John 20:19-20

“ The evening having come, therefore, on this same first day of the week, the doors of the place where the disciples were being shut because of the fear which they had of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in the midst of them and says to them, Peace be to you! 20. And, after he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side.The disciples therefore rejoiced when they saw the Lord. ”

The plural θυρῶν (the doors) denotes a two-leaved door. The words: “ because of the fear,” refer to the fact of the closing which is mentioned again in John 20:26, but without the explanation here given.

It has been thought that this external fact was designed only to characterize the moral state of the disciples (Lucke), and that, on the arrival of Jesus, the gates were quite naturally opened (Schleiermacher). Strauss, on the other hand, is so indignant at this explanation, that he goes even so far as to declare that a real hardening of mind against the meaning of the gospel text is necessary in order to maintain it. Calvin and de Pressense suppose that the doors opened miraculously of themselves (comp. Acts 12:10).

But the term ἔστη, he stood, indicates less an entrance than a sudden appearance, and in John 20:26, where the fact of the doors being closed is mentioned again, it is put in connection, not with the fear of the apostles, but with the mode of the appearance itself. I think, therefore, with Weiss, Keil, etc., that the sudden presence of Jesus in the midst of the disciples cannot be explained except by the fact that the body of Jesus was already subjected to the power of the spirit. In truth, this body was still that which had served Him as an organ during His life (John 20:20); but, as already before His death this body obeyed the force of the will (John 6:16-21), so now, through the transformation of the resurrection, it had approached still nearer to the condition of the glorified and spiritual body (1 Corinthians 15:44). The expression ἔστη is found again in the narrative of Luke (Luke 24:37); there it is in evident connection with the feeling of terror which the disciples at first experience and with the supposition that it is a spirit; for He was present when no one had seen Him enter. With this manner of appearing His sudden disappearances correspond (Luke 24:31: ἄφαντος ἐγένετο).

The salutation of Jesus is the same in Luke and in John: Peace be to you! Weiss sees here only the ordinary Jewish salutation; but why, in that case, repeat it twice (John 20:21)? Evidently Jesus makes this formula the vehicle of a new and more elevated thought. he invites His disciples to open their heart to the peace of reconciliation which He brings to them in rising from the dead. “ Having come,” says Paul (Ephesians 2:17), “ he preached peace. ” John 20:20. The words: And having said this, establish a relation between the wish of John 20:19 and the act related in John 20:20. To convince them of the reality of His appearance was to give them the proof of the divine good-will which restored to them their Master, to change their terror into peace and even into joy. The fact that He does not show them His feet cannot prove anything in favor of the opinion that on the cross the feet had not been nailed. The pierced hands and side were enough to prove His identity. Besides, it follows from Luke 24:40 that this detail has merely been omitted by John.