John 16:8-11
8 And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment:
9 concerning sin, because they do not believe in me;
10 concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you will see me no longer;
11 concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.
The Holy Spirit is going to come and convict the world. The list that follows is really interesting as far as the relationship between these things.
Convicted of sin because they didn’t believe in Jesus.
Convicted of righteousness because Jesus is going to the Father & we won’t see him.
Convicted of judgement because satan is judged.
I get the sin part. To not believe Jesus is who He says He is denies His miracles and the testimony of the Holy Spirit and the Father on His behalf.
Satan being judged is what is about to happen when Jesus gets put up on the cross as a sacrifice for sins and then is raised back to life in 3 days. Sin’s power is death, and Adam sold humanity to Satan by his disobedience to God. By Jesus’ obedience to God, He bought humanity back from Satan, so that he would have no dominion over them.
Convicting the world in regards to Righteousness because Jesus is going to the Father is a little tricky. What do these things have to do with each other?
One perspective I’d like to propose is that it’s all about how righteousness is declared. In every way, the death of Jesus was not one that had “destination: Glory” written all over it. It was a despicable, disgraceful way of death. The scriptures even say that every man that is hung from a tree is cursed.
So here is Jesus, going to the Father, achieving and being declared as righteous as anyone could ever be since He is going to the Father, but by all standards of the day He is as opposite to righteous as can be!
As always, Jesus is flipping things on their head. He’s judging righteousness, or our poor definition and criteria and measurement of righteousness, once and for all. It’s almost like Jesus is saying, as His life has already said so many times, “You want righteousness? I’LL SHOW YOU RIGHTEOUSNESS!”