What does it mean that your sorrow will turn to joy (John 16:20)?

Thereupon the Lord, aware of their two difficulties, first notices that of the "little while," though speaking still in proverbs, or allegorically: "Verily, verily I say to you, That ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice: ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy" (20). And as a woman in travail has anguish because her hour is come, but the anguish is forgotten when a man-child is born, so would it be with them. Sorrow now, but joy afterwards; and their joy be consequent on seeing Him again. "I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man takes from you" (22). The woman's anguish is all forgotten in the joy of a son. Their sorrow would be like a passing cloud, never to return. A joy then would be theirs of which none could deprive them. Here we have the prediction. In chapter 20:20 we read of its fulfilment. Then again have we from the Lord a word about prayer. No longer would they be questioning Him, as they had hitherto done; but taught of the Spirit, they would approach the Father in prayer (Rom. 8:15; Eph. 2:18), and pray to Him in the name of Christ, which they had never done before. For atonement then, effected by the Lord's sacrifice of Himself, they could in His name present their petitions, making use of an all-prevailing plea with God, and such as no saint before the cross had ever been instructed to urge. "Verily, verily, I say to you, If ye shall ask the Father anything, He will give it you in My name." So seems the best punctuation. "Hitherto have ye asked nothing in My name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full [i.e. completed]" (23, 24).

Moreover the Lord tells His disciples how these changing events will affect them in sorrow and joy. The little while during which they will not see Him, will be a time of overwhelming grief for the disciples — a time of weeping and lamenting for one dead, whose grave was the end of all their earthly hopes. The world, indeed, would rejoice, thinking they had triumphed over One whose presence exposed the evil of their deeds. Nevertheless, when the little while is ended, their sorrow will be turned to joy.

To bring home to the hearts of the disciples these coming events, the Lord uses the illustration of the woman bringing forth her child. The sudden sorrow, the change from anguish to joy, and the birth of the child, exactly sets forth the sudden anguish which would overwhelm the disciples when the Lord has passed into death, even as it illustrates the quick change from anguish to joy, when once again they see the risen Lord as the Firstborn from the dead.

The point in the "little while" is that the Lord is not going to be lost, but as soon as God's purposes are accomplished He will come again. It is a great thing to take what is in a passage. And it was accomplished as far as resurrection went. The statement is that they would see Him again, for He was not gone and lost. The world rejoiced when He went away, as gone and done with. As far as it went, it was verified when He rose again, His disciples did rejoice greatly then; but it was not confined to that. It says, "your sorrow shall be turned into joy." And it was. In the sense of verse 16 we have seen Him. It does not say, we are sorrowing at His being lost; but they did sorrow, and it speaks of the condition of the disciples in their place. The world was delighted to get rid of Him, but He comes up again, and His disciples see Him and rejoice. We have not got into the one or the other case entirely. Christ is gone in a certain sense, and yet we have seen Him so that we are always rejoicing. The entire fulfilment will not be until Christ returns.

Nothing can be more marked than the Lord's avoidance here of introducing His death as such; and it is all the more striking because it is so prominent in chapters 1, 2, 3, 6, 8, 10, 12. Here no doubt it underlies all, and poor indeed had been the joy without His infinite sorrow on the cross. But that solemn hour is here passed over thus: "A little while, and ye behold Me not; and again, a little while, and ye shall see me. Verily, verily, I say to you, Ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice; ye shall be grieved, but your grief shall be turned into joy." This was surely true when He rose after His brief absence, as it will be fully verified when He comes for them never to part more.301 And this He illustrates by the most familiar of all figures of sorrow issuing in joy (verses 21, 22). The absence of the Lord is to the world getting rid of Him; but even now His resurrection is a joy which none takes away. What will it be when He comes to receive us to Himself?

This saying of His was dark at the moment to the disciples and therefore further explanation was given. The world was going to have its way with Him and His death was impending. It would rejoice in getting rid of Him, but for them the outlook was one of weeping and lamentation. Yet beyond death lay resurrection and His ascension to the Father. This would reverse everything. The travail of childbirth is used as an illustration, for not only does it set forth the idea of joy supervening on sorrow, but also that of new life springing up. Now their sorrow was just a reflex of His sorrow, and His was so deep and of such a nature as to be called "the travail of His soul" in Isaiah 53:11, whilst the previous verse predicts, "He shall see His seed," evidently in resurrection and in glory. They could not share His atoning sufferings yet they were dimly sharing His sorrow, though largely, without a doubt, in a selfish way. They should soon very really share His joy.

