JOH 14 VERSES 18-19BY ALEXADER MACLARE, D.D.' I will not leave you comfortless : I will come to you. Yet alittle while, and the world seeth Me no more ; but ye see Me :because I live, ye shall live also." — John xiv. I8, 19.HE sweet and gracious comfortings withwhich Christ had been soothing thedisciples' fears went very deep, buthitherto they had not gone deepenough. It was much that theyshould know the purpose of His going, whither Hewent, and that they had an interest in His departure.It was much that they should have before them theprospect of reunion ; much that they should knowthat all through His absence He would be workingin them, and that they should be assured that, absent.He would send them a great gift. But reunion, in-fluence from afar, and Gfifts from the other side of thegulf were not all that their hearts needed. And sohere our Lord gives yet more, in the paradoxes that,absent He will be present, unseen visible, and dyingwill be for them for ever, life and life-ofivins]:. Thesegreat thoughts go to the centre of their needs and of ours ; and on them I now touch briefly.THE ABSEXT PRESET CHRIST.
There are in the words I have read, though they bebut a fragment of a closely-hnked together context,these three great thoughts then : the absent Christthe present Christ ; the unseen Christ the seen Christ ;the Christ who dies Hfe and Hfe-giving. Let us look at these as they stand.I. — First, then, the absent Christ is the presentChrist." I will not leave you comfortless," or, as the RevisedVersion has it, " desolate — I come to you." ow, mostof us know, I suppose, that the literal meaning of the word rendered "comfortless," or "desolate," is"orphans." But that is rather an unusual form inwhich to represent the relation between our Lord andHis disciples. And so, possibly, our versions areaccurate in giving the general idea of desolationrather than the specific idea conveyed directly bythe word. But, still, it is to be remembered that this-whole conversation begins with " Little children " ;and there seems to be no strong reason for suppressingthe literal meaning of the word, if only it be remem-bered that it is employed not so much to defineChrist's relation to His brethren as to describe thecomfortless and helpless condition of that little groupwhen left by Him. They would be like fatherless andmotherless children in a cold world. And what is tohinder that ? One thing only. " I come to you."" Then, and only then, will you cease to be desolateand orphans. My presence will change everything,,and turn winter into glorious summer."ow, what is this " coming " ? It is to be observedthat our Lord says, not " / ivill," as a future, but " I
come," or " I am coming," as an immediately impend-90 THE ABSET PRESET CHRIST.ing, and, we may almost say, present, tiling. Therecan be no reference in the word to that final comingto judgment Avhich lies so far ahead ; because, if therewere, then there would follow from the text, that,until that period, all that love Him here upon earthare to wander about as orphans, desolate and forsaken;and that certainly can never be. So that Ave have torecognize here the promise of a coming which iscontemporaneous with His absence, and which is, infact, but the reverse side of His bodily absence.It is true about Him that He " departs from " Hispeople in bodily form " for a season, that they mayreceive Him " in a better form " for ever." This, then,is the heart and centre of the consolation here, thathoAvsoever the external presence may be Avithdrawn,and the " foolish senses " may have to speak of anabsent Christ, we may rejoice in the certainty that Heis Avith all those that loA'e Him, and all the more withthem because of the very AvithdraAval of the earthlymanifestation which has served its purpose, and noAVis laid aside as an impediment rather than as a helpto the full communion. We confound bodily A\dthreal.. The bodily presence is at an end ; the realpresence lasts for ever.I do not need to insist, I suppose, upon the manifestimplication of absolute Divinity Avhich lies in suchAvords as these. " I come." " Being absent, I am
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