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How Christ Frees The Circle Of Disciples From The Old Fear, And, By The Breathing Of His Spirit, Raises Them To A Presentiment Of Their Apostolic Calling
Joh_20:19-23
(Mar_16:14; Luk_24:36 ff.; Joh_20:19-31, pericope for Quasi modo geniti).
Joh_20:19. When therefore it was evening on that day. [ Ïὔóçò ïὖí ὀøßáò ôῇ ῆìÝñᾳ ἔêåßíῃ ôῇ ìéᾷ óáââÜôùí .]—The evening of that Sunday, the first resurrection day.
And the doors had been shut. [ êáὶ ôῶí èõñῶí êåêëåéóìÝíùí ὅðïõ ἧóáí ïἱ ìáèçôáß ].—This circumstance is emphasized, as Joh_20:26; comp. Act_12:13.
1. Unfounded softening of the expression. Calvin and others, Baumg.-Crus.: The doors had suddenly opened ad nutum divinæ majestatis ejus. According to Lücke, the statement is even reducible to a mere unexpected, sudden appearing.
2. Unfounded intensification of the expression. He pressed bodily through the closed doors. In the interest of the [Lutheran] ubiquity-doctrine, Quenstädt.
3. A miraculous appearing, unqualified as to its manner, indicative of the higher condition in which He found Himself subsequently to His transformation (Luk_24:31 : ἄöáíôïò ãåíÝóèáé ; Joh_21:1; Mar_16:12 : öáíåñïῦóèáé . F. Kühn: Wie ging Christus durch die Grabesthür? 1838. Tholuck). A. Tholuck: The description leads to the conception “of an unconfinedness to the limits of space”—bounds of locality.—Primarily it indicates nothing but a simple power of the glorified life of Christ to move unrestrainedly, to appear and disappear;—His local definedness, which is one with bodily circumscribedness, remaining the while undestroyed. According to Baur, an immaterial constitution was ascribed to Jesus; according to Meyer, the body of Christ was not yet glorified; as according to Lücke, who, in opposition to Olshausen (who distinguishes between the docetic and glorified body), remarks that a something intermediate betwixt the ethereal consistency of angels and material, corporeal solidity is to him inconceivable. Nevertheless, the idea of the body as dynamically transformed into the pure organ of the spirit is everywhere established in the New Testament (see 1Co_15:49).
Peace unto you [ ÅἰñÞíç ὑìῖí ].—The customary greeting is here filled with the weight of the resurrection-message and all that proclamation of salvation therewith connected; at the same time it is a fulfilment of the promise, Joh_14:27. See Exeg. Notes there. [Ministers are messengers of peace.]
Joh_20:20. He showed unto them [ Ἔäåéîåí êáὶ ôὰò ÷åῖñáò êáὶ ôὴí ðëåõñὰí áὐôïῖò ].—See Luk_24:40. According to Meyer, a difference is constituted by the mention in that passage of the feet instead of the side.
Joh_20:21. As the Father hath sent Me [ êáèὼò ἀðÝóôáëêÝí ìå ὁ ðáôÞñ , êἀãὼ ðÝìðù ὑìᾶò ].—Comp. Matthew 10; John 13; Mat_16:19; chap. 18. The second åἰñÞíç ὑìῖí solemn, more definitely proclamatory of the infinite import of the salutation,—not, however, a farewell-greeting, as Kuinoel and others have interpreted it.—Even so send I you [ êἀãὼ ðÝìðù ὑìᾶò ].—Analogy of dynamical authority. The Father now sends Him out of the kingdom of resurrection and reconciliation to them; so likewise the Son sends them out of this kingdom to the world. That therewith their reinstitution into office is simultaneously expressed, in connection with an amplification of that office (henceforth they are witnesses for the Crucified and Risen One), is obvious, in accordance with the stronger analogy of Joh_21:15 ff. But as at the first bestowal of apostolic dignity, Peter took precedence of the others, so now the general restitution of the whole body precedes a more explicit restitution of Peter. Comp. Joh_17:18.
