Today, I am reading and commenting on John 19-21.

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There is a lot in today’s passage that tug at my thoughts.  However, I really went, “Huh, what?” when I read the account of Peter and John running to the tomb and what they saw.  Once Peter got there a little after John, John went in and saw the tomb empty except the cloths.  John writes that when he saw, he believed, but that he did not yet understand the Scriptures.  If John did not at that moment understand that Jesus must rise from the dead. what did he believe?  I also find it interesting that he only writes that he believed, but says nothing about Peter’s state of mind.  That really tells me that John wrote this Gospel.  If this passage was written by someone other than John who was making this up, or was retelling a made up story, I would expect them to write one of three things here.  First, they might write that both Peter and John believed.  Secondly, they might write that John believed, but Peter did not.  Thirdly,  they might write neither believed.  Of course, if it was someone making up the story they might also leave out anything about believing.  My take away is that the only reason that the writer would say that “the other disciple” believed was because the writer was the other disciple and knew what he thought and felt at the time.  He did not write anything about what Peter felt and thought at that moment because he did not know.

I meant to get more quickly to what he meant when he wrote that he believed but did not understand, but I will go there now.  My interpretation is that John believed that Jesus had risen from the dead, and perhaps even remembered that Jesus had said that He would rise from the dead after three days.  However, John did not yet understand this as a fulfillment of prophecy.  Nor did he truly understand what it meant that Jesus had risen.  John tells us that Jesus explains this more completely in the days following His resurrection.  I think He also implies that the Holy Spirit revealed a deeper understanding of the meaning of Jesus’ ministry after Pentecost.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.