Matthew Poole and continuators on John 16:22

22 And ye now therefore have sorrow: but I will see you again , and your heart shall rejoyce, and your joy no man taketh from you .

(The whole Church, Rev. 12.1, 2. is compared to a woman with child, crying, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered); during this time of your travail, you must have sorrow. All those that will live godly in Christ Iesus, must suffer persecution. It is appointed for all men once to die. It is appointed for Gods people, (especially under some periods of time) to be dying daily, killed all the day long, as the Apostle expresseth the state of Christians in his time▪ Rom. 8 36. quoting Psal. 44.22. (which sheweth the state of the Church in the Old Testament to have been the same). But (saith our Saviour) it is but as the hour of the womans travail; it will be sharp, very sharp, but it shall be short:

For I will see you again, and then your heart shall rejoyce; which cannot be understood of Christs seeing them again after his Resurrection; for before that time, we read of few or no sufferings of the Apostles or other Disciples. It must therefore be understood, either of the visitation of his Spirit, filling their hearts with joy and peace, or the visitations of his Providence; or rather of Christs coming to the last Judgment, when all that have believed in Christ, shall see him with joy unspeakable; and then all tears shall be wiped away from their eyes, and they shall enter into the joy of their Lord, and sigh and sorrow no more, nor shall it be in the power of all their enemies, to deprive them of their joy.

Marginal references: Chap. 20.20.