

"These things have I told you, that when the time shall come, ye may remember them." "So, judging from these words, deem the rest also trustworthy. For ye will not be able to say, that I flatteringly told you only those things which would please you, nor that the words were words of deceit; for one who intended to deceive, would not have told you beforehand of matters likely to turn you away. I have therefore told you before, that these things might not fall upon you unexpectedly, and trouble you; and for another reason besides, that ye might not say, that I did not foreknow that these things would be. Remember then that I have told you." And indeed the heathen always covered their persecutions of them by a pretense of their wickedness, driving them out as corrupters; but this did not trouble the disciples who had heard beforehand, and knew for what they suffered. The cause of what took place was sufficient to rouse their courage. Therefore He everywhere handleth this, saying, "they have not known Me"; and, "for My sake they shall do it"; and, "for My Name's sake, and for the Father's sake"; and, "I suffered first"; and, "from no just cause they dare these things."

"And these things," saith He, "I told you not at the beginning." Why did He not tell them at the beginning? That none might say that He spake guessing from the ordinary course of events. And why did He enter on a matter of such unpleasantness? "I knew these things," He saith, "from the beginning, and spake not of them; not because I did not know them, but because I was with you." And this again was spoken after a human manner, as though He had said, "Because ye were in safety, and it was in your power to question Me when ye would, and all the storm blew upon Me, and it was superfluous to tell you these things at the beginning." "But did He not tell them this? Did He not call the twelve, and say unto them, 'Ye shall be brought before governors and kings for My sake,' and, 'they shall scourge you in the synagogues'? (Matt. x. 18, Matt. x. 17). How then saith He, 'I told you not at the beginning'?" Because He had proclaimed before the scourgings and bringing before princes, still not that their death should appear so desirable that the action should even be deemed a service to God. For this too more than anything was suited to terrify them, that they were to be judged as impious and corrupters. This too may be said, that in that place He spake of what they should suffer from the Gentiles, but here He hath added in a stronger way the acts of the Jews also, and told them that it was at their doors.

"These things," therefore, He says, "have I told you, that, when their time shall come, ye may remember that I told you of them." These things, I say, I have told you, not merely because ye shall have to endure such things, but because, when the Comforter is come, He shall bear witness of me, that ye may not keep them back through fear, and by whom ye yourselves shall also be enabled to bear witness. "And these things I said not unto you at the beginning, because I was with you," and I myself was your comfort through my bodily presence exhibited to your human senses, and which, as infants, ye were able to comprehend.

(Tr. xciii) And He mentions these things beforehand, because trials, however soon to pass away, when they come upon men unprepared for them, are very overwhelming: But these things have I told you, that when the hour shall come, ye may remember that I told you of them: the hour, the hour of darkness, the hour of night. But the night of the Jews was not allowed to mix with or darken the day of the Christians. (Tr. xciv. 1) In the other three Evangelists these predictions occur before the supper; John gives them after. Still if they relate them as given very near His Passion, that is enough to explain His saying, These things I said not unto you at the beginning. Matthew however relates these prophecies as given long before His Passion, on the occasion of His choosing the twelve. How do we reconcile this with our Lord's words? By supposing them to apply to the promise of the Holy Spirit, and the testimony He would give amidst their suffering. This was what He had not told them at the beginning, and that because He was with them, and His presence was a sufficient consolation. But as He was about to depart, it was meet that He should tell them of His coming, by whom the love of God would be shed abroad in their hearts, to preach the word of God with boldness.

Such, then, is the meaning of these words: "They will put you out of the synagogues;" but have no fear of solitude: inasmuch as, when separated from their assembly, you will assemble so many in my name, that they, in very fear lest the temple, that was with them, and all the sacraments of the old law, should be deserted, will slay you: actually, in thus shedding your blood, full of the notion that they are doing God service. An illustration surely of the apostle's words, "They have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge;" when they imagine that they are doing God service in slaying His servants. Appalling mistake! Is it thus thou wouldst please God by striking down the God-pleaser; and is the living temple of God by thy blows laid level with the ground, that God's temple of stone may not be deserted? Accursed blindness! But it is in part that it has happened to Israel, that the fullness of the Gentiles might come in: in part, I say, and not totally, has it happened. For not all, but only some of the branches have been broken off, that the wild olive might be ingrafted. For just at the time when the disciples of Christ, filled with the Holy Spirit, were speaking in the tongues of all nations, and performing many divine miracles, and scattering divine utterances on every side, Christ, even though slain, was so beloved, that His disciples, when expelled from the congregations of the Jews, gathered into a congregation of their own a vast multitude of those very Jews, and had no fear of being left to solitude. Thereupon, accordingly, the others, reprobate and blind, being inflamed with wrath, and having a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge, and believing that they were doing God service, put them to death. But He, who was slain for them, gathered those together; just as He had also, before He was slain, instructed them in what was to happen, lest their minds, left ignorant and unprepared, should be cast into trouble by evils, however transient, that were unexpected and unprovided for; but rather by knowing of them beforehand, and sustaining them with patience, might be led onward to everlasting blessing. For that such was the cause of His making these announcements to them beforehand, is shown also by His words that followed: "But these things have I told you, that, when their time shall come, ye may remember that I told you of them." Their hour was an hour of darkness, a midnight hour. But the Lord commanded His loving-kindness in the daytime, and made them sing of it in the night: when the Jewish night threw no confusion of darkness into the day of the Christians, separated as it was from themselves; and when that which could slay the flesh had no power to darken their faith.