Jesus appears to His disciples

He enters the locked room

The disciples were gathered together. Scripture gives special attention to the doors being locked and these disciples assembled together for fear of the Jews.

The doors being locked points us to two facts. They were hiding in fear and the fact that Christ just appeared and moved through lock doors and walls

Christs first words to His disciples after the tomb was “Peace be with you”.

The Man who spoke as no man had ever spoke before spoke peace. Not blame, fault finding,or rebuke.

Peace on earth was the song the heavenly host sang on the night of His birth. Peace and rest to the soul was the key subject Christ preached through out His ministry. Its what Christ came for. We who were once enemies of God , at war with God, haters of God have now been reconciled to God by His blood and are now at peace with God. In light of what had just happened this seemed fitting to say, to his disciples who were scared, worried and felt hopeless.

We can plainly see that “peace” is the key note and message of Christ. Peace between man and God , peace between man and man. Peace should be the message of the church also

The evidence of His resurrection

To ease the minds of likely a group of trembling disciples, that they were not looking at a ghost, Christ told them to look and feel. Look at my hands, were the nails were driven, look at my side from where the spear pierced and the blood and water flowedj

He allowed them to see he had a physical body. Luke 24:39 “See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.””

Safe to say Christ requires us to believe nothing is contrary to our senses. When things are above our reason we are expected to find it in a religion that comes from above, but not things contrary to reason

He breathed on them

Several things Christ shows through breathing on them

It was first to show them once again that He was really alive.

It was symbolic and brings to our mind creation. Genesis 2:7 “then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.” Life didn’t exist until God had breathed life into man and man became a living soul. Fact is that soul died and man became a walking corpse, dead to sin.

We shouldn’t understand this that they actually recieved the Holy Spirit but rather to show them, so I believe , that our Lord taught the disciples, by this action of breathing on them, that the beginning of all ministerial qualification is to have the Holy Spirit breathed into us; and that, until the Holy Ghost is planted in our hearts, we are not rightly commissioned for the work of the ministry.

He said these things and did these things so when the Spirit came they would understand what he said and did

Without the coming of the Spirit the church would be dead. Jesus breathed life into the church

we also have to remember Thomas wasn’t there at this time

His commission

Notice the pattern. No sooner had Mary seen Christ, clung to Christ, He commissioned her to go tell His brethren. As soon as He appears to the disciples Christ commissions them also.

John 20:21 “Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.”

Did they have the power to pardon mens souls from Hell?

Expository Thoughts on John, Vol. 3 Notes. John 20:19–23

I believe that nothing more than this authority to declare can be got out of the words, and I entirely repudiate and reject the strange notion maintained by some, that our Lord meant to depute to the Apostles, or any others, the power of absolutely pardoning or not pardoning, absolving or not absolving, any one’s soul.

Mark 2:7 ““Why does this man speak like that? He is blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?”” Even the Jews believed that sins could only be forgiven by God.

Expository Thoughts on John, Vol. 3 Notes. John 20:19–23

There is not a single instance in the Acts or Epistles, of an Apostle taking on himself to absolve, pardon, or forgive any one. The Apostles and preachers of the New Testament declare in the plainest language whose sin is pardoned and absolved

This ability to forgive sins was strictly an Apostolic gift. We see in Acts that Peter had the ability to know Ananias and Sapphira had lied to the Holy Spirit. Paul struck a man blind.

Also worth noting the Apostles preached the gospel without error like no one has preached since

We have the same commission which is to take the gospel to the lost. These here were first commanded to take it to Jerusalem first who was guilty of Christs blood. They declared the sins of them based on the gospel. They rejected and murdered the Son of God, their messiah. Peter preached their guilt and sin and when asked what shall we do? On the terms of the gospel, he commanded them to repent and be converted.

John 12:48 “The one who rejects me and does not receive my words has a judge; the word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day.”

Its the word that judges. If they reject on the terms of the gospel, God agrees they are guilty and still in their sins. If they repent and believe they are forgiven.

Expository Thoughts on John, Vol. 2 Notes. John 12:44–50

Christ’s words, though despised and rejected by the Jews, did not fall to the ground. Those whom they did not save they will condemn. There will be a resurrection of all faithful sermons at the last day.—Great is the responsibility of preachers! Their words are always doing good, or adding to the condemnation of the lost. They are a savour of life to some, and of death to others. Great is the responsibility of hearers! They may ridicule and despise sermons; but they will find to their cost at last that they must give account of all they hear. The very sermons they now despise may be witnesses against them to their eternal ruin.