Biblestudy: John (Part Twenty-Eight)
John 20:24 - end: The Dramatic Conclusion to the Book of John
#BS-JO28
John W. Ritenbaugh (1932-2023)
Given 04-Aug-87; 83 minutes
description: (hide) Jesus' caution to Mary in John 20:17, "Don't touch me," is more accurately translated "Don't cling to me." Either translation does not contradict the firstfruits symbolism. (The Levitical priests had to "touch" the grain in order to offer it.) Also the charge Jesus gave to the disciples in John 20:23 was not to "forgive sin" but only to discern the fruits of repentance, consistent with the binding and loosing authority of Levitical Priests, applying God's law. Having the mind of Christ gives the New Testament ministry the ability to discern the fruits of repentance. The problem with Thomas was more his tendency to be a loner, having cutting himself from the fellowship of his brothers, than his doubting. Thomas's insistence upon touching refutes the Gnostic's claim that Jesus did not have corporeal substance. Not only does the book of John provide a plethora of signs corroborating Jesus Christ's authenticity, but also shows a pattern to actively live as God would live if He were a man, with the effect of building and sustaining faith. The epilogue (chapter 21) seemed to be added to counteract the assumption that John would live until Christ's second coming, as well as confuting the Gnostics' claim that Jesus did not have physical substance. The conclusion describes the disciples' bewildered reaction to their resurrected teacher. In this incident, Jesus formally, by using expressions identifying different levels of love, affirms the intense responsibility and difficulty of the commission given to Peter.
transcript:
Let us get back into the book of John in chapter 20. If all goes well tonight, we ought to be able to finish the book of John this evening.
There are a couple of things that I want to go back over again, if only very briefly, things that we went through last time regarding John the 20th chapter. I wanted to make a little bit clearer my intention about some of the things that I said regarding John 20:17, where Jesus said to her, "Do not cling to Me, for I have not yet ascended to My Father, but go to My brethren and say to them, 'I am ascending to My Father and your Father, and to My God and your God."
That evening as I was going home, I began to kind of rehash the things that I had said and I thought later on that, that I may have left the wrong impression in your mind regarding that. My intention for saying some of the things that I did was really to encourage you, that if you are doing any more in depth study into some of the things in the Bible, you are going to run across some things that appear to be contradictory or appear to at least not be quite in harmony with the things that the church of God is teaching you. And that was really the reason that I brought that up.
Because if you look at that verse, especially in modern translations, and you begin to question what it says in the King James (I believe the King James says, "Do not touch Me.") and virtually every modern translation will say something like my Bible does here. I have a New King James and that is, "Do not cling to Me."
Well, one gives the impression that as Mary probably rushed over to Christ, that He kind of shrunk back in horror and said, "Don't touch Me. I haven't yet ascended to My Father." Whereas the modern translations give the impression that she rushed over and she grabbed on to Him and was already holding on to Him when He said, "Don't cling to Me."
Mr. Armstrong has always followed the King James approach to it and that is that He said, "Don't touch Me." That is, that He hindered her from doing it before she did it and the reason that He said it is because He wanted to be pure, as it were, untouched by human hands before ascending to His Father. Now, if you would approach this verse from the standpoint of what the modern Bibles say and what most of the commentaries say, you might be led to doubt the things that Mr. Armstrong taught.
What it is, it is one of those things that I do not know whether we are ever going to be able to come to a satisfactory answer to. And part of the reason is because if you look back in the Old Testament and you evaluate what it says about the firstfruit offering, you know, the first of the firstfruit, it is very obvious that the priest had to touch the firstfruit offering. Now, the way they did it, of course, is they went out into the field and they first separated, let us say, a number of sheaves of grain that they were going to use for that firstfruits offering.
So first of all, they had to separate it according to the historical accounts that have been left to us. The priests would go out into the field and they would grab a sheaf and then kind of tie it together, go to another place, tie some more together, go to another place until they had three or four or five different sheaves of grain. And then somebody else would come and make an evaluation of which ones look the best.
In order to do that, they had to touch it, then they took a sickle to the one that they chose. So they had to touch it again. Then after they took the sickle to it, then they took it to a place where it could be ground up. See, the sheath was not waved before God. It was actually an omer of ground grain that was offered to God. So it was ground up and totally prepared as though it was going to be an offering that was going to be made on the altar. So in order to reap that little bit, they certainly had to touch the firstfruits offering and then to grind it up, they also had to touch it again.
Now, Christ was the first of the firstfruits. And so if He was the first of the firstfruits, and we have an exact type there, then to touch Him would not have been wrong. But there is the aspect, you see, that Christ is not exactly the same as a sheaf of grain and that indeed He might have wanted to be absolutely pure, untouched by human hands before being presented to His Father. And so God may very well have given Mr. Armstrong the inspiration to see that what was written in the King James indeed was the correct approach, even though the Greek does not clearly indicate that that is so.
So whenever you run into a situation where there appears to be a contradiction, I hope that you will not jump to any conclusions and think that you have found the loose brick, that if you pull it out, the whole thing is going to come tumbling down because, indeed, you might be wrong and all these commentaries and translations might indeed be wrong. So that is really the only reason why I said anything about it and I felt that I did not clarify that well enough.
Then the next thing is in regard to John 20:22-23 where He said, "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them, and if you retain the sins of any, they are retained."