Joh_20:22. He breathed on them [ êáὶ ôïῦôï åἰðὼí ἐíåöýóçóåí êáὶ ëÝãåé áὐôïῖò . The verb ἐìöõóÜù occurs in the N. T. only here, but is used in the Sept. to express the act of God in the original infusion of the spirit of life into man (Gen_2:7 : ἐíåöýóçóåí åἰò ôὸ ðñüóùðïí áὐôïῦ ðíïὴí æùῆò , êáὶ ἐãÝíåôï ὁ ἄíèñùðïò åἰò øõ÷ὴí æῶóáí ). “This act is now by God incarnate repeated, sacramentally, representing the infusion of the new life, of which He is become by His glorified Humanity the source to His members: see Job_33:4; Psa_33:6; 1Co_15:45” (Alford).—P. S.] Different interpretations:
1. Simply the prophetico-symbolical heralding of the Holy Ghost (Theod. Mopsueste, Bullinger, Lampe, etc.). This view is contradicted by: a. the act, b. the Aorist Imperative ëÜâåôå , c. the remark that in this case the act were but a repetition of the promise contained in the farewell-discourses.
2. It is the gratia ministerialis, rather than the former gratia sanctificationis, not, however, as yet, the pentecostal communication or gratia ÷áñéóìáôéêÞ (Theophylact, Maldonat and others).
3. It is holy spirit ( ðíåῦìá ἅ ãéïí , without the article), but not yet the Holy Spirit, nor yet the Spirit of the new birth, of the world-mighty Jesus (Hofmann and Luthardt [also Gess]; see thereupon Tholuck and Meyer).
4. It is a quantitative, precursive communication of the Spirit, in accordance with Christ’s not yet perfected state of glorification (Origen, Calvin, Neander, Stier, Tholuck. Meyer: A veritable ἀðáñ÷Þ of the Holy Ghost). [Similarly Bengel (arrha pentecostes), Brückner, Hengstenberg, Godet, Ewald, Alford. The full communication of the Holy Spirit did not take place before the day of Pentecost, comp. Joh_7:39; Joh_16:7; Acts 2.—P.S.])
We have to consider on the one hand the afflation, and on the other hand the design of this bestowal of the Spirit. The afflation is an afflatus with the new life of the resurrection, and so the symbol, as the commencement, of the communication of His resurrection-life, i. e. life in His Holy Spirit. The degree of this communication, however, is determined in accordance with their present need; they must even now have power to gather the Resurrection-Church and to distinguish it from the world, in like manner as it, as the substratum of the people’s Church shortly to be established, is to be thoroughly distinguished from the Israelitish Church. In respect of this consideration, this gratia is doubtless specially ministerialis. They have not yet the gift of communicating the Holy Ghost, but they do possess that of discerning the Holy Spirit when already communicated.
Joh_20:23. Whose sins ye remit [ ἄí ôéíùí ἀöῆôå ].—By proclaiming and promising to them forgiveness while ye receive them into your fellowship.—They are (have been) remitted unto them [ ἀöÝùíôáéáὐôïῖò ].—See Text. Notes. Meyer’s antithesis: “They become (will be) remitted (according to the reading ἀößåíôáé ) and they are (have been) retained ( êåêñÜôçíôáé ), is to be refuted first by the Codd. which read ἀöÝùíôáé [perf. pass.= ἀöåῖíôáé .—P. S.], secondly by the exegetical demand that the two terms should form a parallel. Their remitting of sin and. retaining of sin will, as a prophetically ministerial act, rest upon corresponding acts of God, already accomplished in the Spirit,—not, however, have these acts as a result or, still less, effectuate them. They will be influenced in these acts by Christ; they will not influence Him. The term, remit sins [ ἀöéÝíáé ], is akin to the term, loose [ ëὐåéí ], Mat_16:19; the term, retain [ êñáôåῖí ], or retain together, is akin to the term, bind [ äÝåéí ]. See Comm. on Matthew at the passage designated, note (Leben Jesu, II., p. 889). The Lord does here but invert the expression, thereby indicating the now decided, New Testament stand-point, in which redemption [loosing], forgiveness, advances into the foreground. Here, then, as in those other passages, Mat_16:19; Mat_18:18, it is the potestas clavium in its broader sense, not merely, in accordance with the Heidelberg Catechism, the preaching of the holy Gospel and Christian penitential discipline (if it were confined to these, the latter branch would have to be considered as having reference also to reception into the Church: open the kingdom of heaven to believers), but in a still more extended sense in accordance with the Artic. Smalc.: Mandatum docendi evangelium, remittendi peccata, administrandi sacramenta, præterea mandatum excommunicandi; in which summing up the second and fourth items should really be regarded as expressed in the third: administrandi sacramenta. In reality the stations of the potestas are these: 1. The preaching of the gospel; 2. establishment of the preliminary conditions of reception; 3. reception into the Church; 4. penitential discipline in the real sense of the term. In a narrower sense it is undoubtedly the potestas of reception through baptism and of reception through repentance and absolution, together with the potestas of the opposite denial of reception, or exclusion. The symbolic prefiguration of the administration of the Church by the administration of the keys of the house of David, Isa_22:22, is, in consciously symbolic terms, continued in the Revelation (Joh_3:7). See Tholuck, p. 441 ff.; Julius Müller, Deutsche Zeitschrift, 1852, p. 55 [on the power of the keys, in an essay on the Divine Institution of the Ministry, reprinted in Müller’s Dogmatische Abhandlungen (1870), p. 496 ff.—P. S.].
