John: A Story About The Son of God

Sometimes when Christians zoom in and focus on one verse, they lose the context of the chapter, or even the paragraph the verse is in. Sometimes when Christians zoom in and focus on one chapter, they lose the context of the whole book. I know through my studies of John that when we focused on one chapter of John, it might be easy only think about what that chapter is saying and not even consider the context of the whole book of John. It would be a shame if we did that because most likely that chapter contributes the book’s overall message, and if we don’t think about the book’s overall message, we might very well miss the true meaning of the chapter. I close my devotional commentary on John by stepping back, zooming out, and looking at the whole picture of John. I’ll start by reviewing the introductory material to John, then we’ll outline John, and from that we’ll pull out theological pictures, themes and messages.

Before we go any further, I will put a disclaimer by saying that this will be nothing like my devotional commentary on Mark. Mark is not like John. Mark is an epic story; John is not. Let me be clear on what I am saying. Yes, John is a story, in the sense it is written in narrative form. I believe John does this in order to demonstrate what he is writing is historical truth (history in the 1st century was written like a story). But as I will remind you in the introductory review, John is a supplemental Gospel. And just like the supplemental appendixes to any book, both fictional and non-fictional books, the supplemental appendixes are not meant to tell a good story, but are meant to give extra information to help the reader understand the book’s concepts further. That is what John is trying to do. He’s not trying to tell a good story to get the reader to come to faith. Instead, John is trying to give extra information about the history of Jesus to persuade the reader to come to faith (or continue faith). So think of John less as a story, and more like a persuasive essay. That will also help with the introductory material.

Speaking of introductory material, let’s move on to the introductory material. Now I’m not going to spend time defending all of it. If you want a defense of all these, go back to “John 0: An Introduction” where we talked about this. If you don’t want to read it [again], just accept what I have said as truth. Remember, the introductory information is what reporters seek when asking questions. This is the who, whom, what, where, when, why, and how. To be more specific, the answers to these question will be the author, the audience, the historical occasion, the location, the date, the purpose and the structure.

THE AUTHOR (WHO): John
THE AUDIENCE (WHOM): Christians
THE LOCATION (WHERE): Written in Ephesus, Takes Place Mostly in Judea
THE DATE (WHEN): 85-95 AD
THE HISTORICAL OCCASION (WHAT): Gnosticism and other pseudo-Christianity cults were preaching that Jesus was only a man, and wasn’t God.
THE PURPOSE (WHY): John wrote the book of John to persuade Christians to continue believing Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.
THE STRUCTURE (HOW): A Supplemental Gospel

Now if you remember my explanation on the structure (how), I told you that it could both/either the writing style and/or method, or it can be an outline. In my review of the introductory material, I simply told you the writing style. The Gospel of John is a supplemental Gospel. But I do also want to outline the book for you. At Bible College, I was taught that a good start to outlining a Bible Book is to first write sentence summaries on the paragraphs, and then group the similar paragraphs together. But I don’t have the time to write paragraph summaries, and you probably don’t have the time to read paragraph summaries. So for simplicity’s sake, I am going to write a sentence summary for each chapter. Then we will combine similar chapter summaries together to draw up an outline. Below are the sentence summaries. The bullet number is the chapter number. Also, I will sometimes “cheat” on the sentence summaries. If I cannot write a one-sentence summary without making a ridiculously long run-on, I will make it two or three sentences.

1. Jesus is God because He was with God at the beginning, He created the universe and He gives life. Then 5 men testify Jesus is God: John the Baptist, John the Disciple, Andrew, Philip and Nathanael
2. Christ’s disciples believe Jesus is the Christ and Son of God through His first miracle of turning water to wine and through the cleansing of the temple.
3. Nicodemus moves from the darkness of sin to the True Light, Jesus Christ, because Nicodemus believes in Jesus as the Son of God.
4. Jesus evangelizes the Gospel as Living Water to the Samaritan Woman at the well, and she believes that Jesus is the Christ and the Son of God.
5. Jesus points out 4 testimonies that demonstrate Jesus is God the Son: God the Father, John the Baptist, Old Testament Scriptures, miracles/miraculous signs
6. Jesus demonstrates that He is the Bread of Life, an “I AM” statement, by Feeding over 5,000 people. Many followers turn away from Jesus because they cannot accept his hard teachings, but the disciples stick with Jesus because they believe Jesus is the Holy God.
7. The people are skeptic about Jesus, split between either “a good teacher” or “a deceiver,” but few will commit to Jesus as the Son of God. Jesus calls the people to a stronger faith, one that recognizes Jesus as the Christ and/or the Son of God.
8. Jesus demonstrates He is God because uses 2 “I AM” statements, which link back to God’s name, Yahweh, or “I AM WHO I AM.”
9. Jesus demonstrates that He is the Light of the World, an “I AM” statement, by giving light to a blind man. The miracle shows that those who are in sin are in darkness because they do not have the Light of the World.
10. Jesus teaches that He is the good shepherd, an “I AM” statement, and a biblical allusion to God that all the Jewish people will recognize, thanks to Psalm 23.
11. Jesus demonstrates that He is the Resurrection and the Life, an “I AM” statement, by raising Lazarus from the dead.
12. As Jesus enters Jerusalem, the Jewish form a parade and declare that Jesus is the Son of David and the King of Israel, titles only for the Messiah. John shows the reader Scripture foretelling of this event, further proof that Jesus is the Christ.
13. Christ’s betrayer is identified, and this further proves Jesus is the Messiah because Old Testament Scriptures, such as Psalm 41:9, foretell of the Messiah having a betrayer.
14. Jesus demonstrates He is God by teaching He is the only way to the father, as well as the only way to even see the Father, using an “I AM” statement. Jesus also displays Himself as the God the Son by depicting the Trinity, with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
15. Jesus demonstrates that He is God by teaching that He is the Vine (an “I AM” statement), the Father is the Gardener, and the Christians are the branches.
16. Jesus is shown as God the Son because He sends God the Holy Spirit from God the Father.
17. Jesus is displayed as the Son of God because He calls God His Father in an intimate way.
18. Jesus shows that He is in control of the Jewish trials because God is the one who gives the Jewish leaders the authority they are in.
19. Jesus shows that He is in control because He explains to Pilate that the only reason why Pilate is in charge is because God gave him authority. Jesus also is seen as the Christ because He fulfills prophecy and serves as Penal Substitution for sin.
20. Jesus rises from the dead, and His disciples and followers go from calling Jesus “Rabbi” and “Teacher” to “Lord” and “God.” For the disciples, the resurrection was the ultimate sign Jesus was the Messiah and Son of God.
21. The large catch of large fish is a post-resurrection miracle that further proves to the disciples that Jesus is the Lord God.

Alright, the next step is to group them together into similar themes or similar messages. Now I was taught a good outlines has neither too many points nor too few points, or a good outline has neither too many section or too few sections. This became a problem for because of the latter. Every time I tried to outline it, I ended up shoving a bunch of chapters into a single section. But I tried to look past this. I didn’t want a hermeneutical rule to be stronger than good theology. Maybe if the theology is good, it doesn’t matter if the hermeneutical rule is broken. So the first one I tried was to group was by Christ’s “life stages,” or by time. Once again, the bullet numbers are the chapter numbers.

Outlined by the Life of Christ
1-10. The Ministry of the Christ (3-4 years)
11. Transition from the Ministry to the Passion (1-2 days)
12-21. The Passion of the Christ (1 week)

This outline has many strengths, of because of the many strengths, this one is the one I like the most, despite its shortcomings. One of its biggest strengths is that it cuts the Gospel of John in half, and the halfway point is the perfect transition. Another good sign of an outline is that it is no lop-sided, and this outline definitely does not lop-side the Gospel of John. The Ministry of the Christ is 10 chapters long. The Passion of the Christ is 10 chapters longs. That one chapter that serves as the halfway marker is the Resurrection of Lazarus. The Resurrection of Lazarus is part of The Ministry of Christ because He is serving people to bring them to believe in Him. The Resurrection of Lazarus also is part of The Passion of the Christ because it foreshows that Jesus will die and be raised up. Another reason I like this outline is because you could rename the section titles, and they would still contain the same chapters. For example, you could name the outline “Outlined by Location.” Chapters 1-10 would be labeled “Israel” because Jesus ministers in Judea, Samaria and Galilee. Chapter 11 would be labeled “Perea” because the Resurrection of Lazarus takes place in Perea. Chapters 12-21 would be labeled “Jerusalem” because all 10 chapters (for the most part) take place in Jerusalem only. Another example would be renaming the outline “Outlined by Time” Chapters 1-10 is “The Years,” Chapter 11 is “Day,” Chapter 12-21 is “week.” A third reason I like this outline is that all the sections are consistant with John’s purpose. All the sections portray Jesus as the Christ and the Son of God. What are the problems with this outline? Like I said above, it bunches too many chapters into one section. 10 chapters for one section is a lot, especially for a book with 21 chapters. On a similar note, 1 chapter is too small for a section, especially if the other 2 sections have ten chapters. Speaking of an unbalance, another fault is the time is unbalanced. There’s not a good balance if you go from years, to days, to weeks. If you were to go back the “location outline,” the balance within “Israel” and “Jerusalem” is not good either. Only once does Jesus go to Samaria in “Israel.” And a couple times in “Jerusalem” Jesus is outside of Jerusalem, like in Bethany or by the Sea of Galilee. But I still feel like this is nit-picky, and next to the pros of the outline, the cons seem like nothing.

Still, I tried to think up of a way outline this Gospel in another way. On one hand, if my biggest problem with the first outline was that the sections were too big, I had to figure out a way to make the sections smaller. On the other hand, if one of the things I liked about the previous outline was the transition in chapter 11, so I had to figure out a way to keep it. The best way I could think of keeping the transition was to think up another transition similar to the one in chapter 11. In order to do this, I looked at different interpretations and different lessons learned from John 11. By doing so, I came up with an outline that outlines the Gospel Book by the numbers of followers Jesus had. I came up with this.

