the whole body, in fact, of our Lord's unbelieving enemies: — ■* A day will come too late, when you will anxiously seek me, and bitterly lament your rejection of me, but too late. The day of your visitation will be past and gone, and you will not find me."
There is a great Bible truth taught here, as elsewhere, which is far too much overlooked by many,— I mean the possibility of men seeking salvation when it is too late, and crying for pardon and heaven when the door is shut forever. Men may find out their folly and be filled with remorse for their sins, and yet feel that they cannot repent. No doubt true repentance is never too late; but late repentance is seldom true. Pharaoh, King Saul, and Judas Iscariot, could all say, "I have sinned." Hell itself is truth known too late. God is unspeakably merciful, no doubt. But there is a limit even to God's mercy. He can be angry, and may be provoked to leave men alone. People should often study Prov. i. 24 — 31; Job xxvii. 9; Isai. i. 15; Jer. xi. 11; xiv. 12; Ezek. viii. 18; Hosea v. 6; Micahiii. 4; Zech. vii. 13; Matt. xxv. 11, 12.
These words very possibly received a most awful fulfilment during the siege of Jerusalem, forty years after they were spoken. So think Chrysostom, Theophylact, and Euthymius.
But they were probably found true by many of our Lord's hearers long before that time. Their eyes were opened to see their folly and sin, after our Lord had left the world.
Burgon remarks, that to this very day the Jews are in a sense seeking the Messiah, and yet not finding Him.
{Wliere I am, thither ye cannot come.'] The place our Lord speaks of here is evidently heaven. Some have thought, as Bengel, that the words, "where I am," should be translated, "where I go." But it is neither a natural nor usual sense to put on the words. Nor is it necessary. There was a sense in which the Son of God could say with perfect truth — " Where I am, thither ye cannot come." As God, he never ceased to be in heaven, even when He was fulfilling His ministry on earth during his incarnation. As God, He could truly say, "where I am," and not merely where " I was," or where " I shall be." It is like John iii. 13, where our Lord speaking to Nicodemus, calls Himself the Son of man which IS in heaven." The expression is one of the many texts proving our Lord's divinity. No mere man speaking on earth could speak of heaven as a place " where I am." Augustine strongly maintains this view.
\Ye cannot come.'] This is one of those expressions which show the impossibility of unconverted and unbelieving men going to heaven. It is a place where they " cannot come." Their own nature unfits them for it. They would not be happy if they were there. Without new hearts, without the Holy Ghost, without the blood of Christ they could not enjoy heaven. The favourite notion of some modern theologians, that all man-