“A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again, a little while, and ye shall see me, because I go to the Father” (John 16:16).
The setting of the picture is full of pathos and tenderness.
It is the night of the betrayal. The Lord had shielded and cared for and carried His loved disciples for three years and a half. They had only half realized who He was.
How little do any of us take in adequately the thoughts of the glory of His person, the glory of His gracious stoop, the glory of His wondrous manhood as well as Godhead!
But little as they realized it He loved them just the same. He was about to leave them. Their hearts were filled with sorrow at the thought of being left, with a sort of dull apprehension as to what might happen.
What an hour it was! The Passover had been celebrated, the shadow had engaged their attention, the type had once more come before them, but how surpassingly wonderful the Person, who took the head of that festal board. He was none less than the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Creator and Sustainer of all things, the Substance, who would chase away the shadow, the Antitype who would fulfil the type. The hour, how wonderful, the “hour of darkness,” the very night of His betrayal, when all should be fulfilled in His death.
He knew it all. Little did His dull disciples realize it.
Then it was He told them, “A little while and ye shall not see Me,” referring to His death and ascension, “and again, a little while, and ye shall see Me,” referring to “the promise of the Father,” the gift of the Holy Ghost on the day of Pentecost, when in that way He would come to them.
We have “another Comforter,” and are not left orphans. “Greater is He that is in you, than He that is in the world” (1 John 4:4).
“Another Comforter”—that means they were not to lose the One they had, even Himself. We have one Comforter on high—the Lord Jesus Christ, our great High Priest, our Advocate, and “another Comforter” on earth, even the Holy Spirit of God, and in that way the Lord has come again to His own.
How cheering! How comforting! How full of wondrous meaning is this!
The Lord in John 16:16-24 discusses the fact of His coming in this way. In John 14:23 He speaks a searching word.
The ENJOYMENT of His coming is conditional. He says, “If any man love Me, he will keep My words: and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with Him” (John 14:23).
This wonderful fact of the Holy Ghost’s indwelling means very little to most Christians, not enough to any of us. We are dry and cold and lifeless. We are not “channels of blessing,” as we might be. Out of our belly does not flow “rivers of living water.”
How is this? The answer is simple. We do not love the Lord as we should. We do not love Him sufficiently to keep His words.
Ah! our rooms can testify how little we read the Scriptures and how little we pray. Our lives can testify alas! as to how little we keep “His words.”
May this search our hearts in His presence. How He will invite our confidences, and help us to clear out of our lives many things that are inconsistent with His words.
How blessed when in the power of an ungrieved Spirit we are made conscious of the Father’s love (it is always ours) and the abiding presence in our hearts by the Spirit of the Father and the Son.
May the “little while” of the Lord exercise us each one.