Outline by Number of Followers
1-5. Thousands of followers (5,000+)
6. Transition from thousands of followers (5,000+) to tens of followers (70-90)
7-10. Tens of followers (70-90)
11. Transition from tens of followers (70-90) to hundreds of followers (100-600)
12-21. Hundreds of followers (100-600)

This outline does need a bit more explaining. As you can guess, one way I looked at story of the Resurrection of Lazarus was at the great increase of followers. That immediately reminded me of another great change of numbers when it came to Christ’s followers. It wasn’t an increase, but a decrease. In chapter 6, many followers leave because they cannot accept Christ’s hard teachings. So I tried to see this as 2 transitions. While the generic titles of sections, such as “tens,” hundreds,” and “thousands” do not need great explaining, maybe the more specific numbers do. But before I explain them, let me say these are rough estimates, which means they were rounded. The “thousands” number of “5,000+” I got from the Feeding of the 5,000, obviously. I chose “70-90” for the tens because we know at this point in the Life of Christ Jesus sends out 72 disciples to minister to the people (see Luke 10) but it can’t be in the hundreds. For the “hundreds” I chose “100-600” because we know Jesus appeared to over 500 believers after the resurrection (see 1 Corinthians 15) but we also know there are only 120 in Jerusalem during Pentecost (see Acts 2). This outline has strengths. First, it gives us more sections. We went from 3 sections to 5 sections. Second, it gives us a better spread of chapters…well, at least better than the last outline. Yet each strength of this outlines has weaknesses, and then some more. First, while it gives us more sections, it doesn’t give us too many more sections. 3 sections to 5 sections is not a big change. On that note, the sections don’t exactly divide the material better. For starters, it only gets rid of one of the big sections of 10 chapters, but it also leaves the other big section of 10 chapters. Next, the chapter divisions are far from even. If written out, the chapter divisions would be 5-1-4-1-10. Even without the transition chapters, it’s 5-4-10. These are far from even. At least the last outline was closer to even. As I argued with chapter 11 above, chapter 6 alone is not good enough to be its own section, even if it is 70 verses long. As I stated with one of the negatives with the last outline, these titles don’t fully do a good. In chapter 1, Jesus only has 5-6 followers. In the first half of chapter 2, Jesus has 5-13 followers. Chapter 1 and half of chapter 2 is far from thousands of followers. My last argument against it would be the theology behind it. Did Jesus ever measure His ministry’s success by number of followers? Far from it. It would seem like more often Jesus called His followers to be more sincere and serious about their faith, even if it mean losing several followers. If Jesus didn’t measure His ministry by His followers, then neither shall we.

Running out of ideas, I “cheated” and I turned to commentaries. And I do use the term “cheated” loosely. Whether that was “cheating” or not in Bible College varied among your professors. Some professors did call it cheating because they claimed that you should be able to outline it yourself by just reading it, and you shouldn’t need any help, especially from commentaries. Other professors say that it’s not cheating, but proper research. In fact, you should check commentaries to see if you are right or not. Coincidentally, these professors were the professors who would cut and paste the commentaries’ outlines in their PowerPoint when teaching. Well, I am going to side with the other professors and look at what a couple commentaries say.

The first commentary I want to look at is The Bible Reader’s Companion. The reason I am showing you this is not because it’s a good outline, or at least it’s not the best outline, but because it does kind of verify my first outline. Now because it is very similar to my outline, it’s going to have the same weaknesses as my first outline, the biggest one would being the sections are too big (also note that I am only going to show you the main points, not the subpoints). But at the same time, it has the same strengths. So let’s take a look at it.

The Bible Reader’s Companion Outline
1-12. Public Ministry
13-21. Private Ministry

From the start you can see the problems I had with this outline. There’s not enough sections. Because there is not enough sections, there are too many chapters within a section. Yet it works. The first 12 chapters of John all show the Public Ministry of Jesus. In those chapters, Jesus is seen multiple times teaching to large crowds. All his teachings and miracles are done in a public place where everyone can see, like a synagogue or a temple (see John 18:20,21). The last 9 chapters, chapters 13 to 21, show the Private Ministry of Christ. Remember that John 13-17 is all behind the close doors of the Upper Room where the Last Supper takes place. Most of John 18 and John 19 is Jesus privately talking to his accusers, both the Jewish accusers and the Roman accusers. In the last 2 chapters of John, John 20 and 21, Jesus only appears to the followers, which are only a few hundred. Once again, this is not the best outline because of too few and too big section breakdowns. But it does show it is possible to have a working outline with few sections breakdowns.

The next outline comes from Willmington’s Bible Handbook. This outline is better than the last outline, but it’s still lacking that good quality I am looking for. It’s better because it’s more specific than the last outline. It has more sections. At the same time, it’s still lacking in places, such as even splits between sections. Once again, I’m only going to show you the main points, not the whole outline. Now you’re going to notice a few different things about this outline. This commentary is not as concerned about chapter barriers. Most Bible scholars say this is good. So it will divide by verses. You are also going to notice that this commentary will use a more theological approach to outlining it. I think this is a plus, and I’ll explain it once you see it.

Willmington’s Bible Handbook Outline
1:1-1:18. Jesus the Eternal Son of God.
1:19-18:11. Jesus the Earthly Son of God
18:12-19:42. Jesus the Executed Son of God
20:1-21:25. Jesus the Exalted Son of God.

The first thing I like about this outline (and this is the reason I am showing it) is that the outline keeps in mind the purpose John is writing and the picture of Jesus John is painting. This outline remembers that John is trying to show us Jesus is the Son of God. So in outlining the book, it wants the outline to also show Jesus is the Son of God. So the commentary went into outlining John by asking, “How does John show Jesus as the Son of God?” And the outline shows the answer. The first 18 verses of John shows Jesus as the Son of God eternal with God the Father Himself. The commentary believes John 1:19 to John 18:11 shows Jesus as the Son of Man just as much as the Son of God. To them, this section shows the duality between Christ’s deity and Christ’s humanity. And I can partially see it too. The next thing the commentary notices is that half of chapter 18 and all of chapter 19 is the Son of God being put on trial, which leads to his execution. Then, the last 2 chapters show Jesus exalted through his resurrection. Of course, my biggest beef with this outline is the lack of balance in the sections. The first section is 18 verses, roughly one half of the first chapter of John. The next section is 16 whole chapters and 2 half chapters, totaling 17 chapters. The third section is half of chapter 18 and all of chapter 19, totaling 1 ½ chapters. The last section is 2 chapters, the only section with whole chapters. If you’re following and keeping score, the chapter splits are ½ - 17 – 1 ½ - 2. There’s the lack of even chapter divisions. Also, there’s too much weight on the “earthly son of God.” I don’t think it really tells what all happens within those chapters.

The outline I liked best is from the Bible Exposition Commentary. Just take a look.

Bible Exposition Commentary Outline
I. OPPORTUNITY for Jesus to present Himself (ch. 1-6)
A. Jesus presents Himself to the disciples (ch. 1-2)
B. Jesus presents Himself to Nicodemus (ch. 3)
C. Jesus presents Himself to the Samaritans (ch. 4)
D. Jesus presents Himself to the Jewish leaders (ch. 5)
E. Jesus presents Himself to the Jewish people (ch. 6)
II. OPPOSITION over conflicts between Jesus and the Jewish leaders (ch. 7-12)
A. Conflicts over Moses (ch. 7)
B. Conflicts over Abraham (ch. 8)
C. Conflicts over the Messiah (ch. 9-10)
D. Conflicts over miracles and signs (ch. 11-12)
III. OUTCOME of Jesus and the people (ch. 13-21)
A. The disciples believe and accept Jesus (ch. 13-17)
B. The Jewish leaders do not believe and reject Jesus (ch. 18-19)
C. Jesus is victorious (ch. 20-21)

Let me first explain the reason I put the sub-points in this time. First, the sub-points help better explain why the commentary used these section divisions. Second, this outline needs the sub-points, for the outline would make no sense without them. Immediately I like this outline because it gets rid of all the weaknesses of the past outlines. First of all, it seems like it has the right amount of section divisions. The most we’ve been able to divide the book into is 5 sections, and the least amount of divisions is 2 divisions. We’ve gotten 3 section divisions before, so 3 seems to be the right amount. Second, I like how these sections fairly even divide the chapters. The first section, the “opportunity” section, is 6 chapters long. The second section, the “opposition” chapter, is also 6 chapters long. Sections 1 are 2 are equal. I really like how the public ministry of Jesus is evenly divided. The last section, the “outcome” section is the only big section, with 9 chapters. But considering that most outlines insist on putting chapters 13-21 (even 12-21!) together, it’s best to just leave it like that. But the sub-points help make sense of that.

Speaking of sub-points, the strengths listed above are also true for the sub-points. There is not too many or too few sub-points. Each section has no more than 5 sub-points, and no fewer than 3 sub-points. Each sub-section does not have too many chapters in them. Most sub-points either have 1 or 2 chapters. The one sub-point that has 5 chapters I don’t see as a problem because most commentaries do group all those chapters together. What I’m trying to say is this outline is well balanced outline, and that’s why I like it so much.

Another reason this outline works is because it also carries all the strengths of the other outlines. The “opportunity” section and the “opposition” section are the Ministry of Christ, more specifically the Public Ministry of Christ. The “outcome” section is the Passion of the Christ, or the Private Ministry of the Christ. The “opportunity” section and the “opposition” section focus on Christ’s journeys through Galilee, Samaria and Judea, while the “outcome” section focuses on Jerusalem. The last section also accurately reflects how many followers are with Jesus at the time. Finally, the beauty of this outline is that is does go back to how John is viewing Jesus in his Gospel account. This outline does focus on Jesus as the Son of God. The “opportunity” section is Jesus presenting Himself as the Son of God. In the “opposition” section, all the arguments roughly trace back to the fact that Jesus is the Son of God. The outcomes also go back to Jesus as God the Son. The disciples believe and accept Jesus as the Son of God. The Jewish leaders do not believe and reject Jesus as the Son of God. Jesus is victorious because He is God.

So in conclusion to the outlines, I am going to adapt The Bible Exposition Commentary’s outline as the best outline of John. If we need to pick an original outline, or a shorter outline, it would be the first outline I showed you.

