John's Gospel

The Way It Happened

John 20:9, The Mystery of the Resurrection

For as yet they knew not the scripture, that he must rise again from the dead.

//In the spirit of mystery–for the resurrection story is a great mystery, whether we claim to know what happened or not–I present today’s verse. I honestly don’t know what to make of it, I’ve never read a convincing commentary on this verse. Maybe I’m allowed to present a mystery on this day of mystery?

The Apostle John arrived at the tomb, peeked in, saw it was empty, and believed. Then today’s verse comes next in the story, explaining why the apostles didn’t automatically believe Jesus had risen. They didn’t “know the scripture” telling them he would rise again.

But where is this found in scripture? How could they have possibly known from scripture alone? Can anybody help?

1 Comment

  1. elgordo

    Hi,

    thanks for your blog. At the time of the resurrection ‘they’ – the disciples, didn’t understand the scriptures concerning the resurrection. But we see from the sermon Peter gave on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2) that understanding had been given for Peter quotes from Psalm 16 to teach about the resurrection. He now sees that David could not have been just writing about himself for his body DID see decay, but that the Psalm was, like many other Psalms, Messianic – it contained prophetic instruction and understanding about the Messiah to come. This is one of the scriptures they could have known but didn’t at the time of Jesus resurrection. The great passage in Isaiah 53 also contains resurrection implications in verse 10. Hope this helps. All the best.

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