The Lord's message was not in vain. The disciples gathered on that resurrection-day with the world shot out, and Jesus stood in the midst. It is the beautiful anticipative picture of the assembly, as may be seen more fully when details are entered into.
“When it was evening then on that first day of the week, and the doors were shut where the-disciples were by reason of the fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst, and saith to them, Peace to you. And having said this he showed them his hands and his side. The disciples then rejoiced when they saw the Lord. He [or, Jesus] said to them again, Peace to you: according as the Father hath sent me forth, I also send you. And having said this he breathed into, and saith to them, Receive [the] Holy Spirit: whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted to them; whose soever ye retain, they are retained.” (Vers. 19-23.)
How many things of spiritual weight were here brought into the smallest compass and conveyed in the simplest form! That day which in due time was to receive its appropriate designation of “the Lord's day” (Rev. 1:10), as characteristic of the Christian as the sabbath of the Jew, was marked off, not only by the gathering together of the saints, but by the presence of the Lord in their midst. So it was at the beginning of the following week; and so afterward does the Holy Spirit distinguish it as the day when the breaking of the bread is observed (Acts 20:7) and the wants of the holy poor rose up in remembrance before Him and them. (1 Cor. 16:2.) It was indeed divine guidance, though it did not take the shape of a command; but none the less precious or obligatory on all who value His special presence in communion with His own and the showing forth of His death till He come. It was the day, not of creation rest nor of law imposed, but of resurrection and of the grace which associated the believer with its rich and enduring results; on which all thus blessed come together to enjoy in common that death of the Lord which is the righteous ground of these privileges and of all others.
On that day the Lord gave the assembled disciples a signal witness of the power of life in resurrection; for where they were, the doors having been shut for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in the midst. Weakness attaches to the natural body, which, unless a miracle be wrought, is stopped by a wall or a closed door or a chain or a thousand other cheeks. Not so the body which is raised in power, as the Lord here silently shows them. It appears to be the object of the statement here, and again lower down, to intimate that the risen body can thus enter, not by miracle (however wonderful it may seem to us, who view and measure things by the actual condition of this life) but normally as in the power of resurrection. There is no ground here to suppose, but rather the contrary, that the doors were caused to open of themselves. So it was (Acts 5:19) when the angel led the apostles Peter and John out of prison; so again when Peter was a second time set free (Acts 12:10), and the iron gate opened of itself, not to let in the angel who needed it not, but to let Peter out. It is no question of omnipotence, but of the risen body, which has no more need of an open door than an angel. The ancients seem to have had far simpler faith as to this than most moderns who betray the growing materialism of the day. To talk of philosophical difficulties is puerile pretension: what does philosophy know of the resurrection? It is a question of God and His Son, not of mere causes and effects, still less of experience. The Christian believes the word and knows what God reveals. Let philosophy confess, not boast of, its nescience if dumb before creation, resurrection is to it still more confounding.
Jesus then and thus came and stood in the midst, saying to the disciples, Peace to you. This He had left as His legacy before the cross; now alive again from the dead He announces it to His own: how sweet the sound in a world at war with God! Doubly so, where earnest souls have striven ineffectually to make it for themselves with God, whatever their sighs and tears and groans, whatever their prayers, yearnings, and agony, whatever their efforts to eschew the evil and cleave to the good. For such best know that conscience and heart can find no solid peace in self-judgment or in self-denial, in contemplation of God or in labors for Him; on the contrary, the more sincere, the less have they peace. They are on a wholly wrong road. Peace for a sinful man can only be made by the blood of Christ's cross, which faith receives on His word. And so the Lord spoke it to the disciples that day, the mighty work on which it is grounded being finished and accepted of God, as His resurrection declares. “And having said this, he showed them his hands and his side. The disciples then rejoiced when they saw the Lord.”
Some have conceived that the second “Peace to you” was a sort of farewell or valete, as the first a salvete. As the former was far otherwise, even the deep blessing which characterizes those who are justified by faith, and ever recurring in one form or another throughout the New Testament, so the second is in connection with the mission the Lord proceeds to confer on the disciples. They first received peace for themselves; they are next charged to go forth with the gospel of grace to others. “According as the Father hath sent me forth, I also send you.” These are Christ's true legates a latere: others are but thieves and robbers whom the sheep do well not to hear. Strangers to peace themselves, as their own tongue cannot but confess, how can they tell others of a peace which poor sinners might trust with assurance?
But the Lord next proceeds to another highly significant token of new and lasting privilege. “And having said this, he breathed into and saith to them, Receive Holy Spirit: whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted to them; whose soever ye retain, they are retained.” It was He who before He took flesh had breathed into Adam's nostrils the breath of life; and now He breathed into the disciples the breath of a better and everlasting life, His own life, as being both now, that is Jehovah-God and the risen second Man in one person. Never had He so done before. The right moment was come. He had been delivered for their offenses and was raised for their justification. The risen life is deliverance from the law of sin and death, as well as the bright witness of a complete remission of sins; and this not as an abstract truth for all believers, but intended to be known and enjoyed by each. “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath delivered me from the law of sin and death.” What can be more intensely personal? and what more evident also that it was not only a new and divine life, but this after judgment of sin and the curse of the law had fallen on Christ, and He risen victoriously dispensing a life beyond sin, law, or judgment, and this as having borne all, and borne all away for the believer righteously? Of this His in-breathing was the sign; and He says, “Receive Holy Spirit:” not yet the Spirit sent down from the ascended Lord and Christ to baptize into one body and to give power in testimony, but the energy of His own risen life. For the Spirit ever in the closest way takes His part in every blessing; and as for the kingdom of God every one is born of water and of Spirit, and none else can see or enter that kingdom, so here with life in resurrection, to deal with souls that hear the gospel.
For this is not all. The disciples thus blessed are invested with a blessed privilege and a solemn responsibility as regards others. Those without are now viewed as sinners, the old distinction of Jews and Gentiles for the time disappearing in the true light. But if it be the judgment of the world, it is the day of grace; and the disciples have the administration, the spirit of life in Christ giving them capacity. Hence the word of the Lord is, “Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted; whose soever ye retain, they are retained.” So repentant souls were baptized for the remission of sins, whilst a Simon Magus was pronounced in the gall of bitterness and bond of iniquity. So the wicked person was put away from among the saints, and the same man after the judgment of his evil and his own deep grief over his sin was to be assured of love by the assembly's receiving him back, obedient yet taking the initiative in the act that it might be conscience work and not of bare authority or influence. It was the assembly's doing. “To whom ye forgive anything, I also; for also what I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, [it is] for your sakes in Christ's person.” He would have nothing forced, but fellowship unbroken in discipline; not he dictating and they blindly or in dread following, as in the church world, but they forgiving and he also in a communion truly of the Spirit.