Jesus therefore said, Yet a little while I am with you, and I go to him that has sent me.
The leaders had just sent officers to arrest Jesus at the feast in Jerusalem. He did not hide, and He did not defend Himself. He answered with a time limit and a destination. His reply raises two questions the crowd could not answer: how short is the time left, and where exactly is He going?
The people argued about Him. The leaders took fright and sent armed men to seize Him. He answered by telling them how little their move mattered.
Their activity to seek to get rid of Christ was needless, for the Lord says, "I will be with you a little longer, and then I am going to Him who sent Me."
Notice the tone of the answer. There is no alarm in it, because the timing of His departure was never in their hands.
The Lord speaks with a solemn calmness. All efforts to arrest Him would fail until the appointed moment, and there was no need for them to hurry. He would be with them only a little while longer. Then He is going to His Father... here the Spirit shows us One who was fully aware of where He was going. So He spoke to all, that some might by grace believe and see God's glory in Him.
The phrase was not vague. One writer puts a date on it.
The stay of the Son of God on earth was very short. His public ministry lasted only about three and a half years. As the end drew near, He spoke of the "little while" that remained, both to His enemies and to His disciples... He spoke these words in Jerusalem, at the feast of Tabernacles. Within six months they came true. The true Passover Lamb was slain, and the Son returned to the Father who sent Him.
He names a person as His destination — the One who sent Him.
I am going to my Father, and you will see me no more. You will seek me and will not find me. You may seek me now and find me. But the day will soon come when I go to Him who sent me. I came from God, and I am going to God.
The crowd could not follow Him there.
Soon unbelief would seek Him and not find Him. What does the world know of the Father? Heaven seems to it even more dreary than the earth... Nothing is so repulsive to a sinner as the light, presence, and glory of God.
He said something similar later to His disciples. The two departures carry opposite meanings.
The Lord's present absence must be understood in two different ways: one for Israel, one for the church. For the church it is gracious. It was better for them that He went away, because through it they have received the Holy Spirit to be in them... For Israel it is judicial, and rightly so, because Israel's unbelief and sin caused it... When He left the Jews, He said, "I will be with you a little longer, and then I am going to Him who sent Me... where I am, you cannot come." But when He left His disciples, He said, "A little while and you will not see Me; and again, a little while, and you will see Me, because I go to the Father."
The refusal has a lasting cost.
Those who would not have Christ when He came to their place on earth will never be with Christ in His new place with the Father in heaven.
The phrase "where I am" starts here as a shut door. The same phrase returns later on the other side of that door.
The Lord Jesus is the fullness of God, the fountain of living waters, the "deep sweet well of love". So no darker night could ever fall on men than this: "Where I am, you cannot come". On the other hand, no prospect set before the human heart could be greater than the pure blessedness of the certain hope given in these words: "that where I am, there you may be also"!
- Sent. He does not treat His death as defeat. He goes back to the One who sent Him, on time and by appointment.
- Short. The "little while" was real. He spoke at the feast of Tabernacles, and the cross came about six months later.
- Sovereign. The arrest party was too late to matter and too early to succeed. He leaves at the appointed moment, not when they decide.
- Split. The same words divide two audiences. His leaving is judicial for those who refused Him, and gracious for His own, who receive the Spirit because He went.
- Settled. "Where I am" closes on unbelief and opens on faith. The door He shuts here is the place He later promises His own will share.
Ye shall seek me and shall not find [me], and where I am ye cannot come.
Officers come to arrest Jesus at the feast, and He answers with a departure rather than resistance. Where is the place He goes to, and why can His enemies never reach it?
The men sent to seize Him had no reason to hurry. His going would end the whole question of the Messiah.
You have no need to be in a hurry to seek Me, to get rid of Me. You will have Me a little time longer, and then it will all be over. It will no longer be a question of the Messiah. You will seek Me then, but you will not find Me. I go to My Father. There you have no access. Everything will change. It will be all over as to the Messiah. The Son, as Man, will go to sit at the Father's right hand — there you will not be able to come.
The barrier is not distance. It is that the place He is going to is the one place a sinner has no taste for.
The Lord speaks with a solemn calmness. All efforts to arrest Him would be useless until the appointed moment... Soon unbelief would seek and not find Him. What does the world know of the Father? Heaven is to it more dreary than the earth. "Where I am you cannot come" — nor would they if they could. Nothing is so repulsive to a sinner as the light, presence, and glory of God.
Refusing Him in His place on earth has a result in heaven.
The result would be terrible for the nation. Speaking of His new place with the Father, the Lord says, "Where I am you cannot come." Those who would not have Christ when He came to their place on earth will never be with Christ in His new place with the Father in heaven.
The sentence has frightened people who long for God. It was never aimed at them.
He does not mean this for the anxious seeking soul. That statement is not for the heart that loves Him. It is not for the anxious inquirer after salvation, or the seeker after grace. No — these words are meant for His implacable enemies, the foes clamouring for His blood... The fact is that He will go back to the place He came from. As He goes, He will open up the way to God. Whoever will follow Him there may do so, on the righteous grounds of accomplished redemption.
Their blindness did not stop God. What He did next reached far beyond Israel.
