The Pulpit Commentary — John — Volume 1 — Section 522

Vers. 1-23.-Excluded from the destinaHon ef Jesus. In one sense Jesus WBS l'ery near to men, very closely connected with them. At the same time he was very far from them, sepa.rated in ma.ny ways. The Gospel of John abounds in indications of this felt difference and superiority. Yet there is muoh to help a.nd cheer even in words like these: "Whither I go, ye cannot come." The trnth of Jesus is the same, spoken to friends or t.o enemies, and everything Jesus said on the e.1.rth has Romething of gosjwl in it. If we are born aga.in and take shape after the new creature, then we also sha I be from above. I. THE DES'l'INATION THAT JESUS BmSELF ASSUREDLY WILL REACH, Jesus is on a definite journey, knows where he is going, and that ho will get thero. His lifo is not an aimless wandering. In all his goings backwards and forwards between Galilee and Jud:ca bis face was set towards Jerusalem, because there for him the door wns to open from the seen t.o the unseen, from the life of time to tho life of eternity. His enemies ~peak of him as if his thoughts were running in the same direction as those of Job. When Job sat among the ashes, despoiled of his property, bereaved of his children, smitten with pnin all over the body, he thought death and the grave his best friends, where the wicked would cease from troubling and the weary be at rest. But Jesus wns thinking of what he wonld attain, not what he would escape. The heavenly state, with its security, glory, and blessedness, was not an unexpected thing to Jesus. Jesus spe.a.ks as knowing for himself that the end depends on the way. Jesus knows where he is going, for he has been there already. In the autumn of 1492 three Spanish ships are making their way over the Atlantic, in waters where ship has never been known t.o pass before. Christopher Colnmbus of Genoa. commands those ships, aud he is going on an enterprise of pure faith. He believes there is a land ahead, but he has never been there. At present thonsands go over that same Atlantic, returning home. And so Jesus was going back whence he hsd come. Every step took him nearer that day when .he would pray the prayer, "Glorify thou me with thine own self, with that glory which I had with thee before the world was." II. THE DESTINATION TH.AT SOME KOST CERTAINLY WILL NOT BEACH. Most of the listeners would trouble very little about what Jesus meant. They would say," Let bim go, or let him stay; it is no great concern of ours,n But if we do really believe that Jesus has gone into a st.a.te of glory, that he individnally can no longer suffer pain, no longer be exposed to temptation, must it not be serious for us to reflect that possibly we cannot go where he has gone? Heaven is not to be earth over again. The mixtures and conflicts of the lower world are not to be known in the upper one. Good people have no monopoly of transit to any place on the face of the earth; but there is a state to which the evil cannot reach. A man may say, if he likes, that he will have a. garden without weeds, but tha.t will not keep the weeds out. But Jesus is the great and effectual Excluder. Beyond the veil there are divisions more intense and more manifest than any that obtain here. Jesus came amid the unions of time t.o make the separations of eternity. llL THE Dl!:BTDi'ATION THAT ALL MAY BEACH. Speaking of exclusion is the strange work of Jesus. Even while he said, "Ye cannot come," at the same time he said, " Come." iui7 one can come who will enter in at the strait gate and tread the narrow oa. vm. 1-60.) 'l'IIE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST, JOHk 31!0