The following is a sample from The Unfaithful Bride & The Faithful Groom, a book I am working on with D. Rudi Swartz. We are working on the paperback version, but it is already out as an e-Book at Amazon - The Unfaithful Bride and the Faithful Groom: The Biblical Story of Covenant Making, Breaking and Renewal eBook : McKinlay, Neil, Schwartz, D. Rudi: Amazon.com.au: Books
The resurrected Christ and the closed doors
When Neil Armstrong stepped through the door of Apollo 11 on July 20, 1969, he became the first person to walk on the moon, and thus proved for all time that the moon is not made of cheese! Armstrong may have expected, perhaps, more layers of dust than what he encountered, but the moon is made of rocks and dust, not cheese. Likewise, unless he had one in the pocket of his spacesuit, he would not have expected to find a sardine sandwich on the moon. Why would we not expect to find cheese or fish and bread on the moon? Our prior assumptions would preclude it.
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| Picture from Net |
If you worked in an office on the twenty-fifth floor of a building, you wouldn’t expect to look out of the window and see a fish flying past, not even a flying fish! Why? It is against the nature of fish to fly twenty-five stories up or to survive for that long out of its element, i.e., water. It is to go against its nature as a fish.Now, one of the things we already know about Christ Jesus is that He has two natures. He is fully God while at the same time is fully human. To be sure, it can boggle the mind when we consider that the Godman “Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man” (Luke 2:52). Why would the fully human Jesus “growing in wisdom” boggle our minds? It’s to do with His other nature, His divine nature. As God He is Omniscient, Omnipresent, and Omnipotent but as a man His wisdom is limited by His human nature. We assume that as God He can do everything that God can do. But what are our assumptions about the man Christ Jesus, especially after His resurrection? Please remember that we are not talking about two Jesuses, a divine Jesus and a human Jesus, i.e., two persons. Rather, we are simply acknowledging that Jesus is one divine Person with two natures forever as per the creeds and confessions. Then, the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in the midst, and said to them, “Peace be with you.” (John 20:19).
Now, this is a well-known verse where people make much use of their prior assumptions. Please forgive us if you find the following a bit too technical. However, it is necessary that we alert you to the subtlety of the serpent. Let us state for the record that Christians do not worship the humanity of Christ. We are not to worship any created thing. We worship Christ because He is God, who has attached a fully human nature to Himself. Before we progress any further, let’s first heed the following:
The acceptable way of worshipping the true God is instituted by himself, and so limited by his own revealed will, that he may not be worshipped according to the imaginations and devices of men, or the suggestions of Satan. (WCF 21, included in section 1).
With that in mind, let’s proceed with exegeting John 20:19, (and don’t let the smooth-talking Piano Man distract you from carefully reading any the following). Let’s quote the text first.
Then, the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in the midst, and said to them, “Peace be with you.” (John 20:19).
The phrase in question is “Jesus came”. (In the text above, “came” is the Greek word ἦλθεν, which is the third person aorist singular of the verb ἔρχομαι).
In the New Testament, the word “come” is particularly connected to two aspects of Christ’s mission – His ministry, and His coming again at the end of time.
The ministry and office of Christ is described in verses like Mark 1:38, 2:17, Luke 5:32, 12:49, 19:10, Matthew 10:34, John 5:43, 7:28, 8:42 12:47.
His office is to minister and to give His life a ransom for many (Mk. 10:45; Mt. 20:28). Jesus declared that He “came” to fulfill His life’s assignment, in Mt. 11:19 cf. Lk. 7:33 ff. The arrival (coming) of Christ inaugurated the time of salvation (Matt. 21:9 – most translations render this “coming” as “appear”; the Greek word is also ἔρχομαι).
The eschatological coming of Christ describes the consummation of His ministry when He will physically return from heaven to judge the living and the dead (Matt. 24:30, 26:64, 21:22). It is defined as Day of the Lord! (1 Thess. 5:2).