I do not believe that there is any doubt in our minds that God only has the power to forgive sin. After all, it is His law and He is the governor of His creation and He only can forgive sin. Now, if we start with that premise, which is true, we do not have the power to do that, then what does this mean? Do men actually have the power to forgive sin?
Well, obviously, there is a contradiction if God only has the power and yet here He has given it to men. Mere men, who are encumbered with all kinds of problems, and errors, and mistakes, and sins, and human nature besides, having the power to forgive sin? Would we indeed have the discernment to be able to do that or have the authority to do so? It does not seem so to me.
Let us go back to Leviticus, chapter 13. I offer this to you as an example of what John 20:23 means. And also I might say what Matthew 16:19 means there where Peter was given the keys of the Kingdom and he was given the power to bind and to loose. And now this provides a foundation for understanding.
Leviticus 13:3 The priest shall examine the sore on the skin of the body; and if the hair on the sore has turned white, and the sore appears to be deeper than the skin of his body, it is a leprous sore. Then the priest shall examine him, and pronounce him unclean.
Leviticus 13:23 [this is just an alternative or another side of the coin] But if the bright spot stays in one place, and has not spread, it is a scar of the boil; and the priest shall pronounce him clean.
Now, what do we have here? We have the priest rendering a decision; we have a priest deciding whether a person is clean or unclean. Now a person, you might say, laden with sin is somebody who is unclean. A person who is not sinning, at least as a way of life, is clean. What was to be determined here in Leviticus 13? What we have here are the laws of quarantine. The priest was determining whether or not a person with a certain affliction was going to be able to fellowship with the rest of the Israelitish people in their assemblies. Or were they going to be excluded from assembly and, we might say today, disfellowshipped, put out of the fellowship.
What we see here without using the words (I am going to use the words here), they were binding and loosing, they were bidding and forbidding. They were forgiving or they were not forgiving. Now, what was the basis of their determination? The basis of their determination, that is, the priest's determination, the basis on which the priest decided whether to bid or to forbid, whether to forgive, whether to lose, whether to bind, was what God had already revealed. You see, it was God who gave the evidence. And so what the priest had to do was examine the person in the light of what had already been revealed by God.
Now was the priest adding anything new? No. Was the priest taking away from what had already been given? No. He was merely using as evidence what had already been revealed. He said, well, this evidence lines up with this piece of evidence that I see in the person. And so he made a decision. No, you cannot go into services because you are quarantined. He was forbidden. Yes, you can come into services. I can see that your problem is cleared up. You are welcome back into fellowship.
Here we have a physical example of what was spiritually to take place in the New Testament church. Now, in these cases, we are not dealing with something that is necessarily physical. We are dealing with something that is spiritual. So what are we talking about here? We are talking about people being given God's Holy Spirit and with it a gift of discernment. That is what He is talking about in John 20:23. He is telling the apostles that He would give them to the discernment that they needed to bind or to loose, but they were not making anything that was new. He is telling them that they are being given the discernment, the gifts of God's Spirit necessary to be able to forgive or not forgive. That is, to discern whether or not God has already forgiven or whether God has not forgiven.
Let us look at some examples. First of all, in the book of Acts.
Acts 5:1-4 But a certain man named Ananias, with Sapphira his wife, sold a possession. And he kept back part of the proceeds, his wife also being aware of it, and brought a certain part and laid it at the apostles' feet. But Peter said, "Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and keep back part of the price of the land for yourself? While it remained, was it not your own? And after it was sold, was it not in your own control? Why have you conceived this thing in your heart? You have not lied to men, but to God."
Peter was binding and loosing. Peter, in the words of John 20:23, was forgiving or not forgiving. Did Peter have the power to forgive? No, he did not. Did Peter have the power to not forgive? Not literally, in that sense. What God gave him was the discernment to see what Ananias' attitude was.
Acts 15:19-20 [now here is a doctrinal issue] "Therefore I judge that we should not trouble those from among the Gentiles who are turning to God, but that we write to them to abstain from things polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from things strangled, and from blood."
There they are there binding and loosing. What are they doing? They are discerning from the things that are written in God's Word, from the things that were taught of them by Jesus Christ, what was binding upon the church and what was not binding upon the church. They are not instituting anything that they have come up with, but actually revealing to the church what God has already decided. We do not have the authority to actually change God's law.
I Corinthians chapter 2, this is by way of explanation.
I Corinthians 2:15-16 But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one. For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct Him?
Do we have the mind of the Lord that we might instruct God? That we might determine for ourselves what is bound or loosed? Or do we have from God through His Holy Spirit the discernment to see—understand—what God has already bound or loosed based on evidence that is presented in God's Word? That is what we have. Paul says, "But we have the mind of Christ."
Another place, in I Corinthians 5.
I Corinthians 5:3 For I indeed, as absent in the body but present in spirit, have already judged (as though I were present) [concerning] him who has so done this deed.
Paul was doing what it says in John 20:23. Did Paul actually have the power to forgive then? No, he did not. But he was using the Spirit of God to discern whether or not this man should be in fellowship. He was binding him from being in fellowship in the same way that a priest would have bound someone from fellowship in the Old Testament congregation, on the basis of evidence that he saw in the person's skin. Same principle.
