John 20:19 - Meaning and Application

The sure proof of Christ’s resurrection was that he showed himself alive (Acts 1:3). In these verses, we read about his first appearance to the group of disciples on the very day he rose. He had already sent them news of his resurrection through trustworthy messengers, but he also came himself to show his love and strengthen their faith. He wanted them to know it by more than report. They needed to be eyewitnesses, because they would tell the world and help build the church on that witness.

Notice first when and where this appearance took place (John 20:19). It was the same day he rose, the first day of the week, the day after the Jewish Sabbath, at a private meeting of the disciples. There were ten of them there, along with some of their friends (Luke 24:33). Christ’s kingdom was set up among people right after his resurrection, and that very day, though it seemed small and ordinary, was honored with events that would support true religion through all the church’s history.

Here we see a Christian Sabbath, or Lord’s Day, observed by the disciples and approved by the Lord Jesus. Christ visited them on the first day of the week. The New Testament often points to this day in a special way, and it is treated as a day set apart for worship. The apostles did not yet fully understand all that this meant, but God was already giving honor to the day by bringing them together to receive Christ’s first visit then. In this way, he showed that the day was blessed and set apart because the Redeemer rested in it.

We also see a Christian assembly gathered by the disciples and owned by the Lord Jesus. They likely met for prayer, or to talk through the news of their Master’s resurrection, or to decide what they should do next. They needed one another’s help, encouragement, and judgment in that uncertain time. Their meeting was private because they did not dare appear openly, especially not as a group. They met in a house and kept the door shut, since they feared the Jews, who would try to punish the disciples as criminals and support the false story that his followers stole the body.

Christ’s disciples must not stop meeting together, even in hard times (Hebrews 10:25). These sheep had been scattered by the storm, but sheep are social and come together again. It is no strange thing for Christ’s people to be pushed into corners and driven into the wilderness (Revelation 12:14; Proverbs 28:12). God’s people have often had to go into their rooms and shut the doors, as these disciples did, because of persecution. That is a real grief, but it is no shame to Christ’s disciples when they must hide like this.

Now consider what Christ said and did when he came to them. When they were gathered, Jesus came among them in his own likeness, though he covered the brightness of his glorified body, which would have dazzled their eyes if he had shown it fully, as at the transfiguration. He came among them to show that he keeps his promise, that where two or three gather in his name, he is there among them. He came even though the doors were shut. That does not weaken the truth that he had a real human body after his resurrection. He simply knew how to enter without noise, just as he had once walked on the water.

This is a comfort to Christ’s disciples. When worship has to be private, no shut door can keep out Christ’s presence. We see five things in this appearance of Christ. First, he greeted his disciples kindly and familiarly: “Peace be unto you.” This was not just a common greeting, but a serious blessing that brought them the good results of his death and resurrection. The words were familiar, but now their meaning was special. It was as if he were saying, “May all good be yours, and may peace be with you always, in every way.”

Christ had left them his peace as a gift (John 14:27). Since the testator had died, the will was now in force, and since he had risen from the dead, he was proving the will and carrying it out himself. So he quickly gives them the promised gift: “Peace be unto you.” When he speaks peace, he makes peace. He gives peace with God, peace in the conscience, and peace with one another. Not peace with the world, but peace in Christ. His sudden coming among them, when they were full of doubts about him and fears about themselves, could only disturb them for a moment, and he quiets that trouble with these words.

Second, he gave them a clear and undeniable proof of who he was, and that he had truly risen (John 20:20). They now saw alive the one whom many had seen dead only two or three days earlier. The main question was whether the one they saw alive was the same body that had been dead. Nothing could prove that better than the scars and marks of the wounds in his body.

First, the marks of Christ’s wounds remained in his risen body, and they were very deep marks, though they brought no pain or soreness. They stayed there to prove that his resurrection was real. Conquerors boast in the marks they carry from battle, and Christ’s wounds also had a message to speak.

His wounds spoke on earth, showing that it was truly he himself, so he rose with them. They spoke in heaven too, in the intercession, meaning his ongoing work of speaking for his people before God, that he would always live to make. So he ascended with them and appeared before the throne as a Lamb that had been slain, still bearing signs of death and sacrifice (Revelation 5:6). It even seems he will come again with his scars, so people may look on him whom they pierced.

