Chapter BY Chapter

John 20:1-31

The Resurrection of Jesus

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Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance.  So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!”

 

So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb.  Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first.  He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in.  Then Simon Peter came along behind him and went straight into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, as well as the cloth that had been wrapped around Jesus’ head. The cloth was still lying in its place, separate from the linen.  Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed.  (They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.)  Then the disciples went back to where they were staying.

 

Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot.

 

They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?”

 

“They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.”  At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus.

 

He asked her, “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?”

 

Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”

Jesus said to her, “Mary.”

 

She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means “Teacher”).

 

Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”

 

Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: “I have seen the Lord!” And she told them that he had said these things to her.

 

On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!”  After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.

 

Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.”  And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.  If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”

 

Now Thomas (also known as Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came.  So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!”

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One time I saw a post on someone’s Facebook page that said, “If the New Testament is true, then why does it have all these Anglicized names in it like James, John, Peter, and Thomas?”

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Do you know what the answer is?

 

(These names are all derived from Hebrew or Greek names to begin with that were Anglicized for our own way of pronunciation.  Examples:  Jesus is Yeshua in Hebrew.  John is Yohanon in Hebrew.) 

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But he said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”

 

A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!”  Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.”

 

Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!”

 

Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

 

Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book.  But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

 

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Now, the last chapter ends with Nicodemus brining 75 pounds of spices, specifically myrrh and aloe to the burial site.  It is doubtful that he used all the spices at once.  It is more likely that they were going to use it over and over to overcome the bad odor of human decomposition and to keep bugs off of it.  There are several Greek words for spices pertaining to food spices, hot spices, decorative spices, medicinal spices, and the word John used for these spices is “aromA.”  This is the same word for spices in Luke 24:1, and in Mark 16:1. 

 

So, Mary Magdalene goes to the tomb to take a look.  Other gospels say that Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James the disciple went to the tomb to put spices (aroma) on Jesus’ body.  So, she sees that the stone over the tomb was rolled away and she immediately goes to Peter and John, who identifies himself as “the other disciple, the one Jesus loved.”  Mary’s immediate concern is that Jesus has been taken out of the tomb and they do not know where he was taken.  So Peter and John start running to the tomb.  John, being a bit younger and more nimble outruns Peter and gets there first.  John bends over and sees the linen cloths there.  Now remember, the word “strips” is not there in the Greek.  The word is “othiniOn,” which refers to linen cloths of any size.  They made their linen out of flax in those days.   The Greeks would make theirs so fine that you could see right through them.  The Israelites, thankfully, were modest.  When he gets there, Peter goes right in and he sees the cloths of linen as well as the cloth that was wrapped around Jesus’ head.   This is the “sudarion,” and it is by itself folded up.  This implies that the sudarion was used only as they carried Jesus from the cross and folded up separately and had not been altered from the time of burial.  The other burial cloths, however, were lying there with no body inside it.  Finally John goes inside and he believes.

 

What did John believe? 

1. That Jesus’ body was moved?No, they would have taken the burial cloths with him, it that was the case.

2. That Jesus rose from the dead.

   • FACT - The burial cloths were there in the tomb without Jesus’ body.These are not strips of cloth like the Egyptians used to preserve the body.This was not the Jewish custom, and in the previous chapter, we learned that Jesus was buried according to Jewish custom.

   • FACT – The sudarion, which was not a part of the burial linens was not altered.If someone wanted to move the body, they would have also moved the sudarion and the spices that Nicodemus brought there.

   • FACT – The guards were not there.Something miraculous must have happened.

 

Then John says,

“They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.”

 

Well, up until that time.

 

Did the Old Testament Scripture teach that the Messiah would rise from the dead?

 

Psalm 16:9-10,

“Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices;
    my body also will rest secure,
because you will not abandon me to the realm of the dead,
    nor will you let your faithful one see decay.”

 

Isaiah 53:11,

“After he has suffered,
    he will see the light of life and be satisfied;
by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many,
    and he will bear their iniquities.”

