John 8:51 Truly, truly, I say to you, If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death. What means the Saviour? Death is. It is a reality. It exists far and wide over the length and breadth of this world, in which we are all tenants at will. But in the profounder and only "awful" acceptation of the term, "death" will never come nigh the man who keeps Christ's saying. 1. The grave is dark: Death to the unbeliever is like a sky with neither sun, nor moon, nor stars overhead, and no prospect of a dawn on the morrow. Is it not so? Is not that the death that is looming over the impenitent? If it bet never shall the man who believes in Jesus, and who keeps the saying of Jesus, never shall he see death, never shall he die. The true believer of Christ's gospel dwells in true "light"; and lives in it. Contact with Jesus insures his illumination; and all the way along life's highways and byways he enjoys the light. 2. Many regard death as the total and final rupture and cessation of all further possibilities of sweet companionship and friendship. He who dies enters inevitably, according to their anticipation, into utter loneliness and dreariness. He is deserted forever. But, most assuredly, there is no such death to the believing. Their true life is not cut short at the end, or arrested midway, or otherwise impaired. It has no end and no interruption. It is "life everlasting." And one of the many true elements that enter into the blessedness that is its nature is everlasting companionship with the holy and the happy in glory. 3. To multitudes death means violent removal from all their carefully accumulated treasures, all their most highly-prized possessions. Death to the unbeliever is the loss, not only of all these things, but likewise of all possibility of the enjoyment of them, and of the enjoyment of any possession whatsoever. But if so, if all this be death, then the believer in Jesus will never see it; for that which men call death, in their common parlance with one another, will only translate the believer into the possession of the fulness of life and joy. Neither things present, nor things to come, neither things below, nor things above, no depth, no height, no length, no breadth, will be able to separate the believer from that love of God and of Jesus which is the never-failing source and fountain of inextinguishable bliss. (J. Morison, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Verily, verily, I say unto you, If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death.WEB: Most certainly, I tell you, if a person keeps my word, he will never see death." |
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