A warning to the Jews of the importance of the present hour.
It was, probably, in the last day of the feast that our Lord uttered this warning.
I. THE SOLEMN ISSUES THAT HUNG UPON HIS CONTINUED SOJOURN WITH THE JEWS. "I go my way, and ye shall seek me, and ye shall die in your sin: whither I go, ye cannot come."
1. Their rejection of him would close heaven against them. They could not possibly enter into that "rest" on account of their unbelief.
2. His death was a matter fixed by the "determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God." Through death he is to pass upward to his kingdom and glory.
3. The Jewish search after him would be in the day of their overwhelming despair, and would be fruitless because not in the way of faith.
4. The separation between Jesus and the Jews would be made perpetual by their sin. "Ye shall die in your sin." The sin was that of unbelief, in "departing from the living God." "If ye believe not that I am, ye shall die in your sins."
II. THE SPIRIT OF SCORNFUL LEVITY WITH WHICH THESE ISSUES ARE TREATED BY THE JEWS. "Will he kill himself? for he saith, Whither I go, ye cannot come?"
1. There is an evident increase in Jewish bitterness. Lately they asked—Would he go as a Messiah to the Gentiles? now they ask—Would he go to the dead?
2. They insinuate that to follow him to the grave is out of the question. If he killed himself, he would find himself in hell; they, on the ether hand, expected to find themselves at death in Abraham's bosom.
3. The question reveals the deepening moral separation between Jesus and his enemies.
III. THE CAUSE OF THEIR INABILITY EITHER TO FOLLOW OR TO UNDERSTAND HIM. "Ye are from beneath; I am from above: ye are of this world; I am not of this world. Therefore said I unto you, that ye shall die in your sins."
1. They belonged to a different sphere from himself. His origin and nature were from heaven; their origin and nature were from earth. There could, therefore, be no moral understanding between them. "They were alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that was in them" (Ephesians 4:23).
2. Fatal effect of this worldly nature. "For if ye believe not that I am, ye shall die in your sins." As following the course of this world, as minding earthly things, but, above all, as refusing to recognize his essential Divinity, they were separated from him who was the true Source of life, and were doomed to die in their sins.
IV. THE RENEWAL OF THEIR SCORNFUL QUESTIONING. "Then said they unto him, Who art thou? Jesus saith to them, Even the same that I said unto you from the beginning."
1. How indurated was the unbelief of the Jews! They had received "line upon line, precept upon precept," and yet they rejected Christ.
2. How utterly without excuse was their unbelief! They had heard but one consistent declaration of truth, ever growing in clearness and fulness; yet there was no spiritual or intellectual response to this teaching.