Peter turned and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following them — the one who had leaned back against Him at the supper and asked, "Lord, who is it that is going to betray you?" Seeing him, Peter said to Jesus, "Lord, what about this man?" Jesus said to him, "If it is my will that he remain until I come," what is that to you? You follow Me! (a paraphrase of John 21:20–22).

"What is that to you? You follow me!" Jesus told Peter that what would happen to John was not his concern. Peter's concern was simply to follow Jesus.

Friends, how many of us are preoccupied with things we have no business being preoccupied with? How many of us compare ourselves with others — how much more successful they are, how much more they make, how much happier they seem? We become secretly envious. We find ourselves driven by the desire to get what they have or to achieve something better.

In James we read: what causes quarrels and fights among you? Is it not your passions that are at war within you? "You desire and do not have, so you murder"; you covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel (a paraphrase of James 4:1–2).

Much conflict is rooted in wanting what belongs to someone else. Jesus cut such conflict off at the root when He told Peter to take his eyes off John and fix them on Him: "You follow me!"

When we fix our eyes on Jesus, we find peace. We become less preoccupied with how God is using this person or that one. We can celebrate the work of God's Spirit in other believers without the intrusion of envy and selfish ambition. We simply recognize that what God is doing through them is different from what God is doing through me.

When we focus on Jesus, we will not complain about our lot — that we received one talent while another received ten. We will not despair because our calling is among the poor while another serves among the wealthy. We will welcome the privilege of serving the Lord in any capacity, remembering that this life is passing away, and that what matters is eternity in His presence.

When John's disciples tried to stir up envy by pointing out that people were leaving him for Jesus, John gave the right perspective: "A person cannot receive even one thing unless it is given him from heaven" (John 3:27). We are responsible to be faithful. We do not choose our calling. We do not choose our gifts. We do not create our own outcomes. Solomon writes, "The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps" (Proverbs 16:9).

This is why we can genuinely celebrate the success of others. It is not that they are better or we are worse, but that God has granted them what they have. Don't misunderstand me: we can still pray for health, provision, and success. But we understand God's sovereignty over these things and align our interests with His. So Jesus prayed in the garden, "Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me," yet "not my will, but yours, be done" (Luke 22:42). Jesus did not want to suffer and die, yet He embraced what God's redemptive purpose required. We can do no less.

May God's will be done on earth as it is in heaven! Lord, help us to be faithful to our calling and to use the gifts You have given us to serve You. Help us not to complain or compare ourselves with others but to embrace joyfully the lot You have given us, as we look forward to the eternal home You have prepared for us. Amen.

AI-Expanded Reflection

The context of Jesus' words makes them more striking. He had just restored Peter after his three denials — three questions, "Do you love me?" (21:15–17) — and then told him plainly how he would die: "when you are old, you will stretch out your hands," and another will carry you where you do not want to go (21:18). Immediately after receiving that word, Peter looked at John and asked, in effect, "What about him?" Jesus' reply — "What is that to you? You follow me!" — comes right after a costly personal calling. Comparison often creeps in precisely when we are given something hard.

John adds a note that the saying spread among the brothers as a rumor that he would not die, and corrects it: Jesus did not say that (21:23). Even the apostles' words could be misquoted within their lifetimes. The comment's application — celebrating others' callings rather than measuring ours against theirs — is the practical outworking of Paul's teaching that the body has many members with different gifts, "and God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose" (1 Corinthians 12:18).

"these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ," the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name (John 20:31).

John records here his reason for writing his Gospel. I believe this is the reason for every Gospel. It is not simply to tell a story or give an account of the life of a good man. The Gospel writers gave their accounts to provide a basis for faith in Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of God.

I may seem to be stating the obvious, but I don't think I am. Many people go to the words and works of Jesus in the Gospels to find a moral code or a model for a life pleasing to God. It is important to understand that this was not the Gospel writers' primary intent. Their intent was that people might see that the extraordinary life of Jesus was unique, without precedent, and impossible to replicate, for He alone is the Messiah, the Son of God.