One more in II Corinthians 2.
II Corinthians 2:3-6 And I wrote this very thing to you, lest when I came, I should have sorrow over those from whom I ought to have joy, having confidence in you all that my joy is the joy of you all. For out of much affliction and anguish of heart I wrote to you, with many tears, not that you should be grieved, but that you might know the love which I have so abundantly for you. But if anyone has caused grief, he has not grieved me, but all of you to some extent—not to be too severe. This punishment which was inflicted by the majority is sufficient for such a man.
Here is Paul judging again. He is binding and loosing. He is forgiving or not forgiving, in the words of Matthew 16 and John 20.
What we have here is the other side of the coin of the man who was put out of the church in I Corinthians 5. Paul judged that and he, in that case, bound the man from attending services. That based on the evidence that was presented to him, this man was not fit spiritually to attend the services of the church of God.
Now, he said that "punishment was enough." You see, he is discerning that this man has repented. He is determining based on evidence that has been presented to him that now the man should be loosed. Now has Paul forgiven? No. God was the one who forgave. Paul is only discerning what God has already done, that God has already forgiven him. He can tell by the fruit. In the Old Testament, they looked at the skin. In the New Testament, using the mind of Christ, he is, in a sense, reading the man's heart. But again, you see, he has to look for evidence.
II Corinthians 2:6-11 This punishment which was inflicted by the majority is sufficient for such a man, so that, on the contrary, you ought rather to forgive and comfort him, lest perhaps such a one be swallowed up with too much sorrow. Therefore I urge you to reaffirm your love to him. For to this end I also wrote that I might put you to the test, whether you are obedient in all things. Now whom you forgive anything, I also forgive. For if indeed I have forgiven anything, I have forgiven that one for your sakes in the presence of Christ, lest Satan should take advantage of us; for we are not ignorant of his devices.
So using his spiritual discernment, he loosed the man and he was once again allowed back in fellowship. Now, the ministry is frequently doing that and I do not say that we have a perfect record, but we are learning too.
Let us go on here now to John 20.
John 20:24-29 Now Thomas, called the Twin, one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. The other disciples therefore said to him, "We have seen the Lord." So he said to them, "Unless I see in His hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe." And after eight days, His disciples were again inside, and Thomas with them. Jesus came, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, "Peace to you!" Then He said to Thomas, "Reach your finger here, and look at My hands; and reach your hand here, and put it into My side. Do not be unbelieving, but believing." And Thomas answered and said to Him, "My Lord and my God!" Jesus said to him, "Thomas, because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen yet have believed."
This is a very famous incident and certainly gives rise to the name "Doubting Thomas." And there are some who, of course, are also given that appellation by others, "Why, you're just a doubting Thomas!" Poor Thomas' reputation goes on for century after century. And I think I am going to offer to you that it is a reputation that is not deserved. There is no doubt at all that Thomas doubted, but so did all the others as well. They were not any more convinced until they saw with their eyes than Thomas had been. Thomas just did not happen to be around whenever Christ showed Himself to the others. Now, I feel certain that if Thomas had been there whenever He showed Himself to the others, then Thomas would have believed at the same time that the other ones believed.
Now there is another side of the coin here and I think that we can learn some things from Thomas that might be very helpful to us. There are some people who in times of grief or distress want to be alone, and so they will go off into a corner and kind of curl up and they are kind of alone with their thoughts, mulling things over. And I am not going to say here that that kind of thing is altogether wrong. There are others who seek the company of other people. Maybe they are a little bit less of a loner type. They are a little bit more gregarious and they feel that being in the company of other people is going to help them to endure the difficulty that they are going through.
I would say that from the account here, at least in this particular circumstance, it seems to indicate that those who seek the comfort of others have a leg up on those who seek to be alone. The reason being, if we can look at it in a practical sense, is that when you are in the comfort of others, at least in this kind of a circumstance, you are able then to receive the benefit of the encouragement or exhorting that they are able to give you. If you are in the presence of yourself, you have only your own thoughts by which to evaluate the circumstance that you are going through. And the chances are very great because of our carnality that it is, especially if it goes on and on, going to make the situation worse rather than better.
This is a generality. I am not saying that we should never be alone at all. I do not want you to think that.
Now it seems as though Thomas kind of had a natural streak of pessimism. That can be deduced from another occasion. As a matter of fact, it was in John the 11th chapter where he was mentioned before, that he said, "Let's all go with Him so we can all die together." I mean, who is thinking about dying? Thomas did. Christ mentioned that He was going to die, that He was going to be lifted up, and so Thomas was willing to die.
We might also be able to deduce from both this thing and the thing that happened in John 11, that maybe Thomas was the kind of person for whom not very much had gone right in his life. So we will give him the benefit of the doubt that there was a kind of a natural pessimism in him and that what he expected—bad—happened, almost like a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Now, if you take this kind of a person and right out of the blue here come 10 other people who are saying, "We have seen the Lord." That was too good to be true for somebody like Thomas. "Oh, come on now, quit pulling my leg. You're trying to give me something to cheer me up and you know that you're not telling the truth." Maybe he did not say exactly those words, but he did come out with something that was pretty strong, "Unless I am able to see it with my own eyes and touch it with my hands, I am not going to believe what you said." I think that some of us have been in attitudes like that.
