Jesus was a peace giver

JESUS WAS A PEACE GIVER
EDITED BY GLENN PEASE
When therefore it was evening, on that day, the first
day of the week, and when the doors were shut where
the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and
stoodin the midst, and saith unto them, Peacebe unto
you. And when he had said this, he shewed unto them
his hands and his side.—John20:19-20.
GreatTexts of the Bible
The Saviour’s EasterGreeting
1. It is the evening of the first EasterDay. In an upper chamber in
Jerusalem—inall probability in the upper chamber which had been the scene
of the institution of the Holy Eucharist, and was to be the scene of the baptism
of the Church by the descending Spirit, and then to be the place of the first of
Christian assemblies, the mother of all Churches—itis in this upper chamber
that we see gatheredtogethera band of men and women. They are in a
position of restlessnessup to the point of fear. They feel the restlessnessof
men whose lives are in greatdanger. The tomb of the Masterwhom they loved
was found empty. The foes of Jesus imagined that this was by the connivance
of the disciples themselves. His disciples had come, they said, and stolenthe
body whilst the guards placedto keepwatchover it slept. The disciples
accordinglyanticipated that that fury of the Jews which had burst with such
force upon their Masterwould now descendupon their heads. But they were

not only in this bodily fear. This bodily fear would not have been in them if
they had not been restless in mind. They did not know what to believe, they
were in perplexity. The tomb of Christ was empty. By a resurrection? They
could not believe that. True, their Lord againand againhad tried to prepare
them for that mystery of His resurrection, but they could not understand it.
How then was it empty? Notby any act of their own, they knew very well.
And the perplexity was increasedin this way—some people said He was risen;
some women said they had seenHim. Were these but women’s stories after
all? If they were not true, what was true? Was He risen or was He not?
Jesus came, unannounced and unexpected, into the midst of these perplexed
disciples. Their very fear drew Him to them. They wanted Him: He knew it,
and could not keepaway. It was “the same day at evening, being the first day
of the week, whenthe doors were shut.” They wanted the old familiar times
back again. If He would come and bring them how much more faithful they
would be to Him than in the past. But He was gone, and they dare not keep
the door ajar, for they had no courage andmuch fear. And then, lo! He was
there, standing in the midst of them, with the old kind smile upon His face,
and the calm strong greeting on His lips. “Peacebe unto you,” He said, and
showedthem His hands and His side.
2. This was the greeting He would naturally have given them on any occasion
on which He came to them in the days of His earthly life in the body. Those
who have lived in Easternlands seemto hear the Lord’s voice when they read
His salutation, the sound of which from the lips of all visitors they know so
well. But we must believe that the words “Peacebe unto you” had a more than
ordinary significance on this occasion. Theywere intended to conveya real
inward comfort, and to produce, in the mind of those who heard them, the
assurance thata new and blessedinfluence had entered into them. In the
darkesthour of their earthly companionship, when the deep shadow of
approaching separationwas resting upon them, the Lord had said “Peace I
leave with you, my peace I give unto you.” Their hearts were too sad at the

time to receive any comfortfrom the saying, sweetand soothing though the
sound of the words must even then have seemed. But now, in the very first
words He speaks to them after His Resurrection, He fulfils His promise, and
proves to them the reality of His own gift. Then, having allayedtheir terror,
He certifies them of His bodily identity by showing them His hands and His
side. There was no longer any possibility of doubting the truth of His
Resurrection, and feelings of gladness atonce dispelled the former doubts and
apprehensions.
For those disciples that day had been a very restless one. They had been
troubled by what the women said, and by their own many questionings and
thoughts. Sin came back on Peterand on others, and the very thing they
needed most was that He should stand and say, “Peace be unto you; see my
hands and my side.” And do we not realize that very often at the end of the
day Christ comes to us, when we are troubled with a sense of sin? And those
of us who are trying to live nearestthe true Light are most conscious ofsin
and imperfection. There never was a day we ever lived in which there were
not many things that came short of the glory of God, and there is never an
evening in which we do not have to say, “Forgive us our debts,” our
shortcomings, evenif we do not need to say, “Forgive us our trespasses,”our
transgressions. There is always the coming short of His glory, even if there is
not voluntary transgressionofHis will. And so there never is a time when we
do not need that He should show us His hands and His side, and say,
“Beloved, there is the guarantee that your sin is put absolutely away, that
there is nothing betweenGod and you but one clearheaven of love.”1 [Note:
F. B. Meyer, in The Keswick Week (1900), 132.]
I happened to drop into a house where there was a large family, and I found
the mother very busy about the room. “What are you doing?” I asked. “Oh,
when the children have gone to bed I have to tidy up after them, and I make
straight what they have left amiss.” And there she was, just going over all the
broken fragments of the children’s work, and taking up the stitches that her

little daughter had put all across the piece of work she had given the child to
do. I could see quite well the big cross stitches, andhow the mother was taking
them up and making them good. I said to myself: Yes, that is just what Christ
does. He comes into the day’s life and work, when all the mistakes have been
made, and the poor sermons have been preached, and the mis-statements have
been uttered, and one looks back with such a sense of infinite regret and
failure, and He says:“Peace be unto you. I am going over all the mistakes to
put them right, and help to make powerful that which you left impotent and
useless.”2[Note:Ibid.]
I
The Appearance Behind ClosedDoors
“When the doors were shut.”
1. Barriers are often raised unwittingly againstChrist. When the disciples
shut and lockedthe doors of the upper chamber, they never meant to bar
them againstJesus. Theywere afraid of the Jews, and acted only in self-
defence. And there are lines of conduct in common life we may pursue, and we
never dream that we are raising barriers betweenourselves and the highest
and the best: but in the end of the day for us, as for the disciples, it will be
found that we have done more than we imagined—we have closedthe door
unwittingly on Christ.
It is the tragedy of many a life that its doors are shut. Sometimes it is
engrossmentin pleasure, in business, in friendship, that bars the door against
the ingress ofthe Saviour. All these things, lawful in themselves, and having
indeed a right and necessaryplace in any life, may gain such an ascendancyas

to become its masters, demanding all thought, all energy, all strength of life,
until the man overwhom they have gainedcontrol is himself behind closed
doors. Sometimes it is by selfishness ofjoy or sorrow that the doors are closed.
There is a joy which is regardedas incommunicable, or a sorrow which is
regardedas unshareable, and He who is the Author of eachis excluded from
life by His ownprovidences misreceivedand misinterpreted. Often, too, it is
with us as with these His earliestdisciples, fear of the consequencesof
identification with Him causes the door to be tightly barred. We are afraid of
the disfavour of men, and in shutting out the Jews we really shut out Jesus.
But chiefly it is sin that excludes the Sonof Godfrom the life in which He
seeks to be knownand served. And this, too, may be of unintentional
beginning. For sin at its commencementis often merely thoughtlessness.
Persistedin, however, despite the correcting light which God is unceasingly
shedding upon us, it becomes actuallywilful—the rebellious barring of the
door againstthe Son of God.
Every morning that we rise, every day that we go forth, our choices make us
or our choices mar us. Some day a choice more momentous than usual comes.
We are face to face with one of life’s greatdecisions. And we have not been
living on high levels, and so we choose amiss, fora man’s whole life is in every
choice he makes. Thenthe days pass, and the issues show themselves, andthe
choice works itselfout in life and character, and a hundred glorious things are
tarnished and are tainted as the result of one disastrous choice. We never
meant to shut out power and purity, but they have recededinto the dim
distance ever since. We never thought to grow heart-wearyand world-weary,
but that may follow from one mismanagedchoosing. Like the disciples, beset
by some poor fear, unwittingly we have closedthe door on Christ.1 [Note: G.
H. Morrison, The Unlighted Lustre, 115.]
And Life with full hands came,

Austerely smiling.
I looked, marvelling at her gifts—
Fortune, much love, many beauties,
The deed fulfilled man ponders in his youth,
Gold of the heart, desire of the eyes come true!
And joyously
“With these,” I said“with these, indeed,
What spirit could miss delight?”
And paused to dream them over.
But even then
“Choose,”she said.
“One gift is yours—no more,”

And bent that grave, wise smile
Upon me, waiting.2 [Note: M. M‘Neal-Sweeney, Menof No Land, 107.]
2. He came; they knew not how; they knew only that the chamber was
strongly securedagainstintrusion or surprise. No bolt was withdrawn; no
door was opened; no breach was made in the wallof their place of assembly;
there was no visible movement as from without to within, or from point to
point. One moment they were, as they thought, alone; and the next, they
looked, and lo! an outline, a form, a visible body and face, a solid human
frame was before them, as if createdout of the atmosphere which they
breathed. “Jesus came andstood in the midst, and saith unto them, Peace be
unto you.” They gazedat Him; they gazed at eachother in bewilderment and
terror. They supposed that they had seena “spirit”; they were with difficulty
reassured—soSt. Luke’s report seems to imply—by the means which our
Lord took to convince them that a body of flesh and bones was before them.
At last they were glad when they saw the Lord.
Christ is inevitable, unavoidable; you cannot stopor stay Him. That is the
first greatlessonof the Resurrection. No one can follow the story of His life,
without feeling that Christ is inevitable. It is the key to the whole record. We
are sweptinto a movement which we realize is irresistible, and the secretofits
poweris the irresistible Christ. We feelthis not merely because Christ
exercisedan extraordinary influence and became the centre of a unique
attraction, but because ofwhat He was. His words and His works alike are
significant first and chiefly of what He is in Himself; they are the revelation of
a Personwho more and more completelywins our absolute trust. When the
Cross comes into view, crowning the path up which He is moving, we follow
Him, knowing that, though it seems to be inexplicable, it comes within His
purpose of redemption, and He fully understands it, howeverblind we may be

to what it means. “I lay down my life for the sheep. No man taketh it from me,
but I lay it down of myself. I have powerto lay it down, and I have powerto
take it again.” It is all a complete unity, the one perfect whole in a world of
fragments. And when we hear the “It is finished” ring out through the gloom
of His death-hour, we are ready for the glory which will soonbe breaking
from the openedgrave. And as at lastwe see Him coming to the disciples on
Easterevening, though the doors are shut againstHim, we know that always
and everywhere He is and must be resistless. Always and everywhere He is the
inevitable Christ.
For wealor woe, whateverwalls you raise, Christ passes throughthem all and
gets to you. There are deeds that we did long since, perhaps twenty years ago,
but to this hour unexpectedly they rise and meet us. There were moments of
exquisite happiness in our past, and even to-day their memory is like music.
You cannot shut out the thought of intense hours: no change of years will
prevent them winning through. And like the ineffaceable memory of such
scenes is the presence and the beauty of the Lord. Christ is inevitable. Christ
is unavoidable. Sometimes He comes through the closeddoor, just because all
life is penetratedwith Him. We talk of the Christian atmosphere we breathe,
but the atmosphere is more than Christian, it is Christ. This is the Lord’s
day—who then is this Lord? We may have closedthe door on Him, but He is
here. We cannot date one letter in the morning, but we mean that more than
one thousand nine hundred years ago Christ was born. He meets us at every
turn of the road, in every newspaperand in every problem. Our life is so
interpenetrated with Christ Jesus that to avoid Him is an impossibility.1
[Note:G. H. Morrison, The Unlighted Lustre, 119.]
Men who lived and fought for Napoleonhave told the world how they
gradually came to believe him to be resistless. He had only to appear before
His troops on his white charger, and down the lines of Frenchbayonets
flashed an electric confidence which made them mighty, as soldiers had
seldom been mighty before, and enabled them to carry all before them. So