Both these meanings of Christ’s “coming” can be grouped under one heading: CHRIST HAS COME AS THE SAVIOUR LORD. It is important to keep this truth in mind in our approach to John 20:19 and 26.
The paragraph heading of John 20:19 was added by the translators. The word they chose is “appear”. This translation is somewhat ambiguous. In modern English “appear” can mean “come into sight”, “materialise” or “show up”. Jesus did not “materialise” like a ghost out of thin air; He simply went to where His disciples were gathered. There He disclosed Himself to them.
The joy of the disciples was not connected to the “how” of His arrival, but to the “that” of His coming to them as the resurrected Jesus. With Him they had walked the previous three years. Their faith was revived when they saw the same Jesus, now with the scars of the cross on His body, yes, the self-same body that had been nailed to the cross.
John 20:19 is recorded as historical narrative: it describes what happened in space and time. It records the time of a day, which day of the week it was, and the location of both Jesus and His disciples. It speaks of closed doors, and fear amongst the disciples.
The coming of Jesus into the midst of His disciples thus plainly describes His being with them. Louw and Nida place the verb “come” within the semantic field of words which plainly means to arrive. There is nothing in this verse which specifically refers to either His ministry or to His office. Read carefully, the passage is more about the ensuing mission of the apostles who were at that point gripped in fear behind closed doors (cf. Mk. 16:14). The same meaning of “come” is therefore also applicable to the next point in John’s narrative. Thomas was not with them when Jesus “came”. However, a week later, Jesus “came” again. The parallel paragraphs in Mark 16:14 and Luke 24:36ff, do not mention anything of closed doors. (Matthew only mentions the appearance of Jesus to His disciples “in passing”, “Suddenly Jesus met with them.” This “meeting” with the disciples (Greek: ὑπαντάω) does not carry the meaning of a gathered group of people at a specific place but describes a brief encounter. See also Mt 8:28, Lk. 8:27, John 4:51, 11:20, 30, 12:18.
Christ showed them His physical body with the marks of His suffering as signs that He had accomplished His ministry, a sign of His Lordship over death. His Kingship will be consummated at His final return. At that point the disciples feared, and they needed assurance and peace.
Between the incidents described in John 20:19-29 and the consummation of the Kingdom, the disciples needed confirmation that Jesus is the risen Lord so that they would be effective witnesses of His Lordship. This truth would be the driving force for their mission till Christ’s return. Note that this confirmation did not come by Jesus’ walking through closed doors; the Lordship of Christ was validated when they saw His hands and His side. The Person in their midst was the same One they had walked with, received instruction from, had seen performing miracles, and had witnessed dying on the cross. Now He is risen! Earlier, Peter disowned Christ out of fear of the authorities (then he “sat down”, Mt. 26:69); what changed his fear into boldness (then he “stood up”, Acts 2:14) was his belief in the resurrection of Christ, “whom God raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that He should be held by it” (Acts 2:24). He proclaimed, “Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made Him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified” (Acts 2:36).
Paul testified before Agrippa, “… to this day I stand, witnessing … that the Christ would suffer, that He would be the first to rise from the dead” (Acts 26:22–23).
There is no reference in the further witness of the apostles, or even in the rest of the Scriptures, that they believed and put their lives on the line because Jesus walked through a closed door. That fact is immaterial in the advancement of the Gospel. If any preacher today would want to convince people to follow Christ on account of His power to walk through a closed door and neglect to focus on the fact that He is Lord over death, sin, and hell, he would preach a foreign and useless gospel. Further, it would be an adulteration of the Word if such a “gospel” is preached to make people believe that they will receive the same power – it’s no gospel at all!
The question is now, how did Jesus get through the closed doors? Be careful, for this is where our assumptions about Jesus can really be tested.
Carson is of the opinion that:
… the function of the locked doors in John’s narrative, both here and in v. 26, is to stress the miraculous nature of Jesus’ appearance amongst his followers. As his resurrection body passed through the grave-clothes (v. 6–8), so it passed through the locked doors and simply ‘materialized’.