So let’s quickly use the outline to tell the story of John. Ever since Jesus began his ministry at the age of 30, he presented Himself to people as the Son of God, such as the disciples, Nicodemus and the Samaritan Woman at the well. Through His presentation as the Son of God, most people believe and come to faith, while others simply listen to Him and ask Him questions out of curiosity. The climax of Jesus presenting Himself comes in chapter 6, when Jesus starts teaching harder teachings. Many of His followers cannot accept these harder teachings. So his number of followers greatly drops, and now there are 3 views of Jesus. There are the believers, there are the skeptics and there are the adversaries. The believes accept Christ’s teachings and follow Him. The skeptics are unsure about Jesus and question Him. The adversaries oppose Jesus and doubt Him. So Jesus has to go from presenting Himself to defending Himself, as the opposition increases. Jesus defends Himself with Abraham, Moses, the prophets and miracles. The results are the same. Some people believe and come to faith, others do not believe and reject, and yet others are skeptics who are 50/50. But near the end of Christ’s earthly life, that last week, there is no middle ground for the skeptics to stand on. They either have to follow the decision of the disciples by believing and receiving Jesus, or they have to follow the path of the Jewish leaders by not believing and rejecting Jesus. Some come to faith, after seeing the resurrection of Lazarus, but others do not in fear of being excommunicated from the Jewish faith. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the sign that choosing believing faith in Jesus was the right answer, for it is the one that comes with eternal life.

The perfect transition from outline to theology is talking about other structural details. Why is the perfect transition? A lot of people have attempted to outline John by using common themes found in John’s Gospel. The only problem is these outlines tend to either be topical (as opposed to chronological), messy or confusing. So instead of showing you the outlines that are made, I’m just going to list where the structures appear.

The first and foremost common theme would be the “I AM” statements. I made sure we followed the 7 “I AM” statements carefully. The “I AM” statements are probably the most explicit proof in the Gospel of John that Jesus is God. First and foremost, the term, in the Jewish and Christian mindset, immediately goes back to the name God gave Moses to give to the Israelites in Exodus 3:14- “I AM WHO I AM.” But second, each “I AM” statement would finish with a quality or characteristic that both Jews and Christians would relate to God. Thus, in every “I AM” statement, Jesus twice declares He is God. The 1st century Jews recognized this, and every Christian of every century recognizes this. I hope you were able to follow all the “I AM” statement, but just in case you were unable, here they are-

The 7 “I AM” Statements
1. I AM the Bread of Life (6:35)
2. I AM the Light of the World (8:12)
3. Before Abraham was born, I AM (8:58)
4. I AM the Good Shepherd/Door (10:11,14/10:7,9)
5. I AM the Resurrection and the Life (11:25)
6. I AM the Way, the Truth, and the Life (14:6)
7. I AM the Vine (15:1,5)

Going along with the theme of 7s, there is another 7 in Gospel of John. (Some scholars have suggested John likes the number 7, for when he writes Revelation, there are 7 churches, 7 seals, 7 trumpets and 7 bowls.) The other 7 is the seven miracles, the 7 signs or the 7 miraculous signs. Obviously, I have to start out by defining the term. The Greek term is semeion. Some translations translate it “miracle,” while others translate it as “sign.” The NIV compromises and translates it “miraculous sign.” On the surface level, this may seem redundant, but maybe this redundancy reveals a great theology behind John. Of all the miracles Jesus has done, he picks seven, and he picks his seven very carefully. All 7 miracles serve as signs to the message Jesus is preaching. For example, Jesus uses the Feeding of the 5,000 to preach that He is the Bread of Life. Another good example is John retells Jesus healing a blind man to put in light Christ’s teaching the He is the Light of the World. All 7 Miracles serve as a sign that Jesus is the Son of God. Even the miracles are central to this message.

The 7 Miraculous Signs Jesus Performed in John
1. Water to wine at the wedding in Cana (2:1-11)
2. Healing the Royal Official’s son of a fever (4:43-54)
3. The Invalid Man walks at the Pool of Bethesda (5:1-15)
4. Feeding the 5,000 (6:1-15)
5. Walking on Water (6:16-24)
6. The Blind Man sees at the Pool of Siloam (9:1-7)
7. Lazarus is raised from the dead (11:1-44)

Both the 7 “I AM” Statements the 7 Miraculous Signs demonstrate Jesus is the Son of God, but what else displays Jesus as the Son of God? If John truly is trying to get across the message that Jesus is the Son of God, what else would John include? Indeed, John does insert a lot of evidence that Jesus is the Son of God, so much that if I were to cover it all, it would at least double what I have already written now. So I will quickly cover a few quick topics. Just as we saw early God Sightings in John 1, I will once again bring you to John 1 to look closer at the titles given to Jesus: “the Word” and “the True Light”. In Bible Quizzing, quizmasters made the quizzers say “Word” or “True Light” in the appropriate places and not simply “God” or “Jesus.” I think they made the right decision, both for quizzing and for theology.

The Word. John chooses to call Jesus the Word in order to use familiar terminology with both the Jews and the Greeks. By the 1st century AD, many Jews were now using the Aramaic term for word, memra, in place of God’s holy name, Yahweh, in order to prevent themselves from using God’s name in vein. Because they were doing so, a philosophy developed that the Word of God was equivalent to God Himself, or even that the Word of God is interchangeable with God. On the Gentile side of the coin, Greek philosophers were believed that the Word (Greek term logos) was in eternal, impersonal force that created everything, sustained everything, and ruled over everything. When John uses the term “Word,” John is using the best of both worlds to teach about Jesus. Jesus is the Word like the Greeks say because Jesus created everything, sustains everything, and rules over everything. Unlike the Greeks, Jesus is like the Word like the Jews say because He is the same personal God found in the Old Testament. The only correction John needs to make to the Jews is that Jesus is not interchangeable with God, or equivalent to God, but rather Jesus is His own entity. This is why John says that was with God AND the Word was God in John 1:1,2.

The True Light. Quickly go back and read John 1:5-8. Now read John 1:9-13. Does it look like “the light” John is talking about in both sections are the same light? I say it is not. In John 1:5-8, the light simply refers to moral goodness, and John 1:5-8 shows a spiritual battle between moral goodness and the darkness of sin and evil. The fate of this spiritual battle? The darkness of sin and evil does not understand it. In John 3, Jesus says that the light is rejected because men love the darkness so they can keep on with their evil deeds. By John 1:9-13, the light is now called the True Light because it no longer is talking about the moral goodness, but it is talking about a person, and that person is Jesus Christ. John 1:9-13 pretty much tells the reader that the light in John 1:5-8 was personified and took on a body. Not only is Jesus the Word Incarnate, but Jesus is also the Light Incarnate. Jesus is full of goodness (or sinless), just as much as God the Father is. Remember how John 1:5-8 tells a story of the light entering the world, but being rejected? John 1:9-13 parallels the story to foreshadow the fate of Jesus. Jesus will walk the same path as light. Jesus will enter the world, and then He will be rejected by the world, mainly because the people do not understand Him. Now, unlike the Word, John is more consistent in keeping up with this terminology for Jesus. Jesus refers to light in John 3, John 8 and John 9.

Of course there is more proof that Jesus is the Son of God in John 1, and if you want to look at that again, go back to my writings on John 1. But for those who just want a quick reminder, I will post the 8 God Sightings found in John 1-

God Sightings in John 1
1. Jesus explicitly stated as God, and is seen with God in the beginning (vs. 1-2)
2. Jesus is the creator of the universe, and Jesus gives life (vs. 3-4)
3. John the Baptist’s testimony: Lamb of God and Son of God (vs. 15-35)
4. Andrew and John’s testimony: Rabbi (vs.35-39)
5. Andrew’s testimony: Messiah (vs. 40-42)
6. Philip’s testimony: The One Moses and the Prophets foretold (vs. 43-46)
7. Nathanael’s testimony: Rabbi, Son of God, King of Israel (vs. 46-49)
8. Jesus gives a self-testimony: Son of Man (vs. 50-51)

Now, if we’re sticking with John 20:31 to look for theological themes that John is trying to draw out, remember that John wants to prove that Jesus is the Christ just as much as Jesus is the Son of God. So to accurately look at the theology of the Gospel of John, a examination of the Christ as found in the Gospel of John is necessary.

But first, we must look at the Jewish understanding of the Messiah by the time of Jesus. Obviously, the best way to start this would be to look at the Old Testament. The Old Testament promises a Messiah. This promise is made every time God makes a covenant with someone. In every Old Testament covenant, God promises land, seed and blessing. The ultimate fulfillment of the seed is the promised Messiah. This can be most explicitly seen in the Davidic Covenant, for God promises that the Messiah would be a kingly descendant from the line of David. After God makes this promise with David, that’s all the Old Testament can talk about. The most prevalent fact about the Messiah in the Old Testament is that the Messiah will come from David and would be a king like David. This becomes a problem when Israel and Judah are sent into exile. From the Assyrian captivity of Israel in 722 BC and the Babylonian captivity of Judah in 586 BC, there would always be someone over the Jews, whether it be the Persians, the Greek or the Romans. So how could the Messiah be a sovereign king over a sovereign nation if Israel and Judah were in exile? The Jews concluded that the Messiah had to be a political and militant Messiah. If the Messiah were to be a sovereign king over a sovereign nation, he would have to overthrow the reigning empire. But I will be clear that not every Jew believed the Messiah was to be political and militant. Some Jews watered down this messiah, simply making the Messiah the greatest Rabbi and the greatest Prophet that ever existed. Now this wasn’t the only debate the Jews had about the Messiah. The Messiah was a popular debate topic up to the time of Jesus. Many Jews would come to debate everything about the Messiah, from the origin to Messiah to the destiny of the Messiah.

Therefore, when John writes his Gospel, he adds to the debates and the discussions. John recalls Jesus correcting all these misconceptions about the Messiah. In John 7, the Jews debate whether or not the Messiah’s location origin will be known or not. Jesus answers that his true origin, heaven, is unknown because no one has been to heave. In John 12, when the Jewish leaders ask if the Son of Man will die or live eternally, Jesus replies that the Son of Man must die then be raised to eternal life. These are just a few examples, but I hope you see that not only does Jesus correct the understandings of the Messiah, but also proves how He is fulfilling them. If the teachings and corrections from Jesus aren’t enough, then just look at the testimonies. Andrew, Philip, Nathanael, the Samaritan Woman at the Well and Martha all declare that Jesus is the Messiah. And that’s even before Jesus rose from the dead! All 5 of these people knew Jesus was the Messiah just by being around Jesus.

