The Lord's Presence

      "I will not leave you comfortless," or, as the Revised Version has it, "desolate-I come to you." Now, most of us know, I suppose, that the literal meaning of the word rendered "comfortless," or "desolate," is "orphans." But that is rather an unusual form in which to represent the relation between our Lord and His disciples. And so, possibly, our versions are accurate in giving the general idea of desolation rather than the specific idea conveyed directly by the 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 suppressing the literal meaning of the word, if only it be remembered that it is employed not so much to define Christ's relation to His brethren as to describe the comfortless and helpless condition of that little group when left by Him. They would be like fatherless and motherless children in a cold world. And what is to hinder that? One thing only. "I come to you." "Then, and only then, will you cease to be desolate and orphans. My presence will change everything and turn winter into glorious summer."

      Now, what is this "coming?" It is to be observed that our Lord says, not "I will," as a future, but "I come," or "I am coming," as an immediately impending, and, we may almost say, present, thing. There can be no reference in the word to that final coming to judgment which lies so far ahead; because, if there were, then there would follow from the text, that, until that period, all that love Him here upon earth are to wander about as orphans, desolate and forsaken; and that certainly can never be. So that we have to recognize here the promise of a coming which is contemporaneous with His absence, and which is, in fact, but the reverse side of His bodily absence.

      It is true about Him that He "departs from" His people in bodily form "for a season, that they may receive Him" in a better form "for ever." This, then, is the heart and centre of the consolation here, that howsoever the external presence may be withdrawn, and the "foolish senses" may have to speak of an absent Christ, we may rejoice in the certainty that He is with all those that love Him, and all the more with them because of the very withdrawal of the earthly manifestation which has served its purpose, and now is laid aside as an impediment rather than as a help to the full communion. We confuse bodily with real. The bodily presence is at an end; the real presence lasts for ever.

      I do not need to insist, I suppose, upon the manifest implication of absolute Divinity which lies in such words as these. "I come." "Being absent, I am present in all generations. I am present with every single heart." That is equivalent to the Omnipresence of Deity; that is equivalent to or implies the undying existence of the Divine nature. And He that says, when He is leaving earth and withdrawing the sweetness of His visible form from the eyes of men, "I come," in the very act of going, "and I am with you always, with all of you to the end of the ages," can be no less than God, manifest in the flesh for a time, and present in the Spirit with His children for ever.