Commentary on the Gospel of John

                                  Chapter Twenty One

                                                                                                                                              Verses 8-14

A little later, the other disciples rowed their boat close enough to the shore to be able to drag the net full of fish to land. There they saw that Jesus had already built a fire, and He was cooking bread and fish for them. The symbolism of this event can only be that Jesus will take care of His Church. The Church always needs Jesus. The Church cannot take care of itself. Even when the Church fails, Jesus will take care of that failure. Jesus will feed His Church spiritual food. Jesus will bless all faithful believers, and Jesus will always recover and restore all backsliders. The Church must never try to take care of itself. The Church must always rely on the Holy Spirit for correction, for restoration, and for guidance. Christ will never lose a single member of His Church who becomes saved by His grace. John 10:27-30.

Jesus then commanded His disciples to bring the net full of fish to Him. Peter went and drew the net up onto the shore full of 153 fish. God must have put some symbolism on the exact number of fish. Yet, God left the symbolism obscure. Did the 153 fish represent the number of future believers in Christ's Church? If so, 153 million would certainly be too small, and 153 billion certainly too large. But one billion 53 million could be the right number. Yet, the Holy Spirit nowhere indicates that this 153 should be multiplied by a billion. The net full of fish could represent the fact that Christ will provide plenty of spiritual food for His future Church, but then why the exact number 153? But the fact that the net did not break could very well symbolize that Christ will never lose a single member of His Church who are saved by His grace. John 10:27-30. Christ holds all power over sin, evil, and the Devil in the world and in His Church. Matthew 28:18; Revelation 1:17-18. Christ will recover and restore every backslider who has not already repented when He Raptures His Church. Ephesians 5:25-27.

Jesus then invited His disciples to dine with Him on the fish and bread He had prepared and fellowship with Him. This event has to symbolize the Rapture of the Church. The Church will become His Bride. This fact can only mean that Christ will provide very special rewards for His Church after the Rapture. John 3:29; Revelation 21:9; Revelation 22:17. Revelation 19:7-9. After His marriage to His Church, Jesus will Rapture His Tribulation saints, and they, and probably the Old Testament saints as well, will be joined together in a great feast where Christ Himself will serve all His saints of all ages in celebration of His marriage to His Church. Revelation 20:4 and 6; Luke 12:35-37; Matthew 22:1-14.

Commentary on the Gospel of John

                                  Chapter Twenty One

                                                                                                                                              Verses 1-7

Sin happens to be a very powerful seducer, even in the lives of Jesus' disciples. Jesus had appeared to His disciples twice after His resurrection, but apparently he had not appeared to them again for some time. John 21:14. Simon Peter, being an impetuous and impatient man, decided to return to fishing for fish instead of for men as Jesus had commanded them. Matthew 4:19. Some of the other disciples followed Peter because he was their leader. Christ had tested their faith, and they had failed. They all had backslidden on Christ. This event put the Church in its greatest peril.

They toiled all night on the Sea of Galilee and had caught nothing. Jesus appeared to them on the shore, but they did not recognize Him. Jesus sometimes had a way of blanking the minds of His believers when He appeared to them so that they could not recognize Him until they were reminded of His love and compassion. Mary Magdalene did not recognize Him until He called her name with His characteristic love and compassion. John 20:16. The two believers that Jesus walked with on the road to Emmaus did not recognize Him until He had dinner with them, and He blessed the bread and gave it to them which reminded them of the love and compassion He had shown when He fed the multitudes. Luke 24:29-31. Jesus fed more than five thousand on one occasion and more than four thousand on another, but He also probably fed the multitudes on other occasions. Matthew 14:15-21; Matthew 15:32-38. The fact that Jesus fed the entire multitudes with broken bread, which represented His broken body, symbolized the fact that Jesus intended to save the entire human race. John 6:33; John 6:51; Hebrews 2:9. Jesus taught about His broken body represented by broken bread right after He had fed the five thousand. John 6:33. The broken fish that Jesus gave to the multitudes symbolized His salvation by His grace. Matthew 4:19.

Jesus asked His disciples if they had caught any food. In other words, Jesus asked them if they were taking care of themselves and their own salvation by grace. When they answered "No," they admitted that they had failed to take care of themselves. Jesus told them to cast their net on the right side of the boat, and they would catch fish. In other words, Jesus told them that they needed Him to take care of them. Now these experienced fishermen would probably have paid no attention to a stranger on the shore who told them how to fish. But they obeyed Jesus because they sub-consciously knew that He was Jesus. When they caught a huge load of fish, John immediately remembered that Jesus had done this before when He had called them to be His disciples. Luke 5:1-11. John told Peter that the man on the shore was Jesus. Peter, being the impetuous and impatient man that he was, threw on his coat and dived into the water to swim to Jesus because he knew that his friends would take much longer to get the boat to land.