with “the Captain of our salvation.” In the New TestamentChrist goes forth
“conquering and to conquer,” and He intends His Church to live in the power
of that inspiration. It is nothing to Him that doors are shut, and men are weak
and helpless. You may as well try to stifle the springtide or struggle to fetter
the feetof the summer morning as strive to bar out the coming of Jesus risen.
You will draw a curtain overthe dawn and shut down the sunrise behind the
darkness before you will banish the inevitable Christ.1 [Note: F. B. Macnutt,
The Inevitable Christ, 8.]
Francis Thompson has told with marvellous beauty of imagery and breadth of
expressionthe story of the pursuit of the soul through all its manifold
experience by “the Hound of Heaven,” which will not let it escape Him.
I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;
I fled Him, down the arches of the years;
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears
I hid from Him, and under running laughter,
From those strong Feetthat followed, followedafter.
But with unhurrying chase

And unperturbèd pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,
They beat and a Voice beat
More instant than the feet …
“Lo, all things fly thee, for thou fliest Me.”
So the foolish soulperseveres in flight from its Saviour, and on and on after it
come those persistent feetwhich will not be denied. It tries to hide in strange
and distant places;it rings itself in with forbidden pleasures;it lavishes its
love upon tender and beautiful human affections, and still
Fearwist not to evade as love wist to pursue—
till at lastthe chase is ended, and the Voice is “round him like a bursting sea.”
Halts by me that footfall:
Is my gloom, after all,

Shade of His hand, outstretchedcaressingly?
Ah! fondest, blindest, weakest,
I am He whom thou seekest!
Thou dravest love from thee, who dravest Me.
3. But while Christ forces Himself thus upon our attention He never compels
our submission. It is always a matter of choice and will with us as to the
receptionHe receives whenHe appears. For when once He has securedour
ear and engagedour thought He subjects Himself to our will. The crowning
pathos and tragedy of life is to close the door more closelywhen we have been
made aware of His Presence. Its crowning glory is to open it wide that the
King of Glory may come in.
A Sunday spent at Cambridge in order to preach before the University came
to Creighton as a welcome break. He chose as the subject of his sermon
“Liberty.” Some years before at breakfastat Lambeth Palace, he had
propounded the question what was the most important objectof pursuit, and
had maintained amidst the friendly and animated contradiction which never
failed in that circle, that liberty was the most precious possessionofman. This
conviction only deepenedas the years passed. But he felt also increasinglythe
tremendous responsibility of liberty, and said that, instead of snatching at it as
a prize, it would be more true to speak ofthe burden of liberty. In this sermon
at Cambridge he said: “If we try to grasp the meaning of progress as it is
shown in the history of the past, it is to be found only in the growing
recognitionof the dignity of man, which is another form of expressing human

freedom, and is the ground of its calm.”1 [Note:Life and Letters of Mandell
Creighton, ii. 320.]
II
The MessageofPeace
“Peacebe unto you.”
This invocation of peace, atbeginning or ending of intercourse, was already
ancient. In our Lord’s day it had become just as much part of the socialhabits
of the people as the custom of saying “Good-morning” is among ourselves. All
the Semitic peoples, the Syrians, the Arabians, and, as we know from the
Talmud, the Jews ofthe Dispersion, usedit as a matter of course. In earlier
days, no doubt, men had invoked peace from heaven with the utmost
deliberation and seriousness. In the age of the kings and prophets the phrase
had still a living meaning: the speakeractuallyprayed for the blessing of
peace on the person whom he addressed. It is a gradual process by which the
real fresh language ofprimitive times is stiffened into the unmeaning forms of
the societyofa later age;but as far as this expressionis concerned, the
process was alreadycomplete in our Lord’s day. And yet He did not scruple to
avail Himself of the conventionalphrase.
But this was not merely the familiar greeting of friend to friend—though it
was that—in that strange moment when two worlds met. Nor was it merely a
kindly word—thoughit was that, too—to pacify their terror, as this
apparition from another world stoodsilently and suddenly before them. It
was a word of larger, more majestic scope. Spokento men who had met in
fear, and who lookedforward to troubled days, it had a wonderful power to

soothe, coming from the lips of the Lord, fresh from His victory over death.
“The disciples, therefore, were glad when they saw the Lord,” glad with a
greatgladness which we cannot know till we have fathomed the depths of
their sorrow and despair as they saw Jesus takenfrom His cross and laid in
Joseph’s tomb. Jesus is strangely earnestabout this peace. Those worn,
hunted men need it; and He will not leave them till He has made them sure of
it. “Jesus therefore saidto them again, Peacebe unto you.”
A greatsoul can redeem his words from triviality. He takes the most
conventionalexpressions, the small change of ordinary courtesy, which on the
lips of other men mean nothing, and in his mouth they have such heart and
substance that you go on cheeredand bettered by his greeting. “Peace”is one
of the anointed words which hold rank in human speechby native dignity, but
in Palestine it had been degraded to the levelof a customarycivility, with
which the most indifferent acquaintances metand parted. And Jesus takes the
word, humbled and impoverished, and makes suchuse of it that it is no longer
trivial but has the force of a command for their hearts.1 [Note:W. M.
Macgregor, Jesus Christthe Son of God, 165.]
ProfessorJohnstonRoss relates thathe once visited a furniture-dealer’s shop
in WestLondon. The man was a Jew, and, noticing that his visitor wore
clericaldress, he beganto talk on religious matters. After an interesting
conversationthe Professormounted his bicycle, saying, “Good-bye,” whenthe
dealercalled out in Hebrew, “Peacebe unto you”—using the plural form. The
Professor’s curiositywas aroused, and he asked:“Why do you put it so? Is
there another that you wish peace to?” “Yes,”replied the Jew, “Peacebe to
you and to the angel overyour shoulder.”
1. The first gift that Jesus had for them was a high confidence in their cause.
Without that a Christian life cannot wellbe lived. He does not mean that we
should live by sufferance, creeping timidly under the shadow of men’s

example; we are to have eyes and a conscienceto know the truth, and courage
to maintain it. The Christian Church has been built up by the fidelities of true
men, and it gains no strength from those who have not courage to be faithful.
These will come in thousands when the fashion once is set, but they bring
nothing with them. They, certainly, can never be describedas the city seton a
hill which cannot be hid. Jesus Christ is the Lord of all the brave, and His gift
is the high heart which sees its course and does not reckonodds.
Peden, the Covenanter, speaksforall right Christians when he says, “Formy
part, I seek no more, if He bids me go.” And in one of his sermons the refrain
is this: “They soughtno more than His commandment; they went and He
carried them well through.”1 [Note:W. M. Macgregor, JesusChrist the Son
of God, 173.]
2. But the deepesthurt in the life of a man is not the ill his neighbour
threatens; there is a controversybehind that, a war in his own conscience,a
sense that his ownlife is wrong, and that God and he are somehow not at one.
And “Christ preachedpeace.” He brought forgiveness to men, the assurance
of God’s forgetfulness. To the most faulty He declaredthe goodwillof God,
assuring them of a place in His heart from which all their sin and folly have
not banished them. There are powers in God to part us from our sin, so that it
can never rise againstus any more; and these powers are centred in the Cross
of Christ, in which right was done to justice by Him who came to rescue men
from what they had deserved.
Christian peace, the peace which Christ gives, the peace which He sheds
abroad in the heart, is it aught else than a glorified harmony; the expelling
from man’s life of all that was causing disturbance there, all that was
hindering him from chiming in with the music of heaven, in which now shall
mingle for ever the consenting songs ofredeemedmen and electangels?1
[Note:Archbishop Trench, in The Literary Churchman (1892), 167.]

I couldn’t live in peace if I put the shadow of a wilful sin betweenmyself and
God.2 [Note:Maggie Tulliver, in The Mill on the Floss.]
The realization of our peace with God, which constitutes or causes peace with
ourselves, presupposes the reality of that peace with God; it does not create it.
The fact must precede the knowledge ofthe fact, it cannot result from it. The
ear does not discourse sweetmusic, or the eye produce a pleasantpicture; in
eachcase the organ of sense embraces analready existing reality. The rule
holds goodin the spiritual creation. That perfect harmony of will and reason
and religious emotion which we denominate peace ofconscienceis not the
cause ofthe sinner’s reconciliationwith an offended God, neither is it
identical with it; it is the result.and product of an actualreconciliation. For
the condition of our own minds is as it were the shadow and reflection of the
relation in which we stand to God. So long as we are at enmity with Him, so
long as we feelourselves to be exposedto His most righteous indignation,
there is strife and war and tumult in our hearts. Only out of peace with God,
and the conscious realizationof that peace, canflow quiet of heart and peace
of conscience.3[Note:W. B. Jones, The Peace ofGod, 360.]
Perhaps no Christian, since the days of the Apostles, has illustrated the true
peace ofthe soul, which Jesus Christ gives, so fully as the greatSt. Augustine.
Readhis “Confessions.”Whata restless life his was before his conversion. His
intellect was tossedon the waves of speculation, and he could graspno
reassuring truth. His heart was distracted by the ideals of false philosophy
and sensualityin its various Proteanforms. His consciencewas profoundly
stirred by conviction of sin; he was hurried along by a very tempest of
passions, and there was no peace.
Then came his conversion. Jesus “rosein the soul.” There was a change,
which brought peace. Tolle, lege, “Takeit up and read,” were the words he

heard in his agony; and he took up the scrolland read, “The night is far spent,
the day is at hand: let us therefore castoff the works ofdarkness”;and those
words of St. Paul fell on the ear of his soul, and there was peace. His intellect
surveys the vast realms of revelation and nature, and sees Christ—the Divine
Logos—everywhere.His heart turns its undisturbed and enraptured gaze on
the EternalBeauty—allancient and all young. His will is redirected, the
problem of duty is simplified, and he does it with all his heart. His conscience
is calmed, for there is no longerany sense offeud betweenhimself and
holiness of life. All is pardoned through the cleansing Blood. All becomes
possible through the grace ofthe Redeemer, and Augustine became the
greatestsaintthe Catholic Church has produced since the time of the great
Apostle himself.1 [Note:M. Fuller, In Terrâ Pax, 79.]
3. How did the peace ofGod, passing understanding, come to them that night?
By the manifested presence ofHim who first said, “Peacebe unto you,” and
then showedthem His hands and His side. He came as His own supreme
Evangelist, in His own utterance of “peace.” He let them see Him as His own
supreme Evangel, in His finished sacrifice andthat glorious sequel of it, His
living Presence.So it is for ever. There is no substitute, nor evercan be, for
personalrelations with Christ, crucified and risen. Would we taste a “peace”
which is indeed “of God”? It must be “through our Lord Jesus Christ,” as not
a principle only but a Person. Faithmust see His wounds; faith must hear His
benediction, nothing between, resting direct on Him. Only so will our life have
banished out of it the bewilderment, the misgiving, which lie at the troubled
heart of half-religion.
Wilt Thou not visit me?
The plant beside me feels Thy gentle dew;

