The Locked Room Commission Text: John 20:19-23
Introduction: From Fear to Authority
The resurrection of Jesus Christ is not an epilogue. It is not a feel-good ending tacked on to a tragedy to make us all feel better. It is the explosion that ripped the hinges off of history. It is the event that defines all other events. Before the resurrection, we have a world locked in a tomb, a world under the dominion of sin, death, and the devil. After the resurrection, we have a world where the rightful king has returned, has plundered the strong man's house, and has begun His reclamation project. Everything is different now.
But it is one thing for us to say this with two thousand years of hindsight, and quite another to be one of the disciples on that first Easter evening. They were not celebrating. They were terrified. They were huddled together in a locked room, hiding from the very people their Master had just conquered. They had seen the empty tomb, they had heard the reports from the women, but their fear was still the master of the house. Fear is a powerful tyrant, and it locks doors from the inside. It tells you that the worst-case scenario is the only realistic scenario. The disciples were men who had abandoned their Lord, scattered like sheep, and now they were waiting for the hammer to fall on them as well.
Into this pathetic scene of fear and failure, the resurrected Christ comes. And notice, He does not come to rebuke them for their cowardice, though He would have been entirely justified in doing so. He does not come to give them a lecture on the finer points of Messianic prophecy. He comes to do three things that turn the world upside down: He comes to give them peace, He comes to give them a commission, and He comes to give them the authority to carry it out. This is the pattern of God's grace. He does not find qualified people; He qualifies the people He finds. He takes a room full of frightened men and turns them into the foundation of His Church, against which the gates of Hell cannot prevail. This passage is not just about what happened then; it is the blueprint for how the kingdom of God advances now.
The Text
So while it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and while the doors were shut where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be with you.” And when He had said this, He showed them both His hands and His side. The disciples then rejoiced when they saw the Lord. So Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with 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, their sins have been forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they have been retained.”
(John 20:19-23 LSB)
The Conquest of Fear (v. 19-20)
We begin with the setting, which is one of profound irony.
"So while it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and while the doors were shut where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, 'Peace be with you.' And when He had said this, He showed them both His hands and His side. The disciples then rejoiced when they saw the Lord." (John 20:19-20)
It is the first day of the week, the day of new creation, the day the light first shone in Genesis. But for the disciples, it is a day of darkness and gloom. The doors are shut, locked tight. This is a picture of their hearts. They are barricaded against the outside world because of fear. Fear always seeks to build fortresses. But no lock forged by man can keep the resurrected Christ out. He who was not held by the tomb is certainly not going to be hindered by a deadbolt. He simply appears in their midst. This is not a ghost story; this is a declaration of sovereignty. Jesus is Lord over physical space because He is the one who created it.
And what is His first word to these men who had so spectacularly failed Him? "Peace be with you." This is not a casual greeting. This is a creative decree. It is the impartation of shalom, that deep, all-encompassing well-being that comes from being rightly related to God. They were at war, internally with their guilt and externally with the world. Jesus speaks peace. This is the peace He had promised them before His death, a peace the world cannot give (John 14:27). It is a peace purchased with His own blood. And to prove it, He shows them His hands and His side. He shows them the receipts. The wounds are the evidence of the cost of their peace. He is not a phantom; He is the crucified and risen Lord. His body is a real, physical body, glorified but still bearing the marks of His sacrifice. This is crucial. Our faith is not in a spiritual idea but in a historical, bodily resurrection. The disciples saw the Lord, and their fear was swallowed by joy. The sight of the risen, wounded Christ is the only antidote to fear.
The Great Commission in Miniature (v. 21)
Having established peace, Jesus immediately moves to purpose. The peace He gives is not for sitting around in a circle and feeling peaceful. It is fuel for a mission.
"So Jesus said to them again, 'Peace be with you; as the Father has sent Me, I also send you.'" (John 20:21 LSB)
He repeats the word of peace because it is the foundation for everything that follows. You cannot be a good ambassador if you are not at peace with the king you represent. Then comes the commission, stated with breathtaking simplicity and scope: "As the Father has sent Me, I also send you." Think about the implications of this. How did the Father send the Son? He sent Him with all authority. He sent Him to seek and save the lost. He sent Him to preach good news, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives. He sent Him into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. And now, Jesus says, "That's how I am sending you."
