John 16:16-22

A little while and ye shall not see Me

Christ visible to loving hearts

This was a strange saying, and a stranger reason.

How should His going away be the pledge of their seeing Him again? There have already been three manifestations of our Lord, and there shall be yet a fourth--the three first ascending to the last, which shall be full, perfect, eternal. First, He has been seen by the eye, when He came in our manhood (1 Timothy 3:16; John 1:14). But this is not the manifestation promised here. That was but local, partial, transitory; this is something larger and more abiding. Again, He has also manifested Him-self to the ear. Who has not heard of Him, young and old, high and low, wise and simple? But neither is this the promised manifestation; for this, too, is an exterior revelation, made to all alike, to the good and to the evil, to those that love Him and to those that love Him not. What He here promises is something special and interior, deeper and more intimate, the peculiar gift of those who “keep His commandments.” It is a manifestation, not to the eye or to the ear, but to a sense above both hearing and sight; a spiritual sense, comprehending all powers of perception, to which all other senses are but avenues (John 14:21). And this, “because I go to the Father.” When I am ascended I will return with a presence, not local, but in and above all place; not transient, but abiding; not visible to the eye, but to the heart, by a power of spiritual intuition. Let us take an example. What does the sight of any one, as, for instance, of a friend, bestow upon us? What are its effects?

1. The first effect it produces in us is a sense of his presence. We know what his coming and going awakens. It may be we were waiting for his arrival, full of other thoughts, busy or weary, or musing, or all but forgeful. When he came we were wakened up in every pulse. Our hearts go forth to meet him.

2. Another effect wrought by the sight of a friend is a perception of his character. When Christ shows Himself by the illumination of the heart, then all we have read turns into reality. The holy Gospels rise up into a living person; they live and breath before us. Then we understand and perceive, by a spiritual appreciation, His sanctity and pureness, His lowliness and patience, His meekness and tenderness, His love and sympathy. We “taste that the Lord is gracious.” Now this is a spiritual perception which only spiritual communion can bestow. And by this communion, in a way transcending the senses of our earthly nature, He manifests His character to those who love Him. This spiritual perception of His character by love is the beginning of His likeness in us. Love likens us to each other, and above all to Him.

3. Take one more effect of sight--a consciousness of the love of a friend for us. There is something in his eye, look, and bearing, which is expressive above all words, and emphatic above all speech. When God was made Man, He put on human affections and human sympathies. He loved according to the love of kinsman and of friends. Particular affections, we know, are consistent with perfect love. The very name of “the beloved disciple” is witness enough. Out of His followers He even loves with especial love the children of the beatitudes. He loves, with a distinguishing love of friendship, those who are most like Himself. “I will love Him.” There is a love with which, as God, He loved all mankind eternally; and another deeper love, with which He loved all whom He foreknew would love Him again. But there is a deeper mystery still. The Word was made flesh, and, as Man, comes down in this world of time; He sees, one by one, those whom He foreknew made perfect in actual obedience. As, one by one, they love Him, He loves them, and shows Himself to them. (Archdeacon Manning.)

Our Lord’s two little whiles

I. THE LITTLE WHILES.

1. The little while of vision. Negatively described; rather as an anticipation of non-vision. The words of one conscious of impending death, and the quick completion of aims; but also confident of final triumph.

(1) It is a note of attention. “Let every faculty be on the alert. Do not misinterpret the signs, or be disconcerted. Your great work just now is ‘witnessing.’”

(2) A placing of His earthly manifestation in its proper light. His teaching and miracles were not to go on indefinitely, as if they were ends in themselves. They were but a small portion of avast scheme, most of which had to be carried out in the unseen world. There was to be a measure, an economy in His earthly manifestation.

2. This little while of darkness.

(1) The epithet is here applied in gracious consideration and sympathy. It is only a “little” while. Graciously curtailed, graciously interpreted. Let them not sink into despair. They are ceaselessly and diligently to “look for His appearing.”

(2) His next manifestation must needs be consummative. He will tell them then of a finished work and triumph over sin and death. Its glory will compensate for their gloom and trials. Therefore

(3) They are to look forward, not backward. This is the hopeful, watchful attitude of all true disciples. Our service will have to be completed, as it will have to be accounted for, when He appears. The Lord’s Supper is only “until I come.”

II. WHAT THEY PREPARED FOR. They are evidently related and seem to divide the entire future of Christianity in this world. They led up therefore

1. To a grander conception of Christ and His work. To many He might be lost to view; but to them He was to be as a fixed star, nay, the Sun of a new and eternal day.

