Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate - And Nicodemus also came - Acknowledging Christ, when even his chosen disciples forsook him. In that extremity Joseph was no longer afraid, Nicodemus no longer ashamed.
In the place where he was crucified - There was a garden in the same tract of land: but the cross did not stand in the garden.
Because of the preparation - That is, they chose the rather to lay him in that sepulchre which was nigh, because it was the day before the Sabbath, which also was drawing to an end, so that they had no time to carry him far.
Mt 28:1; Mr 16:1; Lu 24:1.
Peter went out - Of the city.
Peter seeth the linen clothes lie - and the napkin folded up - The angels who ministered to him when he rose, undoubtedly folded up the napkin and linen clothes.
He saw - That the body was not there, and believed - That they had taken it away as Mary said.
For as yet - They had no thought of his rising again.
They went home - Not seeing what they could do farther.
But Mary stood - With more constancy. Mr 16:9.
Jesus saith to her, Mary - With his usual voice and accent.
Touch me not - Or rather, Do not cling to me (for she held him by the feet,) Mt 28:9. Detain me not now. You will have other opportunities of conversing with me. For I am not ascended to my Father - I have not yet left the world. But go immediately to my brethren - Thus does he intimate in the strongest manner the forgiveness of their fault, even without ever mentioning it. These exquisite touches, which every where abound in the evangelical writings, show how perfectly Christ knew our frame. I ascend - He anticipates it in his thoughts, and so speaks of it as a thing already present. To my Father and your Father, to my God and your God - This uncommon expression shows that the only - begotten Son has all kind of fellowship with God. And a fellowship with God the Father, some way resembling his own, he bestows upon his brethren. Yet he does not say, Our God: for no creature can be raised to an equality with him: but my God and your God: intimating that the Father is his in a singular and incommunicable manner; and ours through him, in such a kind as a creature is capable of.
Mr 16:14 Lu 24:36.
Peace be unto you - This is the foundation of the mission of a true Gospel minister, peace in his own soul, 2Cor 4:1. As the Father hath sent me, so send I you - Christ was the apostle of the Father, Heb 3:1. Peter and the rest, the apostles of Christ.
He breathed on them - New life and vigour, and saith, as ye receive this breath out of my mouth, so receive ye the Spirit out of my fulness: the Holy Ghost influencing you in a peculiar manner, to fit you for your great embassy. This was an earnest of pentecost.
Whose soever sins ye remit - (According to the tenor of the Gospel, that is, supposing them to repent and believe) they are remitted, and whose soever sins ye retain (supposing them to remain impenitent) they are retained. So far is plain. But here arises a difficulty. Are not the sins of one who truly repents, and unfeignedly believes in Christ, remitted, without sacerdotal absolution? And are not the sins of one who does not repent or believe, retained even with it? What then does this commission imply? Can it imply any more than, A power of declaring with authority the Christian terms of pardon; whose sins are remitted and whose retained? As in our daily form of absolution; and A power of inflicting and remitting ecclesiastical censures? That is, of excluding from, and re - admitting into, a Christian congregation.
After eight days - On the next Sunday.
And Thomas said, My Lord and my God - The disciples had said, We have seen the Lord. Thomas now not only acknowledges him to be the Lord, as he had done before, and to be risen, as his fellow disciples had affirmed, but also confesses his Godhead, and that more explicitly than any other had yet done. And all this he did without putting his hand upon his side.
Jesus wrought many miracles, which are not written in this book - Of St. John, nor indeed of the other evangelists.
But these things are written that ye may believe - That ye may be confirmed in believing. Faith cometh sometimes by reading; though ordinarily by hearing.
There were together - At home, in one house.
They knew not that it was Jesus - Probably their eyes were holden.
They were not able to draw it for the multitude of fishes - This was not only a demonstration of the power of our Lord, but a kind supply for them and their families, and such as might be of service to them, when they waited afterward in Jerusalem. It was likewise an emblem of the great success which should attend them as fishers of men.
Peter girt on his upper coat (for he was stript of it before) - Reverencing the presence of his Lord: and threw himself into the sea - To swim to him immediately. The love of Christ draws men through fire and water.
Come ye and dine - Our Lord needed not food. And none presumed - To ask a needless question.
The third time - That he appeared to so many of the apostles together.
Simon, son of Jonah - The appellation Christ had given him, when be made that glorious confession, Matt 16:16, the remembrance of which might make him more deeply sensible of his late denial of him whom he had so confessed. Lovest thou me? - Thrice our Lord asks him, who had denied him thrice: more than these - Thy fellow disciples do? - Peter thought so once, Matt 26:33, but he now answers only - I love thee, without adding more than these. Thou knowest - He had now learnt by sad experience that Jesus knew his heart. My lambs - The weakest and tenderest of the flock.
Because he said the third time - As if he did not believe him.
When thou art old - He lived about thirty - six years after this: another shall gird thee - They were tied to the cross till the nails were driven in; and shall carry thee - With the cross: whither thou wouldest not - According to nature; to the place where the cross was set up.
By what death he should glorify God - It is not only by acting, but chiefly by suffering, that the saints glorify God. Follow me - Showing hereby likewise what death he should die.
Peter turning - As he was walking after Christ. Seeth the disciple whom Jesus loved following him - There is a peculiar spirit and tenderness in this plain passage. Christ orders St. Peter to follow him in token of his readiness to be crucified in his cause. St. John stays not for the call; he rises and follows him too; but says not one word of his own love or zeal. He chose that the action only should speak this; and even when he records the circumstance, he tells us not what that action meant, but with great simplicity relates the fact only. If here and there a generous heart sees and emulates it, be it so; but he is not solicitous that men should admire it. It was addressed to his beloved Master, and it was enough that he understood it.
If I will that he tarry - Without dying, till I come - To judgment. Certainly he did tarry, till Christ came to destroy Jerusalem. And who can tell, when or how he died? What is that to thee? - Who art to follow me long before.
The brethren - That is, the Christians. Our Lord himself taught them that appellation, John 20:17. Yet Jesus did not say to him, that he should not die - Not expressly. And St. John himself, at the time of writing his Gospel, seems not to have known clearly, whether he should die or not.
This is the disciple who testifieth - Being still alive after he had wrote. And we know that his testimony is true - The Church added these words to St. John's, Gospel, as Tertius did those to St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans, Rom 16:22.
If they were to be written particularly - Every fact, and all the circumstances of it. I suppose - This expression, which softens the hyperbole, shows that St. John wrote this verse.