John 16:22 - Exposition

And , so he continues, ye therefore £ indeed now have sorrow —your hearts are troubled, you weep and lament to-night, your desolation for "a little while" will be utter collapse and dismay— but I shall see you again. He does not repeat, "Ye shall behold me" ( θεωρεῖτέ με , cf. John 14:19 ), but "I shall see you ( ὔψομαι ὑμᾶς )." The same word, however, is used repeatedly in the record of the resurrection, and in John 16:19 he had said ὄψεσθέ με . The point of the vision is his own consciousness of their human need filling all the forty days with its glory. The occasional manifestations of his Person during that interval helped them in a wonderful way to recognize the fact that he was ever watching them, and was at their side under all the circumstances of human life. And your heart shall rejoice, and this joy of yours no one taketh (present in the full sense of a realized future) from you. The ὄψομαι ὑμᾶς lends itself to the larger conception which, by the gift of the Holy Ghost, they at length fully apprehended, that he was with them always, even to the end of the world. That conviction was forced upon them before Pentecost (see Matthew 28:19 , Matthew 28:20 , and the account in this Gospel of the spiration and communication of the Holy Ghost, John 20:22 ), before he came as the sound of a rushing mighty wind, or sat in tongues of flame on their heads. Your joy in the sense of my constant presence no one, neither man nor devil, taketh away from you. That presence will not be any further exposed to Jewish malice or treachery, nor darkened by persecution, nor destroyed by death; though with bodily eyes ye see me not, yet, fully realizing that my eye is on you, "you will rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory" ( 1 Peter 1:8 ).