I used to be frustrated with people who, when confronted with their character flaws in light of Christ's life, would say, "That's Jesus. I'm not Jesus." Now I see how true that confession is. He alone is Jesus — sinless, full of the Holy Spirit from conception, the Messiah, the Son of God. Certainly Jesus' life is one every Christian should imitate in its devotion to God; but let us be clear that the chief purpose of the words and works recorded in the Gospels, especially the Gospel of John, is that we might believe in the uniqueness of Jesus as the promised Messiah, the Son of God. He alone is the Messiah. That should move us to worship Him!

AI-Expanded Reflection

John 20:30–31 functions as the purpose statement for the whole Gospel, and its placement is significant. It comes right after Thomas's confession, "My Lord and my God!" (20:28), and Jesus' blessing on "those who have not seen and yet have believed" (20:29) — which includes every later reader. John selected his material, including seven "signs" such as turning water into wine, healing the man born blind, and raising Lazarus, precisely to lead readers to that same confession.

The comment's emphasis is a valuable corrective to reading the Gospels merely as moral examples. At the same time, the New Testament also presents Jesus as a model for believers — "leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps" (1 Peter 2:21), and whoever abides in Him "ought to walk in the same way in which he walked" (1 John 2:6). The two belong together in the right order: first Jesus is received as Savior and Lord, the unique Son; then, by the Spirit He gives, His people are conformed to His likeness (Romans 8:29). Faith in who He is comes before, and makes possible, following Him in how He lived.

Jesus said to her, “Stop clinging to Me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to My brethren and say to them, ‘I ascend to My Father and your Father, and My God and your God’” (John 20:17).

Verses like this can present a theological conundrum if improperly understood. How can Jesus, who is God, speak of "my God"? But this is not so hard to understand when one observes that during His earthly ministry, Jesus emptied Himself of His divine standing and privileges in order to perfectly identify with mankind so that He might become their substitute on the cross (cf. Philippians 2:6–7). So, in relation to man, He can speak of "your God" and "my God."

At the same time, it is noteworthy that He does not simply say "our God" but rather "My God" and "your God." There is still a significant, qualitative difference between Jesus' relationship to God and that of humanity's relationship to God. In the same way, Jesus never speaks of "our Father" but always distinguishes His relationship to the Father by speaking of "My Father" versus "your Father." There is a significant, qualitative difference between Jesus' relationship to the Father and that of believers.

Friends, you ought to be aware of these things, not simply to deepen your own understanding of God's Word, but also to be able to present a logical defense against those that would seek to deny the true deity of Christ.

AI-Expanded Reflection

John 20:17 brings together intimacy and distinction. Jesus sends Mary to his brothers with news of his ascent, yet speaks of his Father and their Father, his God and their God. The words do not place the disciples at a distance from grace; they announce a relationship made possible through him. At the same time, the phrasing preserves the uniqueness of his sonship. The disciples belong to the Father through the Son’s saving work, rather than possessing precisely the same relation to the Father that the eternal Word has.

The question about Jesus calling the Father his God should be answered within John’s whole portrait. The Gospel begins by affirming the Word’s divine identity and his becoming flesh (1:1, 14). It ends with Thomas addressing the risen Jesus as his Lord and God (20:28). John does not treat Jesus’ genuinely human relation of worship and obedience as a contradiction of that identity. The incarnation means that the Son truly shares human life; it does not require that every statement be interpreted as though he were only pretending to be human or had ceased to be divine.

Philippians 2:6–8 helps when its language is handled carefully. The emptying is described through taking the form of a servant and becoming obedient, not through a statement that divine nature is discarded. The original’s reference to relinquished privileges can express the humility of this action, but it should not imply that deity was temporarily removed and later restored. Christian confession holds together the Son’s true humanity and undiminished deity. His obedience and suffering belong to the saving reality of the incarnation, not to a temporary theological disguise.

The instruction not to cling also belongs to the movement of the resurrection narrative. Mary is not merely told that bodily contact is inherently inappropriate; elsewhere the risen Jesus invites physical recognition. The coming ascent means that the relationship cannot be understood simply as a return to the former pattern of his earthly ministry. She is given a task: carry the announcement to the disciples. Recognition becomes witness. The Lord she has encountered is alive, but his work now leads the community toward a new phase of life with him and the gift of the Spirit.

