John 20 - CSB Ancient Faith Study Bible

20:1-9 Chrysostom: How can I recount for you these hidden realities or proclaim what goes beyond any word or concept? How can I lay open before you the mystery of the Lord’s resurrection, the saving sign of his cross and of his three days’ death? For each and every event that happened to our Savior is an outward sign of the mystery of our redemption. Just as Christ was born from his mother’s inviolate virginal womb, so too he rose again from the closed tomb. As he, the only-begotten Son of God was made the firstborn of his mother, so, by his resurrection, he became the firstborn from the dead. His birth did not break the seal of his mother’s virginal integrity. Nor did his rising from the dead break the seals on the sepulcher. And so, just as I cannot fully express his birth in words, neither can I wholly encompass his going forth from the tomb. Homily on Holy Saturday 10.

20:8-9 Augustine: Here some, by not giving due attention, suppose that John believed that Jesus had risen again. But there is no indication of this from the words that follow. For what does he mean by immediately adding, “For as yet they knew not the Scripture, that he must rise again from the dead”? [John] could not then have believed that Jesus had risen again when he did not know that he had to rise again. What then did he see? What was it that he believed? It was nothing else but this, that is, that he saw the sepulcher empty and believed what the woman had said, that is, that Jesus had been taken away from the tomb. . . . In the same way also, when they [had] heard of it from the Lord himself—although uttered in the plainest of terms—yet from their custom of hearing him speaking by parables they did not understand and believed that he meant something else. Tractates on the Gospel of John 120.9.

20:11-13 Cyril of Alexandria: Observe that the tears shed for Christ do not lose their reward, nor is it long before love for him bears fruit. Rather, his grace and rich restitution will follow closely in the wake of pain. Notice how—as Mary was sitting there, her cheeks bedewed with mourning for her beloved Lord whom she had lost—notice how the Savior granted to her the knowledge of the mystery about him through the mouth of holy angels. They tell her to stop crying because this was no occasion for tears. She was making a subject for rejoicing a cause of grief. Why, indeed, they say, when death has been subdued, and corruption has lost its power and our Savior Christ has risen again and made a new pathway for the dead back to incorruption and to life—why would you misunderstand what is going on now? Why are you so distraught with pain when what is actually going on calls for rejoicing? You should be glad, even ecstatic! And so, why then are you crying and, in effect detracting from the honor due to what amounts to a celebration? Commentary on the Gospel of John 12.

20:17 Chrysostom: Some assert that [Mary] asked for spiritual grace because she had heard [Jesus] say to the disciples, “If I go to the Father, ‘I will ask him, and he shall give you another Comforter’” [Jn 16:7]. But how could she who was not present with the disciples have heard this? Besides, such an interpretation is far from the meaning here. . . . I think that she still wanted to talk with Jesus like she used to and that in her joy she perceived nothing out of the ordinary in him, although he had become far more excellent in bodily appearance. To lead her therefore from this idea, and so that she might speak to him with more awe (for he no longer appears so familiar with the disciples either), he raises her thoughts so that she is more reverent toward him. To have said, “Do not approach me as you did before, for matters are not in the same state, nor shall I any longer be with you in the same way” would have been harsh and high-sounding. But by saying, “I am not yet ascended to the Father,” it was not as painful to hear, although he was basically saying the same thing. For by saying, “I am not yet ascended,” he shows that he is hurrying and pressing on. He was saying that it was not right for one about to leave for [heaven] and who would no longer converse with human beings to be looked on with the same feelings as before. Homilies on the Gospel of John 86.2.

20:19-20 Augustine: [S]ince you have repeatedly asked me what I thought about the resurrection of bodies and the future functions of the members in that incorruptibility and immortality, listen briefly to what could with the Lord’s help be further discussed. We must hold most firmly that point on which the statement of the holy Scripture is truthful and clear, namely, that these visible and earthly bodies that are now called natural will be spiritual in the resurrection of the faithful and righteous. But I do not know how the character of a spiritual body, unknown as it is to us, can be either comprehended or taught. Certainly there will be no corruption in them, and for this reason they will not then need this corruptible food that they now need. They will, nonetheless, be able to take and really consume such food, not out of need. Otherwise, the Lord would not have taken food after his resurrection [see Lk 24:40-43]. And he offered us an example of bodily resurrection so that the apostle says of him, “If the dead will not rise, neither has Christ risen” [1Co 15:16]. When he appeared with all the members of his body and used their functions, he also displayed the places of his wounds. I have always taken these as scars, not as actual wounds, and saw them as the result of his power, not of some necessity. He revealed the ease of this power, especially when he either showed himself in another form or appeared as his real self to the disciples gathered in the house when the doors were closed. Letter 95.7.