I will draw you back to the testimonies in John 5. Once again, I will not repeat an explanation for all of them. If you want the explanation, go back to my writings on John 5. I will simply give a list of the 4 Testimonies found in John 5. These testimonies demonstrate that Jesus is both the Christ and the Son of God.

4 Testimonies about Jesus as found in John 5
1. God the Father’s testimony (vs. 31,32,37,38)
2. John the Baptist’s testimony (vs.33-35)
3. Self-testimony through miracles and miraculous signs (vs. 36)
4. Old Testament Scripture’s testimony (vs.39-47)

Now I know my professors and classmates from LBC would be asking, “Where’s the application?” John does give an application right in his theme verse. It’s the most repeated verb in John 20:31. The application is simply to believe. In the Greek, John uses the Greek verb for believe, pisteuō, 98 times. Now, if you’re reading the NIV, you’re not going to be able to count 98t times the word “believe” because half the time the NIV will translate it “put their faith into” just to mix it up. But interesting enough, the Greek noun for faith, pistis, is never used in the Gospel account. Perhaps John does not want us to see belief as something we have, but something we do. If you recall, throughout the book of John, John shows the contrast between belief and unbelief, or the contrast between believers and unbelievers. In the end of John 2, Jesus performs miracles, but the people still do not believe that He is the Christ or the Son of God. They just like watching him do the miracles. In John 6, thousands claim to be followers of Jesus, but when Jesus cranks up the teachings to harder teachings, many stop following Jesus. In John 7-11, John shows that a person cannot simply pick and choose what believe in Jesus. A true believers has to believe that Jesus is both the Christ and the Son of God. Those who don’t believe both, like the skeptics in John 7-11 who believe Jesus is only a rabbi or a prophet, aren’t real followers. John continues to up the ante by insisting that truly believing doesn’t just believe that Jesus existed in history, but is also following the teachings of Jesus. What a perfect application for today. If you were to ask people in my generation and the next youngest generation what being a believing Christian is, they will pretty much tell you it’s adopting the Christian church’s faith statement as their own. This means that they will believe that Jesus is the Son of God, and they will believe that He is sinless, but they won’t love their neighbor, they won’t love their enemies, they won’t do anything Jesus taught them to do. It’s just like Jesus said: people are presented with the light, but they turn it down for the darkness so they can keep with their deeds. If anything becomes more directly applicable to you, I hope it’s the word “believe.” Read this Gospel and ask yourself, “Do I truly believe?” Don’t just believe what you want to believe about Jesus, but believe what Jesus said and what Jesus did, and do likewise.

I better wrap this up before it gets any longer. I will close my conclusion to the Gospel of John the same way I closed my introduction to the Gospel of John. Before I began looking at each chapter individually, I asked you to ask yourself 3 questions reading through John. First, “Who does Jesus claim He is?” Second, “Who does those pro-Jesus, or for Jesus, claim He is?” Third, “Who does those anti-Jesus, or against Jesus, claim Jesus was?” If you sought after these questions, you would have found every time the answer was “Son of God.” Throughout the book, Jesus claimed to be the Son of God, using miraculous signs, using “I AM” statements and even by calling God “the Father.” Those pro-Jesus claimed Jesus was God. The Twelve Disciples (Judas Iscariot is debatable), Nathanael, Nicodemus, the Samaritans (including the Samaritan Woman), Martha and Mary Magdalene all claimed Jesus was the Son of God. Even those anti-Jesus, those against Jesus, knew Jesus claimed to be the Son of God. And John reveals they knew it, too, and that’s why they wanted him dead! Jesus, Son of God or not, was a threat to them and their way of life. They were losing disciples to Jesus, and they became jealous. Thus, they went after him, using the claims to be the Son of God against him. Without a doubt, everyone in this book knew Jesus was the Son of God, and I hope you now know it, too.

Scholars have debated whether or not the Book of John is to be used for evangelistic purpose (to convert non-believers to Christianity) or for discipleship purposes (to help grow and strengthen a Christian’s faith). I believe it can be used for both. Anyone who does not believe in Jesus will believe in Jesus as the Christ and Son of God from the evidence of the signs. Those who already do believe in Jesus will receive strong and persuasive proof that they are correct in their beliefs and they should stay strong in continuing to believe Jesus is the Christ and the Son of God. And for both, as John says, both will receive eternal life. I hope that you have enjoyed this walk through the Gospel of John, I hope you learned something, and most importantly, I hope that you have either gained a new faith or continued to believer more than ever that Jesus is God.

John 21: The Epilogue

I know this is going to sound a lot like the conclusion to the last chapter, but it really is the best way to transition the chapters. By the time the reader gets to the end of chapter 20, at John 20:31, it would seem as if the book of John has come to its end. Everything has finished fully and completely. Jesus finished His ministry, died to pay for the sins of the world, and then rose again 3 days late to defeat sin, evil and death. Many witnesses saw and heard Jesus, coming to faith in Him. There are no loose ends, plot holes or cliff hangers. John has both inductively and deductively brought the reader to the conclusion that Jesus is the Christ and the Son of God. He even states in the last verse of John 20. You almost even want to put a big “THE END” at the end of the chapter to give it that complete fulfillment feeling. But that’s not the end. John has one more story to give the reader. After going through the story, hopefully we’ll be able to see why John included with that chapter.

Before we go into the story itself, let’s go into a little textual criticism. I’m not the only one who thinks that John 20 ends well. A lot of scholars believe it’s a good ending for the chapter. But some scholars say it ends too well. They believe that was the intended ending, and John 21 was attached to the book later. This isn’t the first time we’ve encountered that problem. We encountered with the first 11 verses of John 8. If you read my overview of the whole book of Mark, the same problem was encountered with the last chapter. Sometimes these accusations come up because the text doesn’t seem to fit. But most of the time, the reason the accusations come up is because the earliest manuscripts of the book do not have the section, or the ancient witnesses do not attest to it (that pretty much means the 2nd and 3rd century church fathers do not quote it). This is not true for John 21. All the manuscripts, even the earliest manuscripts, have John 21 in it. There have been writings from the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd century that have quoted this story. So both the manuscripts and ancient witnesses support this story. On top of that, it has the same writing style as all the other 20 chapters of John. There is enough proof to say John wrote this chapter and fully intended it to be the last chapter of his Gospel.

Let’s set the scene. The book opens with the Greek words Meta tauta, which, when literally translated, is “after these things,” but dynamically translated “afterwards.” There is no clear time frame on how much time as past since Jesus appeared the 11 disciples, including Thomas, on that second Sunday. But I believe a good amount of time has passed, and I’ll explain that later. The location is a beach on the Sea of Tiberias, or as we know it better, the Sea of Galilee. Our list of characters are Simon Peter, Thomas, Nathanael, John, James, and 2 other disciples. The book of John does not mention who these two disciples were, but if I had to take a guess, it would be Andrew and Philip. Why? Well, Andrew would could simply say that it would make sense he stayed with his brother Peter. But I think there’s a bigger picture to look at. The technical term is chiasmus, but it has also been called mirror imaging and reflective parallelism. In a chiasmus, a story ends in a reflective or opposite way, kind of like a mirror reflects the opposite of what you actually see. If this is true, I see John 21 as a chiasmus to John 1. John 21 is going to parallel John 1. We already see it in the setting. John 1 takes place in Galilee, and John 21 takes place in Galilee. In John 1, Jesus called 5 disciples: John, James, Andrew, Simon Peter and Philip. All 5 of those disciples are there (if you go along with my assumption the other 2 are Andrew and Philip). If John 1 was the calling of the disciples, this is the “re-calling” of the disciples. Some Bible translations even call the second half of John 21 “The Reinstating of Peter.” I also believe that is why Thomas is there, too. Thomas doubted that the Lord Jesus was alive. He needs continual proof and forgiveness to get him back on track. Also, notice Nathanael is there. Yes, this is the same Nathanael as in John 1, once more, showing the chiasmus. Although it can’t be found in the Bible, I believe that Nathanael must have been one of the greater crowd of followers. After all, he’s still hanging around with the disciples. So the setting has 6 disciples and 1 follower at the Sea of Tiberius at an unknown time.

While we don’t know the time frame exactly, I do believe that a good amount of time has passed. Why? Just look at the disciples’ situation. They went back to their hometown in Galilee, and they went back to their old occupations of being fishermen (I do believe those 6 disciples were all fishermen). Enough time went by since the last resurrection appearance, they must have said to one another, “Well those years following Jesus around on His ministry was a fun learning experience. And I’m glad we got to see he survived that whole crucifixion thing. But he’s probably moving on to bigger and greater things. So we better stop slacking off and get back to our homes, our families and our jobs.” That must have been what they thought because that’s what they did. But still, after reading the first 3 verses of John 21, I almost feel like the men are still daydreaming about that life, because to me, they seem bored to death. They have nothing better to do with their lives but to fish. Oh how they should have remembered what Jesus taught them. Luckily, Jesus is there to remind them.

Out of boredom, Peter decides to pass the time by fishing. The other disciples, and Nathanael, with nothing better to do, decide to join Peter out on the boat fishing. They sit there all morning (and possibly the night before) and they catch nothing. In the morning, Jesus appears out of nowhere. At first, they do not recognize Jesus. Perhaps they thought Jesus was just another fisherman. Maybe it was just an issue of bad lighting or he was too far away. Or, as we kind of understand from other resurrection accounts, it’s possible the disciples still had problems recognizing Jesus in His resurrected form. Jesus calls out to the men on the boat, “Friends, do you have any fish. The NIV chooses to use the word “Friends,” but a more literal translation of the Greek word is more like “children” or “little ones.” It is suggested Jesus is using a term here to show the close love between and teacher and his followers. I can imagine all the disciples giving each other a stupid look, and then pulling a Bill Engvall “Here’s your sign” moment, like, “No, Jesus, we thought we would just hang our nets over into the sea to give them a good washing. Here’s your sign!”

