“Do you finally believe?” Jesus replied.
Christ is being ironic, do you boast of full faith when trials are about to expose how empty it truly is? Persecution is the touchstone that reveals what we only imagine we possess. Yet even when faith weakens almost to nothing, something remains from which it may grow again.
AI summary
Your faith will be tested in ways you cannot foresee. You will scatter, each to his own, and leave Him alone, yet not alone, for the Father's sustaining power and ineffable consolation are with Him in that hour of pungent sorrow.
AI summary
Two things Christ here comforts his disciples with: - I. With an assurance that, though he was leaving the world, he was returning to his Father, from whom he came forth Joh 16:28-32, where we have, 1. A plain declaration of Christ's mission from the Father, and his return to him (Joh 16:28): I came forth from the Father, and am come, as you see, into the world.
Commenting on John 16:28-33