Synoptic Gospels John 20:24-28

Post-Resurrection Appearances in the Synoptic Gospels and John

There we go. All right. Well, I'm I'm recording. We fully understand that. I'm going to go ahead and record my iPhone here and someone just have to remind me to upload it because my brain sets off again.

I fully understand what happens with all electronic and electrical stuff used to run sound at a super large church. And we'd get there early in the morning and we'd test everything. And it was the biggest waste of time ever because it may work just fine up until the service starts and then all bets are off.

So that's just just the way it is. So we'll we'll try to get through the distractions as best as as best as possible today and make that work out. Are you guys having to switch seats because these two are misbehaving?

Oh, no, no. I assume that these guys that you are. You made them move so that they would they would actually listen to the Sunday school lesson. That's I would even suggest that myself, you know, because it's just a bad, you know, some of you will lean over to other people and you'll you'll whisper things and you think I can't see you.

You know, it's like, no, I can't. And I am wondering what you're saying. So just in case you're wondering, I do. I do everything I see. This Calhoun ignores all that because he teaches teenagers. So if he took any of that into consideration, he could never get two coherent thoughts out at the same time.

It's just you have to. They don't exist. Just talking to a wall and you're good. That's how it works. All right. You may recall that last week we looked at. We're looking at the post-resurrection appearances and let's let's put it back in context here.

Especially as a sort of it's not like we've scheduled this as you and those of you who are regulars. No, this just happens to be where we are in the study. We're about to finish it. Thank goodness. Thank the Lord.

But it's that time of year. And there's all sorts of, you know, movies coming out. There's this young Messiah movie coming out all based on the Gnostic Gospels, all that silliness. I'm about 90 percent convinced that I'm going to do at least some stuff on the dividing line where I read through some of the Gnostic Gospels.

Just so that because how many people have. Well, it's about the shortest one. It's most popular. And how many people in this room have actually read the entirety of the Gospel of Thomas? Two of us. OK, you're now a marked man, just so you know.

Watch that guy right there. OK. Two of us. It's only 114 sections, 114 verses. So it's it's relatively short. But the Protevangelium of James, the Gospel of the Ebionites, the Gospel of Peter, the blah, blah, blah, blah.

Many of these are fragmentary to begin with, but evidently the young Messiah thing is going to be drawing from the Gnostic Gospels and all this kind of stuff like that. So I may need to just do a series because the only only reason that stuff is relevant to people is because they've not read it.

And so I don't really. It's unfamiliar to them. They don't really know how to respond to these later documents. But anyway, it's obviously we're coming up on the Easter time of the year, and hence we just happen to be in the resurrection narratives.

And to put it in context, we've already noted the fact that we have very different recordings of the post-resurrection appearances by Matthew, Luke and John. We're not really looking at the longer ending of Mark on a textual basis, but Matthew, Luke and John.

But even then, if you took everything from page in the synoptic here, resurrection starts page 325, section 17, number 352. There's only 359 seconds. There's seven sections. We could read all of this in a matter of moments.

What period of time is covered there? What period of time is covered there? Now, nowhere does the Bible say, well, certain number of days. But when you figure out what the when the Passover was and then Jesus ascension to heaven, we know how many days it was.

But 40 days, 40 days, it might take us 15 minutes to read the material, maybe a little more at most. So obviously, painfully, obviously, and it would have been a given in the early church because you have the eyewitnesses.

Obviously, this is not meant to be an exhaustive accounting of what takes place. And obviously, when you compare Matthew and Luke and John, they have a specific topic, a specific element of Jesus's post-resurrection ministry that they focus in upon.

But it is plainly clear that it is not the intention of the gospel writers to give us anything but a cursory statement. Now, obviously, everyone wants to know why. Why would they make this choice? Why would they make this selection?

Wouldn't it be more important to talk about the post-resurrection appearances than everything that came before? Well, that wasn't their decision that they would have to say no. From our perspective, maybe because of the supernatural character of it or something.

We think that this is far more important. We want to have more information. Well, they disagree. And so what we have, if we were to put up on the board, if you look at Matthew, Luke and John, Matthew basically focuses upon the Ascension narrative and Galilee or something related to that time period.

