John Chapter 20

The Morning of the Resurrection

19 ended at Jesus burial.  20 starts at dawn on the first day of the week.  John only mentions Mary Magdalene going to the tomb, seeing the stone moved, and running back to tell Peter and John.  No others are mentioned.  And remember that it is John recording these events.  When she tells them, she said "we" don't know where the body has been moved to. 

2024 - In my NASB95 there is an asterisk before was and another before saw in the phrase "was still dark and saw".  There is no explanation for these marks.  In BLB, these asterisks show up again, but again there is no explanation for why they are there???   Both these verbs appear in exactly the same form in the mGNT and the TR.  Why then are the asterisks there?  They asterisks do not appear in the ESV.

2024 - Found it!!!  Pages xxxi through xxxiv, at the beginning of the MSB, have explanations I should have already known and memorized as to italics, superior numbers, superior letters and so on.  Here is what it says about asterisks, and they are sort of a big deal:

Asterisks are used to mark verbs that are historical presents in the Greek which have been translated with an English past tense in order to conform to modern usage.  The translators recognized that in some contexts the present tense seems more unexpected and unjustified to the English reader than a past tense would have been.  But Greek authors frequently used the present tense for the sake of heightened vividness, thereby transporting their readers in imagination to the actual scene at the time of occurrence.  However, the translators felt that it would be wise the change these historical presents to English past tenses.

SO...after all that...the way it reads in Greek is "Mary Magdalene shows up at the tomb while it is still dark."  It is quite difficult to use present tense here, so I see the problem for the translators.  But I also appreciate this explanation.  John is sort of "setting the scene" in real time.  As in:  As the scene opens, we see Mary arriving at the tomb.  It is still dark.  Suddenly, she sees that the stone is no longer over the tomb!"  So John is "putting us there as spectators".  This  continues into vs 2:  "Next, we see her running back to town.  She finds Peter and tells him, then John and tells him."  Like a play.

2024 - It is clear as I read vs 4 that Peter and John were together as they ran toward the tomb.  So they were likely together when Mary came banging on the door before sunup to tell them what she had seen.  Vss 5 and 6 also have historical presents rendered as past tense.

2021 - My my.  It occurred to me a few minutes ago that they maybe didn't all arrive precisely at the same time, and look what John tells us.  Mary Magdalene got there while it was still dark.  She was first, and very early.  So possibly the stone hadn't been rolled until about the time she got there.  When the stunned soldiers woke up, and saw the tomb empty, they took off to tell the chief priests what had happened.  Only then did a second group of women show up.  Mary M may or may not have still been there.  John says "she ran", singular, and told Peter and John.  Doesn't say they were all gathered up someplace.  Maybe she went to the house where just these two were staying?  Peter and John run to the tomb.  They see the grave clothes, but they do not see any angels.  The angels have departed for now.

John says he and Peter both went, and both were running.  John says he got there first.  John looked in and saw the linen, but he didn't go in.  Peter arrives second, but goes in first.  He sees the linen he'd been wrapped in in one place, and the facecloth in another place, folded up.  Even upon seeing this, they still did not understand what was happening.  They thought the body had been stolen.  This verse:

9 for as yet they did not understand the Scripture, that he must rise from the dead. [Jhn 20:9 ESV]

2022 - Vss 1,2 are pretty specific that it was only John and Peter that MM told what she'd found.  She went to them first.  They ran to the tomb, looked things over, and "went back to their homes".  So this seems to say that MM had gone two places - first to Peter's, then to John's, and though John was told second, he either passed Peter on the way, running, or was in a different part of town, and took a different road.  Either way, John got there first, but I don't think there was any race.  No mention of earthquakes or angels in John's account to this point.  In vs 10, scene 1 is completed.  John and Peter are back home. 

In vs 11, Mary Magdalene is weeping outside the tomb.  Only MM is mentioned.  She had gone and informed Peter and John, they'd come and gone, and now she was back.  Still alone so far as we can tell.  She looks in and sees two angels, in white, sitting on the ledge where the body had lain.  They ask why she's crying, and she says because she doesn't know where the body is.

