Charles Ellicott Commentary John 16:4

"But these things have I spoken unto you, that when their hour is come, ye may remember them, how that I told you. And these things I said not unto you from the beginning, because I was with you." — John 16:4 (ASV)

But these things have I told you . . .—He recurs to the thought of John 16:1. (John 14:29.) He strengthens them by forewarning them. When the persecution comes, they will remember His word and find in it support for their faith and evidence of His presence with them.

These things I said not unto you at the beginning, because I was with you.—While He was with them, He would spare them, and it was against Himself that the hatred of His foes was directed. When He has left them, they will represent Him and must stand in the foreground of the battle.

These words seem to be opposed to Matthew 10 and parallel passages, where our Lord told the Apostles at the time of their call of the persecutions that awaited them. (John 16:21; John 16:28.) The passages are not, however, really inconsistent, for “these things” in this verse (John 16:1) refers to the full account He has given them of the world’s hatred, the principles underlying it, and the manner in which it was to be met by the Spirit’s witness and their witness of Him. These things which the infant Church would have to meet, and meet without His bodily presence, He told them not at the beginning.