It's probably the 500 when the 500 witnesses see Jesus on the mountainside. Luke focuses upon that immediate day and the centrality of the prophetic witness. John also gives us the Thomas narrative. And then, probably writing at a later period, gives us one other piece of information regarding, well, himself.

And so we're going to take a look at that today. Specifically, the encounter that is given to us in John chapter 20. This is section 356 in the Synoptic. So beginning in verse 19, On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being shut where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, Peace be with you.

When he had said this, he showed them his hands on his side, and the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, Peace be with you, as the Father has sent me, even so I send you.

And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said, Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven. If you retain the sins of any, they are retained. This is the first encounter on the first day.

It's very brief. Obviously, each of the statements of the Lord are summary statements of things that are expanded upon in other places. This is not, by the way, the time where the Spirit is actually given.

I think this is a, some people say, Oh, you said breathe on them, receive the Holy Spirit. But yes, when the Holy Spirit comes, receive the Holy Spirit. This is connecting what you had in John 14 and 16, the promise of the coming of the Spirit.

He is not that spirit. He has had a physical resurrection, etc., etc. But you have this. You have the proclamation of the authority of the preaching of the gospel. This is not some sacerdotal ordination of the apostles as priests or anything else.

The proclamation of the power of the keys that we have, for example, in Matthew. The keys of heaven and earth. That's what the gospel does. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven. If you retain the sins of any, they are retained.

This is in the proclamation of the gospel and also later on, I would say, especially when it comes to retaining of the sins. There are two aspects to it. In the simple proclamation of the gospel, you have the forgiveness of anyone who turns in faith to that gospel.

And this is the part we shrink back from, to be perfectly honest with you. Partly because we know our own sins and partly because of the nature of the society we live in. But the other aspect of that is if you reject this gospel, there is no other means of forgiveness of sins.

Now, that's the part, you know, people like to focus on that, the happy part. We get to proclaim the forgiveness of sins through faith in Lord Jesus Christ. But the other aspect of it that has to be there is, and if you reject the way God has provided, there is no other way.

Your sins will be accounted for before God by you. And you will be held accountable for them. They will be retained. Now, some people have understood this. There have been some reformed interpreters who have understood this.

Especially because we see the Holy Spirit thing as future. That this is more toward the future application of the church, in the sense of church discipline, forgiveness, retaining of sins, excommunication, things like that.

Maybe, but I really think that the primary focus of forgiveness and retaining of sins, as far as human beings are concerned, the only consistent way to see that is in regards to the power of the gospel itself.

And that when you proclaim the gospel, there are only two responses to it. You either embrace it, because it is a command. It's not a suggestion. It's not an added lifestyle choice. It's a command. And so, when it's proclaimed, you either reject it, or you embrace it.

Only options. And I think that's what is going on here. But, it's obvious that John's intention is to just give a little blip. Because that is a setup for what happens in verses 24 -29. And I hate when this happens, but I was just sitting here thinking about last week.

And I think, and I could be wrong, but I don't know that we spent much time on the stop clinging to me, I have not yet ascended thing. Well, we're past it now, but it's funny how thoughts like that cross your mind.

Mainly for me, because I'm thinking about all the objections that are normally thrown out by all sorts of people, from atheists to Muslims to everything else in regards to this. But anyway, it's getting warm in here.

I came in and the heat was on. It's like, folks, welcome to Arizona. That's not going to help you all at all. But, this is fine for us up here to have a hard time. It did not cool. Did anyone else? It did not cool off.

I don't think there'd be more hot air up here. So would you. I know some of you were thinking that. Anyway, back to, I'm just going to stick with John. I don't want to skip around too much. Obviously, the verses 19 -23 are meant to provide us the background for what he really wants to focus upon, and that is what happens with Thomas.

And so you have just a really quick narration of the original appearance. And then you have, beginning of verse 24 of John 20, Now, Thomas, one of the twelve, called the twin, was not with them when Jesus came.

So, the other disciples told him, we have seen the Lord. They said to him, unless I see in his hands the print of the nails and place my finger in the mark of the nails and place my hand in his side, I will not believe.