He showed these marks to his disciples to convince them. They not only saw the same face they knew so well, and heard the same voice, but they also had these special signs. He opened his hands so they could see the wounds there. He opened his side, like a nurse opening herself to a child, to show them the wound there. The risen Redeemer will always show himself open-handed and open-hearted to his faithful friends and followers.

When Christ makes his love known to believers through the comforts of his Spirit, and assures them that because he lives they also will live, then he is showing them his hands and his side. This had a strong effect on them, and it did them much good. First, they became convinced that they were seeing the Lord, so their faith was strengthened. At first they thought they might be seeing only a ghost, but now they knew it was the Lord himself.

Many true believers, while they are still weak, fear that their comforts are only imagined. Later, by grace, they find those comforts are real and solid. They no longer ask, “Is it the Lord?” They are sure that it is he. Then they were glad. As their faith grew stronger, their joy grew too. Believing, they rejoiced.

The writer seems to say this with great delight, almost with triumph. Then, yes then, the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. If Jacob was revived by hearing that Joseph was still alive, how much more would these disciples be revived by hearing that Jesus was alive again? It was life from the dead to them. In this, Christ’s word was fulfilled: “I will see you again, and your heart will rejoice” (John 16:22). This wiped away all their tears.

A sight of Christ will make a disciple’s heart glad at any time. The more we see of Christ, the more we will rejoice in him. And our joy will never be complete until we come to the place where we shall see him as he is.

Christ then gave them an honorable and generous commission, sending them out as his agents to plant his church (John 20:21). First came the preface to that commission, the same solemn greeting as before: Peace be unto you. This was meant either to draw their attention to what he was about to say, or to encourage them to accept the commission.

The earlier greeting had quieted their fear so they could calmly hear the proof of his resurrection. This one settled their joy so they could calmly hear what else he had to say. Though the work would bring them much trouble, he meant their honor and comfort in it, and in the end it would be peace to them. Gideon received his call with the same words, “Peace be unto thee” (Judges 6:22-23). Christ is our Peace, and if he is with us, then peace is ours.

He was now sending the disciples to announce peace to the world (Isaiah 52:7). He not only gives them peace for their own comfort, but also entrusts peace to them, so they can pass it on to all who belong to peace (Luke 10:5-6). Then comes the commission itself: As my Father has sent me, so I send you.

This is easy enough to understand in one way. Christ sent them to continue his work on earth and to labor for the spread of his gospel and the setting up of his kingdom among people. He sent them with divine authority and divine power. He sent them as ambassadors to speak about peace, as heralds to announce it, and as servants to call people to the marriage feast. That is why they were called apostles, meaning men sent.

It is harder to understand how he sent them as the Father sent him. Their authority and power were far below his. Yet their work was the same in kind. They were to carry on where he left off. They were not sent to be priests and kings like him, only prophets. As he was sent to bear witness to the truth, so were they. They were not mediators, meaning the ones who actually make reconciliation, but only preachers and messengers of it.

Was he sent not to be served, but to serve? Was he sent not to do his own will, but the will of the one who sent him? Was he sent not to destroy the law and the prophets, but to fulfill them? So were they. As the Father sent him to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, so he sent them into all the world.

He also had authority to send them, just as great in its kind as the Father’s authority to send him. That seems to be the main point of the comparison. By the same authority that the Father sent me, I now send you. This shows the Godhead of Christ, meaning his full divinity. The commissions he gave were just as authoritative, and just as truly effective, as those the Father gave the Old Testament prophets in visions.

The commissions of Peter and John, given by Christ’s plain word, are as good as those of Isaiah and Ezekiel, who received theirs from the Lord seated on his throne. Indeed, they are equal in authority to the one given to the Mediator himself for his work. Did he have unquestioned authority and unstoppable power for his task? So did they for theirs.

Or this may be the meaning: as the Father has sent me is, in effect, a statement of Christ’s own authority. By the authority given him as Mediator, he gave authority to them as his ministers to act for him and in his name among people. So those who received them, or rejected them, received or rejected him, and also the one who sent him (John 13:20).

He then fitted them for the work his commission gave them to do (John 20:22): He breathed on them and said, Receive the Holy Ghost. The sign he used was meant to assure them of the gift he was about to give, and to stir their hearts with it. By breathing on them, he showed that he was truly alive, because this was the breath of life. He also signaled the spiritual life and power they would receive from him for all the work ahead.

