Luke---Acts

Zondervan, Tremper Longman III, Daniel Garland

• Publisher: Zondervan Academic
• Year: 2009
• eBook ISBN: 9780310862932
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Criticism & Interpretation

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C. Jesus Appears to His Disciples (20:19–23)

¹⁹On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said,“Peace be with you!” ²⁰After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.

²¹Again Jesus said,“Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.”

²²And with that he breathed on them and said,“Receive the Holy Spirit. ²³ you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”

COMMENTARY

19 The next appearance of Jesus recorded in the fourth gospel took place on the evening of resurrection Sunday. At this point, John is not using the normal Jewish reckoning of time, because the “evening” of the first day of the week would have been Saturday night (since each new day began with sundown of the previous day).“That first day of the week” refers to the same first day with which the chapter begins. The disciples were gathered (probably in the upper room) because they had heard from four reliable sources (Mary Magdalene, the women returning from the tomb, Peter, and the disciples on the road to Emmaus) that Jesus had risen from the dead. He was no longer in the grave but had returned to life and was somewhere in the vicinity. The parallel account in Luke 24 indicates that the term “disciples” should be taken in a wider sense than the Twelve as we commonly know them. (Verse 33 indicates that the disciples on the road to Emmaus returned to Jerusalem, where they found “the Eleven and those with them.”)

The group had met behind locked doors for fear of the Jews. The story was circulating that the disciples had stolen the body of Jesus while the guards were sleeping (Mt 28:13–15). There was reason to believe that some sort of retaliation would be taken. The apocryphal Gospel of Peter (26) tells of a search for the disciples on the ground that they had attempted to set fire to the temple. The plural “doors” most likely refers to the outer door leading into the house and the door of the specific room where they had gathered (rather than two doors to the same room).

Suddenly Jesus stands among them. Whether one understands Jesus as having caused the doors to open (cf. Ac 17:26) or simply to have passed through the closed doors, the appearance involves a miracle. Though his greeting was the usual Hebrew salutation, “Peace be with you!” (cf. 1Sa 25:6), the disciples could not but remember his promise made a short time before: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you” (14:27). They may have expected a strong rebuke from the one they had deserted, but they received instead his forgiveness and blessing. Such is the grace of our Lord!

20 Jesus then showed the disciples his hands and side. It is possible that the nails were driven through the wrists; both the Hebrew and the Greek word for “hand” may include the arm (cf. Mt 4:6). The wounds inflicted by the crucifixion would prove beyond doubt that the one who stood before them alive was their earthly Master. (In 1968, the skeleton of a crucified man was found in Israel with a nail driven through his ankle bones.) How poignant the scene as Jesus extends his nail-pierced hands to his own to convince them of his victory over the grave! How gracious that those same hands remain outstretched to sinners today as a symbol of his love for all for whom he died! While Calvin, 2:203, held that for anyone to infer that Christ still has a wounded side and hands would be “ridiculous,” Revelation 5:6 pictures the glorified Jesus as “a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain.” It would be better to leave that issue unanswered!

21 The disciples are “overjoyed” when they grasp that the one standing before them is, in reality, the Lord. Morris, 845 n. 49, notes that the aorist (echare-m san, GK 5897) may point to the sudden joy that came over them when they realized it was Jesus. Jesus repeats his greeting (cf. v.19) and adds,“As the Father has sent me, I am sending you” (cf. 17:18). The mission of the church grows out of the mission of Christ. It is a continuation of what God purposed when he sent his Son on the mission of redemption. As he went, so also do we go. His mission determines the mission of the church and provides it with direction and motivation.

22 This verse has been taken in various ways. Some connect it with the ancient belief that the breath of a holy man had special power; others think that it reflects an early method of Christian ordination. Since the words “on them” do not occur in the Greek text, it is possible to translate, “He expelled a deep breath” (Hugh Schonfield, The Original New Testament [1958; repr., New York: Harper & Row, 1985]). It is better to take the incident as a special empowerment of the Holy Spirit for the mission to which the disciples have just been assigned. (The lack of an article before pneuma, GK 4460, stresses the quality rather than the person of the Spirit.) The Greek emphysaō (“to breathe on,” GK 1874) occurs only here in the NT, though it is used in the LXX in Genesis 2:7 (God “breathed into [man’s] nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being”) and Ezekiel 37:1–14 (the “dry bones” account). God’s breath is the beginning of all life. Without his Spirit, his mission cannot be accomplished. A special infilling of the Holy Spirit is still the primary requirement for effective ministry.