Now, just in passing, please note the number of a noun in that statement. The number of a noun? Yes. It says, in his hands the print of the what? Nails. Now, why do I mention that? Well, some of you may recall just briefly that only a couple of months ago, we noted the common controversy with the folks who knock on your door at inopportune times, or for me, I see them walking through my neighborhood and so I come skidding to a halt on my bike and they think it's really weird that some dude in cotton spandex is talking to them about theology.

But anyway, Jehovah's Witnesses believe what? They believe that Jesus was impaled, which sounds like some huge spike running through his body or something. But they believe that there is a single stake, torture stake as they call it, and that his hands were nailed above his head with one nail through them.

And now, you may say, well, does it really matter? Well, the Watchtower uses it as a means of getting, it's one of the mechanisms they use to get people to start questioning the reliability of their churches and what they've been taught.

It's one of the mechanisms where they start slowly moving you away from the authority of what you've been taught to their authority. And can we show good ground for a traditional understanding? Well, it's pretty obvious when it says that there was a placard put above Jesus' head that it wasn't the type of towel-shaped cross, which we do have evidence of in history, where there wouldn't be anything above the head.

You just have a cross beam and a lower member. There was obviously something above his head, but there were multiple nails used in his hands, well, at least two nails, it's more than one, in his hand.

They matched together. And that would be irrelevant, that wouldn't make any sense, if his hands were fixed by one nail above his head. So the standard form of the cross, the only reason they reject that is not from anything historical.

Even in the past number of decades, one ossuary had the bones of a man who had been crucified and his feet had been nailed to a cross. So much so that it's hard to... But the nail had gone through the bones in such a way that they couldn't extract it, and so they buried him with the nail still stuck in his feet.

It was right through the heel bone. And just the agony of that, I can't even begin to imagine it, but they couldn't get it back out. And so they buried him in that in that form.

Yes, sir. Isn't historically a side of Jesus's crucifixion, isn't there the historical, that was the way they killed him?

There's there's there's numbers of different ways of crucifixion. There wasn't it wasn't any one absolutely standardized way. Nails. Sometimes it was rope. You know, there's there's different there's different ways.

So what about the way they considered him being killed?

I don't think you can disprove that it never happened, but I don't see any strong evidence that that was the standard way of doing it. But again, it's not really overly relevant. The it only becomes relevant when they use it as the means of saying, see, we're right.

They're wrong. Believe us about everything else. And they will emphasize that, you know, they'll go they'll go. Full out on birthdays, holidays, the form of crucifixion, whatever else, just these things, because that was probably used to get them to convert to.

So it becomes something that is very important to them as well as a just justification. They're having abandoned whatever faith they had before, because most Jehovah's Witnesses are X something. Yes. Yeah.

Well, not only that. Yeah. A very large percentage of our former Roman Catholics and a very large percentage of Roman Catholics are ignorant and hence make great converts. So, yeah, most most definitely.

But I just mentioned that because I think it's relevant. The fact that Thomas says the mark of the nails fits my hand in his side, I will not believe. Eight days later, his disciples were again in the house and Thomas was with them.

The doors were shut, but Jesus came to sit among them and said, peace be with you. So once again, just as last week, we have one of those instances where I I don't you know, we're only given so much information about the nature of the resurrection body.

We look at these instances. We have First Corinthians chapter 15, the seed that falls in the ground. There's a relationship between the seed that which comes forth. There is the eating of food. There is the recognition of physical aspects.

There is no corruption. And exactly how resurrection life interfaces with with time. I don't know. And neither does anybody else. And I don't care what movies they put out. Neither do any little kids who fell out of trees or anything else, whatever else.

I haven't seen any of them, but my goodness, I still believe in solo scriptura. So anyway, there's lots of speculation. Lots and lots and lots of speculation. But there's only so much biblical revelation.

And so we we can affirm certain certain things that most definitely have the reality of the physical resurrection. The tomb is empty for a reason. But at the same time, Jesus can disappear from the sight of the of the disciples on the road to Emmaus.

