Charles Ellicott Commentary John 16:12

"I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now." — John 16:12 (ASV)

I have yet many things to say to you.—The “many things” are defined by the next verse as things concerning which the Spirit of Truth will be their guide—that is, they are parts of the revelation that the minds of the disciples are not yet prepared to receive.

You cannot bear them now.—(). The statements are not opposed to each other. On His side, there is the readiness to impart to them as friends all things that He had heard from the Father. But revelation can only be made to the mind that can accept it; and for those who have only partly understood what He has told them, there are many things that cannot now be received.

Regarding what the “many things” were, we have only this general knowledge. They would include, doubtless, the doctrinal system of the early Church, and they would not exclude all the lessons that the Spirit of God has taught the Church in every age.

The fact that there were truths that Christ Himself could not teach is a lesson that men who profess to teach in Christ’s name have too seldom learned. St. Paul found in it a rule for his own practice. He, too, fed men with milk because they could not bear meat. (Compare to the note on 1 Corinthians 3:3.) It is true, indeed, that no one can teach who does not possess a higher knowledge than that of his pupil; but it is no less true that no one can really teach who does not take the lower ground of his pupil’s knowledge, and from that lead him to his own.

Truths that the cultured mind accepts as obvious would appear no less so to an unlearned person if they were carefully taught them. Too often the weaker brother finds a stumbling block in the very steps that should lead him to a higher truth, because he approaches them blindly, and without a guide. For the breach that exists between the higher Christian thought of our day and the faith of ordinary people, Christian teachers are in no small degree responsible, and the only means by which the chasm can be bridged is to teach Christ’s truths as He Himself taught them.