John 20

Subdivision 3. (John 20:1-31; John 21:1-25.)The Apocalypse of Resurrection. We may well entitle this last portion of the Gospel “the Apocalypse of Resurrection.” No evangelist dwells upon this as John does. And though the cloud of unbelief is seen, which, in fact, clung to the disciples in these days of sorrow, and through which the glory dawning had to make its way, yet we are not allowed to be in the shadow of it, as is so much the case in Luke. We are not left so much at the threshold of the blessing, but conducted in. And thus, as it would seem, John, rather than Peter, is to abide with us, (though not, as the disciples thought, in personal presence, but in the truth committed to him) until the Lord’s return.

John 20:1-10

Section 1. (John 20:1-10.)Alive! The sabbath of the old creation passes in gloom and sorrow; the first day of the new week comes, and with it the First-born from among the dead, the Head of a new creation, abiding in the power of His immortal life. We have nothing of the futile guarding of the tomb, unworthy of record even here. The stone is rolled away; the sepulchre empty! No thought of the truth, however, flashes upon the mind of the early visitor who marks it all only as announcing a new calamity. They have taken her dead Lord out of the sepulchre; still and ever her Lord, though her heart be buried with Him. She runs with her burden of grief to pour it out to those as credulous in unbelief as she is; and Peter and John run back to the tomb, to find in the peace and order there the assurance that the absence of Christ’s body from the place where reverent hands had laid it is not the work of man at all, but that He is truly risen from the dead.

Scripture doctrine as to it they know of none: -only a resurrection at the last day, which was the orthodox faith that we have heard expressed by Martha. They themselves had questioned, as to what He had said about Himself, “what the rising from the dead should be.” Still such a distinct special resurrection was a mystery to them; but the fact they were now convinced of: He was risen. They have thus lost interest in the sepulchre with its shadow, -still perplexed as they may be: -they go home. But the first day of the week has found significance in a new beginning, beyond death which is the stamp upon the old creation, -the brand upon a fallen world. Man in Him has entered upon a new scene free from this; and they are linked with Him in it, though as yet they may not be able to define the place they have, or the nature of their link with Him. Nor have they as yet seen Him; nor has a word reached them from that unseen region into which He has entered.

John 20:11-18

Section 2. (John 20:11-18.)Relationship in the new life. They go home, cheered though perplexed, to await what needs must follow. But there is one who cannot leave the place where she had last seen (though in what circumstances of distress) her Lord and Saviour. She has followed back to the sepulchre the quicker steps of the two men: coming too late, as it would seem, to learn from them the confidence they had gathered. Her own sight is too much dimmed with irrepressible tears, to gather it where they have done. Of resurrection, save at the far-off end-time, she has no expectation. But her heart clings, with a tenacity that nothing can divert or weaken, even to the Dead, by whose death she is desolate, but who survives in those indestructible memories which support and sadly light her through the gloom.

Now she stands weeping outside the sepulchre, and, stooping down, looks into it. Was it a sight to prepare her for what would else have been too overwhelming a joy? Two angels in white are sitting, one at the head, the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain. They sit in peaceful contemplation of the place now vacant, and ask why she should be weeping, and whom she was seeking there. Absorbed with her one object, however, she seems scarcely to recognize the strangeness of the vision, but answers with the same story she had brought to the disciples, that men had taken away her Lord! Then she turns away again on a quest from which the presence of angels cannot distract her, to find, though she knows it not, Jesus Himself before her. Spite of her ignorance, -spite of the unbelief which was in that ignorance, -Mary it was who was to be the first witness of His resurrection, the first evangelist of the new order of things which is established by it. A woman’s heart had anointed Him for His burial; and this He would proclaim wherever the gospel should go out. Now again a woman’s heart, more devoted than His foremost disciples, is to carry, in the energy of its new-born gladness, the message that has gladdened it to these, and to become, as it were, the apostle to apostles! How it tells us of the way in which the heart becomes the leader of the mind into the truth of God, and of the displacement of mere officialism in the Christian order. Yet, after all, how little had Mary appreciated the One she loved with such heart-felt devotion! and her unbelief it is that, as with those upon the road to Emmaus afterward, holds her eyes when at first she sees the so eagerly desired object. He has to repeat to her the angels’ question, why she is weeping, and whom she is seeking there among the dead. Can she indeed be so dull? Can we alas, who have so much less excuse than Mary? How much of our sorrow which seems most to spring from our love of Him, is yet due in fact to our little appreciation of Him? Do we not also seek the Living One as if He were dead, and dishonor Him in our very worship of Him?