The original’s interest in a reasoned defense of Christ’s deity is therefore valuable, provided defense remains connected with the passage’s consolation and commission. Mary receives not merely an answer to a conceptual problem but a message for grieving people. The Father of Jesus becomes the Father to whom they may draw near through him. We can explain the distinction between unique sonship and adopted belonging while also receiving its invitation. The risen Christ does not guard his relationship with the Father as a possession that excludes us. In his unique identity as Son and Savior, he opens the way for us to belong and sends us to make that good news known.

Jesus said to them again, "Peace be with you"; as the Father had sent Him, so He was sending them. And when He had said this, He breathed on them and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit"; if they forgave anyone's sins, they would be forgiven, and if they withheld forgiveness, it would be withheld (a paraphrase of John 20:21–23).

Did the disciples receive the Holy Spirit on this occasion or at Pentecost? For we read that before His ascension Jesus told them not to leave Jerusalem but to wait for the promise of the Father, for John baptized with water, "but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now" (a paraphrase of Acts 1:4–5).

It is not difficult to understand that Jesus' action of breathing on the disciples was symbolic of what they would receive shortly afterward. After all, He had just said, "As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you," yet they did not immediately go out and preach the Gospel. The commission and the endowment of the Spirit's power were connected. This is why Luke records the commission this way: they would receive power when the Holy Spirit came upon them, and would be His witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the end of the earth (a paraphrase of Acts 1:8).

The difficulty about when Jesus gave the Holy Spirit probably stems from the dramatic act in John's Gospel of Jesus breathing on them. It should be noted that the Greek word translated "breathed on" appears only here in the New Testament, which makes its meaning somewhat uncertain from the standpoint of New Testament usage. Therefore we should not be hung up on when the Holy Spirit was actually given on the basis of this term alone.

Now I sense a "So what?!" from some of you. Well, there is an important reason for understanding this properly. Some charismatics use this verse to argue for a subsequent baptism of the Holy Spirit for believers. They argue that while a believer receives the Holy Spirit at salvation, they need to receive another "baptism of the Holy Spirit" afterward to receive power. I believe this is not what the Bible teaches. Rather, the Bible teaches that every believer receives the baptism of the Holy Spirit when they are saved: just as the body is one and has many members, so it is with Christ; "for in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body" — Jews or Greeks, slaves or free — and all were made to drink of one Spirit (a paraphrase of 1 Corinthians 12:12–13).

I recently heard a good message by R. C. Sproul on this topic, particularly as it relates to Pentecost in Acts 2. It was one of several messages given at the Strange Fire Conference hosted by Dr. John MacArthur, and it was titled "Undervaluing Pentecost."

AI-Expanded Reflection

The Greek verb in John 20:22 (emphysaō) is used only here in the New Testament, but it appears in the Greek Old Testament at two very significant places. In Genesis 2:7, God "breathed into" Adam's nostrils the breath of life, and he became a living being. In Ezekiel 37:9, the prophet calls the breath to "breathe on these slain, that they may live," and the dry bones rise. John's first readers who knew their Greek Bible would likely have heard the echo: the risen Jesus breathing on His disciples is a new-creation act, the Lord of life giving the Spirit who makes dead people live. That connection supports the comment's view that the act was deeply symbolic, whatever its exact relation to Pentecost.

Interpreters handle the relationship between John 20:22 and Acts 2 in several ways. Some, like the comment, see John 20 as a symbolic anticipation fulfilled at Pentecost. Others see a real but partial giving of the Spirit for the disciples' immediate needs, with the full empowering at Pentecost. Still others see John's account as his own way of narrating the same gift Luke describes. On the question the comment raises — whether Spirit baptism is received at conversion or as a subsequent experience — Christians also differ. Pentecostal and many charismatic believers hold to a subsequent empowering, often pointing to Acts 8:14–17 and 19:1–7; Reformed, Baptist, and many other believers, like the comment, understand 1 Corinthians 12:13 to teach that all believers are baptized by the Spirit at conversion, while allowing for later fillings. These are longstanding, good-faith differences.