Commentary on the Gospel of John

                                  Chapter Twenty

                                                                                                                                               Verses 30-31

John attested to the fact that Jesus had performed many other miracles which he did not write about in his gospel. The gospels record that Jesus healed thousands and performed many other miracles. Jesus came to earth when great darkness covered the Western world and when demons were extremely active. He came as the Light of the world. John 8:12. In humanity's darkest hour, Jesus came to save humanity from eternal death. Romans 5:20-21; Hebrews 2:9. The Old Testament and God's righteous Law was there, but humans were too weakened by an inner death to obey it. Romans 3:19-20. Evil and the Devil had power over all humans, and Satan meant to reduce all living humans that God creates and loves to eternal death. Genesis 2:17. Humans needed God's grace and mercy which can only be activated by faith. Romans 5:1-2. Humans were in a hopeless situation, but then Jesus came. Matthew 1:18-25.

John wrote his gospel so that the Holy Spirit could cause all who read it or hear it preached to repent of their sins and come to faith in Jesus Christ as their true Savior, the Messiah, and that He is the Son of God. In writing his gospel, John no doubt directed it to all humans who would believe while still alive in the flesh, and who would receive salvation by grace. Repentance and faith causes the Almighty Power of God to take over in a person's life. Humans cannot save themselves, but God can. In their weakness caused by inner eternal death, humans cannot avoid sin, but God took that sin, and eternal death itself, on Himself on a cross to take it all away from all humans. Hebrews 2:9. When a person becomes saved by grace, the Holy Spirit thoroughly cleanses the inner being of that believer with the blood and water that flowed from Jesus on the cross, and the Holy Spirit gives to that believer the perfect life of Christ Himself by which that believer can become just as acceptable to a Holy God as Jesus Himself happens to be. John 17:23; Colossians 3:1-4.

But since God can never lose anything He has ever created, and since His Love cannot fail, then the Almighty Intellect of God had to have devised a plan to bring the rest of humanity not saved by grace to faith that Christ can save them too with a lesser form of salvation. Ecclesiastes 3:14; Psalm 111:7-8; I Corinthians 13:8; Revelation 5:11-14; Revelation 20:5; Revelation 21:1-5. God clearly promised in Revelation 21:5 that He "will make all things new." Every human happens to be a part of the "all things" that God has created. This verse alone can only mean that God must recover all living humans from the regions of death and recreate them to live on His recreated earth. Revelation 21:1-5; Revelation 22:11-12. Jesus suffered the eternal death of every human which can only mean that He took eternal death away from every living human that He creates and loves. Hebrews 2:9. These verses go on to describe the two ways in which Christ will save all living humans that He creates and loves. Hebrews 2:9-15. Hebrews 2:10-13 describes how God saves His children through His grace. But Hebrews 2:14-15 describes God's lesser form of salvation of the rest of humanity. All living humans that God creates are His children, and He saves some of them by His grace. Hebrews 2:13; Acts 17:29. Jesus took the eternal deaths of all living humans on Himself on the cross so that He could utterly destroy all eternal deaths that the Devil has inflicted on the entire human race. John 12:31-32; John 16:11. Jesus came to utterly destroy all of the evil works of the Devil, not living humans. I John 3:8. All humans are subject to a fear of death which has held them in bondage, but Christ has delivered them all from that bondage. Hebrews 2:15; I Timothy 4:10. But no human can be saved without faith in the power of God to save them. But in God's Almighty Intellect and in the fact that His Love cannot fail, He has devised a plan to cause all living humans to return to faith in His power to save them either by His grace or with a lesser form of salvation. John 5:24; Revelation 5:11-14; John 11:25-26.

Commentary on the Gospel of John

                                  Chapter Twenty

                                                                                                                                              Verses 24-29

The human race has always had persons in it who simply cannot comprehend spiritual matters. An invisible and immaterial world they cannot understand. To them, everything must have some form of material substance. Most of these types of people become atheists because they cannot believe in any kind of spiritual dimension. Thomas was one of these types.

But Christ suffered and died to save every human. God will not exclude the materialist from His salvation by His grace. God knows how to save materialists and atheists.

