These things have I spoken to you that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye have tribulation; but be of good courage I have overcome the world.
This is the Lord's last word to His disciples before He prays, spoken to men He has just told will scatter and leave Him alone. He names two places at once — "in me" and "in the world" — so why does He promise peace and trouble in one breath, and how can He claim victory before the cross?
Why He Speaks at All
The setting sharpens the words. He has just said every one of them will abandon Him. Then, without pausing, He goes back to comforting them.
His purpose was to lift them to a sense of their calling, as the Church of God, and so to comfort them. He keeps to that purpose, however much He may have to rebuke their slowness of heart for a time... So, at the close of the conversation, He had to tell them that the hour was near. Every one of them would go to his own home and leave Him alone. Yet His love towards them never paused for a moment. He picks up His own thoughts again at once.
Two Grounds
The verse divides all of life into two places. One writer shows where the Lord puts them.
He said it to set them on this ground: "in me." He was out of the world, and they in it. He had left the world, so they would meet tribulation in it. His comfort was in the presence of One the world could not see, where He seemed to be alone. In Him they would have the same.
Peace That Is Already His
The peace He gives them is His own.
The Lord had said all these things so that His disciples in their turn might have peace in Him, just as He had peace in the Father. His overcoming of the world also pledged that they would have overcoming power too.
Which Tribulation He Means
Some readers tie this promise to the great crisis at the end of the age. One writer separates the two.
In a general sense, everyone who follows the Lord will meet difficulties and even "tribulation." The world is hostile to Christ. But this is a different thing from "the tribulation."
The World That Pushes, and the World That Pulls
The world attacks in more than one way, and this verse names one of them.
We can see that this is another side of the world. It is not the tempting side, the side Satan used when he hoped to overthrow the Lord... but the persecuting side. On the way to the glory we will meet much tribulation. It is the share appointed to us here. The danger is that we give way under the pressure and become unfaithful.
The other danger is the opposite one — not fearing the world but liking it.
We had no need to dread the world as an enemy, unless we felt inclined to give it a warm place in our foolish hearts. If we felt inclined to do that, then instead of overcoming the world we would be overcome by it. It would be the winner and we would be the beaten. Let us have no dread of it; and let us have no love for it either.
A Victory Announced Before the Cross
He says it in the past tense while the worst is still ahead. One writer reads the claim as reaching forward over the hours to come.
At the close of John 16, summing up His own pathway and looking over to its certain end, He says, "I have overcome the world." Just as surely as this takes in the final hours of testing, so surely does "I have glorified You on the earth" look on to and include His death, where His journey on the earth was ended.
Courage Against a Beaten Enemy
Because the victory is already won, the call to take heart makes sense.
Yet He calls them to courage. They know the One they have believed, His glory and His grace, and He has overcome the world. What encouragement, that the enemy we have to overcome is already beaten! He overcame alone. We look to Him, and He gives power for everything. And this is the victory that has overcome the world, our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? (1 John 5:4-5)
Summary
- Spoken — He said this right after telling them they would all desert Him. He spoke the whole evening so that they would have peace. His love for them never broke off.
- Placed — He names two grounds: He is outside the world, they are in it. Trouble belongs to where they stand; peace belongs to where He is.
- Shared — The peace is the one He Himself held in the Father. His victory guarantees that overcoming power is theirs too.
- Tested — This tribulation is the everyday hostility of a world set against Christ. It is not the crisis at the end of the age. The world presses by persecution and pulls by attraction. So do not dread it, and do not love it.
- Won — He announces the victory as finished before the cross. So the enemy the believer faces is already beaten. Faith that Jesus is the Son of God is what overcomes.