This pericope contains another post-resurrection appearance of Jesus that bolstered the disciples' faith. It also contains John's account of the Great Commission.
20:19 John moved his readers directly from the events of Easter morning to those that happened that evening.
"The seventh day of the week, the Sabbath, commemorates God's finished work of Creation (Gen. 2:1-3). The Lord's Day commemorates Christ's finished work of redemption, the new creation.' . . .
"For centuries, the Jewish Sabbath had been associated with Law: six days of work, and then you rest. But the Lord's Day, the first day of the week, is associated with grace: first there is faith in the living Christ, then there will be works."638
Apparently the Eleven except Thomas were present (cf. Mark 16:14; John 20:24).639The disciples had gathered in a secure room because they feared the Jewish authorities. The Jewish authorities had crucified their rabbi, so it was reasonable to think that they might come after them as well.640
John implied that Jesus appeared miraculously even though the disciples had shut up (Gr. kekleismenon, i.e., "locked"NIV) the doors (cf. v. 26). Jesus' resurrection body had passed through grave clothes and a rocky tomb. Now it passed through the walls of this structure.
Jesus' greeting was common enough (i.e., Heb. shalom alekem). However, He had formerly promised His disciples His peace (14:27; 16:33). Consequently He was imparting rather than just wishing peace on them. This seems clear because Jesus repeated the benediction two more times (vv. 21, 26). "Shalom"summarized the fullness of God's blessing, not just the cessation of hostility (cf. Rom. 5:1; Phil. 4:7).
"Shalom!' on Easter evening is the complement of it is finished' on the cross, for the peace of reconciliation and life from God is now imparted . . . Not surprisingly it is included, along with grace,' in the greeting of everyepistle of Paul in the NT."641
20:20 Evidently Jesus showed the disciples His hands and side with their wounds to convince them that it was really He and not just a phantom (cf. Luke 24:37). Luke added that He showed them His feet too (Luke 24:39). Then these disciples rejoiced because they saw (Gr. idontes, i.e., perceived intelligently, cf. v. 8) who Jesus really was.
"Thus the disciples were forced to grasp what became a central confession of the church: the risen Lord is none other than the crucified sacrifice."642
The disciples' initial reaction to Jesus' unexpected appearance was terror (Luke 24:37). However upon examining His wounds their fear turned to faith. The disciples' joy was the proof of their perception and the testimony to their faith.
"Christian joy has been born, the joy of the redeemed, which Jesus had promised would be theirs after the travail pangs had passed (see xvi. 20-22)."643
Clearly Jesus' resurrection body resembled His former body, but evidently His beatings and crucifixion had so scarred Him that even His closest friends could hardly recognize Him (cf. Isa. 52:14). His resurrection body also possessed properties of immortality that enabled Him to pass through solid objects and to materialize and dematerialize at will, though it was not ethereal.
20:21 Jesus repeated His benediction (v. 19). He then commissioned His disciples for their mission from then on.644He expressed this commission in terms of the relationships that John recorded Jesus teaching extensively in this Gospel. Jesus was sending His disciples on a mission just as His Father had sent Him on a mission (cf. 17:18). The emphasis here is on the sending and the authoritative person doing the sending. Thus Jesus' disciples became apostles (lit. sent ones) in a new sense.645
Each Gospel plus Acts records a different version of the Great Commission (Matt. 28:19-20; Mark 16:15-16; Luke 24:46-48; John 20:21-23; Acts 1:8). Jesus apparently gave this commission on at least three separate occasions.646The reader of the Gospels can scarcely escape its crucial importance. It expresses God's will for every believer in the present age.
Some Christians believe that Jesus intended this commission only for His original disciples. They point to the fact that the writers of the New Testament epistles never referred to it. However even though they did not refer to it explicitly they clearly presupposed its validity for the whole church. They simply cast it in different terminology (e.g., 2 Cor. 5:20). The universal scope of the commission also argues for its continuation. Third, the repetition of this commission five times suggests that Jesus intended all of His disciples to carry it out. Finally, this was the last charge that Jesus gave His disciples before He returned to His Father. This fact also suggests that He intended it for all succeeding generations of disciples.
Clearly on this occasion Jesus was presenting His mission as a model for His disciples' mission. Many Christians have concluded, therefore, that what characterized Jesus' ministry must characterize the church's ministry. They see this mission including healing the sick, casting out demons, and feeding the hungry. They believe that the church's mission is much broader than just preaching the gospel, baptizing, teaching, and planting churches.
However the emphasis on Jesus' mission in John's Gospel has been primarily that Jesus always carried out God's will in perfect obedience (cf. 5:19-30; 8:29). Even before His crucifixion Jesus stressed the importance of the believer's obedience as the fulfillment of this paradigm (15:9-10). The purpose of Jesus' incarnation was the spiritual salvation of the world (1:29). That is also the believer's primary, though not our exclusive, purpose (cf. Gal. 6:10). As Jesus always operated in dependence on the Father with the Spirit's enablement, so should His disciples (cf. 1:32; 3:34; 4:34; 5:19; 6:27; 10:36; 17:4). As He was a Son of God, so are His disciples sons of God (cf. 1:12-13; 3:3, 5; 20:17).
