Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of John 20:17
Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and [to] my God, and your God.
17. Touch me not, for, &c.] This is a passage of well-known difficulty. At first sight the reason given for refraining from touching would seem to be more suitable to a permission to touch. It is perhaps needless to enquire whether the ‘for’ refers to the whole of what follows or only to the first sentence, ‘I am not yet ascended to the Father?’ In either case the meaning would be, that the Ascension has not yet taken place, although it soon will do so, whereas Mary’s action assumes that it has taken place. If ‘for’ refers to the first clause only, then the emphasis is thrown on Mary’s mistake; if ‘for’ refers to the whole of what is said, then the emphasis is thrown on the promise that what Mary craves shall be granted in a higher way to both her and others very soon. The translation ‘touch Me not’ is inadequate and gives a false impression. The verb ( haptesthai) does not mean to ‘touch’ and ‘handle’ with a view to seeing whether His body was real; this Christ not only allowed but enjoined ( Joh 20:27; Luk 24:39; comp. 1Jn 1:1): rather it means to ‘hold on to’ and ‘cling to.’ Moreover it is the present (not aorist) imperative; and the full meaning will therefore be, ‘ Do not continue holding Me,’ or simply, hold Me not. The old and often interrupted earthly intercourse is over; the new and continuous intercourse with the Ascended Lord has not yet begun: but that Presence will be granted soon, and there will be no need of straining eyes and clinging ands to realize it. (For a large collection of various interpretations see Meyer.)
to my Father ] The better reading gives, to the Father; with this ‘My brethren’ immediately following agrees better. The general relationship applying both to Him and them, is stated first, and then pointedly distinguished in its application to Him and to them.
I ascend ] Or, I am ascending. The change has already begun.
my God ] The risen and glorified Redeemer is still perfect man. Comp. Rev 3:12. Thus also S. Paul and S. Peter speak of ‘the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.’ Comp. Eph 1:3 ; 2Co 11:31; 1Pe 1:3; and see on Rom 15:6; 2Co 1:3, where the expression is blurred in the A. V.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Touch me not … – This passage has given rise to a variety of interpretations. Jesus required Thomas to touch him Joh 20:27, and it has been difficult to ascertain why he forbade this now to Mary. The reason why he directed Thomas to do this was, that he doubted whether he had been restored to life. Mary did not doubt that. The reason why he forbade her to touch him now is to be sought in the circumstances of the case. Mary, filled with joy and gratitude, was about to prostrate herself at his feet, disposed to remain with him, and offer him there her homage as her risen Lord. This is probably included in the word touch in this place; and the language of Jesus may mean this: Do not approach me now for this purpose. Do not delay here. Other opportunities will yet be afforded to see me. I have not yet ascended – that is, I am not about to ascend immediately, but shall remain yet on earth to afford opportunity to my disciples to enjoy my presence. From Mat 28:9, it appears that the women, when they met Jesus, held him by the feet and worshipped him. This species of adoration it was probably the intention of Mary to offer, and this, at that time, Jesus forbade, and directed her to go at once and give his disciples notice that he had risen.
My brethren – See Joh 15:15.
My Father and your Father … – Nothing was better fitted to afford them consolation than this assurance that this God was theirs; and that, though he had been slain, they were still indissolubly united in attachment to the same Father and God.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Joh 20:17-18
Jesus saith unto her, Touch Me not
Touch not
What a strange thing that both the old world and the new should have began with the same prohibition.
(Dean Burgon.)
Noli Me tangere:
The lesson is to a soul brought into the conscious presence of the Lord. Oh, to be in that condition! Mary Magdalene had wept because of her Lords absence, and longed to find Him; and now she has her desire: He stands before her. Oh, that we knew where, we might find Him (Job 23:3)! Her conduct in holding Him by the feet was natural, and yet it was forbidden by a higher wisdom than that of mortal men.
I. THE CAUTION. Touch Me not.
1. We may blunder even in our closest friendship, and need a prohibition. We have never need of greater caution than in our nearest approaches to God. Courtiers must be most careful in the throne-room.
2. We may carnalize the spiritual. This has ever been a tendency with even the best of the saints; and it has misled many in whom affection has been stronger than intellect.
3. We may seek most passionately what is by no means essential. The assurance of sense, by touch or otherwise: when the assurance of faith is far better, and quite sufficient. The detaining of one who has no intention of going.
4. We may crave what were better further on. When we are raised to eternal glory we shall be able to enjoy what now we must not ask.
5. We may be selfish in our enjoyments. Staying to contemplate alone by ourselves, when we ought rather to bless others by publishing the blessed 2Ki 7:9).
II. THE MISSION. Go to My brethren. She would have preferred to stay, but Jesus bids her go.
1. This was better for her. Contemplation alone may degenerate into the sentimental, the sensuous, the impracticable.
2. This was better for them. They heard the best of news from the most trustworthy of informants.
3. This was unquestionably done by this holy woman. What she had seen she declared. What she had heard she told. Women are said to be communicative; and so there was wisdom in the choice. Women are affectionate, and so persuasive; and therefore fit to bear such a tender message as we have now to consider.
III. THE TITLE. My brethren. Our Lord, of design, chose this title to comfort His sorrowing ones. They had so acted as almost to cease to be His followers, disciples, or friends; but brotherhood is an abiding relationship. They were
1. His brethren, though He was about to ascend to His throne. He was still a man, though no more to suffer and die. He still represented them as their risen Head. He was still one with them in all His objects and prospects.
2. His brethren, though they had forsaken Him in His shame. Relationship abiding, for brotherhood cannot be broken. Relationship owned more than ever; since their sense of guilt made them afraid. He was a true Joseph to Gen 45:4). Relationship dwelt upon, that they might be reassured. Never let us omit the tender sweetness of the gospel, its courtesies, benedictions, and love-words, such as the My brethren of the text before us. If we leave out these precious words we shall mar the Masters message of grace.
IV. THE TIDINGS. I ascend unto My Father, and your Father. This message was meant to arouse and comfort them.
1. By the news of His departure they are to be aroused.
2. By the news of His ascension they are to be confirmed.
3. By His ascension to the common Father they are to be comforted with the prospect of coming there themselves. He is not going into an unknown country, but to His home and theirs (Joh 14:2).
4. By His ascent to God they are to be struck with solemn awe, and brought the more reverently to look for His presence among them. See how practical our Lord is, and how much He values the usefulness of His servants. Have we not somewhat to tell? Whether man or woman, tell the Lords brethren what the Lord hath told to thee. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Noli Me tangere:
Mary Magdalene, because she loved much, had this morning divers favours vouchsafed her. Now comes an unkind word and mars all. A cold salutation for an Easterday morning. A little before He asked why she wept? This is enough to set her on weeping afresh. For if she wept that others had taken away her Lord, much more now when her Lord takes away Himself. Christ came unknown, and then known; but, unknown, Christ proves better to her, for then He asked her kindly why she wept? but known, He grows strange to forbid her to touch.
I. THE RESTRAINT.
1. The thing forbidden. It is nothing to touch; and yet to touch Christ is not nothing. Many strove to touch Him, and there went virtue from Him even while He was mortal: but now He is immortal much more. That was not her case to draw ought from Him: it was for pure love. To love it is not enough to hear, or see; but to touch and take hold. The nearest union is per contactum.
2. The party. Not Christ. Why not Him? Christ was not wont to be so dainty. He suffered the rude multitude to throng and to thrust Him. Noli Me tangere would have done well on Good Friday. Why suffered He them then? why suffered He not her now? For all she had done and suffered one poor touch had been but an easy recompense. Of all other, this prohibition lay not against her: of all times, not at this.
II. If we look at THE REASON shall we shall find it yet more strange–I am not yet ascended. But when He was ascended, one would think, she should be further off still. Let us consult upon this prohibition. Noli Me tangere can rise but one of these ways.
1. On His part that was touched. Touch Me not, you will hurt Me, or, I shall hurt you; I am fire, I shall scorch you: an edge tool, I shall wound you: pitch, I shall defile you: some contagious thing, I shall infect you. But Christ was not now in state to receive or do any hurt.
2. We resolve, then, it was notch Christs part. He might be touched, and was by Thomas; but on hers she might not touch Him.
(1) Chrysostom thinks it was to correct her want of due reverence. After her wonted fashion, she made toward Him; nor with that regard which His new glorified estate demanded. The touchstone of our touching Christ is with all regard and reverence that may be. Two causes of this. One, a defect in her judgment; the other, an excess in her affection. Christs reason imports as much. You touch Me, not as if I were upon ascending, but as if to stay here still. Hence we learn, that when He sees we forget ourselves, Christ will take a little state upon Him; will not be saluted with Rabboni, but with some more seemly term. Thomas said, My Lord and my God. It is no excuse to say all was out of love. Love, if it be right, doth nothing uncomely. And such love Christ loves. A strange kind of love, when, for very love to Christ, we care not how we carry ourselves towards Him. This may be said, she was not before so carried away with sorrow, but she was now as far gone in the other of joy: and so like enough to forget herself, as Peter on the Mount. He knew not what he said, nor she what she did. Out of which our lesson is, that in the sudden surprise of any passion no touching Christ then. Say she were unfit, yet all is not clear. For why then did others touch? Thomas with his faith in his fingers ends? They touched because they believed not; she touched not because she misbelieved. They touched that they might know He was risen: she touched not that she might know He was not so risen, as in former times she had known Him. If the text be against rudeness, to restrain it; then is it for reverence to enjoin it.
(2) Gregory thinks it was to hasten the message, and that all was but to save time. As if He should have said, There is a matter in hand, would be done out of hand; and therefore for this time hands off. And the reason will follow well so. You need not be so hasty, I am not yet ascended. You may do this at some other time. To the disciples and to Christ no haste was too much; all delay too long. Yet a touch and away would not have taken up so much time. True, but He easily foresaw if He suffered her to touch that she would have taken hold too, not have let Him go.
(3) Augustine thinks it was to wean her from all fleshly touching, and teach her a new and true touch. As if, till He were ascended, He would not be touched; and then He would. And there is reason for this sense. For the touch of His body, which she so much desired; that could last but forty days. Christ Himself touched upon this point in Joh 6:62. It was her error to be all for the corporeal presence; for the touch with the fingers. So were His disciples. From which they were now to be weaned. That if they had before known Christ, or touched Him after the flesh, yet now from henceforth they were to do so no more. Christ resolves the point. The flesh, the touching, the eating, profits nothing. The words He spake were spirit. So the touching, the eating, to be spiritual And Thomas, and Mary, or whosoever touched Him on earth, if they had not been more happy to touch Him with their faith, than with their fingers end, they had had no good by it at all. It was found better with it, to touch the hem of His garment, than without it, to touch any part of His body. Now, if faith be to touch, that will touch Him no less in heaven than here. (Bp. Andrewes.)
Mary Magdalene and Thomas with the risen Christ
I. WAS MARY DENIED AND THOMAS GRANTED, THE SAME FAVOUR? Then we should see in the case of Thomas a greater condescension to the doubts and fears of the human heart. Mary did not need proof; Thomas did. The clearing away of Thomas doubts strengthened the evidence of our Lords resurrection.
II. THERE WAS NO DENIAL OF FAVOUR TO MARY. In her case the arrested act was one of affection, and Jesus may be understood as reminding her that the hour for adoration has not yet come–For I am not yet ascended. Nothing of that enters into the act of Thomas. His is not an act of worship, but of scrutiny. Mary is checked in worship; Thomas is permitted to touch, to obtain proof that it is indeed the Master.
III. BUT WHY IS MARYS REVERENCE CHECKED? Because the Master has work for her to do. Our Lord really forbids not, but checks her reverential act; and His purpose is to transfer her attention to her mission. Even if Marys act were merely one of personal affection, there would be only the more reason why duty should interrupt her demonstrations of regard.
IV. MARY THOUGHT HE WAS COME BACK TO STAY. So He virtually says: Not so; I ascend. Think of Me no more in the flesh; think of Me on the throne. For, while in one breath the Lord says, I am not yet ascended, in the next He commands her to tell His brethren, I ascend unto My Father. (The Study.)
Christ and Mary
I. IT WAS A REAL BODY THAT APPEARED TO MARY. Touch Me not; then it was possible to touch Him. Wisdom never tells us not to do what cannot be done. The voice she heard was not a dead voice; the form she saw was not a form that trembled in the twilight far within the tomb, but one that stood boldly forth in the clear, cheerful day outside.
II. HERE WAS A GENTLE REPROOF, POINTING TO THE LACK OF SPIRITUALITY IN MARYS FAITH. To her the supreme object of faith could be touched with fingers. She assumes that He has come back to the old scenes to be what He was before. She is content with this and with His unfinished work. The words of Jesus were to discipline and raise her faith, and to break to her the truth that He is no longer to be revealed under the forms of time, and in the world of sensation, but to the soul. That we may be helped to watch against this and avoid the tendency to make a fetish of Him who has now inaugurated the reign of the Spirit; and truly obey the ancient call of devotion, Lift up your hearts, let us feel that Christ is still speaking to us, in His words to Mary.
III. ALTHOUGH MARY HAD THIS CHECK, ALL THE DISCIPLES MAY TOUCH HIM, NOW HE IS IN HEAVEN. The word yet conveys this inference; and the next words, You are not to touch Me until I am gone; then you may. When My earthly manifestation ends, your privilege of touching Me begins. We actually have open to us a better and happier privilege than that which Mary thought the ultimatum of dignity and bliss. This true touch is essential to the true life. All knowledge, all sympathy is from touch; there is no food, no drink, no healing without touch. Sin is cured by the Saviours touch; and this perpetual contact is the medium through which He sends into us the Divine electricity of power and holiness. Only a few could come in contact with a simple human presence at one time; but all, at one time, can touch that which is ascended for the very purpose that it may fill all things. You may touch Him in the city, in the field, when going out, when coming in, when no eye can see, in the garret, in the cellar, in the deep mine, in mountain heights, in the turmoil of care, in atmospheres in which, without a miracle, no grace can live; and wherever He is thus touched, the manifold miracle of grace is wrought.