2022 - She is now all the way up at the tomb.  In the first scene, she sees the stone rolled away, but it does not say that she went in to check.  She saw the stone moved and ran and told Peter and John, and they were first to note that the body indeed was gone.  There is also another possibility.  This may be a different Mary.  MM may still be in town, or on her way back, or some other place, and this could be another Mary.  After all, there were three "Marys" at the foot of the cross.   If this is MM again, she has gone back for the second time.  But this Mary is weeping, indicating that she is upset that the body is gone.  It is a bit of a stretch to think one of the other Marys got here, saw the stone moved, and reached the same conclusion as MM. 

2022 - In any case, Mary looks into the tomb and sees two angels.  She must have recognized that they were angels and told the story that way.  They ask her why she's crying.  She answers, then turns around and sees Jesus.  She does NOT recognize him.  We have to conclude that he did not look like the angels.  Something was different enough that she saw him as just another person.  The gardener in fact.  Why did she not wonder why angels would be sitting in an empty tomb? 

2022 - The first time he speaks, she still doesn't recognize him.  Only when he calls her name does she realize who he is.  Wow.  What a lesson there is there!

2022 - Was she fluent in Aramaic?  Why would she use this?  Is this a clue that it was MM and not one of the other Marys, or should we see this as an indication that it WAS Mary of Magdala.  The town is believed to have been on the coast, a fish processing town, on the shore of the Sea of Galilee.  Why would they be speaking Aramaic?

2025 - Those two angels were apparently not there when Peter and John went in.  They only show up after those two have gone back home.  They ask her why she is crying.

She turns around, and Jesus is there, but she doesn't recognize him.  Again, either our resurrected bodies are going to look different enough to make us hard to recognize, or for some reason, Jesus is keeping people from knowing who he is.  I don't see why this would be so.  She thinks he's the gardener!  So he must have looked completely human, but not like Jesus...2022 - And not like an angel.

Jesus calls her by name, and then she recognizes him.  Hmm...my sheep hear my voice?  The sheep recognize the voice of the shepherd?  All that works here, but it was different on the road to Emmaus.  Jesus says this to Mary Magdalene:

17 Jesus said to her, "Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brothers and say to them, 'I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.'" [Jhn 20:17 ESV]

Don't cling to me might mean don't get too used to seeing me, because I am leaving soon.  He tells her he will be ascending.  I wonder if the Greek tense means it is something he will do and the action will continue.  As a completed thing, or as a continuous thing?

2022 - The verb "ascend" is present active indicative.  Nothing mysterious about it.  When he tells her not to cling, that verb is present middle imperative.  Nothing unusual there either.  Both are present tense.  Don't cling, because I "have not yet ascended".  So that moment, in the present, Jesus was yet to return to heaven.  He had not been there during the time in the grave, nor since he had resurrected that very morning.  But I still think it makes sense that he meant he wasn't going to be there long.  He was telling this Mary not to think he was back for good.

2025 - So resurrected bodies are difficult to recognize by the unresurrected.  In heaven, all will be in resurrected bodies, and it is not too big a jump to think that we'll have trouble recognizing each other.  But a husband and a wife?  You would think they'd recognize each other still.  After a lifetime with each other? 

She goes and tells them.  Before, she had gone only to Peter and John.  Now Jesus sends her to the rest of the disciples, to let them all know that he is back.  John says she went and told the disciples.  Does not say any apostles were there.  Doesn't say Peter and John had gotten there first.  Peter and John had gone back to their homes - not to a group.  Yes...this timeline can all be worked out. 

2025 - In fact, we might ought to consider the timeline in John as the primary, backbone account, and hang the accounts in the other gospels on John's.  The reason is that it had been at least 50 years when John wrote his account and very possibly all of the witnesses of the various events of that first day of the week had been compiled and worked out and assimilated in the proper order.  This idea makes good sense to me and would be worth testing to see if it results in a completely harmonious assembly of the facts related in each gospel separately.

That same evening, the evening of the first day of the week, Jesus appears inside their locked doors.  He appears to the disciples.  This implies more than the 11 were there.  They were cowering behind locked doors as if those doors will stop the Jewish leadership from taking them.  Jesus appears and they seem to immediately recognize him in this account, yet it has to be the same appearance as in Luke - which also happened that very night.  The night after the Road to Emmaus.  Peter and John surely would have recognized him and told the others.  Set their minds at ease.  John just doesn't give us those details.

