The Living Word for Sunday, April 24, 202. Theme: The first believers learn to live by faith
Psalm 150 sets the scene
John 20:19-31 — Jesus appears and imparts the Holy Spirit
Acts 5:27-32 — The apostles stand on their faith against accusations
Revelation 1:4-8 — John encourages the faith of the early churches
• See also this week’s linked article Faith on Trial and also this week’s 10-min video Learning to Live by Faith
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Psalm 150
1 Praise the Lord. Praise God in his sanctuary; praise Him in His mighty heavens.
2 Praise Him for His acts of power; praiseHim for His surpassing greatness.
3-5 Praise Him with the sounding of the trumpet, praise Him with the harp and lyre, praise Him with timbrel and dancing, praise Him with the strings and pipe, praise Him with the clash of cymbals, praise Him with resounding cymbals.
6 Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise the Lord.
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John 20:19-31 — Jesus appears and imparts the Holy Spirit
This initial spiritual impartation strengthens faith in the disciples
19 On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!”
“Doors locked” — the disciples feared arrest and prosecution for being followers of Jesus.
“Jesus came and stood among them” — the text points to a miraculous opening of the locked door, as happened later to Peter, Acts 12:10.
“Jesus stood” — after He rose from the dead, Jesus walked with a real physical body.
20 After He said this, He showed them His hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.
“His hands and His side” — fully God and with God from the beginning, Jesus was also fully human in life, John 1:14, and also in His resurrection.
21 Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent Me, I am sending you.”
“Peace be with you” — Jesus blessed them with the familiar Jewish greeting.
“I am sending you” — John’s gospel includes the Lord’s ‘sending’ commission, which is spelt out in more detail in the narrative Gospels (with Luke running into Acts 1)
22-23 And with that He breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”
“Receive the Holy Spirit” — a pre-experience of the greater and wider outpouring of the Holy Spirit seven weeks later at Pentecost. This energised them to prepare for Pentecost and gave them a faith-raising foretaste of what to expect.
“If you forgive… do not forgive” — the apostles (and all believers) participate in Jesus’ saving mission by declaring the grounds of salvation: repent and believe. Jesus here gives His followers authority to announce access, or to warn of being disbarred, on people’s receiving or denying the gospel message.
24-25 Now Thomas (also known as Didymus ), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!”
But he said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks in His hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe.”
“Unless I see the… marks” — the other disciples had seen a ghost, so Thomas thought. But Jesus’ glorified resurrection body is not a spirit apparition but a physical body. John is at pains to emphasise Jesus the incarnate Word.
• For further study, see John 1:14 with 1 John 4:2-3 and 2 John 7.
26 A week later His disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!”
27 Then He said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see My hands. Reach out your hand and put it into My side. Stop doubting and believe.”
28 Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!”
“My Lord…” — Thomas did not need to touch Jesus, but said these words to Him in declaration of finding faith in Jesus as His Lord, and as God. This climax reveals John’s purpose in writing, that every reader comes to Thomas’ place of faith and confesses Jesus as their Lord and God, v.31 below.
29 Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen Me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
30-31 Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His name.
“Not recorded in this book” — many scholars consider this to be the original ending, to which John 21 formed an appendix
Reflection
SUMMARY The disciples, working through their shock at the Jewish leaders’ dishonesty followed by a brutal Roman execution, are overcome by the joy of the open tomb, and now an encounter with Jesus, present in a resurrection body. What do they do now? Jesus wastes no time in telling them, “…I am sending you”, giving them the charge to tell others to repent and put their whole trust in Jesus, the simple but profound grounds of God’s salvation.
APPLICATION Sharing the Good News is a responsibility that continues, generation by generation. It is not held or controlled by the church, but is every believer’s privilege to take out to the people who need it. Both sharing and receiving works on the basis of faith; what is humanly impossible is enabled by impartation of the Holy Spirit of Jesus.
QUESTION How do you feel about being responsible for explaining forgiveness of sin and salvation? How are you enabled to do this?
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Acts 5:27-32 — The apostles stand on their faith against accusations
Asserting their need to obey God they resist the high priest’s control of them
27-28 The apostles were brought in and made to appear before the Sanhedrin to be questioned by the high priest. “We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name,” he said. “Yet you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and are determined to make us guilty of this man’s blood.”
“Before the Sanhedrin” — the highest and largest religious and civil court in Israel.
“Make us guilty of this man’s blood” — citing the apostles’ public declarations that some of the Jews and their leaders were responsible for having Jesus killed.
29-30 Peter and the other apostles replied: “We must obey God rather than human beings! The God of our ancestors raised Jesus from the dead — whom you killed by hanging Him on a cross.
“We must obey God” — the apostles, like Jesus, were law-abiding but conscience dictated that they should reject ungodly control. Christians are to submit to government authorities, Romans 13:1-7, but recognising the exception of when God’s commands are directly contradicted.
