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19 On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” 20 After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord. 21 Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” 22 And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.” ~ John 20:19-23
On the evening, according to v.19, in the dark of night of Easter Sunday, the disciples are locked away in the Upper room for fear of the Jews. The darkness seems to be enveloping these unsure followers of the Lord Jesus. Five different individuals or groups witnessed the resurrection of the Lord: Mary Magdalene, Peter, the other women, two men traveling on the road to Emmaus, Cleopas and his wife. The evidence is mounting with His appearances.
This principle is so essential for the development of our faith: Every waking day, it is darkest right before it becomes light. The darker the night, the brighter the light. This darkness brought the disciples together and brought the Lord Jesus to be physically present among them.
In v.19-20, we read, "19 On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” 20 After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord."
Even though the doors were locked, the Lord Jesus appeared in the room with the disciples. Then He said, "Peace be with you." With these most important words, the Lord Jesus shows them the wounds in His hands and His side, the products of His crucifixion. The glorified body of the Lord Jesus still bore the marks of the greatest display of love. Those scars will be the only man made things in heaven.
Now, the Lord Jesus has a physical body fit for another dimension. As a result, the disciples go from the deepest despair to the highest joy. And, to make it even clearer, He eats a piece of fish in their presence to make it more clear that He was risen from the dead and is alive.
In v.21, the Lord Jesus reiterates what He said in v.19, saying, "Peace be with you!" We will never know the peace of God until we have peace with God. This is why the Lord Jesus reiterates this statement to His disciples. He, through His cross and resurrection has procured peace with God for all who believe.
Then, in v.21, the Lord Jesus says to His disciples, "As the Father has sent me, I am sending you." The gospel is for people who are desperately interested in forgiveness. The Lord Jesus came into the world not to change anybody’s social status or to make us feel better about our lot in life. He came to preach forgiveness of sin. This was His calling and is now our calling in this world, to share the Gospel with those who desire it.
In v.22, the Lord Jesus breathed on the disciples and they received the Holy Spirit. The Lord Jesus had earlier predicted that these men, who up to this point only had the Spirit dwelling with them, now would have Him come to live within them. This was explained by the Lord Jesus to Nicodemus in John 3.
Thus life, new life, came into man. Here, new life, the Spirit's life, comes into these disciples. They had been kept by Jesus' power up to now, and from this time on they are to be kept by the power of the Spirit residing within them. All of this happens to us, as well, when we believe in the Lord Jesus. This is what is highlighted throughout the rest of the Gospel according to John.
In v.23, we read a difficult statement: "If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven." This does not mean that we are given authority to say to someone, "You are forgiven," and to another, "You are not." Some have interpreted it that way, saying that priests are empowered to forgive or not forgive sins.
What the Lord Jesus is saying is this: when people believe on the Lord Jesus, we are empowered to declare the forgiveness of sin. If anyone who is conscious of their sin, failure, and acknowledges their need before Jesus, and receives Him, we have the authority to say to them, "Your sins are forgiven."
On the other hand, if someone refuses to believe, or merely pretends to believe, and his life shows no sign of any change, we are authorized to say to him, "You have not yet been forgiven of your sins."
Some claim that Peter was the first pope. In that case, if anybody had the power to forgive or retain sin, it would have been him. But in Acts10 we find Peter in the house of Cornelius, the Roman centurion, saying to him, "To Him [to Jesus] all the prophets bear witness that every one who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name," (Acts 10:43). As indicated in the book of Acts, these men did exactly what Jesus told them to do.
