Why Christ says ‘Have confidence, I have overcome the world’
When Christ tells the Apostles, 'Have confidence, I have overcome the world,' He speaks not of future victory but of a battle already won.
When Christ tells the Apostles, ‘Have confidence, I have overcome the world,’ He speaks not of future victory but of a battle already won.
Editor’s Notes
On the Fifth Sunday after Easter, the Church returns to John 16—which she had been reading on the Third Sunday. For more context on this passage, see here.
In this part, Fr. Coleridge tells us…
How Christ prepares the Apostles for being without him, by revealing His union with the Father.
That true peace comes not from avoiding suffering in this world, but from trusting in His victory.
Why Christ speaks as if the world is already overcome before the Apostles are sent out.
He shows us that confidence in His triumph is the key to peace amid the world’s distress.
For more context on this episode, see here.
Parting Words
Passiontide, Part III, Chapter VI
Chapter VI
St. John xvi. 16-33, Story of the Gospels, § 156
Burns and Oates, London, 1886
Why the Church reads the Last Supper discourses in Eastertide
What is the difference between prayer before and after the Cross?
How does the power of the Apostles’ prayer continue in the Church?
How Christ’s plain words before the Cross reveal his love for the Apostles
Why Christ says ‘Have confidence, I have overcome the world’
Prediction of the immediate future
‘Jesus answered them, Do you now believe? Behold the hour cometh and it is now come, that you shall be scattered every man to his own, and shall leave Me alone, and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with Me. These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you shall have distress, but have confidence, I have overcome the world.’
The words which our Lord now addressed to the disciples about their being scattered and fleeing every man to his own, are repeated again by Him after a short interval, when He had already gone forth from the Cenacle, at the beginning of the first part of the actual Passion, before the Agony in the Garden.
It may seem to us strange that He should not have uttered them earlier. But that He did not do so is another proof of His tender consideration for them, as they could not flee and leave Him without some apparent desertion of Him on their parts, and He was anxious to spare them as far as possible any subject of self-reproach, or anything that might disturb them. But it is clear, from what He now says, that He saw that the mention of His being left alone by them, considering all that He then added, was not calculated to disturb them too greatly.
The remark with which He answered their protestation of faith in Him may be taken either as an affirmation or as a question, You now believe, or Do you now believe? In either case it has the same force as a gentle protest against their profession of faith, which was so soon to be liable to question. In truth, our Lord does not seem to mean that their profession of faith was not genuine, but He spoke to them a gentle warning not to trust too much to their feelings of personal affection and devotion, which might not stand all the strain which might be put on them to bear.
‘Do you now believe? Behold the hour cometh and it is now come, that you shall be scattered every man to his own, and shall leave Me alone, and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with Me.’
Dispersion of the Apostles
The words which He added will be considered afterwards. The scattering of the Apostles every man to his own, seems simply to be their dispersion one by one, which actually happened, although they may have come together in small separate parties before any long interval, for our Lord, by His words to the armed band which was sent to arrest Him, secured them from all pursuit or molestation.
They were allowed to depart as seemed good to each, and they had no natural centre of union apart from our Lord. We know that ere long St. Peter and St. John found themselves together in the house of the High Priest. The prominent fact about them was their dispersion and abandonment of our Lord, which probably had been already accomplished before they had had time to think.
A common panic seized them, and in a moment they were scattered according to our Lord’s prediction, and found themselves free and without danger, unless it were such as they exposed themselves to of their own accord.
Our Lord went on to add a few words on which we are now to comment. He says first of all that He was not to be truly left alone, even after their desertion, because the Father is with Me.
The words seem to imply both what was obviously true, that He never could be separated from the Father, and also that when He was to be left alone by men on whom He might have reckoned not to forsake Him, and also that the Father would be present with Him in some special way of consolation, and companionship, and support of the Sacred Humanity, such as that which was withdrawn for a season when He said, ‘My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?’
But how did he prepare his Apostles for that time of their failure, as well as his departure—both in the Passion, and after the Ascension?
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