Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of John 7:33
Then said Jesus unto them, Yet a little while am I with you, and [then] I go unto him that sent me.
33. Then said Jesus ] Better, as in Joh 7:30 and often, Therefore said Jesus, i.e. in consequence of their sending to arrest Him: probably He recognised the officers waiting for an opportunity to take Him. According to the best MSS., ‘Unto them’ should be omitted: Christ’s words are addressed to the officers and those who sent them.
It is very difficult to decide on the precise meaning of Christ’s words. Perhaps the simplest interpretation is the best. ‘I must remain on earth a little while longer, and during this time ye cannot kill Me: then ye will succeed, and I shall go to My Father. Thither ye will wish to come, but ye cannot; for ye know Him not ( Joh 7:28), and such as ye cannot enter there.’ This is the first formal attempt upon His life. It reminds Him that His death is not far off, and that it will place a tremendous barrier between Him and those who compass it. It is the beginning of the end; an end that will bring a short-lived loss and eternal triumph to Him, a short-lived triumph and eternal loss to them.
unto him that sent me ] One suspects that here S. John is translating Christ’s words into plainer language than He actually used. Had He said thus clearly ‘unto Him that sent Me,’ a phrase which they elsewhere understand at once of God (see on Joh 7:30), they could scarcely have asked the questions which follow in Joh 7:35. Unless we are to suppose that they here pretend not to understand; which is unlikely, as they speak not to Him but ‘among themselves.’
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Yet a little while am I with you – It will not be long before my death. This is supposed to have been about six months before his death. This speech of Jesus is full of tenderness. They were seeking his life. He tells them that he is fully aware of it; that he will not be long with them; and implies that they should be diligent to seek him while he was yet with them. He was about to die, but they might now seek his favor and find it. When we remember that this was said to his persecutors and murderers; that it was said even while they were seeking his life, we see the special tenderness of his love. Enmity, and hate, and persecution did not prevent his offering salvation to them.
I go unto him that sent me – This is one of the intimations that he gave that he would ascend to God. Compare Joh 6:62.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 33. Yet a little while am I with you] As he knew that the Pharisees had designed to take and put him to death, and that in about six months from this time, as some conjecture, he should be crucified, he took the present opportunity of giving this information to the common people, who were best disposed towards him, that they might lay their hearts to his teaching, and profit by it, while they had the privilege of enjoying it.
The word , to them, in the beginning of this verse, is wanting in BDEGHLMS, more than eighty others, both the Syriac, later Persic, Coptic, Sahidic, Armenian, Gothic, Slavonic, Saxon, most copies of the Vulgate and the Itala. It is omitted also by Euthymius, Theophylact, Augustin, and Bede. Our Lord did not speak these words to the officers who came to apprehend him, as here implies, but to the common people, merely to show that he was not ignorant of the designs of the Pharisees, though they had not yet been able to put them into practice.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Whether Christ spake these words to the officers sent to apprehend him, or to the people in the temple, is not much material to be known: he by them plainly declareth, that all their endeavours against him were vain and foolish; for he should yet live with them six months, (this was in September or October, he died at the next passover, which was about six months after this), and then he should go and willingly lay down his life for the sins of the world, rise again from the dead, and ascend unto his Father who sent him into the world.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
33, 34. Yet a little while,c.that is, “Your desire to be rid of Me will be for you alltoo soon fulfilled. Yet a little while and we part companyfor everfor I go whither ye cannot come: nor, even when ye at length seek Himwhom ye now despise, shall ye be able to find Him”referringnot to any penitential, but to purely selfish cries in their time ofdesperation.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Then said Jesus unto them,…. To the officers that were sent to take him, and other unbelieving Jews that were about him:
yet a little while am I with you; no longer than till the next passover, which was but about half a year at most: this he might say, partly to quicken the attention of the people to him, to make the best use and improvement of his ministry whilst they had it, since in a little time he would be removed from them; and partly to suggest to the officers that were sent to take him, that they, and their masters, need not have given themselves that trouble, for in a short time he should be gone from them, and till that time he should continue in spite of them.
And [then] I go unto him that sent me; still confirming his mission from God, expressing his death by going, and as being voluntary, and signifying his glory and happiness after it.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Yet a little while ( ). Accusative of extent of time. It was only six months to the last passover of Christ’s ministry and he knew that the end was near.
