Expository Thoughts (continued)
the day of Christ's second coming. Then and then only will the promise receive its complete fulfillment— "At that day you shall know."
Technical Notes:
18. I will not leave you comfortless; I will come to you.
19. Yet a little while and the world sees me no more, but ye see me. Because I live, ye shall live also. 20. At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.
18.—[I will not leave you comfortless.] The word we render "comfortless" means literally "orphans," and is so translated in the marginal reading of the English version. It beautifully describes the helpless, solitary, friendless state, by comparison, in which the disciples of Christ were left when He died and was withdrawn from their bodily eyes. "In that condition," says Jesus, "I will not leave you. You shall not always be orphans." It adds to the beauty of the expression to remember that He had already called them "little children." Hence, there was a special fitness in the word "orphans."
[I will come to you.] The verb here is in the present tense: "I do come." About the meaning of the sentence there is much difference of opinion. Even the Fathers, as Burgon says, "explain the words diversely." There is no more unanimity, we must remember, among the Fathers than among modern divines. The "consent of Catholic