John 20 Study Notes

20:17 My Father and your Father maintains a distinction between how Jesus and the disciples relate to God. Even so, Jesus called believers his brothers.

20:18 In view of the disregard for women in the culture, it is remarkable that Jesus appeared first to a woman and gave her the job of reporting his presence.

20:19,21,26 The common Jewish greeting Peace to you (v. 21; representing Hb Shalom alekem) is still used today. Peace was Jesus’s gift to his followers by virtue of his sacrificial death on the cross. On feared the Jews (v. 19), see note at 7:13.

20:20 Jesus’s scars proved that he was the very one who was crucified and prophesied his resurrection. Thus the disciples rejoiced.

20:21-22 These verses contain the Gospel of John’s version of the Great Commission, which culminates in the presentation of Jesus as the one sent from the Father (see note at 3:16-18). Now the sent one (Jesus) had turned Sender, commissioning his followers to serve as his messengers and representatives (17:18). All three persons of the Godhead are involved in this commissioning. As Jesus was sent by God the Father, so he, the Son, was sending out his disciples (20:21), equipping them with the Holy Spirit (v. 22). John thus demonstrated that each member of the Godhead is involved in the redemption plan and the mission of spreading the gospel to the world. The Holy Spirit was given dramatically and permanently a short time later (Acts 2).

20:23 The reference to forgiveness or lack thereof may echo the reference to “the key of the House of David” in Is 22:22 (cp. Rv 3:7). Jesus bestowed on his followers authority to announce access or disbarment from God’s kingdom based on reception or denial of the gospel message. For those who reject Jesus, his messengers are commissioned to say that they do not have forgiveness of sins.

20:24 On Thomas as Twin, see note at 1:38.

20:25 Apparently Thomas thought the disciples had seen a ghost (Mt 14:26). Yet John was careful to affirm that Jesus’s resurrection body was not that of a phantom or spirit apparition but a genuine (although glorified) human body (Jn 20:27).

20:26 A week later refers to the following Sunday, one week after Easter (v. 19).

20:27-28 Jesus condescended to allow Thomas’s test of his identity. But when Thomas saw and heard Jesus, no such examination was necessary. He recognized that in some sense Jesus was God incarnate. The words Lord and God occur together in the OT more than one thousand times. The emperor Domitian also wished to be addressed as “our Lord and God.”

20:29 Though they have not seen the risen Christ, readers of the Gospel of John may yet believe because John, by aid of the Holy Spirit, has written the truth about God’s Son.

20:30-31 On Jesus’s signs in John’s Gospel, see note at 2:11. These verses summarize John’s purpose for writing his Gospel.