I go unto him that sent me ( ). See the same words in 16:5. H, old compound (, ), has the notion of withdrawing (literally, go under). See 16:7-10 for three words for going common in John (, go for a purpose, , to go away, , to withdraw personally). H often in John of going to the Father or God (John 8:14; John 8:21; John 13:3; John 13:33; John 13:36; John 14:4; John 14:5; John 14:28; John 15:16; John 16:4; John 16:7; John 16:10; John 16:17). See 6:21. It was enigmatic language to the hearers.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
Unto them. Omit.
I go [] . I withdraw. See on 6 21.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1) ”Then said Jesus unto them,” (eipen oun ho lesous) “Then Jesus said,” to those officers who had been sent by the chief priests and Pharisees to arrest or seize Him, and aware of their plots, Joh 7:32; Joh 13:33; Joh 16:16.
2) “Yet a little while am I with you,” (eti chronon mikron meth’ humon eimi) “Yet for a little time I am with you all,” or “I will be among you only a very short time hereafter,” as His Galilean ministry had now come to a close and for a short time He would witness among them in Judea and Perea,
3) “And then I go unto him that sent me.” (kai hupago pros ton pempsanta me) “And I go to the one who sent me,” or return to the one having sent me, to His Father in heaven, from where He had comedown, Joh 3:17; Joh 14:1-3; This refers to His ascension, Act 1:8-11; 2Co 8:9.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
33. Yet a little while am I with you. Some think that this sermon was addressed to the assembly of the people who were present, and others, that it was addressed to the officers who had been sent to seize Christ. But for my own part, I have no doubt that Christ particularly addresses his enemies, who had taken counsel to destroy him; for he ridicules their efforts, because they will be utterly ineffectual, until the time decreed by the Father be come And at the same time, he reproaches them for their obstinacy, because they not only reject, but furiously oppose, the grace which is offered to them; and threatens that ere long it will be taken from them. When he says, I am with you, he rebukes their ingratitude, because, though he had been given to them by the Father, though he had come down to them from the heavenly glory, though, by calling them to be his familiar associates, he desired nothing more than to assist them, still there were few who received him. When he says, Yet a little while, he warns them that God will not long endure that his grace should be exposed to such shameful contempt. Yet he also means, that neither his life nor his death is placed at their disposal, but that his Father has fixed a time, which must be fulfilled.
I go to him who hath sent me. By these words he testifies that he will not be extinguished by his death, but, on the contrary, when he shall have laid aside his mortal body, will be declared to be the Son of God by the magnificent triumph of his resurrection; as if he had said, “Labour as much as you please, yet you will never hinder my Father from receiving me into his heavenly glory, when I have discharged the embassy which he has committed to me. Thus not only will my rank remain undiminished after my death, but a more excellent condition is then provided for me.” Besides, we ought to draw from it a general admonition; for as often as Christ calls us to the hope of salvation by the preaching of the Gospel, he is present with us. For not without reason is the preaching of the Gospel called Christ’s descent to us, where it is said,
he came and preached peace to those who were far off, and to those who were near, (Eph 2:17.)
If we accept the hand which he holds out, he will lead us to the Father; and so long as we must sojourn in the world, not only will he show himself to be near us, but will constantly dwell in us. And if we disregard his presence, he will lose nothing, but, departing from us, will leave us altogether strangers to God and to life.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(33) Then said Jesus unto them.It should rather be, Therefore said Jesus. He said this because they sent to take Him. The better MSS. omit unto them, and it is clear, from Joh. 7:35, that the words are addressed to the hierarchy generally.
Yet a little while am I with you.Their action is the first attempt to take Him by force. It brings to His mind the thought that the end is at hand. But a little while more, and the hour will have come. The manifestation of Gods love to man will then be completed in its crowning sacrifice, and when the work of His mission is completed, He will return to Him that sent Him.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
33. Then said Jesus The consciousness of Jesus that, spite of these attempts to apprehend him, his hour is not yet come, points his thought to the hour when they should be empowered to crucify him and his departure take place. There is a tender plaintiveness in his language in contrast with his previous exclamation. But his melting is less for himself than for them.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘Jesus therefore said, “Yet a little while I am with you, and I am going to him who sent me. You will seek me and you will not find me, and where I am you cannot come.” ’
Aware of the growing situation Jesus said to those who were around Him, which included a number of Judaisers, ‘I will be with you a short while. Then I will go to Him Who sent me’. Jesus knew now that His time was short. He was in no doubt about their intentions, and He was ready for it. But He knew that then He would return to His Father Who had sent Him.
