John 16:10 - Exposition

In respect of righteousness, because I go to the Father, £ and ye behold me no more . Not merely that the world will be led to form a new conception of righteousness, seeing that God has exalted him whom they have condemned as a malefactor,—that would really, with Lucke and Meyer, limit this "righteousness" to a judgment concerning the guiltlessness of Christ; nor can we, with Luther, etc., regard it as equivalent to the δικαιοσύνη of Romans 1:17 , the righteous attribute and righteous process by which God is able to treat as righteous those who believe. This is the only place in the Gospel where the word occurs, and it can scarcely bear the technical significance of the great theological discussions with which it was afterwards associated. Schaff has called attention to the vulgate translation justitia , which is represented in the Rheims English version by "justice," and reminds us how Archdeacon Hare urges that "righteousness" and "justice" correspond to the entire theology of the Protestant and Romanist Churches. The Protestant sees in "righteousness" an ideal never reached by the human will in its own strength; the Romanist, by the term "justice," embodies itself in outward acts. The idea of righteousness involves the demand for purity; the idea of justice, one for cleanness. But seeing that Christ had all along called urgent attention to the fact that that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God, and that the righteousness of his kingdom must exceed "the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees," it becomes clear that his exaltation to the right hand of the Father would exhibit God's ideal of righteousness; and by the aid of the Holy Spirit working through the word of the apostles, the world's view of these things would be utterly subverted, the world would be silenced, convicted of being utterly in the wrong in its idea of righteousness as well as in its judgment upon the nature of sin. The idea of righteousness will be expanded and transfigured; the idea of sin will be deepened and intensified and brought home. Stier has, with great eloquence and power, pressed the other view, which makes the ἐλέγχος of the Holy Ghost nothing short of this—that there is no other righteousness for men than the righteousness of God in Christ and the righteousness of Christ before God. Notice, nevertheless, the occasions on which the world was brought to recognize the triumph of Christ's righteousness and confusion of its own prejudices ( Acts 2:27 , Acts 2:31 ; Acts 3:14 ; Acts 7:52 ).