IV. THIS MAY HAVE INCLUDED AN INJUNCTION TO MARY NOT TO DELAY HER ERRAND TO THE DISCIPLES. Do not linger. I am going, and will soon be gone. Go to My brethren. There is no time now for tender intimacies and protracted intercourse; I have this more important employment for you: you must make haste if you would give them fair notice. So now, Christ is always calling us away from the passive to the active; from personal enjoyment to practical service.
1. Go. In the history of the new life, Christs first word is always, Come; His next, in some form or other, is always, Go.
2. To My brethren.
(1) Why was this message not sent first to His mother? Through age after age the nations have called her Our Lady, yet all through the forty days she is passed by in the narrative like one forgotten. This is an inexplicable blank, unless we understand that, foreknowing the idolatry of Mary, it was thus divinely arranged.
(2) Why were not the rejecters of Christ first informed of His resurrection? Why not go first to the Scribes and Pharisees, &c., and those who complain that they want evidence? Because of this principle: Whosoever hath, to him shall be given, &c.; because, The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him, &c.
3. My brethren. He had never so called them before, yet they never seemed to be so unworthy. He might have said, Go, tell swearing Peter, dull Philip, doubting Thomas, cautious Nathanael, &c. Had they heard of the Resurrection thus, the news might have almost killed them; and they might have said, He is risen to smite us. But, as if to prevent this, the despatch is addressed to His brethren. Grand instance this of the truth that He is not ashamed to call us brethren. Take fresh heart at the thought of it, and learn that it is not in the power of infirmity to unbrother us. (C. Stanford, D. D.)
But go tell My brethren
Christs work in heaven and ours on earth
1. Christs words were addressed to Marys thoughts, which was, Now all is fulfilled. He has returned from the Father; He is going to take us to His kingdom, and we shall be for ever with Him. Not so, replies our Lord, I have more work to do, and so have you.
2. There is a remarkable difference between Marys case and that of Thomas. She believed too much; he too little. Her eager faith is corrected by the Touch Me not, but go; his unbelief is removed by Come, reach hither thy hand. Man would have said to faith, Touch me; to unbelief, Touch me not.
I. CHRISTS WORK. He has gone–1. To get the Spirit for us. Now He has received the promise of the Father–Gifts for men.
2. To intercede for us.
3. To prepare a place for us.
4. To give repentance and forgiveness. Thus He cautions us–Be calm and patient; I have gone to do My work. It must be done, and then no more delay.
II. OUR WORK. Mary had something else to do than touch and enjoy; so have we–work.
1. For ourselves. Follow Me, Take up your cross, Let your light shine, Grow in grace.
2. For the Church. We are members one of another to bear one anothers burdens, &c.
3. For the world–to pray for it, preach to it, save it. How long Christs work will last we know not, but ours will soon be done. Therefore, Whatsoever thy hand, &c. (H. Bonar, D. D.)
Christ teaching us how to think about Himself:
We are taught to think of
I. THE STRENGTH AND CONSTANCY OF HIS LOW. My brethren was applied
1. To those who had recently acted in a cowardly and cruel manner.
2. To those whose state of mind was most dishonouring to Himself Mar 16:10-15; Luk 24:11-21).
3. In the most momentous crisis in His history.
4. Without the slightest hint of their unworthy conduct.
II. THE COMPLETION OF HIS EARTHLY WORK–I ascend. As the farmer leaves the field when it has been cultivated, awaiting the results of his toil in the harvest; as the mariner leaps on shore when the voyage is over; as the warrior returns home when the victory is won; so our Lord turned His attention to heaven immediately on the conclusion of His work on earth, where He had been an exile.
1. In His life He had presented a perfect example of what men should be.
2. In His person and works He had supplied the most advanced revelation of God.
3. In His death He had atoned for the sins of the world, and laid the basis for a universal offer of pardon and eternal life.
4. In His resurrection He had given a pledge that His people should rise and that the last enemy should be destroyed. And now He turns His thoughts homeward.
III. THE POWER AND DOMINION ON WHICH HE HAS ENTERED.
1. His personal rest and honour. Ascend. What a contrast to His descent Joh 17:15).
2. The fulfilment of His promise respecting the Spirit (Joh 14:25-26; Joh 15:26-27).
3. His prevalent intercession (Heb 2:9-11; Heb 7:24-28).
4. His unlimited authority and power to promote our interests. Lo, I am with you alway; The Lord stood by me.
5. The certainty of His final recompense in the conquest of the world. He must reign.
6. His return to receive us unto Himself.
IV. THE ONENESS BETWEEN HIMSELF AND HIS PEOPLE. My Father, &c. Suggestive of mutual
1. Relationship.
2. Resemblance.
3. Interests.
4. Possessions.
5. Prospects. (J. Bowery.)
Christs message to His brethren
I. THE PARTIES. My brethren. Here is nothing that savours of any displeasure of remembering any old grudge, or of pride. The term brethren implies
1. Identity of nature. Then if He rose as man, man also may rise; if the nature be risen, the persons in it may. In the first Adam our nature died, in the Second our nature is risen.
2. Risen with the same love and affection He had before, or if changed changed for the better. Before He said, My friends. Here, My brethren.
II. THE COMMISSION. The fathers say that by this word she was by Christ made an apostle. Nay, an apostle to the apostles.
1. An apostle: for what lacks she?
(1) Sent immediately from Christ.
(2) Sent to declare.
(3) Sent to make known Christs ascending, the very Gospel of the gospel.
2. This day, with Christs rising, begins the gospel; not before. Crucified, dead and buried, no good news in themselves. Them the Jews believe as well as we. At her hands the apostles themselves received these glad tidings first, and from them we all.
3. Which, as it was a special honour, so was it not without some kind of reproach to them for sitting at home. Christ is fain to seek Him a new apostle.
4. And by this the amends is made her for Noli Me tangere. For to be thus the messenger of so blessed tidings is a more special favour than if she had touched Christ. Christ would never have enjoined her to leave the better to take the worse. So that hence we infer that to go and carry comfort to them that need it, to tell them of Christs rising that do not know it, is better then to do nothing but touch Christ. Touching Christ gives place to teaching Christ. How well this agrees with her offer in Joh 20:15 : You that would take and carry Me, being dead, go take and carry Me now alive. It shall be a carrying in a better sense. Stand not here then touching Me; go and touch them, and with the very touch of this report you shall work in them a resurrection from a doleful and dead to a cheerful and lively estate.
III. THE MOTION.
1. Tell them that I ascend. Why not rather I am risen (more proper for this day)? Because He needs not tell her that. She could tell that of herself. And besides, I ascend implies as much. Till He be risen, ascend He cannot. But as she saw by His rising that He had the keys of hell and death, had unlocked those doors and come out from thence, so by ascend He tells her that He hath the keys of heavens gates also, which He would now unlock, and so set open the kingdom of heaven to all believers.
2. To show us what was the end of His rising. Christ did not rise, to rise; no more must we. Christ rose to ascend; so are we to do. To rise from the bottom of the grave to the brink of it, and stand on the grave-stone, is but half a rising. To rise up as high as heaven, that is to rise indeed; that is Christs rising, and that to be ours. As there was no gospel till the Resurrection, so the Resurrection is no gospel unless ascend follow it. Resurrexit, tell that to all the world–all that die in Adam shall rise in Christ: miscreants, Jews, Turks, and all. No gospel that, properly. Tell the Christian of ascendo, too, the resurrection to life and not to condemnation. Better lie still in our graves, than rise, and rising not to ascend.
3. He saw upon these tidings they would say, He risen, then shall we have His company again as heretofore. But by sending them word of His ascending He gives them warning that He rose not to make any abode with them. This He knew would be a hard lesson. They were still and ever addicted to His bodily being with them. They would have built Him a tabernacle here. To rid them of this error He shows them thus, that for Him to be here below on earth that is not it; but for them to be with Him there above in heaven that is it. Thither would He raise them and us with this His ascendo.
4. So then seeing Christ stayed not here, we are not to set up our stay here; not to make earth our heaven.
IV. TO MY FATHER. Every motion hath a whence and a whither. To ascend is, to Christ, His natural motion; heaven is His natural place. His work being done. And to My Father no less (chap. 14:28). But to go from them is no good news. It was like touch Me not to Mary. What then is their comfort or ours? In this, To your Father as well as Mine. And He doth express here the whither by the party to whom, rather than by the place to which, because the party will soon bring us to the place, and to somewhat besides. So we have good right to make His Father ours, and His Fathers house ours, that there we may dwell together fratres in unum. There be of the Fathers that make these words as so many steps of Jacobs ladder, which we are to ascend by, or so many wheels as it were of Eliass chariot, in which he was carried up to heaven. There lie before us four pairs or combinations by which ascendo is drawn in the text.
1. Father and God, instead of the Lord God of the law. Father is a name of much good will, but many a good father wants good means to his good will. God is added that He may not be defective that way.
2. His, ours; and ours His, interchangeably. A blessed change: His great Meum for our little vestrum, little ours for great His. As there is no comfort in heaven without God, nor in God, without a Father, so is there not any either in Father, heaven, or God without ours to give us a property in them.
3. My Father will do us no good. That which must do us the good is your Father, and we need no more (Joh 14:8). But how should Hisbe ours?
4. This leads us to the last combination, My God and yours. For that His Father may be our Father, no remedy but our God must first be His.
(1) His Father, as God; His God, as Man. As the Son of God, a God He hath not; a Father He hath: as the Son of Man, a Father He hath not; a God He hath.
(2) But now, how shall we get His Father to have Him to be our Father? First, His Father He was from all eternity; He only can say properly, patrem meum. But He is content to quit that and to take us in; and He being our Brother before to make us His now. For upon His ascending He adopts us, and by adopting makes us, and by making pronounces us His brethren, and so children to His Father. But, till then, a God we had, but not a Father; at least, not such a Father of Him as since we have. So we see the necessity of both these combinations. But we are not so to look to our own comfort, but that we preserve His honour. There is order taken for that by severing each pair–mine and yours; yet otherwise His and otherwise ours; both as Father and as God. As Father: His by nature, ours by grace. As God: our God by nature. His no otherwise, then as He took upon Him our nature. (Bp. Andrewes.)
The brother-hood of Christ
I. TO WHOM IS CHRIST A BROTHER.
1. To the apostles and their associates.
2. To all who do Gods will (Mat 12:46-50).
3. To all who are undergoing sanctification (Heb 2:11).
II. HOW DOES HE FEEL TOWARDS HIS BRETHREN?
1. He is not ashamed to own the relationship (Heb 2:11).
2. He sympathizes with them and loves them (Heb 2:17).
3. He identifies Himself with them (Mat 25:40).
III. WHAT BENEFITS DO HIS BRETHREN DERIVE FROM HIS RELATIONSHIP?
1. Teaching (Heb 2:12).
2. Providential care (Mat 25:40).
3. Consciousness of His sympathy,
IV. LET US LEARN.
1. To establish this relationship by faith, love, obedience, growth.
2. To appreciate it with the honour, and help it brings.
3. To extend it to others by leading them to salvation.
4. If we are faithful we shall live with our Eider Brother for ever. (J. T.Whiteley.)
I ascend unto My Father
The ascension of our Saviour
I. THE PERSONS TO WHOM THE MESSAGE IS ADDRESSED.
1. Why not the Scribes and Pharisees, &c., and render His resurrection undeniable? Because–Whosoever hath to him shall be given, &c. He never refused explanation to any humble inquirer–but He will not force information upon those that hated knowledge. To what purpose is it to adduce evidence to those that shut their eyes? They knew the report of the guards. But His own followers only laboured under infirmities. They wished to be established in the truth. These He calls–My brethren. This is more than He could have said of angels. He is only their Lord. It behoved Him to be made like unto His brethren, &c. Many an elder brother has stood between the affections of the father and the rest of the children, and by engrossing the whole of the inheritance has reduced the younger branches to dependence, if not to want; but Jesus pitied those who were less happy than Himself, and determined to make them partakers of all His honours and riches. Thus they are heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ. By using this name He would
1. Show that His elevation had not made Him forgetful of those He was to leave behind.
2. Comfort them. They had acted a very unworthy part, and their consciences made them uneasy. By this He seems to call after them, and say, Return, ye backsliding children. Thus He dispels their anxiety, and fills them with hope. And thus He realizes His illustrious type.
3. Intimate their duty? Since I do not disown you, notwithstanding your imperfections–follow My example; love as brethren.
II. THE SUBSTANCE OF THE INTELLIGENCE. This ascension was real and local. Let us consider it in reference to
1. Himself.
(1) He returned to the place whence He came, and assumed the glory which He obscured.
(2) To enjoy the reward of His humiliation and sufferings.
2. His enemies.
(1) Thus He is a Conqueror. He had foes, but He vanquished them; and having spoiled principalities and powers, He made a show of them openly. Sin, the devil, the world, death–these are the enemies He has overcome. And to-day He enjoys His triumph. Lift up your heads, O ye gates, &c.
(2) But as He triumphs, He also bestows upon us various and inestimable blessings–gave gifts unto men.
3. His people.
(1) He ascended as the High Priest of their profession.
(2) As their Head and Representative.
(3) As their Protector and Governor.
Conclusion: And now what remains but that we translate this article of our creed into our lives.
1. Follow Him where He now is. If ye then be risen with Christ, &c., why then are you so attached to earth? Why seek ye the living among the dead?
2. Seeing that we have a great High Priest that is passed into the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession.
3. What encouragement can you want to rejoice in Him? You have a Brother at court.
4. But where will the ungodly and the sinner appear? (W. Jay.)
Christs interview with Mary at the sepulchre:
Nothing is more grand, more precious, than the news to be announced to them. I ascend to My Father, He who is so by nature; and to their Father, by adoption and grace; to My God, in covenant with Me as their Head, and to their God, in covenant with them through Me and under Me. Words which at once show the triumph of Jesus Christ and the triumph of the Christian. Let us illustrate these two ideas.
I. IT WAS THE TRIUMPH OF JESUS CHRIST, AND REMROVED THE SCANDAL OF THE CROSS. If thou be the Son of God, said the blinded Jews when insulting Him, come down from the cross. Jesus did more–He came alive from the tomb; and this miracle of Divine power is only the first step of that elevation into which He is entering. Go to My brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto My Father and your Father, and unto My God and your God. This is, then, the triumph of Christ.
