Jesus had been with His disciples for three years. In His last talk with them before His arrest and crucifixion, He was telling them that He was about to leave them and return to His Father from whence He came:
John 16:16 A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again, a little while, and ye shall see me because I go to the Father.
V28 I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world: again, I leave the world, and go to the Father.
Jesus was of course God (invisible Spirit) who had taken upon Himself “sinful flesh” in order to “condemn sin in the flesh” (Romans 8:3)—or the belief that man had of being separated from his Father with a life of his own to preserve and protect, the belief that brought into manifestation this world of “flesh” with the “works of the flesh”—or every imaginable evil. Jesus came to deliver us from this world that we had brought into manifestation:
Galatians 1:4 Who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God and our Father:
That’s why He could now say to His disciples:
John 16:33 . . . be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.
But they were not of “good cheer”; on the contrary, “sorrow had filled their hearts” (John 16:6). Although at least three of them were given a glimpse into the invisible (to human eyes) realm of Spirit on the Mount of Transfiguration (Matthew 17:1-9), they wanted a Messiah that they could see and “handle” (1John 1:1), one who would improve this visible, physical realm by healing their bodies, giving them supply and delivering them from the tyranny of the Romans.
Jesus attempts to explain to them that which they are incapable of understanding just yet—that the Hebrew man Jesus has to leave this material sense realm that He (the Christ of Jesus—his true identity) might return (“come again”—John 14:28) as the Life-giving (“quickening”) Spirit (the Holy Spirit; the Comforter who would provide guidance from within) in each of them.
1 Corinthians 15:45 And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.
He assures them that when they experience this “quickening Spirit,” their “sorrow shall be turned into joy” (John 16:20).
Then Jesus uses this interesting analogy:
V21 A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come: but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world.
He is telling them that the Christ must be “birthed” in each of them and that though this is painful, the pain will be turned into joy when “unto us a child is born”:
Isaiah 9:6 For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.
The “birthing” is painful because this material realm of the five senses is all we have known and have become attached to, thinking that it is reality. We are very reluctant to see it as what it is—a world of “appearance” that is “temporal” (2Corinthians 4:18), “even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away” (James 4:14). We won’t let go of this Hebrew man Jesus. We want Him to return on a horse in the sky and set up a material kingdom in the material city of Jerusalem from which He reigns as King of a material universe. We want the “kingdom of Heaven” that He said was within each of us and that He “came down from” and was already “in” (John 3:13) to be a geographical location in the sky somewhere with streets of gold and mansions. We want this material, corruptible body to be “resurrected” somehow and be reunited with all the other material bodies of our loved ones so that we can continue to relate to them for an eternity just as we do now, but without pain.
We want God’s power to make this matter realm more bearable and agreeable. We want the Christ to act on our world from without rather than have Him birthed in each of us and live from within. But we must understand that we have been “delivered from the power of darkness” and “translated into the kingdom of his dear Son” (Colossians 1:13) which is an invisible realm of Spirit that is the original creation of Genesis 1, a creation of harmony and perfection where there is but one Spirit and one body of which Christ is the head and we are all individualized members of that one body. Every member is in the image and likeness of God (Genesis 1:26), and we are all one with our Father and with one another—as Jesus prayed we would know in John 17. It is a kingdom comprised of righteousness, peace and joy (Romans 14:17) “in the Holy Ghost”—it is a realm of invisible Spirit.
Jesus had previously used this “birth” analogy when telling Nicodemus that he must be “born again” to enter the kingdom of heaven (John 3:3ff), or be “born of the Spirit” into a realm that is not accessed by the five senses. It is a kingdom that is “not of this world” (John 18:36). But even after being “born again” into this kingdom, we remain (for a season) “in” “this world” in a “mortal” body for the purpose of bringing light into the darkness, for the purpose of “travailing in birth again” (as Paul did—Galatians 4:19) until “Christ be formed” in others as He has been “birthed” in us.
Jesus’ disciples were “endued with power from on high” (Luke 24:49) when Jesus did in fact return as that “quickening Spirit” on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2) and they were “born again of that Spirit.” We must have this same experience; then (as for Jesus and for them) “this world” that we are “in” is no longer our reality. We are now looking into the “unseen” or invisible realm of Spirit where there is neither sickness nor death. And in the conscious recognition that there are no “sick” and “dead” we are able to “heal the sick” and “raise the dead” as they did and as Jesus said we would (John 14:12; Mark 16:17-18).
