For Those Who Doubt, Matthew 28:5-10

I don't think there is a Christian alive who hasn't at one time or another had doubts. I've heard a few people say, "I never really doubted". Well, probably not in terms of an existential spiritual crisis like some people, but I think everybody at some point, if they're honest says, "How do I know this is really true? Am I really believing in the right thing? That's a doubt.

This morning I've titled the message, For Those Who Doubt. One of the things that has impressed me as I've been going through the details of what transpires is, once it's discovered that the tomb is empty, and the initial witnesses to the empty tomb reported to the disciples, they don't believe it. They've heard Jesus prophesy at least eight different times—it's difficult to pinpoint that with the different accounts in the different Gospels—at least five times in Matthew, but there are other situations where He has predicted His death, burial and resurrection in the other Gospels. So at least eight times they've heard this and they haven't comprehended it. In fact we are told in the Gospels that when He said this they looked at each other and asked themselves, "What does He mean by that, that He is going to rise from the dead?" And then once He did, what we see in the reactions here is they don't initially associate the empty tomb with the resurrection. It doesn't even enter into their minds.

It enters into the minds of the unbelievers, and it's the Pharisees and the Romans who are saying, "Well remember He said He would rise from the dead. Let's go and put a guard on the tomb in case the disciples try to steal the body". What is amazing is that disciples haven't put any of this together, and it never even occurred to them to do that. And after they are told that Mary has seen the risen Lord they didn't believe her. Even after a couple of His appearances to them, we are still told they doubted.

Now there's nothing wrong with doubting because we don't want to be naïve, we don't want to be credulous, just believe anything that anybody says that comes along. There are often too many Christians who are that way. But we need to ask questions. Is this true? And is there evidence for it? And what we see in the Scripture is God always provides evidence for what He has done, because God does not expect us to park our brains in neutral, just have some mystical emotional experience and just suck up whatever anybody says. The disciples had to look at the evidence. So it's important to recognize that the claims of the Scriptures are based on objective evidence.

Let's look at what is going on here after the tomb is discovered to be empty.

What we will look at this morning are the witnesses of the empty tomb. Initially, you have the women, including Mary Magdalene, and then Peter and John. Then we have the first appearance to Mary, and then the second appearance to the other women. The third appearance is to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. We will begin by looking at these particular events.

In the previous lesson we examined the initial supernatural occurrences that transpired and are described in Matthew chapter 28. In verse two we read, "And behold, there was a great earthquake", probably an aftershock from the earthquake that occurred at the time of the death of Jesus, and it is related to a second event, that is the descent of an angel of the Lord from heaven who came and rolled back the stone from the door of the tomb. It was not the earthquake that caused the stone to rollback, it was the angel coming down and moving the stone that triggered this aftershock. We learned last time that often we see that there are these manifestations in God's creation when He appears, and when He does certain work that this shows, contrary to the assumptions of modern science, that there is an intersection between the visible spiritual world where God and the angels live and the physical material visible world that is not always clear. But there are times in the history of God's creation when those intersections are very clear, and often there are manifestations such as thunder, lightning, earthquakes, and things of that nature. What we saw described in these verses is consistent with the pattern that is described throughout the Scripture. This just isn't some sort of special resurrection miraculous type of genre that is claimed by liberal scholars today, that this somehow is an invention just to give credibility to the resurrection account. And that stated by people who affirm the resurrection, but they think all of this other is just sort of embellishment to substantiate what they are saying.

There are some different accounts of the angel that descended. In Matthew 28 one angel is mentioned who descends and is sitting on the rock outside of the tomb. When the women appear it's not including Mary Magdalene, though she shows up early. Probably the group heads out together because no single woman would have gone to the tomb before dark. They head out early, Mary runs ahead, so she gets there while it's still dark before the other women get there. She sees that the stone rolled back. Without seeing the angel or hearing the explanation she immediately jumped to a conclusion that the tomb is empty, not hearing anything about the resurrection. She ran back to tell John and Peter in John 20. That would be the initial movement. After she leaves the other women arrive and that's when they hear this explanation.