II. IT IS A SOURCE OF THE RICHEST CONSOLATION AND TRUST TO ALL BELIEVERS. I would wish this text, says the excellent Baxter, written on my dying bed; I would wish to view it with my closing eyes, that I might exult in the agonies of dissolution. All! Christians, never forget it! And let it also be your rule in all your conduct; your consolation in your trials; your trust in the most disastrous situations.
1. If the Father of Jesus Christ is your Father and your God, always listen with docility to a voice at once so august and tender; follow the glorious example of the first-born among many brethren.
2. If the Father of Jesus Christ is your Father and your God, submit with an entire resignation to all the dispensations of Providence, as Jesus submitted to them.
3. If the Father of Jesus Christ is your God and Father, then let this tender assurance augment your faith, your love, your detachment from the world. (H. Kollock, D. D.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 17. Touch me not] , Cling not to me. has this sense in Job 31:7, where the Septuagint use it for the Hebrew dabak, which signifies to cleave, cling, stick, or be glued to. From Mt 28:9, it appears that some of the women held him by the feet and worshipped him. This probably Mary did; and our Lord seems to have spoken to her to this effect: “Spend no longer time with me now: I am not going immediately to heaven – you will have several opportunities of seeing me again: but go and tell my disciples, that I am, by and by, to ascend to my Father and God, who is your Father and God also. Therefore, let them take courage.”
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
There are in this verse two no mean difficulties: the one about the sense of the prohibition, when our Saviour forbade this woman to touch him; when after his resurrection {Mat 28:9} he suffered the women to hold him by the feet, and himself {Joh 20:27} called Thomas to thrust his hand into the hole of his side. There are many opinions about it: the best seems to be the opinion of those who think that our Saviour saw Mary too fond, and too much in the embraces of her Lord, as if she thought he had been raised up to such a converse with them as he had before his death; and this error is all which he tasks her of, not forbidding her any kind of touching him, so far as to satisfy herself that he was truly risen from the dead, but restraining any such gross conception. The other difficulty, What force of a reason there could be for her not touching him because he had not yet ascended? is much solved by that answer to the former; reminding Mary that he was to ascend to his Father, though he had not yet ascended, and therefore not to be enjoyed by them with so much freedom and familiarity as before. But (saith he) go and tell
my brethren, that is, my disciples; whom the apostle tells us he is not ashamed to call brethren, Heb 2:11,12; that I ascend, that is, I shall shortly ascend,
to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God: though I shall very suddenly leave them, yet I shall go but to my Father and my God, and to their Father and their God.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
17. Jesus saith unto her, Touch menot, for I am not yet ascended to my FatherOld familiaritiesmust now give place to new and more awful yet sweeter approaches; butfor these the time has not come yet. This seems the spirit, at least,of these mysterious words, on which much difference of opinion hasobtained, and not much that is satisfactory said.
but go to mybrethren(Compare Mat 28:10;Heb 2:11; Heb 2:17).That He had still our Humanity, and therefore “is not ashamedto call us brethren,” is indeed grandly evidenced by thesewords. But it is worthy of most reverential notice, that wenowhere read of anyone who presumed to call Him Brother. “Mybrethren: Blessed Jesus, who are these? Were they not Thy followers?yea, Thy forsakers? How dost Thou raise these titles with Thyself! Atfirst they were Thy servants; then disciples; a littlebefore Thy death, they were Thy friends; now, after Thyresurrection, they were Thy brethren. But oh, mercy withoutmeasure! how wilt Thou, how canst Thou call them brethrenwhom, in Thy last parting, Thou foundest fugitives? Did they not runfrom Thee? Did not one of them rather leave his inmost coat behindhim than not be quit of Thee? And yet Thou sayest, ‘Go, tell Mybrethren! It is not in the power of the sins of our infirmity tounbrother us'” [BISHOPHALL].
I ascend unto my Father andyour Father, and to my God and your Godwords of incomparableglory! Jesus had called God habitually His Father, and on oneoccasion, in His darkest moment, His God. But both are hereunited, expressing that full-orbed relationship which embraces in itsvast sweep at once Himself and His redeemed. Yet, note well, He saysnot, Our Father and our God. All the deepest of theChurch fathers were wont to call attention to this, as expresslydesigned to distinguish between what God is to Him and to usHisFather essentially, ours not so: our God essentially, His not so: HisGod only in connection with us: our God only in connection with Him.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Jesus saith unto her, touch me not,…. Not that his body was an aerial one, or a mere “phantom”, which could not be touched; the prohibition itself shows the contrary; and besides, Christ’s body was afterwards presented to Thomas, to be touched by him, and to be handled by all the disciples; and his feet were held by the women, which is what Mary would have now done: upon the discovery of him, she threw herself at his feet, and was going to embrace and kiss them, to testify her affection and joy, when she is forbid; not as unworthy of the favour, because she sought him among the dead, for which the angels reproved her and the rest; but either because he was not to be conversed with, as before his death, his body being raised immortal and glorious; or rather, because he had an errand to send her on to his disciples, which required haste; nor need she stay now to show her respect to him, since she would have opportunity enough to do that, before his ascension; which though it was to be quickly, yet not directly and immediately; and this seems to be the sense of our Lord’s reason:
for I am not yet ascended to my Father; nor shall I immediately go to him; I shall make some stay upon earth; as he did, forty days before his ascension; when he intimates, she might see him again, and familiarly converse with him; at present he would have her stay no longer with him:
but go to my brethren; this he says, to show that their carriage to him, being denied by one of them, and forsaken by them all, and the glory he was raised unto, as all this made no alteration in their relation to him, so neither in his affection to them: Mary was a very proper person to be sent unto them, since she had lately been with them, and knew where they were all assembled together:
and say unto them; as from himself, representing him as it were:
I ascend unto my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God; God was his Father, not by creation, as he is to angels, and the souls of men, and therefore is called the Father of spirits; nor by adoption, as he is to the saints; nor with respect to the incarnation of Christ, for, as man, he had no father; or with regard to his office as Mediator, for as such he was a servant, and not a Son; but he was his Father by nature, or with regard to his divine person, being begotten of him, and so his own proper Son, and he his own proper Father; which hold forth the natural and eternal sonship of Christ, his equality with him, and distinction from him: and God was the Father of his disciples by adopting grace, in virtue of the covenant of grace made with Christ, and through their spiritual relation to him, as the natural and eternal Son of God: God the Father is the God of Christ as man, who prepared, formed, anointed, supported, and glorified his human nature; and in which nature, he prayed to him as his God, believed in him, loved and obeyed him as such; wherefore the Jew o very wrongly infers from hence, that he is not God, because the God of Israel was his God; since this is spoken of him as he is man: and he was the God of his disciples, in and by the covenant of grace made with Christ, as their head and representative; so that their interest in God, as their covenant God and Father, was founded upon his being the God and Father of Christ, and their relation to, and concern with him; and which therefore must be firm and lasting, and will hold as long as God is the God and Father of Christ: this was good news to be brought to his disciples; which, as it carried the strongest marks of affection, and expressions of nearness of relation; and implied, that he was now risen from the dead; so it signified, that he should ascend to God, who stood in the same relation to them, as to him; when he should use all his interest and influence on their behalf, whilst they were on earth; and when the proper time was come for a remove, that they might be with him, and with his God and Father and theirs, where they would be to all eternity.
o R. Isaac Chizzuk Emuna, par. 2. c. 58. p. 446.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Touch me not ( ). Present middle imperative in prohibition with genitive case, meaning “cease clinging to me” rather than “Do not touch me.” Jesus allowed the women to take hold of his feet () and worship () as we read in Mt 28:9. The prohibition here reminds Mary that the previous personal fellowship by sight, sound, and touch no longer exists and that the final state of glory was not yet begun. Jesus checks Mary’s impulsive eagerness.
For I am not yet ascended ( ). Perfect active indicative. Jesus is here at all only because he has not yet gone home. He had said (16:7) that it was good for them that he should go to the Father when the Holy Spirit will come through whom they will have fellowship with the Father and Christ.
My God ( ). Jesus had said “My God” on the Cross (Mr 15:34). Note it also in Re 3:2. So Paul in Ro 15:6, etc., has “the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
Touch me not [ ] . The verb, primarily, means to fasten to. Hence it implies here, not a mere momentary touch, but a clinging to. Mary thought that the old relations between her Lord and herself were to be renewed; that the old intercourse, by means of sight, sound, and touch, would go on as before. Christ says, “the time for this kind of intercourse is over. Henceforth your communion with me will be by faith through the Spirit. This communion will become possible through my ascending to the Father.”
My Father. The best texts omit the pronoun and read the Father. See on 12 26. This expression, emphasizing the relation of God to humanity rather than to Christ himself, is explained by what follows – “my Father and your Father.”
My brethren. The word brethren, applied to the disciples, occurs before (vii. 3, 5, 10), but not the phrase my brethren, which follows from my Father and your Father. Compare Mt 28:10.
I ascend [] . The present tense is used, not in the sense of the near future, but implying that He had already entered upon that new stage of being which the actual ascension formally inaugurated. The resurrection was really the beginning of the ascension.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1) “Jesus saith unto her,” (legei aute lesous) “Jesus says to her,” with forbidding caution,
2) “Touch me not;” (me mou haptou) “Do not touch me,” or do not detain or delay me, for it appears that she was about to cast herself physically upon Him, to embrace Him, in earnest expression of affections for Him, as her Lord for more than three years, Mar 16:9; Joh 20:18.
3) “For I am not yet ascended to my Father:” (hopou gar anabebeka pros ton patera) ”For I have not yet ascended (up bodily) to the Father;” and she was not to regard Him as she had before His death. For He would not have her think this was a visible permanent return for fellowship with His disciples.
4) “But go to my brethren, and say unto them,” (poreuou de pros tous adelphous mou kai eipe autois) “But you go directly to my brethren and tell them,” directly and personally, as my brethren, of whom I am not ashamed, Psa 22:22; Rom 8:29; Heb 2:11. She must not detain and monopolize Him.
5) “I ascend unto my Father, and your Father;” (anabaino pros ton patera mou kai patera humon) ”That I ascend directly to my Father and to your Father,” Joh 17:11; Eph 1:3; Gal 4:6.
6) “And to my God, and your God.” (kai theon mou kai theon humon) “And to my God and to your God.” They are children, heirs of God, and joint heirs with Him, and the Father and this He confirms to her, Rom 8:14-15: 2Co 6:18; Gal 3:26; Gal 4:6-7.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
17. Touch me not. This appears not to agree with the narrative of Matthew; for he expressly says, that the women held him By The Feet, and worshipped him, (Mat 28:9.) Now, since he allowed himself to be touched by his disciples, what reason was there for forbidding Mary to touch him? The answer is easy, provided that we remember that the women were not repelled from touching Christ, till their eagerness to touch him had been carried to excess; for, so far as it was necessary for removing doubt, he unquestionably did not forbid them to touch him, but, perceiving that their attention was too much occupied with embracing his feet, he restrained and corrected that immoderate zeal. They fixed their attention on his bodily presence, and did not understand any other way of enjoying his society than by conversing with him on the earth. We ought, therefore, to conclude, that they were not forbidden to touch him, until Christ saw that, by their foolish and unreasonable desire, they wished to keep him in the world.
For I am not yet ascended to my Father. We ought to attend to this reason which he adds; for by these words he enjoins the women to restrain their feelings, until he be received into the heavenly glory. In short, he pointed out the design of his resurrection; not such as they had imagined it to be, that, after having returned to life, he should triumph in the world, but rather that, by his ascension to heaven, he should enter into the possession of the kingdom which had been promised to him, and, seated at the right hand of the Father, should govern the Church by the power of his Spirit. The meaning of the words therefore is, that his state of resurrection would not be full and complete, until he should sit down in heaven at the right hand of the Father; and, therefore, that the women did wrong in satisfying themselves with having nothing more than the half of his resurrection, and desiring to enjoy his presence in the world. This doctrine yields two advantages. The first is, that those who are desirous to succeed in seeking Christ must raise their minds upwards; and the second is, that all who endeavor to go to him must rid themselves of the earthly affections of the flesh, as Paul exhorts,
If ye then be risen with Christ seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God, (Col 3:1.)
But go to my brethren. Some limit the word brethren to the cousins and relatives (199) of Christ, but, in my opinion, improperly; for why should he have sent to them rather than to the disciples? They reply, Because John elsewhere testifies, that His Brethren did not believe in him. (Joh 7:5.)
But I do not think it probable that Christ conferred so great an honor on those who are there mentioned. It must also be admitted, that Mary Magdalene (200) fully obeyed the injunctions of Christ. Now, it immediately follows, that she went to the disciples; from which we conclude, that Christ had spoken of them. (201)
Besides, Christ knew that the disciples, whom those men, by their opinion, treat as separated, were assembled in one place; and it would have been exceedingly absurd that he should pay attention to I know not what sort of persons, and disregard the disciples, who, having been collected into one place, were subjected to a violent conflict between hope and fear. To this it may be added, that Christ appears to have borrowed this expression from Psa 22:22, where we and these words: I will declare thy name to my brethren; for it is beyond all controversy, that this passage contains the fulfillment of that prediction.
I conclude, therefore, that Mary was sent to the disciples in general; and I consider that this was done by way of reproach, because they had been so tardy and sluggish to believe. And, indeed, they deserve not only to have women for their teachers, but even oxen and asses; since the Son of God had been so long and laboriously employed in teaching, and yet they had made so little, or hardly any progress. Yet this is a mild and gentle chastisement, when Christ thus sends his disciples to the school of the women, that by their agency, he may bring them back to himself. Here we behold also the inconceivable kindness of Christ, in choosing and appointing women to be the witnesses of his resurrection to the Apostles; for the commission which is given to them is the only foundation of our salvation, and contains the chief point of heavenly wisdom.