 

Psalm 22:19-21,

“But you, Lord, do not be far from me.
    You are my strength; come quickly to help me.
Deliver me from the sword,
    my precious life from the power of the dogs.
Rescue me from the mouth of the lions;
    save me from the horns of the wild oxen.”

 

Zechariah 12:10,

 “And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication. They will look on[b] me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son.”

 

(AFTER he has been pierced, he will pour out a spirit of grace and supplication.)

 

Job 19:25-27,

“I know that my redeemer lives,
    and that in the end he will stand on the earth.
And after my skin has been destroyed,
    yet in my flesh I will see God;
I myself will see him
    with my own eyes—I, and not another.
    How my heart yearns within me!”

 

Isaiah 25:7-9,

“On this mountain he will destroy
    the shroud that enfolds all peoples,
the sheet that covers all nations;
     he will swallow up death forever.
The Sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears
    from all faces;
he will remove his people’s disgrace
    from all the earth.
The Lord has spoken.

In that day they will say,

“Surely this is our God;
    we trusted in him, and he saved us.
This is the Lord, we trusted in him;
    let us rejoice and be glad in his salvation.”

 

Hosea 6:2,

“After two days he will revive us;
    on the third day he will restore us,
    that we may live in his presence.”

 

Then the disciples went back to where they were staying.

 

Mary Magdalene stood outside the tomb crying.  The text does not address this, but she must have run back to the tomb with the disciples. 

 

Now she bends down to look into the tomb and she sees two angels sitting where Jesus’ body was.  The angels ask her why she was crying.  She turns around and Jesus is there.  He too asks why she is crying, and who she is looking for.

 

She mistakes him for the gardener and asks where he has laid her Lord Jesus. 

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Jesus says her name, and then she recognizes him. 

 

Jesus says, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”

 

What is the significance of this?  Why is Jesus saying this?

1. Previously Jesus told the disciples that he was going to the Father.

2. He didn’t want them to get the idea that he was going to be around for them to keep.

3. He is definitely going to ascend to the Father.

 

Now some people use this statement to say that Jesus could not be God.  How could he ascend to the Father if he is already God?  Why is his God just like God is our God?

1. God can be in more than one place at a time.

2. Who is Donald Trump’s president?Isn’t God, God to himself as well?

3. God doesn’t explain everything to us.There is no possible way that we could understand or even know what God understands and knows.One might ask, “WHY does Jesus need to ascend to the father?”We don’t know why.The why of this was not fully explained.Nor do we need to know it at this point.

 

So, Mary goes to the disciples and tells them these things.  They are afraid of the Jewish Leaders, so they lock themselves inside. 

Jesus suddenly appears in the midst of them and says “Peace to you!  As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.”  And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.  If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”

 

 A lot is being said here.

1. Peace to you.

   • Does this mean absence of wars and fighting?Peace that is provided for the Christians is different than worldly peace.

     • John 16:33, “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

     • John 14:23-27m, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.”

2. As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.

   • First, how did God send Jesus?

     • John 1:14, “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”

     • John 3:17, “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”

     • John 13:20, “ Very truly I tell you, whoever accepts anyone I send accepts me; and whoever accepts me accepts the one who sent me.”

   • How are we, the disciples, to be sent?

     • John 4:38, “I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor.”

     • John 17:18, “As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world.”

     • John 20:21, “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.”

3. He breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” (Why do they need the Holy Spirit?)

   • John 1:32-34, “Then John gave this testimony: “I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on him.  And I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, ‘The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.’  I have seen and I testify that this is God’s Chosen One.”

   • John 3:6, “Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.”

   • John 4:23-24, “Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”

   • John 7:38-39, “Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.”  By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.”

   • John 14:16-17, “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever -  the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.”

   • John 14:26, “But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.”

   • John 15:26-27, ““When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father—the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father—he will testify about me.  And you also must testify, for you have been with me from the beginning.”