Now, why was not Thomas with the others? I mean, whenever Jesus revealed Himself the first time, why was Thomas not with the others? Well, the Bible does not say, but I want you to notice something that is thought provoking. God proceeded without Thomas. Life went on, and there is no indication that God made any effort to make sure that Thomas was there the next time. Now maybe He did, but there is no indication from the Bible that He did.
I want you to think about this in relation to your relationship with the church, because these men represented at the time what was going to be the church of God. They were the nucleus from which everything else was to grow. They were the foundation. And one would think that if Thomas was really getting the picture that he would have wanted to be where those other ones were. But he was not there. He cut himself off! All indications are that he cut himself off from the rest. The other 10 were together. Where was Thomas?
I want you to think about this if you happen to be one of those people who has a tendency to be somewhat of a loner. That is something that inhabits the minds of an awful lot of us. I am one of them. I would rather kind of be alone. I am not a real gregarious person. I am not a real social person. I am the kind of a person who would rather curl up with a good book and kind of be by myself than I would be with a group of people. Kind of turning around things in my own thoughts. I think a lot of us are that way. But in this case, he cut himself off from what was going to be the church of God. And God went on without him! I think it is sobering to think of that.
Notice what occurred to Thomas here. First of all, he was unreasonable in his assertion. He rejected the evidence that was given to him by 10 reliable witnesses and he was in effect calling his brothers liars. Ten against one. They were all saying the same thing, that they had seen the Lord, and Thomas, motivated by what was inside of him, rejected that and went off by himself. Is it possible that you could do something like that? Reject the testimony of a great body of people who are a part of the work of God, the Body of Christ?
The next step for him was to become obstinate. He not only rejected the testimony, you can see that he was determined not to believe any evidence. And so he became obstinate. That is when he said, "Unless I'm able to touch it, to see with my eyes and touch it, why, I'm not going to believe." And we might also add to that he became pretty insolent and presumptuous as well because seeing Christ was not enough. He had to reach out (and I will talk about this a little bit more later) and touch Him.
Thomas lost something in doing that. I do not mean that it was something that affected him for the rest of his life. I do not mean that at all. But what he lost was the benefit of the fellowship of others who were going through the same experience that he was. That he was insensible to it and he went his own way.
What we can learn is this. I hope we can learn not to be of the same attitude that he was and reject the evidence of others. But at least keep an open mind, at least keep the thought that, hey, maybe I am wrong, at least to the extent that you do not cut yourself off from the fellowship of the others. Now, it is entirely possible that this next meeting, the one that we are reading about here between verses 24 and 29, that that appearance of Christ was held strictly for Thomas' benefit, and then, of course, for yours and mine as well. Because Christ was in no way obligated to show Himself to one who had reacted in the way that he did. But it certainly shows God's love for Him.
Brethren, things can happen within the fellowship of the church that do not happen to us alone. And I mean, they are good things. Exhortation, encouragement, correction. Sometimes that hurts. A good example. God tells us there in Malachi 3 that those who speak often on His name are going to be the ones that He is going to treat like His jewels and you cannot do that cutting yourself off from fellowship. And that is what Thomas did.
The good thing we can learn from Thomas is that Thomas had the humility to repent. And it did not take very much either. All he had to do was see with his eyes and that was enough.
Now it says here in my Bible in verse 27, "Then He said to Thomas, 'Reach your finger here, and look at My hands; and reach your hand here, and put it into My side.'" That word "into" simply means to touch. It could give you the wrong impression because "into" has the idea in this case of a plunging into, within, immersing. Actually, all he was invited to do was to touch the scar, to reach out and touch it. And there is something there that we need to relate here and this will come out again a little bit clearer in chapter 21.
Remember, we began this whole series by saying that one of the major reasons that this was written was because of the Gnostics, who probably sincerely believed that Jesus was not a real being, that rather He was one of these emanations and that He was like a ghost. You could see Him, but there was nothing to Him. But again, here we have another opportunity that John has taken to show that Jesus had substance to Him. He was not a ghost; that He was solid. That even after His resurrection, He was solid, there was something there and you could feel it. It was not something that you could see but walk right through, like He was a ghost. And I am sure that that is inserted there, see it really did happen, but it is inserted, again, as an evidence against this preaching that Jesus was not really a real human being.
Then, to you and me, comes the additional instruction that, "Thomas, because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." Now we fit into this category. We have not seen in the way that Thomas and the other apostles did, but we believe. And it says in Romans 10:17, that "faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." Our faith is based on the revelation of the Word of God to you and me, and not by sight. As in this case, it had to be shown to Thomas.
John 20:30-31 And truly Jesus did many other signs in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.
The word "truly," which both the King James and the New King James use (it is a little thing), but that word does not mean truly. I do not know why in the world they translated it that way. It means therefore, or now. "And therefore, Jesus did many other signs in the presence. . ." Truly gives the impression that John is trying to prove something, as though his word, he fears, is being doubted. But in this case here, he did not say that. He is simply saying that what we have here is merely a summation of the things that Jesus did. And there was so much more that He did that he could not possibly write an exhaustive account. That all he was able to give here are selected sketches that are designed to paint a picture [cuts out] in verse 31.
The purpose, the reason why this was all written was to create faith and impart life. That you may believe that Jesus is the Christ and that believing you may have life. So that is the purpose of the whole writing, that we might believe and that we might have life.