The Apostle Thomas was not with the disciples when Jesus first appeared to them. When he came back, the other disciples told him that they had seen their risen Savior. But Thomas could not believe. Thomas said that he not only had to see his Lord, but he had to feel His wounded hands and side before he could believe. In other words, Thomas could only believe in a physical, risen Lord.

After eight days, Jesus appeared to His disciples with Thomas being present. The scriptures relate that the doors were shut. Clearly, the scriptures relate that Jesus did not come through the doors. Jesus was invisible at one moment and visible in the next moment. This event clearly indicates that Jesus rose from the dead with a spiritual body. He could be an invisible Spirit, or He could be a visible, physical body as He willed.

At that time, Jesus appeared to His disciples specifically to raise Thomas to the level of faith in His resurrection. When Jesus told His disciples that they already knew where He was going and the way to get there, Thomas answered that he did not know the place or how to get there. Clearly, Thomas had in mind a physical place with a physical road to get there. Jesus gave Thomas a spiritual answer. His Father was the place, and Jesus was the only way to get there. John 14:1-6. When Jesus appeared to Thomas, he was not a lost sinner. Jesus had already saved him by His grace even though he was a materialist. Jesus had saved Thomas because he expressed great devotion to Jesus, and he believed that Jesus had come from God. John 11:16; John 16:28-29. Jesus meant to raise Thomas' consciousness to faith in His physical resurrection because He knew that that would cause Thomas to realize that Jesus was his God and Savior. It mattered not that Thomas had great trouble believing in the spiritual body of Jesus. If Jesus could get him to believe in His physical resurrection, then that would be enough to raise his consciousness to the level of faith that Jesus was his God and Savior.

The Catholic church teaches that in the Eucharist, a priest has the power to change wine into the physical blood of Jesus. Now God has given no man the power to change wine into Jesus' blood, but if a person, even if he is a materialist, truly believes that he receives the physical blood of Jesus to wash away his sins, then God will save that person by His grace because of his faith. God does not deceive that believer because Jesus actually shed His physical blood on the cross to save sinners. The materialist may believe that he receives the physical blood of Jesus for his salvation, but he actually receives Jesus' spiritual blood administered to him by the Holy Spirit. John 6:53-58; John 6:63; I Corinthians 6:9-11. The Evangelical churches are correct when they preach that when a person repents and believes in Christ, they will be saved because the Holy Spirit will cleanse them of all their sins by an application of the spiritual blood of Jesus. They will immediately become "born again" by the power of the Holy Spirit. John 3:3-5; I Corinthians 6:11. But most materialists will not be able to believe in this type of preaching. God is gracious and merciful. As in the case with Thomas, God desires that a person have faith in the resurrection of Jesus which will prove to that person that He is their God and Savior whether they believe in Jesus' physical or spiritual blood. To God, Jesus' physical and spiritual blood is the same blood anyway.

In a similar manner, Jesus caused Thomas to believe He was Thomas' God and Savior by compelling him to believe in His physical resurrection. Thomas had to see his physical Lord and feel His wounded body so that he could believe and confess, "My Lord and my God."

Jesus commended Thomas for his increased faith, but then He commended all who would believe in the future who would not see His physical resurrection. All believers saved by grace must believe in both the physical and the spiritual resurrection of Christ. But if a believer in his earthly life believes in only the physical resurrection of Jesus for his salvation, God will later cause him to believe in His spiritual resurrection as well. Christ is a Spirit who also has a physical body. "So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God." Romans 10:17. The Holy Spirit happens to be perfectly capable of bringing conviction of the need to repent of sins when a person hears the gospel, and He can save that believer by God's grace even though that believer has never seen the physical resurrection of Jesus. John 16:7-11. When Jesus Raptures His Church, He will unite the souls and spirits of every believer with a new, physical body that He has created for them, and they all will also have a spiritual body just like Jesus has. Philippians 3:20-21; I John 3:1-2. In His Rapture of His Church, Christ will sanctify and thoroughly cleanse His Church, and He will perfect the faith of every believer and complete whatever is missing in every believer's faith. Ephesians 5:25-27; John 17:23.

Commentary on the Gospel of John

                                   Chapter Twenty

                                                                                                                                               Verses 19-23

That same day at evening, Jesus appeared to His disciples except for Thomas who was not there. Jesus gave them His peace because they were in a state of fear and worry. When Jesus showed them His wounded hands and side to prove to them that He was their risen Savior, they became filled with joy and peace that only the Holy Spirit can give. Philippians 4:7.