273 The Lord answers the hidden desire of the heart of His disciples, who sought in vain to solve the enigma lying in His words, and who feared to ask Him anything; but it is by shewing them first of all, the feelings that would possess their hearts, and then the true character of His coming and of His departure. Their hearts would be deeply afflicted; they were going to lose Him for whom they had left everything: hope founded upon Him was fading away. The world, on the contrary, would be quite happy to be rid of Him who troubled it by the testimony of the truth. But Jesus tells His own that He would see them again, and that their sorrow should be turned into joy, as when a woman brings forth. And in fact it was the child-birth of the new creation. Thus the joy with which they should be filled in seeing Him again would be an eternal joy - a joy that nothing could take from them.

Now the disciples had sorrow, for the cross seemed to them to rob them of all that their faith had looked for; but He would see them again, and their hearts should rejoice; and this joy no one would be able to rob them of. On that joy the shadow of death could never fall. In resurrection they would have the Lord in a way they never before had looked for Him, or thought of Him.

Now He tells them only that they would weep and lament while the world would rejoice. This of course would be at the time of their not seeing Him. “But,” He hastens to add, “your sorrow shall be turned into joy.” His illustration of the travailing of a mother in childbirth is lovely (v. 21). The pain and sorrow must come before the joy. How wonderful though that the Lord speaks here of the sorrow of His disciples, not at all of His own sorrow, which in fact was infinitely deeper than theirs. In the face of all that He knew lay before Him, He occupied Himself in tender grace on behalf of them in their sorrow. This is pure, unaffected love. He encourages them in the knowledge that the result of the travail in birth of a child is such joy that the sorrow is forgotten.

They now had sorrow in being told He would leave them. Of course that sorrow would increase greatly in their witnessing the dread experience of His crucifixion. But He would see them again in resurrection and bring great joy to their hearts such as none could ever take away (v. 22). This was true though He Himself would then leave them to return to His Father. For His seeing them implies a nearness continued throughout this dispensation of grace, by the power of the Spirit of God.

Having come out of death the Lord gives to His own a joy that the world cannot take from them (see John 15:11); and in the day of their joy, though He was absent from them, they would receive from the Father whatever they asked in the Name of the Son. This divine certainty of receiving what they asked would give them fulness of joy. While with them He had spoken to them in proverbs, but in resurrection He would declare unto them the Father's Name, bringing them into relationship and intimacy with the Father; meanwhile assuring them of the Father's love for them, because they loved Him, the Son, and because they believed that He came forth from God. The word for love here is stronger than the usual word: it is used in John 5:20, and in John 20:2. It gave the Father joy and delight that the disciples were attached to Jesus and had faith in His Son, having received His testimony, while the world refused the fact that He came from God.

But deeper things are here in view, for the resurrection of our Lord is the birth of the new creation. The beauty and pathos of it all, the Lord continues to bring out, in a simple illustration which comes home to us all, and let us mark the brevity of it. "A woman when she is in travail has sorrow, because her hour is come: but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembers no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world" (John 16:21). Thus, we may clearly see that the sepulchre of our Lord was the womb of the new creation, and His resurrection its birth. This introduces a new order where all is joy and into which sin can never come; a scene of divine illumination which shall ever be vibrant with the praises of God.

But besides this, He said to them, "I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man takes from you." The word "see" has here a very different meaning from what it has in the previous verses. It was fulfilled when He came into their midst, as in John 20, in His new, risen state. There, all was peace and joy. What a moment that must have been for His disciples! It is by resurrection that the Lord enters His glory. Well we know that He is the Centre of an accumulation of glories, but the glory here is His place in a new order of things which had its origin in eternity and is now brought to pass by His death and resurrection. He had settled the question of sin, and met every claim of the rights and majesty of God in the whole creation. He now brings into being a new creation where He Himself is everything and all things are of God. All this is based upon the glory of Redemption.