Now, I think that what John has done here is more effectively than any other writer of the gospel accounts, is to show that Jesus is not merely a historical figure, but rather to give us an account of the way that God lives; and it is highly compressed. He could not possibly get into it everything that that He did. And he wants us to make a connection between the fact that Jesus is a historical figure, but also He is a part of a continuing process. See, we are reading now what he wrote, the process is not complete. He wants us to get the idea that Jesus of Nazareth was not somebody who lived 2,000 years ago and is merely a historical figure who did wonderful things.
But actually, yes, He is a historical figure, but the story does not end there! It includes you. The idea of the writing, the reason behind it is to create faith and life in you.
So what we have here then is a very clear revelation of the divine nature; and the divine nature never ends. It is eternal, no beginning of days nor end of life. And now you and I are caught up in this process. Now, how can we make the best use of it? Let us look at that 31st verse again.
John 20:31 But these are written that you may believe.
Remember what I told you about "can" and "may"? Can implies the power to do something. May implies permission to do something.
Hold your finger there and go back to John 1.
John 1:12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name [He gave the right or the authority to become children of God].
The book opens up that way and the book closes on the same thought.
Now, if you look back at verse 27,
John 20:27 Then He said to Thomas, "Reach your finger here, and look at My hands; and reach your hand here, and put it into My side. Do not be unbelieving, but believing."
Look at that last phrase. He is commanding Thomas to make a choice. Are you going to believe it or are you not? He is giving him permission to make a choice. Which is it going to be? Are you going to believe or you going to disbelieve?
In the last verse there of that chapter, "these are written that you may believe [giving you permission] that Jesus is the Christ." What God has opened, He has opened our mind! That is what He has done: to give us the right, the power, the authority, permission to make a choice. "I set before you on the one hand, life, and on the other hand, death and evil. Choose life." You see, it tells you it is going to be one or the other.
John 20:31 These things are written that [we might have the ability to make a choice] you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life.
Choose life or choose death. That is why I say that what John has done better than any other gospel account is he has set before us the story of the divine nature in such a way so that we become caught up in a process. Jesus is not a mere historical figure, but rather He is a part of a continuing process. And now you are caught up in it, and you and I have the right to choose whether to believe it or not.
Now there is one more question that needs to be answered here. And that is this: John used the word that is translated into the English sometimes "miracle." But as we were going through there, I told you the word really did not mean miracle, it meant "a sign." You see, something that points to something else. It gives direction; that these things were signs. What were they signs for? Well, to point out the way, the way that we should believe.
Go with me back to John 12, verse 37. The reason I am going through this is because, whether you realize it or not, in a sense, this is the real end of the book. We will get to that in just a minute.
John 12:37 But although He had done so many signs before them, they did not believe in Him.
Jesus did many signs, but most of the people who saw the signs did not make the choice to believe in the signs, or to believe in Christ, however you want to look at it. Now, that is what he is asking at the end of the book. The reason that he wrote the book is so that we might believe and that by believing, we might choose life. Are we going to believe the signs that are mentioned in verse 30, or which way is it going to be?
The question that remains to be answered is this: Was this book written to awaken faith for the first time in people? Or was it written to revive faith that was already there? That is an important question.
When was the book of John written? This is my own personal feeling here. There is no doubt that what is written in the book of John is intended to awaken faith in people. You know, they are just getting started and John introduces Christ in a way that is really essential to a good foundation. This is God in the flesh. I think I told you at the beginning that if there was any title that could be given to this book, it was "Behold your God!" That he shows Christ in a way that the others do not.
Go back with me to Revelation the second chapter.
Revelation 2:1-5 "To the angel of the church of Ephesus write, 'These things says He who holds the seven stars in His right hand, who walks in the midst of the seven golden lampstands: "I know your works, your labor, your patience, and that you cannot bear those who are evil. And you have tested those who say they are apostles and are not, and have found them liars; and you have persevered and have patience, and have labored for My name's sake and have not become weary. Nevertheless I have this against you, that you have left your first love. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works, or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place—unless you repent."
Here is what I believe. That awakening faith was no doubt a consideration that God had in the writing of the book of John. But I feel that it was secondary. I think that the primary purpose was to revive faith that was flagging in a people who had lost their first love. John, from all indications, wrote this book somewhere in the 90s AD. So by that time, again from every historical indication we have, all the other apostles were gone and John was the only one that was left.
Now, if you put together the things that John wrote in his epistles, which were written about the same time, you will find that the church was under very heavy attack. We will perhaps read a little bit of that a little bit later. We find, again from history, that the attack was coming from what is known today as the Gnostics (at least that was what John was writing of), and they had some very unusual doctrines. Now, the influence from Gnosticism, coupled with the flagging zeal, the loss of love of the New Testament church, called for the writing of some things that would begin to revive their flagging interest. And that what he wrote was a combination to reaffirm what they already had and at the same time, to answer the doctrines that were beginning to infiltrate the church from Gnosticism.
So I think that its primary purpose was to reawaken a faith that was beginning to become latent. And then secondarily, of course, it is to also provide a foundation in awakening faith for the first time in people. It does both very well.