And it seems pretty obvious to me the doors are shut. And I don't think it's just that. Well, they had the door shut. So Jesus had to quietly open it and come in. I don't I don't think that's what's being said.

Jesus came and stood among them and said, Peace be with you. Then he said to Thomas, Put your finger here and see my hand and put out your hand and place it my side. Do not be faithless, but believing Thomas answered him, My Lord and my God.

You said to him, Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe now. Two things. First of all. Well, actually, there's numerous things. Jesus has supernatural knowledge of Thomas's statements.

Unless I do these things, I will not believe. So though he was not physically present with them, he is aware of what is said. All right. Do that. Do with that as you need to do with that. That is the fact that is presented by the text itself.

Secondly, I just notice. There's no there's nothing in the text that says Thomas went ahead and did what he said he needed to do. You know, I've seen pictures and representations and stuff of Thomas, you know, sticking his finger in a hole in the hand or whatever.

There's that's not that's not said. There is a contrast between being faithless and believing. And when you look at verse 28, you're looking at a text that is one of the best texts to use. To evaluate the exegetical honesty.

Of any work that pretends to address the person of Christ, but ends up denying his deity. There is no text in the New Testament. That requires more mental gymnastics, more. Just abject abandonment of the meaning of the text to get around than this text in John 20, 28.

Now, the reason I say that is there is absolutely no question as to what is said here. And I want to prepare you for some of the responses that are given about John 20, 28. When I debated a Muslim by the use of books at the University of Johannesburg a few years ago in South Africa.

When he first came into we were meeting in the Senate Hall, the student body Senate room. Very nice room there at University of Joburg. Not a big room, but it was a nice room. When he came in, he said, Oh, James, my God, it's good to see you.

And I knew exactly why he did that. Knew it was coming. And of course, later in the debate, he used that as an illustration to explain John 20, 28. That that's what is going on here. That Thomas sees Jesus and it's my Lord, my God, it's good to see you.

I knew that's what he had done. I just smiled. Hi, Yusuf. Knowing that once we got into cross-examination, it wasn't going to be all that difficult to deal with what he had just done. But you will notice that in both of those instances.

The person being addressed or referenced is different between my to make the application between. And so the assertion that is being made once you can get them to flesh it out and so on and so forth. Is it Jesus talking to or referencing two different persons?

Double problems. First of all, it says Thomas answered. Singular said to him. Does not say it is direct address to the risen Lord. This isn't some general statement to everyone standing around or anything else.

And there is no way to assert that you can take my Lord. Then take the word and and make that disjunctive or it's breaking up. The object of what's being said. Or ending the quotation as if all Thomas said to him was my Lord.

Quotation marks end and then a new statement. And my God, I mean, it turns the language on its head. It becomes it becomes indecipherable. There is no question that Thomas said to Jesus. My Lord and my God.

Very language used in the Old Testament. I warned you. Yes, sir. God of my direct parallel. No question about it. Yeah, there's and even skeptics like Bart Ehrman. Radical skeptics of our who do not believe any of these things.

We'll tell you. Well, it's obvious what John is saying. John believes that Jesus is God. He rejects it and doesn't believe any of this happened. But he's honest enough to say, well, there's really no question about what's in the gospel and what the gospel says.

And we know that the original gospel of John contained these words. There's no technical variant. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But be prepared. Be prepared. Obviously, as we look at it, what's Jesus' response?

You see, if Jesus is an angel, if Jesus is anything other than God in human flesh, the immediate response of Jesus, if he's just a prophet. He's just a creature. And someone comes up to you and says, my Lord and my God.

What should be his response? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. No, you know, don't do not blaspheme. It's like when John bows down to the angel in the book of Revelation and tries to prosecute Neo, worship him.

What does the angel do? Do not do that. Worship God alone. Worship God alone. I'm not worthy of your worship. And so, what is Jesus' response? Because you've seen me, have you believed? Blessed are those who, having not seen, have believed.

He blesses Thomas' confession of faith, but recognizes it as having been based upon seeing. And therefore, it needs to be elevated to an even greater blessing. Those who will believe without seeing. And so, there is no rebuke.