This is not just a suggestion. It is the organizing principle of the Christian life and the Church. We are a sent people. The word "apostle" means "one who is sent." And while the foundational office of apostle has ceased, the apostolic function of the church has not. We are sent into our homes, our neighborhoods, our workplaces, our nations, with the same pattern of incarnational, sacrificial, authoritative love that characterized the mission of the Son. We are not to retreat into our locked rooms. We are to go out. The peace He gives is not a sedative; it is a stimulant. It is the confidence we need to engage a hostile world on His terms, not ours.
The Breath of New Creation (v. 22)
Jesus gives them a mission that is humanly impossible. And He knows it. So He immediately provides the power necessary to fulfill it.
"And when He had said this, He breathed on them and said to them, 'Receive the Holy Spirit.'" (Genesis 20:22 LSB)
This is a profoundly significant act. We must immediately be thrown back to Genesis 2, where God formed man from the dust of the ground and "breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul" (Gen. 2:7). Here, the last Adam is reconstituting humanity. This is an act of new creation. He is breathing His own resurrection life into His disciples. This is not yet the full outpouring of the Spirit that will come at Pentecost, which was for public power and witness to the world. This is a personal, internal impartation of the Spirit for life and understanding, equipping the disciples for the mission He has just given them.
The Holy Spirit is not an impersonal force or an abstract power. He is the third person of the Trinity. He is the one who regenerates, who illuminates, who sanctifies, who empowers. Without the Holy Spirit, the Great Commission is just a set of impossible marching orders. With the Holy Spirit, it is the blueprint for the conquest of the world. Jesus does not command what He does not enable. He breathes on them, and in so doing, turns a band of cowards into the vanguard of a new humanity.
The Authority of the Keys (v. 23)
Finally, Jesus bestows upon them a specific, declarative authority that flows directly from their commission and their empowering by the Spirit.
"If you forgive the sins of any, their sins have been forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they have been retained." (John 20:23 LSB)
Now, this verse has been the occasion for a great deal of mischief. The Roman church has used it to erect the entire edifice of the confessional and priestly absolution. But that is to fundamentally misunderstand what is happening here. Jesus is not giving these men the divine prerogative to forgive sins in and of themselves. Only God can forgive sins against God. Rather, He is giving the Church, represented here by the apostles, the ministerial and declarative authority to announce the terms of God's forgiveness.
This is the authority of the keys of the kingdom (Matt. 16:19, 18:18). The Church is authorized to declare what the gospel declares: that all who repent of their sins and trust in Jesus Christ are forgiven. When the Church, through the preaching of the gospel, says to a repentant sinner, "Your sins are forgiven," it is not making it so, but it is authoritatively declaring what is already so in heaven. The grammar here is important; it is a perfect passive participle. A more literal rendering would be, "If you forgive the sins of any, they have already been forgiven." The church's declaration on earth reflects the reality of heaven.
But this also works in the other direction. "If you retain the sins of any, they have been retained." This refers to the authority of church discipline. When a person persists in unrepentant sin, the Church has the authority to declare that such a person is outside the bounds of the covenant community and that their sins are "retained." They are bound. This is a terrifying authority, and it is to be exercised with utmost gravity and biblical fidelity. But it is a real authority. The Church is God's embassy on earth. It has been given the authority to declare who is and who is not a citizen of the kingdom, based on the unchanging standard of God's Word. This is not a power to be trifled with, but it is a power that has been given. It is the power to look a lost world in the eye and declare the terms of peace, and also to declare the consequences of refusing that peace.
Conclusion: Your Locked Room
This scene is a microcosm of the entire Christian life. We all begin in a locked room of fear. We are afraid of death, afraid of failure, afraid of what others think of us. We are paralyzed by our own sin and guilt. And the good news is that Jesus Christ comes to us in that locked room. He does not wait for us to get our act together. He appears in the midst of our failure.
He comes speaking peace, showing us His wounds as the basis for that peace. He comes to give us a purpose that is bigger than our fears: to be sent as He was sent. He comes to breathe His own life into us by His Spirit, so that we have the power to do what He has called us to do. And He gives us a place in His body, the Church, which has the real authority to declare the good news of forgiveness to a world that is starving for it.
The question for us is simple. Are we still cowering in the locked room? Or have we heard His word of peace, received His Spirit, and embraced His commission? The doors of the world are locked by fear, sin, and rebellion. But Christ has given us the key. That key is the gospel of His death and resurrection. And He has sent us to go and unlock those doors, one heart at a time, declaring the peace that He alone can give.