   • John 16:7-11, “But very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.  When he comes, he will prove the world to be in the wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: about sin, because people do not believe in me;  about righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer;  and about judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned.”

   • John 16:13-14, “But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. 14 He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you.”

4. If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven. (Does this mean that we should hold the purse strings and only forgive people we like?)

   • John 3:16-17, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”

   • John 4:39, “Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.”

   • John 8:9-11, “At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”“No one, sir,” she said.“Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”

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Now Thomas (also known as Didymus (which means ‘twin’)), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came.  So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!”

 

But he said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”

 

A week later his disciples were in the house again and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!”  Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.”

 

Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!”

 

Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

 

Now the other disciples already saw Jesus’ hands and side.  Thomas insists that he not only see the hands and side, but to feel the holes that were made in them.  Otherwise, he is not going to believe.

 

A week later, the disciples are in the house again with the doors locked.  Then came Jesus.  Both in verse 26 and in verse 19, the Greek is explicitly saying that Jesus appeared to them miraculously.  It first says the doors were locked.  After that it says Jesus came and stood in their midst and said “Peach be with you.”  He probably said this in Hebrew, which is one word.  Do you know what word that would be?

(Shalom)

 

So Jesus tells Thomas to reach out his hand and put his finger in his hand and his hand in his side.  Then he says, “Stop doubting and believe.” 

 

Thomas received undisputable empirical evidence.

 

Thomas responds by saying, “My Lord and my God.”

 

Thomas got it right. 

 

Many people have not had as much evidence as Thomas did.  Jesus comments that blessed are those that have not seen and believe. 

Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book.  But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

John was an eyewitness to all these things.  He stood right at the cross.  He saw the empty tomb.  He saw the resurrected Jesus.  He saw Thomas put his finger in Jesus’ hand and put his hand in Jesus’ side. 

 

Over the last few centuries, many have lost sight of the proofs of Jesus’ resurrection, and have lost sight in believing in Jesus.  Thanks to science, some of the proofs are being rediscovered.  They are just as powerful as what Thomas has experienced. 

1. We have the eyewitness testimony of at least 2 of Jesus’ disciples.Mark was also a contemporary of tis time being Peter’s translator, it can be best understood being written at the hand of Mark because this is what Peter preached.Additionally, Luke is a contemporary follower of Jesus who also witnessed these things and wrote a gospel about it.These gospels have endured the test of time and scrutiny.

2. We have historians such as Tacitus, who testified that the crucifixion of Jesus Christ by the hands of Pontius Pilate, only held the belief back for a brief moment.

3. The historian Josephus testified to this saying, "About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man.For he was one who performed surprising deeds and was a teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly. He won over many Jews and many of the Greeks. He was the Messiah. And when, upon the accusation of the principal men among us, Pilate had condemned him to a cross, those who had first come to love him did not cease.He appeared to them spending a third day restored to life, for the prophets of God had foretold these things and a thousand other marvels about him.And the tribe of the Christians, so called after him, has still to this day not disappeared."

4. Two grave sites are attributed to Lazarus whom Jesus raised from the dead.

5. The disciples were transformed and went throughout the world preaching the gospel and nearly all of them were killed or crucified for their faith.

6. The gospel spread fast and far while it was a faith persecuted by the state it was in.

7. A Roman traveler documented in 29 A.D. that Jesus of Nazareth was already known as a healer and miracle worker.

8. The resurrection of Jesus claim (& the Jewish claim that the disciples stole his body) is further attested to by the Nazareth inscription that forbids the removal of bodies from tombs (http://www.biblearchaeology.org/post/2009/07/22/The-Nazareth-Inscription-Proof-of-the-Resurrection-of-Christ.aspx#Article).

9. Logically, all refutations of the resurrection fall flat when confronted with the facts.The story that the guards fell asleep and the disciples falls flat because the guards would have been executed.The guards were not executed.

10. And there is the Shroud of Turin, indisputable empirical proof of the resurrection of Jesus.(https://youtu.be/efEDb2jHyMY)