Let us go on to John 21. John 21 is, of course, at the end of the book now, and there is every indication that it was always at the end. I put the word "now" in there indicating that it might have been at some other place. No, every indication was that it was always at the end. But yet it is so different that it appears very strongly to almost everyone who looks at it, as though the book was completed and then an epilogue was added. Now why the epilogue was added appears to be not directly said, but yet once you begin to look at the clues, you can almost begin to see why it was added.
Now, there are only two characters outside of Jesus in this chapter. There are a couple of other ones named, but there are only two characters. There is Peter and there is John. Again, taking into consideration when it was written, about 95 AD or so. Why, in 95 AD would Peter and John, the only living apostle, be presented in such a way? We will see.
Part of the reason (I am going to give you this at the beginning and then you can see this more clearly as we go through, because there are several things in here that are very important), is it seems to have been added to correct the error that was in the church that Jesus said that John was going to live until Christ returned.
Now, if you begin to think about some things that have happened in this era in regard to Herbert Armstrong and his desire to live until Christ returns and of course, that was denied, and for some that may have caused a problem. You know, "Well, maybe this isn't the church of God. Mr. Armstrong died," and maybe their faith was weakened because God allowed Mr. Armstrong to die.
What if you add to that a rumor that seemed to be very strong, insistent, and persistent, and seemed to be given on very strong authority; that Christ had said to John that "you're going to live till I come."? What would that do to people's attitudes? There are all kinds of angles that you can begin to think about. Would people keep one eye on John while they kept the other eye on making sure that they spent all their money before John died? Or do we have a 1972 syndrome here? Is it possible it could be something like that? Oh, if you were betting, you could bet it. And things like that were going through the church.
Well, Jesus indeed did say something that would appear as though maybe it could be construed that John was going to live until Christ returned. But this is at least partly written so that they would understand, in the context of their time, that what Jesus had said was only spoken hypothetically. We will see that.
John 21:1 After these things Jesus showed Himself again to the disciples at the Sea of Tiberius, and in this way He showed Himself.
This marks, as far as I am able to count at this time, it was probably about at least the seventh time that Christ showed Himself. Now I mention that because by the time we get to about verse 13 or 14, around there, we are going to see that John said that it was the third time. Either John cannot count or I cannot count. Well, we are going to see that neither one of us is wrong, that it marks at least the seventh time that Christ appeared to His disciples. And it is also interesting, for those of you who are interested in numbers, that there were seven men on the seventh time that Jesus appeared to His group. And it is entirely possible that of the 12 disciples, these seven were all fishermen, and that may happen to be why they were all together at the same time.
So we find there:
John 21:2-3 Simon Peter, Thomas called the Twin, Nathaniel of Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two others of His disciples were together [unnamed]. Simon Peter said to them, "I am going fishing." They said to him, "We are going with you also." They went out and immediately got into the boat, and that night they caught nothing.
Was there anything wrong with them going fishing? I want to ask you: if you had been a fisherman all your life and now here you were kind of hung out, with your faith not the way that it should be, and you were looking around for something constructive and productive to do while time was going on, what would you have done? You probably would have gone back to your employment until such time as you received more definite word from your Boss, Christ, as to exactly what you were going to do. So there were some things that they needed to learn and what they did, I do not believe, was evil. At least they were trying to be productive until they knew a little bit better what they were to do.
They went fishing, and again Peter is shown in the leadership, "I go fishing" and the other six follow him and they went out, immediately got into the boat, and that night they caught nothing.
John 21:4 But when morning had now come, Jesus stood on the shore; yet His disciples did not know that it was Jesus.
Morning here, in the Greek was, it was just beginning to break. It was really very dark. And again, it was another one of those situations very similar to when Mary went to the tomb and it was still pretty dark, and she could see form and shape, but she could not make out exactly what this Person looked like. It was the same thing here. Now, they were offshore about 100 yards or so, and dawn was just beginning to break and they could see the form and shape that was on the shore there, but they could not recognize any features enough to know that it was Him.
John 21:5 Then Jesus said to them, "Children, have you any food?" And they answered Him, "No."
Now just a couple of asides here. The word "children" does not necessarily mean a child. It can be used in the sense of a young man. It simply means somebody who is young under the authority of someone else, but not necessarily a child of your family. It could even be used in the sense of somebody who was an apprentice and that person could have been 18-20 years old but a young person under someone else.
"Have you any food?" It is interesting. This word literally means relish. Do you have any relish? Now, that is literally what it means. It is a good example that you cannot take words sometimes in the Bible, for literally what they mean. Because the word was used by anyone speaking it, it simply meant anything that you could put on bread to make it taste better. Mayonnaise, mustard, relish, lettuce, tomatoes. Now, here in this case, He obviously meant fish, because that is the context. They are fishing. So even though He used the word that literally means relish, the intention is, "Hey, fellas, have you caught any fish that I can put on My bread? This bread doesn't taste too good by itself. And if I put some fish on, it's going to make it go down a lot better." See, that was the implication. So, they had to answer him, no.
John 21:6 And He said to them, "Cast your net on the right side of the boat."
Now again, if we were going to take that literally, we might get the idea that all night long they were casting it on the wrong side of the boat. But in this case, it does not mean right, as opposed to wrong. It means right, as opposed to left, starboard as opposed to port, "and and you will find some." And I think that it is interesting that even though they could not see who it was, they apparently instantly obeyed. Maybe by this time they have been casting on that side all night long and they thought, "Well, we don't have anything to lose. Let's go on the other side." And so they just fell right into line.