And every blade of grass I see,
From Thy deep earth its quickening moisture drew.
Wilt Thou not visit me?
Thy morning calls on me with cheering tone;
And every hill and tree
Lend but one voice, the voice of Thee alone.
Come, for I need Thy love,
More than the flowerthe dew, or grass the rain
Come, gently as Thy holy Dove;
And let me in Thy sight rejoice to live again.
I will not hide from them
When Thy storms come, though fierce may be their wrath

But bow with leafy stem,
And strengthenedfollow on Thy chosenpath.
Yes, Thou wilt visit me,
Nor plant nor tree Thine eye delights so well,
As when, from sin setfree,
My spirit loves with Thine in peace to dwell.1 [Note: Jones Very.]
III
The Confirmation of the Message
“He shewedunto them his hands and his side.”
Our Lord first convincedthem of His identity. The deep shadows ofevening
were around them; a solitary lamp, perhaps, casta glimmer of light through
the large upper room, and made the darkness visible, while they were
standing in a group and eagerlydiscussing the news of the Eesurrection,
which, first Mary Magdalene, then Peter, then the two disciples from

Emmaus, had in turn brought in. And casuallysome one glancedaside into
the darkenedroom, where all was vacancy;and surely the air was not seento
move—but it did move—and he lookedagain, and it moved again, and now a
dim outline was seen. The disciple held his breath, and touched his neighbour
and whispered. And they lookedagain, and the shadow had grown in
distinctness, and others saw the shape. At length it was plainly visible to all,
and it stoodout in the very midst in the full proportions of a man, although a
moment before they could neither see, nor feel, nor hear any one besides
themselves. Wellmight they be filled with fear, and think that they had seena
spirit. Greatneed had they of hearing those soothing words, “Peacebe unto
you!”
And now, to show them not only that it was a true material organism, but the
very body that had been crucified, He showedthe ghastly gashes made in the
crucifixion. Luke says, “He shewedthem his hands and his feet”:those hands
and feetthat had always been about His Father’s business;hands that had
waved awaythe powers of darkness;hands that had been placedon the heads
of little children; hands that had brokenthe bread of miracle; feet that had
walkedthe stormy waters;feetthat had carried Him to the weeping sisters,
and the tomb of Lazarus; feet that had climbed the mountain stair into the
midnight holy of holies, where He prayed; feet that had hastenedto the side of
the wretched, had stood near the most forlorn; feet that took Him down to
Gethsemane, and failed Him there under the load of our sorrow;feetthat
with weak, fainting, yet resolute steps, came out of Jerusalem, while the hands
assayedto hold upon His shoulder the cruel cross—the hands and the feet that
were nailed to that cross.
One time when David Livingstone was engagedin his civilizing work in
Africa, he was attackedby a huge lion of the jungle. The ferocious beast
graspedthe hand of the missionary in his powerful jaws, and broke the bone.
Livingstone was rescuedby two friends who had accompaniedhim, but for a
long time he was obliged to keephis arm in a sling. He carried the scarof the

wound all his days, and when the faithful natives brought back his dead body
to his native land, this scaron the arm once broken was one of the means by
which the remains of the greatmissionary were identified by his friends.
1. He confirmed His former word of peace.—“Mypeace I give unto you.” He
had said, and the word lived in their ears like deep irony. And now, when they
satin gloomy silence, with their sorrow, and their peril, and thoughts of the
empty future making peace impossible, He comes againwith His former word.
It was a time when the common greeting might well have sounded like a
wrong; peace—whenthere is no peace and cannot be! But Jesus Christ, whose
words are living, calls them back from all such petulance. In its fullest latitude
He meant His word, and thus made trial of their faith; for peace was there,
indeed, within their reach, if only they had courage to lay hands upon it. And
in our disquiet the Lord speaks to us in the same way, and we shall gain or
miss the help of His presence according as we deal with the promise of His
word.
2. He showedthem the proofs of His victory.—His appearance was more
significant than any word He spoke. He appearedto those men time after time
in order that, when He had withdrawn from their sight, they might know the
truth, the reality concerning Him, and know it for ever; that all doubt, all
hesitation, might be gone from their minds. He showedHimself to them that
they might have His image in their hearts, and send on that image into our
hearts through all the ages. Justas on earth in the days of His mortality He
revealedHimself, so now in the days of His resurrection powerHe does but
revealHimself. Is there a halo? There is none. Are there the robes of royalty?
They are not mentioned. Is His advent into the room heralded by the acclaim
of the archangels?No. But we are told in both records—itis the very central
point of the narrative—that He showedthem His hands and His feet. We are
told that on the next Sabbath He saw Thomas, and He said, “See my hands;
see my side.” The marks of the suffering were upon Him. His body was
changedstrangely. It was raisedto a condition of existence entirely different

from the old condition; but there was something that was not changed. “When
you think how much was changed, that which was not changedis all the more
significant. Instead of the halo there were the wound-prints, and it was those
wound-prints that won for Him the name “My Lord and my God.”
Our Lord bought peace with His Passion. It is to the Passionthat He ascribes
the Peace. He comes back with the signature of that treaty of peace written in
His hands and side. There did not seemto be much peace in the Passion,
rather it was the breaking of the storm. The old man in the Temple looked
across the sky of the Child-life to where the clouds were gathering for Him
and His Mother; and on the Cross the storm broke. But the vessel, lostto sight
in the storm, againappears, though with rigging torn and battered hull,
creeping back to port with the dignity of a struggle that has found the goal.1
[Note:F. E. Ridgeway, Calls to Service, 219.]
The Saviour’s EasterGreeting
BIBLEHUB RESOURCES
Pulpit Commentary Homiletics
The First Lord's Day Evening
John 20:19-23
J.R. Thomson
The most wonderful and memorable day in the world's history was drawing
to a close. The sun, whose rising beams had shone upon the empty tomb, the
affrighted guards, the anxious sorrowing women, had now set.

I. THE NARRATIVE INTRODUCES US TO AN ANXIOUS COMPANY.
Ten apostles and some of their intimate friends and fellow-believers were
gatheredtogether, drawn by a community of interest in their unseen Savior.
They had a common memory, a common love, a common sorrow. Theybetook
them to seclusion, both from fear lest the wrath of their enemies might assail
them, and from lack of sympathy outside. They were disappointed and
perplexed. Yet there was inquiry, excitement, wonder, speculation, among
them; for the news brought by Simon, by the women, by the two from
Emmaus, awakenedeagerinterestand most conflicting emotions.
II. THE NARRATIVE RELATES THE ENTRANCE OF A DIVINE
VISITOR. Unexpected, amazing, was the approachof the Master. Gracious
was his greeting, welcome his familiar tones. He convincedthem of his identity
by exhibiting his wounds, and proved his humanity by partaking of food. And
though his coming was friendly, yet he upbraided his disciples for their
unbelief.
III. THE NARRATIVE DEPICTS THE COMMON AND SUDDEN JOY
WHICH POSSESSEDTHE BROTHERHOOD. (Onthis, see homily on ver.
20.)
IV. THE NARRATIVE RECORDSTHE SACRED COMMISSIONWITH
WHICH JESUS NOW ENTRUSTEDHIS DISCIPLES. It must be borne in
mind that these servants of Christ had been for a long time closelyassociated
with him, and had thus been prepared for their life-work. So tremendous a
trust as this would otherwise be unaccountable.
1. They were to go among men as Christ's representatives, as those entrusted
with Divine authority, and they were to act as ambassadors forGod.
2. Their specialmissionwas to declare to men who should receive their
messageand should truly repent, the absolution and remissionof sin. The
purpose of Christ's coming was to secure pardon and acceptanceforsinful
men; and this purpose was to be fulfilled by means of the ministry of the
apostles and their successors.

V. THE NARRATIVE MENTIONSTHE SPECIAL QUALIFICATION
BESTOWED UPON THOSE ENTRUSTEDWITH THIS HIGH
COMMISSION.The words of Christ, "Receive ye the Holy Spirit," were
accompaniedwith the symbolic act of breathing upon them; and both denoted
the reality of the Divine gift by which unlearned and feeble men were fitted to
fulfill a ministry of blessing to mankind. - T.
Biblical Illustrator
Then the same day at evening.
John 20:19-23
The first Lord's Day evening
Prof. J. R. Thomson.
: —
I. THE ANXIOUS COMPANY. The twelve, with the exceptionof Judas and
Thomas, were gatheredand kept togetherby a community of interest in

Christ. They betook themselves to retirement from lack of sympathy from
without, and from fear of the Jews. There was excitementamong them by
reports of the Resurrection.
II. THE DIVINE VISITOR. His appearance was —
1. Miraculous.
2. Unexpected.
3. Welcome. His greeting touched the chords of memory.
4. Indubitable. "He showedthem His hands!"
III. THE SUDDEN JOY (ver. 20).
1. Their suspense was atan end
2. Their fears dispelled.
3. Their dim hopes realized.
4. Their belief in His predictions established.
5. Their pleasure in His societyrenewed.
6. Their confidence in His Divine mission revived.
IV. THE SACRED COMMISSION. Christ —
1. More fully repeatedHis former language.
2. Instructed them to devote their life to the declarationof God's mind, and
the publication of a gospelofpardon for guilty men.
3. Added dignity to their duty in comparing it to His own mission.
4. Imparted the necessaryqualifications.Conclusion:It is Christ's presence
that hallows every Lord's Dayevening.
1. Giving Spiritual powerto the preacher.
2. Imparting grace and blessing to the faithful hearer.