Thus Mary repeats her wail to her unknown Lord Himself, and can take Him for the gardener, whose Voice had freed her once from the sevenfold power of the enemy which held her. Yet withal what a right she doubts not she has in Him, whom she seems to think the whole world must know at once: “Sir, if thou hast borne Him hence, tell me where thou hast laid Him, and I will take Him away!” But the Good Shepherd calls His sheep by name, and they know His Voice. He recalls her to herself, and so to Himself: “Mary!” and her heart is at rest. “Rabboni,” she says; that is, “Teacher!” How blessed to learn, at His feet, like this! She learns, not only that He is risen, but of a relationship that His resurrection has brought His people into. He is not ashamed to call them “brethren,” and in the recognition of that which His work has done for them, and which is theirs in the life they have in Him, He ascends to His Father and their Father, to His God and to theirs. Mary must not, therefore, think to hold Him, as her love would desire; while the purpose of God is revealing itself in fuller and higher blessing than ever known before. He had never yet called His disciples “brethren;” although this was the fulfilment of what had been prophetically announced long since. The sin-offering psalm (Psalms 22:1-31), which so fully depicts the sufferings through which Messiah was to pass, gives us from the lips of the same Sufferer, when delivered, the assurance “I will declare Thy name unto My brethren; in the midst of the assembly I will praise Thee.” We have heard, accordingly, already that declaration of the Father’s name, on which, in His final prayer before His betrayal, He so dwells. The relationship to Himself, and so to the Father, which is implied on their part, is only now for the first time explicitly made known. Himself as man the “First-born among many brethren,” yet, except the Corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone. Thus He is straitened till it be accomplished, and only now can the full reality be told out. As has been often noticed, He cannot, however, put them upon the same level with Himself. He does not say, “Our Father,” but “My Father and yours;” He maintains the place which of necessity belongs to Him, while giving them their own upon the basis of this.

John 20:19-23

Section 3. (John 20:19-23.)The heavenly company, and their spiritual endowment. It is practically, therefore, as the First-born among many brethren that Mary’s message announces Him. And now we find Him in the midst of the assembly, the blessing still enlarging as He declares it to them. There is nothing indeed about the Church in this Gospel, whether as the House of God or the Body of Christ. In John we have only the Family of God, as far as doctrine goes, the line of truth which is plainly in natural connection with that of eternal life so characteristic of the Gospel. With this is found that of the indwelling Spirit, which gives to the life itself, always belonging to the children of God, its “abundant” blessedness. These are the connected truths all through, which connect with every other. We shall find them in this closing portion as elsewhere. The evening of the first day of the week is come, and the disciples are gathered together. Let us note that this is either not reckoned in the Jewish manner, or else it is the closing evening of the Jewish day, which was from the decline of the day to sunset. Sunset was thus “between the evenings,” which was the time when the passover lamb was offered, as well as the daily evening sacrifice (Exodus 12:6; Exodus 30:8). At this time, then, were the disciples gathered; the doors being shut for fear of the Jews; the world being armed against the Prince of peace. But no shut doors can keep Him from His own; and presently He is among them: “Jesus came and stood in the midst, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you.” More than words, even of the Son of God, were needed to convey this. His word had created the worlds: but for redemption, He had said Himself, “the Son of man must be lifted up.” That divinest work of all had been accomplished, and He can show them still the proofs of it in His hands and side. John says nothing of their unseemly fear, but of the joy into which it passed: “then were the disciples glad, when they saw the Lord.” And again He says, “Peace be to you,” and sends them out into the world, to represent Him in it, as He had been sent into it to represent the Father. They belonged no more to it, as He had said to them before: -no more than He did. The world could not be at peace, nor those whose hearts were in it. They had been delivered from the corruption that was in it through lust, by the knowledge of Himself whom the world had rejected. Their portion was outside of it with Him: and thus they would be competent witnesses of that better part, and for Him who had enriched them with it from His voluntary poverty. He follows these words with a significant action, breathing into them, and saying, “Receive ye the Holy Spirit;” with regard to which both the words and action have received various interpretation. We must, therefore, examine them with some care, the more because the symbolic action seems undoubtedly to point to something beyond the present capacity of the disciples to understand, -something, therefore, left to come to light afterwards. He does not Himself interpret His action, except the words accompanying are that interpretation. And this they can hardly be, much as they throw light upon it. We are left, therefore, to the natural significance of what is given us, seen in the light of truth revealed elsewhere, remembering that no parable can be authority for doctrine. After all, the Lord’s breathing into them carries us necessarily back to the in-breathing of God into the first man. The very word used here, and which occurs nowhere else in the New Testament, is that used in the Septuagint for this primal act, by virtue of which Adam became a living soul. Here then should be a new beginning of life, which, as such, must be from God, but from God incarnate; and with this we are already familiar, as truth that He Himself has taught us, that “as the Father hath life in Himself; so hath He given to the Son to have life in Himself;” so that, “as the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them, so the Son quickeneth whom He will” (John 5:21; John 5:26). The Son is thus a true fountain of life for men, and, as the words declare, a divine life. We cannot but connect this with a title given to the Lord, though not in John, of “Last Adam” (1 Corinthians 15:45): “The Last Adam is made a quickening Spirit.” The contrast between the first and the Last, which we realize in His present action, is recognized and emphasized here. He is not Himself breathed into, as was the first man, but breathes into others. As the quickening Spirit, He communicates spiritual, divine life, such as we have seen to be the essential element in new birth. He is thus the Author of what is a new creation, higher in character than the old; and this is clearly what is symbolized in His present action. Its place with reference to His work now finished is just as evident. He has told us already that, “except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.” Here, then, is this now from the other side declared. It is not, as sometimes put, a question of union, but of what is more fundamental than this. The fruit of the corn of wheat is that of life communicated, but which passes through what both the Lord and His apostle afterwards call “death” to produce it (John 12:24; 1 Corinthians 15:36). It is now, therefore, that He takes openly the place of the Last Adam. Life must come to man out of death, and in no other way; for death is the penalty of sin, and he is a sinner.