“Hanging Him on a cross” — or tree, or pole. Deut. 22:23 stated that anyone hung on a pole was under God’s curse. Peter boldly accuses the leaders of causing this manner of execution. Christians came to see that Jesus died under a curse for us by taking the penalty of our sins, Galatians 3:13.
31 “God exalted Him to His own right hand as Prince and Saviour that He might bring Israel to repentance and forgive their sins.
“God exalted Him… as… Saviour” — in a few words, including v.30, “raised Jesus from the dead” Peter summarises His message at Pentecost, explaining how God vindicated His Messiah as “Prince and Saviour” with His intention being, firstly, to “bring Israel to repentance” and by this means to “forgive their sins”.
32 “We are witnesses of these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey Him.”
“We are witnesses of these things” — the law also cited the sin of not responding to a public charge and testifying truthfully about what they had seen and heard, Leviticus 5:1.
• For further study, read Lev. 5:1; with Acts 1:8; Matt 28:18-20; Luke 24:44-49 and John 20:21.
Reflection
SUMMARY These pioneers of the faith had earlier had a prayer meeting which shook the building, giving them a fresh infilling of the Holy Spirit — and an impartation of boldness which we see in their response to the court that had condemned their Lord to death. The faith of those first disciples facing accusation and unjust sentence from the highest court in the land, is a model to us in our situation.
APPLICATION To live out our faith as a disciple of Jesus will bring contention with others who perceive our faith as politically incorrect. We have moved on from burning people at the stake for possessing a Bible, but religious intolerance still judges believers deemed to be at odds with the accepted order of their particular religious institution.
QUESTION How might we graciously answer those who criticise our following Jesus as His disciples?
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Revelation 1:4-8 — John encourages the faith of the early churches
All believers are empowered to serve God in a new kind of shared priesthood
4-5 John, to the seven churches in the province of Asia:
“Seven churches” — about 50 miles apart in a circle, centres of seven geographic regions of the Roman province of Asia (which we know as western Turkey).
Grace and peace to you from Him who is, and who was, and who is to come, and from the seven spirits before His throne, and from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth.
“Grace and peace” — a Christian greeting found elsewhere, keeping this order of the two words, suggesting that peace is the result of God’s grace flowing.
• For further study, see 2 Corinthians 1:1-2, 2 Thessalonians 1:1-2.
“The seven spirits” — the greeting is expressed as from the seven spirits, like the angels of the seven churches in chapters 2-3 and referred to in v.20. The Holy Spirit is one person, Rev. 3:6, 13 and Ephesians 4:4. Being spoken of here as “seven spirits” represents His perfection and, with “seven torches of fire” and “seven eyes”, Rev. 4:5, 5:6 expresses His omnipresence (being everywhere) and omniscience (being all-knowing).
To Him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by His blood…
“Freed us from our sins” — but, important to note, not automatically. Revelation emphasises both the need for repentance, and responding in faith to the challenge of the gospel, Rev. 9:20; 14:6-7.
6 …and has made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve His God and Father – to Him be glory and power for ever and ever! Amen.
“Made us to be a kingdom… priests to serve… God” — as we are freed from our sins to experience peace and joy, so we become subjects of the new kingdom order. Hebrews makes it clear that the OT priesthood was made obsolete with the resurrection of Jesus. Representing man to God and God to not-yet-believing mankind is not a task for a re-created and somewhat Christianised OT order of priests, but a new kind of priesthood responsibility shared by every believer.
7 “Look, He is coming with the clouds,” and “every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him”; and all peoples on earth “will mourn because of Him.” So shall it be! Amen.
“Every eye will see Him” — Jesus will come, “with the clouds”, 1 Thess. 4:16-17, as the Son of Man exercising dominion over all, that Daniel saw, Daniel 7:13-14. There will also be the mourning of true repentance, even among “those who pierced Him”, the Jews, Zechariah 12:10-14.
8 “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.”
“Alpha and Omega” — Jesus is the beginning of history, and also the end purpose to which all history points.
Reflection
SUMMARY By the time John wrote his letter the Temple had long been destroyed. The Spirit-filled believers from Pentecost onwards had, as those who were “in Christ”, a special and personal relationship with God – the new kind of priest of the New Covenant, which was always God’s intention, Isaiah 61:6. His disciples saw themselves as people of this new rule, or kingdom order, that Jesus had taught them to see.
APPLICATION Our frequent mistake has been trying to re-create a kind of OT formal religion with Christ somehow inserted back into it. John references Exodus 19:5-6 which speaks of covenant people who were a holy nation to God and a kingdom of priests. But by now, the Old Covenant had been superseded by the New at Jesus’ death, when the great woven curtain of the temple parted from top to bottom. Jesus wants us living empowered as His ekklesia, influencing the world, continuing the work He started in partnership with Him.
QUESTION How free and forgiven are we to embrace the new relationship of the New Covenant?
PRAYER “Lord, increase our faith”! So, “Breathe on me, breath of God”. Help us not to be saying we live by faith, when in reality we are keeping ourselves within the limits of our ability. May we see where You are working, and reach out for You, as we seek to partner with You in Your kingdom purpose. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
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