It was blindness indeed; and no darkness is as dense as the darkness of unbelief. But it is striking. What the unbelieving pride of the Jew thought impossible is what God has made true of Christ, exalted to His right hand. He went on high; that is certain. It is just as certain that He came and preached peace to the Gentiles far off and to those who were near (the Jews).
The phrase "where I am" cuts two ways, depending on who hears it.
The Lord Jesus is the fulness of God, the fountain of living waters, the "deep sweet well of love". So no more fearful night could fall on men than this: "Where I am you cannot come." On the other hand, no prospect opening before the human heart could exceed the unmixed blessedness of the certain hope given in these words: "that where I am you may be also"!
Later He says something very similar to His own followers, but the difference matters.
He had told the Jews that they could not come where He would be. Now He speaks in the same way to His disciples. There is of course a difference. The Jews could never come there. The disciples could not come where He went at that time, but for them it was only for a time.
- A little while. Christ sets the timetable, not the officers sent to seize Him; He leaves when He chooses, to the Father who sent Him.
- A little while refused. Rejecting Him in His place on earth is what shuts a person out of His place with the Father.
- A little while misread. Unbelief thought His going impossible; yet God exalted Him, and He preached peace to Gentiles far off and to those near.
- A little while still open. The warning is for settled enemies, not troubled seekers. He went back to God and opened the way for whoever will follow.
- A little while, then together. The same phrase that sentences unbelief — "where I am" — becomes the hope of everyone who is His.
The Jews therefore said to one another, Where is he about to go that we shall not find him? Is he about to go to the dispersion among the Greeks, and teach the Greeks?
At the feast in Jerusalem, Jesus had just said He was going where they could not follow. The Jewish leaders answer with a guess that is half sneer, half puzzle: maybe He plans to leave the land and teach Jews living abroad. Their question shows how small their thoughts were. It also came far closer to what God was about to do than they knew.
The phrase they use was a standard name for Jews living outside their own land.
The term applied to the nation of Israel as now scattered throughout the world. Esther 3:8; Jer. 25:34; Ezek. 36:19; John 7:35. James and Peter addressed their letters especially to believers among them.
In their question, "Greeks" is the ordinary word for Gentiles. They name two things: Jews living among Greeks, and then a further step — teaching those Greeks themselves.
There can be no reasonable doubt, I think, that "the dispersion of the Greeks" means the Jews dispersed among the Gentiles. Greeks are named because they are the most striking example of Gentiles. The teaching of the Greeks, or Gentiles, is another step in John 7:35.
Their guess was wrong because their thinking never rose above the earth.
He would be with His Father in heaven, not on earth — not in some distant part of the earth, as they imagined, teaching the dispersed among the Greeks. Their thoughts did not rise above the earth. They did not understand His words, because they had not grasped the truth that He was the Son of the Father.
Their confusion started further back — with where they refused to believe He came from.
The Jews, having rejected Christ as come from heaven, naturally will not believe that He is going back to heaven. They argue therefore that He must be going to the dispersed among the Gentiles to teach the Gentiles. This, however, is so foreign to their thoughts that they admit they cannot understand His words.
He had just told them He was going to the One who sent Him. They skipped straight past that.
Not a thought of God! They can think about the Gentiles, but not about God or His Christ.
The same observation is put as a general rule about how unbelief works: it will supply endless explanations, so long as none of them is the true one.
He is going where they cannot come, and never guessed (for unbelief thinks of the dispersed among the Greeks — of anything rather than of God).
Notice which people they name. To them, the far-off Gentiles were the least likely audience of all.
It is remarkable, this reference to the Greeks… these distant, despised, worthless Gentiles. The truth is, pride has no grace in it. Here they had nothing more to say. This was clearly beyond them.
Their scornful guess turned out to be true, though not as they meant it. Christ went up to God's right hand, and from there the message reached the people they dismissed.
It was blindness indeed. No darkness is as dense as the darkness of unbelief. Yet it is striking. What the unbelieving pride of the Jew thought unbelievable is what God has made true of Christ, exalted to His right hand. He went on high; and it is just as certain that He came and preached peace to the Gentiles who were far off, and peace to the Jews who were near, giving both access to the Father by one Spirit. The dispersed among the Greeks are the people Peter shows to have found in Him the object of their faith… and Paul shows just as clearly that he is teaching the Greeks.
There was a cost for the men who asked the question. What they dismissed as absurd came true, but no welcome waited for them.
No: He must be going to the dispersed among the Gentiles, to teach the Gentiles. And this was indeed going to happen, though not in the way they thought… But beyond that, in the place He had come from and was going back to, there could be no Father's welcome for those who rejected His Son.
- Dispersion. The term they used names Israel scattered among the nations. James and Peter later wrote to believers among them.
- Descent. They would not receive Him as the One who came down from heaven. So they could not imagine His going back there, and guessed at a place on earth.
- Distraction. Unbelief will take any explanation except the true one. They could think about the Gentiles, but not about God or His Christ.
- Disdain. Naming the "despised" Greeks exposed their pride, and pride has no room for grace.
- Delivered. The very thing they mocked came true. From God's right hand Christ sent the message to Jews abroad and to Greeks alike. Those who refused Him found no welcome in the place He returned to.