‘You will look for me and will not find me, and where I am you cannot come’. Compare ‘They will seek me diligently, but they shall not find me, because they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the Lord’ (Pro 1:28-29), spoken of the wisdom of God, and ‘they will go to and fro to seek the word of the Lord, but they will not find it’ (Amo 8:12) spoken of the word of God. There is here, for those who will hear, a reminder that He has brought the wisdom and word of God. But the main thought is twofold. Firstly that they would look for Him at the feast of the Passover and be unable to find Him because He would have gone to His death, whilst it would take time for the news of His death to spread around because it would have been done surreptitiously. Then they would not be able to follow Him where He was going because He was going to His Father. His disappearance would be a triumph and not a tragedy.
But the thought is also contained that, having rejected Jesus, they would continue looking for the Messiah, but would never find Him, for because of the hardness of their hearts He would have gone where they could not come. They would have lost their opportunity. And it was somewhere that they would never go unless they believed and were saved.
He was still trying to make them think about things, but all it did was puzzle them. They could not believe that such Scriptures applied to them.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Joh 7:33-34. Yet a little while am I with you, &c. While the rulers were taking counsel against him, Jesus was preaching to the people concerning the improvement which it became them to make of his ministry among them: “Yet a little while, said our Lord, and my ministry among you is at an end; you ought therefore, while it lasts, to make the best possible improvement of it; particularly, you should listen to my sermons with great attention, that you may have your minds stored with the truths of God before I go away: for after I am gone, you shall earnestly desire my presence with you, but shall not obtain it: You shall seek me, and shall not find me.” This seeking for the Messiah was general through the nation during thecalamities in Judea occasioned by Titus and his armies, and has continued among the Jews ever since, in all the countries where they have been dispersedbut to no purpose; for their Messiah having already appeared, it is in vain to expect another. By thus predicting his own death, our Lord insinuated, that he both knew the present disposition of the council, and foresaw that they would soon put an end to his ministry by taking away his life. Indeed, some suppose that our Lord spoke these words to the officers themselves, who were sent to take him; as much as to say, “I know the design on which some of you are come; but my Father will not permit you immediately to execute it: for yet a little while longer I am to continue, &c.”Where I am, thither ye cannot come, means, “You cannot come to heaven, where I am soon to be.” The reason mentioned in the parallel passage, Ch. Joh 8:21 shews this to be our Lord’s meaning: “I go my way, and ye shall seek me, and shall die in your sins: whither I go, ye cannot come, because ye shall die in your sins:” or as it is expressed in this discourse, “because ye shall not find me, you cannot come to heaven.”
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
33 Then said Jesus unto them, Yet a little while am I with you, and then I go unto him that sent me.
Ver. 33. Yet a little while am I with you ] Christ is but a while with men in the opportunities of grace. There is a prime of man’s life, yea, a prime of every man’s ministry. Christ stands (not sits at the door) and knocks. Now, while one is standing, he is going.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
33, 34. ] The omission or insertion of makes very little difference. The words were spoken, not to the officers only, but to all the people.
. ] This appears to be said in reference to Joh 7:30 , to shew them the uselessness of their attempting to lay hands on Him till His hour was come, which it soon would be.
. . ] It has been asked, ‘If Jesus thus specified where He was going, how could the Jews ask the question in Joh 7:35 ?’ but De Wette answers well, that the Jews knew not , and therefore the saying was a dark one to them.
. , . . ] These words must not be pressed too much, as has been done by many interpreters (Chrysost., Theophyl., Euthym [114] , Meyer, Tholuck, but not in his 6th edn.), who would make them mean, ‘ Ye shall seek My help and not find it ’ (viz. in your need, at the destruction of Jerusalem); for this would not be true even of the Jews, any one of whom might have at any time turned and looked on Him whom he had pierced, by faith, and have been saved; nor again must it be taken as meaning, ‘ Ye shall seek to lay hands on Me, and shall not be able ’ (Orig [115] , Grot.), which is vapid and unmeaning. Neither of these interpretations, nor their cognates, will agree with the parallel place, ch. Joh 13:33 , where the same words are used to the disciples . The meaning is simply (as in reff.), ‘My bodily presence will be withdrawn from you; I shall be personally in a place inaccessible to you:’ see ch. Joh 13:36 .
[114] Euthymius Zigabenus, 1116
[115] Origen, b. 185, d. 254
, am; not , ‘ go ,’ which is never used in the N.T. Nor need we supply ; the present tense is used in the solemn sense of ch. Joh 1:18 , and ch. Joh 3:13 , to signify essential truth . Compare addressed to the Jews, with ., to Peter, ch. Joh 13:36 , and it will be evident that the Lord had their spiritual state in view: ‘Ye cannot, as ye are now, enter there.’
On the whole, see Luk 17:22 .