Jesus then instructs the disciples to throw their nets on the other side. Now it doesn’t matter if you are a career fisherman who goes out on a big ship and catches fish with a large net, or if you are a fisherman by hobby who goes out on a small fishing boat and catches fish with a fishing pole. Either way, you know it’s not going to make a big difference what side you are fishing on. Those disciples on the boat were professional fisherman, and they knew with both their “book smarts” and their “street smarts” (or should I say “sea smarts”) that it didn’t matter either way. But they decide to throw their nets on the other side anyway. I don’t know if they did it as an act of faith, or if it was just a “why not?” move. The Bible doesn’t explain. It’s a good thing they did, for when they did, they got fish, a lot of them! 153 to be exact (please don’t try to give it an allegorical meaning; it’s a detail in a historical fact, that’s all). And these weren’t small, measly fish. These 153 fish were so large and heavy that the men could not bring the nets up into the boat. What a miracle!

Indeed, it was a miracle. Once again, I apologize for not being more specific when I said there was only 7 miracles. There were only 7 miracles during Christ’s ministry. If we count Christ’s own resurrection as a miracle (and a lot of people do) and we were to count this large catching of fish as a miracle, this is the 9th miracle. It is another miracle where Jesus shows his authority over nature. It clearly reveals Jesus to be the Son of God, for only God could manipulate nature like that. Indeed, it was enough proof for John. When John realizes this is a miracle, he knows the only man to have miraculous power like that is the Lord. So with a cheerful cry, John explains, “It’s the Lord!” Everyone is excited to see Jesus again, especially Peter. Peter is so excited that he jumps from the boat and swims a hundred yards to see Jesus. The rest of the men follow behind in the boat, going slowly because of all the fish.

When Peter and the rest of the men reach shore, they see Jesus has prepared a fire and some bread. Jesus asks for some fish to cook so they can have breakfast together. John 21:12-14 paints a beautiful picture of fellowship between friends. Over a breakfast meal, the disciples and Nathanael enjoy eating and chatting it up with their Lord and friend Jesus. There was no need to question who the man was or to question Jesus about any teaching. With absolute certainty, they were assured they were eating with Jesus, and this allowed them to eat in peaceful, friendly fellowship with their God. John records this as Christ’s third appearance after dying on the cross (at least recorded in the book of John).

Before we move onto the second half, I want to throw in an application piece here. I drew up the picture painted in John 21:12-14 because I want it to teach a lesson on fellowship with God. I think a lot of Christians think that appearing in the presence of God is one of solemn and reverent worship. When they worship God in His presence, they are to be bowed down, softly speaking in fear, as God talks to them in a monotone and boring voice. Or maybe Christians picture it like a traditional church worship, where we orderly sing hymns, chant liturgy and pray, and then quietly leave. I do believe that there is time and place for that. It shows our reverence and admiration for a holy God, who is willing to extend his love to a sinner. But I also believe that if we do that too much, we lose that picture of Jesus as our brother and our friend. I truly believe there are sometimes that Jesus just wants to sit down with us and be our friend. Sometimes Jesus wants to go on a walk with us and have a good conversation. Say, that’s a perfect segway into the second half of John…

Even though this isn’t written down in John, I think what Jesus said to Peter after breakfast was, “Hey, Peter, let’s go for a walk and talk.” Peter answers, “Um, sure Lord. Where are we going?” Jesus answers, “Oh, just around the sea.” Peter replies, “Yeah, sure, Lord, let’s go.” And the two get up and begin walking. Now John knows what’s going on. Remember, John was 1 of the 3 disciples who Jesus pulled aside for special events, such as special miracles and special teachings. So when John sees Jesus pull Peter aside, he can’t help but wonder what’s going on and what Jesus might be telling Him. So he follows close behind to eavesdrop. I know this won’t make sense as of now, but this will make more sense as of verse 20.

As Jesus and Peter are on their walk, Jesus asks Peter 3 times, “Do you love me?” Each time, Jesus starts with the phrase, “Simon, son of John…” Remember back in Bible times, especially among the Jewish custom, your last name was “Ben-[Father’s name]” or “Bar-[Father’s name],” “Ben” and “Bar” both being suffixes for “Son.” In short, your last name was pretty much. “Son of [Father’s name].” Remember when you were a kid, and you really knew you were in trouble when your parents called you by your full name? I think that’s what Jesus is doing here. Jesus is trying to get Peter’s attention and draw him to the seriousness of the conversation.

In between the 10 verse of John 21:15-25, Jesus asks 3 times if Peter loves him, and Peter 3 replies 3 times that he does love him. In English, this looks like a perfect parallel, but not so in the Greek. The Ancient Greek language had 3-4 words for love. In this passage, Jesus uses two of them. The first and second time, Jesus uses the Greek word agape. The third time, Jesus uses the Greek word phileo. All 3 times Peter uses the word phileo. Some scholars have tried to argue there is theological significance in the choosing of the different words for love, but other scholars have simply dismissed it by saying in this context they are synonyms. I would have to agree with the other scholars. To understand, I will have to state the difference between the two words. The Greek word agape is most of the time meant to mean a love that unconditional, sacrificial, and devoted, as between a God and his worshipper. The Greek word phileo is love that is emotional drive and is just as conditional as it is unconditional, like the love between brothers or other family members. If there was a deep significance in the difference, it would seem as if Peter was dodging the question by offering a weaker answer. It would be like Peter saying, “Well, Lord, I don’t love that much, but I do love you.” If you look at the way Jesus responds, I don’t think Jesus took it that way. If Jesus did take it that way, He would be the one getting more upset every time Peter replied with his answer, not vice versa. On that note, if there was a difference, it would not Jesus who would go from agape to phileo, but rather Peter. Jesus would keep asking Peter “Do you love [agape] me?” until Peter stopped saying “I love [phileo] you” and started saying “I love [agape] you.” Instead, the opposite happens. So I must conclude that there is no difference, but they are all synonyms.

On the same note, do not try to make any specific theological differences between “sheep” and “lambs.” Although they are two different Greek words, they are to be treated like synonyms. Also, do not try to make any specific theological differences between “feed” and “take care” of my sheep. They too are synonyms. In fact, the Greek word that the NIV translates into “take care” is a verb form of the noun “pasture.” Why does a shepherd take his sheep out to pasture? The number one reason is to give it fresh grass to eat, which is feeding it.

But all my ranting about making the differences in language a difference in theology should not make you think there is some good exegesis we can pull out of this passage. First of all, what does Jesus mean by “these” when he says to Peter “Do you love me more than these?” I think “These” incorporates his occupation of fishing, his friendship with the other disciples, his family, his hometown, and everything that use to be dear to Peter. Once Jesus went out of Peter’s presence, Peter went back to his old life. Jesus wanted to know if Peter loved his old life better or if he loved the life Jesus gave him better. For if Peter loved his old life better, he wasn’t really fit to become the church leader Jesus wanted him to be. It’s a good thing Peter said he loved Jesus more! Indeed, Jesus did need Peter to love him more than family, friends, neighbors, co-workers, his home and his job for the mission He was to call Peter into (see Luke 14:25-27).

While I am not one for trying to distinguish theological differences between synonyms, and I am usually oppose unnecessary numerology (trying to find allegorical significance of numbers) in the Bible, I do believe there is a significance in why Jesus asked Peter 3 times if Peter loved Him. It does have to do with how many times Peter denied Jesus. If you remember correctly, I proposed in John 13 that a possible reason Peter denied Jesus 3 times was because Peter said 3 times that he would stick up for Jesus. Now in a bigger picture, the 3s are bunched up to make a bigger 3. Peter first says he will stick up for Jesus 3 times, then Peter denies him 3 times, so Peter has to confess his love 3 times. It’s like Jesus is saying, “Just making sure you love me, Peter. Because last time I checked, you pretended like you didn’t even know me.”

Like I said, Jesus really needed to know Peter loved him, and the prophecy about Peter in John 21:18 explains it. If I may take I guess at what the Bible doesn’t have written down, I think Jesus said something to Peter along of the lines of, “Peter, I just really needed to know that you love me. Because, Peter, you will face the same persecution I faced. You too will be falsely accused and falsely condemned. You too will be thrown into prison. You too will be persecuted and tortured, and you too will be martyred for your beliefs. And when you go through all this, I can’t have you doubting me, I can’t have you denying me, I can’t have you disowning me, and I can’t have you recanting. For I want you to be the leader of the church. If you’re the leader, they are going to look up to you, as they look up to me now. And when they look up to you, they need to see Me. I need you evangelize to the non-believers and disciples the believers at any cost, and the only way to do that is to love Me and My will for you more than anything in the world. Can you do that for Me?”

That’s just my paraphrasing. If we were to look at the text, Jesus prophecies Peter’s fate by using an analogy between a young man and an old man. A young man is independent enough to dress himself and go wherever he wants, but an old man is dependant on everyone for everything, from getting dressed to moving about. Jesus predicts that Peter in the near future will still have his independence to go and preach wherever the Holy Spirit leads him. But in the distant future, Peter will be arrested, and an arrested man is dragged to where his captors want him to go. Ultimiately, this prophecy talks about his death of crucifixion, where the crucified person’s hands were stretched across the beam. Early church tradition states that Peter was arrested in 64 A.D. and later crucified within the same year. In one way, we can see Peter’s death glorifying Jesus by dying by the exact same method. In another way, Peter’s death glorifying Jesus because, like Jesus, He was willing to die for the exact same gospel message his Lord died for.

Jesus closes this section in John 21:19 by giving the command, “Follow me!” Once again, we see another parallel back to John 1, as this book began with Jesus calling disciples, including Peter, to follow him (John 1:43, cf. Matthew 4:18-20 & Mark 1:16-18). The NIV calls this section “Jesus Reinstates Peter.” In one sense, we can see Christ’s command to Peter to follow him as making him a disciple again. If Peter legitimately recanted being a disciple by disowning Jesus, he needed to be made a disciple again. In another sense, maybe Christ’s command for Peter to follow him was a greater calling than when Jesus first called Peter to follow Him. The first time, Jesus called Peter to be His disciple, His student. Now Jesus was calling Peter to a greater mission. Peter was now called to be His apostle, His messenger of the good news and a leader to His believers. Either way, Peter is being called to stick with Jesus, even when Jesus is not present with Him.