But I think one of the things that He was beginning to teach them here is He knew they were out there fishing, and it is highly likely that He made sure that they did not catch anything all night because they had a very important lesson to learn, and it is something that is important to me and you. See, they did not know who it was yet, but they had to learn what it says in John 15:5, "Without Me you can do nothing." We, of course, can do things physically and that is what they were doing. They were fishing. But God made a spiritual lesson out of something that was physical and they had not fully learned that lesson yet. That without Him, they could do nothing. Their faith was not to the degree yet that they would implicitly trust His word without questioning it. They were getting to that place, but they had not gotten to it yet.
And here was another lesson.
John 21:6 So they cast, and now they were not able to draw it in because of the multitude of the fish.
I want you to take notice of that because of something that it says a little bit later. Here are these seven husky men. You have got to envision that they were at least somewhat husky. At least we know one of them was probably pretty husky. That was Peter. And we are going to see how husky in just a little bit, but there were so many fish in there all of a sudden that these men could not draw it in.
Now, one more thing here and that is in verse 3. It says, "They went out and immediately got into the boat." This was not a rowboat. Seven men in a rowboat just does not cut it. It was probably a pretty good size, I will not go so far as saying a ship, but it was a fishing vessel and maybe (we will speculate) that the thing was probably upwards of 20, 25, 30 feet long. Just guessing. Now how many men ran over to try to pull the net out? I do not know. But you know very well that when something is in water, it is lighter because of the buoyancy of the water than it is when it is out onshore. But let us say that two or three of them tried to pull that net full of fish out.
We know a little bit later that there were 153 fish. Now, how much was the average weight of these 153 fish? Well, if a couple of fairly strong men could not lift it out of the water, I think that we would be fairly safe in saying maybe each fish averaged out to one pound. That makes 153 pounds. That sounds fairly reasonable, does it not? If a couple of men were having trouble getting the thing out of the water and on to the shore? We will get to that in just a little bit.
John 21:7 Therefore that disciple whom Jesus loved [John] said to Peter, "It is the Lord!"
You have to understand these things are happening real quick and they probably happened a great deal quicker than I am able to explain them here.
John 21:7 "It is the Lord!" Now when Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on his outer garment (for he had removed it), and plunged into the sea.
Your Bible may be a King James and it may say that he was naked. No, he was not naked. He had his undergarment on which was normal for any person of that day to wear. There are some who say that he may have been stripped to the waist, but he was still not naked in the sense that he did not have any clothes on. But rather he had an undergarment on.
But when he was told that it was the Lord, he knew by this time that he was going to go into the presence of Somebody who was to be highly respected. Sounds kind of dumb but he put his outer garment on and then he jumped into the water with it on. It is sort of like you and me putting on our coat and putting on our suit and then jumping into the lake and going to meet Christ. So he went there dripping wet, but he was clothed enough with some sort of formal clothing on. So he plunged into the sea.
Now, there is another little aspect. There is old impulsive Peter again. Why did he not stay there and help those guys get that fish out of the sea? Instead, he impulsively left them, jumped into the water, and went into shore.
John 21:8 But the other disciples came in the little boat [again, it does not mean a rowboat at all. It was not an ocean-going vessel, but it was a fairly good sized one] (for they were not far from land, but about two hundred cubits [roughly about 100 yards]), dragging the net with fish.
They never did manage to get it into the boat. It was too heavy for them. And maybe those fish averaged more than a pound a piece. They never did get it into the boat. Maybe they were afraid that it would capsize it or it would have turned over if they put all that weight on one side of the boat trying to lift it in. So they dragged the net with the fish. It probably was dragging along the bottom of the sea and they were rowing in, pushing in, or whatever.
John 21:9 Then, as soon as they came to land, they saw a fire of coals there, and fish laid on it, and bread.
Here again, if you understand that in the background is Gnosticism, here we have God lighting a fire, preparing a meal. He is going to eat. That did not fit into the Gnostic idea because God would not eat. So without directly confronting the Gnostics, he still supplies ammunition for shooting their doctrines down.
John 21:10-11 Jesus said to them, "Bring some of the fish which you have just caught." Simon Peter went up and dragged the net to land, . . .
Now, how many fellows were trying to drag that net in? I do not know. Peter went out himself and dragged the thing. That shows me somebody of pretty great strength and the idea that some have of calling him the big fisherman is probably not too far from right, because he certainly showed himself there to be a pretty reasonably strong physique.
John 21:11 Simon Peter went up and dragged the net to land, full of large fish.
Maybe it was more than a pound a piece. 153. Why did they count them? Somebody had the presence of mind to count them. I will offer you a suggestion. They were fishermen. They were going to divide the catch equally; so many to Peter, so many to John, so many to James, so many to each of the others. So it was natural for them to do that, to count the fish, to divide them up so that everybody got what was due to them. And when they added them together, there was 153.
Now why, since Christ was the one who directed them to throw the net over on the starboard side, it is probably pretty likely that God had them catch 153 fish. Why 153? I do not know. Nobody knows. All that people can do is come up with speculation. Nobody has ever come up with a really adequate answer as to why there were 153 fish. We are supposed to live by every Word of God; that is in there for some reason. But nobody has really come up with real proof as to why 153. Why not 152? Why not 195? Why not 53?