We have to disagree with Carson. Firstly, the function of the closed doors was to stress the fear of the disciples and nothing more. Secondly, the disciples did not rejoice because Jesus walked through a closed door; they believed because they witnessed the risen Christ by seeing His hands and His side (John 20:20). Thirdly, the two natures of Christ had never fused into one and never will. We agree with Hendriksen and Kistemaker:
We believe that neither in the state of humiliation nor in that of exaltation are the two natures ever confused or blended, so that one partakes of the qualities of the other. We believe that our Lord Jesus Christ is to be acknowledged “in two natures inconfusedly and unchangeably, as well as indivisibly and inseparably” (Symbol of Chalcedon). “Moreover, we believe that the words “There came Jesus” are best interpreted literally. He not only suddenly stood in their midst, but he actually came and stood! Had his human nature been omnipresent, he would not have to come (unless this coming be taken in a metaphorical sense).
Without any proper exegesis, Keener merely concludes that, “Jesus’ appearance in the locked room suggests a resurrection body whose nature is superior to that normally envisioned in ancient Jewish literature.” Smell something fishy here? See any flying fish? Where is the exegesis to substantiate this conclusion? This is what we mean about making assumptions.
At school we had to demonstrate to the maths teacher how we arrived at our answer. We had to show our “working.“ The answer may very well be correct, but the teacher needed to know how we arrived at it. It is the same with important texts, such as the ones that are assumed by some to be teaching that the human nature of Christ had taken on the properties that belong only to His divinity.
The opposite of exegesis is iesegesis, whereby one’s own prior assumptions are read into a text. But let’s not ascribe divine attributes to Christ’s humanity (or human attributes to His divinity, for that matter). Notice it again, with even more subtlety this time, in the following. Blum determines that “Jesus passed through the door, as indicated by the fact that when the doors were locked, He came and stood among them (cf. v. 26). This showed the power of His new resurrection body. But His body had substantial form and continuity with His pre-Cross body.”
This observation is closer to the mark but, once again, it does not rest on exegetical analysis but on assumption. He plainly supposes that the “resurrection body” was something different from the body Christ had before His death. There is no indication that the resurrection body of Christ has more power or different qualities than what it had before He was crucified and buried. Fact is, during His ministry on earth, there was never a moment which ascribed power to the “body” of Christ. He, in His human nature, like all people born of the flesh, always had a body which was never separated from His spirit or soul, apart from the three days His body (which saw no corruption) was in the tomb. However, we should note that He was still united to His body, (as will our bodies still be united to Him when we are in our graves). When Christ and the repentant thief died, they went to the highest heavens without their bodies. That is the place of the “Intermediate State”, where the departed souls of the invisible church:
Behold the face of God in light and glory, waiting for the full redemption of their bodies, which even in death continue united to Christ, and rest in their graves as in their beds, till at the last day they be again united to their souls. WLC, 86.
Jesus, of course, by His resurrection, is the “firstfruits” of this future resurrection. His body was reunited with His soul on the third day.
Even before His resurrection, Jesus, according to His Divine nature, performed miracles: He walked on water, healed the blind and the sick, calmed a storm and raised the dead. He could teach with authority because He was always both man and God. When He became hungry, God was not hungry. When He needed rest, God did not need rest. When He bled under the cruel sufferings of the soldiers, God did not bleed and suffer. But never did His human nature and His divine nature mix. He was always both God and man.
God of the substance of the Father, begotten before the worlds; and man of substance of His mother, born in the world. Perfect God and perfect man, of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting. Although He is God and man, yet He is not two, but one Christ. One, not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh, but by taking of that manhood into God. One altogether, not by confusion of substance, but by unity of person. The Son of God, the second person in the Trinity, being very and eternal God, of one substance and equal with the Father, did, when the fulness of time was come, take upon Him man’s nature, (John 1:1, 14, 1 John 5:20, Phil. 2:6, Gal. 4:4) with all the essential properties, and common infirmities thereof, yet without sin … two whole, perfect, and distinct natures, the Godhead and the manhood, were inseparably joined together in one person, without conversion, composition, or confusion. (Luke 1:35, Col. 2:9, Rom. 9:5, 1 Pet. 3:18, 1 Tim. 3:16) (VIII:2). On the third day He arose from the dead, (1 Cor. 15:3–5) with the same body in which He suffered, (John 20:25, 27) with which also He ascended into heaven, and there sitteth at the right hand of His Father (VIII:4).