By this time on their walk, Jesus and Peter know John is following close behind. While Jesus is giving prophecies about the future, Peter might as well ask about John. I don’t see this as Peter being nosy into the life of other people. Think all the way back to my introduction on John. In my introduction, I talked a little about the character of John, who he was. Remember that I said it’s possible that John’s father Zebedee and Simon Peter’s father John were partners in fishing, so it’s possible that Peter and John were co-workers all their adult life, and maybe even childhood friends. During the ministry of Jesus, Peter and John were 2 of the inner 3 disciples, so they had unique bonding time with Jesus. Even after this book, John is always seen with Peter in Acts. When you put all this evidence together, I really think Peter and John were best friends. Being best friends, naturally Peter wants to know what happens to his best friend.

Before we get into what Jesus didn’t mean, let’s talk about what Jesus did mean. I think it would be helpful to put another paraphrase of mine. Pretty much, Jesus said, “Don’t worry about it. Don’t focus on what’s going to happen to him or my relationship with him. You need to focus on your relationship with me and what I called you do. Focus on that.” There’s some good application there. Too often Christians will meddle into other people’s spiritual life before they take care of their own. They will call out other people’s sins before confessing or repenting of their own sins. They will try to spiritually discipline someone while their spiritual walk is far from disciplined. They compare and contrast their spiritual life with others, only to come out feeling that they are better than everyone else. The worse part is when they think they are in the right to do so, even calling it accountability! The problem is they end up doing what Jesus warned us no to do: we try to take the speck out of someone else’s eye before taking the plank out of our own eye! Now Jesus doesn’t say to leave the speck in their eye and leave the plank in our own eye, but simply that we should make sure we remove our own plank first before removing the speck. Before we meddle into other spiritual lives, we need to straighten out our own lives.

Now onto what Jesus didn’t mean. Apparently the witnesses who heard this took the words “If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you?” to mean that John was going to live until Jesus came again (and I can see that mistake even being made in the modern era, if it wasn’t for the following verses). The thought Jesus was saying, “He will remain alive until I return.” John clearly understands Jesus to mean, “Even if I suggest something as crazy as him living on earth until I return, that shouldn’t affect you.” Context also helps the misunderstanding. First of all, a lot of 1st century Christians, including the Twelve Apostles (especially them) really thought that Christ’s second return would happen within their lifetime. So at first, this idea wasn’t too far-fetched. This idea meant Jesus was coming back in half a century, and all 12 of the Apostles would escape martyrdom until Christ’s return. The idea was quickly shot down by the time John wrote his Gospel. If John truly wrote the book of John either in the late 80s or early 90s AD, most of the Twelve Apostles have died martyred deaths. It’s even possible John is the only original Apostle still alive. Yet some of the 1st century Christians are holding on to this idea that Jesus was returning soon. Why? They remembered the words Jesus spoke to Peter in John 21:22. John was still alive. He was even dodging persecution pretty when. When tried for his faith, he was not martyred, but exiled to the island of Patmos. Even then, John finished his sentence and left the island. He was still alive. So some Christians still thought Jesus was coming very soon because Jesus promised that John would not die. John quickly kills the rumor and gets everything straightened out. Indeed, tradition states John simply died of old age.

The real, true last 2 verses of the book do not parallel any passage in John 1, but I do kind of see them parallel the last 2 verses of the previous chapter, John 20. Let’s put them both up.

John 20:30–31-
30 Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. 31 But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

John 21:24–25-
24 This is the disciple who testifies to these things and who wrote them down. We know that his testimony is true. 25 Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.

The overall message both pairs of verses have is that the book of John is just a sampling of what Jesus. But even adding the Synoptic Gospels, that too only seems like a sampling of what Jesus did. It may seem like John is using a hyperbole in John 21:25, but maybe it’s really an understatement. Jesus did do a lot in his 35 years of life on earth as a human being. Heck, Jesus did a lot in just the 3-4 years of his ministry. If ever single second, or every single minute of the life of Jesus was recorded, it would take a lot of books and scrolls to get it all down. But it brings up a good point. Why didn’t the Gospel writers put more down than just the 89 chapters written between the 4 Gospel writers? It goes back to the purpose statement in John 20:31. The Gospel writers only wrote down the information that proved their message. And that’s why the last 2 verses of John 21 (which are the last 2 verses of the book) also carry the overall purpose in them. Jesus did many other things as well, and John witnessed a lot of them, but John only wrote down 21 chapters worth because that’s all needed to prove Jesus was the Christ and the Son of God.

One more thing to note about these 2 conclusions. Both conclusions mention one or more disciples present to bear witness. John 21 says it explicitly in verse 24, and John 20 says it implicitly in verse 30. Simply put, John is saying that the reader can be sure all of the recorded events are true because there was at least one disciple who saw them all, and that disciple was John. I do find comfort that this Gospel is not merely an editor putting together an anthology of stories, or an interviewer writing down a news report from witnesses. Rather, this information is first hand from John himself. (Maybe that’s why John didn’t put down a birth story. He wasn’t there to witness it.)

This is really and truly the end of the Gospel of John. Yet I just don’t feel right ending my commentary here. Even though this chapter can be seen as an epilogue to the book of John, for my devotional commentary, I’m going to write my own epilogue. My epilogue will be like an overall summary of the book. I plan to try to find some way to outline the book, as well as connect all the chapters to show you how John in consistent in carrying out the theme of Jesus as Christ and God the Son.

John 20: Easter Sunday

I want you to think about the events that happen at a typical modern-day American home on Easter. Since this is one of those holidays where the mythological holiday creature comes during the night (or really early in the morning), children wake up their parents at the crack of dawn so they can see what the Easter bunny brought them. So much for sleeping in on a holiday. At best, parents can delay this up to 8 AM. At 8 AM, parents watch their children go on an Easter egg hunt and go through their Easter baskets. In the 9 o’clock hour, it’s Sunday School, and in the 10 o’clock hour, it’s church. Even if this family doesn’t usually go to church, if they have to go at least twice a year, this holiday is one of them (Christmas being the other). After church, the family goes home to a traditional Easter dinner for lunch. Usually the main platter is ham (after all, thanks to Jesus setting up the New Covenant, we can now eat pork!). Then the day is pretty much done. Easter is over. And it’s only an hour or two into the afternoon. This may be the reality for many modern-day American families, but it wasn’t the reality for the Disciples in the 1st century A.D. For them, the resurrection wasn’t just an event that happened in the morning and bit in the afternoon. It was an event that happened over 40 days! Not even the initial first day was just a morning event. The disciples struggled with probability, questions, and even doubt that lasted all day John chapter 20 reveals how Easter Sunday was all-day event, and a day was very eventful from sunrise to sunset.

Before I go any further, once again I will remind you that the resurrection appears in all 4 Gospel accounts. All 4 Gospel accounts tell the story differently, and to the untrained eye, it may seem like they contradict. So I will mention the other Gospel passages if there seems to be contradiction or if it needs some further explaining. If it does not correlate with the message John is speaking in John 20, I will breeze over it or skip it altogether.

For example, I’ve heard an atheist complain about the contradiction of the number of women and which women went to the tomb on that Sunday morning. Matthew has 2 women: Mary Magdalene and “the other Mary” (most likely the mother of James). Mark has 3 women: Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome. Luke has Mary Magdalene, Mary mother of James, Joanna, and then he tags “others” on at the end, which could be an indefinite amount. John just mentions 1 woman: Mary Magdalene. Surely all 4 Gospels writers can’t be right, can they? Surely this is a contradiction…right? Well, consider this conversation between a mother and her high school son…

Mom: “Son, why were you home so late from school? Did you get another detention?”
Son: “No, mom. I went to the high school basketball game. It was a playoff game against our rival school to decide who got to play in the championship, I thought it would be an interesting game to stay and watch.”
Mom: “Oh. So who else was there watching the game?”

Now let’s stop the conversation and contemplate what the son’s answer might be. Obviously the mom asked this simply for an alibi. So how is the son going to answer this answer? Is he literally going to name everyone who was there? This would be almost an impossible feat, unless he was the guy working at ticket booth or taking attendance. It’s a playoff game, it’s possible over a hundred people are there. He’s not going to mention every single person. So who will he mention? At the most, he’ll mention everyone that he knows. He’s not going to talk about people who he can’t identify. Furthermore, he’s only going to mention the people he knows and who he noticed. There might have been people at the game that he did know, but he didn’t know they were there. He might only mention the people he knows and the people his mom knows. After all, he mentions people he knows but his mom doesn’t know, she’s going to ask, “Who’s that?” every time, and the son wants to avoid explaining who every person is. Also, if the son knows his mom just wants an alibi, he might only mention the people sitting next to him or the people who he was hanging out with at the game. This small group might be less than 10% of the people that was there, but it’s enough to prove that he was really at the game. Same goes with the Gospel writers. The Gospel writers aren’t going to name every single person who saw the empty tomb that morning. They are only going to mention the ones that pertain to the story. If there is any overall unity the Gospel writers are trying to get across, is that there was early witnesses to the resurrection, and all 4 Gospel writers show that, no matter how many or which ones.

On that same note, the fact that there are female witnesses to be the first to witness the resurrection is an excellent apologetic to both the resurrection itself and the inerrancy of the Scriptures. In the 1st century A.D., a woman’s testimony was not considered legitimate in a legal court. In short, you could not call a woman to the stand because her testimony was not accepted. In fact, if there was a 1st century trial on the resurrection, the woman’s testimony would have been thrown out. Thus, if the disciples were making up the resurrection, they would have either said that the disciples, or maybe even the Pharisee followers (like Nicodemus or Joseph of Arimathea), found the empty tomb first. But the true truth was that it was the women found it first, and to stick to the truth of the Scriptures, that’s all 4 Gospel writers recorded it.

