Sin, Righteousness and Judgment

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL OF JOHN

SIN, RIGHTEOUSNESS AND JUDGMENT

John 16:5-11

5 "Now I am going to him who sent me, yet none of you asks me, 'Where are you going?' 6 Because I have said these things, you are filled with grief. 7 But I tell you the truth: It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. 8 When he comes, he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment: 9 in regard to sin, because men do not believe in me; 10 in regard to righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; 11 and in regard to judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned.

NIV

Guilt, righteousness and judgment are the three actions the Holy Spirit will accomplish in this world. Of course we know now what the disciples did not know then. Jesus ascended into heaven and sent the Spirit into the world to do all this. All of us who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ felt at one time the conviction of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Not a single one of us was born convicted but rather born with a deceitfully wicked heart, and at some point in our lives we have to repent of our sin, turn from our wicked ways and accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior. It is simply impossible to become a believer any other way. We cannot evolve from wickedness to righteousness, we cannot always have been a believer, and we must have experienced the conviction of the Holy Spirit. He will also convict us of righteousness, which is he will give us the incentive to live in accordance to God’s way rather than our own. Just because we are believers does not automatically mean we are perfect human beings and that we always do the right thing all the time. So the Holy Spirit will convict us of the right way to behave as believers. When we fail, we will know in our heart we have failed, we will not be deceived by Satan into thinking we are alright when we are not. We will know deep within our spirit that our actions, reactions, responses, feelings, thoughts, are not righteous and we will seek the forgiveness of God. The Holy Spirit will also convict with Judgment. It would seem that Satan has already been judged and condemned, so why would anyone in their right mind decide to align themselves with him? Perhaps it is only us believers who understand the conviction of the Spirit in regard to judgment. Those who are now in the world of the prince of this world seem to care less about judgment from the Spirit. It would seem the deception is complete and they are mindless robots, puppets or drones completely in the control of the prince of this world. They spew hatred toward God, toward being born again. Some even accuse us of being weak minded, but it is them who have yielded their so called strong mind to the prince of this world. They are the weak minded, and will be judged accordingly, but we believers are the strong minded people of God, who once had yielded up our minds to the Satan, but listened to the conviction of the Holy Spirit and fought back, stood up against Satan and said, "No more", we are finished being your puppet, we are listening to God instead of you. We should be so thankful to Jesus for sending him to us. Now we truly know sin, righteousness and judgment.