John 8:21

SEEKING IN VAIN

‘We shall seek Me, and shall die in your sins.’

John 8:21

This verse contains a thought so deep that we cannot fathom it. We learn that it is possible to seek Christ in vain. Our Lord says to the unbelieving Jews, ‘Ye shall seek Me, and shall die in your sins.’ He meant, by these words, that the Jews would one day seek Him in vain. The lesson is a very painful one. That such a Saviour as the Lord Jesus, so full of love, so willing to save, should ever be sought ‘in vain,’ is a sorrowful thought. Yet so it is!

I. A man may have many religious feelings about Christ, without any saving religion.—Sickness, sudden affliction, the fear of death, the failure of usual sources of comfort—all these causes may draw out of a man a good deal of ‘religiousness.’ Under the immediate pressure of these he may say his prayers fervently, exhibit strong spiritual feelings, and profess for a season to ‘seek Christ,’ and be a different man. And yet all this time his heart may never be touched at all! Take away the peculiar circumstances that affected him, and he may possibly return at once to his old ways. He sought Christ ‘in vain,’ because he sought Him from false motives, and not with his whole heart. Unhappily this is not all.

II. There is such a thing as a settled habit of resisting light and knowledge, until we seek Christ ‘in vain.’ Scripture and experience alike prove that men may reject God until God rejects them, and will not hear their prayer. They may go on stifling their convictions, quenching the light of conscience, fighting against their own better knowledge, until God is provoked to give them over, and let them alone. Such cases may not be common; but they are possible, and they are sometimes seen.

III. There is no safety but in seeking Christ while He may be found, and calling on Him while He is near—seeking Him with a true heart, and calling on Him with an honest spirit. Such seeking, we may be very sure, is never in vain. It will never be recorded of such seekers, that they ‘died in their sins.’ He that really comes to Christ shall never be ‘cast out.’

Illustration

‘It is worthy of remark that our Lord’s words, “Ye shall seek Me,” and “Whither I go ye cannot come,” are used three times in this Gospel—twice to the unbelieving Jews, here and John 7:34, and once to the disciples, John 13:33. But the careful reader will observe that in the two first instances the expression is coupled with, “Ye shall not find Me,” and “Ye shall die in your sins.” In the last, it evidently means the temporary separation between Christ and His disciples which would be caused by His Ascension. Melancthon observes that nothing seems to bring on men such dreadful guilt and punishment as neglect of the Gospel. The Jews had Christ among them and would not believe, and so when afterwards they sought they could not find. Rollock observes that the “seeking” which our Lord here foretells was like that of Esau, when he sought too late for the lost birthright.’