There is acceptance of the terminology on Jesus' part. Which, if he were a mere prophet, if he were even Michael the archangel, could never do this. And so, this verse is next to impossible for Jehovah's Witnesses to deal with.

So, what do they do? Well, same thing that the Muslims do. My Lord, my God. It's absurd. Almost never, however, has anyone taken them back to the text and said, no, no, no, no, that's not possible. These are both being addressed to Jesus.

Alto is singular. Chi is not disjunctive here. But there's two other ways they try to get around. A, they will take you back to John chapter 20, verse 17. Jesus said to her, do not hold me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father.

But go to my brother and say, I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God. God can't have a God. See? And it becomes a stalemate. It's not a stalemate because they are assuming Unitarianism.

They are assuming the impossibility incarnation. They are not allowing both texts to stand. They are subjecting one to the other and emptying one of its meaning in the process. But that is what they will do.

They will always jump back to John 20, 17 and the assumption of Unitarianism. And that can't be because of what I understand about this. Alright? The other way, and this is pretty rare, but they are out there, so I need to warn you about them.

I've told you this story a couple of times before, I think. But years ago, if I recall correctly, late 90s, I was, Golden Gate, where I used to teach Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary, they were trying to start a Tucson Extension Center.

And they wanted to offer systematic theology. So I taught systematic theology down there in Tucson. And it would be a Friday, Saturday type thing. And we had a radio program at that time on KXEG radio.

Or was it, no, it wasn't KXEG. It was, anyway, we were on the radio on a Saturday afternoon. Nobody listened. Which is why we were one of the first people to have a webcast. Because it was a whole lot cheaper and everybody who listened was on the internet anyways.

So we were the forerunners of the whole thing. Anyway, I was leaving Tucson. And I managed to tune in the radio station. And heard, you know, we had to have somebody else fill in. And so I heard the other guys on the radio.

And a Jehovah's Witness had called in. And I recognized who it was. Well, this, I had like my very first mobile phone at this time. And that was back where you'd drop cell signals all the time and everything else.

But I called in. I called in. And while driving across Tucson. And Tucson traffic has only gotten worse, not better. But Tucson traffic, we've got easy traffic in comparison to them. We really, really, really do.

Through the traffic and up onto the 10 and headed north. I was on the phone debating this guy. And his name was Martin Smart. Martin Smart. That's actually his name. And I had encountered him online. And this is the same guy who one night had come into our chat channel.

Which we still have even to this day. And he asked the question. What's called the lexical form of kurios and theos in John 20, 28 is called the nominative. The nominative. Now, in ancient Koine Greek, you had another form called the vocative.

And if you remember your own English grammar, a vocative phrase or term is one that you use in address when you're addressing someone. And so they point to the fact that Lord and God in verse 28 are in the nominative, not the vocative.

It's not the case of direct address. Which is true. However, it is well known and easily documentable that the vocative was falling out of use at this time period in the development of Koine Greek. And there are numerous examples in the New Testament of the nominative being used where the vocative could have been used as well.

And especially in light of the use of auto in what I was taught was the locative instrumental dative case. It's very obvious that kurios and theos are direct address. But he asked a question. And this is how in-depth some of these people will study.

He asked a question. Is there anywhere else in the New Testament where theos, God, is used in the nominative even though it's functioning as the recipient of address, functioning in the vocative? I happen to know that there was.

But this is a chat channel, so you have to type. This is before Skype and all the rest of that type of stuff. You actually had to use your fingers back in the ancient days. And no voice recognition at that time.

And before I could even type out the reference and provide it, up on my screen comes the next line from him. Which says that does not involve a textual variant. He already knew that there was a place in Revelation chapter 4 where God is addressed using the nominative rather than the vocative.

But there is a very minor textual variant in the text. So he already knew it. And he already had his plan on how to get around it. These guys, people like Martin Smart and people like him, this is all they do.

They don't deal with anything else. They don't deal with other world religions. They don't translate any of the New Testament that has to do with anything other than controversial areas in defense of Watchtower.

I mean, they're just focused on this one thing. Which is why some of these folks, more than a match for any seminary graduate, who has not had the opportunity of doing in-depth studies in this particular area.