He likely breathed on them all together, not one by one. Even though Thomas was not with them, the Spirit of the Lord knew where to find him, as he did Eldad and Medad (Numbers 11:26).

Christ seems here to point back to the creation of man, when God breathed the breath of life into him (Genesis 2:7). He is showing that he himself was the one who gave that first life, and that the spiritual life and strength of ministers and Christians come from him just as surely as Adam’s natural life came from God. As the breath of the Almighty gave life to man and began the old world, so the breath of the mighty Savior gave life to his ministers and began a new world (Job 33:4).

This tells us, first, that the Holy Spirit is the breath of Christ, coming from the Son. In the Old Testament, the Spirit is compared to breath (Ezekiel 37:9), “Come, O breath.” But the New Testament makes clear that this breath is Christ’s breath. The breath of God can mean the force of his judgment (Isaiah 11:4; Isaiah 30:33), but the breath of Christ means the power of his grace. Through Christ, the breathings of threat are turned into breathings of love. Since our words come out by our breath, the word of Christ is spirit and life. The word comes from the Spirit, and the Spirit comes with the word.

Second, the Spirit is a gift from Christ. The apostles passed on the Holy Spirit by laying hands on people, and those hands were first lifted up in prayer. They could only ask for this blessing and carry it as messengers. But Christ gave the Holy Spirit by breathing, because he is the giver of the gift, and it comes from him in the first place. Moses could not give his spirit, only God could do that (Numbers 11:17). Christ gave it himself.

The solemn grant he made through this sign was, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” They received the Spirit in part then, as a pledge of what they would receive more fully not many days later. They had now received more of the Holy Spirit than before. Spiritual blessings are given little by little, and to the one who has, more will be given. Now that Jesus had begun to be more fully glorified, more of the Spirit was being given too, as John 7:39 says.

We should ask what this gift included. First, Christ was assuring them of the Spirit’s help in the work ahead, as they carried out the mission he had just given them: “I send you, and the Spirit will go with you.” The Spirit of the Lord would rest on them and fit them for everything before them. Christ always clothes those he sends with his Spirit and gives them all they need.

Second, he was giving them a taste of the Spirit’s work in their present situation. He had shown them his hands and his side to prove he was really risen. But even the clearest proof does not create faith by itself, as the soldiers showed, since they saw the resurrection and still did not believe. So he says, “Receive the Holy Spirit,” to work faith in them and open their minds. They were also in danger from the Jews, so he gives the Holy Spirit to make them brave.

What Christ said to them, he says to all true believers: “Receive the Holy Spirit” (Ephesians 1:13). We must receive what Christ gives. We must give ourselves, body and soul, to the Spirit’s life-giving and holy work. We must welcome his prompting and follow it. We must receive his power and use it. Those who obey this as a command will also receive it as a promise. They will receive the Holy Spirit as their guide on the way and as the pledge of their inheritance.

One special part of the authority given to them in their mission is named in John 20:23: “If you forgive anyone’s sins, they are forgiven; if you retain them, they are retained.” This means that, in properly carrying out the authority entrusted to them, they could announce forgiveness to the penitent and warning to the unrepentant. Those whom they declared forgiven could take comfort in that. Those whom they declared still bound in sin could be sure of it, to their sorrow.

This follows their receiving the Holy Spirit, because without special discernment they would not be fit for such a task. In the strictest sense, this was a special commission to the apostles themselves and the first gospel preachers, who could tell who were in deep sin and who were not. By this power, Peter struck Ananias and Sapphira dead, and Paul struck Elymas blind. Yet it also stands as a general rule for the church and her ministers. It does not give any person or group infallible judgment, but it does encourage faithful ministers of God’s truth to stand firmly by the gospel they were sent to preach, because God himself stands by it.

The apostles were to preach forgiveness, and they were to begin at Jerusalem, even though Jerusalem had recently made itself guilty of Christ’s blood. Still, they could declare sins forgiven on gospel terms, and Peter did so (Acts 2:38; Acts 3:19). Christ, having risen for our justification, that is, for our being declared right with God, sends his gospel messengers to announce that the jubilee has begun and the pardon is now offered. People will be judged by this rule (John 12:48; Romans 2:16; James 2:12). God will never change that standard. Those the gospel clears will be cleared, and those the gospel condemns will be condemned. This gives great honor to the ministry and should give great courage to ministers.