It ought likewise to be observed, however, that this occurrence was extraordinary, and — we might almost say — accidental. They are commanded to make known to the Apostles what they afterwards, in the exercise of the office committed to them, proclaimed to the whole world. But, in executing this injunction, they do not act as if they had been Apostles; and, therefore, it is wrong to frame a law out of this injunction of Christ, and to allow women to perform the office of baptizing. Let us be satisfied with knowing that Christ displayed in them the boundless treasures of his grace, when he once appointed them to be the teachers of the Apostles, and yet did not intend that what was done by a singular privilege should be viewed as an example. This is peculiarly apparent in Mary Magdalene, who had formerly been possessed by seven devils, (Mar 16:9; Luk 8:2😉 for it amounted to this, that Christ had brought her out of the lowest hell, that he might raise her above heaven.
If it be objected, that there was no reason why Christ should prefer the women to the Apostles, since they were not less carnal and stupid, I reply, it does not belong to us, but to the Judge, to estimate the difference between the Apostles and the women. But I go farther, and say, that the Apostles deserved to be more severely censured, because they not only had been better instructed than all others, but, after having been appointed to be the teachers of the whole world, and after having been called the light of the world, (Mat 5:14,) and the salt of the earth, (Mat 5:13,) they so basely apostatized. Yet it pleased the Lord, by means of those weak and contemptible vessels, to give a display of his power.
I ascend to my Father. By using the word ascend he confirms the doctrine which I have lately explained; that he rose from the dead, not for the purpose of remaining any longer on the earth, but that he might enter into the heavenly life, and might thus draw believers to heaven along with him. In short, by this term he forbids the Apostles to fix their whole attention on his resurrection viewed simply in itself, but exhorts them to proceed farther, until they come to the spiritual kingdom, to the heavenly glory, to God himself. There is great emphasis, therefore, in this word ascend; for Christ stretches out his hand to his disciples that they may not seek their happiness anywhere else than in heaven;
for where our treasure is, there also must our heart be, (Mat 6:21.)
Now, Christ declares, that he ascends on high; and, therefore, we must ascend, if we do not wish to be separated from him.
When he adds, that he ascends To God, he quickly dispels the grief and anxiety which the Apostles might feel on account of his departure; for his meaning is, that he will always be present with his disciples by Divine power. True, the word ascend denotes the distance of places; but though Christ be absent in body, yet, as he is with God, his power, which is everywhere felt, plainly shows his spiritual presence; for why did he ascend to God, but in order that, being seated at God’s right hand, (202) he might reign both in heaven and in earth? In short, by this expression he intended to impress on the minds of his disciples the Divine power of his kingdom, that they might not be grieved on account of his bodily absence.
To my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God. The benefit and efficacy of that brotherly union, which has been lately mentioned, is expressed, when Christ declares that we have this in common with himself, that he who is his God and his Father is also our God and our Father. I ascend, says he, to my Father, who is also your Father. In other passages we learn that we are made partakers of all the blessings of Christ; but this is the foundation of the privilege, that he imparts to us the very fountain of blessings. It is, unquestionably, an invaluable blessing, that believers can safely and firmly believe, that He who is the God of Christ is their God, and that He who is the Father of Christ is their Father. Nor have we any reason to fear that this confidence will be charged with rashness, since it is founded on Christ, or that it will be proud boasting, since Christ himself has dictated it to us with his own mouth.
Christ calls Him his God, in so far as, by
taking upon him the form of a servant, he humbled himself, (Phi 2:7.)
This is, therefore, peculiar to his human nature, but is applied to his whole person, on account of the unity, because he is both God and Man. As to the second clause, in which he says that he ascends to his Father and our Father, (203) there is also a diversity between him and us; for he is the Son of God by nature, while we are the sons of God only by adoption; but the grace which we obtain through him is so firmly established, that it cannot be shaken by any efforts of the devil, so as to hinder us from always calling him our Father, who hath adopted us through his Only-begotten Son.
(199) “ Aux cousins et patens de Christ.”
(200) Marie Magdalene.
(201) “ Que Christ avoit parle de ses disciples et Apostres;” — “that Christ had spoken of his disciples and Apostles.”
(202) “ A sa dextre glorieuse;” — “at his glorious right hand.”
(203) “ Ou il dit qu’il monte a son Pere et nostre Pere.”
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(17) Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father.The probable explanation of these words is to be found in the fact that she had cast herself at His feet with the customary reverential embrace of the knees, and perhaps to make doubly sure the fact that it was the Lords body, and that His words are meant to prevent this. The words themselves must be carefully considered. Touch represents a Greek word which means to cling to, to fasten on, to grasp an object. The tense is present, and the prohibition is, therefore, not of an individual act, but of a continuance of the act, of the habit, Do not continue clinging to Me. Her act supposed a condition which had not yet been accomplished. He had not returned to earth to abide permanently with His disciples in the presence of the Paraclete (comp. Joh. 14:18), for He had not yet ascended to the Father. There should come a permanent closeness of union in His presence in the soul; but then the spirit which her act was manifesting was one which would prevent this presence. The coming of the Paraclete depended upon His going to the Father (comp. Joh. 16:7), but she would cling to a visible presence, and has not learnt the truth so hard to learn, It is expedient for you that I go away (Joh. 16:7.)
But go to my brethren, and say unto them.Comp. Notes on Mat. 28:10, and on Joh. 15:15. There is a special force in the word brethren as spoken by the risen Lord, in that it declares the continuance of His human nature. (See Heb. 2:11.)
I ascend unto my Father, and your Father.The present is used of the future, which He regards as immediately at hand. The message to the brethren is an assurance that the going to the Father, of which He had so often spoken to them, was about to be realised. The victory over death has been accomplished. This appearance on earth is an earnest of the return to heaven. Unto My Father, He now says, and your Father. It is a more emphatic expression than our Father would have been. I ascend unto My Father. Because He is My Father, He is also your Father, and you are My brethren. My victory over death was the victory of man, whose nature has in Me conquered death. My ascension into heaven will be the ascension of human nature, which in Me goes to the Father.
My God, and your God.This phrase contains the same fulness of meaning, and adds the special thought of the continuity of the human nature of our Lord, which has already appeared in the word brethren. (See Note above.)
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
17. Touch me not Several manuscripts have the words she ran forward to touch him. As if in order to realize that it was truly her Lord, and not a pure spirit, she rushed forth to touch him. The word touch here, never signifies, as some interpret it, to embrace. That she, like the other women, (Mat 28:9,) kneeling to him, embraced his knees, has no authority from any word of the Evangelists. She had the testimony of two of her senses, sight and hearing, that it was the Lord; and she now seeks the testimony of a third, namely, of feeling, in order to be sure that it is a body and not a pure spirit which addresses her. Our Lord forbids her touch, that she may not lose the honour of her pre-eminence of faith. He tests that faith by a command which she obeys, and stands first of faithful witnesses. You see me risen, Mary, according to Scripture prediction and to my promise; stop not to doubt, but bear the intelligence to the apostles.
I am not yet ascended I have risen but not yet ascended. It is rather the implication risen, than the expression not ascended, which the Lord really most designs to convey. The real essence of the message is, that he is yet on earth, in his resurrection state and body, not yet having ascended.
I ascend Present for future. Though yet here I soon depart.
My your tender intimation that even on high he is their divine brother.
It is asked why our Lord, after forbidding the touch of Mary, permitted the embrace of the other women, and even invited the touch of Thomas. The reply is, that he prohibited the touch of Mary in order not to deprive her of her true merit of faith, which this experimental touch would have depreciated; but the embrace of the women was not a contact of experiment, but of love and worship. The touch of the disciples was invited, because their weak faith could not be confirmed without it; and that of Thomas was pressed upon him to drive scepticism from his soul.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘Jesus says to her, “Do not retain me, for I am not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I ascend to my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God’.”
‘Do not retain me.’ It would appear that Mary must have been clinging to Him as though she would never let Him go, and so He gently removed her hands to let her know that there was a new beginning. These kindly words were intended to make clear to her that the old relationship no longer held. He was not to be seen as a man restored to life to live again on this earth. Rather He was about to ascend to His Father. Thus she must not cling to Him and retain Him. She must let Him go to become both Lord and Christ (Act 2:36). From now on she must worship Him in Spirit and in truth (Joh 4:23-24).
‘For I am not yet ascended to My Father.’ It is vain for us to attempt to understand exactly what these words involved, but they clearly refer to the body. His spirit would already have been with God. The point is simply to indicate the intermediate state in which He was to be found. His bodily resurrection and ascension were not as yet complete.
‘Go to my brothers.’ Essentially this indicates His disciples but eventually all believers who do the will of God (Mar 3:35). The term brother is a new one in their relationship with Him. They have moved from servant to friend (Joh 15:15) to brother (Rom 8:29; Heb 2:11).
‘I ascend to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God’. This is probably not speaking of the later ascension after the resurrection appearances but an immediate ascension as He took His throne as the Son of Man, receiving all dominion and power and authority (Mat 28:18; Dan 7:13-14), and receiving the Holy Spirit Whom He would now pass on to His disciples. He had now been glorified and the Spirit could now be poured forth (Joh 7:38-39 compare Joh 16:7). We must beware of straitjacketing the cross and its aftermath. The purpose of what we call the Ascension was to indicate the last of the series of resurrection appearances not to say that He had not previously entered Heaven.
Note how He does not speak of ‘our Father’ or ‘our God’. His relationship to the Father is to be seen as distinctive from ours and unique, thus it is ‘my Father’ and ‘your Father’ and ‘my God’ and ‘your God’. As the Son He spoke of ‘My Father’, whereas we would speak of ‘our Father’; as glorified representative Man He spoke of ‘My God’, we would speak of ‘our God’. But in both cases His relationship with the Father was distinctive from ours. There is nothing surprising about His referring to ‘my God’. In His manhood He had regularly worshipped God, otherwise He would not have been truly human. This was simply an extension of the practise. It said nothing to diminish His divine status.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Joh 20:17. Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended, &c. The objectors to the resurrection of Jesus, have inferred fromthis circumstance, that Christ’s body was not a real tangible body: but this could never be inferred from the words Touch me not; for thousands make use of that expression every day, without giving the least suspicion that their bodies are not tangible, or capable of being touched: nor could this conclusion be built upon the words, I am not yet ascended to my Father; for though there is a difficulty in those words, there is no difficulty in seeing that they have no relation to Christ’s body; for as to his body nothing is said. The natural sense of the place, as collected from comparing it with Mat 28:9 is this, “Mary Magdalene, upon seeing Jesus, fell at his feet, and laid hold on them, and held them as if she meant never to let them go. See 2Ki 4:27. Luk 7:38. Christ said to her, Touch me not, or embrace me not now, you will have other opportunities of seeing me, for I go not yet to my Father; lose no time then, but go quickly with my message to my brethren.” In the Jewish language, to touch, often signifies to embrace, with affection and regard. Thus Mar 10:13. They brought young children, that he should touch them; that is, express his affection to them by the imposition of hands, accompanied with blessings; accordingly it is added, He took them up in his arms, laid his hands upon them, and blessed them. So also, Luk 7:39. Simon the Pharisee observing a woman, who was a sinner, washing the feet of Christ with her tears, and kissing them, expressed her action by the word . This man, if he were a prophet, would, &c. who touched him. In this sense the word , touch, was used by our Lord on the present occasion.In the words of this verse is contained a most clear proof that it wasChrist himself who uttered them. To understand this, it must be remembered, that they allude to the long discourse which our Saviour held with his disciples, the very night in which he was betrayed, Ch. 14: Joh 15:16 : wherein he told them, that he should leave them for a short time. A little while, and ye shall not see me; and that he should come to them again, though but for a short time, And again a little while, and ye shall see me, because, added he, I go to my Father. By the phrase, I go to my Father, Christ meant his final quitting this world; as he himself explained it to his disciples, who did not then understand either of the above expressions, I came forth, &c. Ch. Joh 16:28. But, lest they should fall into despair at being thus forsaken by him, for whom they had forsaken all the world, he at the same time promised to send them a comforter, even the Holy Spirit, who should teach them all things, and enable them to work miracles; and that finally, though they should for a season be sorrowful, yet their sorrow should soon be turned into joy, &c. Ch. Joh 14:16; Joh 14:26; Joh 16:13; Joh 16:20-21. These were magnificent promises, which, as the disciples could not but remember Christ had made to them, so they might be assured, that no one but Christ was able to make them good; and therefore, when they came to reflect seriously on the import of these words, Touch me not, &c. it was impossible for them to conclude otherwise than that it was Christ himself who appeared to Mary Magdalene. For as the latter expression, I ascend to my Father, &c. implied a remembrance, and consequently a renewal of those promises which were to take place after the ascension to the Father, so did the former, I am not ascended to my Father, give them encouragement to expect the performance of that other promise of his coming to themagain before his ascension, by his giving them to understand that he had not yet quitted this world. And Christ’s forbidding Mary Magdalene to touch or embrace him, might have been meant as a signification of his intending to see her and his disciples again, just as in ordinary life, when one friend says to another, “Don’t take leave, for I am not going yet,” he means to let him know, that he purposes to see him again before he sets out upon his journey. That this is the true import of the words, Touch me not, is evident, not only from the reason subjoined in the words immediately following, For I am not yet ascended, &c. (by which expression, as we have shewn above, Christ meant he had not finally quitted the world) but from these farther considerations:
Christ, by shewing himself first to Mary Magdalene, intended, doubtless, to give her a distinguishing mark of his favour, and therefore cannot be supposed to have designed at the same time to have put a slight upon her, by refusing her an honour which he granted not long after to the other Mary and Salome: and yet this must be supposed, if touch me not be understood to imply a prohibition to Mary Magdalene to embrace him, for any reason consistent with the regard shewn to the other women, and different from that now contended for, namely, that he intended to see her again and his disciples. On the contrary, if these words be taken to signify only that this honour was denied to Mary till some fitter opportunity, they will be so far from importing any unkindness or reprehension to her, that they may be rather looked upon as a gracious assurance, a kind of friendly engagement to come to her again. In this sense they correspond exactly with Christ’s purpose in sending this message by her to his disciples; which, as we observed before, was to let them know that he remembered his promise of coming to them again, and was determined to perform it, not having finally quitted this world: and of his intention to perform it, this, his refusing to admit the affectionate or reverential embraces of Mary Magdalene, was an earnest; as his coming to them would be a pledge of his resolution to acquit himself in due time of those promises, which were not to take effect till after his final departure out of the world. And thus this whole discourse of our Saviour with Mary Magdalene will be, in all its parts, intelligible, rational, andcoherent; whereas, if it be supposed that Mary Magdalene was forbidden to touch Christ for some mystical reason, contained in the words, I am not yet ascended, &c. it will be very difficult to understand the meaning or intent of that message, which she was commanded to carry to the disciples; and still more difficult to account for his suffering, not long after, the embraces of the other Mary and Salome.
