kind are finally to go to heaven, cannot possibly be reconciled with this expression. Men may please themselves with thinking it is kind and loving and liberal and large-hearted to teach and believe that all men and women of all sorts will finally be found in heaven. One word of our Lord Jesus Christ's overturns the whole theory. — Heaven is a place, He says to the wicked, where " ye cannot come."
The word "ye" is emphatical, and in the Greek stands out in strong contrast to the " I " of the sentence.
35.— [Then said the Jews.. .themselves.'] The expression "Jews" here can hardly be confined to the Pharisees and rulers. It must mean at any rate those among them who heard our Lord say the words in the preceding verse. Whoever they were, they were probably not friendly to Him.
[Wliither will He go... not find Him.'] This would be more literally rendered, "Whither is this man about to go." They could put no meaning of a spiritual kind on our Lord's words.
[Will He go. ..dispersed. ..Gentiles, etc.] This would be more literally rendered, "Is He about to go to the dispersion among the Greeks, and to teach the Greeks." The Greek language, and Greek literature, and Greek philosophy, had so thoroughly leavened Asia Minor and Syria and Palestine, that the expression " Greeks " in the New Testament is often equivalent to Gentiles, and stands for any people who are not Jews. Thus Rom. ii. 9 ; x. 3—9 ; 1 Cor. x. 32 ; xii. 13. Yet it is a singular fact that this is the only passage in the New Testament where the word " Greek," standing alone and not in contradistinction to Jews, is rendered " Gentile."
The verse teaches two interesting things. One is the fact that the existence of a large number of Jews scattered all over the Gentile world was acknowledged as notorious in our Lord's time. The other is the impression that it proves to have prevailed among the Jews that a new teacher of religion might be expected to go to the Jews scattered among the Gentiles, and, beginning with them, proceed to teach the Gentiles. This is in fact precisely what the Apostle Paul and his companions afterwards did. They did "go to the dispersed among the Gentiles, and teach the Gentiics." The idea started here of " teaching the Gentiles " was probably the suggestion of those who hated our Lord. How much the Jews detested the opening of the door of salvation to the Gentiles, we know from the Acts of the Apostles.
Some, as Chrysostom, Theophylact, Hengstenberg, and many others, think that the words "dispersed among tiie Gentiles" mean the Gentiles themselves dispersed and scattered all over the world, and not the Jews. But our own version seems far more likely. There is an awkwardness in calling the Gentiles "the dispersion," and it is an expression nowhere else used. James calls the Jews "the twelve tribes scattered abroad." (James i. 1.)