DARK SAYINGS

Jesus returns to His familiar refrain in the upper room discourse - "these things I have spoken to you." The repeated phrase (ταυτα λελαληκα υμιν) marks the sections of His teachings (14:25; 15:11; 16:1,4,6,25,33), and John does not use the phrase elsewhere in his gospel (Morris, John, p. 656). Jesus is looking back in this section specifically to His instructions about His departure to the Father (16:16) which had confused the disciples (16:17) leading Jesus to talk about a woman experiencing childbirth (16:21) as an example of grief turned to joy.

Jesus says that He has been speaking in "figurative language" (παροιμιαις) and promises to speak later in plain language (παρρησια). John uses the word for figurative language (παροιμιαις) to mean "dark sayings" where "lofty ideas are concealed" (BAGD, p. 629). The word is sometimes synonymous with a proverb or even a parable. The LXX uses παροιμια for the title of the Book of Proverbs (Prov. 1:1). It comes from two words παρα and οιμος meaning "beside the path" to indicate a wise saying alongside a truth (NIDNTT 2:756-757).

John, however, uses παροιμια more in the sense of a dark saying or riddle (John 10:6, 16:25,33) in a similar manner to the word "mystery" (μυστηριον) in the other gospel writers. The contrast with speaking plainly (παρρησια) leads to this conclusion since proverbs were normally quite clear in meaning unlike riddles or dark sayings. Jesus has been talking about leaving them; His coming sacrifice for them; the hatred of the world, and His going to the Father. He has talked about suffering grief and loss. Surely these are dark sayings for the disciples to hear!

In what sense are these dark sayings? They are dark sayings not because Jesus was intentionally concealing information from them or because they were intellectually incomprehensible words. They were dark sayings because the teachings were emotionally unacceptable. The disciples were not ready to embrace His teachings. The darkness was in them not in Jesus (NIDNTT 2:758).

When will they understand? Jesus predicts that He will speak plainly in the future. The disciples think they understand and tell Him so (16:29), but they do not yet grasp His dark sayings. Jesus speaks plainly in His post-resurrection appearances, but it is not until after Pentecoast and the coming of the Holy Spirit that the disciples truly grasp the dark sayings of Jesus (Bernard, John, 2:519). Jesus said as much when He taught that the Holy Spirit would take His words from the Father and "disclose" them to the disciples (16:13-15).

We, too, experience the dark sayings of Jesus when we struggle emotionally to understand and accept our loss, our grief, and our suffering in this life. The deep waters threaten to overwhelm us even though we have the rest of Scripture to bolster our faith. We still need the Holy Spirit as our "Special Friend" to disclose Jesus' dark sayings to us because of the darkness that sometimes shrouds our minds.

Thank you Holy Spirit for being our teacher during the dark times of our lives