Jesus then instructed His disciples to carry on God's work in the world just as He had done. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Christ Himself who empowers every believer in His Church to show to the world the same love and compassion that He had shown in His earthly ministry. The only difference happens to be that the Church cannot be perfect as Jesus is. But the project of the Church is to preach God's forgiveness of sins upon repentance and faith whether of those in the Church or out of the Church. Ephesians 2:22; John 14:18.

Jesus then breathed on His disciples and told them, "Receive ye the Holy Spirit." One wonders why Jesus would give His Holy Spirit to His believers who already had the Holy Spirit. In the Old Testament, God gave His Spirit to His prophets. II Kings 2:9. When Jesus saved the woman at the well, He told her He would give her "living water" by which He had to have meant His Holy Spirit. John 4:10. The only possible answer must be that God gives an ever higher consciousness and a deeper understanding of what it means to be saved by grace at different levels of the faith of individual believers. The Old Testament prophets had the Holy Spirit and salvation by grace even though they all had but a vague understanding of who the Messiah would be and what He would do. Jesus gave the woman at the well His Spirit even though she only believed that He was the Messiah her Savior, but she did not know exactly what that meant. John 4:28-29. Jesus gave His Holy Spirit to His believers after His resurrection to cause them to understand that He had accomplished the salvation of believers saved by grace through His suffering, death, burial, and resurrection. I Corinthians 15:1-4. At Pentecost, Christ gave His Church a higher level of the power of the Holy Spirit to teach them that they could be bold in the power of God to carry out His mission of preaching the gospel to the world. Acts 2:1-4. The teaching of the Bible (KJB) clearly indicates that God holds the Sovereign Power to save by His grace anyone He so chooses to save whether they are good or bad and no matter the level of their understanding of what His grace means. Romans 9:14-24.

Jesus' next commandment to His Church did not pertain to any power of the Church to forgive sins. Only God can forgive sins. Jesus' commandment pertained to discipline in His Church. Jesus meant that if any believer repents of an open sin, then the Church should forgive him even as God forgives him. Ephesians 4:30-32. But if anyone who professes to be a believer should refuse to repent of some known sin, then the Church has the right to put that person out of the Church as being an unbeliever. Matthew 18:15-18; I Corinthians 5:1-13. Satan often sends false believers into God's churches just to cause this type of trouble. But God gives His churches the right to purge false believers in order to keep themselves as clear from sin as possible.

Commentary on the Gospel of John

                                    Chapter Twenty

                                                                                                                                              Verses 11-18

Mary Magdalene had to have followed Peter and John to Jesus' tomb because she was there when they walked away. She stood outside the sepulchre weeping, and then she happened to look into the tomb and saw two angels that the other women had previously seen. Apparently, these two angels had made themselves invisible to Peter and John. Mary Magdalene had not seen these two angels before because she had left the sepulchre as soon as she saw that the stone had been rolled away.

The angels asked Mary why she was weeping. Mary still did not believe in Jesus' resurrection because she told the angels that she wept because she thought someone had taken Jesus' body and buried Him she knew not where. Mary then turned away from the sepulchre and saw Jesus, but she did not recognize Him. Jesus had the power to blank out a person's mind so that they could not recognize Him until they were ready to believe in Him as their Savior and Lord. Jesus asked her why she wept and who she sought to find. In other words, Jesus asked her if she wept for the body of a friend and was she looking for that body or was she looking for her risen Savior. Jesus asked the mob who came to arrest Him whom they sought for, but they only sought for a mere human. John 18:14. Mary, still not believing, thought Jesus was the gardener, and she asked Him if He had taken the body of Jesus. When Jesus called her by her name "Mary," she knew immediately that she had heard that voice of tenderness and compassion before, and that caused her to recognize Him, and she called Him "Master." This event happens to be the most beautiful example of God's activation of conscious faith in His resurrection in the entire New Testament. Christ knows all of His believers who become saved by grace, and Mary and all of His other disciples, were saved by grace before they recognized Him as their risen Savior. John 10:27; Romans 8:29-30. Christ knows everyone who will become saved by His grace before they become actively conscious of the meaning of His death, burial, and resurrection. John 3:3; I Corinthians 15:1-4. But Christ will make certain that every one of His believers will come to an active recognition of Him as their risen Savior either in their lifetime or immediately following their physical deaths. Hebrews 9:27.

