John 16:12 - Exposition

Notwithstanding the abundance of the revelations which Christ had given, still, said he, I have many things yet to tell you, but ye cannot bear them now ( ἄρτι ); i.e. at this epoch of your training. Christ ( John 14:18 , etc., in a passage which he proceeds to enlarge and deepen) has already said that the coming to them of the Paraclete would be one method of his own Divine approach to them for purposes of consolation and instruction; consequently he does not now allow them to suppose that, though separated from them by death, he would ever cease to instruct them. They could not in their present condition, and before the great events should have happened—events on which so much revealing fact would turn—bear the revelation of these "many things." Pentecost will enable them to appreciate the full mystery of love. The word used for "bear" is that which is used ( John 19:17 ) to describe the bearing of the cross by Christ himself. Some have found in these "many things" new articles of doctrine which have been preserved by tradition; and others, a development of truths already presented in germ; and others, again, much of the future order of the world and the Church, such as gradually evolved itself to the vision and insight and spiritual wisdom of apostolic men. But they could not, on the eve of the Passion, have borne the full mystery of the atonement, or sufficiently have comprehended the glory of the enthroned King.