The Gospel of John

Appearances To The Disciples

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Conversations, Panels and Sermons

Lesson: 70- 72

Genre:

Track: 068

Dictation Name: RR197AL70

Location/Venue:

Year:

Let us worship God. This is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will He heareth us. Having these promises let us draw near to the throne of grace with true hearts in full assurance of faith. My voice shalt Thou hear in the morning oh Lord, in the morning will I direct my prayer unto Thee and will look up. Let us pray.

Oh Lord our God we direct our prayer unto Thee that things that are impossible with us are possible with Thee and therefore we look unto Thee for Thy omnipotent and absolute possibilities. Thou art able Lord to save this fallen world, Thou art able oh Lord to change the hearts of men whom we cannot change nor touch. Thou art able oh Lord to make all things new when all things are in process of decay. We thank Thee our Father that this is Thine holy purpose and Thou art He who dost make all things new, that Thy will shall be done on earth even as it is in heaven. How great Thou art oh Lord, we praise Thee and we thank Thee, In Christ’s name, Amen.

Our scripture is John 20:19-31. Our subject: Appearances To The Disciples. John 20:19-31.

“Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you.

20 And when he had so said, he shewed unto them his hands and his side. Then were the disciples glad, when they saw the Lord.

21 Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you.

22 And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost:

23 Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained.

24 But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came.

25 The other disciples therefore said unto him, We have seen the Lord. But he said unto them, Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe.

26 And after eight days again his disciples were within, and Thomas with them: then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace be unto you.

27 Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing.

28 And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God.

29 Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.

30 And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book:

31 But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.”

In verse nineteen we are told that on the day of the resurrection in the evening the disciples were fearfully in a locked room together, all except Judas, now dead, and Thomas. They were afraid of the religious leaders, they had heard from Peter and John of Christ’s apparent resurrection but they were uncertain of its meaning. Suddenly in this locked room Jesus stood in their midst and sayeth unto them ‘peace be unto you’. They were afraid, they thought that He was a ghost. But Jesus at once showed them His hands and His side, the marks of His crucifixion and the soldier’s spear thrust into His side. Then were the disciples glad when they saw the Lord, they knew then it was not a ghost, it was indeed He risen from the dead. By showing the disciples His very physical wounds our Lord convinced them that it was indeed He. His appearance in the locked room had heightened their belief that He was only a spirit but now His uncovering of His nail pierced hands and His spear pierced side convinced them. This was Jesus in the flesh and they were glad. Then Jesus said again peace be unto you and added:

“…as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you.”

Morgan called attention to the difference in the two words translated as sent and send. The Father’s sending of the Son is apostolo and we get our word apostle from that. It means delegated authority. The Son’s sending of His disciples ‘tempo’ which is not delegated authority but a dispatch under authority, in other words you go out under authority but it does not mean you carry the authority of the sender.

This is a very, very important point. It means that the church has no inherent authority, it is sent out with authority but God does not say the authority of Jesus Christ is yours. You are not Christ. Christ who sends out His messengers and commissions His church surrenders no authority to them. So the words here are very important. This is a very important point to remember because we have here a key fact that has led to great confusion. The church’s authority is ministerial, it is sent out with ministerial authority, when you are sent out with ministerial authority you administer what the authority commands you to do. You don’t go beyond that word, you do no more than you are told, you have a legitimate authority but you do not have the authority of the one who sends you. Now, a legislative authority means the power to do what we think is right irrespective of what we are told to do and that is how the modern world and the modern church sees authority. Our courts and our legislative bodies think they are the law themselves, that they have authority to do as they see fit. A war began shortly after the war ended when Sir Hartley Shawcross, attorney general of Britain, told Parliament that parliament can do anything it pleases, it can declare that all blue eyed babies shall be killed at birth. And parliament acted on that type of mandate, so called, and we have seen that here in this country too, the belief that one can do as one please, one can legislate.

Well, a few of us last Saturday at the homeschool convention of Northern California and Oakland heard Michael Farris, attorney for homeschoolers on the national level, call attention to the absurdities he encounters in the courts on the part of state attorneys and judges, totally ignorant of the constitution. Having to be reminded of the most, or told of the most obvious facts. Legislative authority does not belong to Christians nor to the church.

“22 And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost: Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained.”

These verses remind us of two similar statements in Matthew, in Matthew 16:19:

“And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”

And again in Matthew 18:18:

“Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”

All three verses have to do with the keys of the kingdom. We are ill prepared to understand these because we are moderns, if you go back centuries to some of the men, for example, in the church of England before the Norman conquest around the year of one thousand, or to the six hundreds to the time of venerable [unknown] and then a couple of centuries, Aelfric the archbishop, what do they tell us? That this is a ministerial authority, we can bind sins that are bound by the word of God and loose them where God’s word says we can loose them. The keys of the kingdom is an ancient image we have it today in the phi beta kappa key. The Phi Beta Kappa key means you are an accomplished scholar.