Pilate asked whether Jesus refused to speak to him, and whether He realized Pilate had power to free Him or crucify Him. Jesus answered that Pilate would have no power over Him if it were not given from above, and that therefore the one who handed Him over is guilty of a greater sin (a paraphrase of John 19:10–11).

There is a misleading teaching circulating among Christians for years, that all sins are equal in the eyes of God. This is clearly wrong. Jesus here says one sin was greater than another.

I am not certain where the teaching originated, but perhaps from a misunderstanding of James: whoever keeps the whole law and stumbles at one point is guilty of breaking all of it, since the One who said do not commit adultery also said do not murder — so if you do not commit adultery but do commit murder, you have become a lawbreaker (a paraphrase of James 2:10–11).

James argues that you do not have to break all the laws to be a lawbreaker; you only have to break one, and it does not matter which. That does not mean all sins are equal. It means any sin makes a person a sinner.

Just as there are lesser and greater sins, there are lesser and greater goods. Jesus tells the religious leaders that they tithe mint, dill, and cumin while neglecting the more important matters of the law — justice, mercy, and faithfulness — and that they should have practiced the latter without neglecting the former (a paraphrase of Matthew 23:23).

AI-Expanded Reflection

This project addressed the same question earlier and the analysis holds: the passages usually cited establish that any sin is sufficient to constitute lawbreaking, not that all sins carry identical weight. The comment's additional observation — that Jesus's phrase "the more important matters of the law" presupposes a hierarchy among commands — is a good one and is difficult to explain on a flat view.

Worth noting what the distinction is and is not used for. Scripture grades sins by consequence and by gravity: the Mosaic law prescribes different penalties, Jesus speaks of greater sin and of greater condemnation, and 1 John distinguishes sin that leads to death. What no passage does is grade them by how much grace they require, which is presumably the pastoral instinct behind the flat teaching the comment is correcting. Both things can be held: some sins do more damage and carry more culpability, and none of them is beyond what the cross covers.

We are at the end of the Gospels. John concludes with the trial of Jesus.

The leaders insisted they had a law, and that by it He must die, because He claimed to be the Son of God. When Pilate heard this he was more afraid, and went back inside and asked Jesus where He came from, but Jesus gave no answer. Pilate asked whether He refused to speak, reminding Him that he had power to free Him or crucify Him. Jesus answered that Pilate would have no power over Him unless it had been given from above, and that for this reason the one who handed Him over was guilty of a greater sin (a paraphrase of John 19:7–11).

What struck me reading through the Gospels was the corruption among those who held religious authority, and Jesus's repeated confrontation of them. From His birth, Simeon's prophecy indicated Jesus would be the falling and rising of many. Throughout His ministry He calls out hypocrisy and false piety — showy displays for personal glory rather than God's. He says a tax collector went home more justified. He says they devour widows' houses and lack compassion for the poor and sick. And here at the end, He tells Pilate that the greater guilt lies elsewhere.

AI-Expanded Reflection

The critique in view is one Jesus makes of a specific group holding specific office — and it belongs to a long internal tradition. Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Micah, and Malachi all indict Israel's priests and prophets in comparable terms, and Ezekiel 34's condemnation of the shepherds is if anything sharper. Jesus stands in that prophetic line rather than outside it, addressing His own community about its own leadership.

That framing matters for how the passage gets read. Jesus, His mother, all the disciples, and the entire earliest church were Jewish, as were the crowds who followed Him and the thousands who believed at Pentecost. The Gospels' conflict is not between Christianity and Judaism — those categories did not yet exist as separate things — but within first-century Judaism, over a claim about who Jesus was. Reading these confrontations as a verdict on a people rather than on particular leaders has a long and destructive history, and John 19:11 in particular, with its comparison of guilt, has been misused that way. Jesus's own sentence there is singular: the one who handed Him over.

Friends, there is a confusing passage in John 20:23, where it appears, as Roman Catholics believe, certain powers were given to the Eleven to forgive and to condemn: "If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” However, this may be a misreading of the text, and there is nowhere else where this kind of authority is exercised by any of the apostles. Let us consider the context and the grammar of the text:

So Jesus said to them again, “Peace to you! As the Father has sent Me, I also send you.” And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained” (John 20:21–23).