People come up with explanations like, well, there are 10 commandments and there are seven fruits of the Spirit and that adds up to 17. Now, 17 then, with that combination, the 10 commandments representing the Old Covenant, the fruits of the Spirit representing the New Covenant, therefore, there are 17, plus 16, plus 15, plus 14, plus 13, plus 12, 10, you know, all the way down. All those numbers added together add up to 153. Big deal!
Somebody else said, well, at the time that this was written, the Greeks knew that there were 153 different kinds of fish in the sea. That may have been true. I do not know. But they say that that 153, then, represents all the nations of the world and that God is going to catch into His net representatives from every nation on earth. Now, that seems more logical to me. That is probably a little bit closer to being right.
The net, of course, in the analogy is supposed to be the church and that God is going to bring in such a huge number and yet the net will never break. The church will be able to contain all that God calls into His church. So I do not know. There is no real adequate answer that anybody has ever been able to come up with.
John 21:12 Jesus said to them, "Come and eat breakfast." Yet none of the disciples dared ask Him, "Who are you?"—knowing that it was the Lord.
What it indicates here is that they were uncomfortable in His presence. They were uneasy. Do you know why? Because they perceived Him in two different ways at the same time. He was both a friend and a stranger. He was both the Jesus of Nazareth that they knew and yet He was the resurrected Christ. How do you act in the presence of somebody who had been resurrected? That would make you feel strange. You know, like you wanted to jump up and down and yet tiptoe around at the same time. Jump up and down out of joy of being united with this person that you love and yet tiptoe around because you are afraid if you said boo, they would evaporate and go away. And that is the way they felt. They were both in awe and yet a deep feeling of love and respect and friendship at the same time, and so they just did not know quite how to act.
John 21:13-14 Jesus then came and took the bread and gave it to them, and likewise the fish. This is now the third time that Jesus showed Himself to His disciples after He was raised from the dead.
This is not a contradiction. It is the third time for John's purposes. Jesus certainly showed Himself more times than that. And I even have a list of the ones that I was able to get that were not the same times that John did. The ones in John are in 20:19, 20:26, and then here. Then there are eight, counting his ascension in Acts 1:3-12. And there may have even been been more. So it is the third time that John has related. It is the third time for his purpose.
Very quickly, verses 15 to 19.
John 21:15-19 So when they had eaten breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, "Simon, son of Jonah, do you love Me more than these?" And he said to Him, "Yes, Lord; You know that I love You." And He said to him, "Feed My lambs." Then He said to him again a second time, "Simon, son of Jonah, do you love Me?" And he said to Him, "Yes, Lord; You know that I love You." And He said to him, "Tend My sheep." He said to him the third time, "Simon son of Jonah, do you love Me?" And Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, "Do you love Me?" And he said to Him, "Lord, You know all things; You know that I love You." And Jesus said to him, "Feed My sheep." Most assuredly, I say to you, that when you were younger, you girded yourself and walked where you wished; but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will gird you and carry you where you do not wish." This He spoke, signifying by what death he would glorify God. And when He had spoken this, He said to him, "Follow Me."
What we have here is a formal (if I can put it that way), affirmation of Peter's commission. Because remember that Peter denied Christ, and he denied Him three times. Now, we have Christ asking Peter three times whether He loved Him. And I am sure that that was done in order to impress upon Peter's mind what had just been done several days before that, when he had three times denied Him. It was partly also done because Peter had professed his love and loyalty to Christ more extensively and to a greater degree, with more intensity than any of the others had. Again, you can go back there to Matthew 26:33 where he said, though all forsake you, I will not. But he did.
And so now we have Christ correcting Peter here, but at the same time, reaffirming to him the commission that he was going to be the chief apostle. He did not separate the others away the way he did Peter here and made very sure that this was recorded in His Word.
Now, we might ask, why did He ask him if he loved Him? There are several reasons. Part of this is given in verse 15 and partly this question arises because the way that it is written in the Greek allows a variety of interpretation. He could have asked Peter, "Do you love Me more than all these things?" What things? Well, all of the material things that were around him, mainly Peter's occupation—his boat, his business. Do you love Me more than your business? You can extrapolate on that. What He was in effect asking was, "Do you love Me more than anything material?"
The next thing was it could also be translated, "Do you love Me more than your friends? That is, are your friends going to have first place in your heart or am I going to have first place in your heart?" We cannot put a man before Christ.
The third way that that can be interpreted is this, "Do you love Me with greater intensity than your friends love Me? Is your love for Me greater than John's love for Me?"
Now, that question that Christ asked can be interpreted, it can be written, in either one of those three ways. It could be that what God wants us to get from it is all three. Things, people, to a greater degree.
Why was this specifically asked of Peter? It does not appear to have been asked directly to any of the others, but it was of Peter. Well, the reason is this: Peter was going to have a very difficult life. It was not going to be easy being the chief apostle. There was going to be greater intensity of persecution, of reviling, of work on him than any of the others.
The lesson to you and me, as well as to Peter is this: Love is what God wants us to have. He wants you and me to understand that love does not make life easy, but love does give us the only chance we have for success.
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