John Calvin 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 still many things to say to you. Christ’s discourse did not have enough influence over His disciples to prevent their ignorance from still keeping them perplexed about many things. Moreover, they scarcely obtained a slight taste of those things that should have given them full satisfaction, if not for the obstruction arising from the weakness of the flesh.

Therefore, it was inevitable that the consciousness of their poverty would oppress them with fear and anxiety. But Christ meets this with the consolation that, when they have received the Spirit, they will be new men, and altogether different from what they were before.

But you are not able to bear them now. When He says that if He were to tell them anything more, or anything loftier, they would not be able to bear it, His object is to encourage them with the hope of better progress, so that they may not lose courage. For the grace He was to bestow on them should not be estimated by their present feelings, since they were at such a great distance from heaven.

In short, He bids them be cheerful and courageous, whatever their present weakness may be. But as there was nothing else but doctrine on which they could rely, Christ reminds them that He had accommodated it to their capacity, yet in such a way as to lead them to expect that they would soon afterwards obtain loftier and more abundant instruction. It is as if He had said, “If what you have heard from Me is not yet sufficient to confirm you, be patient for a little while; for before long, having enjoyed the teaching of the Spirit, you will need nothing more; He will remove all the ignorance that now remains in you.”

Now a question arises: what were those things which the apostles were not yet able to learn? The Papists, in order to put forward their inventions as the oracles of God, wickedly abuse this passage. They tell us, “Christ promised to the apostles new revelations; and, therefore, we must not abide solely by Scripture, for something beyond Scripture is here promised by Him to His followers.”

In the first place, if they choose to consult Augustine, the solution will be easily obtained. His words are: “Since Christ is silent, which of us will say that it was this or that? Or, if he ventures to say so, how will he prove it? Who is so rash and insolent, even if he says what is true, as to affirm, without any Divine testimony, that those are the things which the Lord at that time did not choose to say?”

But we have a surer way of refuting them, taken from Christ’s own words, which follow.