2. The night of Christmas, the darkness of Good Friday, the evening of the Supper, the first Easter evening; glorious hours of the ever brighter shining of the Dayspring from on high (Luk_1:79). At evening time it shall be light, Zec_14:7.
3. How Christ, as the Risen One, bursts though, the fear of the company of disciples: (1) the fear of the Jews; (2) the fear of His own ghost-like apparition; (3) the fear of the whole world (Joh_20:21); (4) the fear of the power of sin and guilt (Joh_20:23); (5) the fear of the terrors of judgment (“whosoesoever sins ye retain,” etc.).
4. The first Easter Church in its changing forms: a. a Church of secret, fugitive disciples, b. a Church of festive, glad believers, c. a Church of anointed and commissioned apostles.
5. How Christ cometh into the midst of His people: (1) in spite of closed doors: (2) with the salutation of peace; (3) with the firstling gift of the Spirit; (4) with the commission of the apostolic embassy; (5) with the bestowal of apostolic plenipotence.
6. The entrance of Jesus whilst the doors were shut, an evidence of His higher, glorified corporeality.
7. The peace-greeting, or the transformation of the every-day formula of salutation into the loveliest, richest Evangel by the mouth of Christ.
8. The mission of the disciples from Christ measured in accordance with the mission of Christ from the Father.
9. The first gift of the Spirit, or how, in the Easter feast of Christ, the last shadows of Good-Friday (fear of the Jews) come in contact with the first light of Pentecost (He breathed on them).
10. The inseparable connection of apostolic plenipotence with the apostolic embassy. See Mat_16:10; Joh_18:18.
[11. Forgiveness of sins the fruit of the resurrection (and death of Christ). The triumph over death is also a triumph over sin—the cause of death.—P. S.]
Quasi modo geniti: or Christ the First-born from the dead, Col_1:18.—The transformation of the apostles’ fear of the Jews into the loftiest feeling of triumph over the whole world (Joh_20:21).—How all things ensue from the peace of the Risen One: 1. The joy, the mirth of the disciples; 2. spiritual life; 3. the evangelic mission; 4. apostolic spiritual severity and clemency in the administration of the Gospel.—When the doors are shut to the world, then are they (in the highest sense) open to the Lord.—The union of familiarity and majesty in the first manifestation of the Risen One in the Church.—The first great fulfilment of the promise, Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.—The day of Christ’s heavenly birth from the dead, a birthday of all Christian blessings: 1. Of peace and joy in believing; 2. of Sunday and the feast-days (for now, for the first time, do the remaining festivals receive their true signification); 3. of religious worship (cultus), and of rest from labor, in the Spirit; 4. of the apostolic mission, and of preaching; 5. of New Testament discipline and social consecration.—The life-breath of Christ, the true mission to the world.—The judicial sentence of the apostolic Church: 1. In respect of its divine institution; 2. in respect of its historical obscuration; 3. in respect of its eternal import.—Or: 1. As a sacred power; 2. as an accountable right; 3. as a solemn duty.—The great word: Sent from Christ as Christ from the Father.
Starke: The experience of an afflicted and tempted person may be very different in the evening from what it was in the morning.—The lying in wait of the wicked must conduce to the best interests of the godly, in this respect also, viz. that the godly refrain themselves from them, and hence are not led away by intercourse with them, nor condemned with them.—Zeisius: What a precious and unspeakable fruit of the merit and resurrection of Christ, is peace with God in the conscience!—Yea, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost are two particular, precious fruits of the resurrection of Jesus and of His spiritual kingdom.—Hall: When Christ, the Morning Star, riseth upon the soul and discovereth Himself unto it, nothing but joy can spring up.—Zeisius: So soon as Christ rose from the dead, He instituted the office of the ministry: of what exceeding importance then must this office be.—Hall: He who desires that Christ should entrust to him the great embassy of His Gospel must likewise first receive His Spirit.—A testimony of the divinity of Jesus Christ, for the Holy Ghost is God, and therefore no one can give that Holy Ghost who is not himself God, Joh_15:20.—In the evening and at night Jesus did take in hand many momentous things for our sake: He was born in the night, He suffered Himself to be taken prisoner in the night, He instituted the Lord’s Supper in the night, and in the evening, when He was risen from the dead, He instituted the ministry of the New Testament. If we pondered these things every evening, we should make a holier use of the evening hours, and not perform so many works of darkness in the night!