23 The disciples are told that if they “forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven” and if they “do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.” It is clear from Mark 2:7 that no one but God can forgive sins. Bruce, 392, notes that the two passives (translated “they are forgiven” and “they are not forgiven”) express divine agency and that the preacher’s role is declaratory. It has never been the role of the minister or priest to forgive sins; they can only announce the fact that sins have been forgiven. When the message is accepted, forgiveness is granted; when it is refused, forgiveness is withheld.

NOTES

21 The ASV, NASB, NET, and NKJV take

(oun) as inferential and translate “therefore” or “so.”The RSV, NRSV, NIV, and NLT take it as transitional and supply no English equivalent. The KJV has “then.”

Though two different verbs are used for “sending” (

, apostello, mGK 690, for the Father’s sending of the Son;

, pempo, mGK 4287, for Jesus’ sending of his disciples), the meaning is the same.

23 The perfect passive indicative (

, apheōntai, GK 904]) has strong external support (

A D (L) 050 f ^1,13 33^vid 565 et al.) and the variants

(aphientai, present) and

(aphethēsetai, future) are regarded by the UBS committee as “scribal simplifications which weaken the sense” (Metzger, 219). Some would interpret the perfect tense to mean that God’s forgiveness is granted prior to the forgiveness extended by Jesus’ disciples, but this fails to understand that “in a conditional sentence the perfect tense is used with essentially the same meaning as the present and the future, except that it emphasizes the continuous character of the action” (Newman and Nida, Translator’s Handbook on the Gospel of John, 615—16). The NASB falls prey to this error: “If you forgive the sins of any, their sins have been forgiven them.”

D. The Confession by Thomas (20:24–29)

OVERVIEW

We once again meet Thomas, one of the twelve disciples. In the Synoptics his name occurs only in the listing of the Twelve (Mt 10:3 par.), but John refers to him on four occasions (11:16; 14:5; 20:24; 21:2). Thomas’s reluctance to accept the report of the others that Jesus is alive has earned him the title “Doubting Thomas.” Opinions vary as to whether the name is accurate or does him a disservice. The two earlier references along with the current episode suggest that he was a devoted follower of Jesus but suffered from a somewhat gloomy outlook on the future. For reasons not quite clear, Calvin, 2:209, has some strong words to say of him—he was “downright obstinate”; his stupidity was “astonishing and monstrous”; he was “proud and insulting towards Christ.” Such a strong reaction is hardly justified from the fragmentary account of him in Scripture. A man of such questionable character could hardly have gained the respect of early tradition, which reports that he evangelized Parthia, went to Persia, and founded Christianity in India.

²⁴Now Thomas (called Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. ²⁵ 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 it.”

²⁶A 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!” ²⁷Then 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.”

²⁸Thomas said to him,“My Lord and my God!”

²⁹Then Jesus told him,“Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

COMMENTARY

24 Thomas (“called Didymus,” which means “twin”) was absent from the gathering when Jesus had appeared in the midst of the disciples. No reason is given. Perhaps he wanted to be alone during this time of deep sorrow. Barclay, 2:275, reports that King George the Fifth had as one of his rules of life that if he must suffer, he wanted to be left alone to suffer like a well-bred animal.

25 When told by the others that they had seen the Lord (the imperfect elegon, GK 3306, implying repeated affirmations), Thomas was adamant in his refusal to believe; unless he could see (and touch) the nail marks in Jesus’ hands and the wound on Jesus’ side, he would not believe. The nonnegotiable “unless” is an emphatic double negative in Greek. It is difficult to understand why Thomas was so resolved not to believe. To reject so strongly the testimony of ten close friends is not easy to justify. Temple, 2:390, explains “such vigour of unbelief “ as “a strong urge to believe, held down by common sense and its habitual dread of disillusionment.” Perhaps Thomas thought the others had experienced a common vision, and he wanted to be certain that when he reached out to touch the body, his hand would come in contact with genuine flesh. In any case, his skepticism cost him a week of doubt and wondering while the others were rejoicing in the truth of Jesus’ resurrection. The failure to believe carries its own penalty.

26–27 “A week later” (Gk. “eight days,” taken inclusively) Thomas was back with the other disciples when Jesus appeared behind locked doors as he had on Easter evening. Using Thomas’s own words, Jesus invites the hesitant disciple to reach out and touch his hands and to put his hand into his side (v.27). How would the risen Lord know what Thomas had said unless he had been present at the time of the disciple’s ultimatum?

“S...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Contributors to Volume Ten
• Preface
• Abbreviations
• Luke
• John
• Acts
• About the Publisher
• Share Your Thoughts