It means you have learned how to interpret correctly whatever it is you are working with. It does not give you the power to add or to detract from the given meaning. But today the whole school of interpretation says the interpreter has the power to put whatever meaning he wants or to add to the meaning. So our Lord is saying I’m giving you the power, ministerial power, to administer my word, the whole word of God from end to end, to bind and to loose according to the given law word. No independent power is confirmed or conferred upon the church and to imagine so is to follow after the Pharisees as so much of the church has done. Well Thomas or Didymus was not present that night, Didymus means twin, Thomas was one of twins. We don’t know who his twin was. When the others told Thomas of Christ’s appearance his response:

“Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe.”

He did not say I do not believe that you saw Him, he says I cannot believe it was other than a ghost. He came into the room with the doors locked, he suddenly appeared in your midst, he had to be a ghost. Thomas has been much abused for having said this and he is known as doubting Thomas but the other disciples were no different, our Lord had to show them His hands and His sides, to single Thomas out as a special case is nonsense, they were all the same.

John tells us this tale…why? To illustrate how deeply entrenched this doubt in the physical resurrection was. They were ready to believe that His spirit was around, that He was a ghost, but John stresses that we were not ready to believe the truth. Eight days later when the disciples were again in a locked room, this time with Thomas present, Jesus again appeared miraculously in their midst and said peace be unto you. Then He said to Thomas:

“Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing.”

The purpose of this account is not to tell us what a doubter Thomas was but to call to their attention the privileged status as witnesses that they all had. All the disciples were shown to be wanting as compared to you. Thomas answered ‘My lord and my God’ and most quickly of all Thomas acknowledged Him to be the incarnate God. Jesus told Thomas:

“Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.”

This was in effect a rebuke to the disciples, it was also a beatitude, a blessing pronounced upon you and upon me, upon all of us who are in time remote to that day but do believe. Remember, Jesus Christ has pronounced a beatitude, a blessing upon you. Then in verses thirty and thirty one, like John 20:24 and 25, we have a concluding note which in this case tells us two things. First, that there are many, many other signs that Jesus did. Manifestations of His power and miraculous grace revealed to His disciples. But this gospel like those of Matthew, Mark and Luke is selective. Each gives things which powerfully pressed in and which he felt we needed to know.

Their narratives stress the key miracles of Jesus for them. Then second, John has recorded accurately the words and deeds of Jesus with this purpose: that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of God. And that believing ye might have life through His name. Jesus we are told is the Christ, the Messiah of promise and He is also the Son of God. The purpose of this is that we might believe in Him and have life through His name. So John unlike the other three evangelists speaks directly to us, looks down the ages to all those to the end of time who will believe. And our Lord Himself does this when He calls attention to the difference between those who having lived with Him and having seen all these miracles still had to have proof and we who by faith, by His grace have believed and He pronounces a beatitude upon us. We should never forget this, that our Lord looking down the ages had us in mind with this beatitude. To separate what Jesus was and is and His life and redemptive work from history is to deny history because a meaningless history does not exist. Just the facts, ma’am, said Sergeant Friday and as we have seen previously that’s impossible.

Facts and meaning cannot be separated. Facts do not exist in and of themselves, they are made by God, they have a God-given meaning, they can only be known as we know them in the Lord because until then we do not truly know the meaning of a single thing. It is interesting that Camus, the existentialist philosopher, saw this fact. Beginning with the position of a radical atheist he at one time said if there were one fact in all the universe all around me, anywhere that had meaning I would be saved but of course he rejected even one fact in all creation, one atom with meaning. And so unbelief ends in absolute and total meaninglessness, but there are no meaningless facts. We cannot describe the French and the Russian revolutions, for example, apart from the ideas and the purposes of the revolutionists. Even less can we understand biblical history apart from the triune God. We do not have before us a series of naturalistic nor meaningless events but an account of things which totally are the results of God’s decree and they manifest God’s sovereign purposes and His acts. It is an exercise in unreason to attempt to empty the Gospels of their purpose. What we have in unbelief is a denial of history and a denial of meaning, a denial of every single fact in all creation when they deny Jesus Christ, God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. Let us pray.

Thy word is truth Oh Lord and we rejoice in Thy word. We thank Thee that Thou hast pronounced a beatitude upon us that we are blessed in Thy sight and by Thy grace. Give us grace therefore as we confront our daily burdens, our problems, our trials, our tribulations, to remember Thy beatitude, Thy blessing upon us and to know that we are highly favored. Our God we thank Thee, In Christ’s name, Amen.

Are there any questions now about our lesson? Yes?

[Question unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] He is what?