Matthew 28:5-7 The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid; for I know that you are looking for Jesus who has been crucified. He is not here, for He has risen, just as He said. Come, see the place where He was lying. Go quickly and tell His disciples that He has risen from the dead; and behold, He is going ahead of you into Galilee, there you will see Him; behold, I have told you.”

At this point the angel is announcing several things. First of all, he recognizes that the immediate emotional reaction from the women is that they are afraid, which fits the pattern we see in Scripture. When there is a theophany or there is an appearance of angels, there is often a reaction of fear that comes in. So immediately he says, "Don't be afraid". Second, he says, "I know that you seek Jesus, who was crucified", and then says, "He is not here, He is risen".

The phrase, "He is risen" translates a Greek verb that is an aorist passive, and in every Gospel this is the same verb that is used. I have often wondered exactly what the sense there was, since it's a simple past. Why haven't they translated it "He was risen", because most translators will translate it is if it's in the present tense. There are a couple of different nuances to the aorist tense. Usually it just summarizes an action that happened yesterday like, I went to eat lunch yesterday. I didn't say anything about how long it took or whether I just began, or whatever; is it just a summary statement of something that happened in the past. Sometimes you can talk about something that happened in the past but you are emphasizing that it's a beginning of a process. A third way is that it talks about the beginning of a process; then it talks about the end of a process. And if it talks about the conclusion of a process this is called technically a culminative aorist, but it refers to a past action that is recent, and so it is often translated as a present tense into English. But then there's another sense of the aorist that grammarians identify, and they call it a dramatic aorist, which emphasizes an event that has just occurred, and expresses the excitement of the moment. And that, too, is often expressed as a present tense.

That is what is going on here: why it is usually translated He is risen instead of He was risen. This emphasizes what is taking place. The earthquake and the rolled-away stone were not moved in order to let Jesus out of the tomb, they were moved to show that Jesus is already gone, that the resurrection has already taken place.

Then the angel invites them to come and to look. The purpose for that is to establish the empirical evidence to establish the reality that the tomb is empty and for them to look and see the grave clothes and how they are lying within the tomb. This would indicate that He had somehow miraculously just disappeared from within the grave clothes, that they had collapsed on the ground and were lying there, not indicating that they had been moved, that he had somehow awakened and taken them off, and they would be left in a messy pile, or that they were somehow not there, that they had disappeared. Remember when Lazarus comes out of the grave he is still bound in his burial clothes. This is again evidence that Jesus has just dematerialized in His resurrection body.

When I get through all of these accounts we are going to come back and summarize the things that we learn about a resurrection body. But one of the things that we learn here is that a resurrection body can dematerialize and rematerialize. We also will learn that it is physically solid.

They are invited to look, to witness, to see that He has gone, and that the evidence of His resurrection is there. But they still don't quite get it. They take off. They are told to go quickly and tell His disciples that He is risen. And for another time they are told, "Tell the disciples to go to Galilee".

Now Jesus, back when He established the Lord's Table, told them that He would die and that they were supposed to go to Galilee; but they didn't do that, they stayed in Jerusalem. And as we go through these accounts we are going to see each account emphasizing this statement, "Go quickly, tell the disciples I'm going to meet them in Galilee". But they don't do it. They seem rather dense at this point, and I'm cautious at claiming too much because I think most of us would be the same way, because the idea that Jesus was going to be brought back to life from the dead was so foreign. We are Christians from a line of Christians for 2000 years that talk about the resurrection of Jesus, year in and year out; it is a familiar idea. It was not a familiar idea for them. It was completely out of the ordinary and they will didn't grab hold of it very easily.

I think this also is a line of evidence to substantiate that this story isn't made up. If you look at other kinds of religious literature they don't portray the key people as being dense and slow to catch on to what is happening. They respond rather quickly to what has happened.

This is the account we have in Matthew. They are told to tell the disciples to go to Galilee and there they would see Him. They take off and head to Galilee.

