cially on the day of Pentecost. From tliat day began an enor- mous extension of His influence and operation on human na- ture : an influence so much wider than it ever was before, that He is said to have " come."
Lightfoot remarks that " the Holy Spirit had absented Him- Self from the Jewish nation for four hundred years ! " Hence the phrase " come " had a special significance.
[He will reprove. ..judgment.^ This sentence is perhaps one of the most ditficult in the whole of St. John's Gospel. Men will probably never agree about it entirely till the Lord comes. There is something in it which seems to baffle all interpreters.
The commonest explanation is that which regards the pas- sage as describing the ordinary operations of the Holy Ghost in saving God's people. It is He who convinces people that they are sinners ; convinces them that they must be saved by Christ's righteousness, and not their own ; and convinces them that there is a judgment to come. This interpretation is the one adopted by Alford" and many others. — No doubt it contains truth, but it is not at all clear to me that it is the truth of the passage. It is open, in short, to grave objections, and, in com- mon with some commentators, I cannot feel satisfied with it. For popular addresses this view may do pretty well. But, I venture to think, no man who sits down and calmly weighs the meaning of words, can fail to see that it is open to very serious objections.
Inward conviction is certainly not the meaning of the word rendered " reprove." It is rather refutation by proofs, con- victing by unanswerable argument as an advocate, that is meant.
Believers and God's people are not said to be the subjects of the Spirit's reproving work. It is the "world" that is to be reproved ; and this very world, in this last sermon, is continu- ally put in contrast with Christ's people.
Add to all this, that the latter part of the ninth, tenth, and eleventh verses can hardly be said to suit and square in with the verse we are considering. If our Lord had simply said, " The Spirit shall convince your hearers of their own sins, of my imputed righteousness, and of a day of judgment," it would have been plain enough. But unfortunately there are several things added which really do not chime in with this mode of interpretation. I repeat, that no intelligent Christian, of course, will think of denying that conviction of sin is a spe- cial and saving work of the Holy Ghost on the hearts of be- lievers. But it does not therefore follow that it is the thing taught in this passage. It is truth, but not the truth of the text.
I believe the meaning to be something of this kind. — " After