20:20,24-27 Theodoret of Cyrus: [T]he reason why the Lord stood in the midst of the disciples, even though the doors were closed, after the passion but not before it, was that you might know that your body was sown as a physical body but raised as a spiritual body. But in order that you might not think that what rises is something different, when Thomas did not believe in the resurrection, [Jesus] shows him the marks of the nails. He shows him the scars of the wounds. He who healed everybody even before the resurrection could have healed himself—especially after the resurrection, could he not? Yes, but through the marks of the nails that he shows he teaches that it is this [body], through the closed doors by which he enters, he reveals that it is not such a [body as it was]. It was this [body], in order that he might fulfill the goal of the divine plan by raising that which had died, but it was such a body [as it was], in order that it might not lapse into corruption again and not be subject to death again. Dialogue 2.56.

20:22 Athanasius: [Jesus gave the Spirit] to the disciples, demonstrating his Godhead and his majesty and intimating that he was not inferior but equal to the Spirit. And so, he gave the Spirit, saying, “Receive the Holy Spirit,” and “I send him,” and “he shall glorify me,” and “Whatever he hears is what he shall speak” [see Jn 16:13-14]. . . . Through whom then and from whom is it that the Spirit should be given but through the Son, to whom also the Spirit belongs? And when were we enabled to receive it, except when the Word became man? Discourses against the Arians 1.12.50.

20:25-28 Cyril of Alexandria: We are taught by the slight lack of faith shown by the blessed Thomas that the mystery of the resurrection is effected on our earthly bodies and in Christ as the firstfruits of the human race. [Jesus] was no phantom or ghost, fashioned in human shape, simulating the features of humanity, nor yet, as others have foolishly surmised, a spiritual body that is compounded of a subtle and ethereal substance different from the flesh. For some attach this meaning to the expression “spiritual body” [see 1Co 15:44]. Since all our expectation and the significance of our irrefutable faith, after the confession of the holy and consubstantial Trinity, centers in the mystery concerning the flesh, the blessed Evangelist has very pertinently put this saying of Thomas side by side with the summary of what preceded. For observe that Thomas does not simply desire to see the Lord but looks for the marks of the nails, that is, the wounds on his body. For he affirmed that then, indeed, he would believe and agree with the rest that Christ had indeed risen again, and risen in the flesh. Commentary on the Gospel of John 12:1.

20:28 Theodore of Mopsuestia: [Thomas] touched him carefully, and when he discovered the truth, confessed his fault by saying, “My Lord and my God!” What does this mean? While Thomas did not believe before that the Savior had resurrected from the dead, now he calls him Lord and God? This is not likely. Thomas, the doubtful disciple, does not call Lord and God the one whom he touched—in fact, the knowledge of the resurrection did not teach him that the resurrected one was God. Rather, he praised God for the accomplished miracle, being astonished for the miracles that he saw. Commentary on John 7.20.27–29.

20:31 Hilary of Poitiers: The one reason that [John] alleges for writing his Gospel is that all may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. If it is sufficient for salvation to believe that he is the Christ, why does he add “the Son of God”? But if the true faith is nothing less than the belief that Christ is not merely Christ but Christ the Son of God, then assuredly the name of Son is not attached to Christ as a customary appendage due to adoption, seeing that it is essential to salvation. If then, salvation consists in the confession of the name, must not the name express the truth? If the name expresses the truth, by what authority can [Christ] be called a creature? It is not the confession of a creature but the confession of the Son that shall give us salvation [see Rm 10:9]. To believe, therefore, that Jesus Christ is the Son of God is true salvation, is the acceptable service of an unfeigned faith. For we have no love within us toward God the Father except through faith in the Son. On the Trinity 6.41–42.