“Then Jesus said to them, ‘I shall be with you a little while longer, and then I go to Him who sent Me.’ ” John 7:33
In this article we will address the second question: Where are you going? To do this we will look at THE QUESTION OF JESUS’ DESTINY (John 7:32-36). When the religious leaders heard that people were believing in Jesus (John 7:31), they dispatched temple guards to arrest Christ. “The Pharisees heard the crowd murmuring these things concerning Him, and the Pharisees and the chief priests sent officers to take Him.” (John 7:32). These religious leaders did not want more people to turn to Christ in faith and stop giving money to the temple where they served. So they sought to arrest Christ to bring His message of grace to a halt.
“Then Jesus said to them, ‘I shall be with you a little while longer, and then I go to Him who sent Me.’ ” (John 7:33). We see that Jesus is fully in control when He says, “I shall be with you a little while longer.” Even though these religious leaders wanted to arrest Him now so they could have Him killed, it would be six more months before Jesus would be crucified, buried, and raised from the dead to return to His Father in heaven who sent Him to earth. Christ assures them, “You will seek Me and not find Me, and where I am you cannot come.” (John 7:34). After Jesus’ return to the Father in heaven, the religious leaders will search frantically for His body to silence rumors about His resurrection. They will not be able to join Christ in heaven because of their unbelief.
“Then the Jews said among themselves, ‘Where does He intend to go that we shall not find Him? Does He intend to go to the Dispersion among the Greeks and teach the Greeks?’ ” (John 7:35). Christ’s listeners concluded that Jesus was talking about physical matters and earthly places. These Jewish leaders surmise that Jesus was planning to leave Israel and go to Jews scattered throughout the Roman Empire and beyond. Little do they know that their words are somewhat prophetic because Christ’s gospel message would spread throughout the Roman Empire to “the Greeks” or Gentiles after Jesus’ death and resurrection (cf. Acts 1:8ff).
Not only do these leaders misunderstand Jesus’ identity, but they also misunderstand His destiny. “What is this thing that He said, ‘You will seek Me and not find Me, and where I am you cannot come?’” (John 7:36). Christ’s words puzzled these leaders and made them uneasy. “Is He mocking us? Should we understand more?” they asked themselves. They cannot embrace the fact that Jesus will rise from the dead and return to His Father in heaven, which would show these leaders’ gospel message of salvation by works is untrue.
Because He knew who He was, Jesus also knew where He was going. Because He was the eternal Son of God He would return to His natural abode with His Father in heaven. But what about you? Do you know your eternal destiny? Do you know where you will go after you die? You can know for sure by listening to what John (the same writer of the gospel of John) says in I John 5:13: “These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life.”
To whom is John writing? To those who believe in the name of the Son of God. What does he want them to know? That they “have eternal life.” You can know 100% sure that you will go to be with Jesus when you die because God says you have eternal life the moment you believe in Christ. That is good news, isn’t it!?!
When I preached this message a few years ago, I used a carved pumpkin to illustrate what Jesus is talking about. I asked for a volunteer from the audience to help me. I then said, “This pumpkin can remind us of what Jesus has done for us and who we are.” Next, I had the volunteer take off the lid of the pumpkin and then I said, “We need to open our minds to Jesus so we can learn from Him.” Then I had the volunteer pull out a bag of the pumpkin’s seeds and pulp and said, “When we trust Christ to take us to heaven, He forgives all our sins and cleanses our hearts… (I had the volunteer show the audience how clean the inside of the pumpkin is now) – just the way God cleans us.”
Then the volunteer took out the heart-shaped eyes and I said, “How can we see how much God loves us? Through creation, the Bible, and our families.” Next, the volunteer took out the cross-shaped nose as I shared, “What does it mean to turn our nose up at something? It means we don’t like it. Sometimes we may think we know what we need better than God does. But when we remember that Jesus died on the cross for us, we know that God gave us all we really need.”
The volunteer then took out the Bible-shaped ears and I said, “Do your parents ever have to tell you to do something more than once? Sometimes we don’t listen very well. Just like our parents, God wants us to listen to Him. The Bible tells us how much God loves us, how He has made us new people on the inside, how He wants us to live and how He will help us. We always need to listen to God’s Word.”
When the volunteer pulled out the fish-shaped mouth, I said, “Jesus told His disciples that they were not going to catch fish anymore, but instead they would fish for people by telling them the Good News about Jesus. We can also use our mouths to tell others about Jesus, too. We will give you gospel tracts to distribute to the unsaved.”
After the volunteer lit a candle and placed it inside the pumpkin, I said, “This candlelight represents the Holy Spirit who lives inside us. When we let Jesus open up every part of us, He can shine through us so others will see Him in us. Then our friends will want to have Jesus in their lives, too!”
Prayer: Father God, thank You for giving us everlasting life the moment we believed in Christ alone. We are now Your beloved children who are bound for heaven. Please enable us to see ourselves as citizens of heaven in our fallen world so others can see Jesus in and through us. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.