John 20:30Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

From this it is clear that they did not speak of the miracles they described out of boastfulness, but solely for benefit. How could they have described them out of boastfulness when they omitted the greater part of them? But why did they not recount them all? Chiefly because of their multitude. Then they also thought that whoever would not believe what had been said would not believe more. And whoever accepted this would need nothing further to be strengthened in faith.

Still, it seems to me that here the Evangelist speaks only of the signs that occurred after the Resurrection. For this reason he notes, "in the presence of His disciples." Before the Resurrection, many miracles were needed so that they might believe that Christ is the Son of God. After the Resurrection, miracles were needed so that they might be convinced that He had risen. Therefore he added, "in the presence of His disciples," because after the Resurrection He associated only with them. For this reason He also said, "The world will see Me no more" (Jn 14:19).

Therefore the Evangelist is now speaking of the miracles performed by the Lord after the Resurrection. During the forty days, while He associated only with the disciples, He gave proofs of the Resurrection. Before the Passion, He worked miracles to confirm that He is the Son of God. After the Resurrection, He performed miracles before the disciples to confirm that He is the Son of Man. That is, He bears a body, though incorrupt, most godlike, and no longer subject to the laws of flesh.

Not everything, he says, has been written “in this book.” By my mouth only that has been related which I considered fully sufficient to persuade the hearers “that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.” Thus speaks the divine Evangelist. For my part, I think it useful to say the following. The whole content of what is written awakens such faith in us. It wholly persuades us to confess that He who was born of the Holy Virgin, and who was named Jesus by the angelic voice, is the very One proclaimed as Christ in the God-inspired Scripture. He is one and the same, and not another. He is not simply Son (ὑιός), but “the Son of God” (ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ Θεοῦ), uniquely and properly.

What, then, are they doing? What do they proclaim? To what condemnation will they be subject on the great day, who in ignorance dispute concerning the faith? They even try to teach others that one must confess two Christs. For they divide Him, separately into a man and separately into God the Word, even after the union and the ineffable and incomprehensible coming together with the body.

Therefore they are in error. Having departed far from the truth, they deny the Master who redeemed them. For when we consider the matter according to nature, and understand something concerning Christ, we find that the flesh is something other than God the Word, who is from the Father and in the Father. But when we consider the matter according to the union of the flesh with Him, searching as far as possible into this mystery, which is inaccessible and surpasses reason, we understand the Word as one with His own flesh. He has not been changed into flesh. We do not admit this, for the nature of the Word is in no way subject to any change. Rather, in accordance with our holy and God-inspired Scripture, we affirm this. He who is conceived as existing both from the divine temple, the body, which contains human nature in its whole fullness, and from the living Word, is finally one Jesus, Christ, and Son.

The same can be seen in us as true and according to nature. We are composed into one man, consisting of soul and body. Though the body is one thing, and the soul in the body is another in relation to it according to nature, they are united as one living being. They in no way admit division after being joined to one another.

Let the Arians, who dare madly to wage war against God, tell us this. They call Christ, as the Word, a creature. Do they confess Him to be the Son of God and the Father? But I think they themselves will strongly condemn their own mindlessness, if they look to the reasoning about these matters. Let them examine exactly what is created, and what is begotten by someone. For what is created is not taken from the essence of the one who creates. But what is begotten lays hold of the nature of the one who begets (άποσυλά). We say this as though with reference to bodies. With reference to God, however, the matter stands otherwise. Nevertheless, from our own properties a most true image of divine generation is drawn.

Therefore, when such a difference lies between the Son and creation, and their meaning is so distinct, why does the blessed Evangelist speak as he does? Presenting to us the truths he received from the Spirit, he speaks of many and most wondrous signs, that we may believe that Jesus Christ is Himself the Son of God, and not one of the things created by God. This would be so if He really were created, as they say in their empty talk [...]. But he does not say this. Rather, he raises the mind of his hearers to the understanding of sonship. Therefore he wishes the Son to be understood not as created, but precisely as the Word.

After the account of the event in which the disciple Thomas saw what he had not wished to believe and believed, when Christ offered him the wounds of His flesh to touch, the Evangelist John inserts these words and says: "Jesus did many other signs in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name" (Jn 20:30-31).

This passage seems to indicate the end of the book. But afterward he tells how the Lord appeared by the Sea of Tiberias and, in the catch of fish, entrusted the mystery of the Church, showing what She will be at the final resurrection of the dead. Thus I think there was a reason for such an indication. What was placed there as a kind of end of the book would serve as a preface to the further narrative, so that in this way it might receive greater significance.