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Joh 7:33 . [ omitted by modern editors] . Seeing the servants of the Sanhedrim [ ], Jesus said to the crowd: “Yet a little while am I with you, and then I go to Him that sent me”. The “little while” is prompted by the actively hostile step taken by the Sanhedrim. The utterance was a word of warning. does not convey any sense of secrecy, as has been alleged. [It has been supposed that is a Johannine addition; chiefly because of Joh 7:35 . But this misunderstanding proves nothing; for the people never apprehended who was meant by “Him that sent Him”.]
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
John
ONE SAYING WITH TWO MEANINGS
Joh 7:33 – Joh 7:34
No greater contrast can be conceived than that between these two groups to whom such singularly similar words were addressed. The one consists of the officers, tools of the Pharisees and of the priests, who had been sent to seize Christ, and would fain have carried out their masters’ commission, but were restrained by a strange awe, inexplicable even to themselves. The other consists of the little company of His faithful, though slow, scholars, who made a great many mistakes, and sometimes all but tired out even His patience, and yet were forgiven much because they loved much. Hatred animated one group, loving sorrow the other.
Christ speaks to them both in nearly the same words, but with what a different tone, meaning, and application! To the officers the saying is an exhibition of His triumphant confidence that their malice is impotent and their arms paralysed; that when He wills He will go, not be dragged by them or any man, but go to a safe asylum, where foes can neither find nor follow. The officers do not understand what He means. They think that, bad Jew as they have always believed Him to be, He may very possibly consummate His apostasy by going over to the Gentiles altogether; but, at any rate, they feel that He is to escape their hands.
The disciples understand little more as to whither He goes, as they themselves confess a moment after; but they gather from His words His loving pity, and though the upper side of the saying seems to be menacing and full of separation, there is an under side that suggests the possibility of a reunion for them.
The words are nearly the same in both cases, but they are not absolutely identical. There are significant omissions and additions in the second form of them. ‘Little children’ is the tenderest of all the names that ever came from Christ’s lips to His disciples, and never was heard on His lips except on this one occasion, for parting words ought to be very loving words. ‘A little while I am with you,’ but He does not say, ‘And then I go to Him that sent Me.’ ‘Ye shall seek Me,’ but He does not say, ‘And shall not find Me.’ ‘As I said unto the Jews, whither I go ye cannot come, so now I say to you,’ that little word ‘now’ makes the announcement a truth for the present only. His disciples shall not seek Him in vain, but when they seek they shall find. And though for a moment they be parted from Him, it is with the prospect and the confidence of reunion. Let us, then, look at the two main thoughts here. First, the two ‘seekings,’ the seeking which is vain, and the seeking which is never vain; and the two ‘cannots,’ the inability of His enemies for evermore to come where He is, and the inability of His friends, for a little season, to come where He is.
I. The two seekings.
Let me deal just for a moment or two with each of these. In their simplest use the words of my first text merely mean this: ‘You cannot touch Me, I am passing into a safe asylum where your hands can never reach Me.’
We may generalise that for a moment, though it does not lie directly in our path, and preach the old blessed truth that no man with hostile intent seeking for Christ in His person, in His Gospel, or in His followers and friends, can ever find Him. All the antagonism that has stormed against Him and His cause and words, and His followers and lovers, has been impotent and vain. The pursuers are like dogs chasing a bird, sniffing along the ground after their prey, which all the while sits out of their reach on a bough, and carols to the sky. As in the days of His flesh, His foes could not touch His person till He chose, and vainly sought Him when it pleased Him to hide from them, so ever since, in regard to His cause, and in regard to all hearts that love Him, no weapon that is formed against them shall prosper. They shall be wrapped, when need be, in a cloud of protecting darkness, and stand safe within its shelter. Take good cheer, all you that are trying to do anything, however little, however secular it may appear to be, for the good and well-being of your fellows! All such service is a prolongation of Christ’s work, and an effluence from His, if there be any good in it at all; and it is immortal and safe, as is His. ‘Ye shall seek Me and shall not find Me.’
But then, besides that, there is another thought. It is not merely hostile seeking of Him that is hopeless vain. When the dark days came over Israel, under the growing pressure of the Roman yoke, and amidst the agonies of that last siege, and the unutterable sufferings which all but annihilated the nation, do you not think that there were many of these people who said to themselves: ‘Ah! if we had only that Jesus of Nazareth back with us for a day or two; if we had only listened to Him!’ Do you not think that before Israel dissolved in blood there were many of those who had stood hostile or alienated, who desired to see ‘one of the days of the Son of Man,’ and did not see it? They sought Him, not in anger any more; they sought Him, not in penitence, or else they would have found Him; but they sought Him simply in distress, and wishing that they could have back again what they had cared so little for when they had it.