2. To a spiritual vision. As they were to look through His words and works His whole manifestation,whilst He was with them, in order to perceive its inner Divine meaning; so, when He disappeared from view, they were still to contemplate Him by faith (John 15:18). Have we seen the spiritual Christ? It is He alone that is risen, that liveth evermore, and worketh mightily in them that believe. (St. John A. Frere, M. A.)

Heaven almost in sight

One should go to sleep at night as homesick passengers do, saying, “Perhaps in the morning we shall see the shore.” To us who are Christians, it is not a solemn, but a delightful thought, that perhaps nothing but the opaque, bodily eye prevents us from beholding the gate which is open just before us, and nothing but the dull ear prevents us from hearing the ringing of those bells of joy which welcome us to the heavenly land. That we are so near death is too good to be believed. (H. W.Beecher.)

What is this that He saith

Christ’s going and coming

I. THE DEEP TEACHING OF OUR LORD ABOUT THE TIMES OF DISAPPEARANCE AND OF SIGHT. The words are plain enough; the difficulty lies in the determination of the periods. It is quite clear that the first of the “little whiles” is the few hours that intervened between His speaking and the Cross, and that His death and burial began the period during which they were not to see Him. But where does the second period begin, during which they are to see Him? Is it at His resurrection or at His ascension, when the process of going “to the Father” was complete; or at Pentecost, when the Spirit, by whom He was to be made visible, was poured out. The answer is, perhaps, not to be restricted to any one of these periods; but I think if we consider that all disciples have a portion in all these great discourses, and the absence of any hint that the promised seeing of Christ was ever to terminate, and the diversity of words under which the two manners of vision are described, and, above all, the close connection of these words with those which precede, we shall come to the conclusion that the full realization of this great promise did not begin until that time when the Spirit opened the eyes of His servants, and they saw His glory. But, however we settle the minor question of chronology, the thing that we want to fasten upon for ourselves is this.

1. We all, if we will, may have a vision of Christ as close, as real, as if He stood there, visible to our senses. That is personal Christianity. Oh! how that conviction would

(1) Lift us up above temptation! “He endured as seeing Him who is invisible.” What should terrify or charm us if we saw Him? Competing glories and attractions would fade before His presence, as a dim candle dies at noon.

(2) Make all life full of a blessed companionship. Who could feel that life was dreary if that Friend was by his side?

2. And how are we to get it? Remember the connection. It is because there is a Divine Spirit to show men the things that are Christ’s, that therefore, unseen, He is visible to the eye of faith. But besides this there are conditions of discipline which must be fulfilled. If you want to see Jesus Christ

(1) Think about Him. If men in the city walk with their eyes fixed upon the gutters, what does it matter though all the glories of a sunset are dyeing the western sky? And if Christ stood beside you, if your eyes were fixed upon the trivialities of this poor present, you would see not Him.

(2) Shut out competing objects, and the dazzling cross-lights that come in and hide Him from us. There must be a “looking off unto Jesus.” If we would see, and have our hearts filled with, the calm sublimity of the solemn white wedge that lifts itself into the far off blue, we must not let our gaze stop on the busy life of the valleys or the green slopes of the lower Alps, but must lift it and keep it fixed aloft.

(3) Do His will. One act of obedience has more power to clear a man’s eyes than hours of idle contemplation; and one act of disobedience has more power to dim his eyes than anything besides. Rebellious tears blind our eyes, as Mary’s did, so that she did not know the Master, and took Him for the gardener. Submissive tears purge the eyes and wash them clean to see His face.

II. THE BEWILDERED DISCIPLES. We find in the early portion of these discourses that twice they ventured to interrupt our Lord with more or less relevant questions, but as the wonderful words flowed on, they seem to have been awed into silence; and our Lord Himself almost conplains of them that “None of you asketh Me, Whither goest Thou.” The inexhaustible truths that He had spoken seem to have gone clear over their heads, but the verbal repetition of the “little whiles” and the recurring ring of the sentence seems to have struck upon their ears. The Revised Version is probably correct in omitting the clause in our Lord’s words, “Because I go to the Father.” The disciples seem to have quoted from the clause, “Because I go to My Father and ye see Me no more.” The contradiction seems to strike them. These disciples in their bewilderment represent some very common faults which we all commit in our dealing with the Lord’s words. Note

1. How they pass by the greatest truths in order to fasten upon a smaller outstanding difficulty. They have no questions to ask about the gifts of the Spirit, the unity of Christ and His disciples, the love that lays down its life for its friends. But when He comes into the region of chronology, they are all agog to know the “when” about which He is so enigmatically speaking. Now is not that exactly like us, and does not the Christianity of this day want the hint to pay most attention to the greatest truths, and let the little difficulties fall into their subordinate place? The truth that Christ is the Son of God, who has died for our salvation--that is the heart of the gospel. And why should we make our faith in that, and our living by it contingent on the clearing up of certain external and secondary questions? And why should men be so occupied in jangling about the latter as that the towering supremacy of the former should be lost sight of. What would you think of a man in a fire who, when they brought the fire-escape to him, said, “I decline to trust myself to it until you first of all explain to me the principles of its construction; and, secondly, tell me all about who made it; ands thirdly, inform me where all the materials of which it is made came from.”

