FOR FAIR USE AND EDUCATION AND DISCUSSION PURPOSES



There are some questions none of us ask because we don't know enough to ask it. Jesus was/is God, so couldn't He have chosen to stay with us forever after His Resurrection and then His reappearance in the world for a brief time?

I never thought of this until I read this piece by J.Preston Eby:



WHY JESUS WENT AWAY

It was on the solemnest of nights that Jesus spoke one of the most marvelous truths concerning His coming again. Some months previous, on the last day of the celebration of the Feast of Tabernacles, He stood in the temple and cried, saying, "If any man thirst, let him come unto Me, and drink. He that believeth on Me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water" (Jn. 7:37-3 . This He spake of the Spirit which they that believe on Him should receive. On the night before His crucifixion Jesus celebrated the Last Supper with His disciples. The supper was over; but the band of friends had much to say to one another that night, and they lingered long around the table. They did not know it was the Last Supper, never dreamed of it; but there had been an unusual sweetness in their intercourse, and they talked on and on. The entire conversation is recorded in the Gospel of John, chapters 13 through 17. The hour grew late, but John still leaned on his Master's breast, and the others, grouped around in the twilight, drank in the solemn gladness of the Passover Eve.

Suddenly a shadow falls over this scene. "Little children," Jesus says to His disciples, "yet a little while am I with you. Ye shall seek Me: and as I said unto the Jews, Whither I go, ye cannot come; nevertheless I tell you the truth; it is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send Him unto you" (Jn. 13:33; 16:7). The hour is late. With their unspiritual minds they think He is getting tired. He means to retire to rest. But Peter asks straight out, "Lord, whither goest Thou?" Into the garden? Back to Galilee? It never occurred to one of them that He meant the Unseen Spirit Realm. "Whither I go," He replies a second time, "Ye cannot follow Me now, but ye shall follow Me afterward." AFTERWARD! The blow slowly falls. In a dim, bewildering way it begins to dawn upon them. He speaks of separation!

This truth fell upon the disciples like a thunderbolt startling a summer sky. For thirty-three years He had lived among them. These past three years they had learned to love Him. Day after day they had shared together the sunshine and the storm, and their hearts clung to Him with a strange fascination. And just when everything was at its height, when it seemed He would soon be hailed as the King of Israel, when their association with Him was now pledged indissolubly in the most solemn sacrament, the unexpected words come, "I must say goodbye; it is expedient for you that I GO AWAY!" It was a crushing blow to the little band. They had staked their all upon that love. They had given up home, business, friends, pleasure, and promised to follow Him. And now He says, "I must go!"

Let us see what He means by it. Why did Jesus go away? We all remember a time when we could not answer that question. In fact, we wished He had stayed, and had been here now, walking among us. Your understanding will be greatly enlightened when you are able to grasp this simple truth I now bring to your attention: the reason Jesus went away was so He could be very near! It seems a mystifying paradox, but He went away to be very near; He ascended far above all heavens THAT HE MIGHT FILL ALL THINGS! He went away from being nearby, so that He could return and be closer to us even than the air we breathe, closer than the blood coursing its way through our veins!

Suppose, again, He had not gone away; suppose He were here in that same nail-scarred body now. Suppose He were still in the Holy Land, at Jerusalem. Every ship that started for the East would be crowded with Christian pilgrims. Every airplane flying through Europe to the Middle East would be loaded with people going to see Jesus. Every mail-bag would be full of letters from those sick and afflicted, those in difficulty and trial, and gifts of homage to manifest men's gratitude and love. You yourself, let us say, are on one of those airplanes. The Ben-Gurion International Airport, when you arrive after your long flight, is blocked with planes of every nation. After circling the airport for a dangerously long time you land, and board one of the multitude of tourist buses headed from Tel Aviv up to Jerusalem. Far as the eye can reach, the traffic moves over the highways in an endless stream. You do not mind the scorching sun, the choking dust, the rude drivers, the elbowing crowds. You are in the Holy Land, and you will see Jesus! Yonder, at last, in the far distance, are the glittering spires of the Holy Hill, above the burnished temple dome beneath which He sits. But what is that dark seething mass stretching for miles and miles between you and the Holy City? They have come from the north and from the south, and from the east and from the west, as you have, to look upon their Lord. They wish that His hands might be placed upon their head; that His arms might be thrown around them. But it cannot be. You have come to see Jesus, but you will not see Him! They have been there for weeks, months, years, and have not seen Him. They are a yard or two nearer, and that is all. The thing is impossible. It is an anti-climax, an absurdity. It would be a social outrage; it would be a physical impossibility.