Braune: In so far as we are sinful, Christ is sent unto us from the Father, but in so far as we are redeemed, we are sent, as His witnesses, unto others, that we may be co-laborers, not in our, but in His work. Amid the consciousness of our weakness and frailty, we should hold fast the sense of the loftiness of our calling as redeemed ones, and by the former feeling be but the more impelled to suffer ourselves to be redeemed and reconciled to God, to the end that the latter feeling may become true and strong; whoso but suffereth himself to be redeemed will draw others also into this beatific fellowship.—“He breathes on them;” like a friend’s breath upon the cheek, shall the Holy Spirit of God come unto man’s spirit.—Unto sanctified [consecrated] personalities the Redeemer commits the forgiveness of sins; these commissioned ones are a terror and vexation to the wicked, but friends to the good. That which the Redeemer here says concerning the remitting and retaining of sins may be compared with what He says of loosing and binding for the Kingdom of Heaven, Mat_16:19; Mat_18:18.—Sanctified [consecrated] personalities are, as St. Paul says of the Gospel, 2Co_2:16, unto some a savor of life unto life, unto others a savor of death unto death.
Gossner: He, therefore, who is sent from Christ, who is Christ’s messenger, must needs have received the peace of Christ, which is higher than all reason, must likewise needs have received the Spirit of Christ, and this seal of the Spirit and of peace must give evidence of itself in him by the devolving of peace and anointing from him to others again, by others being filled and anointed therewith. All this is contained in that little word as.—But when ministers make their appearance who have nothing to recommend them save that they are puffed up by the spirit of this world, what will they accomplish? They will puff up others also with the same spirit of the world.
Heubner: In the evening. H. Müller, Herzenssp. p. John 241: The Saviour will visit us in the evening. When the sun of the world hath set in our heart, the Sun of Righteousness ariseth.—Christians have often enough been obliged to assemble in secret; the Waldenses, for example, the Moravians, the Reformed in France, and others.—If Jesus come not into the assembly of Christians, it is cold, heartless, unfruitful.—Christ’s peace-greeting was the spoil of victory—spoil which He won by death and resurrection.—Whoso hath followed Christ unto Golgotha, to him doth He shout His word of peace.—Augustine; Cicatrices tituli gloriarum.—Crucifixion and resurrection are inseparable—one is incomplete without the other. This is the sum of Christianity.—The disciples were glad; Behold the power of the appearing, the peace, of Jesus. From His peace comes joy.—Peace is indispensable to the mission of Jesus. A man must have Jesus’ peace in his own heart if he would be a messenger of peace to others; he must first be redeemed himself, if he would preach redemption to others. Luther, in the postil to Quasimodog. Sunday, XI. 1040, writes this to all true Christians, after applying it to the Apostles and the ministry; they can meet these requisites, not by their own strength, but in Christ’s name, in the might of the Holy Ghost.—Schleiermacher, Pred. iii. p. 563.—Couard, ii. p. 326.—Marheineke, ii. p. 45.
[Craven: From Augustine: Joh_20:19. If thou comprehendest the mode [of entering] it is no miracle: when reason fails, then is faith edified.
Joh_20:20. The nails had pierced His hands, the lance had pierced His side. For the healing of doubting hearts, the marks of the wounds were still preserved.——From Chrysostom: Joh_20:21. He shows the efficacy of the cross, by which He undoes all evil things, and gives all good things; which is peace.—To the women above there was announced joy; for that sex was in sorrow, and had received the curse.——From Gregory: Joh_20:21. I love you, now that I send you to persecution, with the same love wherewith My Father loved Me, when He sent Me to My sufferings.
Joh_20:23. The disciples who were called to such works of humility, to what a height of glory are they led! Lo, not only have they salvation for themselves, but are admitted to the powers of the supreme Judgment-seat.——From Bede: Joh_20:21. A repetition is a confirmation: whether He repeats it because the grace of love is two-fold, or because He it is who made of twain one.
