Numbers 21:4-9 / John 8:21-30
Jesus warns the Pharisees;
"Where I am going you cannot come. "
When Jesus said, "Where I am going you cannot come," the Pharisees wondered if he was planning to take his own life. Rabbis held that people who took their life went to the deepest part of the nether world. This shows how terribly the Pharisees had misread Jesus and how far from the truth they were. What Jesus actually meant was that he was returning to his Father in heaven. Spiritual blindness is a terrible sin. It implies a deliberate closing of one's eyes to the truth. This seems to have been the situation of the Pharisees. This is why Jesus told the Pharisees, "You will die in your sins."