To the same, or even greater difficulties, will that interpretation of this passage be liable, which supposes that the prohibition to Mary Magdalene was grounded upon the spiritual nature of Christ’s body, which, it is presumed, was not sensible to the touch or feeling. And indeed both these reasons for the behaviour of Christ to Mary Magdalene are overturned by his contrary behaviour to the other Mary and Salome. But besides the assurance given by Christ to his disciples, in the words here spoken, of his intention of performing his promises, &c. he might have a farther view, which is equally deducible from those words. That remarkable expression, I ascend to my Father, Christ undoubtedly made use of upon this occasion, to re-cal to their minds the discourse that he held with them three nights before, in which he explained clearly what he meant by going to his Father, Ch. Joh 16:29. But this was not the only expression that puzzled them; they were as much in the dark as to the meaning of, A little while, and ye shall not, &c. Joh 20:16-18 which they likewise confessed they did not understand. But Christ left those words to be explained by the events to which they severally related, and which were then drawing on a-pace. For that very night he was betrayed, and seized, and deserted by his disciples, as he himself had foretold: the next day he was crucified, expired upon the cross, and was buried. Upon this melancholy catastrophe, the disciples could be no longer at a loss to understand what Christ meant, when he said to them, A little while, and ye shall not see me: he was gone from them, and, as their fears suggested, gone for ever, notwithstanding he had expressly told them he would come to them again, in the words, Again, a little while, and ye shall see me.This latter expression was fullas intelligible as the former; and as the one now expounded by the event, was plainly a prophesy of his death, so must the other be understood as a prophesy of his resurrection. But if they understood it in that sense, they were very far from having a right notion of the resurrection from the dead; as is evident from their imagining when Christ first shewed himself to them after his passion, that they saw a spirit; even though they had just before declared their belief that he was risen indeed. The resurrection of the body, it should seem, made no part of their notion of the resurrection from the dead: to lead them therefore into a right understanding of this important article of faith, Christ, in speaking to Mary Magdalene, &c. makes use of terms which strongly imply his being really, that is, bodily risen from the dead: I am not yet ascendedbut go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, &c. The words, I go to my Father, Christ, as has already been observed, explained by the well understood phrase of leaving the world; and to this explanation the words immediately foregoing give so great a light, that it is impossible to mistake their meaning. The whole passage runs thus: I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world: again, I leave the world, and go to the Father, Chap. Joh 16:28. By the expression, and am come into the world, Christ certainly meant to signify his being and conversing visibly and bodily upon earth; and therefore by the other expression, I leave the world, he must have intended to denote the contrary, viz. his ceasing to converse visibly and bodily upon earth. But as they very well knew that the usual road by which all men quitted this world, lay through the gates of death, and were assured that their Master had trodden the irremediable path, they might naturally conclude, that what he had said to them about leaving the world, &c. was accomplished in his death; and consistently with that notion might imagine, that by his coming again, no more was intended, than his appearing to them in the same manner as many persons have appeared after their decease. To guard against this double error, Christ plainly intimates to his disciples, in the words, I am not yet, &c. that his dying, and his final leaving of the world, were distinct things; the latter of which was still to come, though the former was past: he had indeed died and quitted the world like others; but he was now risen from the dead, returned into the world, and should not leave it finally till he ascended to his Father. Of his being returned into the world, his appearing to Mary Magdalene was intended for a proof; and yet of this it could be no proof at all, if what she saw was no more than what is commonly called a spirit; since the spirits of many people have appeared after their decease, who, notwithstanding, are supposed to have as effectually left this world by their death, as those who have never appeared at all. If therefore Christ was risen from the dead, as the angels affirmed he was; if he had not finally left the world, as the words, I am not yet ascended, &c. plainly import; and if his appearing to Mary Magdalene was intended as a proof of these two points, as undoubtedly it was; it will follow, that he was really, that is bodily, risen from the dead; that he was still in the world, in the same manner as when he came forth from the Father, &c. and that it was he himself, and not a spirit without bodily parts, that appeared to Mary Magdalene.
The term ascend is twice used by our Saviour in the compass of these few words. In the discourse alluded to, he told his disciples he should go to his Father, and he now bids Mary Magdalene tell them that he should ascend to his Father; a variation which had its particular meaning. For as by the former expression he intended to signify in general his final departure, so by the latter is the particular manner of that departure intimated; and, doubtless, with a view of letting his disciples know the precise time, after which they should no longer enjoy his converse, or expect to see him upon earth. When the disciples therefore beheld their Master taken up into heaven, they could not but know assuredly, that this was the event foretold about forty days before to Mary Magdalene; and, knowing that, could no longer doubt whether it was Christ himself who appeared and spoke those prophetic words to her. For if it was not Christ who appeared to her, it must either have been some spirit, good or bad; or some man, who, to impose upon her, counterfeited the person and voice of Christ; or lastly, the whole must have been forged and invented by her. The first of these suppositions is blasphemous, the second absurd, and the third improbable. For, allowing her to have been capable of making a lie for the sake of carrying on an imposture from which she could reap no benefit, and to have been informed of what our Saviour had spoken to his disciples the night in which he was betrayed, which does not appear, it must have been either extreme madness or folly in her, to put the credit of her story upon events, such as the appearing of Christ to his disciples, and his ascending into heaven, which were so far from being in the number of contingencies, that they were not even in the number of natural cau
Thus Jesus, having finished the great work of atonement, contemplated the effects of it with singular pleasure. The blessed relation between God and man, which had been long cancelled by sin was now happily renewed. The disciples had now a fresh assurance given them that God was reconciled to them; that he was become their God and Father; that they were exalted to the honourable relation of Christ’s brethren, and God’s children; and that their Father loved them with an affection greatly superior to that of the most tender-hearted parent. The kindness of this message will appear above all praise, if we call to mind the late behaviour of the persons to whom it was sent. They had every one of them forsaken Jesus in his greatest extremity; but he graciously forgave them; and, to assure them of their pardon in the strongest manner, without so much as hinting at their fault, he called them by the endearing name of his brethren.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Joh 20:17-18 . Mary sees: it is the Lord. But affected and transported in the highest degree by His miraculous appearance, she knows not: is it He bodily , actually come forth out of the grave, again become corporeally alive and risen? Or is it, on the other hand, His glorified spirit, which has been already raised up to God , and which again has descended to appear to her, so that He has only the bodily form, not the corporeal substance? Therefore, to have the certainty which her love-filled heart needed in this moment of sudden, profoundest emotion, she would take hold of, handle Him, in order by feeling to obtain the conviction which the eye alone, in presence of this marvellous happiness, could not give her. This, however, Jesus prevents: touch me not! and gazing into her soul, gives her, by His own assurance, the certainty which she seeks, adding, as a reason for that repulse: for I am not yet ascended to the Father , therefore, as yet, no glorified spirit who has again come down from heaven whither he had ascended. [261] She would touch the Lord, as Thomas did subsequently, not, however, from unbelief, but because her faith strives after a definiteness with which her love cannot dispense. Only this interpretation, which is followed also by Baeumlein, strictly corresponds to the words generally, especially also to the , which assigns a reason, and imports no scenic accompaniments into the incident which are not in the passage; for leaves the reader to suppose nothing else that Mary desired to do, save simply the mere , therefore no embracing and the like. But scenic accompaniments are imported, and go far beyond the simple , if it is assumed that Mary clasped the knees of Jesus (comp. the frequent in Homer, Od . . 512, . 76, . 65, . 357, et al .), and desired, as supplex , to manifest her to Him, as to a Being already glorified and returned from God (my first edition), or as venerabunda (so Lcke, Maier, Lange, Hilgenfeld, comp. Ewald). This could not be expected to be gathered by the reader from the mere noli me tangere; John must, in that case, have said, , or ,, or , or the like, or have previously related what Mary desired, [262] to which it may be added, that Jesus elsewhere does not refuse the ; comp. especially Mat 28:9 . He does not, indeed, according to Luk 24:39 , repel even the handling, but invites thereto; but in that instance, irrespective of the doubtfulness of the account, in a historical point of view, it should be noted (1) that Jesus, in Luke, loc. cit . (comp. Joh 20:24 ff.), has to do with the direct doubt of His disciples in the reality of His bodily appearance, which doubt he must expressly censure; (2) that in the present passage, a woman , and one belonging to the narrower circle of His loving fellowship , is alone with Him, to whom He might be disposed, from considerations of sacred decorum , not to permit the desired in the midst of overflowing excitement. How entirely different was the situation with the sinning woman, Luk 7:37 (in answer to Brckner’s objection)! Along with the correct interpretation of , in itself, others have missed the further determination of the sense of the expression, either in this way: Jesus forbade the handling, because His wounds still pained Him (Paulus)! or: because His new, even corporeally glorified life was still so delicate, that He was bound to keep at a distance from anything that would disturb it (so Olshausen, following Schleiermacher, Festpred . V. p. 303); or: because He was still bodiless, and first after His return to the Father was again to obtain a body (Weisse). There is thus imported what is certainly not contained in the words (Paulus), what is a thoroughly arbitrary presupposition (Paulus, Olshausen), and what is in complete contradiction to the N. T. idea of the risen Christ (Weisse). Others take the saying as an urging to hasten on with that which is immediately necessary; [263] she is not to detain herself with the , since she can see and touch Him still at a later period (so, with a different explanation in other respects of itself, Beza, Vatablus, Calovius, Cornelius a Lapide, Bengel, and several others); by which, however, an arbitrarily adopted sense, and one not in keeping with the subsequent , . . . , would be introduced into the confirmatory clause, nay, the prospect opened up, in reference to the future tangere , would be inappropriate. Others , that Jesus demands a greater proffer of honour; for as His body has already become divine, the ordinary touching of feet and mode of intercourse is no longer applicable (Chrysostom, Theodore of Mopsuestia, Theophylact, Euth. Zigabenus, Erasmus, Jansen, and several others). How inept in itself, and illogical in reference to the following , . . .! Others: it was a refusal of the enjoyment now sought in His appearance , which as yet is untimely, and is to take place not “terrestri contactu,” but spirituali (Melanchthon, Calvin, Aretius, Grotius, and several others; substantially also, but under various modifications, Neander, De Wette, Tholuck, Luthardt, Lange, Baumgarten, Hengstenberg, Godet), [264] by which, however, the proper contents, constituting the essence of the supposed sense, is arbitrarily read between the lines. Others still differently, as e.g . Ammon: Jesus desired to spare Mary the touch of one levitically unclean! and Hilgenfeld, Evang . p. 318: the refusal of the reverential touch was made by Jesus, for the reason that He was not yet the man again united with the Logos, but at present only the Man raised again from His grave. [265] Both interpretations are entirely foreign to the meaning. Scholten’s view (p. 172) is also an impossibility, as if Jesus had said , . . ., as one already glorified. Conjectures even have been attempted; Vogel: , Gersdorf and Schulthess: , or .
. ] This designation of the disciples as His beloved associates in the filial relation to God, through His now fulfilled earthly work (comp. . , . . .), is not at all intended to serve the purpose of tranquillizing them on account of their flight (Bengel, Luthardt, comp. Luther). Of this the text contains no indication, all the less that the expression is found only in the address to Mary , but not as to be communicated to the disciples . Rather has the designation its reference to Mary herself , who is to gather from it, that the loving fellowship of the Lord with His own, far removed from being dissolved by the new conditions of this miraculous manifestation, rather continues, indeed, now first (comp. Joh 15:15 ) has its completion. Note the like expression in Mat 28:10 , where, however (see in loc. ), the pointing to Galilce is an essential variation in the tradition; against which Luthardt, without reason, objects that Mat 28:10 refers to the promise, Mat 26:32 . Certainly; but this promise already has, as its historical presupposition, the appearance of the Lord before the disciples, which was to be expected in Galilee , as the same also, Mat 28:16 ff., is actually set forth as the first and only one in Matthew.
, . . .] The near and certain future . To announce this consequence of His resurrection to the disciples, must be all the more on His heart, since He so frequently designates His death as His departure to the Father, and had associated with it the personal hope of the disciples. That should not be different through His resurrection; it was only the passage from death to the heavenly glory. As to the mode and way of the ascension . contains nothing . The added . and . was, however, intended to confirm the hope of the disciples in respect of their own , since in truth, in virtue of their fellowship with Christ, the Father of Christ was also become their Father, the God of Christ (to whom Christ solely belongs and serves, comp. Mat 27:47 , and see, in detail, on Eph 1:17 ) also their God (comp. on Rom 1:8 ); that is now, after the execution of the redemptive work, entirely accomplished, and will one day have also the fellowship in as its final result, comp. Rom 8:17 ; Rom 8:29 . Note in , . . ., that the article does not recur, but embraces all in the unity of the Person. To understand the pres. ., however, of that which ensues forthwith and immediately , and in the following way (Baur, p. 222 ff., and Neutest. Theol . p. 381, Hilgenfeld, and others), that already the appearance that follows is to be placed after the ascension (comp. Ewald, who understands the pres. of the ascension as already impending ), is decisively opposed by the fact of the later appearance, Joh 20:26-27 , if this is not given up as actual history, or if the extravagant notion of many ascensions is not, with Kinkel, laid hold of.
[261] In , . . ., is expressed, therefore, not “the dread of permitting a contact, and that which was thereby intended, before the ascension to the Father should be accomplished” (Brckner); but Jesus means thereby to say that Mary with her already presupposed in Him a condition which had not yet commenced, because it must have been preceded by His ascension to the Father.