But thus also, as springing out of this, vicariously endured, it comes accompanied with the efficacy of atonement made: he who receives it “hath eternal life, and doth not come into judgment, but is passed out of death into life” (John 5:24). The fundamental truths of the Gospel of John are thus embodied in this inbreathing by the risen Saviour. But then it is, necessarily, of something that His disciples have before received that He is speaking to them in it. The giving of life could not actually wait for His resurrection. The Cross, standing amid the ages, looks backward as well as forward. And the Lord, in speaking of His communication of the life in Him, takes care to assure us of this. “The hour is coming,” He says, “and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God; and they that hear shall live” (John 5:25). And when afterwards He speaks of what is (now) characteristic of eternal life, -that they “know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent,” He declares at the same time that this knowledge they already had (John 17:6-8). There can be nothing plainer then, than that the Lord is not here communicating to His disciples what they had not received before, but that He is simply putting together in this symbolic manner things that were, in fact, already theirs. Every thing is emerging now from the obscurity of Moses’ veil (2 Corinthians 3:13) into the open glory of Christ’s face unveiled. Now when the Lord goes on to say in plain speech, “Receive ye the Holy Spirit,” it should be as plain that He is not interpreting the past, but speaking of something they had not yet received. The evangelist, when reporting to us His words at the feast of tabernacles as to the “living water,” remarks that “this spake He of the Spirit, which they that believed on Him should receive;” and then he adds, “for the Holy Spirit was not yet, because Jesus was not yet glorified.” Here, as far as words can show it, the same reception of the Spirit is spoken of. But here also a time is given before which the Spirit could not be received. Jesus must be first glorified, says the apostle. If, then, the Lord was not yet glorified at the time in which He uttered the words we are considering, these must still have had a reference to the future: that is, to that Pentecostal gift of the Spirit, to which, perhaps, we should be naturally inclined to refer them. Now, when we remember the Lord’s previous declaration that He must go away to the Father, or else the Advocate would not come to them (John 16:7), there can be no right question that this glorifying of Jesus was His being glorified with the glory which He had with the Father before the world was (John 17:5). The fact, then, that He was upon earth when now speaking to them would be sufficient proof that the reception of the Spirit, of which He was speaking was, in fact, Pentecostal. Yet it has been imagined even that the Lord had already ascended to the Father between the time when He had said to Mary that He had not yet done so and His being here in the midst! For, they say, He forbade Mary to touch Him, because not ascended, while here and elsewhere He freely permits it. But this is simply a misinterpretation of His words to Mary, and His going to the Father is always spoken of as implying His absence from His people during the present time. Such an imaginary ascension, for which not a single direct scripture can be quoted, and which would displace that which is always spoken of as such, cannot possibly, therefore, be maintained. But, we are told by others, the article should be omitted in the Lord’s words here, and therefore they intimate, not the Spirit as personally coming at Pentecost, but a bestowment of spiritual energy simply, which raises the life communicated to its proper resurrection power. We are not yet arrived where this question can be fully discussed, which can only be in Romans, but the lack of scripture for it is the most fatal objection. As to the absence of the article, it is absent also in that which was just now quoted from the seventh chapter, where we must read, according to this, “for Holy Spirit,” or, as many read, simply “Spirit was not yet.” But this would then deny the possibility of any such bestowment before the Lord’s ascension. This would be altogether fatal to any such interpretation. Besides which, the Holy Spirit, (or, if it be preferred, simply Holy Spirit) cannot be shown to be anywhere identified with life, or any degree of it. I am aware that “the Spirit is life” (Romans 8:10) may be cited against me; but that is plainly the personal Spirit.