And are there no people listening to me now, to whom these words apply?-
‘He that will not, when he may,
When he will it shall be-Nay!’
There is another kind of seeking that is vain, an intellectual seeking without the preparation of the heart. There are, no doubt, some people here to-day that would say, ‘We have been seeking the truth about religion all our lives, and we have not got to it yet.’ Well, I do not want to judge either your motives or your methods, but I know this, that there is many a man who goes on the quest for religious certainty, and looks at, if not for Jesus Christ, and is not really capable of discerning Him when he sees Him, because his eye is not single, or because his heart is full of worldliness or indifference, or because he begins with a foregone conclusion, and looks for facts to establish that; or because he will not cast down and put away evil things that rise up between him and his Master.
My brother! if you go to look for Jesus Christ with a heart full of the world, if you go to look for Him while you wish to hold on by all the habitudes and earthlinesses of your past, you will never find Him. The sensualist seeks for Him, the covetous man seeks for Him, the passionate, ill-tempered man seeks for Him; the woman plunged in frivolities, or steeped to the eyebrows in domestic cares,-these may in some feeble fashion go to look for Him and they will not find Him, because they have sought for Him with hearts overcharged with other things and filled with the affairs of this life, its trifles and its sins.
I turn for a moment to the seeking that is not vain. ‘Ye shall seek Me’ is not on Christ’s lips to any heart that loves Him, however imperfectly, a sentence of separation or an appointment of a sorrowful lot, but it is a blessed law, the law of the Christian life.
That life is all one great seeking after Christ. Love seeks the absent when removed from our sight. If we care anything about Him at all, our hearts will turn to Him as naturally as, when the winter begins to pinch, the migrating birds seek the sunny south, impelled by an instinct that they do not themselves understand.
The same law which sends loving thoughts out across the globe to seek for husband, child, or friend when absent, sets the really Christian heart seeking for the Christ, whom, having not seen, it loves, as surely as the ivy tendril feels out for a support. As surely as the roots of a mountain-ash growing on the top of a boulder feel down the side of the rock till they reach the soil; as surely as the stork follows the warmth to the sunny Mediterranean, so surely, if your heart loves Christ, will the very heart and motive of your action be the search for Him.
And if you do not seek Him, brother, as surely as He is parted from our sense you will lose Him, and He will be parted from you wholly, for there is no way by which a person who is not before our eyes may be kept near us except only by diligent effort on our part to keep thought and love and will all in contact with Him; thought meditating, love going out towards Him, will submitting. Unless there be this effort, you will lose your Master as surely as a little child in a crowd will lose his nurse and his guide, if his hand slips from out the protecting hand. The dark shadow of the earth on which you stand will slowly steal over His silvery brightness, as when the moon is eclipsed, and you will not know how you have lost Him, but only be sadly aware that your heaven is darkened. ‘Ye shall seek Me,’ is the condition of all happy communion between Christ and us.
And that seeking, dear brother, in the threefold form in which I have spoken of it-effort to keep Him in our thoughts, in our love, and over our will-is neither a seeking which starts from a sense that we do not possess Him, nor one which ends in disappointment. But we seek for Him because we already have Him in a measure, and we seek Him that we may possess Him more abundantly, and anything is possible rather than that such a search shall be vain. Men may go to created wells, and find no water, and return ashamed, and with their vessels empty, but every one who seeks for that Fountain of salvation shall draw from it with joy. It is as impossible that a heart which desires Jesus Christ shall not have Him, as it is that lungs dilated shall not fill with air, or as it is that an empty vessel put out in a rainfall shall not be replenished. He does not hide Himself, but He desires to be found. May I say that as a mother will sometimes pretend to her child to hide, that the child’s delight may be the greater in searching and in finding, so Christ has gone away from our sight in order, for one reason, that He may stimulate our desires to feel after Him! If we seek Him hid in God, we shall find Him for the joy of our hearts.
A great thinker once said that he would rather have the search after truth than the possession of truth. It was a rash word, but it pointed to the fact that there is a search which is only one shade less blessed than the possession. And if that be so in regard to any pure and high truth, it is still more so about Christ Himself. To seek for Him is joy; to find Him is joy. What can be a happier life than the life of constant pursuit after an infinitely precious object, which is ever being sought and ever being found; sought with a profound consciousness of its preciousness, found with a widening appreciation and capacity for its enjoyment? ‘Ye shall seek Me’ is a word not of evil but of good cheer; for buried in the depth of the commandment to search is the promise that we shall find.