Apparently, Mary reached out to touch Jesus because He told her not to touch Him. Jesus had not yet ascended to Heaven to apply His blood to the mercy seat in the Holy of Holies in Heaven to satisfy His Father that He had purged the sins and evil of all His believers whom He would save by His grace. Leviticus 16:14; Hebrews 9:11-15. Jesus could not allow Mary to touch Him because she still had sin in her life that had not yet been purged by Jesus' application of His blood to the mercy seat, and whatever sin touches it stains. Jesus had to be absolutely pure and immaculate when He applied His blood to the mercy seat in Heaven. Later, when the other women held Him by His feet, He had already ascended to Heaven which meant their sins had already been forever purged. Matthew 28:9.

When Jesus told Mary to go and tell her brothers in Christ that He would ascend to His Father, He did not mean His formal ascension at the end of His earthly ministry. Jesus meant that He would immediately ascend to Heaven to apply His blood to the mercy seat. Jesus knew that He would later explain to all of His believers all of the Old Testament scriptures that prophesied about Him including the symbolic meaning of the high priest who entered the Holy of Holies in the Tabernacle and later in the Temple to apply the blood of a bullock to the mercy seat on the Ark of the Covenant that symbolized the mercy seat in Heaven. Luke 24:44-45.

Jesus then instructed Mary to tell her brothers in Christ that His Father and God was just as much their Father and God as He was. John 17:18-24. God does not accept believers in Christ as being equal to Christ, but He will love them to the same extent that He loves His own Son, and He will accept them into Heaven because they all have been thoroughly cleansed by the blood and water that flowed from Jesus on the cross. I John 1:7; Revelation 1:5-6; Ephesians 5:25-27. Mary obeyed the Lord and went and told her brothers that she had seen her risen Lord and related to them all He had told her.

Jesus honors women. Jesus honored women by appearing to a woman and then to other women first, but the first person who believed in Jesus' resurrection was the Apostle John. John 20:8.

Commentary on the Gospel of John

 

                                         Chapter Twenty

 

                                                                                                                                              Verses 1-10

 

Very early in the morning of the first day of the week, a number of women believers came to the sepulchre of Jesus to anoint His body with more spices. Luke 24:10. Immediately upon seeing the stone rolled away from the sepulchre, Mary Magdalene ran to tell the men disciples that she believed someone had taken the body of Jesus and buried Him in another place. All the other women remained at the tomb of Jesus. At that time, Mary Magdalene did not see the two angels in Jesus' tomb, but the other women did see them. The other women then followed Mary Magdalene to relate to the men disciples that the tomb was empty and that two angels had announced the resurrection of their Lord. Luke 24:11.

 

Then, just to check out their stories, Peter and John ran to the sepulchre and found it empty with just Jesus' linen grave clothes lying in it. John immediately believed in Jesus' resurrection. All of Jesus' disciples had heard Him prophesy that He would rise from the dead, but none of them knew, at that time, about the Old Testament prophecy that Jesus would rise from the dead. Psalm 16:10. Peter and John walked away from the sepulchre and went home.

 

Apparently, Mary Magdalene followed Peter and John walking behind them. When she reached the tomb of Jesus, He appeared to her. John 20:11-18. She went again to tell the men disciples that she had seen the risen Lord.

 

The other women apparently followed Mary Magdalene walking behind her. When they reached the sepulchre, they saw only the one angel who had rolled the stone away from the sepulchre. He announced to them the resurrection of Jesus, and he told them to go again and tell the men disciples. As these women were again returning to announce Jesus' resurrection, Jesus appeared to them and they worshiped Him and bowed and touched His feet. Matthew 28:1-10. Mark relates that the women told no one about Jesus' resurrection, but Mark only meant that they told no other humans except His disciples. Mark 16:7-8. When the women first came to Jesus' tomb, they saw the stone rolled away, and Mary Magdalene departed. Then they entered into the tomb and saw two angels inside the tomb who announced Jesus' resurrection. They then went to the men disciples to tell them about the angels who announced Jesus' resurrection, but Mary Magdalene had already told them that she believed that someone had taken the body of Jesus. The men disciples heard two different stories. Peter and John then decided to run to the sepulchre and see for themselves. When the other women returned to the sepulchre, following Peter, John, and Mary Magdalene, they then saw only one angel who had rolled the stone away, sitting on it and announcing Jesus' resurrection. This means Jesus appeared first to Mary Magdalene, and then a little later to the other women. Mark 16:9; Matthew 28:8-10.