The apostles and ministers of Christ forgive and retain sins in two ways, and both are by authority. First, by sound teaching, they tell the world that salvation is found only on gospel terms, and on no others. God will confirm that message. Second, by careful church discipline, they apply the general rule of the gospel to individual people. Those they receive into fellowship according to the gospel, God will receive into fellowship with himself. Those they cast out as unrepentant and stubborn in open, harmful sin will remain under God’s righteous judgment.

The next part shows Thomas’s unbelief when this report was brought to him, and that led to Christ’s second appearance. Thomas was absent from this meeting (John 20:24). He is called one of the twelve, one of the apostolic group, which, though now only eleven, had been twelve and would be twelve again. One of them was missing. Christ’s disciples will not all be together until the great assembly on the last day.

Thomas’s absence may have been his misfortune, perhaps because he was sick or had not heard of the meeting. Or it may have been his sin and foolishness, if he was distracted by business or company he valued more than this chance to meet with Christ’s people, or if he stayed away because he feared the Jews. He may have called that caution, when it was really cowardice. Either way, by staying away he missed the joy of seeing his risen Master and sharing the disciples’ happiness.

People do not know what they lose when they carelessly stay away from the regular meetings of Christians. The other disciples then told Thomas about the visit their Master had made to them (John 20:25).

The next time the disciples saw Thomas, they said to him with great joy, “We have seen the Lord.” No doubt they also told him all that had happened, especially how Christ had satisfied them by showing them his hands and side. Thomas had been absent when they first saw Jesus, but he was not gone from them for long. We should not treat someone as an apostate, a person who has turned away from the faith, just because they were absent for a time. Thomas is not Judas.

Notice the joy and triumph in their words: “We have seen the Lord,” the most comforting sight they had ever seen. They said this to Thomas for two reasons. First, they may have meant to rebuke him for being absent, saying, “We have seen the Lord, but you have not.” More likely, they wanted to inform him and help him, saying, “We have seen the Lord, and we wish you had been here too, because you would have seen enough to satisfy you.” Christ’s disciples should help build one another up in the most holy faith by sharing what they have heard with those who were absent, so they can hear it from others too. They should also share what they themselves have experienced. Those who have seen the Lord by faith and tasted that the Lord is good should tell others what God has done for their souls, while leaving room for humility and avoiding boasting.

Thomas then raised objections to the evidence, trying to excuse his unwillingness to believe. He was saying, in effect, “Do not tell me you have seen the Lord alive. You are too easy to believe things, and someone has made fools of you. As for me, unless I see the nail marks in his hands, put my finger into them, and put my hand into the wound in his side, I will not believe.” Some compare this with what Thomas said earlier (John 11:16; John 14:5) and think he may have had a rough, gloomy temper and a sharp way of speaking. Good people are not all alike in temperament. Even so, he was clearly wrong here.

First, he had either not listened to, or not properly thought about, what Christ had so often said, in line with the Old Testament, that he would rise again on the third day. Thomas should have said, “He is risen,” even if he had not seen Jesus or spoken with anyone who had. Second, he did not give proper respect to the testimony of his fellow disciples. They were wise, honest men, and their word should have carried weight. He knew they were truthful. All ten of them agreed with strong confidence, and yet he still could not bring himself to say their report was true. Christ had chosen them to be his witnesses to this very truth among all nations, yet Thomas, one of their own, would not accept them as trustworthy witnesses, or trust them any farther than he could see for himself. He was not really questioning their honesty, but their judgment. He thought they were too quick to believe.

Third, Thomas was putting Christ to the test and limiting the Holy One of Israel, that is, the holy God who rules over everything, by demanding that Christ prove himself only in the way Thomas wanted. He could not even know for sure that the nail marks would allow him to put his finger into them, or that he could put his hand into the wound in Jesus’ side. It was also not fitting to handle a living body in such a rough way. Yet Thomas tied his faith to that exact proof. He was saying that either Christ must satisfy his demand, or he would not believe. See (Matthew 16:1; Matthew 27:42).

Fourth, saying this openly in front of the other disciples was a hurtful example and a discouragement to them. It was not only a sin, but also a bad public example. Just as one coward can make many others afraid, so one unbeliever can shake his brothers and make their hearts fail, as in (Deuteronomy 20:8). If Thomas had kept this thought to himself and held his tongue, the fault would have stayed with him alone. But by announcing his unbelief so boldly, he could do serious harm to the others, who were still weak and wavering.