If you remember, Jewish law and Jewish custom does not allow a Jew to go near a dead body during the Sabbath or during holiday, since it would make them unclean. That’s why the Jews demanded that the crucified men be removed from the crosses so quickly. Now if it wasn’t for this Jewish law, I bet the women would have gone the next day to the tomb, but because of the Sabbath, they had to wait. The women were forced to be patient, but still, they made plans to go to the tomb first thing in the morning. Mary Magdalene was the most impatient of them all. She doesn’t want to even wait until sunrise; she’s willing to go in the morning while it’s still dark. Perhaps she thought the women were taking too long to get themselves ready to go to the tomb, so she went ahead of them. The other woman might have just shook their head, thinking to themselves, “Silly Mary, how’s she going to roll away the stone in front of the tomb all by herself?”

As Mary approaches the tomb, she seems something out of place. The stone has been rolled away! Now it’s debatable how close Mary got. From John’s account, one could easily say that Mary didn’t peek her head in the tomb, or even got close. All she saw was the stone rolled away. The accounts from the Synoptic Gospels give more of an idea that she actually looked in. Now, in my mind, the most logical thing to do if I was Mary would be to run back to my female friends and tell them the news. I have no idea why Mary got the idea to run to Peter and John and tell them. Perhaps she figured that Peter and John, being the closest 2 disciples, might have a better knowledge of what’s happened to Jesus. After all, Mary was with the women all day and all night, so she knows they don’t know. Maybe Mary just thought it made the most sense to report it the 2 closest disciples. Whatever the case, Mary Magdalene runs to where Peter and John are to report that the body isn’t there.

During the time Mary Magdalene has embarked to the tomb, found the tomb empty, and ran to where Peter and John are residing, the rest of the women (at least 3 of them), begin their journey to the tomb. The Synoptic Gospels fill us in on what happens there. As I said, I’m not going to go into that too deeply. If you want to go into it deeply, read the Synoptic Gospels. But in short, the women see the empty tomb, they see angels dressed in white telling them Jesus rose from the dead, and then they are given instructions to the disciples. So these women also run off to find Peter and John.

For this next scene, let’s picture the scene from the viewpoint of Peter and John. It’s early morning, around sunrise. Peter and John are fast asleep. All of a sudden, they hear a vicious knock on the door. They are scared, not only because they’ve been startled from your sleep, but they fear that it’s the Jewish leaders and Roman leaders, preparing to arrest the Disciples on the same charges as Jesus. As they walk closer to the door, they feel a bit better recognizing the voice as Mary’s, but they still feel a bit uneasy due to the frantic sound her voice, sounding concerned. They open the door to Mary, babbling away at a mile a minute. Somehow, they are able to pull out, “They have taken the body away!” As Peter and John try to beckon Mary, “Who, Mary? Who took the body?” all of a sudden, Mary the mother of James, Salome and Joanna come running up to Peter and John. They start babbling on and on about seeing an empty tomb, seeing angels, and claiming Jesus rose from the dead. Now Peter and John are really confused. Last time they checked, all the women went together to the tomb. Then how can the woman have different stories? Peter and John conclude the best way is to just go down themselves and look at the scene.

Both Peter and John, concerned about the whereabouts of the body, run down to the tomb. I like how John mentions that he outran Peter (although he mentions it humbly because he still does not refer to himself by name). Mary Magdalene, now herself confused (because she knows what she saw, but the other women say something different), runs behind the two disciples to see if anything has changed. Now as they are running, let’s pause for another good apologetic. Some opponents of the Bible have suggested that the women went to the wrong tomb, and when they saw that this tomb was empty, they concluded Jesus rose from the dead. I think John 20 proves that to be not true. I do think a bit that maybe Peter and John thought that themselves. They might have thought, “Maybe Mary Magdalene went to the wrong tomb. Let’s make sure she went to the right tomb.” So Peter and John went to make sure Mary Magdalene went to the right tomb, and sure enough, she did. While I’m at it, let me continue to debunk the “wrong tomb theory.” If Mary Magdalene did go to the wrong, she would not have concluded that Jesus rose from the dead. From verse 9 (as well as other verses in John the Synoptic Gospels), we know the disciples and other followers of Jesus still had yet to grasp the whole idea of resurrection. If Mary did go to the wrong tomb, she would have concluded that the body was stolen, as seen in verses 2 and 13. And if it was truly the wrong tomb, it would have been only a matter of minutes for someone to find the right tomb. The tomb was clearly marked, with a garden, with one spot for a body (the sign of a rich tomb), a sealed stone, and Roman guards. It’s kind of a hard to mix up a clearly marked tomb with a generic tomb.

So John gets to the tomb first, Peter comes in second, and Mary arrives third. All 3 of them see a tomb with no body and neatly folded linen cloths. They don’t even see the angels the other women talked about (I don’t know, maybe they went on coffee break). John 20:8 says that John went in, saw, and “believed.” What did John believe? Remember John was confronted with 2 different stories: Christ’s body was stolen and Christ had risen from the dead. Which story did John believe? What makes this question interesting is John 20:9, which says that the disciples did not understand that the Scriptures said the Christ must rise from the dead. Some people have suggested that John saw the scene, realized it couldn’t have been a robbery, and thus believed Jesus rose from the dead. If this is the case, then John 20:9 has to be interpreted that John simply did not comprehend the full picture of resurrection. But the Greek word used for “believed” here has to do with a full perception of the subject. Besides, looking John 20:19-25 and Luke 24:36-43 (the parallel passage), there seems to be this idea that all disciples present totally forgot Christ’s teachings of resurrection, including John. So when I see “believed” in John 20:8, I take it to mean, “He believe Mary Magdalene’s story,” which is the body was stolen. But Peter and John have no leads on who took the body, so they just go back home sad and defeated.

Before I go on, I want to pause to look at a certain verse. Look at John 20:7b with me

John 20:7b-
The cloth was folded up by itself, separate from the linen.

When I first saw this verse, it stood out to me as something that didn’t belong. Why would John go out of his way to mention such a detail? I know John is trying to be detailed, but this is ridiculous. I was always trained that if the Bible points out a descriptive detail, there’s always some symbolic or theological meaning behind it. So what’s the meaning behind this descriptive detail? Some scholars have drawn this back to the idea of the master and the servants at a dinner table. When it came time for dinner, the servants would cook the food and set the table. When master would enter the dining room, the master would eat by himself (or with his family), and the servants would just stand back against the wall, just in case the master would need anything. If the master was done his meal, he would get up, crumple up the linen napkin, and throw it on the table. This was a sign to the servants to clean up the table because the master was done. But if the master wasn’t done, but needed to get up (to go to the bathroom, for example), he would fold his napkin and place it neatly back on its plate. This was a sign to the servants that said, “Don’t touch anything. I’m coming back to finish.” Thus, some people have interpreted this line from John 20:7 as Jesus saying, “I’m coming back to finish what I started.” Let’s continue on with the story in John.

While Peter and John have gone back defeated, Mary Magdalene can’t stand it anymore. She just breaks down in front of the tomb, bawling. In between the tears, Mary looks over to see 2 angels, just like the other women said. When she makes eye contact with the angels, the angels ask her, “Why are you crying?” I like how Mary answers without really reacting to the angels. Most people who encounter angels usually have a fear reaction, but not Mary. She just answers them. “They have taken my Lord away, and I don’t know where they have put him.” Mary turns her head once more, and she sees another man. Through her tears, she can’t tell it’s Jesus. She just suspects it’s the gardener. So Mary may have supposed that the gardener might have temporarily moved the body to clean the garden and tomb. So Mary kindly asks the gardener where he placed the body so she can see it. Jesus simply replies, “Mary.” Now the Greek language did not have exclamation marks, but if they did, I think they would have put one here. Jesus is saying to her “Mary! It’s me!” The Bible Knowledge Commentary connects this back to Christ’s preaching of the Good Shepherd, when Jesus says, “I call the sheep by name, and the sheep know my voice.” Once Mary heard Jesus call her by name, she recognized it was Jesus calling her. Mary replies, “Rabboni!” Now there is some debate on whether or not “Rabboni” differs from “Rabbi.” Perhaps “Rabboni” is a higher ranked teacher than a “Rabbi,” or maybe “Rabboni” shows a more intimate relationship with the teacher than “Rabbi.” Whether the case may be, Mary Magdalene recognized this as the Jesus she knew for so long, and she embraced him. That is why Jesus says in John 20:17 not to hold on to him. It’s not that Mary touching Jesus makes him unclean, but rather, Jesus doesn’t want Mary to get too attached to the thought that Jesus will be hanging around for a while. Jesus still intends to go back to the Father. Christ’s last words to Mary are to tell his brothers, the disciples, that Jesus is going back to the Father God. Mary reports more than that to the disciples. She retells the whole story on how she saw the Lord Jesus.

Now here’s what I believe happened after Mary Magdalene reported to the disciples what Jesus had told her to report. Even though none of the Gospels record this story, both Luke 24:34 and 1 Corinthians 15:5a record that there is a private appearance between Jesus and Simon Peter. Thomas and Gundry’s The NIV Harmony of the Gospels states it has to happen after the appearance to Mary Magdalene (Mark 16:9-11 refers to Mary Magdalene as the first person to see the resurrected Jesus), but before the two men on the road to Emmaus. I say that after Mary Magdalene reported back to Peter what happened, Peter headed off to the tomb for a second time. What would drive Peter to go back to the tomb a second time? One would think Peter would see Mary as the girl “who cried wolf.” I think Peter saw something different in Mary that would make Mary change her story. Something must have happened. Now Peter has at least 4 women telling him Jesus had raised from the dead, so he had to listen. Also, I think Peter hoping so much that the “stolen body” theory wasn’t true, and that Jesus really did raise from the dead. I even think that he himself pondered about the evidence. The scene Peter saw didn’t look like a thief came in. So Peter went back a second time, and I believe that second time Peter went back, he found everything just as Mary Magdalene saw: two angels in the tomb and Jesus in the garden. Thus, Simon Peter became the first man to see the resurrected Jesus.