[From Burkitt: Joh_20:19. It has been no strange thing in the Church, that the best members of it have been put to frequent their assemblies with great fear, and been forced to meet in the night with great caution, because of the fury of the persecutors.—Let Christ’s disciples meet together never so privately, and with never so much hazard and jeopardy, they shall have Christ’s company with them.
Joh_20:21. The repetition of, Peace be unto you, was not more than needful to signify His firm reconciliation to the disciples, notwithstanding their late cowardice in forsaking Him.—As My Father hath sent Me, so send I you; By the same authority, and for the same ends, in part; namely, to gather, govern, and instruct My Church.
Joh_20:22. He breathed on them, and said, Receive ye the Holy Ghost; When Christ sends forth any about His work, He will furnish them with endowments answerable to their vast employment; and the best furniture they can have, is the Holy Spirit in His gifts and qualifications suitable to their work.
Joh_20:23. There is a twofold power of remitting sins; the one magisterial and authoritative; this belongs to Christ alone: the other ministerial and declarative; this belongs to Christ’s ambassadors.—“Christ first conferred the Holy Ghost upon His apostles, and then said, Whose sins ye remit, they are remitted. Thereby intimating that it is not they, but the Holy Ghost by them, that puts away sin; For who can forgive sin, but God only?” (Augustine). The power of forgiving sin, that man hath, is only to declare that if men be truly and really penitent, their sins are forgiven them for the sake of Christ’s satisfaction.
[From M. Henry: Joh_20:19. The disciples of Christ, even in difficult times, must not forsake the assembling of themselves together, Heb_10:25.—It is a comfort to Christ’s disciples, when their solemn assemblies are reduced to privacy, that no doors can shut out Christ’s presence from them.—His speaking peace, makes peace, peace with God, peace in your own consciences, peace with one another; all this peace be with you; not peace with the world, but peace in Christ.
Joh_20:20. Conquerors glory in the marks of their wounds.—Christ’s wounds were to speak on earth, that it was He Himself, and therefore He rose with them; they were to speak in heaven, in the intercession He must ever live to make, and therefore He ascended with them, and appeared in the midst of the throne, a Lamb as it had been slain, and bleeding afresh, Rev_5:6. Nay, it should seem, He will come again with His scars, that they may look on Him whom they pierced.—When Christ manifests His love to believers by the comforts of His Spirit, assures them that because He lives, they shall live also, then He shows them His hands and His side.—A sight of Christ will gladden the heart of a disciple at any time; the more we see of Christ, the more we shall rejoice in Him; and our joy will never be perfect till we come there where we shall see Him as He is.
Joh_20:21. Christ was now sending the disciples to publish peace to the world (Isa_52:7); and He here not only confers it upon them for their own satisfaction, but commits it to them as a trust to be by them transmitted to all the sons of peace, Luk_10:5-6.—He sent them authorized with a divine warrant, armed with a divine power; sent them as ambassadors to treat of peace, and as heralds to proclaim it; sent them as servants to bid to the marriage:—hence they were called Apostles—men sent.
Joh_20:22. What Christ gives, we must receive, must submit ourselves and our whole souls to the quickening, sanctifying influences of the blessed Spirit; receive His motions, and comply with them; receive His powers, and make use of them; and they who thus obey His word as a precept, shall have the benefit of it as a promise; they shall receive the Holy Spirit as the guide of their way, and the earnest of their inheritance.
Joh_20:23. Two ways the apostles and ministers of Christ remit and retain sin, and both as having authority: 1. By sound doctrine; 2. By a strict discipline, applying the general rule of the gospel to particular persons.
[From A Plain Commentary (Oxford): Joh_20:19. Peace be unto you! Can we forget that this was the salutation of Shiloh (that is, “Peace”), even “the Prince of Peace” Himself? of Him who is delared to be “our Peace:” who bequeathed His peace to the disciples; and promised that Peace should be their abiding portion; and directed them to salute with “Peace” every house into which they entered. Peace was the subject of the angels’ carol on the night of the Lord’s nativity: behold, Peace is the first word He pronounces in the hearing of His disciples now that He is risen from death.
