Day 45: As the Father Has Sent Me (John 20:19–23)
“So Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you; as the Father has sent Me, I also send you.”
John 20:21 (NASB)
The disciples are behind locked doors, afraid. Jesus appears. The doors are shut, but He stands in their midst — the resurrection body moves through physical barriers. His first word: ‘Peace’ — the Shalom of the covenant, described by Carson1 as the complement of ‘It is finished’ on the cross, for the peace of reconciliation and life from God is now imparted. He shows them His hands and His side — the wounds are retained. The disciples rejoice when they see the Lord. He says it again: ‘Peace be with you.’
The commission in verse 21 is the most intimate in all four Gospels: ‘As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.’ The pattern of the Son’s mission — self-giving, obedient, suffering, world-embracing — is now the pattern of the disciples’ mission. They do not start a new mission; they extend the one that was already underway. ‘Sent’ (απεσταλκεν) is in the perfect tense: the sending is an ongoing reality, not a past event. We are co-laborers with what He is continuing to do.
He breathes on them — an echo of Genesis 2:7, when God breathed into Adam and he became a living being. Now the new creation is inaugurated with another breath, another giving of the Spirit. ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’ This pre-Pentecost gift is preparatory; the full outpouring comes at Pentecost (Acts 2). The commission concludes with the authority to declare forgiveness or its absence — not a power to withhold salvation arbitrarily, but the responsibility to proclaim the only way by which forgiveness comes: through Jesus (14:6). Those who do not receive the message remain in their sins, not because the disciples withheld, but because forgiveness is only available through Christ.
For Reflection
- John’s commissioning is different from Matthew, Mark, and Luke — it is framed as an extension of the Father’s sending of the Son. How does thinking of your mission as continuous with Jesus’s mission change how you approach it?
- Jesus breathed on them — a new creation moment. What would it look like to live as though you are part of a new creation, not just a better version of the old?
- The disciples were commissioned while still behind locked doors, still afraid. God does not always wait until we feel ready. Where is He calling you to step out before you feel equipped?
- D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John, Pillar New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991)