[262] This also in answer to Baur, who thinks that Jesus was precisely on the point of ascending (see on ver. 18), and therefore did not wish to allow Himself to be detained by Mary falling at His feet . Comp. Kstlin, p. 190; Kinkel in the Stud. u. Krit. 1841, p. 597 ff. Among the ancient interpreters I find the strict verbal rendering of most fully preserved in Nonnus, who even refers it only to the clothing: Mary had approached her right hand to His garment; then Jesus says: .
[263] At this conclusion Hofmann also arrives, Schriftbew . II. 1, p. 524: Mary is not, in her joy at again having Jesus, to approach and hang upon Him , as if He had appeared in order to remain , but was to carry to the disciples the joyful message, etc. But even with this turn the words do not apply, and the thought, especially that He had appeared not to remain , would be so enigmatically expressed by , . . ., that it could only be discovered by the way, in nowise indicated, of an indirect conclusion. That may denote attach oneself, fasten oneself on (comp. Godet: “s’attacher ”), is well known; but just as frequently, and in the N. T. throughout , it means take hold of, touch, handle , also in 1Co 7:1 ; 1Jn 5:18 .
[264] Melanchthon: “Reprehenditur mulier, quod desiderio humano expetit complexum Christi et somniat eum revixisse ut rursus inter amicos vivat ut antea ; nondum scit, fide praesentiam invisibilis Christi deinceps agnoscendam esse.” So substantially also Luther. According to Luthardt, Mary would grasp, seize, hold Jesus fast, in order to enjoy His fellowship and satisfy her love. This Jesus denies to her, because at present it was not yet time for that; abiding fellowship as hitherto will first again commence when He shall have ascended, consequently shall have returned in the Paraclete; it will not then be brought about corporeally, but the fellowship will be in the Spirit. According to Baumgarten, a renewed bodily fellowship is promised to Mary, but completely freed from sin, and sanctified by Christ’s blood. According to Hengstenberg, Mary would embrace Jesus in the opinion that now the wall of separation between Him and her has fallen; but the Lord repels her, for as yet His glorification is not completed, the wall of separation still in part subsists, etc. Godet: “It is not yet the moment for thee to attach thyself to me, as if I were already restored to you . For I am not as yet arrived at the state in which I shall be able to contract with my disciples the superior relation which I have promised to you;” thus substantially like Luthardt.
[265] In his ZeitsChr. 1868, p. 436, Hilgenfeld modifies his interpretation to the extent that Jesus, as the Risen One, did not as yet desire to be the object of the reverence which belonged to Him as Lord of the Church (Phi 2:10 ). This was then first to begin, when, after His ascension, He should appear before His believing ones as Dispenser of the Spirit (Joh 6:62-63 ). But even thus the points to be understood are imported from a distance.
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
17 Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God.
Ver. 17. Touch me not, &c. ] She had caught him by the feet (as the Shunammite did Elisha, as the Shulamite did her spouse), and there she would have held him longer, out of inconsiderate zeal, Mat 28:9 ; Son 3:4 ; but that he takes her off this corporal conceit, that she may learn to live by faith, and not by sense; to be drawn after him to heaven, whither he was now ascending, and to go tell his brethren what she had seen and heard, Ne morere, sed ad perturbatos discipulos accurre et quod vidisti renuncia. (Pet. Martyr.)
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
17. ] The connexion between the prohibition and its reason is difficult, and has been very variously given. See a complete discussion of the exegetical literature of the passage in Stier, vi. 640 667. The sense seems to me to be connected with some gesture of the nature alluded to in the gloss above quoted, but indicating that she believed she had now gotten him again, never to be parted from Him. This gesture He reproves as unsuited to the time, and the nature of His present appearance. ‘Do not thus for I am not yet restored finally to you in the body I have yet to ascend to the Father.’ This implies in the background another and truer touching , when He should have ascended to the Father. “Vis me tangere, Maria; vis omnino frui amicitia mea: id nunc non licet, quum tantum , ad fidem vestram roborandam me do conspiciendum. At ubi ad Patrem ascendero, veniet tempus quum frui mea amicitia perfectissime poteris, non terrestri contactu, sed tali qui loco illi, i.e. clo conveniat, spirituali .” Grotius. With this my view nearly agrees, not confining (as indeed neither does he) the latter enjoyment to in clo , but understanding it to have begun here below. So Leo the Great, Serm. lxxiv. (alli [252] . lxxii.) 4, p. 295: “Hinc illud est quod post resurrectionem suam Dominus Mari Magdalen personam Ecclesi gerenti cum ad contactum ipsius properaret accedere dicit; Noli me tangere, nondum enim ascendi ad Patrem meum : hoc est, nolo ut ad me corporaliter venias, nec ut me sensu carnis agnoscas: ad sublimiora te differo, majora tibi prparo: cum ad Patrem ascendero, tunc me perfectius veriusque palpabis, apprehensura quod non tangis, et creditura quod non cernis.”
[252] alli = some cursive mss.
The two renderings of to be guarded against are, (1) a laying hold of to retain (= ), (2) a laying hold of to worship ( Mat 28:9 ). Neither of these senses can be extracted from the word without forcing.
] Stier remarks that this was a far greater honour than that which had been forbidden her; just as the handling of the Lord allowed to Thomas was a far less thing than the not seeing and yet believing.
. ] By this term He testifies that He has not put off his humanity, nor his love for his own, in his resurrection state: see Heb 2:11 .
. . . ] This distinction, . , when seems so likely to have been said, has been observed by all Commentators of any depth, as indicating an essential difference in the relations . Cyr.-jer [253] (Stier), , , . Aug [254] : “Non ait, Patrem nostrum; aliter ergo meum, aliter vestrum; natura meum, gratia vestrum. Et, Deum meum et Deum vestrum. Neque hic dixit Deum nostrum; ergo et hic aliter meum, aliter vestrum. Deum meum, sub quo et Ego sum homo; Deum vestrum, inter quos et Ipsum Mediator sum.” Tract. cxxi.3.
[253]-jer. Cyril, Bp. of Jerusalem, 348 386
[254] Augustine, Bp. of Hippo , 395 430
The is the ground and source of the , therefore the Lord so speaks. Stier, vii. 32, edn. 2. “Nos, per Illum: Ille, singularissime et primo.” Bengel. But the indicates that He is still man: cf. Eph 1:3 and passim: 1Co 3:23 ; and especially Heb 2:11 . In the is included His temporary stay which He was now making with them I am ascending q. d. ‘I am on my way.’
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Joh 20:17 . , “noli me tangere,” not because it was indecorous (Luk 7:38 ); nor because she wished to assure herself by touch that the appearance was real, a test which He did not prevent His disciples from applying; nor because her embrace would disturb the process of glorification through which His body was passing; nor, following Kypke’s note, can we suppose that Jesus forbids Mary to worship Him [although K. proves that is used of that clinging to the knees or feet which was adopted by suppliants], because He accepts Thomas’ worship even before His ascension; but, as He Himself says, , “for I have not yet ascended to my Father,” implying that this was not His permanent return to visible fellowship with His disciples. Mary, by her eagerness to seize and hold Him, showed that she considered that the , the “little time,” of Joh 16:16 , was past, and that now He had returned to be for ever with them. Jesus checks her with the assurance that much had yet to happen before that. His disciples must at once be disabused of that misapprehension. Therefore, , “Go to my brothers [ , here for the first time; in anticipation of the latter part of the sentence, cf. Mar 3:35 ] and tell them, I ascend to my Father and your Father, and my God and your God”. He thus forms a relationship which bound Him to them more closely than His bodily presence. His place by right is with God. But His love binds Him as certainly to His people on earth as His rights carry Him to God. The form of the expression is dictated by His desire to give them assurance. They had no doubt God was His God and Father. He teaches them that, if so, He is their God and Father. , Mary carries forthwith the Lord’s message to the disciples, cf. Mar 16:10 ; Mat 28:10 ; Luk 24:10 .
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
Touch Me not = Do not be holding Me. Greek. hapto. Only here in John; elsewhere, thirty-nine times. See Mat 8:3, Mat 8:18; Mat 9:20, Mat 9:21, Mat 9:29.
not. Greek me. App-105.
for. This gives the reason for the prohibition. He afterwards allowed the women to hold Him by the feet (Mat 28:9). On this day, the morrow after the Sabbath, the high priest would be waving the sheaf of the firstfruits before the Lord (Lev 23:10, Lev 23:11); while He, the firstfruits from the dead (1Co 15:23), would be ful filling the type by presenting Himself before the Father.
not yet. Greek. oupo; compound of ou. App-105.
My Father. See on Joh 2:16.
My brethren. Compare Mat 12:50; Mat 28:1 Mat 28:0. Heb 2:11.
ascend = am ascending.
My . . . your. This marks the essential difference in His and their relationship with the Father. But because God is the God and Father of our Lord (Eph 1:3) He is therefore our God and Father too.
God. Greek. Theos. App-98.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
17.] The connexion between the prohibition and its reason is difficult, and has been very variously given. See a complete discussion of the exegetical literature of the passage in Stier, vi. 640-667. The sense seems to me to be connected with some gesture of the nature alluded to in the gloss above quoted, but indicating that she believed she had now gotten him again, never to be parted from Him. This gesture He reproves as unsuited to the time, and the nature of His present appearance. Do not thus-for I am not yet restored finally to you in the body-I have yet to ascend to the Father. This implies in the background another and truer touching, when He should have ascended to the Father. Vis me tangere, Maria; vis omnino frui amicitia mea: id nunc non licet, quum tantum , ad fidem vestram roborandam me do conspiciendum. At ubi ad Patrem ascendero, veniet tempus quum frui mea amicitia perfectissime poteris, non terrestri contactu, sed tali qui loco illi, i.e. clo conveniat, spirituali. Grotius. With this my view nearly agrees, not confining (as indeed neither does he) the latter enjoyment to in clo, but understanding it to have begun here below. So Leo the Great, Serm. lxxiv. (alli[252]. lxxii.) 4, p. 295: Hinc illud est quod post resurrectionem suam Dominus Mari Magdalen personam Ecclesi gerenti cum ad contactum ipsius properaret accedere dicit; Noli me tangere, nondum enim ascendi ad Patrem meum: hoc est, nolo ut ad me corporaliter venias, nec ut me sensu carnis agnoscas: ad sublimiora te differo, majora tibi prparo: cum ad Patrem ascendero, tunc me perfectius veriusque palpabis, apprehensura quod non tangis, et creditura quod non cernis.
[252] alli = some cursive mss.
The two renderings of to be guarded against are, (1) a laying hold of to retain (= ), (2) a laying hold of to worship ( Mat 28:9). Neither of these senses can be extracted from the word without forcing.
] Stier remarks that this was a far greater honour than that which had been forbidden her;-just as the handling of the Lord allowed to Thomas was a far less thing than the not seeing and yet believing.
. ] By this term He testifies that He has not put off his humanity, nor his love for his own, in his resurrection state: see Heb 2:11.
. . . ] This distinction, . , when seems so likely to have been said, has been observed by all Commentators of any depth, as indicating an essential difference in the relations. Cyr.-jer[253] (Stier),- , , . Aug[254]:-Non ait, Patrem nostrum; aliter ergo meum, aliter vestrum; natura meum, gratia vestrum. Et, Deum meum et Deum vestrum. Neque hic dixit Deum nostrum; ergo et hic aliter meum, aliter vestrum. Deum meum, sub quo et Ego sum homo; Deum vestrum, inter quos et Ipsum Mediator sum. Tract. cxxi.3.
[253]-jer. Cyril, Bp. of Jerusalem, 348-386
[254] Augustine, Bp. of Hippo, 395-430
The is the ground and source of the ,-therefore the Lord so speaks. Stier, vii. 32, edn. 2. Nos, per Illum: Ille, singularissime et primo. Bengel. But the indicates that He is still man: cf. Eph 1:3 and passim: 1Co 3:23; and especially Heb 2:11. In the is included His temporary stay which He was now making with them-I am ascending-q. d. I am on my way.
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Joh 20:17. , touch Me not) She was wishing to do so in the way of adoration; but Jesus forbids it: For, 1) there was no need to touch Him, since she already believed: 2) there was close at hand, simultaneously with His ascension, the approaching state of a more elevated kind of faith, which required no touching to assure it: 3) the tidings were to be given without delay to the disciples; comp. Luk 10:4, Salute no man by the way [the charge to the Seventy to avoid delay, as their business was urgent and Oriental salutations tedious].-, not yet) By this particle the Lord indicates, that the Ascension was immediately at hand, and that the disciples ought to make haste: for that it is for their sake that He delays, when He might immediately ascend.-, for) The tiology [Assigning of a reason.-See Append.]: do not touch Me: for thou oughtest to go away quickly to announce the tidings: afterwards thou, and those to whom thou shalt have announced them, shall be able both to see and to touch Me.-, but) The antithesis is between, I have not yet ascended, and, I ascend.- , My brethren) See on Mat 25:40. [At first He called them disciples; then friends, Joh 15:15; and once, speaking of the cross, little sons (): after the resurrection, , little children, ch. Joh 21:5, and brethren.] [The words in Mat 12:50 rest on another and different principle, Whosoever shall do the will of My Father in heaven, the same is My brother.-V. g.] He calls them brethren: for His Father is also at the same time their Father; and by the appellation of Brethren, He intimates His favourable (propitious) feeling towards them, though by their flight and denial of Him they had become unworthy of all their former position and grade, and He offers to them all the fruit of His resurrection: being presently after about also to renew their commission (the sending of them forth), nay, more, about to enlarge it: Joh 20:21.-, I ascend) This goes still further. He does not say, I have risen again; nor, I will ascend; but, I ascend. This time of the ascension is already regarded as present. Luk 9:51, note The time that He should be received up. [Jesus all along from the first looked on to the goal, His assumption into heaven, and regarded the forty days after His resurrection, nay, even the events preceding, as only a kind of or Preparation for the one great day of His Ascension]. So the mention of His glorious coming is immediately connected with His ascension. See Act 1:11, This same Jesus, winch is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go into heaven. Wherein once it is said, He shall come; afterwards it is always, He cometh, in the present. Hence the disciples of themselves were about to infer, that they must make haste, in order that they might see Jesus. He had often spoken of this ascension as close at hand, by employing the word , I go away.- , , to My Father and your Father, and My God and your God) Christ called God His God thrice; on the cross, Mat 27:46, My God, My God etc.; after His resurrection, in this passage, and in the Apocalypse, ch. Rev 2:7, note.[398] Ordinarily and elsewhere, He is wont to call God by the title of His Father. He joins together both appellations, for the first time, in this place: He calls Him Father, since He derives His Origination from Him; He calls Him God (never, His Lord), since He has Him for His End; and thus shows that He has every kind of tie binding Him to the God. Moreover, He freely bestows on His brethren a similar tie of relationship with the Father and God. He does not, however, say Our, but My Father and your Father, etc. We have our relationship to God through Him: He has His in a manner altogether peculiar to Himself and primarily. Here, too, the saying holds good: God is the God (and Father), not of the dead, but of the living; comp. ch. Joh 14:19, Because I live, ye shall live also.