Now, it doesn't change the reality that there is no way of translating this in any consistent fashion. Other than a recognition that Thomas answered Jesus' words by saying to Jesus, My Lord and My God.

And that Jesus then blessed that statement of faith. Yes.

The noun is declined, correct? Correct. What is the first declension in English? How do you call it?

Well... The name of the first... We don't... In British, onomatopoeia. I would say maybe the first declension. But we don't... There are three declensions in Greek. We don't have different declensions like that.

So in other words... You have to name them something. Well, we just decline nouns. We don't have... We don't have different...

What is the nominative, accusative?

These are declensions, right? Oh, well, see, the declension for me would be all the forms. Nominative, genitive, ablative, locative, instrumental, dative. Those names. The cases. Cases. I call them declensions.

I'm sorry. Right. What is the first case? Nominative. Huh? Nominative. Nominative. Right. Let's see. Nominative. Nominative. Right. That's what's called the lexical form. Right, right. See, declension.

The case is nominative or genitive, ablative, locative, instrumental, dative. Declension would be all of those together. I see. Cases. Right. And nominative is the first case. Right. And that's what this is.

In the... Right. Okay. All right. So... There's... Nominative. Yes. You came. You saw. You learned. There you go. That's... We've accomplished something today. So, this is an important text. I spent a lot of time on it, mainly because there...

As far as I can see, there is just absolutely no way around this. And, as I said, the only way, effectively, in conversation that they get around this is to jump back to John 20, 17 and to start to try to, basically, turn on the theological fog machine.

And we'll... But God can't have a God. And start arguing Unitarianism and going back to the Shema and everything else, as if you're trying to say there are three gods. But that's not an answer for the text.

That's not answering the text. That's just trying to throw some fog in the way and give them a means of escape. So, if you ever encounter books... And I have to buy them and read them all the time. If you ever encounter a book, it's given a new understanding of this doctrine.

I run into someone who's a disciple of Anthony Buzzard back in Atlanta or something like that. A Unitarian. Turn to where they deal with John 20, 28. And then just watch them start spinning in circles.

Because one of the books that Buzzard put out... He didn't even write the section on John 20, 28. He quoted somebody else. It is one of the most amazing conglomeration of incoherent, disconnected words I've ever seen in my life.

It's just... Well, okay, I've been watching the Republican debate. So, there is some other things that are similar. But it's just amazing. It just goes over here and then over there and then... How did we get over here?

I don't know. It's a total mess. Because when you think about it, this is John 20. Where did John start? Back in chapter 1. And we saw the prologue. In the beginning was the Word. It was with God. The Word was God.

Word became flesh. Verse 14. Verse 18. No one has seen God at any time. The monogamist, the os, the unique God who is in the bosom of the Father. He has made him known. He has exegeted in him. And now we get to the end of John.

Before sort of the appendix that he adds to deal with an issue that's come up. And you have the exact same thing. They're like bookends. It's John's way of saying, yes. This has been my message. All the way through.

Yep. In John chapter 5 when Jesus said... What he said in John 5 .18. Yep. That's what he was communicating. John chapter 10. I am the Father of one. One, the salvation of God's people. Yep. That's what he was communicating.

John chapter 17. Glorified news of glory which I had with you in your presence before the world was. Yep. That's what I was trying to communicate. Just making sure you're getting the message. Just making sure you're getting the message.

Real quick. I'm sorry. So... You don't need to apologize. I'm a little slow here. The statement in verse 17 that it's also nominative.

No. My father, your father. That's not relevant. The only reason they brought up the nominative was to try to throw doubt as to the meaning of John 20 .28. No, the only reason they go to John 20 .17 is to say to my God and your God.

So he's ascending to his God. So God can't have a God. Therefore, we must be wrong about John 20. That's the argument. That's the argument. Okay? All right. Out of time, let's close the word prayer. Father, we do thank you for the opportunity, the time to gather together and to consider these things.

Help us to remember these things. We will be good witnesses of yours when you give us that opportunity. And Lord, we do pray for that opportunity. Be with us now as we go into worship. Protect us from distraction.

May you be honored and glorified in all that takes place. We pray in Christ's name. Amen.