The only proper force of the words, therefore, is that the Spirit is life potentially, -is the Source of it, -to the children of God. The Spirit does not stand there for the life: nor for any grade or character of life; all the more surely, that it gives it character. “Receive ye the Holy Spirit,” means, then, simply what it says, and cannot be the interpretation of the inbreathing which precedes the words, and which do evidently speak of the giving of life; not, however, of a communication of it there and then, but of one they had already received, and by which they had become a new creation. Creation is not an increase of life, but a beginning of it, as is plain. They had received life, as we have seen, and eternal life. It is now seen as bringing them into new creation, delivering them therefore from the old; and so from sin and judgment, as connected with it. Now they are qualified to receive the Spirit, to be the power indeed of the new life as resurrection life, with the value of Christ’s blessed work for God attaching to it. Sin is thus for them put away: they belong to a Kingdom of life and not of death, and of righteousness as inseparably connected with this. They are to be representatives of this now upon earth, remitting or retaining sins in His Name, and by His authority; not, surely, in relation to heaven and its blessedness, as has been monstrously claimed by the false church; but in relation to the sphere of His earthly interests. This is a seal upon the higher blessing into which He has introduced them; the reception of the Spirit being their qualification for it, and the condition therefore implied that they act in the power of that endowment.

John 20:24-31

Section 4. (John 20:24-31.)A glance at the earthly company. Here then we have the heavenly company: -not exactly the Church; at least, not as the Body of Christ, or the House of God; things which are not in the line of the apostle’s teaching. But the Spirit which they are to receive sufficiently marks them out as those who, in fact, belong to that which is the gathering together of the children of God, before scattered abroad (John 11:52). But we have seen also that John cannot forget (or the Spirit of God as speaking through him) that there are promises of blessing for the earth, and therefore to an earthly people, which He will fulfil in their entirety to them. We have had glances at this already, again and again, and now we have another. Thomas, called Didymus, (both names meaning “a twin,”) though one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. We may easily believe that the unbelief which he so conspicuously exhibits, may have hindered his being with them at that memorable time.

How many glorious opportunities do we not lose from such a cause? Not even the testimony of all the others is sufficient to make him credit so marvellous a tale. Like Israel, he must look upon the Pierced One, or he will not believe. The week passes, therefore, with Thomas unbelieving still; just as the present time with Israel. But on the eighth day, the first of the new week, the disciples are again together, and now Thomas is with them: Jesus comes once more, the doors again being shut, and stands in the midst, and says again, “Peace be unto you.” And now Thomas may satisfy himself; but he is broken down in adoring wonder: “My Lord and my God!” he exclaims, as, thank God, at last the nation will; but to find that he has lost, not time alone, but the higher blessing: “Thomas,” says the Lord, “because thou hast seen Me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.” The apostle adds here that the object of his writing was to awaken and encourage faith in Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God; that thus men might have life in His Name. For this purpose, he had not attempted an impossible relation of all the signs that Jesus had done. These were innumerable: nor is a faith founded merely upon miracles a sufficient faith (John 2:23-25). His aim had been that the divine glory of the Lord should appear; so that His Name -the display of Himself, might prove its power for this, as it alone could do. Acquaintance with the Son of God! Ah, is not this, indeed, the need we have, one and all? is it not here all need shall be supplied?