II, Secondly, let us look briefly at these two ‘cannots.’
So, then, Christ is somewhere. When He passed from life it was not into a state only, but into a place; and He took with Him a material body, howsoever changed. He is somewhere, and there friend and enemy alike cannot enter, so long as they are compassed with ‘the earthly house of this tabernacle.’ But the incapacity is deeper than that. No sinful man can pass thither. Where has He gone? The preceding words give us the answer. ‘God shall glorify Him in Himself.’ The prospect of that assumption into the inmost glory of the divine nature directly led our Lord to think of the change it would bring about in the relation of His humble friends to Him. While for Himself He triumphs in the prospect, He cannot but turn a thought to their lonesomeness, and hence come the words of our text. He has passed into the bosom and blaze of divinity. Can I walk there, can I pass into that tremendous fiery furnace? ‘Who shall dwell with the everlasting burnings?’ ‘Ye cannot follow Me now.’ No man can go thither except Christ goes thither.
There are deep mysteries lying in that word of our Lords,-’I go to prepare a place for you.’ We know not what manner of activity on His part that definitely means. It seems as if somehow or other the presence in Heaven of our Brother in His glorified humanity was necessary in order that the golden pavement should be trodden by our feet, and that our poor, feeble manhood should live and not be shrivelled up in the blaze of that central brightness.
We know not how He prepares the place, but heaven, whatever it be, is no place for a man unless the Man, Christ Jesus, be there. He is the Revealer of God, not only for earth, but for heaven; not only for time, but for eternity. ‘No man cometh unto the Father but by Me,’ is true everywhere and always, there as here. So I suppose that, but for His presence, heaven itself would be dark, and its King invisible, and if a man could enter there he would either be blasted with unbearable flashes of brightness or grope at its noonday as the blind, because his eye was not adapted to such beams. Be that as it may, ‘the Forerunner is for us entered.’ He has gone before, because He knows the great City, ‘His own calm home, His habitation from eternity.’ He has gone before to make ready a lodging for us, in whose land He has dwelt so long, and He will meet us, who would else be bewildered like some dweller in a desert if brought to the capital, when we reach the gates, and guide our unaccustomed steps to the mansion prepared for us.
But the power to enter there, even when He is there, depends on our union with Christ by faith. When we are joined to Him, the absolute ‘cannot,’ based upon flesh, and still more upon sin, which is a radical and permanent impossibility, is changed into a relative and temporary incapacity. If we have faith in Christ, and are thereby drawing a kindred life from Him, our nature will be in process of being changed into that which is capable of bearing the brilliance of the felicities of heaven. But just as these friends of Christ, though they loved Him very truly, and understood Him a little, were a long way from being ready to follow Him, and needed the schooling of the Cross, and Olivet, and Pentecost, as well as the discipline of life and toil, before they were fully ripe for the harvest, so we, for the most part, have to pass through analogous training before we are prepared for the place which Christ has prepared for us. Certainly, so soon as a heart has trusted Christ, it is capable of entering where He is, and the real reason why the disciples could not come where He went was that they did not yet clearly know Him as the divine Sacrifice for theirs and the world’s sins, and, however much they believed in Him as Messiah, had not yet, nor could have, the knowledge on which they could found their trust in Him as their Saviour.
But, while that is true, it is also true that each advance in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Saviour will bring with it capacity to advance further into the heart of the far-off land, and to see more of the King in His beauty. So, as long as His friends were wrapped in such dark clouds of misconception and error, as long as their Christian characters were so imperfect and incomplete as they were at the time of my text being spoken, they could not go thither and follow Him. But it was a diminishing impossibility, and day by day they approximated more and more to His likeness, because they understood Him more, and trusted Him more, and loved Him more, and grew towards Him, and, therefore, day by day became more and more able to enter into that Kingdom.
Are you growing in power so to do? Is the only thing which unfits you for heaven the fact that you have a mortal body? In other respects are you fit to go into that heaven, and walk in its brightness and not be consumed? The answer to the question is found in another one-Are you joined to Jesus Christ by simple faith? The incapacity is absolute and eternal if the enmity is eternal.
State and place are determined yonder by character, and character is determined by faith. Take a bottle of some solution in which heterogeneous substances have all been melted up together, and let it stand on a shelf and gradually settle down, and its contents will settle in regular layers, the heaviest at the bottom and the lightest at the top, and stratify themselves according to gravity. And that is how the other world is arranged-stratified. When all the confusions of this present are at an end, and all the moisture is driven off, men and women will be left in layers, like drawing to like. As Peter said about Judas with equal wisdom and reticence, ‘He went to his own place.’ That is where we shall all go, to the place we are fit for.