Now the Christ foresaw all this when He said it was expedient that He should go away. Observe He did not say it was necessary - it was EXPEDIENT, a means to an end. The objection to the opposite plan was simply that it would not have worked. So He says to you, "It is very kind and earnest of you to come so far, but you mistake. Go away back from the walls of the Holy City, over the sea, and you will find Me in your own home. You will find Me where the shepherds found Me, doing their ordinary work; where the woman of Samaria found Me, drawing the water for the noon meal; where the disciples found Me, mending nets in their working clothes; where Mary found Me, among the commonplace household duties of a country village." Yes, the visible Incarnation of God in Jesus Christ must of necessity be brief. Only a small circle could enjoy His actual presence, but a great and glorious and universal kingdom like the Kingdom of God needed a risen and glorified Lord. It was expedient for the whole body of its subjects that He went away. He would be nearer man by apparently being further. The limitations of sense subjected Him while He stayed. He was subject to geography, locality, space, and time. But by going away in glorification He was able to return as the Spirit, the incorruptible river of God's divine and eternal life, to flow and flow and flow, age after age, unceasingly and untiringly into humanity as LIFE. My soul shouts a thousand hallelujahs that He went away!

And yet, even today, untold millions of Christians have learned nothing of this simple, sublime truth. Many precious saints are just living for that day when Jesus comes, or they get to heaven, and they can SEE HIS PERSON, bask in His favor, and have PHYSICAL CONTACT with Him. Many picture themselves kneeling in reverence at Jesus' feet, as did Mary of Bethany, kissing His feet, gazing intently into His eyes, strolling hand in hand with Him down Hallelujah Boulevard, or sitting on one of the hillsides of glory for a day, leisurely talking things over with Him, asking all the questions they have always wanted to ask, and unburdening their heart of the many concerns they have so long desired to pour out to Him - personally. There are those among us who, like Thomas of old, want to put their finger on the print of the nails, their hand in His riven side. How the unspiritual heart cries out for the touch of the vanished hand and the sound of the voice that reverberated once over the Galilean hills!

But, my brother, my sister, we need to face FACTS! Do you realize that there are vast numbers comprising untold millions of people (Dan. 7:10; Jude 14) who have been saved by His grace? John saw them in Revelation 7 as "a great multitude which NO MAN CAN NUMBER"! And each and every one of these long, personally, and individually to speak to Jesus and bask in the ecstatic joy of physical fellowship with this resurrected MAN. Do you not realize that with such an innumerable throng about Him, you could not get within FIFTY MILES of Him? Let us suppose, for one moment, that there have been only 100 million persons saved during the past 2,000 years. That sounds like a lot of people, but it is less than half the number of people living in the United States right now. Fox' Book of Martyrs reveals that during the Dark Ages some 50 million souls were martyred for their faith in Jesus...because they refused to bow to the superstitions and idolatries of Rome. That doesn't include the millions of Christians who lived before and since. There are some 20 million Spirit-filled saints alive on the face of the earth TODAY! So you see, 100 million is merely a fraction of the number of people gathered out of all ages who make up that "great multitude which no man can number" who are redeemed by the precious blood of God's Lamb. But if there WERE only 100 million saints of God, and each scheduled a PERSONAL INTERVIEW with Jesus; should Jesus spend only TEN MINUTES with each; it would be exactly 1901.3 YEARS before your turn would come, and then another almost TWO THOUSAND YEARS until your next TEN MINUTE session with Jesus! And during all that time Jesus would not have attended to any matters in the entire universe other than these interviews twenty-four hours a day, unceasingly for four millenniums! It should be obvious to every thinking mind that KNOWING CHRIST, talking with Him, fellowship with Him, MUST BE UPON SOME BASIS OTHER THAN HIS INDIVIDUAL, PHYSICAL, HUMAN IDENTITY.

Ah, to bring the Christ back in the flesh, to know Him once more after the flesh, would be one gigantic step backward, an outrage of immense proportions, an absurdity! Do we not already KNOW HIM? Are not those who have not seen His earthly form more blessed, according to the words of Jesus, than those who saw and believed? O twice born men who through faith have been born of His life-giving Spirit, behold, we have fullness of fellowship with Him NOW. He speaks to us and continually manifests Himself to us in tenderest tones. Even now we delight in the blessed wonder of His glorious presence. We walk with Him now in the Spirit, and unburden our hearts to Him at any hour of the day or night, and He communes with us in the garden of our hearts. And HOW do we know Him? Why, BY HIS SPIRIT! And it is through the FULNESS OF THIS SAME SPIRIT that we shall ultimately SEE HIM and KNOW HIM "AS HE IS". There is simply no other way! What, I ask, could His flesh body ADD to our relationship in Him? If our confidence is in HIS FLESH BODY, then we shall of all men be most miserable. What incredible limitation! We should be able to share with Him on that personal, human level ONCE EVERY 2,000 ... 4,000 ... 10,000... or 50,000 YEARS!

