John 16:3-5 - Where are you going?

16:3,4a

So why would the Jews, or any later persecutors, do these things? It is because they have not known the Father nor the Son. It takes the Holy Spirit to change a man or woman’s heart, to open their eyes to the truth. Jesus told the disciples so that when these things happened they would remember that Jesus had warned them that these things would happen. We need to take on board the full teaching of Jesus. 

16:4b,5

While Jesus was with the disciples He had protected them from the attacks of the religious leaders. Moreover, the disciples were in their early days of following Jesus and had not received the Holy Spirit. Their understanding was also strictly limited. But now Jesus was going to return to the Father (to Him who sent me). So the resurrection would happen soon, they would see the risen Christ, and they would receive the Holy Spirit. They would be in a very different situation. Perhaps most importantly, they would then be a key element in God’s plans.

“And none of you asks me “where are you going?” At a superficial level it looks as though Jesus has got this wrong, for John 13:36 and 14:5 seem to clearly show that Peter and then Thomas had asked where Jesus was going. Many schemes have been proposed to overcome this “difficulty”. However, Carson proposes what seems a more sensible solution, The “difficulty” only exists if we take the words in a very literalistic sense. When Peter and Thomas had inquired about where Jesus was going that wasn’t what they were really interested in, they were just concerned about the fact that Jesus was leaving them. That was the state of all the disciples.