(Prof. J. R. Thomson.)
Jesus meeting His disciples after the Resurrection
T. H. Day.
Note here —
1. The reality of Christ's sufferings, death, and resurrection.
2. The proof and attestationof His love.
3. The assurance that He is not ashamedof His humiliation and sufferings on
our behalf.
4. The pledge of our resurrection.
5. The affecting circumstances ofthe history.
I. THE EVENT ITSELF was memorable. Never was suchknown in the
history of man. Jesus came back in fulfilment of His ownprophecy, as an
evidence of the acceptanceofHis atonement, as the conquerorof sin and
death.
II. THE TIME was memorable. The first day of the week, and the sun must
not go down on that day before the Sun of Righteousnessshines on the spirits
of His dejectedpeople. Thus our Lord puts peculiar honour on the day, and
authorized the observance ofit by His ownexample which has all the force of
law. But the evening is specified. Why not the morning? Because theydid not
seek Him. The approach of Christ is often at our evening time — when the
sun of hope and happiness is low and our comforters are few; when we least
expectthe aids of His providence, and are ready to say, "Is His mercy clean
gone for ever?" So in the time of His disciples'despair He appeared.
III. THE PLACE was memorable. Probably the scene of the Last Supper; to
them like Bethelto Jacob, orthe fig-tree to Nathanael. We are all affectedby
localities in which greatblessings or deliverances have been experienced.
IV. THEIR PRIVILEGES were memorable.

1. Personalrevelationof Christ.
2. Peace.
3. Spiritual power.
(T. H. Day.)
The appearance to the secondcompany
C. Stanford, D. D.
I. THE MEMBERSofthe secondcompany. It has been almost invariably
assumedfrom 1 Corinthians 15:5 that they were apostles only. But "the
twelve" is only a collective term. Just as the Romanmagistrates, calledthe
decemviri, were so called even though there might be vacancies in the body, so
this term was applied to the apostles, thoughJudas was not counted, and
Thomas was an absentee. And there is evidence to prove that the apostles did
not alone consitute the assembly. Luke speaks of"the elevengathered
together, and them that were with them"; and it is also inevitable from the
circumstances. If the brave women had come, expecting a calm retreat and a
cordial welcome, wouldit be said to them from within, "There is dangerin the
air; we have shut the door for fear of the Jews;besides, no one canjoin this
company but apostles?"If James and Joses,Simonand Judas, the brothers of
our Lord, had knockedat the door, would it have been said to them, "No
admission for any but apostles?"If Mark or Luke had whispered the
passwordat the gate, would the answerhave been, "This is a meeting of
apostles only?" Dependupon it, this company was not a row of ecclesiastical
dignitaries, eachwith a nimbus round his head, and the embroidered symbols
of his office on his shoulders; it was only a family, met at the time of a great
sorrow, and in the common family room. There was no division between
clericaland lay; no upper and lowerapartments — one for apostles, one for
ordinary disciples.
II. THE FAST-CLOSED DOORS.Mostlikely this was at the house of John,
the beloveddisciple — that to which he had conveyed Mary. And we may

assume that it was built in a style common to dwellings occupied by persons in
fair circumstances.There would be a court open to the sky; and in the four
sides of this court there would be rooms opening on to it. In this court the
company would be assembled;and as its door was fastenedby a greatwooden
key or iron bar, what did they fear? The bursting in of constables to arrest
them on the lying charge of stealing a body out of its grave? They knew that
such a charge had been lodged againstthem only that very day Did they fear
the mob? It was the way of the Jews thus to storm the house of one who was
unpopular (Acts 17:5); and they could now set no limit to the possibilities of
their wickedmadness. Perhaps they had no distinct plan of defence, and no
particular thought of saving their lives; but mainly out of half-instinctive
impulse, they barred the court gates.
III. THE GREETING OF THE MASTER. His greeting to the first company
had been, "Rejoice!" To the second, "Peace!" As says, "To the women He
proclaims joy; because they were plunged in grief. With a suitable
interchange, therefore, He gives peace to the men, on accountof their strife.
The first was a small detachment of the generalsociety, and consistedof
women only. The secondwas the generalsocietyitself, including all the men."
The women had been true, and were only consciousofgrief; the men had not
been true, and, besides their grief, were conscious ofdeep agitationand
burning shame. This message wasmeantfor our one, whole family, not for
apostles alone. Whenwe are in trouble, none of us hesitate to take the comfort
that breathes in the fourteenth and following chapters of this Gospel. While
you read Christ's language afterHis resurrection, and compare it with those
discourses, yousay what He says now is but the continuation of what He said
then. He said, "My peace I leave with you"; and now, having "made peace by
the blood of the Cross,"He comes in His own personto pay the legacy!When
we see any one wearing the badge of the Cross, yet seeming not to know the
secretof the peace that costChrist the cross to obtain, how can this be
accountedfor, unless these Christians think that the peace is only figurative;
or that they must be better Christians before they can presume to take it? We
might say to such, "You are indeed no better Christians than the men who
once coweredbehind the shut gates of a certaincourtyard in old Jerusalem.

Let eachcrying, "Godbe merciful to me a sinner," go and take this peace
from the hand of the dear Christ.
IV. THE RESURRECTION BODYOF OUR LORD.
1. It was not an ordinary body, liable to ordinary laws;still, it was a body,
perhaps, like that in which the Saviour had walkedwith Adam in Paradise,
wrestledwith Jacob, orreclined under the oak at Mamre. No stone wall could
shut it in: no iron bar could keepit out; no law of gravitation could detain it;
but it was a body.
2. It was flesh — "All flesh is not the same flesh, but there is one kind of flesh
of men, &c... for one stardiffereth from anotherstar in glory." This glory was
the glory of the celestial;visible to mortals only by the light of miracle, and by
an act of Divine prerogative. As Moses,with face of celestialflame, "put a veil
over his face," that the children of Israelmight converse with him, so did the
King of Moses veilHis glories so that the disciples might speak to Him and
live. To show them that it was a true body, He even condescendedto take food
(Luke 24:43).
3. The very body that had been crucified. "He showedthem His hands and
His feet." Thus did He establishthat factof His resurrectionon which the
entire supernaturalism of our religion is decided, and on which all the work of
the Atonement depends; while doing this He most emphatically and
pathetically calledtheir attention to the Atonement itself.
V. THE COMMISSION GIVEN TO THE DISCIPLES (vers. 21-23).
1. The symbol. Both in Hebrew and Greek the word for breath is the word for
spirit. The actof breathing here was an "outwardand visible sign" of the
Holy Spirit, now to be given for the first time; not indeed as a Divine energyin
the human heart, but as an energy working through the finished facts of the
Gospel, and as the gift of Christ crucified: not to be given for the first time
either, in the sense ofbeing given then and there; but to be given for the first
time in the dispensationwhich Christ was about formally to inaugurate. For
the Sonof Godto promise a boon is potentially the same thing as for Him to

give it. When we hear Him say that He will do a thing, our souls exclaim, "It is
done!"
2. The formula: "Whosoeversins ye remit," &c. What is the import of this?(1)
Not the same as that of the greatutterance first addressedto Peter,
afterwards to the whole body of His colleagues(Matthew 16:19;Matthew
18:18). We are summoned to think, not of the powerthat can forbid or permit
matters that have to do with the government of the Church, but of the
question, When may sin be remitted? when retained?(2)Dr. John Owensays,
"Christ here speaks ofremitting or retaining sins by declaring the doctrine of
the gospel;" and this appears to be the true sense ofthis mysterious clause.
God, by the voice of Christ, had already told the world whose sins He would
remit, and whose retain. He who believes in the Lord Jesus Christ is saved —
that is, his sins are remitted; he who refuses to believe is condemned already
— that is, his sins are retained. This arrangementof remedial grace is fixed
and irrevocable, and no sentence pronouncedby man, whateverhis office in
the Church may be, can in the slightestdegree alterit, nullify it, or add to
it.(3) This declarative mission is the mission of all disciples. It was given to all
Christians as such — to ministers and people alike, while as yet they were
undistinguished. Surely as Christ was sent by the Fatherto do what He still
continues to do for you, so surely are you sent by Him to do this. Have we
receivedthe Holy Ghost? It is only as sharers in the life of our risen Lord that
we are sent on His embassies.We must all take in, then give out, that life; tell
only what we personally and vitally know; and speak, eachaccording to the
measure of His gift. The first thing wanted in the Church is more life; after
that, and as the result of it, more work. There may be work without life.
(C. Stanford, D. D.)
Christ's appearance to His disciples
D. Thomas, D. D.
(Text, and Luke 24:36-48):—

I. HE DECLARED HIS BEING WEARY IN ORDER TO TRANQUILIZE
THEIR HEARTS. His benediction expressed —
1. The great want of human nature, "Peace."The tumult of the disciples is
typical of that of those who are at war with —
(1)Themselves.
(2)Society.
(3)The universe.
2. The great designof Christ's mission. He came to reconcile man to his
Maker, to Himself, and to the Creation — to reproduce in humanity that
supreme sympathy with God which is the essentialandunfailing security of
spiritual tranquility.
II. HE APPEALED TO THEIR REASON IN ORDER TO ALLAY THEIR
FEAR.
1. Their fear implied their belief —
(1)In disembodied spirits.
(2)In the possibility of disembodied spirits appearing to them.
(3)In disembodied spirits being unfriendly to them.
2. In Christ's appeal —
(1)He assures them that spirits may exist apart from matter, and in this state
appear to living men.
(2)He demonstrates the materiality of His resurrectionbody.
(3)He throws upon them an inquiry into the cause oftheir superstitious fear.
Inquiry into our mental phenomena will soonexpel superstition.
III. HE GAVE THEM EVIDENCE IN ORDER TO ESTABLISHTHEIR
FAITH. "While they believed not for joy"; just as we say, "the news is too
goodto be true." Observe, in relation to the evidence He presents of His
resurrection—

1. Its nature.
(1)A palpable exhibition of the reality of His body — He eats with them.
(2)A clearshowing that His resurrectionansweredthe predictions of
Scripture. "All things must be fulfilled," &c.
2. Its effect. "Then openedHe their understandings," &c.
IV. HE PROPOUNDED HIS SYSTEM IN ORDER TO INDICATE THEIR
DUTY.
1. The great doctrine of His system. "Repentance andremissionof sins."
2. Its world-wide aspect — "All nations" — not a sector class.
3. The order of propagation, "Beginning at Jerusalem."
V. HE ENDOWED THEM WITH EXTRAORDINARYPOWER IN ORDER
TO FIT THEM FOR THEIR EXTRAORDINARYWORK.
1. He performs a symbolical act.
2. He endows them with extraordinary authority.
(D. Thomas, D. D.)
The risen Jesus appearing to His disciples
C. Bradley, M. A.
I. THE TIME WHEN HE APPEARED. "The same day at evening."
1. Nottill He had appearedbefore to others. Mary Magdalene hadseenHim,
and Peterand the Emmaus two. It is painful to be thus passedover; to know
that He is lifting up the light of His countenance upon others, while we have
no glimpse of it. We do not like an earthly friend to pass us by; much less the
heavenly.