Let's look at the parallel passages in Mark 16 and in Luke 24. In Mark 16, but we read is that the women are coming to the tomb. In verses 2 and 3 they are questioning about will how they are going to move this big stone when we get there. Then when they arrived they see that it's gone. That's where verse four takes up. "Looking up, they saw that the stone had been rolled away, although it was extremely large. [5] Entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting at the right, wearing a white robe; and they were amazed.

When we look at Mark's account there's no mention of an angel sitting on the stone outside. Now we have an angel who's on the inside sitting by where the body had. Some may say, well he moved. I don't think so. I think this is a separate angel and the reason is because when we get to Luke, Luke says that there are two inside. And when we get to John, when Mary gets back to the tomb after Peter and John have been there, there are two there. One is sitting where the feet of the body would have been, and one sitting where the head of the body would have been. So I think what we have is two angels. The first one shows up at the beginning, sitting on the stone. The second one shows up in Mark and he's inside the tomb. They are alarmed, but he says to them, as the outside angel said to them, the same thing. He uses different language; he says, "Don't be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth who was crucified. He is risen, He is not here, see the place where they laid Him". Again, there is this emphasis on objective evidence that is there. Look at the evidence. See what is here before you so that you can tell others later on.

The reason I emphasize this is, as you've heard me say this many times as we have gone to the Old Testament and other passages, God does indeed talk to people in private. God does indeed reveal things—in the Old Testament period, I'm talking about—in private, but that doesn't justify mysticism, that never justifies anybody saying well, God spoke to me, wants me to do this, or God told me to do this, or I had a dream. None of that is justified because whenever you see God do something in private—and the resurrection was in private. Nobody saw it. The Gospels don't tell us about the resurrection, they just come in here when the resurrection is over with and say, see He is gone; you just see the aftereffects of the empty tomb, but there's evidence that the resurrection has taken place—He always authenticates it in public. There is always objective validation so that you can know that it is God.

That's why in Deuteronomy chapters 13 and 18 there are objective statements to qualify and to determine if somebody who claims to be a prophet is truly a prophet. They can't just come along and say, "I'm a prophet". By the way, how many named prophets are there in the Old Testament? We go from Moses the great prophet to the last prophet who is Malachi. How many are named? How many people do you think had the idea that you just had all kinds of profit showing up all the time? For a thousand years, from 1446 to 444, the period covered by the revelation the Old Testament you have maybe 37 named prophets—not very many. This isn't the norm. Wonder how many false prophets there were? There are not named but there were a lot more of them. Think about that. Very few named, and even a few that are unnamed prophets follow the Lord, but a vast number of false prophets. I think that goes throughout history.

But back to our topic. Mark says, very similar to Matthew. This angel says almost the same thing as the angel outside. Why do you think that is? Some people say, well this just shows the difference. Mark got it one way, he got one story from one person, Matthew got a story from somebody else, and in fact, I heard somebody in the congregation make this point a not too long ago. We all know this is true for modern studies that the two witnesses who see something don't necessarily agree in their story. So people say, see that's what's going on here. They are talking eyewitness; they didn't quite agree.

That's heresy. This was inspired by God the Holy Spirit so that even if two witnesses didn't agree God the Holy Spirit would guarantee that whatever was written down about this was going to be absolutely accurate. So the differences can't be explained away by, well you have different witnesses and they have different accounts. That is just wrong; that violates the whole principle of inerrancy and infallibility of Scripture.

What we have here is the need for repetition. They don't believe it yet. They are struggling with their doubt. How can He be risen from the dead? They just don't get it. They have to hear the same thing two or three different times before it starts to get processed in their head. This angel says almost the same thing as the first angel: “He has risen; He is not here; behold, {here is} the place where they laid Him. But go, tell His disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see Him, just as He told you.’” They keep hearing the same thing, repeated once is not enough. If you've had children, you understand that.

