The Commentary | AdventAI

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Aug 19, 1886

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 32.

The Commentary.

NOTES ON THE INTERNATIONAL LESSON.

Jesus Comforting His Disciples.

"LET not your heart be troubled." Jesus was about to leave his disciples. He had just told them that he would be with them but a little while, and that whither he was going they could not come. So they were troubled for two reasons, first, that he was going away from them, and secondly, that where he should go they could not come. The disciples had learned to love and trust him as the Son of God, as the Messiah that should come into the world, and now that they were to be separated from him and left thus in the world, troubled them. But the tender Saviour did not leave them, nor us, comfortless. True, he said, "In the world you shall have tribulation," but he also said, "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you; not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." Verse 27. "I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever." Verse 16. This is what should comfort his disciples for his absence,—the first reason of their sorrow.

BUT there was not comfort in this on the second reason, "Whither I go ye cannot come." John 13:33. Yet Jesus did not leave his disciples comfortless on this question either. He said: "I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also."

"I go to prepare a place for you." Where did Jesus go? Luke tells us that on the day of His ascension, "It came to pass, while he blessed them, he was parted from them, and carried up into Heaven." Luke 24:51. Of the same occasion Mark says: "So then after the Lord had spoken unto them, he was received up into Heaven, and sat on the right hand of God." Mark 16:19. When Stephen was about to die, he said, "Behold, I see the Heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God." Acts 7:56. Jesus then has gone to Heaven where God is, and he has gone there to prepare a place for his disciples,—for all who put their trust in him. Heaven, therefore, is a place, and not an imaginary, immaterial, intangible nothing, "beyond

the bounds of time and space." The people of God are to be taken to a real place. "That I may cause those that love me to inherit substance," saith Wisdom. Prov. 8:21. And Paul says that a certain people took joyfully the spoiling of their goods, "knowing in yourselves that ye have in Heaven a better and an enduring substance." Heb. 10:34. There is then in Heaven a substantial place for the believers in God and in Christ.

Now HE gives the word that comforted them, and that comforts all his people, upon the words "Whither I go ye cannot come," "If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you unto myself." We cannot go where he is, but he will come and take us to himself. This is the comfort that he gives his disciples. This he gives as the hope of the righteous dead, and as the comfort of the righteous living who sorrow because of the wounds that death has inflicted. "I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. . . . For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from Heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first; then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air; and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words."

HOW MANY are there of His professed followers who obey this plain command? On occasions of death, how many "comfort one another with these words"? Very few, very few indeed. Now-a-days, instead of "with these words" that which is offered as comfort is in such words as, "He is in Heaven now;" "She is safe in the arms of Jesus now;" "The little child is an angel now," etc., etc. But all such comfort is a deceptive comfort, because it is not true. People do not go to Jesus, nor to Heaven, nor do they become angels, when they die. Jesus said, "Whither I go ye cannot come," and men cannot reverse it. Paul says that the Lord shall descend from Heaven, the dead shall rise, the living shall be changed and caught up together with them to meet the Lord, and "so shall we ever be with the Lord." "So," means in this manner, in this way. In this way it is, and in no other way, that Christ's people shall ever be with him.

THIS is further shown by the words of Jesus. "I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also." The word "that," in such a connection, means in order that. I will come again, and take you unto myself, in order that where I am, there ye may be also. Such are Christ's words; such is the order which he has established, and men cannot reverse it. All other ways are mere theories, and false at that. The way that Christ says, is the only way in which anybody can ever be with him where he is, and that way is by his coming again. Nor was that coming at his own resurrection, nor "on the day of Pentecost," nor is it in his "spiritual presence in our midst," nor "at the day of our death," but only at his coming in glory, with all the holy angels with him, when all the righteous dead arise, and all the righteous living are changed,—all to immortality,—and are all caught up by the angels to meet the Lord in the air, and all the wicked in all the earth are terrified: that, and that alone, is the coming of the Lord which he has promised.

PROOF: The angels, when he ascended, said, "This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into Heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into Heaven." Acts 1:11. John says, "Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him; and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him." Rev. 1:7. And Jesus himself says: "The Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works." Matt. 16:27. "Then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven; and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other." Matt. 24:30, 31. This is the coming of the Lord that is referred to in the lesson to-day. It is the promise of this coming with which he comforted his disciples that dismal night, and with which he commands his disciples now to comfort one another. But alas! the comfort which the Lord offers is neglected, and forsaken for theories of men. Brethren this thing ought not so to be.

"JESUS Comforting His Disciples" is the International Sunday-school lesson for to-day. Will the comfort Jesus gave to the disciples of old, be given to his disciples in all the Sunday-schools to-day? Will they all be told that Jesus is coming in his glory, that the righteous dead shall rise, and the righteous living be changed, and that all shall be caught up by the angels together, to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall they ever be with the Lord? Will they all be comforted "with these words"? If not, why not? J.