He went away THAT THE COMFORTER MIGHT COME. Oh that the eyes of men might be opened to see how truly it was expedient that He go away in His visible body of flesh that He might return as the invisible Spirit so that we might know Him by the Spirit and receive Him as our very life!

I am convinced that it is right here at this point where so many of the Lord's precious people need this teaching: "It is EXPEDIENT (advisable, desirable, advantageous, profitable, to your interest) for you THAT I GO AWAY." Like those disciples, so many sincere Christians have believed in Jesus with all of their heart, love Him, and seek to follow Him - but, the Jesus they believe in, the Jesus they love, the Jesus they seek to follow and obey, is the Jesus in the picture on the wall; the Jesus with piercing blue eyes, flowing chestnut hair, fine chiseled features, well trimmed beard, Galilean robe. It is the Jesus of Bethlehem's manger, of Nazareth's carpenter shop, of the sandy shores of the Sea of Galilee, of the Judean hills. The Jesus who preached to the multitudes, fed the five thousand, healed the sick with the touch of His hand, cleansed the lepers, and who, weeping, cried with a loud voice, "Lazarus, come forth!" Even the Jesus of the Judgment Hall, of the Via Dolorosa, of Golgotha's hill, of Joseph of Arimathea's garden tomb. with some it is even the Jesus of the resurrection; the Jesus calling tenderly to the weeping Mary in the freshness of the morn, Jesus walking along the road to Emmaus, Jesus appearing mysteriously to His disciples behind closed doors, or Jesus inviting the doubting Thomas to thrust his hand into His side. But, dear ones, "It is expedient for you that I go away." "If I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto YOU." "I will not leave you comfortless: I WILL COME TO YOU." Even the resurrected Jesus had to pass away from their midst before the exceeding great and precious promise of the Indwelling Spirit of Christ could be fulfilled.

How many of God's dear saints are still worshipping the Jesus of the flesh! Truly they believe on Him, love Him, and long to see Him when He comes. And yet, in their longing to see Him, some glad day after while! They find that He is not presently their satisfying portion, their All-in-all. There is yet such a lack in their lives; so much carnality, strife, struggle, weakness, insufficiency and limitation. The only reason can be this: they have not yet fully inherited the promise: "The Spirit shall be IN YOU ... He shall glorify Me: for He shall receive of Mine, and shall show it unto you." The absolute imperativeness of Christ's going away, the absolute reality of His coming again as the Indwelling Spirit, they do not fully understand nor appreciate. They have not been able to say with the inspired apostle, "Though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet NOW HENCEFORTH know we Him no more" (II Cor. 5:16). "Knowing Christ after the flesh" - it is this that must come to an end, must make way for knowing Him in the power of the Spirit! AFTER THE FLESH: that means, in the power of the external, of words and thoughts, of efforts and feelings, of systems and methods, of ceremonies and ordinances, of influences and aids from without, from men and means. We must know Christ no more after the flesh, as He was on earth, or even in resurrection. We are to know Him now AFTER THE SPIRIT, as the exalted and glorified Lord who has come to us as the Indwelling Spirit!

To many it is a difficult thing to set aside the Christ of the flesh, to know only the Christ of the Spirit; to set aside the Christ who works through the agencies of the external, through efforts, systems, ceremonies, methods, influences from without, of men and means, and come to know Him alone who works INTERNALLY after the power of an endless life. "As many as RECEIVED HIM (as Spirit), to them gave He power to become the SONS OF GOD" (Jn. 1:12). To all who honestly desire to become truly God-men, bearing the full image of the first-born Son, and in all things be well pleasing to the Father, the thought of Jesus' departure that His Spirit may now become our very own, and we be transformed and matured into His very own stature, will be welcomed with unspeakable gladness and gratitude. In this union the privilege we enjoy, the nobility we obtain as sons of God, the intimacy and fullness of fellowship and relationship with God we enter into all these are infinitely greater than anything experienced by men of God in any passing time or age. To have our Lord coming as the Spirit into our hearts, becoming our very own life, just as He was the Spirit of Jesus Christ on earth - surely this is a blessedness worth any sacrifice, for it is the means of the manifestation of God Himself. As the people of Jesus' day saw the full revelation of God in the Person of Christ Jesus, so the world of our day is yet to see a full and complete revelation of the Christ in His body. This is the consummation for which all other things since the foundation of the world were accomplished. The Word now begins to be fulfilled: "Behold! the tabernacle of God is with men, and He shall dwell with them!" (Rev. 21:3).

*********

How this all will be manifested has not yet been revealed to me...or to any others whose writings I have read. But, however it happens, it will be MAGNIFICENT...."In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump....". That's all anyone knows...for now!

Arlene