2024 - Look at this verse!:

21 Jesus said to them again, "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you." [Jhn 20:21 ESV].  This ties right back in with the previous idea that in his last words to the 11 he tells them that they and they alone will assume the role of Jesus in continuing to carry the gospel to the world.  AS THE FATHER SENT, I AM SENDING!  This is not just a sort of passing thought, this is authority being turned over to the 11 in their unique role, their unique historical place in the world.  It was only them!  Jesus sent no one else, he left no rules of succession...The 11 were to take up where Jesus left off.

I have not previously noticed vs 22, and verse 23 has always confused me as it seems Jesus is delegating his new authority over all things to those in the room.  Remember, it wasn't just the 11 that were in there...(2024 - or was it?  In light of the note above, it WAS just the 11).

22 And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld." [Jhn 20:22-23 ESV].

This is not Pentecost.  Pentecost was a different thing, a different manifestation.  The 11 received the Holy Spirit BEFORE the church did - when there were 120, not just 11, in the room.  And Jesus IS giving these 11 a delegation of power and say so that no one since then has EVER had!  They can forgive sins, as Jesus did.  ON THE EARTH, they can decide, and in heaven it will be so.  Imagine this power!  Jesus knew who to choose because the Father told him.  Now, we see that with the Holy Spirit indwelling, the 11 will ALSO discern who is called and who is not called!  

MSB says they did not receive the Holy Spirit until the Day of Pentecost, so this must be understood as Christ's pledge that it is coming, as promised.  Hmm...John was there.  MSB was not.  I am not sure I agree with this way of looking at vs 22.  Seems more likely that those assembled were granted the peace that the Holy Spirit brings - perhaps the presence of the Holy Spirit to sustain them until the indwelling of the Holy Spirit came 40 days later.  They still had a long wait, and maybe this was to strengthen them.

2022 - Sure enough, "receive" is in the aorist, so it almost certainly did NOT mean they received the Spirit at that moment.  "Breathed on them" is also aorist.  Hmm....perhaps John's message is that Jesus' own breath gave them some kind of "boost" that helped them get to the Day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit fully indwelled.  Perhaps at this time, it was more like the OT Prophets on whom the Spirit rested.  He was there with them, but not indwelling them. 

MSB says vs 23 means that Christians can now absolutely say - because of the now completed work on the cross - that believing in Jesus and his resurrection results in forgiveness of sins.  They can also say with certainty that those who do NOT believe, will NOT be forgiven.  Both these things are now complete, no longer future, as in the days of the prophets.  One could then ask how one actually knew one was saved before the cross, and before the Holy Spirit...We could go on and on.  But to me, this explanation of 23 does make sense.

John tells us about doubting Thomas.  Jesus appears to them again 8 days later.  Either he was doing other things during that time, or John is keeping this timeline about Thomas and his convincing, not about the overall sequence of events.  You could look at it either way.

2022 - John tells us that the appearance when Thomas was present was 8 days later.  Where had Jesus been, and what was he doing for that time?  Perhaps this is when he did return to the Father, and when he went down to hell as we read about elsewhere.  Maybe that's why Mary wasn't to cling yet. 

Vss 30 and 31 almost seem like the end of the book.  But there is yet another chapter.  Maybe John wrote the last chapter later than he wrote the bulk of the book.  Or maybe what he is referring to is not the whole book, but the miracles Jesus did between his convincing Thomas that he was God and his ascension.  Maybe John is just saying that this is not to be considered a complete account of everything that Jesus did between his resurrection and his ascension?

2025 - Or not a complete account of Jesus' entire life and all the miracles he did during his ministry.  Maybe John is forestalling those who would attack the veracity of the gospels by noting that some things are in one gospel, other things in another, and none of them cover all the events, therefore, a lot of the events were probably made up by that one gospel writer.  John preempts that by saying "Hey, nobody could write it all down, there was just too much.  But there is enough here for anybody with half a brain to recognize that this Jesus was sent by God and did these supernatural things by the power of God to accomplish God's own pre-determined purpose."  I think that's what these two verses say.  You can look for holes in the story, but you're just nit-picking what is obviously the truth, and you are dissembling instead of addressing the central idea - Jesus was God's only Son, and he was born, he lived, he was crucified and rose again.  Quibble about which miracles he really did if you want, but these gospels were not written to document all the miracles, but to convince you of the good news of substitutionary death and the eternal life that bought you if you will only believe!

2022 - Still looks very much like the book was to end after chapter 20, and John added 21 later.