Luke gives us another perspective. Luke 24:2-4 And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men suddenly stood near them in dazzling clothing.

This presents the same story, but a little differently.

Let's start putting this together. You have these women that appear. When they first come—Mary Magdalene started going back to get John Peter—they see an angel sitting outside. He tells them the Lord is risen and to go inside look at the evidence. They go inside and there is another angel there. He tells them the same thing: "Don't be afraid, He is risen. He's not here, but look at the evidence and then go tell the disciples". Then Luke tells us that—and it doesn't put this as being inside the tomb. He doesn't tell whether it is inside the tomb outside the tomb actually, but I think that this would be outside the tomb. That's just my opinion. It happened (verse four) as they were greatly perplexed about this. They have seen these other two angels and now they are discussing this; they are trying to process it at this point, and now two angels stood by them in shining garments.

I think now both of these angels show up again. The women are afraid; they bow down to the earth. And now these angels say something they hadn't said before: "Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen." And again, "Remember how He spoke to you when He was still in Galilee?"

One of the reasons I point this out is because this is a real problem in New Testament and Gospel studies. You go to seminary, you go to Bible college, you will take a course called New Testament Introduction, and one of the first things that they will talk to you about is something called the synoptic problem. How do you handle these differences that we see in the Gospel accounts? And the liberal theological approach is that these are just humans writing these different stories, and they talk to different witnesses and don't always agree on everything. That violates inspiration and inerrancy.

What we see is that each has part of the picture, like a jigsaw puzzle, but they can all fit together in one consistent whole.

I made this chart. Matthew on the left, Mark's account, Luke's account, and we can compare what they say. Matthew has one angel outside. Mark has one angel inside, and then Luke just says that there are two men. These angels that stood by them could be inside. I'm thinking it's probably outside. So those aren't contradictory; that can all fit together. And Mary is going to talk about when she gets there: there are two inside. It's the same two. One shows up One is it emphasized by Matthew, the second emphasized by Mark, Luke and John talk about both of them. They say almost the same thing. Matthew says, "Don't be afraid," Mark says, "Don't be alarmed", Luke is silent on that, even though they have been afraid and they bow down. That is not addressed here; the have already said it.

Now they asked the question: "Why do you seek the living among the dead?" In Matthew and Mark each of those two angels tell them something. "I know you seek Jesus who was crucified". Mark says, "You seek Jesus who was crucified"—different statements but they come from different angels. This appearance Luke talks about does not include that as part of it. But each time they have an encounter with an angel they say it again: "He is not here, He is risen", emphasizing the resurrection.

In Matthew the first angel says, "See where He lay; Mark says, "See where they laid Him". Luke doesn't include that and I think the reason is because they have already been inside the tomb and they have already seen where He lay. They go outside and their talking this over and they haven't processed yet. The that two angels reappeared to them and say, "Remember what He said when He spoke to you in Galilee." Luke 24:7 "saying that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again.”

What is going on in Luke is not the same as either Matthew or Mark. Each of these is a different aspect of this full event that took place at the tomb. In Matthew and Mark they tell them to go quickly and go tell the disciples. That is not reiterated in the Luke account, but we are told that they do go and tell the disciples. Luke 24:9 "and returned from the tomb and reported all these things to the eleven and to all the rest".

Here is another question. We are told by Luke that they talked to the eleven. Who are the eleven? Who's missing? Judas is missing. We know that, but was Thomas there? In the John account he is not there when Jesus shows up the first time, and when they tell them that Jesus is risen from the dead he acts like he's never heard anything else about what happened that morning. What has always been interesting to me is that even in Acts after Judas has already committed suicide they are still called the twelve. Before they asked Matthias to join the they're called the twelve. It's like a title for the team, and even though one is missing from the team there still called the twelve. I think that when so when Luke says it's the eleven he is not leaving out Judas, he is leaving out Thomas.

This is the kind of granular stuff you have to get down to because the critics bring stuff like this: see there's a contradiction here. We have to show that this isn't a contradiction.