[Question unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] Yes. A very good question, it’s not an easy one, first of all in the Old Testament we do see the presence of the Holy Spirit with His prophets and His saints. And David prays in Psalm 51 ‘remove not Thy spirit from me’ so we know they had very definitely the Spirit. There is a difference however in the New Testament in that they received the Spirit with gifts. So that for a season the apostles had the special gifts of the Spirit, to speak in tongues, to heal, to perform the various kinds of miracles. So that here the twelve do but at Pentecost all those assembled in a great throng received gifts of the Spirit. And these gifts continued until after the fall of Jerusalem, they were witnessed to the people of Judea that Christ was there because all the miracles they performed were in the name of Jesus Christ.

So that they were saying in the name, in the power, in the person, the presence of Jesus Christ we perform this or that miracle. That’s why John and Peter were arrested, it was horrifying, they had crucified this man and now here He was performing the same miracles through these people. In the name of and name means person, power, presence. So that’s why they had to have the gifts of the spirit as well. Of course the controversy in some circles today is do the gifts continue or have they returned or is it the gift of the Spirit that is the abiding one. Any other questions and comments, yes?

[Question] In verse twenty one with the different meaning of sending that you described, how do the Catholics deal with that today?

[Rushdoony] Verse twenty one?

[Question] Yes with send instead of sent.

[Rushdoony][confused noise]

[Question] Okay the Catholics tend to take a very different meaning then what you described with how Christ sent the church, how do they…[becomes unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] This was a gift exclusively to the church as an institution or…?

[Question] They seem to take it far farther than the use of, the words in the message here described that there is a very limited amount of authority that the church has.

[Rushdoony] I’m not sure I can understand your question.

[Question unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] What’s that?

[Question] They use it as a legislative authority as opposed to a…

[Rushdoony] Oh I see! Yes. Yes, well the ministerial power is the only one given in scripture, this is why in those churches where a legislative power is claimed the claims also made that the church is a continuation of the incarnation. Now the orthodox churches, the Catholic Church and some Protestant groups claim such a power, a legislative one. But they have to claim in some sense that the church is a continuation of the Incarnation, only so can they do that. When they do that they are going against what they themselves have affirmed in the council of Chalcedon, because there the line is sharply, clearly drawn between divinity and humanity, that the incarnation is irrepeatable and it is without confusion. Now in Protestant circles this claim is made by avoiding the term incarnation or continuation of the incarnation, it is to use biblical terms for a false claim, that the church is the body of Christ. Well what does that mean? It is a scriptural term.

By that term is meant the church is the new humanity of Christ, not His deity. The church in no way incarnates Christ’s deity but it is His new humanity, the new Israel of God, the new chosen people and that’s a very different thing. But that claim is increasingly made in many, many Protestant churches, there are variations, the Landmark Baptists have their own version of the claim, it’s in terms of a belief in succession, so you can find it in a variety of circles and it cannot be defended. What it means is a return to paganism. In paganism deity went everywhere, it was in all creation, in all being and it was in special powers like rulers. It was encountered here by the way in the form of the Aztec ruler, the Inca ruler, they were gods and of course we had one scoundrel of a conquistador, de Soto, who claimed to the Incas that he was god, he was the son of the sun, whom they worshipped. Yes?

[Question] On the beatitude that was mentioned, verse twenty nine…

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Question] Was that a special blessing or is it the blessing of eternal life?

[Rushdoony] Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed. There is no qualification placed on the blessing. In the beatitudes we have qualifications, blessed are the poor in spirit and so on, for they shall see God, for they shall inherit this and that, each one specific. But here there is no qualification, we by believing on Him who we have not seen or touched nor felt a blessing is pronounced upon us and to believe on Him means to rely on Him. I’ve…do we have time? Yes. I’ve often used as the best image of faith and we’ll close with this because time is running out, an experience years ago when I was at the Indian reservation and we were going, one of the elders and I, out into the high country. It was in the fall and we came to the river we had to cross, we were on a Indian wagon, two horses, and I was afraid we’d plunge through the ice and if we did we’d be frozen in a matter of seconds. And the old man got out and went over and looked at the ice and tapped it and said we’ll get across, empty and with the load when we get back. Now I could have said I believe you but I’m not going to try it, I’ll walk across it can carry me but not the wagon, but I was too ashamed to say that so I went on the wagon. I put on my life on the line. I had to trust in him and his judgment. I knew he knew more than I and all I had for my position was my fearfulness so I put my life on the line by going across the ice in the wagon. Now that’s what faith is. You say I’m scared Lord but I know your word is the truth, I’m going to put my life on this ice because I trust your word.

Well then when we believe, when we faith in His word and His promises we are His blessed ones. Well, let us conclude now with prayer. Our Father we thank Thee for Thy word and we thank Thee for Thy beatitude upon us, Thy blessing. Teach us to walk by faith, to know that if Thou art for us who can be against us? That for us in Christ the best is always yet to come. How great Thou art our Father and we thank Thee. And now go in peace, God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost, bless you and keep you, guide and protect you, this day and always, Amen.