In the paragraph above, I said one of my reasons to believe Peter went back a second time was that the evidence at the scene did not appear to look like a robbery. Why doesn’t John 20:6,7 look the scene of a robbery case? Now’s the perfect time to give a defense on the claim that the body of Jesus was stolen by thieves. The tomb Jesus laid in would be a target for thieves because it was the tomb of a rich man. But grave robbers rarely to never stole the body because the body would have little to no value. Instead, the grave robbers would take whatever the body was buried with that had value. The only thing worth value in the tomb (and this especially the case for the poor) would be the expensive fine linen the burial clothes were made out of. If the grave of Jesus was really the robbed, the thieves would have taken his clothes and left a naked, dead body in the tomb. The only way the thieves would have stolen the body is if they knew they could get a price out of it. The only ones who would be interested in the body would be the Jewish leaders. But that’s exactly why the Jewish leaders asked Pilate to put guards at the tomb. They wanted to make sure no one left with the body. So the Jewish leaders wouldn’t pay robbers to steal the body because they knew it was well guarded at the tomb. Speaking of which, it could not have been thieves because that tomb was well guarded by soldiers. Those soldiers were so strong; a few mere men could not have fought them off. Between the guards and the seal on the stone, thieves could have not gotten to the body. I have one more piece of evidence to give to you to prove it can’t be thieves. Even if thieves did steal the body and leave behind the expensive clothes, they would not have taken the time to fold the clothes up nicely and neatly. Therefore, I conclude all this proof shows the body was not stolen by grave robbers. Even Simon Peter concluded that, and that’s why he was the first man to see the risen Jesus.

All the events I have spoken about so far have all happened before noon on that first Easter morning. Within that time, Jesus has appeared to at least 4 women, as well as Simon Peter. When we celebrate Easter, our celebrations end a little after 12, but the events on the first Easter did not end a little after 12. John’s story of the resurrection will pick up again in the evening of the day. Until then, Luke says that Jesus appears to 2 of His followers (these 2 men are not among the 12 Disciples Jesus chose) on the road to Emmaus in the afternoon. I’m not going into Luke’s story, but it does kind of help set the scene, as these 2 men cancel their trip to Emmaus to head back to Jerusalem and report to the disciples what they have seen.

Picking up in John 20:19, evening has fallen on that Sunday. The scene is a room in Jerusalem, with all the doors locked tight. The disciples are still afraid that the Jewish leaders are going to come after Christ’s Disciples next, so they are being very cautious. The characters are the 10 disciples. Obviously, we know Judas Iscariot isn’t there because he betrayed Jesus and then hanged himself. We don’t know where Thomas is, but we know Thomas is not there. For all we know, they sent Thomas out to get dinner. Out of nowhere, Jesus appears to the 10 Disciples are says, “Peace be with you!” Even though in Greek, this goes back to a Hebrew greeting, almost similar to “hello.” But this might have been a more real greeting, one with a deeper meaning. Before Jesus left, during the Last Supper, Jesus constantly reminded His disciples that he was going to give them peace. His presence there was another ounce of peace for them. I’m not sure if it really did give the disciples peace at first. According to Luke, their first reaction was that it was a ghost, or that they were having a vision or hallucination. But Jesus quickly debunks this theory as he shows the disciples the holes in his hands and the stab wound in his side.

This debunking is one needed for both the past and the present. Let’s start in the past since that is the original context. Within 100 years of Jesus rising again, false theories about the resurrection were already floating around. The most popular one was that Jesus just raised from the dead in spirit, not body. This was started by the Gnostics, who claimed the body was bad. So in the Gnostic mindset, a bodily resurrection would not make sense. What made sense to them was a spirit resurrection only. Jesus debunks that by showing the wounds in His body. Those wounds were the same that a human body would have, making the conclusion it was a human body. So that debunks the Gnostics’ conclusion, the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ conclusion, and the disciples’ first incorrect conclusion. Well, what about the disciples’ second incorrect conclusion, that this is a hallucination or a dream. This is a common belief of skeptics today, who will insist that wishful thinking led the disciples to hallucinate or dream that Jesus had come back to life. Last time I checked, hallucinations, dreams, and visions were hard to feel. The disciples actually could touch and feel Jesus. Still, if that is not enough proof, I would keep saying to go back to the witnesses. By now, at least 4 female witnesses and 12 male witnesses (10 disciples plus 2 followers) saw Jesus. By the time this is all done, over 500 people will see Jesus in this time period of 40 days. It’s hard for over 500 people to hallucinate the same thing. In my book, there is enough to evidence to prove that seeing Jesus alive was not a dream, a vision, or a hallucination, but what really happened.

After Jesus wishes peace on the 10 Disciples a second time, John records Jesus breathing on the disciples and telling them to receive the Holy Spirit. Here is another beautiful word play. The Greek word pnema can be translated “spirit,” “wind,” or “breath.” This is also true in the Hebrew. In Genesis, Moses uses the Hebrew word ruah to draw the connection of breathing on the newly-made man and giving him life. Jesus “breathing” on the disciples was a symbol of them receiving the Holy Spirit. Once the received the Holy Spirit, they would became new creation and have a new life. Once again, parallels to the creation story in Genesis 2. Many people try to understand what Jesus is saying in John 20:22. Some have even theorized that the disciples received a piece of the Holy Spirit then and there to understand the resurrection (see Luke 24:45). I think it simply is another command from Jesus to receive the Holy Spirit when he comes on Pentecost.

As I mentioned before, at this setting, Thomas is not present, for one reason or another. When Thomas does get back, Jesus is already gone. They all report gladly to him that Jesus has come back from the dead and they all saw it. And this is where Thomas gets the nickname “Doubting Thomas.” Thomas refuses to believe until Jesus has appeared to him and also shown him the holes in his hands, feet and side. Do not blame Thomas for doubting. As we discussed above, all the other 10 disciples doubted Jesus had risen from the dead, even when they saw him. It wasn’t until the felt the flesh of Jesus that they believed. Thomas was simply asking to do the same. Also, do not see this as John picking on Thomas. This is just John’s way of showing character development. After all, John as shown us positive qualities of Thomas, such as willingness to follow Jesus to the death (John 11:16) and seeking to follow Jesus closer (John 14:5).

John picks up with the story again in John 20:26, telling the reader that a whole week has past. It’s already the next Sunday. From what we’ve read in the Bible, both Synoptic Gospels and John’s Gospel, Jesus has not made any more appearances. I wonder how Thomas felt all this past week. Was he upset that his fellow disciples kept insisting that Jesus rose from the dead, without any evidence? Was he annoyed, seeing this a cruel practical joke? The scene this following Sunday is a lot like the scene the past Sunday. It’s behind locked door in a large room in Jerusalem. The only difference is this time Thomas was with them. Jesus comes again, even greeting them with the same greeting: “Peace be with you!” Jesus goes right to Thomas and gives him the same treatment as the rest of the disciples a week earlier. He asks Thomas to put his fingers and hands into the holes in his hands and his sides to see they are real. I love Thomas’s reaction: “My Lord and My God.” It connects exactly with John 20:31, the theme verse for this Gospel.

John 20:31-
But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

In the previous verse, John 20:30, John says that Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples. When I told you that Jesus only performed 7 miracles in the whole book, I meant John only records 7 miracles in the book during the ministry of Jesus. Indeed, Jesus rising from the dead is a miracle. And if the raising of Lazarus was the greatest miracle during the ministry of Jesus, then Jesus rising up would be the greatest miracle of His whole earthly life. It is the miracle that defines our faith, for without His resurrection, our faith is false, empty and futile (1 Corinthians 15:14,17). If all of Christ’s miracles were signs that He was God, then this miracle was the greatest sign that proved once and for all Jesus was God. Notice Thomas’s reaction. He didn’t say “My Teacher!” or “My Rabbi!” He said, “My Lord and My God!” All the disciples and followers of Jesus after the resurrection had the same reaction. Those who had yet to call Jesus “Christ,” “Lord,” or “God” all of a sudden did start giving him these titles. The disciples and followers who were already calling Jesus by those titles were not starting to call him by those titles more. If they were unsure before Jesus died, they were sure after Jesus came back to life. If they were sure when before Jesus died, now they were very sure after Jesus rose from the dead. Jesus rising up again was the icing on the cake that sealed the deal. It is the final, grand conclusion that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God and God the Son.

Since you know that I like ending each chapter with both an application within the chapter as much as an application to the grander theme of the chapter, I’m going to turn to John 21:29 for our application verse of the chapter.

John 20:29-
Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

I think sometimes Christian get into their head that the Disciples were the most blessed people on the earth because they got to see Jesus through the few years of ministry, the saw the Passion Week for Jesus, and they saw the resurrected Jesus. Therefore, we seem them as higher Christians than we are. This is simply not true. The disciples came to belief because they saw the ministry of Jesus, the Passion Week of the Christ, and the resurrected Son of Man. Christians who believe today believe even thought they did not see the life, death or resurrection of Jesus. Jesus says that takes much more faith for a non observer to believe (some translations have “more blessed are those have not seen…”). I believe this to be true, especially today, when we live in a world that claims, Jesus never rose, Jesus never died on the cross, and some even go as far as say Jesus never lived or existed period. In summer of 2009, I went down to Israel, and I spent a whole week in Jerusalem. While in Jerusalem, I went to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the traditional and most likely site of the crucifixion and burial of Jesus. Within the church was smaller cathedral which held the tomb where Jesus was laid. A line wrapped around it a couple times. Waiting in line would take a couple to a few hours. I was advised not to waste my free day in Jerusalem to do so, but some of my friends did. I’m glad I took the advice. Just like John 20:29 says, I can still say I believe, even though I didn’t see the empty tomb.

Once you get to the bottom of John 20, at verse 31, you’d think you hit the grand and final conclusion. The book could end there, and it would be a good ending. No open end, no cliffhanger, nothing of the sort. John comes to full conclusion and ending in John 20. But that’s not the end. You don’t have to look too far to see there is one last chapter to John, the 21st chapter of John. I see John 21 as an epilogue to John. It can be understood as part of the resurrection account, but it also can be seen as smooth transition into the church age, as seen in Acts, the Pauline Epistles and the General Epistles, especially John’s 3 epistles. So stay tuned for one more chapter of John. Perhaps we can see the Son of God one more time in it.