[398] There seems some mistake here. The passage in which Jesus calls the Father My God, is ch. Rev 3:12; not ch. Rev 2:7, I will write upon Him the name of My God, and the name of the city of My God, new Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from My God.-E. and T.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
Joh 20:17
Joh 20:17
Jesus saith to her, Touch me not;-She ran to him, prostrated herself at his feet, and as Mat 28:9 says took hold of his feet, and worshipped him. They did touch him as he afterwards had Thomas to do.
for I am not yet ascended unto the Father:-It is difficult to determine what is meant here. Was this done before the final ascension? Some interpret it to cling to instead of touch, and that he meant to tell them not to cling to him, for he would not leave them immediately, but go and tell his disciples that he would meet them in Galilee. This was an assurance that the time had not yet come for him to leave them.
but go unto my brethren, and say to them, I ascend unto my Father and your Father, and my God and your God.-[Why did he not say our Father and our God since he included both himself and them? For the reason he is not our Father, our God in the same sense that he is his Father and God.]
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
Touch me not
Cf. Mat 28:9, “and they came and held him by the feet.” A contradiction has been supposed. Three views are held:
(1) That Jesus speaks to Mary as the High Priest fulfilling the day of atonement (Leviticus 16). Having accomplished the sacrifice, He was on His way to present the sacred blood in heaven, and that, between the meeting with Mary in the garden and the meeting of Mat 28:9. He had so ascended and returned: a view in harmony with types.
(2) That Mary Magdalene, knowing as yet only Christ after the flesh 2Co 5:15-17 and having found her Beloved, sought only to hold Him so; while He, about to assume a new relation to His disciples in ascension, gently teaches Mary that now she must not seek to hold Him to the earth, but rather become His messenger of the new joy.
(3) That He merely meant: “Do not detain me now; I am not yet ascended; you will see me again; run rather to my brethren,” etc.
Touch me not Or, do not detain me.
Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes
Touch: Or rather, “embrace me not,” or, “cling not to me,” ( [Strong’s G3361], [Strong’s G3450], ), “Spend no more time with me now in joyful gratulations: for I am not yet immediately going to ascend to my Father; you will have several opportunities of seeing me again; but go and tell my disciples that I shall depart to my Father and your Father.” Joh 20:27, 2Ki 4:29, 2Ki 7:9, Mat 28:7, Mat 28:9, Luk 10:4
my brethren: Psa 22:22, Mat 12:50, Mat 25:40, Mat 28:10, Rom 8:29, Heb 2:11-13
I ascend: Joh 13:1, Joh 13:3, Joh 14:2, Joh 14:6, Joh 14:28, Joh 16:28, Joh 17:5, Joh 17:11, Joh 17:25, Psa 68:18, Psa 89:26, Luk 24:49-51, Eph 1:17-23, Eph 4:8-10, 1Pe 1:3
your Father: Joh 1:12, Joh 1:13, Rom 8:14-17, 2Co 6:18, Gal 3:26, Gal 4:6, Gal 4:7, 1Jo 3:2, Rev 21:7
your God: Gen 17:7, Gen 17:8, Psa 43:4, Psa 48:14, Isa 41:10, Jer 31:33, Jer 32:38, Eze 36:28, Eze 37:27, Zec 13:7-9, Heb 8:10, Heb 11:16, Rev 21:3
Reciprocal: Psa 16:6 – I have Psa 22:10 – thou Psa 24:3 – Who Psa 31:14 – Thou Psa 45:7 – thy God Psa 63:1 – thou Psa 103:13 – Like Son 3:4 – I held Jer 31:1 – will Dan 6:22 – My God Hos 9:17 – My God Mic 5:4 – the Lord Zec 11:4 – Lord Mat 6:6 – pray Mat 6:9 – Our Mat 12:49 – his disciples Mar 3:34 – Behold Luk 8:21 – My mother Luk 12:30 – your Luk 24:51 – he was Joh 2:16 – my Joh 15:15 – I call Joh 18:11 – my Act 1:2 – the day Rom 1:7 – God Rom 8:15 – Abba Rom 15:6 – the 1Co 8:6 – one God 2Co 1:3 – the Father of our 2Co 11:31 – God Eph 1:3 – God Eph 1:5 – by Eph 4:6 – God Eph 4:9 – he ascended Phi 4:19 – God Col 1:12 – the Father 1Th 3:11 – God Heb 1:9 – thy God 2Pe 1:17 – God
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
TOUCH ME NOT
Jesus saith unto her, Touch Me not; for I am not yet ascended to My Father.
Joh 20:17
This is the second word spoken by our Lord after His Resurrection; and it was spoken to the simple womanly penitent. His first word touched her heart, His second informed her spirit.
I. The action of the Magdalen.The action of the Magdalen in stretching out her hand to touch our Lord proved that she never supposed that He would be further removed from her than He was in His natural body. There was the Christian womans faithful, loving, pious act. Is it your first impulse to get the precious possession of your risen Lord? While you know more distinctly than ever Mary knew that Christ your Lord was dead and is alive, do you honestly think that you find it in your heart to long to touch Him? Do you care as she did to be near Him? True, He may be fixed in your creed, but that dogma may be only a dry abstraction, not a living person, perfect Man and perfect God, as He was to her?
II. The rebuke.Let us go a step further. The word was instantTouch Me not. Now, do you think that by that word He meant in any way that He was separate from her? Was it a warning, do you think, to His redeemed, that He was no more to be approached as near, that He was retiring into the nature which He had from all eternity, pure Godhead, and had left behind Him in the grave His manhood, emptied Himself of His human fellowship and kinship with us? Not at all. When He bade Mary touch Him not, He only negatived her impulsive love, and corrected it by a higher knowledge of a more perfect blessing which should after a brief interval of patience be hers. He needed that body as an instrument for our atonement and sacrifice in death upon the Cross; He needs that body now to be an instrument of uniting man with God. Mary should touch Him, Mary should receive, embrace, possess Him, but not in the only way in which she had kissed His feet and washed them with her tears and wiped them with the natural drapery of her hair, but she should touch Him and possess Him in a better way. So, to turn again to ourselves, it is better far to be all impulsive and eager in our desire to touch our Lord with loving haste than to be cold and indifferent whether we touch Him one way or the other. We cannot all be theologians, but we can all be seekers after Christ and lovers of Christ, and He, the Divine Master, Who wills that our knowledge be perfected, will meanwhile, till that perfection come, never break the bruised reed nor quench the smoking flax. He will accept our devotion, be we women or men, even if it be for a time uneducated; He will justify that devotion by the plea that He used Himself, She hath done what she could.
III. Not yet ascended.It is clear from these words that the union of any individual man with Christ is the result of the Ascension. The period of forty days between the Resurrection and the Ascension was a transitional state, not intended to last, an intermediate condition of life, an interval that is too subtle to be defined. The natural body of Christthat is, the body that was so liable to suffering and deathwas extinct when He said these words. It had no place, and has no place on earth, or in hades, or in heaven. The natural body was and is extinct. The glorified body was not perfect when He spoke with Mary. He waited till the Ascension for the endowment of power, sent forth by the Holy Spirit, charged with all the virtues of His manhood, the life, sacrifice, and atoning death of the Redeemer. And this authority given to the ascended and glorified Lord to send forth the Holy Ghost seemed to have been ordered in the eternal counsels of God to be the Sons reward, to be the glory to ensue after Christ had perfectly fulfilled His mission. It is the Holy Ghost Who is entrusted with the inward spiritual power of uniting man, in whom He indwells, with Christ. He conveys to the whole man, body, soul, and spirit, every gift and grace which Jesus has authority to give.
So this is the sum of Christs teaching on the effect of His Resurrection upon us. Christ died for all the world, but the fruits of that death and the vital power of His Resurrection are to be communicated singly to every one of us by a personal union, to every one of us who will accept Him. And this union with Christ is effected by the Holy Ghost.
Archdeacon Furse.
Illustration
It is right we should show forth the beauty of worship, that we should give to God the best we have, that our singing, our adornment should be of the costliest and best; but we must beware lest we mistake the two things, lest we permit a fondness for music, a love of art, a devotion to culture to take the place of the true spiritual communion with our Lorda caution lest we lose, as it were, in a beautiful many-tinted wreath, the close communion with our risen Lord, lest our natural likings should draw down the actings of our enfranchised spirits.
(SECOND OUTLINE)
REVERENCE FOR THE SUPERNATURAL
Once again Mary hears His voice calling her by name, and sees Him at her side, and she reaches forth her hand with the cry, Rabboni! Master! But she is met by words which sound hard and strange, and almost like a reproof: Touch Me not.
I. What did our Blessed Lord mean?Three main interpretations have been given, coming respectively from St. Chrysostom, St. Gregory, and St. Augustine; either, or all, of which may be true.
(a) The words were spoken to check any mistaken view of the Risen Saviour.
(b) The words indicated that she was to lose not a moment in executing an unique and glorious errand.
(c) The words were spoken to lift her from earthly things and ideas to something higher and more real.
II. Does He repel our advances?No! He is stirring impulse into resolution. God is very greatly to be feared in the council of the saints, and to be had in reverence of all them that are round about Him. He is not the Lord and Master, as He was beforeRabboni must give place to Jesus, my God. Easter-time is just one of those festivals when we are brought face to face with the supernatural. It is the limit of the world of sense, from which we stand and look over the interminable vista of the supernaturalthe resurrection of the body, life from the dead, victory over the grave. Sometimes we may think we could match Christs self-denial; that we could rival His teaching in some system of morality; that we could equal His philanthropy; that we could surpass His Plan. But on Easter Day He stands back from us. None of our greatest heroes or philanthropists have been crucified, and risen again on the third day; no human spell can give life to a dead body, no imagination picture more than the immortality of the soul.
III. On Easter Day Christ is clothed with a supernatural light.His words, Touch Me not, claim a new homage beyond His other words of power: Be still, then, and know that I am God. A gathering spirit of reverence should stretch out from the Easter Festival and flood our religious life with light. This should be so with
(a) The Holy Word of God.
(b) The Holy Mysteries.
(c) The Church, Her Creeds and Teaching.
The Faith is not of men, it comes from God Himself. Thus, on this Festival, Reverence before the Supernatural stands out the one great lesson for us to lay to heart.
Rev. Canon Newbolt.
Illustration
Whatever it was that Mary didwhatever that action was meant to express and to conveythat may we now do and express, seeing that His own appointed time for it is already come; and that He has ascended to the Father. For, remember, that to Christs own feeling the circumstance of the invisibility of His Presence would make no difference. I often think that it may be so with the spirits of the departed. To them, death may make no separation at all. To us, indeedeven if we believe that they are still about usstill the fact that we cannot see them, must make a great change. But, to them, if they are still about our path, and about our bed, there will be no change, in this respect, at all,not a shadow of separation in any sense. Certainly, our Lord feels just as much present with His people now as when His bodily eye saw them, and His natural voice spoke to them. Therefore to Him it is just the same, now, as if anybody really touched Him. But to us, it is an exercise of faith to realise that. But to Him there is no alteration at all, since He was upon the earth.
Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary
7
Touch is from the Greek word HAPTO, and Thayer’s definition is, “To fasten to, make adhere to; to fasten one’s self to, adhere to, cling to.” As the word is used in this verse, Thayer explains it, “Do not handle me to see whether I am still clothed with a body; there is no need of such an examination.” I believe this explanation is correct, and that Jesus did not mean merely that no personal contact with him would be right. We may be sure of such a conclusion, for a little later (verse 27), Jesus told Thomas to make a very decided contact with him, and his body was then in the same condition it was when he was talking to Mary. A similar use of words is in the instruction of Jesus to the apostles not to “salute” anyone in the way (Luk 10:4). The explanation given in that place is as follows: “As a salutation was made not merely by a slight gesture and a few words, but generally by embracing and kissing, a Journey was retarded by saluting frequently.” For I am not yet ascended to my Father. This remark is plainly a logical one under the circumstances. Whenever Jesus’ went back to Heaven, he would no longer have the fleshly body and other evidences of the eyes as to his identity. But since he had not yet made that change, her own eyes should tell her that it was the same Lord who was crucified. Therefore, instead of spending time with unnecessary handling of his body, she should go to ‘his brethren and tell the good news to them. She was to tell them also that their Lord would soon ascend back to their God.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God.
[Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended, etc.] these words relate to what he had spoken formerly about sending the Comforter, and that he would not leave them comfortless, etc. And this probably Mary Magdalene’s mind was intent upon when she fell at his feet and would have embraced them. But he, “I must first ascend to my Father before I can bestow those things upon you which I have promised: do not therefore touch me and detain me upon any expectation of that kind; but wait for my ascension rather; and go and tell the same things to my brethren for their encouragement.”
Fuente: Lightfoot Commentary Gospels
Joh 20:17. Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father and your Father, and my God and your God. Many different interpretations have been given of these words, some coarse, others either requiring the introduction into the text of thoughts that are not there, or too far-fetched and mystical.