Joh_20:22. O most solemn and mysterious incident, as well as most solemn and prevailing words! The action of our Saviour here described may have shown emblematically (as Augustine suggests) that the Holy Ghost proceedeth from the Son. It may further have served to show that this was He by the breath of whose mouth all the hosts of heaven were made; and especially (as Cyril supposes), that Christ was the same who, after creating man in the beginning, “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and he became a living soul.” But more than that is here intended. For it is to be thought that, at the time of man’s creation, “together with his soul, or the principle of his natural life, he received also the grace of the Holy Spirit as a principle of the Divine Life to which he was also designed.” (Bishop Bull). That is, the soul of man received from the very first “the peculiar impress of the Holy Spirit super-added,” as Clement of Alexandria writes. And Basil, expressly comparing the Divine insufflation upon Adam with that of Christ upon the Apostles, tells us that it was the same Son of God “by whom God gave the insufflation: then indeed, together with the soul, but now, into the soul.” Eusebius is even more explicit. “The Lord” (he says), “renews mankind. That grace which man enjoyed at first, because God breathed into his nostrils,—that same grace did Christ restore when He breathed into the face of the Apostles, and said, Receive the Holy Ghost.”—At the first institution of certain mysteries of the Faith, there was not wanting the outward emblem of an inward grace; which grace was afterwards conveyed without any such visible demonstration. Thus, at the Baptism of Christ, “the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon Him.” And now, at the ordination of His Apostles, our Lord is found to have “breathed into” their faces, when He would convey to them the gift of the same Blessed Spirit.
From Barnes: Joh_20:19. True Christians will love to meet together for worship; nothing will prevent this.
Joh_20:21. As My Father hath sent Me; As God sent Me to preach, to be persecuted, and to suffer; to make known His will, and to offer pardon to men; so I send you.——From Jacobus: Joh_20:19. Glad; So He had promised to them (Joh_16:20), “Your sorrow shall be turned into joy.”]
Footnotes:
Joh_20:19.— ÓõíçãìÝíïé [assembled: text. rec. with E.G. K. L. Vulg.] is omitted in accordance with à . A.B.D., etc. Lachmann, Tischendorf. An exegetical addition. [Treg., Alf., Westc. likewise omit it.]
Joh_20:20.—[The text. rec. omits the êáß before ôὰò ÷åῖñáò with à . D.; but Lachm., Tischend. (in former edd., not in ed. 8), Treg., Alf., Westc. retain it with A. B. Syr.—P. S.]
Joh_20:21.—[ ὁ ’ Éçóῦò is omitted by à . D. L. X., Treg., Tischend.; bracketed by Alford and Westcott; retained by Lachmann and Lange with A. B.—P. S.]
Joh_20:22—[The absence of the article before ðíåῦìá may indicate the partial or preparatory inspiration, as distinct from the pentecostal effusion. See the Exeg.—P. S.]
Joh_20:23.—The reading ἀöÝùíôáé in accordance with A. D. L. O. X., Lachmann—in opposition to the reading ἀößåíôáé , B. E. G. K„ etc., Tischendorf. On ἀöÝùíôáé instead of ἀöåῖíôáé , see Winer, p. 91. [Tischend. ed, 8, Treg., Westc. and H. read ἀöÝùíôáé , Alford ἀößåíôáé . ἀöéÝùíôáé . is also found Mat_9:2; Mat_9:5; Mar_2:5; Luk_5:20; Luk_5:23; Luk_7:47; 1Jn_2:12. The old grammarians differ as to this form, some declaring it to be identical with ἀöῶíôáé . (as Homer has ἀöÝç for ἀöῆ , others regarding it as the perf. pass, ἀöåῖíôáé . Winer adopts the latter view, Gr. p. 77, ed. 7. The bearing of this reading on the sense is important; see the Exeg.—P. S.]
[Similarly Bengel: ἀößåíôáé — êåêñÜôçíôáé , remittuntur— retenta sunt: illud, præsens; hoc præterilum. Mundus Est sub peccato.)
[An important remark. Ministerial acts are not creative but declarative of the preceding acts of Christ and the Holly Spirit. Dean Alford remarks in loc, that ministers have the power of the keys “not by successive delegation from the Apostles,—of which fiction I find in the New Testament no trace” (—the italics are Alford’s—), “but by their mission from Christ, the Bestower of the Spirit, for their office when orderly and legitimately coferred upon them by the various Churches. Not however to them exclusively,—though for decency and order it is expedient that the outward and formal declaration should be so:—but in proportion as any disciple shall have been filled with the Holy Spirit of wisdom, is the inner discernment, the êñéóéò , his.”—P. S.]