“And when He (the Holy Spirit) is come, He will reprove the world of sin…of sin because they believe not in Me.” (John 16:8, 9). It must be conceded that if unbelief is a sin, Faith is a duty. We, however, deny that Spiritual Faith is here intended. See page 119. “The Holy Spirit is here spoken of as reproving the Jewish world of sin in their treatment of the Messiah. This conviction did not, however, include conversion.”—James Griffiths.
James Wells, indeed, held the old and almost universal view that “the elect world” is here referred to “for which Christ died.” He, however, supposed the belief intended to be that kind of Faith which is the duty of all men—and understood the text to mean that the Holy Spirit will take care that the people of God shall have that Faith in God’s word which it is the duty of all men to render to God.