What signs, then, are not written in this book, that is, in his Gospel? Perhaps they are those John omitted, but the other Evangelists before him wrote about. Matthew wrote of the great earthquake and the lightning-like Angel who rolled the stone away from the door of the tomb (Mt 28:2). Luke spoke of the risen Christ accompanying and conversing with the two disciples going to Emmaus. He said that at first He held their eyes so that they did not know Him, and that afterward He became invisible. He also wrote that He opened the Apostles' minds to understand the Scriptures, and that He ascended into heaven before their eyes.

The Evangelist John kept silence about these things. But perhaps by "many other" he means many signs that were written by none of the Evangelists. For the miracles of Christ the Savior are countless, as John himself testified elsewhere in these words: "There are also many other things which Jesus did. If each one were written, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that would be written" (Jn 21:25). Why, then, did he write these signs?

When Thomas saw the Lord before him, with His wounds, and saw that He had come only to assure him of His Resurrection, he forgot in joy and reverence his desire to touch the divine wounds with his hands. He could only confess, "My Lord and my God." In his person, the Lord had in view all those who from that time would turn to His Church and enter the number of His followers, no longer having the possibility of personal converse with Him. Therefore He said to Thomas, "Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." This means not only those who did not see His Resurrection, but also those who did not see Him at all, yet would believe in Him.

The Evangelist gives the conclusion to the history of Jesus Christ's Resurrection after bringing this history to the time when all the Apostles were fully assured of the truth of the Lord's Resurrection. This conclusion is an exhortation to faith in Jesus Christ as the Son of God.

In the following chapter, in the closing words, the Evangelist John says that far from all the deeds of Jesus Christ were recorded in the Gospel. Therefore, when after the narrative about Thomas he says that Jesus did many other signs in the presence of His disciples which are not written in this book, John had in mind not the events that preceded Jesus' Resurrection, but special signs which Christ revealed to His disciples after His Resurrection. He did this so that they might believe in Him with a strong faith, unshaken by anything.

We do not know what these signs were. The Evangelist told us nothing about them, because in his judgment what has been written is fully sufficient to believe that Jesus truly is the Christ, the Son of God. Having such faith, one may enter into the life of eternal blessedness in the Kingdom of Heaven.

In them are especially concentrated the teaching, and the revelation of the mystery of mercy, redemption, and the liberation of men from slavery to sin and death. Thus they may become “children of God” and heirs of the Kingdom of God, through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.

This the Evangelist explains especially in verse thirty-one, indicating that “these are written that you may believe... and that you may have eternal life.” The Evangelist points to two aims in writing the Gospel. The second depends on the attainment of the first. The preaching of the Gospel is an act that did not arise in human thought. It is the continuation, by the command of God, of God’s own act, which leads man to salvation.

The first aim indicated by the Holy Spirit in the writing of the Gospels is to plant in the human heart faith and conviction that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, as Peter confessed (John 6:69). The second aim, which for man depends on the first, is to save man by this faith. This faith confesses that Christ is “my Lord and my God,” as in Thomas’s confession of faith.

Before this faith, the teaching, miracles, and sufferings of the God-man are opened in the Gospels. It kindles love, an unquenchable and eternal love for the Merciful One. He did not disdain man or his flesh, but gave Himself in human form for suffering and redemption.

This same faith, as it studies the Gospels, sees that by God’s command the prophets long ago foretold all the events accomplished in the birth, life, suffering, and resurrection of the One whom all generations of the earth awaited. This begins with Adam, to whom it was promised that “the seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent’s head” (Gen 3:15). It continued throughout the whole life of the people entrusted with preserving the promise. Among them “the Spirit foretold the sufferings of Christ and the glory that would follow” (1 Pet 1:11-12).

Therefore everything that serves the knowledge of the Lord God in the flesh, and full conviction and faith in Him, is found in the Gospels. There is no excuse for the one who closes his eyes so as not to see the light. With the Gospel in hand, we see God incarnate, crucified, and risen. We must cry out with Thomas: “My Lord and my God!”

“Before our eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified among us” (Gal 3:1). Therefore we fear not to obey the truth, as the Apostle cries out. For the holy Evangelist John also, as a witness of the events, writes in his epistle: “That which we have seen and heard we proclaim to you, that you too may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ” (1 John 1:3-4). “And these things we write to you, that your joy may be full.”

This is the aim of the Gospels, written by the command of the Holy Spirit and through the infinite love of God the Father. He revealed Himself to man in His second Hypostasis, the Word, who manifests God to man. God’s thought is the salvation of man and his reception into eternal blessedness. Of man, one thing is required: a good will, and, as its consequence, faith. Faith with love raises him to God. The mission of the Apostles and Evangelists was to tell the world of God’s love.