More importantly, we are able to realize that we are one with our Father and with one another, the only realization that enables us to fulfill all Scripture by loving God and one another (Matthew 22:36-40). I can now see both myself and my brother as we are in reality (made in God’s image and likeness), not as we appear to be. By taking His Hebrew “flesh” (along with all our human “flesh”) to the death of the cross, Jesus “consecrated for us” “a new and living way” “through the veil” of “flesh” (Hebrews 10:20) so that we are now able to see beyond that “veil” into the reality of Spirit being. We can at last see ourselves and our brothers as Peter saw the “Son of man” Jesus:
Matthew 16:16 . . . Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.
We can see that we are all “sons” of the living God whose true identity is the Christ, as it was the true identity of the Hebrew man Jesus.
These “sons” have just been hidden from our human view by this “veil” of “flesh” which has no reality. It is merely the “evil” that we have manifested as we have all been attempting to get for ourselves what has already been freely given to us by our Father in heaven whose “good pleasure” it is to give us the kingdom (Luke 12:32).
It takes some “travail” for us to receive this “kingdom” offered to us by our Father. It means ceasing to see ourselves as victims, ceasing to view our “problems” as realities. It means that we must forgive our own ignorance and that of our brothers, for truly we have not known what we were doing. We can no longer hold grudges, seek revenge or condemn ourselves or others. It means that we
John 7:24 Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment.
We understand that everyone was “judged righteous” when Jesus was made
2 Corinthians 5:21 . . . .to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.
So there is nothing to condemn.
Romans 8:1There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
We know that everyone is “in Christ Jesus” even though they may not as yet have been “born again” into that knowledge. They may be as the prodigal, still wandering in this world of appearances, attempting to find satisfaction in that world. But we know that they will eventually “come to themselves” and return to the Father from whence they came, just as we have done. When we “walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit,” we will know them only “after the Spirit” (as the Spirit being that they are in reality), as Paul admonished:
2 Corinthians 5:14 For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: 15 And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again.16 Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh: yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more.
Yes, in this final discourse of Jesus before leaving this realm of “flesh,” He is telling us that we must no longer know either Him or one another “after the flesh”—that our entrance into the “kingdom of heaven” is dependent upon our willingness to let go of this material “flesh” realm and have the invisible Spirit realm of the original creation become our only reality.
When the Christ has been “birthed” in us, we can say with Paul:
Galatians 2:20 I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.
And we can now understand what Jesus goes on to say to His disciples:
John 16:22 And ye now therefore have sorrow: but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you. 23 And in that day ye shall ask me nothing. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you. 24 Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full.
Our heart is now rejoicing with a joy that cannot be taken from us because we have ceased from our own works and have entered His rest (Hebrews 4:10). We know that we are one with the Christ and that He is living our life. We have the same relationship with our Father that Jesus had; for now we know, as Jesus did, that we are one (John 10:30). I don’t ask the Hebrew man Jesus for anything. I rather come in His “name” to my Father, asking for “whatsoever” is needed (John 14:13; Mark 11:23-24), knowing that He will give it to me, that He has already given to me all that He is and has (1Corinthians 3:21-22; Luke 15:31) when He gave Himself to be me—the Christ living as me.
To ask “in the name of Jesus” is not to tack His name onto the end of our prayer. It is rather knowing, as Jesus did, that my Father always hears me (John 11:42), that He knows what I have need of even before I ask (Matthew 6:8) and that He has already answered even before I pray (Isaiah 65:24). I just become conscious of what is true in the invisible Spirit realm, and then it is manifested in “this world” of matter—whether it be wine, loaves and fishes, tax money, muscles that enable a man “lame from his mother’s womb” to stand and walk and leap (Acts 3:1-9) or once again manifesting the “life” that had departed from the physical body 4 days before, a body that was now “corrupted” and stinking (John 11).
But the human, carnal mind of “flesh” doesn’t easily enter this rest. It wants to think that it can do something to get from God “out there” whatever is needed. It wants to pray long prayers, to fast and pray “hard,” or get a great number of people to pray so that God will hear and answer. It is not content to just be still and listen to the still small voice of the Christ inside, following any instructions given, letting the Christ perform that which is given us to do (Job 23:14). This is difficult because we are still hanging on to the material sense realm, thinking that God is going to change something evil into something good in this realm rather than realizing that there is no evil, just a picture of darkness that is dissolved by the light of God’s Presence as we consciously recognize that the Spirit realm of harmony and perfection is the only reality. It is the realm where “all things have been put under the feet” of the Christ that is living us, the only realm where we will experience the abundant life that Jesus said He came to give us.
As long as our “citizenship” is in this world we will have “tribulation.” But we are invited by Jesus to have our citizenship in “heaven” where our total dependency is upon the Christ within.
That’s why the final words of this discourse of Jesus are:
John 16:33 These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.