Since believers no longer belong to the world (15:19), it was necessary for Jesus to send His disciples back into the world. Our mission does not replace Jesus' mission, however. He carries out His present mission through us.647We must consider all the versions of the Great Commission that Jesus gave to understand our mission correctly, not just this one.
". . . what is central to the Son's mission--that he came as the Father's gift so that those who believe in him might not perish but have eternal life (3:16), experiencing new life as the children of God (1:12-13) and freedom from the slavery of sin because they have been set free by the Son of God (8:34-36)--must never be lost to view as the church defines her mission."648
Jesus and John reminded all disciples of these central issues in the verses that follow (cf. vv. 23, 30-31).
20:22 These disciples needed supernatural spiritual power to carry out such a task, but what did Jesus really do next? There are several views.
One view is that Jesus gave these disciples a temporary infusion of His Spirit.649The act of breathing on them recalls the Creation in which God breathed His life into Adam (Gen. 2:7). Thus Jesus was suggesting that He was doing a new creative work by filling these men with His Spirit. Later Jesus explained that the Spirit would come upon these disciples again (Acts 1:8). This present act of Jesus then represented a preliminary and temporary enabling that helped the disciples understand what they could expect more fully and permanently later. That baptizing came on the day of Pentecost (Acts 1:5; 2:4; 11:15).
Some problems with this view are as follows. Two bestowals of the Spirit seem unusual in view of Jesus' earlier promises to send the Spirit (chs. 14-16) and the importance in Acts of the Spirit's coming at Pentecost (Acts 1:5; 2:4; 11:15). Also there is no indication that this temporary infusion with the Spirit had any effect on the disciples. Furthermore there is no evidence that when Thomas returned to the scene Jesus gave him the Spirit as one would expect if the Spirit's presence was essential for the disciples then (v. 26-29).
Many readers of the Greek text have noted that "Holy Spirit"(Gr. pneuma hagion) does not have a definite article preceding it. This has led some of them to conclude that the Holy Spirit is not in view, but the breath (Gr. pneuma) of God is. They take this breath of God to be symbolic of God's gift of spiritual power in an impersonal sense.650However, John earlier referred to the personal Holy Spirit without the article (7:39). That seems to be his meaning here as well. The absence of an article before a noun often has the effect of stressing the quality of the noun. In this case that would be the holiness of the Spirit.
Many modern scholars view this verse as John's account of Pentecost.651However this view requires a weak view of the inspiration of John or Acts, or it does not take the chronological sequence of events that these books present seriously. Clearly the occasion that John described here and the events of the day of Pentecost were different.
Still others believe that Jesus was giving these disciples a symbolic and graphic reminder of the Spirit who would come upon them later. It was a demonstration of what Jesus would do when He returned to the Father and which He did do on Pentecost. He was not imparting the Spirit to them in any sense here.652This interpretation accounts for Thomas not receiving the Spirit before Pentecost. It also explains why this event had no changing effect on the disciples. Evidently there was only one coming of the Spirit on these disciples, and that happened on Pentecost.
20:23 The Great Commission not only requires supernatural power to carry it out (v. 22), but it also involves the forgiveness of sins (cf. Jer. 31:31-34; Matt. 26:28). In the similar passages in Matthew 16:19 and 18:18, the context is church discipline. Here the context is evangelism.
The second part of each conditional clause in this verse is in the passive voice and the perfect tense in the Greek text. The passive voice indicates that someone has already done the forgiving or retaining. That person must be God since He alone has the authority to do that (Matt. 9:2-3; Mark 2:7; Luke 5:21). The perfect tense indicates that the action has continuing effects; the sins stand forgiven or retained at least temporarily if not permanently.
Jesus appears to have been saying that when His disciples went to others with the message of salvation, as He had done, some people would believe and others would not. Reaction to their ministry would be the same as reaction to His had been. He viewed their forgiving and retaining the sins of their hearers as the actions of God's agents. If people ("any"or "anyone,"plural Gr. tinon) believed the gospel, the disciples could tell the believers that God had forgiven their sins. If they disbelieved, they could tell them that God had not forgiven but retained their sins. Jesus had done this (cf. 9:39-41), and now His disciples would continue to do it. Thus their ministry would be a continuation of His ministry relative to the forgiveness of sins, as it would be in relation to the Spirit's enablement. This, too, applies to all succeeding generations of Jesus' disciples since Jesus was still talking about the disciples' mission.
". . . all who proclaim the gospel are in effect forgiving or not forgiving sins, depending on whether the hearer accepts or rejects the Lord Jesus as the Sin-Bearer."653
This resurrection appearance has threefold importance in John's Gospel. It validated again Jesus' bodily resurrection, and it provided the setting for the commissioning of Jesus' disciples. It also provided the background for Jesus' appearance when Thomas was present and Thomas' climactic statement of faith that followed (vv. 24-29).