2. When they did not expect Him, surely they would have left the doors open.
And often does He surprise His people. The heart is closedin despair against
Him. But "at evening time, it is light"; when light is the last thing expected.
Does not this call upon us to cultivate a waiting, expecting spirit. We must not
think ourselves forgotten, our turn will come.
3. When they were talking togetherof Him. St. Luke tells us that "Jesus
Himself stoodin the midst of them as they spoke;not prayed. What an honour
was here put on Christian conversationand communion! And our own
experience corresponds. Whenhave our hearts been warmed in social
converse, and left refreshed, and longing to see one another again? Has it not
been when, forgetting a vexing world, we have spokentogetherof our blessed
Master?" Where two or three are gatheredtogetherin My name," &c.
II. THE SALUTATION. We may regard it as —
1. An indication of the peace that reigned within His own soul. We are most
ready to speak ofwhat our hearts are full. With distracted minds we are not
likely to speak of peace, unless it be to deplore our want of it.
2. An assurance ofHis forgiveness.
3. An intimation of our Lord's power to communicate the peace it speaks of.
Observe the action, "He showedunto them His hands and His side."
suggesting that He had made peace for them through the blood of His cross.
"See here that the chastisementof your peace has been really on Me. I shall
show this hand and this side to My Father on His throne, and claim peace for
you."
III. THE EFFECT OF THIS APPEARANCE AND SALUTATION — more
than peace, it was gladness. Here is a striking fulfilment of that promise —
"Ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy." Their joy
was connectedwith the sight of their Master. Nothing but this could comfort
Mary. She goes from the garden to the disciples, and finds them absorbed in
sorrow. She bears her testimony, but of what use is it? St. Mark says, "They
believed her not." Not one word do we read of their joy till Jesus Himself
came. "Thenwere the disciples glad." Now there is such a thing still as a sight

of this risen Saviour. S . Paul tells the Galatians who could never have beheld
His face in the flesh, that "before their eyes Jesus Christhad been evidently
setforth, crucified among them." To see Christ, then, is to understand this
gospel, to receive it of Christ and heartily believe it. Have you ever thus seen
the Lord? Till you have thus seenHim, you will never be happy men.
(C. Bradley, M. A.)
The risen Lord's greetings and gifts
A. Maclaren, D. D.
(also Matthew 28:9): —
I. THEIR STRANGE AND MAJESTIC SIMPLICITY. Think of what
tremendous experiences He had passedthrough since they saw Him last, and
of what a rush of rapture and disturbance of joy shook the minds of the
disciples, and then estimate the calm and calming powerof that matter-of-fact
and simple greeting. They bear upon their very front the mark of truth.
Would anybody have imagined the scene so? Neitherthe delicate pencil of the
greatdramatic genius nor the coarserbrush of legendcan have drawn such a
trait in characteras this, and it seems to me that the only reasonable
explanation of it is that these greetings are what He really did say. He has
come from that tremendous conflict, and He reappears, not flushed with
triumph, nor bearing any trace of effort, but surrounded as by a nimbus with
that strange tranquility which evermore enwrapped Him. So small does the
awful scene which He has passedthrough seemto this Divine-human Man,
and so utterly are the old ties and bonds unaffected by it, that when He meets
them, all He has to sayto them as His first greeting is, "Peacebe unto you!"
— the well-wornsalutation that was bandied to and fro in every marketplace
and scene where men were wont to meet. Thus He vindicates the Divine
tranquility of His nature; thus He minimizes the fact of death; thus He
reduces it to its true insignificance as a parenthesis across whichmay pass
unaffected all sweetfamiliarities and loving friendships.

II. THE UNIVERSAL DESTINATIONOF THE GREETINGS OF THE
RISEN LORD. Whatsoeverany community or individual has conceivedas its
highest ideal of blessednessand of good, that the risen Christ hath in His
hands to bestow. He takes men's ideals of blessedness, anddeepens and
purifies and refines them. The Greek notion of joy, as the thing to be most
wished for those dear to us, is but a shallow one. They had to learn, and their
philosophy, and their poetry, and their art came to corruption because they
would not learn that the corn of wheatmust be castinto the ground and die
before it could bring forth fruit. They knew little of the blessing and meaning
of sorrow, and therefore the false glitter passedaway, and the pursuit of the
ideal became gross and foul and sensuous. And, on the other hand, the Jew,
with his longing for peace, had an equally shallow and unworthy conceptionof
what that meant, and what was neededto produce it. If he had only external
concordwith men, and a competencyof outward goodwithin his reach
without too much trouble, he thought that because he "had much goods laid
up for many years" he might "take his ease, and eat, and drink, and be
merry." But Jesus Christ comes to satisfyboth aspirations by contradicting
both, and to revealto eachhow much deeper and diviner his desire was than
he dreamed it to be; and therefore how impossible it was to find the joy that
would last in the dancing fireflies of external satisfactionsorthe delights of art
and beauty; and how impossible it was to find the repose that ennobled and
was wedded to actionin anything short of union with God. The Lord Christ
comes out of the grave in which He lay for every man, and brings to each
man's door, in a dialect intelligible to the man himself, the satisfactionof the
single soul's aspirations and ideals, as wellas of the national desires.
III. THE UNFAILING EFFICACYOF THE LORD'S GREETINGS. Look at
these people to whom He spoke. Rememberwhat they were betweenthe
Friday and the Sunday morning; utterly cowedand beaten. They were on the
point of parting. The Keystone withdrawn, the stones were ready to fall apart.
From that time, when, by all reasonable logic and common sense applied to
men's motives, the Crucifixion should have crushed their dreams and
dissolvedtheir society, a preciselyopposite effectensues, and not only did the
Church continue, but the men changedtheir characters, andbecame,
somehow or other, full of these very two things which Christ wishes them,

namely, joy and peace. Now I want to know — what bridges that gulf? How
do you get the Peterof the Acts of the Apostles out of the Peter of the Gospels?
Is there any way of explaining that revolution of character, whilstyet its
broad outlines remain identical, which befell Him and all of them, exceptthe
old-fashioned one that the something which came in betweenwas the
resurrectionof Jesus Christ, and the consequentgift of joy and peace in Him,
a joy that no troubles or persecutions could shake, a peace that no conflicts
could for a moment disturb? In His right hand He carriedpeace, and in His
left joy. He gave these to them, and therefore "out of weaknessthey were
made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens,"
and when the time came, "were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they
might obtain a better resurrection." There is omnipotent efficacyin Christ's
greetings!The one instance opens up the generallaw, that His wishes are gifts,
that all His words are acts, that He speaks andit is done. Christ's wishes are
omnipotent, ours are powerless.
IV. OUR SHARE IN THIS TWOFOLD GREETING. Whenthe women clung
to His feet on that Eastermorning they had no thought of anything but "we
claspThee again, O Soul of our souls." But then, as time went on, the meaning
and blessednessand far-reaching issues ofthe Resurrectionbecame more
plain to them. And I think we cansee traces of the process in the development
of Christian teaching as presentedin the Acts of the Apostles and in the
Epistles. Now, in all three aspects — as proof of Messiahship, as the pattern
and prophesy of immortality, and as the symbol of the better life which is
accessible forus, here and now — the resurrection of Jesus Christ stands for
us even more truly than for the rapturous women who caughtHis feet, or for
the thankful men who lookedupon Him in the upper chamber as the source of
peace and of joy. For therein is setforth for us the Christ whose work is
thereby declaredto be finished and acceptable to God, and all sorrow of sin,
all guilt, all disturbance of heart and mind by reasonof evil passions and
burning memories of former iniquity, and all disturbance of our concordwith
God, are at once and for ever sweptaway. Again, the resurrection of Jesus
Christ sets Him forth before us as the pattern and the prophecy of immortal
life. This Samsonhas takenthe gates ofthe prison-house on His broad
shoulders and carried them away, and now no man is kept imprisoned

evermore in that darkness. Therefore the sorrows of death, for myself and for
my dear ones, the agitationwhich it causes, andall the darkness into which we
shrink from passing, are sweptawaywhen He comes forth from the grave,
serene, radiant, and victorious, to die no more, but to dispense amongstus His
peace and His joy. And, again, the risen Christ is the source of a new life
drawn from Him and receivedinto my heart by faith in His sacrifice and
resurrectionand glory. And if I have, deep-seatedin my soul, though it may
be in imperfect maturity, that life that is hid with Christ in God, an inward
fountain of gladness, far beyond the effervescent, and therefore soonfiat,
waters of Greek or earthly joy, is mine; and in my inmost being dwells a depth
of calm peace which no outward disturbance cantouch any more than the
winds that rave along the surface of the oceanaffectits unmoved and
unsounded abysses.
(A. Maclaren, D. D.)
Jesus stoodin the midst.
Jesus in our midst
C. H. Spurgeon.
: —
I. THERE IS A PECULIAR MANNER IN OUR LORD'S COMING TO HIS
DISCIPLES.
1. He came gladly: for He came so soonand so often: at leastfour times in one
day. His delights were ever with the sons of men. He is glad to come and sup
with us that we may sup with Him.
2. He came to those who were quite unworthy of so greata privilege.
3. He came to the full assembly, after He had been seenby the few.
4. He came when they were met togetherquietly, secludedfrom the world and
its cares. It is a good thing for the saints to be shut in, and the world shut out.

You must not expectJesus to show Himself to you if your heart is at home, or
at the workshop, or seeking aftervanity.
5. He came when they were all thinking and talking about Him.
6. Some one will say, He will not come here, for there are many barriers, and
we are not in a condition to receive Him. But were there no difficulties then?
The doors were shut, and the disciples were in fear. Whateverdoors there
may be betweenmy Lord and my soul, He could pass through them or open
them to get at my heart when it longs after Him. You have a fear upon you
which you cannot shake off. So had the disciples, or they would not have
closedthe doors. But Jesus comes thoughsins encompass us, and doubts and
fears and cares hang thick about our path. He comes as the dew which waiteth
not for man.
II. OUR SAVIOUR HAD A PECULIAR MANNER WHEN HE WAS COME.
1. He stood, He did not flash across the room like a meteor, but remained in
one position as though He meant to tarry. He stoodin the midst. There are
many preachers, but not one of them is in the midst of the family circle. The
Lord alone is there, the centre of all hearts. Others are present, and they shine
with differing lights, but He is the sun, the centre and ruler of the system of
His Church.
2. He speaks, andHis word is, "Peacebe unto you."
3. He showedto His disciples, not a new thought, a philosophic discovery, a
deep doctrine, a profound mystery, or indeed anything but Himself. The most
conspicuous thing Be showedin Himself was His wounds, and it He be present
here, the chief object of faith's vision will be Himself; and the most
conspicuous point in Himself will be the ensigns of His passion.
4. In so doing our Lord opens up the Scriptures. Christ's presence is always
known by His people by the value which they are led to attach to the
Scripture.
5. They then forgetall their fears. As He had given them peace with God, so
now He puts aside the fear of man.

III. THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST WITH HIS DISCIPLES EXCITED
VARIOUS EMOTIONS.
1. The disciples —(1) Were terrified, for they thought Him a Spirit. It is a sign
of man's depravity that a spirit should alarm him. If we were more spiritual
we should be glad to commune with them.(2) When this had a little ceased
Jesus saidto them, "Why are ye troubled? and why do thoughts arise in your
hearts?" I suppose they beganto think of their ill conduct to their Master, and
consciencemade them tremble.(3) We are told by Mark that He also
upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart.(4) Meanwhile they
doubted whether it could be He, and when they were convincedthey greatly
rejoiced, and almost at the same time the very vividness of their joy blinded
them into another doubt. Like a pendulum, they swung from joy to unbelief.
2. But come to ourselves. Suppose that our Lord were here. We should be
filled with —(1)The profoundest awe. Should we not, like John in Patmos, fall
at His feet as dead? At any rate, we would devoutly bow the knee before Him,
and reverently adore.(2)Overflowing love I How would our hearts melt while
He spake!Brethren, He is here! Let us give that loving adorationto Him even
now.(3)Serene joy.(4) Deepcontribution.
IV. HE LEFT CERTAIN PERMANENTGIFTS, whichalso canbe realized
by His spiritual presence.
1. The realization of His person.
2. A commission.
3. The Holy Ghostwhich He breathed upon them.
(C. H. Spurgeon.)
Christ among His people
T. Whitelaw, D. D.
From this we learn —

1. That the primitive disciples were in the habit of meeting for mutual comfort
and edification, which says to us, "Forsakenot the assembling of yourselves
together," &c.
2. That the time of their religious gatherings was the first day of the week,
which supplies authority for our observance ofthe Lord's-day as the
Christian Sabbath.
3. That when so assembledthey were always visited by Christ; which shows
that He keeps His promise — "Where two or three," &c.
4. That where Christ presents Himself, He invariably does four things.
I. HE BRINGS A BENEDICTION.One of the lastthings He promised is the
first which He bestows — "peace."Observe this is —
1. The great blessing of the covenant, including every kind of peace the human
heart can want — peace with God, conscience, man.
2. A much-needed blessing, as urgently needed now as then; because of guilt
and danger.
3. A purchased blessing;securedby the shedding of Christ's blood.
4. An efficacious blessing. It was no mere wish, pleasantto hear, not vague or
idle in significance, but an actualcommunication of the thing desired.
II. HE GIVES A REVELATION. "He showedthem," &c. This revelation was
—
1. Divine.(1) In its origin "He," and it is still Christ Himself who bestows upon
His people the "spirit of wisdomand revelation in the knowledge ofHim."(2)
In its character. WhatHe showedwas Himself, than which He has nothing
higher to impart. Christ crucified and risen is the highest revelation that can
be given on the subjectof God, man, truth, duty, salvation, eternal life.
2. Sufficient.(1) Then. The assembledapostles required no more, nor Thomas
on the following Lord's-day.(2) Now. It contains all that a sinful man wants to
justify his reasonin reposing faith in Christ.

3. Cheering. "Thenwere the disciples glad." And so joy and peace to-day are
the invariable results of a believing apprehension of the Saviour (Romans
15:13;1 Peter 1:8).
III. HE ASSIGNS A COMMISSION. "As My Father," &c. This is —
1. Authoritative in its source. It emanates from Him to whom all powerin
heaven and earth has been given by the Father, and to whom by our saintship
we owe allegiance. FromHim, therefore, who has a right to command, and
who cannot be disobeyedwithout incurring heinous guilt.
2. Imitative in its character, fashionedafterthe pattern of Christ's, by the
same authority, in the same manner, and for a similar end.
3. Alternative in its issues, being fraught with either blessing or cursing.
"Whosoeversins," &c.
IV. HE SUPPLIES A QUALIFICATION. "Receiveye the Holy Ghost." A
qualification —
1. Much needed. "Notby might nor by power."
2. Perfectlysufficient. Not that Christ's people are to neglectsubsidiary helps,
such as learning, &c.;only that with the Spirit they will not be left destitute of
anything requisite for their work.
3. Very real.
(T. Whitelaw, D. D.)
Peace be unto you.
Salutations
DeanStanley.
How curiously full of meaning are the different forms of salutation which
have been in vogue in different countries and ages!The joyous Greek usedto
say, χᾶριε! — i.e., rejoice, take a cheerful view of what is before you. The

sturdy Romanused to say, Ave! Salve!Vale! Be alive, healthy, strong to
surmount all enemies and difficulties; override and trample them down. The
serious German, Saxon race used to say, Farewell! — fare on, travel on as best
you canalong this uncertain mysterious road, walk well, discreetly, and then,
whateverbetide, it shall be well with you. The Christian of modern times, of
whateverrace, says, Good-day!Goodevening! Godbless you! Adieu! Good-
bye! &c. God and God's goodness be with you. We commend you to a better
guidance than ours. Go on towards God, and may God and all goodgo on
with you. But there is still another form, still universal in the East, Peacebe
with you! — i.e., peace to the traveller amidst the ceaselesswars and feuds of
the desert. Peacefrom robbers by night, from the enemies'snares, from
quarrels which embitter life if they do not destroy it, from the alarms which
destroy comfort if they do not destroylife. It was this in which our Lord chose
to express His best wishes for His disciples.
(DeanStanley.)
Christ's salutation
J. Beaumont
1. The day mentioned is the day in commemorationof which every Sabbath
now is kept. There is no difference betweenthe Jewishand the Christian
Sabbath, exceptthe difference there is in the landscape when the sun is on it
and when the sun is off it.
2. We progress in the actings of faith very slowly. Were faith in lively exercise
you would see in the midst of this house a glory brighter than ten thousand
thousand "mountains of light," with the beams of the meridian sun falling on
them. You would see in the midst Jesus;for "where two or three," &c.
I. THE SALUTATION — "Peace!" Of all the words that fall on man's ear,
none is more delectable.
1. At the sound, perhaps —(1) We think of our infancy, ere the passions of the
heart uncoiled themselves, or the cares and turmoil of life were

encountered.(2)Or of some happy individual hose mind is gracedwith all
scholarship, charmed with all sensibility, cultivated and wrought up to the
mastery of the passions, andthe educationof the faculties, whose mind seems
like a piece of music in tune.(3) Or of some happy family, in which there is
such a consentaneousnessofthinking and harmoniousness of feeling, such a
rippling of kindliness, such a flowing of tenderness that though there are
severalindividuals in the family, it really seems as though they were but one
heart beating in the house.(4)Or of some happy land over which the waves of
anarchy never rolled, in which the plaints of discord were never heard; where
peace and contentment universally prevail; where "every man sits under his
own vine and his own fig-tree, having none to make him afraid."(5) Or of a
scene inclusive of and transcending all this, even of the garden of Eden itself.
2. But Christ used it in a more sacredsense than any of these. It signifies
peace aftera war, calm after a storm, tranquility after confusion. In nature,
before the storm comes there is generallya very emphatic calm. When the sea
is going to be searchedthrough and through, there comes on the deep hush.
And now big come the rain drops, now loud comes the wind, now fierce drives
the tempest, and before it everything that is rotten gives waydirectly. Such a
time will overtake us all. The peace ofthe worldling drifts awayat once. If the
worldling admit that he had any, it is generally found to consistin some
reflectionto this effect, that on the whole the world has gone tolerably
smoothly with him, and he hopes it will continue to do so. But that is not a
peace that will live in the storm. Bat the peace whichChrist gives is profound
and abiding. When the storm comes downon the water, we, perhaps, suppose
that the storm has ploughed the oceanup to its depths. Not so!Down a few
yards at most is the body of waterlying in a state of perfect repose, as when
God first gatheredthe waters into the sea. Such is the peace whichChrist
gives. The storm does not destroy it. It is deep, abiding peace.
3. Notindeed that "peace"canbe found in outward things. Take awayfrom
the believerin Christ that to which worldly men may look for satisfaction,
wealth, station, power, friends, health, and you have not come down to where
his peace lies. Certainly, if these outward things could ever have yielded peace,
they would have yielded it to Solomon. With astonishing energy and
perseverance he workedthe problem through; and when he had exhaustedhis

experiments, he summed up the result — "Vanity of vanities; all is vanity!"
And yet very few men are willing to take that lessonfrom Solomon.
II. THE ACT WITH WHICH THE SAVIOUR ACCOMPANIED HIS
SALUTATION. He did something. Actions are more powerful than words.
1. He showedthem His hands as much as to say, If these hands had never have
been pierced, these lips would not have pronounced, "Peacebe unto you." The
chastisementof your peace has been laid on Me; "by My stripes ye are
healed." He showedHis side, so that we might say, "Rock ofAges, cleft for
me, Let me hide myself in Thee!"
2. The showing of the hands and the side of Christ is the only symbolical
movement that now remains. All types which intimated beforehand the glories
of our redemption by the death of Christ are gone but this. So now, the whole
of your behaviour in relation to Christ just resolves itselfinto this — touching
the hands and side of Christ. Believing in Christ and touching Him are the
same thing.
3. Then observe the point of difference there is between the actions of men and
this actionof our Lord in showing His hands and His side. You can never
depend on the actionof man — he is mutable. But Christ "is the same
yesterday, to-day, and for ever." He is always showing His hands and His feet
in heaven to signify that He is always doing so on earth to faith. Cannot you
touch His hands and His side? "Oh!" you say, "it takes sucha greateffort."
Cannot you make a greateffort? I know I can. Let your temporal affairs all
get into some great extremity, and I know what you are capable of. Suppose
you were drowning — some one throws a rope to you — what kind of
movement do you make? All I want from you in relation to Christ is a similar
effort on the part of the mind which the body takes towards the rope.
Conclusion:To those who have this peace, I must speak to them in the
language —
1. Of congratulation.
2. Of exhortation; for Christ hath said, "As my Father hath sent Me, so send I
you." You are chartered for usefulness. Is there ignorance in the world —