2. How they fling up the attempt to apprehend the obscurity in a very swift despair. “We cannot tell what He saith.” And we are not going to try any more. It is all cloudland and chaos altogether. Intellectual indolence, spiritual carelessness, deal so with outstanding difficulties. Although there are no gratuitous obscurities in Christ’s teaching, He said a great many things which could not possibly be understood at the time, in order that the disciples might stretch up towards what was above them, and, by stretching up, might grow. I do not think it is a good thing to break the children’s bread too small. A wise teacher will now and then blend with the utmost simplicity something that is just a little in advance of the capacity of the listener, and so encourage a little hand to stretch itself out, and the arm to grow because it is stretched. Truth is sometimes hidden in a well in order that we may have the blessing of the search, and that the truth found after the search may be more precious. The tropics with their easy luxuriant growth grow languid men, and our less smiling latitude grows strenuous ones.

3. How they have no patience to wait for time and growth to solve the difficulty. They want to know all about it now, or not at all. If they had waited for six weeks Pentecost would, as it did, explain it all. We, too, are often in a hurry. There is nothing that the ordinary mind, and often the educated mind, detests so much as uncertainty and being baffled. And in order to escape that uneasiness men are dogmatical when they should be doubtful, and positive when it would be a great deal more for the health of their souls and their listeners to say, “Well, really I do not know, and I am content to wait.” For our own difficulties, and for the difficulties of the world, there is nothing like time and patience. The mysteries that used to plague us when we were boys melted away when we grew up. And many questions which trouble me to-day, if I lay them aside, and go about my ordinary duties, and back to them to-morrow with a fresh eye and an unwearied brain, will have straightened themselves out and become clear.

So for our own sorrows, questions, pains, griefs, and for all the riddle of this painful world.

III. THE PATIENT TEACHER (John 16:19).

1. He knows all our perplexities. He had not a word of rebuke for the slowness of their apprehension. He never rebukes us either for our stupidity or for our carelessness, but has long patience with us. Yet He does give them a kind of a rebuke. “Do ye inquire among yourselves?” Inquiry “among yourselves” is folly; to ask Him is wisdom. We can do much for one another, but the deepest riddles and mysteries can only be wisely dealt with in one way. Tell Him about them.

2. Christ does not explain to the disciples the precise point that troubled them. Olivet and Pentecost were to do that; but He gives them what will tide them over the time. And so with us there is a great deal that must remain mysterious. But if we will speak plainly to Him, He will send us triumphant hope and large confidence of a coming joy that will float us over the bar and make us feel that the burden is no longer painful to carry. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)

The relation of Christ to the intellectual perplexities of His disciples

I. HE FREQUENTLY OCCASIONS THEM. He did so here, and He did so elsewhere, by His symbolical and enigmatical language. We see good reasons for this. It would serve

1. To impress them with their ignorance the first step to knowledge.

2. To stimulate their thoughts. It would break the monotony of their minds, and urge them to inquiry. Difficulties are essential to educational work. A school-book mastered becomes obsolete.

II. HE IS ALWAYS ACQUAINTED WITH THEM (John 16:19). No other teacher had such a thorough acquaintance with the unspoken thoughts which coursed through the minds of His hearers. This fact

1. Should encourage us to search the Scriptures. Our difficulties in understanding ancient authors are not known to them, nor have they the power to help us. But Christ is ready, if we ask Him to yield a satisfactory solution when we study the problems of His Word,

2. Urge us to cultivate sincerity in our thoughts. For us to profess to know things of which we am ignorant, to believe in things of which we are sceptical, is to insult His omniscience. Our prayer should be: “Teach me, O God, and know my heart,” &c.

III. HE WILL FURNISH A SATISFACTORY SOLUTION OF THEM IF DESIRED. Because desirous, He gives the disciples the explanation of John 16:20; viz

1. That His departure would involve them in great sorrow, whilst the world would be rejoicing.

2. That His return will change their sorrow into high joy. That joy

(1) Will be intensified by their previous distress (John 16:21).

(2) It will be beyond the power of man to take away. A man may take away your property, health, life, but your joy never.

(3) It will be associated with the power of obtaining all spiritual blessings from the Father. (D. Thomas D. D.)