The meaning has been made more difficult by a want of sufficient attention to the force of the words Touch me not; for these words do not express the touch of a moment only, but a touch that continues for a time. They are equivalent to Keep not thy touch upon me, Handle me not, Cling not to me. Mary would have held her Lord fast with the grasp of earthly friendship and love. She needed to be taught that the season for such bodily touching of the Word of Life was past. But, as it passed, the disciples were not to be left desolate: the season for another touchingdeeper, because spiritualbegan. Jesus would return to His Father, and would send forth His Spirit to dwell with His disciples. Then they should see Him, hear Him, handle Him, touch Him, in the only way in which He can now be seen and heard and handled and touched. In a true and living faith they shall embrace Him with a touch never more to be withdrawn or interrupted. Hence the important word brethren. Those to whom the message is sent are more than disciples; they are brethren of their Lord. His Father is their Father, and His God their God. They are entering upon a state of spiritual fellowship with the Father similar to His own; and that fellowship is to be the distinguishing characteristic of their new condition. Thus the message sent by Mary to the brethren of the Lord is not a mere message that He has risen from the grave. The thought of His resurrection is rather embraced only as a part of a new and permanent state of things which has come in. Even here, however, it is important to observe that the distinction between our Lord and His disciples is still carefully preserved. Jesus does not say Our Father, but My Father and your Father; so that the significance of brethren lies in this, that the word is used in the very verse which proclaims so clearly the difference between Him and them.The words the Father, in the first part of the Lords address to Mary, ought not to pass unnoticed. The reader may compare what has been said on chap. Joh 8:27. He will then see that the expression the Father here combines in one thought all that is implied in the four designations that followMy Father, Your Father, My God, Your God.I ascend is not to be understood (as some have maintained) of an immediate ascension, inconsistent alike with the forty days of Act 1:3 and with the subsequent narratives of this very Gospel. Yet neither are we to understand it as if it meant I will ascend at some future day. The use of the present is to be explained by the consideration that the Resurrection of our Lord was really the beginning of His Ascension. At that point earth ceased to be the Saviours home as it had been; and He Himself was no longer in it what He had been. Thus it might be said by Him, I ascend. My ascent is begun, and shall be soon completed: then shall I enter into My glory, and the Spirit shall be bestowed in all His fulness.
The contrast between the relation in which Jesus places Himself to Mary in this verse, and to Thomas in Joh 20:27 (comp. Luk 24:39), has often been dwelt upon as if it afforded evidence of the untrustworthy nature of the whole narrative before us. Yet a moments consideration will satisfy any one that the difference in our Lords object on these two occasions necessarily involved a difference in His treatment of those whom He would lead to a full knowledge of Himself. Thomas has to be convinced that He who stands before him is indeed his Lord and Master risen from the grave. Mary believes that Jesus is risen, but needs further intimation as to His present state. To have treated the latter in the same manner as the former would have been to make Mary stop short of the very point to which Jesus would conduct her. To have treated the former as the latter would have been to unfold to Thomas the mystery of the resurrection state of Jesus, while he had not yet accepted the fact that the resurrection had taken place.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
Vv. 17, 18. Jesus says to her: Touch me not, for I am not yet ascended to my Father;but go to my brethren and say to them,I ascend to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God. 18. Mary Magdalene comes to the disciples and tells them that she has seen the Lord and that he has said these words to her.
As Mary extends her arms towards Him, Jesus seems to put Himself on His guard; what is His thought? Could He fear this touch, which might have something painful in it for Him, either because of His wounds, which were scarcely cicatrized (Paulus), or by reason of the delicate nature of His body, in a sense freshly born (Schleiermacher, Olshausen)? As Reuss says, one cites such explanations only as a remembrance. Or might this touching seem contrary to the dignity of His body henceforth made divine (Chrysostom, Erasmus)? This explanation is incompatible with the invitation which He gives to Thomas to touch Him; comp. also Luk 24:39.
Lucke thought of the use of the verb in the phrase to touch the knees, forto worship, to supplicate, in Homer. The attempt has even been made to unite these words, in this sense, to what follows: I am not yet glorified; it is not yet, therefore, the time to worship me. But alone never has this meaning, and Jesus accepts a few days afterwards the adoration of Thomas.
It has been supposed (Meyer,Baumlein) that Jesus wishes to remove a feeling of anxiety from the heart of Mary, who is trying to assure herself of the reality of what she sees. But in that case would rather be the proper word than .
Or the meaning to hold back has been given to the word to touch. Do not stop to hold me as if I were ready to escape thee, but go to my brethren (Neander). But with this meaning, it would have been (to lay hold of). This reason excludes also the explanation of Baur: Do not hold me: for it is necessary that I ascend to my Father, to whom I have not yet returned.
The , the touching, which Jesus forbids is not that of anxiety, but that of joy (2Co 6:17, Col 2:21): Clasp not my feet; I have not come to renew the old earthly relations. The true seeing again which I have promised you is not this. To return in a real and permanent way, it must be that I shall have first ascended. That time has not yet come. Or, as Steinmeyer says, it is, indeed, rather for leave-taking that I have come. The disciples imagined that the death of Jesus was the return to the Fatherof which He had spoken to them, and His reappearance (Joh 13:1) seemed to them the beginning of His permanent abiding vith them. They confounded His death with the ascension, and the promised return with the Parousia. But Jesus declares to them by this message of Mary that He is not yet ascended, and that it is only now that He is going to ascend. Instead of enjoying this moment of possession, therefore, as if Jesus were really restored to her, Mary must rise and go to tell the disciples what is taking place. Jesus does not say (the aorist), but (the perfect); He denies that He is already in the state of one who has done the act of ascending and who can contract with His own the higher relation in which they will possess Him again.
But go is opposed to the act of staying to enjoy. The message with which Jesus charges her for His disciples consequently signifies: I am not yet in my state of glory; but as soon as I shall be in it, I will give you a share in it, and then nothing shall any longer interpose between you and me. Hence the expressions: my brethren and my Father and your Father. There is here a foretaste, as it were, of the future communion. These terms set forth the indissoluble solidarity which will unite them to Him in the glorious state into which He now enters. He had not until now called them His brethren;the same expression is found again in Mat 28:10. It contains more than Weiss thinks, when he sees in it only the idea that His exaltation will not alter His fraternal relation to them. No more do I think that Jesus wishes to bring out thereby the community of action which will unite them (Steinmeyer, Keil). He calls them His brethren as sharing in the divine adoption which He has acquired for them; they will enjoy with Him filial communion with God Himself. The words: my Father and your Father, are the explanation of it. On this expression: my brethren, comp. Rom 8:29.
In the name of Father there is filial intimacy; in that of God, complete dependence, and this for the disciples as for Jesus Himself.
But within this equality so glorious for the believers, there remains an ineffaceable difference. Jesus does not and cannot say our Father, our God, because God is not their Father, their God, in the same sense in which He is His Father and His God.
The present , I ascend, has been variously explained: either as designating the certain and near fact, like the presents: I go to the Father (, ) in the previous discourses, or as going so far as even to identify the day of the resurrection with that of the ascension (Baur, Keim); whence a contradiction between John and the Synoptics. The first sense is impossible; for the opposition: I am not yet ascended,…but I ascend, forces us to give to the present its strict meaning. The second is not any more admissible, since this appearance has no characteristic which distinguishes it from the following ones, which would necessarily be the case if the ascension, the complete glorification, separated them. The: I ascend, must designate thus a present elevation of position which is not yet the ascension. We cannot, whatever Weiss may say, escape the idea of a progressive exaltation during the days which separated the resurrection from the ascensionan exaltation to which the gradual transformation of the body of Jesus, which appears clearly from everything that follows, corresponds. On the one hand, He is no longer with the disciples, living with them the earthly existence (Luk 24:44); on the other, He is also not yet in the state of glorification with the Father. It is a state of bodily and spiritual transition exactly denoted by the word I ascend.
By this message Jesus desires to raise the eyes of Mary and of His disciples from the imperfect joy of this momentary seeing Him again, which is only a means, to the expectation of the permanent spiritual communion, which is the end, but which must be preceded by His return to the Father (Joh 14:12; Joh 14:19, Joh 16:7; Joh 16:16). This warning applies to all the visits which shall follow, and is designed to comfort His followers for the sudden disappearances which shall put an end to them.
The present, she comes (Joh 20:18), expresses in all its vividness the surprise produced in the disciples by this arrival and this message.
We have said that the appearance to the women related by Matthew (Mat 28:9-10) seems to us to be identical with that which John has just described with more detail. And indeed it is enough to convince us of this, if we compare the words: Touch me not, and, Go, and say to my brethren, with these:
They held him by the feet, and: Go, and say to my brethren. Some modern critics, also identifying the two scenes, have supposed that John’s narrative is rather a poetic amplification of the short story of Matthew, formed by means of those of Mark and Luke. But how is it not seen that the story of Matthew is a vague traditional summary, while John’s description reproduces the real scene in all its primitive freshness and distinctness?
Fuente: Godet Commentary (Luke, John, Romans and 1 Corinthians)
20:17 {4} Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my {d} brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto {e} my Father, and your Father; and [to] my God, and your God.
(4) Christ, who is risen, is not to be sought in this world according to the flesh, but in heaven by faith where he has gone before us.
(d) By his brethren he means his disciples, for in the following verse it is said that Mary told his disciples.
(e) He calls God his Father because he is naturally his Father in the Godhead, and he says “your Father” because he is our Father by grace through the adoption of the sons of God: that is, by taking us by his free grace to be his sons; Epiphanius.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
Jesus’ next words help us understand that Mary also embraced Jesus. Mary probably prostrated herself before Jesus and embraced His lower legs (cf. Mat 28:9).
Jesus’ words are very difficult to interpret. The translators rendered them, "Touch me not" (AV), "Stop clinging to me" (NASB), and "Do not hold on to me" (NIV). The meaning depends to some extent on what Jesus meant when He said, "For I have not yet ascended to the Father."
One view is that Jesus’ second statement connects with what follows it rather than with what precedes it. [Note: S. E. Porter, Verbal Aspect in the Greek of the New Testament, with Reference to Tense and Mood, p. 356.] Since Jesus had not yet ascended to His Father (Gr. anabebeka, perfect tense) Mary should go to the disciples and tell them that He was not yet ascending (Gr. anabaino, present tense). According to this view the initial prohibition against touching Jesus stands alone. The weaknesses of this view are two. First, there is no other example of this anticipatory use of "for" (Gr. gar, translated "since") in the New Testament. Second, it fails to explain any reason for Jesus’ prohibition.
Advocates of a second view understand Jesus as telling Mary to release Him because she must go to the disciples with a message. [Note: M. Zerwick, Biblical Greek Illustrated by Examples, pp. 159-60, §476.] However it is very unusual for the preposition "for" (Gr. gar) to link a prohibition and an imperative. [Note: Carson, The Gospel . . ., p. 642.] Furthermore this reading makes "for I have not yet ascended to the Father" a rather meaningless parenthetical remark.
A third view is that it was inappropriate for Mary to hold Jesus since He had not yet ascended to the Father, but it was appropriate for Thomas to touch Jesus (Joh 20:27). Therefore Jesus must have ascended to the Father and returned between His appearances to Mary and Thomas. [Note: Chafer, 4:118; 5:262-63; 7:20.] Yet there is no biblical evidence that Jesus ascended to the Father and returned from Him between these two appearances. Moreover it is unclear why ascending to the Father should make any difference in the disciples’ physical contact with Jesus’ body.
A fourth view regards Jesus’ statement as not expressing temporal sequence. Advocates regard it as a theological point instead. Jesus was contrasting His passing presence in His post-resurrection state with His permanent presence through the Spirit. [Note: Brown, 2:1014-15; Barrett, The Gospel . . ., p. 566.] What Jesus meant was that Mary should refrain from touching Him because even though He had not yet ascended to the Father He would do so shortly. The resurrection had introduced a new relationship between Jesus and His disciples in which physical contact was inappropriate. This view puts more emphasis on Jesus’ exaltation in His passion than the New Testament writers did, including John. Moreover it is impossible to dissociate Jesus’ statement from a sequence of events since His death, resurrection, and ascension did happen in sequence (cf. Joh 20:28-29). Finally this view fails to explain why Jesus permitted Thomas to touch Him (Joh 20:27) but did not allow Mary to do so.
The best explanation seems to be that Mary was holding onto Jesus as though she would never let Him go (cf. Mat 28:9). Jesus told her to stop doing that or, if He knew she was about to do it, He told her not to do it. He was almost ready to disappear permanently. The reason she should release Him was that He had not yet ascended to the Father. He had other work to do first. Only in heaven would it be possible for loving believers such as Mary to maintain contact with Jesus forever. [Note: Cf. Carson, The Gospel . . ., pp. 644-45; Tenney, "John," p. 191; Blum, p. 342; Morris, pp. 742-43; Wiersbe, 1:390; Beasley-Murray, p. 376.] This view makes good sense of the text and harmonizes with Jesus’ invitation to Thomas (Joh 20:27). Thomas needed to touch Jesus to strengthen his faith. Mary needed to release Him because she did not have to fear losing Him.
The message that Mary was to carry to the disciples was that Jesus was going to return to the Father. She would obviously report that Jesus was alive, but Jesus wanted her to communicate more than that. Jesus had spoken of His ascension before (e.g., Joh 7:33; Joh 14:12; Joh 14:28; Joh 16:5; Joh 16:10; Joh 16:17; Joh 16:28). His disciples needed to understand that His death and resurrection had not wiped out these earlier predictions.
Jesus described the Father in a new way. He was Jesus’ Father, but He was also the disciples’ Father. Jesus did not say "our" Father. He and His disciples had a different relationship to the Father. Nevertheless they were all sons of the Father albeit in a different sense (cf. Joh 1:12-13; Joh 1:18; Joh 5:19-30). Therefore Jesus called the disciples His "brothers" here. The context clarifies that Jesus was referring to the disciples and not to His physical half-brothers (Joh 20:18). Likewise Jesus’ relationship to God was similar to, though not exactly the same as, the disciples’ relationship to God. The emphasis in Jesus’ statement was on the privileges that His disciples now shared with Him because of His death, resurrection, and ascension (cf. Rom 8:15-16; Heb 2:11-12).