ONE SAYING WITH TWO MEANINGS

'Then said Jesus unto them, Yet a little while am I with you, and then
I go unto Him that sent Me. 34. Ye shall seek Me, and shall not find
Me: and where I am, thither ye cannot come.'--JOHN vii. 33, 34.

'Little children, yet a little while I am with you. Ye shall seek Me;
and as I said unto the Jews, Whither I go, ye cannot come; so now I
say to you.'--JOHN xiii. 33.

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