NOTES for Joh 16:2-13
The idea that the Lord has His own pedagogical principles, incomprehensible to us, was thought up long ago and not by us. The famous words spoken by God through the prophet Isaiah are exactly about this: "My thoughts are not your thoughts" (Isa. 55:8). He, the ruler of time, has His own time for everything. He knows exactly when His disciples should learn and understand something.
At times His words can appear to contradict one another: "I did not come to bring peace, but a sword" (Matt. 10:34) and "I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world" (John 12:46). But what we try to perceive from our point of view may be something entirely different for God. And therefore He, one may say, cares for us tenderly, watches over us, and waits for the moment when it will be best for us to hear His word, so that we can receive it (see John 16:12).
But it often happens that Christ's words are given to us "in advance," for the future. The Lord knows that we cannot understand everything right away, but all the same He generously shares His Word with us: His life. And it does not matter to Him that it will take us a great deal of time for the meaning of what He said to reach us, first the mind, then the heart. He still speaks to us, so that later on this soil the Holy Spirit will grow something new (see John 16:13).