In verses 16 through 24 we see a point which is rather difficult to understand: the Son was to be born in resurrection as a newborn child. The Lord had told His disciples that He would be killed and that this would make the world happy but the disciples sorrowful (v. 20). Then the Lord told them that a woman who is about to bring forth a child has sorrow at the time of birth, but when she brings forth the child, she no longer remembers the affliction because of the joy that a man has been born into the world (v. 21). After the child has been delivered, the woman will be happy because a man is born. Who is this woman? The woman is the whole group of disciples. Who is the child, the son? The child is Christ. What is the birth? It is resurrection.
At the time the Lord spoke this to the disciples, He was one with them, like a child conceived within its mother, waiting to be delivered in birth that He might be a newborn child. In this sense, His disciples were the delivering woman in travail. In those three days, the disciples did suffer the travail of the birth of Christ in resurrection to be born as the Son of God. After the Lord’s resurrection, this “woman” had a newborn child and she rejoiced (20:20).
The man born into the world is the Son (v. 21). The Son was to be born in resurrection (Acts 13:33) as the Son of God (Heb. 1:5; Rom. 1:4). It was by resurrection that the Lord was born as the Son of God. The Lord was born as the Son of Man in the manger, but He was born as the Son of God in resurrection. Acts 13:33 proves this: “God has fully fulfilled this promise...in raising up Jesus, as it is also written in the second psalm, You are My Son; today I have begotten You.” On what day was Christ begotten as the Son of God? On the day of resurrection. His resurrection was a birth.
But was not the Lord the Son of God before His resurrection? Yes. Why then did He have to be born as the Son of God in resurrection? What does Romans 1:4 mean when it says that He “was designated the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness out of the resurrection of the dead”? Psalm 2:7, which is quoted in both Acts 13:33 and Hebrews 1:5, prophesied that Christ would be begotten as the Son of God in resurrection. How can we explain this? Christ was the Son of God incarnated to be a man. Strictly speaking, His human part was not the Son of God, but within His humanity there was the Son of God. Before His death and resurrection He was the Son of God in humanity, but His human part was not the Son of God. Therefore, He had to pass through death and resurrection in order to bring His human part into sonship. His divine part, which was the Son of God, did not need to be born as the Son of God, but His human part needed to be born and designated as the Son of God. Before the Lord’s death and resurrection He was the Son of God; yet whenever people saw Him, they could still ask, “Who is this man? Is he the Son of God?” Since He was the Son of God, why did people still have questions about Him? Because of His human part. His humanity did not appear to be the Son of God. But through His death and resurrection His human part was processed into sonship. Now, after His resurrection, no one would have any questions about His being the Son of God. Everyone would say, “This is the Son of God!” This is the reason He needed to be born in His resurrection and designated as the Son of God. In this sense, He was a child born in resurrection. Before the resurrection of the Lord the whole universe had never seen such a person. But after His resurrection He was the wonderful child with the divine life and the human nature, with both divinity glorified and humanity “sonized.” The mother must have been very happy at the birth of such a wonderful child.
As we have seen, the mother, the woman, in verse 21 refers to the disciples. After being born as a child in resurrection, Christ came to His believers in the evening of the day of His resurrection, and the disciples rejoiced at His presence (20:20). As a mother is happy when she sees her newborn child, so the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord on the day of resurrection. In verse 16 the Lord had said to them, “A little while and you shall behold Me no longer, and again a little while and you shall see Me.” The Lord would die and be buried, and the disciples would not see Him for “a little while.” But after “a little while” longer they would see Him because He would be resurrected. The world cannot see the Lord, because the world cannot see the resurrected Lord. Only the disciples can see the resurrected Lord, the wonderful One. John 20:20 is the fulfillment of the Lord’s prediction in 16:22. The Lord predicted that the disciples would be happy and joyful, and 20:20 shows that the disciples indeed were glad when they saw Him on the day of resurrection.