John Chapter 20 verse 1 Holy Bible

John 20 : 1 Bible Verse Songs

• In the Garden by Alan Jackson
• I've Just Seen Jesus by Sandi Patty + Larnelle Harris

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerses 1-31. - 2. The complete glorification of Jesus in his resurrection. The record pauses for the awful day of that great sabbath, and resumes the marvelous recital when the greatest event in the history of the world is assumed and asserted to have taken place. Heathen and foes admit the fact of the death of Jesus; the evidence is overwhelming, multiform, sufficient to establish itself to the ordinary reason of mankind. It is a matter of indubitable history. The proof was given to all the world; but it is otherwise with the fact of the anastasis of Jesus. That stupendous event was revealed to the eye and mind of faith by a series of communications, which afford to different classes, groups, kinds, and states of mind specimens of the manner and quality of the resurrection-life. "Many infallible proofs" wrought (as St. Luke says, Acts 1.) irresistible conviction as to the reality of the Resurrection. The Church of Christ was originated by a faith in this new and transcendental mode of existence. A generation of men passed, scores of communities were called into being throughout Palestine, Phoenicia, Syria, Lybia, Asia Minor, Achaia, Macedonia, Cyprus, Crete, and even in Italy and the capital of the Roman empire, all of them held together by the life-giving conviction of the reality of a world of spiritual body, into which the redeemed enter. Of this reality the resurrection-life of Christ was the type, the proof, the first fruit, and the earnest. This most astounding fact was preached in Galatia and Macedonia, in Corinth and Rome, in Babylon and Alexandria, before one word of the Gospels had been put on parchment. When the preaching of the apostles was reduced to written form, it was not with the idea of recording a fully detailed or easily harmonizable account of the Easter Day, or of providing rational, or juridical, or historic evidence of the method or order of the great events, but rather to provide five independent series of evidences to the revelations which the apostles and apostolic company received of the nature and quality of the new life for humanity which had now begun. Several details of profound interest occur in the synoptic narrative, concerning which John is silent - such e.g. as the rolling of a stone to the door of the sepulcher, the sealing of the stone by the Roman guard, the resurrection-appearances of the saints, the special preparation made by the women for further embalmment on the following days the great earthquake, the two companies of women that resorted to the sepulcher at successive intervals of time, and the different signs and even appearances by which their timorous hope was quickened into an adoring homage and world-compelling faith. Though John does not recite these well-known narratives, he presupposes some of them. Thus (1) although, unlike the synoptists, he says nothing of the stone that was rolled to the door of the sepulcher, yet (ver. 1) he refers to the fact that (τὸν λίθον) the stone was taken up or away. (2) Although he says nothing of the two groups of women, yet he implies that Mary Magdalene was not alone at the sepulcher (οὐκ οἴδαμεν): "We know not where they have laid him." With far greater particularity than St. Luke (Luke 24:12), he describes Peter's visit to the sepulcher, and gives further details of facts which occurred at more than one interview between our Lord and his apostles, of which Luke and Mark had given a more shadowy outline (cf. here vers. 19-25 with Luke 24:36, etc.; Mark 16:14). But we are not intending here to produce a history or harmony of these records, but to follow throughout the impressions produced by the Lord's self-manifestation upon the mind of the beloved disciple; not passing over the difficulties which his peculiar experiences have occasioned, when brought side by side with the synoptic and Pauline narratives. John first of all (vers. 1-10) describes how he came to believe personally in the resurrection of Jesus; then (vers. 11-18) the way in which the first manifestation was made to Mary of Magdala (vers. 19-23); how ten of the apostles, including himself, received a full and satisfying assurance of the stupendous fact (vers. 24-29); how once more, after an interval of eight days, not only Thomas, the most anxious, doubting, and incredulous of the eleven, but the entire group, came into full persuasion, not only of Christ's resurrection, but of his Divine nature and claims, his Messiahship and Sonship, and of their own personal possession of life in him and through him. Verses 1-10. - (1) The process of John's own personal conviction, by the discovery that the sepulcher was deserted. Verse 1. - Now on the first day of the week (τῶν σαββάτων, σαββάτα, in the plural, is used for the whole of the week, sabbaton including in itself the various days that intervened between sabbath and sabbath, the first, second, third, etc. Μιᾷ here and in Luke 24:1 and Matthew 28:1 corresponds with the πρώτῃ. of Mark 16:9). All the evangelists agree about the day of the week, which thenceforward became the new beginning of weeks, "the Lord's day." Cometh Mary the Magdalene. Here all the evangelists are at one, although, judging from the synoptists, she must have been accompanied by other women. This is implied in the οἴδαμεν of ver. 2, though Meyer repudiates such a hint by the remark that, in addressing the angels, she uses the singular, οἴδα; but this difference rather confirms, than otherwise, the significance of the plural, when she first breaks on the ear of the astonished disciples the wondrous news. But when she is confronted by the angels she is manifestly alone, and speaks for herself. It is probable that Mary Magdalene had preceded the other women, driven by the intensity of her adoring love and abounding grief, and hence some slight divergency appears as to the time at which she started on her pilgrimage. While it was yet dark, early, in the depth of the dawn (Luke 24:1); before the breaking of full day, and λίαν πρωι'´, "exceeding early" of Mark, although, as he adds, after sunrise (ανατείλαντος τοῦ ἡλὶου). This latter expression is difficult to reconcile as a statement of identical time. But many simple suppositions would explain the discrepancy. The Magdalene's home may have been at a greater distance from the sepulcher, down in the shadows of the eastern hills, while the home of the other Marys may have been readily accessible to the sepulcher. After the great earthquake described by Matthew (Matthew 28:2), and the supernatural darkness of the day but one before, there is no incompatibility in the twofold statement that it was yet dark (not night), although the sun had risen. A deep pall may yet be hanging over the world and place which had held in its bosom the body of the murdered Lord of glory. (She) cometh to the sepulcher, obviously with the purpose stated by all the synoptics. She was bringing the spices which she, with others, had bought on the Friday evening. They would not be behind Nicodemus and Joseph in the expression of their boundless love. The critics make merry over the superfluousness of these women purchasing fresh spices when they must have known the lavish expenditure of the two rich men upon the same design. But the combination of the two statements is absolutely true to nature; it is exactly what women would do all the world over, and an evidence of the authenticity of both narratives. And seeth the stone taken away out of the sepulcher. This is all the information that St. John gives us, as antecedent to Mary's flight to Simon Peter and himself. We have to decide between three hypotheses: either . . .

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(1) For the visit of the women to the sepulchre, and their announcement to the disciples (John 20:1-2), comp. generally Notes on Matthew 28:1-4; Matthew 28:8; Mark 16:1-4; Mark 16:8; Luke 24:1-3; Luke 24:9-11. Each of the three narratives separates the return from the visit by an account of the appearance of the angels at the sepulchre. . . .