remove it. Is there delusion — dissolve it. Is there infidelity — go and supply
the elements of faith. Is there immorality — go and check it. Is there misery
— wipe its tears, terminate its sighs.
(J. Beaumont, M.D.)
The Tears ofChrist
Canon Liddon.
: —
I. THIS GREETING WAS CUSTOMARYAMONG EASTERN NATIONS.
1. It was, with slight variations, of high antiquity, and we meet with it all
through the Bible.
2. In our Lord's-day it had become as much part of the socialhabits of the
people as "Good-morning" is among ourselves. In earlierdays, no doubt, men
had invoked peace from heaven with the utmost seriousness;but by this time
it had become a mere conventionalphrase; and yet our Lord did not scruple
to use it. But it would be a greatmistake to infer that He used it
conventionally. A conscientious manwill mean what he says, evenwhen he
uses words prescribed by custom or etiquette. And among greatteachers the
majority have been less forward to employ new language than to breathe a
new meaning into old words. In Christ this latter method is especially
observable. He picks up, as it were from the roadside, the common words
which fall from men as they saunter unthinkingly through life; and He
restores to them their original power and sanctity. His work was to bring
reality in all its shapes into human life. Once before, in the supper-room, He
rescuedthe blessing of peace from unmeaning formalism. "Notas the world
giveth give I unto you."
3. The word "peace"does not, in the original, mean only or chiefly rest. The
Hebrew root-word means whole, entire; a thing as it should be according to its
origin or capacity. Of this state of well-being, freedom from disturbance is
either a condition or a result. Yet here, as so often else, the incidental meaning

has displacedthe original. But our Lord had His eye no doubt, at least
partially, on its originalsense. He meant not merely tranquility but that which
leads to it — wellbeing in its largestsense as affecting the highestinterests of a
being like man.
II. WHAT WOULD HAVE BEEN THE SENSE SUGGESTEDBY THE
BLESSING TO THOSE WHO HEARD IT.
1. Notpeace with the Jews without! That could not be (Luke 12:51). His
followers indeed were so much as lieth in them to live peaceablywith all men.
But this region of possible intercourse could only extend where the truths of
faith were not imperilled. Peace withthe Jews atthat time, like peace with the
non-Christian world in later ages, was only to be had by a surrender of the
honour and cause ofChrist.
2. Norpeace among yourselves!Doubtless this is of priceless value, as
involving the best spiritual blessings, and as an evidence to the world of the
truth of our Lord's religion (John 13:35). But this peace was not then
especiallyneeded. The instinct of self-preservationdrew and kept them
together. The sadday of divisions among Christians was yet to come.
3. But peace in their individual souls — a sense ofprotection which conquers
or ignores fear. There they were for fear of the Jews. Theyknew what
measure had been dealt to their Master. What could they — His disciples —
expect? Then He came and said, "Peace."And from His lips the blessing of
peace meant safetyfrom every adversary. This is a primary effectof Christ's
blessing. It distracts attention from things without. It does not destroy them.
Sickness, death, the loss of friends, opposition, the bad tempers, prejudices,
follies of those around us, &c., remain as before. But they no longerabsorb
attention. The eye of the soul is fixed on the Divine and the eternal.
III. FREEDOM FROMANXIETY IS NOT THE ONLY OR THE CHIEF
PART OF PEACE. Its root is deeper. The soul must be resting on its true
object; or the tumult within will continue in thought, affection, will,
conscience.

1. The Crucifixion had thrown the disciples into the greatestmental
perplexity. They had trusted that it had been He that should have redeemed
Israel. Upon this state of mind the Crucifixion burst like a thunderbolt. True,
prophecy and He Himself had foretold it. But the human mind has a strange
powerof closing its earto the unwelcome when it is half-comprehended.
Christ's words then describe the intellectual effectof His mere appearance.
The sight of Jesus risenrestoredorder to the thoughts of the disciples. The
Crucifixion was no longer the ruin of their faith if it was followedby the
Resurrection. The prophecies were consistentafterall. This is still the work of
Jesus in the world; when He is recognizedby souls He blesses them with
intellectual peace. Without Him the belief in a Holy God is embarrassedby
the gravestperplexities. All the greathaunting questions about life and
destiny are unanswered, to any real purpose, until Jesus appears. It is indeed
sometimes mistakenlysupposed that a Christian knows only the peace of
mental stagnation;and that in order to be what is oddly calleda thinker, a
man must needs be a sceptic. It is of course true that a Christian is not for
ever re-opening questions which he believes to have been settled on the
authority of God Himself. But to believe is not to condemn thought to
inertness and stagnation;a man does not do less work at mathematics because
he starts with holding the axioms to be beyond discussion. On the contrary, a
fixed creed, like that of the Christian, imparts to life and nature such varied
interest, that, as experience shows, it fertilizes thought. The human
intelligence has, on the whole, been cultivated most largelyamong the
Christian nations.
2. The disciples had, for the moment, by the death of Jesus, lostthe object of
their affections. How much they already loved our Lord they did not know
until He was removed. Now they felt the weary, restless void of an aching
heart. When, then, Jesus appearedHe brought peace to their hearts (Song of
Solomon3:4). Mentalsatisfactiondoes not alone bring peace, if the heart
remains unsatisfied. And that which satisfies the heart is beauty; that
uncreated and eternal beauty of which all earthly beauty is but the shadow.
Sooneror later trouble and death make havoc of temporal peace. Only one
Being satisfies the affections in such sort, that the soul's peace is insured
beyond risk of forfeiture (Isaiah 26:3).

3. Our Lord's crucifixion had disturbed all the plans for actionand life which
had been formed by the apostles.Theyhad been looking forward to the
establishment of a new kingdom, and to their own places in and work for it.
These visions now seemedto have vanished. The apostles were like men who
had just failed in business — all is despair. And the will, the energetic and
sovereignfaculty of the soul, suddenly setfree from the tension of continuous
effort, falls back upon itself, and becomes within the soul a principle of
disturbance. No men know less of inward peace than the unoccupied. A
leading secretofpeace is work. Our Lord then restoredthat sort of peace
which comes with occupationpursued under a sense ofduty. Many a working
man, who does not know how to get into the day what he has to do, supposes
that the condition of idle people is to be envied. No mistake canwell be
greater. Work guarantees the peace of the soul; because the soul must be
active in some way, and work secures healthy action.
4. But the peace which man needs most especially, and which our Lord gives
most abundantly, is that of the conscience.Did the apostles as yet understand
in detail how their Masterwould reconcile them to God? It is difficult to say.
They knew that this reconciliationwas, in some way, to result from His
mission and life. But if the violence of His enemies had indeed prevailed, this
was a mere matter of phrase and conjecture;His life was essentialto the
completion of His work. They knew not whether they were saved after all.
They had lost that peace which comes from a sense ofunion with God. When,
then, our Lord appeared He restoredpeace, because He restoredthe sense,
howeverindefinite as yet, of pardon for past sin, and of reconciliationwith
God. Without this there canbe no true peace for the soul of man. Perhaps no
Christian, since the days of the apostles,has illustrated the peace which Jesus
gives so fully as . Readthat pathetic story of his early life in his Confessions.
What a restless life was his before his conversionI The intellect tossedabout
on the waves of speculation, without solid hold on any one reassuring truth.
The heart distracted betweenthe ideals presented by false philosophies, and
the ideals suggestedby sensuality. The will unable to fasten on any serious
duty; the victim of a feverish unsettlement, or of a capricious languor. The
conscienceprofoundly stirred by the terrible conviction that the Son of Peace
was not there, and alternating betweenthe phase of insensibility and the phase

of agony. Then came his conversion, and with it what a change!Peace in his
understanding, which now surveys with a majestic tranquility, the vast realms
of revealedtruth; more penetratingly, more comprehensively than any
Christian since St. Paul. Peace in his heart, which now turns its undistracted
and enraptured gaze upon the Eternal Beauty, who, as he says, is always
ancient yet always young. Peace in his will, for which the problem of duty has
been simplified; he knows what he has to do, and he does it with all his might.
Peace in his conscience. There is no longer any sense ofan inward feud with
the law of absolute holiness. All has been pardoned through the blood of
Jesus;all is possible through His grace.
(Canon Liddon.)
Christ's peace the antidote for the world's distractions
DeanStanley.
You may have stoodby the side of one of those brawling mountain streams
which descendfrom our southern and westerncoasts into the sea. Sucha
stream rushes with its noisy waters downits narrow channel, every pebble
rattles in the torrent, every ripple makes a murmur of its own. Suddenly the
sound ceases, a deep stillness fills the banks from side to side. Why? It is the
broad sweepof the advancing tide of the oceanthat has checkedthe stream
and occupiedthe whole space ofits narrow channelwith its own strong, silent,
overwhelming waters. Evenso it is with all the little cares, and difficulties, and
distractions that make up the noise and clatter of the stream of our daily life.
They go on increasing and increasing;they engross our whole attention till
they are suddenly met and absorbed by some thought or object greaterthan
themselves, advancing from a wider, deeper, stronger sphere. From a
thousand heights the streams of human life are for ever rushing down; but
there is another stream advancing into eachof those channels, a tide from that
wider and trackless ocean, to which they are all tending; and deep indeed is
the peace whichthose tides may bring with them wherevertheir force extends.
The very measure of the greatnessofthe idea of God and of the things of God
is the depth of the peace whichthat idea is able to impart.

(DeanStanley.)
STUDYLIGHT RESOURCES
Adam Clarke Commentary
The doors were shut - for fear of the Jews - We do not find that the Jews
designedto molest the disciples:that word of authority which Christ spoke,
John 18:8, Let these go away - had prevented the Jews from offering them any
injury; but, as they had proceededso far as to put Christ to death, the faith of
the disciples not being very strong, they were led to think that they should be
the next victims if found. Some think, therefore, that they had the doors not
only shut, but barricadoed: nevertheless Jesuscame in, the doors being shut,
i.e. while they continued shut. But how? By his almighty power: and farther
we know not. Yet it is quite possible that no miraculous influence is here
intended. The doors might be shut for fear of the Jews;and Jesus might open
them, and enter in the ordinary way. Where there is no need for a miracle, a
miracle is never wrought. See on John 20:30; (note).
The evangelisthas omitted the appearing of our Lord to the other women who
came from the tomb, Matthew 28:9, and that to the two disciples who were
going to Emmaus, Luke 24:13, etc., which all happened in the course of this
same day.
Peace be unto you - His usual salutation and benediction. May every blessing
of heaven and earth which you need be granted unto you!
Albert Barnes'Notes onthe Whole Bible
The same day at evening - On the first day of the week, the day of the
resurrectionof Christ.