Berkhouwer provides us with a clear statement regarding the two natures of Christ:
Each nature retains its properties and the properties of the one can never become the properties of the other. The properties or attributes of the divine nature are said to be: almighty, eternal, infinite, omnipresent, omniscient, and these can never become the attributes of the human nature. The “properties” of the human nature are: being a physical creature, flesh and blood, finite; suffering, death, movement from one place to another, hunger, thirst, experiencing cold and heat; and these can never become properties of the divine nature.
Although we distinguish between the two natures of Christ, we must never separate His divine nature from His human nature. As Berkhouwer points out, “For at stake here is the unique mystery of the one Christ in the singleness of the person. He is the subject of all his deeds. And he is the object of our praise and worship as the One who performed his work in the absolute unity of and faithfulness to his office.”
We are not allowed to believe that, after His resurrection, Jesus existed interchangeably between physical and spiritual substance – then in thin air and then on earth – only to take on flesh when He appeared to many people. What was the nature of His body when “He also presented Himself alive after His suffering by many infallible proofs, being seen by them during forty days and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God” (Acts 1:3, cf. 1 Cor. 15:5-8).
Mark 16:12 (also v. 14) might give rise to this idea: “After that, He appeared in another form to two of them as they walked and went into the country.” (Mk. 16:12). The terms “appeared” and in “another form” calls for closer examination.
Behm writes of Mark 16:12:
…the risen Lord appears to two disciples by the way (Lk. 24:13 ff.) is a human form, but different from that which Jesus bore during his life on earth. The idea rests on reflection on Lk. 24:16, but is also reminiscent of popular Gk. [= Greek] beliefs concerning the epiphany of divine beings.
Did we just see another fish fly by our window? Did you catch it? To say that Jesus manifested Himself in human form is correct, but for the rest of Behm’s statement does not consider the context.
When Jesus appeared (Greek: φανερόω) He made Himself manifest (i.e., He revealed, or disclosed Himself). This is the meaning of the verb in most instances in the Gospels. One cannot assume that He was invisible or drifting in a phantom-like state and then suddenly – there He was! He was present at the geographical location (maybe near Emmaus – Luke 24:13). Like in other instances where Jesus appeared to His disciples, the emphasis rests on the unbelief of the people, and not on the state of the resurrected body of Christ. “… He reproached them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they had not believed those who had seen Him after He had risen” (Mark 16:14).
Before we plunge deeper, let’s check our diving apparatus. Let’s see that we have enough oxygen in our tanks lest we start seeing things due to a lack thereof. What conclusions should we draw as we look at the following incident? a) That Jesus withheld their sight as He walked through the midst of the people that wanted to chuck Him off a cliff? b) That He had morphed or transubstantiated into something or someone they didn’t recognise? Or c) That the text doesn’t say? And keep in mind that this took place before His resurrection:
They got up, drove Him out of the town, and took Him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw Him off the cliff. But He walked right through the crowd and went on His way (Luke 4:29-30).
Remember the lesson of the loaves and the fishes. Leave the divinity and humanity of Jesus intact. Don’t be in a rush to ascribe divine attributes to His creaturely nature. Yes, the Creator and the creature are united forever in Jesus but must forever be kept distinct (lest we become like those “who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen”) (Rom. 1:25).
