Jesus prepares the disciples for the coming of the Holy Spirit. While He walked in this world as a human, it was His spirit alone. Once He arose into Heaven, it was possible to share His spirit with everyone who gave their allegiance to Him.
But first, He needs to plant the seed of thinking that this life isn’t worth much. This life cannot be saved; this world is doomed. He tells them these things so that they are hardened against the temptation to believe that their national identity matters. They need to clearly understand that the politics of Judaism is a trap; it’s just a way of getting them distracted. It would lead them to invest effort in saving something in this world that they imagined they once had.
They should not imagine that the synagogue and all it represents warrants their loyalty. The synagogue is all about the Talmud, the traditions of fallen men, not the Word of God. So as they devote themselves to that Word, the synagogue will reject them. Indeed, the nation will reject them and try to kill them.
The Jews will somehow imagine this is obeying God. But the real problem is that they never understood Jesus because they never understood God. They conjured up an imaginary god that bore no resemblance to the God who met with Moses on the mountain, or the God who called Abraham from Mesopotamia. It’s a god of legalism and mere human reasoning.
Jesus is telling them these things now because He is about to leave them on the earth to carry on His ministry. When that stuff starts coming true, they’ll remember that He told them. He didn’t tell them about this way back when He first recruited them because He was the embodiment of the Holy Spirit they would soon inherit. It was a time to celebrate the joy of the Lord’s Presence on the earth, not get weighed down with how things would end some years later.
So now Jesus is just about to leave them, and it seems no one is paying attention to the most important issue of all: Where is He going? Was it merely to the grave? He has been telling them for quite some time that He must return to His Father’s throne. Their fleshly minds had no significant teaching on this, and their gut instinct in the flesh was to react with horror that He is about to die on the Cross. They didn’t see what was on the other side of that Cross.
But truly, it was in their best interest that He die. It is the only way out of this world and into Heaven. Once He’s in Heaven, He can dispatch His spirit to them as the Holy Comforter. His power will be sufficient to shake the fallen world. The Spirit will refute all the fleshly wisdom about things that really matter. The world has no proper understanding of what sin is, as witnessed by the Jews’ rejection of Jesus as Messiah. The world cannot grasp the nature of righteousness, since they plan to kill Jesus without knowing it will simply send Him Home. Human reason cannot comprehend God’s wrath, because people allow themselves to be ruled by Satan, who became Prince of this world as punishment.
Jesus could tell them so much more, but their hearts were hindered by minds filled with confusion. It was all they could do to walk with Him to the Garden of Gethsemane and face what will happen there. But when the Holy Spirit comes, He will be the voice of Jesus restored to fresh life in their souls. By His divine wisdom, they will see clearly how God works in this world and know what to expect. This Spirit will be the very character and personality of Jesus, and clearly recognizable as such.
Everything that belongs to God in His Kingdom of Heaven is the inheritance of Jesus the Son. And everything the Son can access in His co-regency with the Father will come to them via the Holy Spirit.
“They need to clearly understand that the politics of Judaism is a trap; it’s just a way of getting them distracted. It would lead them to invest effort in saving something in this world that they imagined they once had.”
And so it is in these times. So many investing too much of themselves into the wrong ideologies, beliefs or “systems”, believing that there is actually something worth investing in. Not realizing, of course, that if it is “of this world”, it is not.