When the doors were shut - This does not mean that the doors were fastened,
though that might have been the case,but only that they were closed. Jesus
had been takenfrom them, and it was natural that they should apprehend
that the Jews would next attempt to wreak their vengeance onhis followers.
Hence, they met in the evening, and with closeddoors, lestthe Jews should
bring againstthem the same charge of sedition that they had againstthe Lord
Jesus. It is not certainly said what was the object of their assembling, but it is
not unreasonable to suppose that it was to talk over the events which had just
occurred, to deliberate about their condition, and to engage in acts of worship.
Their minds were doubtless much agitated. They had seentheir Mastertaken
awayand put to death; but a part of their number also had affirmed that they
had seenhim alive. In this state of things they naturally came togetherin a
time and place of safety. It was not uncommon for the early Christians to hold
their meetings for worship in the night. In times of persecutionthey were
forbidden to assemble during the day, and hence, they were compelled to meet
in the night. Pliny the younger, writing to Trajan, the Roman emperor, and
giving an accountof Christians, says that “they were accustomedto meet
togetheron a stated day before it was light, and sing among themselves
alternately a hymn to Christ as God.” True Christians will love to meet
togetherfor worship. Nothing will prevent this; and one of the evidences of
piety is a desire to assemble to hear the Word of God, and to offer to him
prayer and praise. It is worthy of remark that this is the first assemblythat
was convenedfor worship on the Lord‘s Day, and in that assemblyJesus was
present. Since that time, the day has been observedin the church as the
Christian Sabbath, particularly to commemorate the resurrectionof Christ.
Came Jesus … - There is no evidence that he came into their assemblyin any
miraculous manner. For anything that appears to the contrary, Jesus entered
in the usual way and manner, though his sudden appearance alarmedthem.
Peace be unto you - The sudden manner of his appearance, and the fact that
most of them had not before seenhim since his resurrection, tended to alarm
them. Hence, he addressedthem in the usual form of salutation to allay their
fears, and to assure them that it was their own Saviour and Friend.

Coffman's Commentaries on the Bible
When therefore it was evening, on that day, the first day of the week, and
when the doors were shut where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus
came and stoodin the midst, and saith unto them, Peacebe unto you.
The first day of the week ... This was already pinpointed as the time of these
events (John 20:1), and therefore the repetition of this factis emphatic. Chief
among the days of the week is Sunday, not Saturday; and this profound
change beganthe day our Lord rose from the dead and met with his disciples.
Such New TestamentpassagesatMatthew 28:1; Mark 16:2; Luke 24:1,26;
Acts 20:7; 1 Corinthians 16:2; and Revelation1:10 are the Scriptural basis for
observing Sunday, the first day of the week, as the correctday for Christian
assemblies, contributions, communion, and all other acts of corporate
Christian worship.
When therefore it was evening ... indicates that the old Jewishmethod of
reckoning days is over with. There canbe little doubt that this appearance
behind closeddoors took place after sundown. As Westcottnoted:
The hour was evidently late, about 8:00 p.m. Time must be allowedfor the
return of the disciples from Emmaus, who were not likely to leave Jerusalem
until after the evening prayer (Acts 3:1).[8]
Despite the lateness of the hour, it was still the first day of the week;and John,
writing so long after the events, did not pause to explain a change which had
been so long in effect.
This was the third, fourth, or even the fifth appearance ofJesus on this day.
He had already appearedto Mary Magdalene (John10:16), to a group of
women (Matthew 28:9), to those on Emmaus road (Luke 24:31), and
especiallyto Simon Peter(Luke 24:34). The apostles hadgathered together,
perhaps in that same upper room where they had met before. Luke tells of the

disciples returning from Emmaus with such excitement and finding the
apostles togetherin the scene before us.
Doors were shut ... for fearof the Jews ... Their fears were natural. They had
seentheir enemies in action and knew that no mercy, restraint, caution, or
even honesty could be counted upon to temper the hatred of the Sadducees
and Pharisees ifthey decided to move againstthem as they had moved against
the Lord.
It is not known if the doors were locked, oronly shut, that question being
absolutely immaterial; because the point of the statement is that Christ
appearedwithout the necessityofthe doors'being opened. As Westcottsaid,
"The clause (when the doors were shut) - can only have been added to mark
the miraculousness ofour Lord's appearance."[9]
In this connection, Luke records, concerning the appearance ofJesus onthe
Emmaus road, that "Theyknew him, and he vanished out of their sight"
(Luke 24:31). The Lord's physical body, actualas it was, was notsubject to
ordinary mortal limitations. It is bestnot to bother with all the scholarly
dissertations on the nature of Jesus'physical body after his resurrection. The
apostles offeredno explanations but only recordedthe facts as they occurred.
And what is the greatfact here? It is that of Jesus'sudden dramatic
appearance before the apostles and the two returning from Emmaus (who had
already seenthe Lord). This appearance provided positive and infallible
evidence of the resurrection;the identification of Jesus was complete and
undeniable; he was the one and the same person they had seencrucified and
buried three days previously. This is the factthat crushed the head of Satan,
setthe apostles onfire with holy zeal, and sent them shouting down the ages,
"He is risen! He is risen!"
Peace be unto you ... These were the last words Jesus had spoken, perhaps in
that very room, when he went forth to endure the agony, arraignment, trials,
mockery, and crucifixion. His greeting by the same words in this new context
was a shout of victory, a declarationof confidence, and an outpouring of
blessing upon the disciples. How welcome were those words!The far from
perfect conduct of the group during the previous terrible days had probably

left them filled with feelings of guilt and fear; but these glorious words
dispelled the gloom.
[8] B. F. Westcott, The Gospelaccording to St. John (Grand Rapids,
Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1971), p. 294.
[9] Ibid.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible
Then the same day at evening,.... The same day Christ rose from the dead, and
appearedto Mary; at the evening of that day, after he had been with the two
disciples to Emmaus, about eight miles from Jerusalem, and they had
returned againto the rest; and after there had been such a bustle all day in
Jerusalem, about the body of Jesus;the soldiers that watchedthe sepulchre,
giving out, by the direction of the elders, that the disciples of Christ had stolen
awaythe body, while they slept:
being the first day of the week;as is said in John 20:1 and here repeated, to
prevent any mistake;and that it might be clearwhat day it was the disciples
were assembledtogether, and Christ appearedto them:
when the doors were shut; the doors of the house where they were, which it is
plain was in Jerusalem, Luke 24:33 but whether it was the house where Christ
and his disciples ate the passovertogether, or whether it was John's home or
house, to which he took the mother of Christ, since he and Peter, and the rest,
seemto be afterwards togetherin one place, is not certain: however, the doors
were shut; which is not merely expressive of the time of night, when this was
usually done; but signifies that they were really lockedand bolted, and
barred, for which a reasonis given as follows:
where the disciples were assembledfor fear of the Jews;after their scattering
abroad upon the taking of Christ, and after his crucifixion was over; and
especiallyafterthe report of his body being took away, they gathered
together, and made fastthe doors of the place, lest the Jews should come in
upon them, and surprise them; for they might fear, that since they had took

awaytheir master's life, theirs must go next; and especiallysince it was
rumoured abroadthat they had stole awayhis body, they might be under the
greaterfear, that searchwould be made after them, and they be apprehended
and brought into trouble on that account:
came Jesus and stoodin the midst of them; on a sudden, at once, and when
they had no thought or fear of anyone's coming upon them, without some
previous notice; but he being the Almighty God, did, by his omnipotent
power, cause the bars and bolts, and doors, in the most secretand unobserved
manner, to give wayto him, and let him in at once among them: when as a
presage and pledge of the accomplishmentof his promise to be with, and in
the midst of his, when met together, either in private or public, he stoodand
presentedhimself in the midst of them: and to let them know at once he was
no enemy,
he saith unto them, peace be unto you: ‫םולש‬ ‫,םכל‬ "peace be unto you", is an
usual form of salutationamong the Jews;see Genesis43:23 expressive ofall
prosperity in soul and body, inward and outward, spiritual and temporal; and
here may have a specialregard to that peace he said he gave unto them, and
left with them, upon his departure from them; and which he had obtained by
the blood of his cross, andnow preachedunto them.
Geneva Study Bible
5 Then the same day at evening, being the first [day] of the week, whenthe f
doors were shut where the disciples were assembledfor fearof the Jews, came
Jesus and stoodin the midst, and saith unto them, Peace[be] unto you.
(5) Christ, in that he presents himself before his disciples suddenly through his
divine power, when the gates were shut, fully assures them both of his
resurrection, and also of their apostleship, inspiring them with the Holy Spirit
who is the director of the ministry of the Gospel.

(f) Either the doors openedto him of their own accord, orthe very walls
themselves were a passageto him.
Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
John 20:19-23. Jesusappears to the assembleddisciples.
The same day at evening, the first day of the week, the doors being shut where
the disciples were assembledfor fear of the Jews, came Jesus — plainly not by
the ordinary way of entrance.
and saith unto them Peace be unto you — not the mere wish that even His
own exalted peace might be theirs (John 14:27), but conveying it into their
hearts, even as He “openedtheir understandings to understand the
scriptures” (Luke 24:45).
People's New Testament
Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week. John
particularly marks the time of this important event. It is the third or fourth
appearance ofthe Saviorupon this memorable day, and the first one to the
apostolic body. By a comparison with Mark 16:14-16 and Luke 24:36, we
learn that at the moment of his appearance theywere discussing the story of
the resurrectionof which many refusedto be convinced, so incredulous were
they.
Robertson's WordPictures in the New Testament
When therefore it was evening on that day (ουσης ουν οπσιας τηι ημεραι
εκεινει — ousēs oun opsias tēi hēmerāi ekeinei). Genitive absolute with οπσια
— opsia (οπσιος — opsios late), old word with ωρα — hōra (hour) understood

and here for the time from six to nine (John 6:16) and the locative case oftime
with ημεραι — hēmerāi (day). John often uses this note of time (John 1:39;
John 5:9; John 11:53;John 14:20;John 16:23, John 16:26). The addition of
τηι μιαι σαββατων— tēi miāi sabbatōn(see John 20:1 for this use of μιαι —
miāi like πρωτηι — prōtēi) proves that John is using Roman time, not Jewish,
for here evening follows day insteadof preceding it.
When the doors were shut (των τυρων κεκλεισμενων — tōn thurōn
kekleismenōn). Genitive absolute againwith perfect passive participle of
κλειω — kleiō shut to keepthe Jews out. News of the empty tomb had already
spread (Matthew 28:11). See John 7:13 for the phrase “forfear of the Jews”;
cf. John 12:42.
Stoodin the midst (εστη εις το μεσον — estē eis to meson). Secondaorist
(ingressive)active (intransitive) of ιστημι — histēmi “steppedinto the midst.”
Peace be unto you (Ειρηνη υμιν — Eirēnē humin). The usual oriental
salutation as in John 20:21, John 20:26; Luke 24:36, here with probable
reference to John 14:27 (Christ‘s legacyof peace).
Wesley's ExplanatoryNotes
Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, whenthe doors
were shut where the disciples were assembledfor fear of the Jews, came Jesus
and stoodin the midst, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you.
Mark 16:14; Luke 24:36.
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