God does not slam the door of heaven in anybody’s face; it stands wide open. But there is a mystic barrier, unseen, but most real, more repellent than cherub and flaming sword, which makes it impossible for any foot to cross that threshold except the foot of the man whose heart and nature have been made Christlike, and fitted for heaven by simple faith in Him.
Love Him and trust Him, and then your life on earth will be a blessed seeking and a blessed finding of Him whom to seek is joyous effort, whom to find is an Elysium of rest. You will walk here not parted from Him, but with your thoughts and your love, which are your truest self, going up where He is, until you drop ‘the muddy vesture of decay’ which unfits you whilst you wear it for the presence-chamber of the King, and so you will enter in and be ‘for ever with the Lord.’
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren
with. Greek meta. App-104.
I go = I withdraw. Compare Joh 6:21, Joh 6:67.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
33, 34.] The omission or insertion of makes very little difference. The words were spoken, not to the officers only, but to all the people.
. ] This appears to be said in reference to Joh 7:30, to shew them the uselessness of their attempting to lay hands on Him till His hour was come, which it soon would be.
. . ] It has been asked, If Jesus thus specified where He was going, how could the Jews ask the question in Joh 7:35? but De Wette answers well, that the Jews knew not , and therefore the saying was a dark one to them.
. , . .] These words must not be pressed too much, as has been done by many interpreters (Chrysost., Theophyl., Euthym[114], Meyer, Tholuck, but not in his 6th edn.), who would make them mean, Ye shall seek My help and not find it (viz. in your need, at the destruction of Jerusalem); for this would not be true even of the Jews, any one of whom might have at any time turned and looked on Him whom he had pierced, by faith,-and have been saved;-nor again must it be taken as meaning, Ye shall seek to lay hands on Me, and shall not be able (Orig[115], Grot.),-which is vapid and unmeaning. Neither of these interpretations, nor their cognates, will agree with the parallel place, ch. Joh 13:33, where the same words are used to the disciples. The meaning is simply (as in reff.), My bodily presence will be withdrawn from you; I shall be personally in a place inaccessible to you: see ch. Joh 13:36.
[114] Euthymius Zigabenus, 1116
[115] Origen, b. 185, d. 254
, am; not , go, which is never used in the N.T. Nor need we supply ; the present tense is used in the solemn sense of ch. Joh 1:18, and ch. Joh 3:13, to signify essential truth. Compare addressed to the Jews, with ., to Peter, ch. Joh 13:36, and it will be evident that the Lord had their spiritual state in view: Ye cannot, as ye are now, enter there.
On the whole, see Luk 17:22.
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Joh 7:33. , as yet) He continues the discourse, which they had interrupted after Joh 7:29.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
Joh 7:33
Joh 7:33
Jesus therefore said, Yet a little while am I with you, and I go unto him that sent me.-In a short time Jesus would by his death be taken away from them, and after the crucifixion and resurrection would ascend to God who had sent him.
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
Yet: Joh 12:35, Joh 12:36, Joh 13:1, Joh 13:3, Joh 13:33, Joh 16:5, Joh 16:16-22, Joh 17:11, Joh 17:13, Mar 16:19
Reciprocal: Isa 55:6 – Seek Mar 2:20 – be taken Luk 17:22 – when Joh 14:19 – a little Joh 16:19 – A little
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
3
This was a notice that the work of Jesus on earth was about to end.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Joh 7:33. Jesus therefore said, Yet a little while am I with you, and I go unto him that sent me. In the action now taken by His foes Jesus sees a token of the rapidity with which His hour is approaching. These words, which (Joh 7:35) were spoken in the presence of the Jews, declare His perfect knowledge of their designs. But they are also words of judgment, taking from His enemies their last hope.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
Joh 7:33-34. Then said Jesus Continuing his discourse, (from Joh 7:29,) which they had interrupted, Yet a little while am I with you My ministry among you is drawing toward a conclusion; you ought, therefore, while it lasts, to make the best possible improvement of it. For ye shall seek me, and shall not find me You shall earnestly desire my presence with you, but shall not obtain it. This seeking for the Messiah was general through the nation, during the calamities in Judea, occasioned by Titus and his armies; and has continued among the Jews ever since, in all the countries where they have been dispersed, but to no purpose, for their Messiah having already appeared, it is in vain to expect another. By thus predicting his own death, our Lord insinuated that he both knew the present disposition of the council, and foresaw that they would soon put an end to his ministry by taking away his life. And where I am Or, where I shall then, and always be; ye cannot come Referring to his speedy exaltation to the heavenly world, and the impossibility of their being admitted thither: for so a similar expression, used Joh 8:21, evidently means, namely, Ye shall seek me, and shall die in your sins: whither I go, ye cannot come. Perhaps, also, our Lord might refer to the impotent malice with which, after his exaltation to the Fathers right hand, they should oppose his triumphant cause.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Vv. 33, 34. Jesus said therefore: I am with you yet a little while, and then I go to him that sent me. 34. You shall seek me and shall not find me;and where I am you cannot come.
