FELLOWSHIP NOTES     APRIL 12/14th 2005

A POST-EASTER STUDY : JOHN 20.19-23

SPIRIT-FILLED MISSION

Key Verse:’ As the father sent me so I send you.’

This week we have a one-off, post-Easter study. The passage is very short, so some groups might like to share communion together.

The Risen Jesus appears to confirm and Commission His disciples.

This account in John of Jesus’ Easter Sunday evening appearance to His disciples is only 5 verses long, but it is packed with far reaching significance both for the first disciples and or ourselves. The reality of the resurrection, the heart of the gospel, the Calvary purpose and the importance of Pentecost are all found in germ form in these verses. They seem to me to be about the SPIRIT-FILLED MISSION TO WHICH A RISEN CHRIST CALLS US.

I. 20.19    RISEN JESUS MANIFESTS HIS PRESENCE AMONGST HIS DISCIPLES

What significant things do you find about the way the risen Jesus came among His disciples that night?

What was different to His pre-Easter presence?

How important is the difference? What is its significance for us?

Is Jesus similarly present with us? Matt 18.20

Is He present in just as real a way?

How essential to our mission is the presence of Jesus? Matt 28.19-20.  Hebrews 13.5-6.

II.  20.20.      RISEN JESUS PRESENTS PROOF TO HIS DISCIPLES

Why do you think that Jesus showed them His hands and side? (See Luke 24.39-40. and John 20.24-27.)

Why was this necessary for them?

Why is this important for us?

How important to our mission is the rock-solid assurance of the reality of Christ’s bodily resurrection? Acts 1.3.

III.   20.19-21.   RISEN JESUS PRONOUNCES PEACE OVER HIS DISCIPLES

Was Jesus (double) pronouncement of “Peace” over His disciples merely the conventional greeting, or was it more? (Why repeat it?)

What do you see as its significance?

In what way is the Christian gospel at its very central core, a message about “Peace”? Peace between whom? (Romans 5, John 14.27 , Luke 2.14, Ephesians 2.14,17)

Do you think there may have been a further reason for Jesus showing His hands and His side – further proof of identity? Could He have been indicating to them “the grounds of our peace”? (Isaiah 53.5, Colossians 1.20 )

IV 20.21      RISEN JESUS SHARES HIS PURPOSE WITH HIS DISCIPLES

The great purpose of Jesus’ life: John’s Gospel so clearly reveals that the big thing in the life of Jesus was His consciousness of being sent on a mission by His Father.

• At least 47 times He refers to Himself as “sent”.
• 27 times He refers to the Father as “the One who sent me”
• 3 times He refers to Himself as “the one the Father sent”
• 9 times in prayer He says to the father “you sent me”
• (See especially 4.34, 5.30, 6.38, 9.4, 12.49)
•  

In the light of the above, what significance do you find in Jesus saying he is sending His disciples in the same way the Father sent Him?

Is He saying more than just: “God sent me, now I am sending you”? How did    the Father send Jesus? And why did He?

How important is our mission to us?

V    20.22      RISEN JESUS IMPARTS HIS POWER TO HIS DISCIPLES

How do you understand this action and these words of Jesus?

How vital was what Jesus was implying here to the fulfilment of mission?

How important was the anointing of the Holy Spirit to Jesus’ ministry?         (Matt 3.16, Acts 10.37-38)

How essential to ours? (Luke 24.48-49, Acts 1.8)

POST SCRIPT: A QUESTION YOU ARE SURE TO BE ASKING

How to understand Jesus’ words in 20.23. Along with many other Christians before me, I believe Jesus’ words are to be understood, not in terms if a personal prerogative given to the apostles and their successors to forgive sins, but in terms of the effect of the Gospel about Christ’s atoning death that is entrusted to them to proclaim. It is in their power, through preaching this gospel, to open the door of forgiveness to others, or to withhold it, by staying silent.

Disciples of Jesus, by telling of His saving death and observing a genuine response of repentance and saving faith in the listener, can confirm the forgiveness of sins on the basis of the gospel. Or they can withhold that assurance if they discern, by the Holy Spirit, that a true response is lacking.