The context must be our guide to understand what the phrase “in another form” (Greek ἑτέρᾳ μορφῇ) means. The risen Christ appeared to three different groups as it is recorded in Mark 16. The meetings appear in sequence:
Verse 9 records the first appearance. Verses 1-9 describes the movements of Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James. They arrived to find the grave empty. Jesus Himself was not present but “a young man dressed in a white robe” spoke to them. He made a startling announcement: “He is not here! He has risen!” They did not personally see Jesus. He “disclosed” Himself by an emissary angel.
Verse 12 records the second appearance. After the first appearance (Greek: μετά ταῦτα – “after that”, “consequently”) Jesus appeared (manifested, revealed, disclosed) Himself to the two people on their way to Emmaus (16:9).
Verse 14 records the third appearance. Jesus met with the twelve (16:14). They were having a meal together.
The body of Christ did not change into other forms and appearances; rather, the circumstances in which He appeared were different in each of the three cases mentioned above.
If we go back to John 20:30, there, the NKJV translates σημεῖον as “signs”. (The NIV translates the same word as “miraculous signs”.) Of significance in this verse (20:30) is the reference to “other” (or “more”) signs. Do the signs here refer to the miracles recorded in the whole of John’s Gospel, or do they refer a miracle other than what is being described in the narrow context of John 20:19-29)? If we opt for the latter, we could interpret the “coming” of Jesus into the midst of His disciples, even when the doors were shut, as one of those miracles. We exclude the false assumption that He could walk through closed doors because He now had a “different” resurrected body, a new body that had taken on divine qualities – as opposed to His putting on imperishable incorruptible immortality, i.e., as per glorification, and as per what Scripture clearly teaches us to expect at our resurrection (1 Cor. 15:50-54).
From the episodes described in John 20 and Mark 16 we learn not to focus on the closed doors, but on the present Christ as Lord. He died but was physically resurrected and will return to judge the living and the dead.
We should learn something more from the context. Jesus commanded the gathered disciples:
As the Father has sent Me, I also send you.” And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit” (John 20:21–22).
The doors of the room were shut, but the door to the world has been opened by the death and resurrection of Jesus. There is no need to hide from opposition. The resurrected Christ authorised His disciples:
Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. Amen (Matt. 28:19–20).
That’s exactly what they did after they received the Holy Spirit even when they were threatened: “Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you more than to God, you judge. For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard” (Acts 4:19–20).
Let’s not lightly pass over the confession of Thomas in John 20:28, “And Thomas answered and said to Him, “My Lord and my God!”” (John 20:28). Thomas, like the other disciples a week earlier “handled” (cf. 1 John 1:1) the body of the resurrected Christ. He saw Christ, heard Him, touched Him, and then worshipped Him! Lenski quotes A.T. Robinson, saying, “Thomas ‘gave Christ full acceptance of his deity and of the fact of his resurrection.’”
It speaks of childlike obedience to believe what the Scripture plainly says, rather than to speculate about what it does not clearly reveal. Speculation leads to bad theology, which on its part leads to confused ideas like consubstantiation and transubstantiation (which are dependent on the erroneous and misleading belief in the ubiquity of Christ’s humanity. Smell anything fishy here?
What was the state of the bodies of the dead who were raised after their tombs were broken open? Did they have “glorious” bodies when they “appeared to many people” (Matt. 27:53)? Were they raised only later to be “taken” up into heaven in the manner Jesus was “taken” up bodily (Acts 1:9)? Did they die again? We cannot say for sure because the Bible does not reveal any of these details to us. Speculation will lead us nowhere. Jesus declared: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (John 20:29). John declares:
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 (John 20:30–31).
Paul underscores this truth: “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Tim. 3:16–17). We need nothing more than that which was recorded in the Scriptures because they are sufficient!
Will we have magical resurrected bodies like Jesus allegedly had when we are resurrected from the dead at the return of Christ? Well, from the context of John 20 it is clear that He did not have a “magical” body. If we want to know more about our resurrected bodies, we need to go look elsewhere in the Scriptures. 1 Corinthians 15 is a good place to study the topic, but don’t forget to keep a harness on your assumptions lest you go galloping off to join a travelling rodeo show!