We look at this and realize that that they have had to have this told to them several times in order to get it all straight, and we are reminded that what He said earlier in Matthew 26:32 after the Lord's Table: “But after I have been raised, I will go ahead of you to Galilee.” Right before this he told tells him again that He will be raised from the dead. He tells them to go performing Galilee, and in Matthew 20:18. After Jesus accommodates Himself to their unbelief disobedience—because they never do leave and go to Galilee—He does show up and appear to them in Jerusalem.

Matthew 28:10 Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid; go and take word to My brethren to leave for Galilee, and there they will see Me.” Then He will show up to them and tell them again go to Galilee, and finally they go to Galilee.

If the disciples who are going to be the foundation of the church as the apostles are a little dense, then I get encouraged. They are human. And that's another evidence of the uniqueness of the Bible. The heroes in the Bible are presented, warts and all, with their failures, lack of comprehension and their slowness to obey, and in some cases their gross disobedience, as we see with many in the Old Testament. This is why we have this repetition. It is to get it across to them so that they finally get it. The women are no different than we are, and the disciples are no different; they are incredulous and they need to hear it again and again.

At least five times Jesus in Matthew told them that He would rise from the dead. The other Gospels have other incidents.

Matthew 16:21   From that time Jesus began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised up on the third day.

Every time He talks about the future crucifixion He always includes the resurrection.

Mark 8:31   And He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.

Mark chapter nine has two different instances. Mark 9:9 is after the Mount of Transfiguration situation. "As they were coming down from the mountain, He gave them orders not to relate to anyone what they had seen, until the Son of Man rose from the dead." He is telling this to Peter, James and John. This is another time He emphasizes his resurrection.

Mark 9:10 "They seized upon that statement, discussing with one another what rising from the dead meant". They kept this word to themselves so they were obedient there, they didn't tell anybody. They were questioning what the rising from the dead meant. It seems pretty obvious what this means to you and me. What this means: that He is going to rise from the dead.

Luke 18:33 "and after they have scourged Him, they will kill Him; and the third day He will rise again.”

Luke 9:45 But they did not understand this statement, and it was concealed from them so that they would not perceive it; and they were afraid to ask Him about this statement.

This is just emphasizing how slow they are to catch it. These are not people who went to the tomb expecting Jesus to be risen from the dead. That was the last thing they thought of. The first thing on there on Mary's mind was what she tells them in John chapter 20, and that is that they have stolen the body.

Matthew 28:17 "When they saw Him, they worshiped {Him;} but some were doubtful". We still see this doubt after they've heard the evidence from the women who been at the tomb and after they have seen the resurrected Jesus.

It gives me great encouragement that this is talking about real people and a real situation. They see it, but they just can't believe it. They are like you and I. We hear about so-and-so healing somebody and we think there's something I'm not getting here that really didn't happen, and we are rightly sceptical. But they are skeptical too. These are not presented as men and women who just immediately believe and suck up whatever's going on. They have to have some evidence.

Mark 16:10, 11 reiterates this that. She went and reported to those who had been with Him, while they were mourning and weeping. When they heard that He was alive and had been seen by her, they refused to believe it.

Luke 24:38 And He said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts?"

When I started off I said every one of us has had doubts at one point. I know when I went off to college I heard lots of different things, attacks on the Christian worldview, and it raised a lot of doubts in my mind. For a while I just didn't know the answers. So I just figured there weren't answers and for a while there I was just not willing to believe the Scripture because I didn't understand the evidence. You've heard me tell the story before that I went to the weekend camp where I was a counselor is trying to figure out how to get back with the Lord, and straighten things out. My co-counselor in the cabin that weekend was Randy Price, and Randy said, "Here's a book" and gave me Josh McDowell's first volume "Evidence that Demands a Verdict". He said, "Go read this and it will answer your questions, which it did, and I never looked back.

It's important to teach our children the evidence for Christianity to understand why it is true, and not just that it is true.

