We have seen that the Gospel of John is composed of two major sections. The first section, comprising chapters one through thirteen, unveils the eternal Word incarnated coming to bring God into man. The second section, comprising chapters fourteen through twenty-one, reveals Jesus crucified and Christ resurrected going to prepare the way to bring man into God, and as the Spirit coming to abide and live in the believers for the building of God’s habitation. In this second major section there are four subsections: life’s indwelling for the building of God’s habitation (14:1—16:33); life’s prayer (17:1-26); life processed for multiplication (18:1—20:13, 17); and life in resurrection (20:14—21:25). In John 14, 15, and 16, the Lord expounded how He would come into us to be our life and to be mingled and built together with us that there might be a mutual abode for God and man. This mingling of divinity with humanity is the very organism in which the Triune God grows and expresses Himself. After expounding this matter, the Lord prayed for it in chapter seventeen. After praying, He went through the process of examination, death, and resurrection. Having passed through the process and having come out of death, He is now the life in resurrection. When He is in resurrection, He is life as the Spirit, for He is the Spirit in resurrection. In this message we need to see how this life is now the Spirit in resurrection.
As life in resurrection, the Lord firstly appeared to His seeker (20:14-18). This was His first appearing after His resurrection. Mary, however, could only see Him; she could not touch Him because the freshness of His resurrection was reserved for the Father. In His appearing to Mary, the Lord unfolded the revelation of the issue of His resurrection—the “brothers” and the “Father” (20:17). This is the revelation of the brotherhood and the Fatherhood. In His resurrection, all His disciples have become His brothers, and His Father has become their Father.
In 20:17 the Lord Jesus said to Mary, “Do not touch Me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father.” After He appeared in resurrection to His seeker, He secretly ascended to the Father on the day of resurrection. Many Christians have never seen this matter of the Lord’s secret ascension. Before the Lord ascended publicly in the sight of the disciples forty days later (Acts 1:9-11), He ascended secretly early in the morning of the day of His resurrection to the Father for the Father’s enjoyment and satisfaction.
The Lord offered Himself to the Father as “a sheaf of the firstfruits of the harvest” for the “wave offering” (Lev. 23:10-11, 15). According to the Old Testament, the harvest was taken to the barn, but the firstfruits were always brought into the temple as a wave offering (Exo. 23:19; Lev. 23:10-11). As we have seen, the wave offering, which was offered with a back-and-forth motion, typifies resurrection, and the heave offering, which was offered with an up-and-down motion, typifies ascension. The firstfruit, which was brought into the temple and offered in the presence of God as a wave offering, typifies Christ coming into the presence of God for His satisfaction early on the morning of the day of His resurrection.
Have you ever noticed that Leviticus 23:11 speaks of “the sheaf”? A sheaf is not just one stock of harvested grain but many stocks which have been bound together. What is the significance of this? Matthew 27:52 and 53 say that after the Lord Jesus died, “the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves after His resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.” Thus, the firstfruits of resurrection were not only the Lord Himself, but also the others who had been raised from the dead. Together they were a sheaf.
The Lord’s secret ascension was the fulfillment of the going predicted in 16:7, where He said, “It is expedient for you that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Comforter will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you.” John 16:7 was not fulfilled in Acts 2 but in John 20. Most Christians think that it was fulfilled in Acts 2, but it was fulfilled in chapter twenty of John.