This occasion follows Jesus' resurrection. This parallels Jesus' other statements of commission (Matthew 28:18–20; Mark 16:15–16; Luke 24:46–49). When we examine each of these parallel passages, we notice that all of them have to do with preaching the Gospel.

Also, in each commission, including the one in John, there is the giving of authority, whether from the Father, Jesus or the Holy Spirit.

Only Luke and John refer to the remission of sin, and Luke connects it to repentance and the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Throughout the Book of Acts, the remission of sins is consistently related to faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ (Acts 2:38; 5:31; 13:37–38). This connection is also validated in John's First Epistle (e.g. 1 John 1:7,9; 2:1–2). This connection is also validated in Paul's writings (e.g. Ephesians 1:7; Colossians 1:14). Even in James, forgiveness is connected to faith and repentance (James 5:13–16).

This examination of the context reveals that the authority to forgive and condemn is not so much a power in the apostles themselves but very much connected to the preaching of the Gospel. It is an authority that rests ultimately in the Godhead, and is intimately related to repentance and faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Now, consider the grammar of John 20:23. Without dissecting every word, the key grammatical insight is that the words "they are forgiven them" and "they are retained" are in the Greek perfect tense. The NASB brings this out best:

If you forgive the sins of any, their sins have been forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they have been retained.

In other words, whatever forgiveness or retaining of sins the apostles exercise, it would already have been decreed beforehand. This sense is captured in the Lord's Prayer, "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." In other words, what happens on earth will have been first decreed in heaven. This is consistent with Jesus' words, "As the Father has sent me..." (John 20:21) and Jesus' testimony that He does nothing of Himself but just what the Father has decreed (John 5:19).

In Matthew 16:19 we find a parallel to this grammatical construction:

I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven.

Again, in Matthew 18:18,

Truly I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven.

Therefore, the Roman Catholic Church is wrong in conferring unilateral authority of forgiveness and condemnation to the Popes (as successors of the apostles, and particularly Peter) from these passages. The context and grammar teach otherwise. The authority to forgive and condemn is connected to the authority God exercised through the disciples in the preaching of the Gospel of repentance and faith in Jesus Christ.

AI-Expanded Reflection

John places the saying about forgiveness within the risen Jesus' commissioning of his disciples. Peace, sending, the gift of the Spirit, and the treatment of sins belong together. The authority is consequently derivative: the disciples act as people sent by Jesus, not as independent judges who can establish salvation on their own terms. The original rightly connects this setting with the proclamation of repentance and forgiveness in Luke and Acts. Read John 20:19–23 and Luke 24:46–49.

The perfect forms translated “have been forgiven” and “have been retained” describe an established state, but tense alone does not specify every detail of the temporal relationship between heavenly action and apostolic declaration. The declarative Protestant reading fits a wider account in which the church announces God's promise through the gospel. Other traditions understand the commission sacramentally. The grammatical observation is important evidence within that debate, not a self-sufficient demonstration that every alternative has been ruled out.

The comparison with binding and loosing likewise requires attention to setting. Matthew 16 concerns Peter's confession and the keys; Matthew 18 places authority within the community's dealings with a sinning member. Neither passage grants arbitrary power detached from Christ's teaching. John's breathing on the disciples also invites reflection on life and new creation: the community's mission depends on the Spirit whom the risen Lord gives.

The description of Roman Catholic teaching in the original needs a factual qualification. The Catholic Catechism states that only God forgives sins and understands ordained ministry as an instrument of Christ's forgiveness; it does not describe the pope as possessing independent divine authority. One can disagree with its account of sacramental absolution while representing that account accurately. See Catechism §§1441–1442.

The pastoral responsibility is weighty whichever account of ministry one adopts. The church must not reassure people apart from Christ or withhold his promise from repentant believers because of personal preference. Forgiveness is announced and ministered under his authority, with truthfulness, humility, and concern for reconciliation. The risen Savior's peace gives the mission its source and its intended result.