Jesus was not ignorant of this hostile measure; and this is what awakened in Him the presentiment of His approaching death which is so solemnly expressed in the following words (therefore). In this discourse, He invites the Jews to take advantage of the time, soon to pass away, during which He is still to continue with them. There is a correspondence between the expressions: I go away, and: He who sent me. The idea of a sending involves that of a merely temporary sojourn here below. The practical conclusion of Joh 7:33, which is understood, Hasten to believe! is made more pressing by Joh 7:34.
Of the two clauses of this verse, the first refers to their national future; the second, to their individual fate. In the first, Jesus describes, in a striking way, the state of abandonment in which this people will soon find itself, provided it persists in rejecting Him who alone can lead it to the Father; a continual and ever disappointed expectation; the impotent attempt to find God, after having suffered the visitation of Him to pass by who alone could have united them to God. This sense is that in which Jesus cites this word in Joh 13:33 (comp. Joh 14:6). It is also that in which He will repeat it, soon afterwards, in a more emphatic form, Joh 8:21-22.
There cannot be any difficulty in applying the notion of the pronoun , me, to the idea of the Messiah in general. To expect the Messiah is, indeed, on the part of the Jewish people, and without their being aware of it, to seek Jesus, the only Messiah who can be given to them. But there is something more terrible than this future of the nationit is that of individuals. The expression:where I am, denotes symbolically the communion with the Father and the state of salvation which one enjoys in that communion. This is the blessed goal which they cannot reach after having rejected Him; for it is He alone who could have led them thither (Joh 14:3). If then they allow this time to pass by, in which they can yet attach themselves to Him, all will be over for them. The present: where I am, signifies: where I shall be at that moment; it can only be rendered in French by the future. This second part of the verse does not allow us to explain the term : you shall seek me, in the first part, either of a seeking inspired by hatred (Origen)comp. Joh 13:33or of a sigh of repentance; such a feeling would not have failed to lead them to salvation.
Fuente: Godet Commentary (Luke, John, Romans and 1 Corinthians)
THE DISPERSION OF THE GREEKS
Joh 7:33-36. Then Jesus said, Yet a little while I am with you, and I go to Him that sent Me. You shall seek Me, and shall not find Me, and where I am you are not able to come. Then the Jews said to one another, Whither is He about to go, that we shall not find Him? Whether is He about to go into the dispersion of the Greeks, and to teach the Greeks? What is this word which He said, Ye shall seek and not find Me, and where I am you are not able to come? During the Alexandrian conquests, the Greeks conquered the whole world, and became the rulers of all nations, thus establishing their beautiful, concise, definite, vivid, perspicuous, and in every way wonderful language in every nation under heaven, preparatory for the preaching of Jesus and His apostles and the evangelization of the globe. The Jews, the most enterprising people in the world, had gone away on mercantile expeditions, and settled in all the important cities of the world, a glorious preparation for the evangelization of all nations, the Jews constituting the nucleus of the gospel Church, and becoming the heralds of the living Word to the ends of the earth. Now the meaning of this passage is, they propound the question whether Jesus, forsaking the home- lands, will go away into the Jewish settlements of the Gentile cities, and preach to the Jews in their world-wide dispersion among all nations.
Fuente: William Godbey’s Commentary on the New Testament
Verse 33
Unto them; unto the people.
Fuente: Abbott’s Illustrated New Testament
Jesus again said that His hour had not yet come, only in different words. When His hour came, He would return to the Father. The Jews would search for Him but be unable to find Him. He was going where they could not come, namely, to heaven. Death was not the end. They could not come where He was going in their present condition. That required regeneration and translation (cf. Joh 8:21; Joh 13:33).
Time was running out both for Jesus to finish His work and for the Jews to believe on Him. The Jews had only a little longer to place their faith in Him before He would leave them and depart to heaven. After that, many Jews would seek their Messiah but not find Him. That is what has been happening since Jesus ascended, and it will happen until He returns to the earth at His second coming (Zec 12:10-13; Rev 1:7). Jesus was, of course, referring enigmatically to His death.