In Luke 24 when the women are describing what happens, when the women come back. They returned from the tomb and told all these things to the 11 and the rest. It identifies who they were: Mary Magdalene, John and Mary the mother of James, who is the wife of Cleopas. That is going to be important because Cleopas is the only one named of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. There were other women with them so we don't know how many there were in that group of women. There could've been 6,7, or 8 women who went to the tomb. And there and they told the disciples, and we read that the disciples just thought they were idle tales, like delusions, the term that is also used in medical literature in Greece for people who are just happy hallucinating or having delusions. They don't believe. So this is not a group that is ready to leap to the conclusion of the resurrection. Luke just summarizes what John tells us in John 20 by telling us only about Peter, that Peter rose and ran to the tomb stooped down and saw the linen clothes line by themselves and he departed marbling to himself and what happened. It's not a contradiction to John. He has just compressed the story, which is something that a lot of writers do.

I was thinking through this, this week. I get several alerts on my iPhone from local news channels, from national news things and everything, and so something will happen. We bombed Syria, and over the next 30 minutes I will get 15 different news alerts on something that has happened. It's a headline but they don't always say the same thing. There are often things left out of one, other things that are included in others, and it doesn't mean they contradict each other; it is just that they're summarizing it in different ways. That's what we find that the Gospel writers do. They are compressing and summarizing parts of the story because the whole story doesn't necessarily fit within that writer's purpose.

Luke doesn't go into any of the details about Peter and John, whereas John who is writing the Gospel of John goes into a lot more detail because he was there, and he's telling what happened when he and Peter ran to the tomb.

That brings us to the episode in John 20. Mary has gone to the tomb early, while it was still dark. That's because she ran away, got ahead of the other women. Apparently that's one way to put it together. She and saw that the stone was taken away and ran back before the other women got there, before she heard that Jesus was risen. And she came to Peter first and then to the other disciple whom Jesus loved—a frequent way that John refers to himself in the Gospel of John—and notice, she says, "They've taken away the Lord out of the tomb". She is not saying He rose from the dead; she doesn't get that, she is not believing. She has heard all the these prophecies from Jesus about His being raised from the dead and she doesn't believe it. She's not expecting a resurrection, and when the tomb is empty she immediately leads to the conclusion that the body has been stolen, "and we don't know where they took it".

Peter and John immediately responded and they run to the tomb. They start off together, and John outruns Peter. He gets to the tomb first, stoops down, looks inside the door, and Peter gets there, stoops down and goes through the door. John follows him in and we are told:

John 20:6, 7 And so Simon Peter also came, following him, and entered the tomb; and he saw the linen wrappings lying {there,} and the face-cloth which had been on His head, not lying with the linen wrappings, but rolled up in a place by itself.

They are the next witnesses of the empty tomb, and of what was inside the tomb. None of this is happening in private or in somebody's imagination.

John 20:8 So the other disciple who had first come to the tomb then also entered, and he saw and believed. [9] For as yet they did not understand the Scripture, that He must rise again from the dead.

Let's talk about verse nine before we talk about verse eight. Verse nine seems to contradict verse eight so we have to understand how to read this.

This is a summary statement. To whom does the pronoun 'they' refer? That has to refer to the disciples as a whole, otherwise is contradicting. Someone mentioned that it refers to John and Peter. Well wait a minute. We were just told that John believed, so the only way to make sense of this is to take this as a summary statement about the whole of the eleven disciples. They didn't know the Scripture. They hadn't comprehended this yet. They had forgotten what Jesus had said about the resurrection. That's a contrast with verse eight where when John saw it he believed; he put it together. He is the first one to put it together; the other 10 of the 11 don't put it together yet.

Luke 18:34 But the disciples understood none of these things, and {the meaning of} this statement was hidden from them, and they did not comprehend the things that were said.

They just don't comprehend it.

Then in John 20 those disciples went away, they went back to their own homes, and now the scene shifts to Mary. Mary has followed them much more slowly; she arrives at the tomb. She stands outside the tomb and is weeping. She's not standing there quietly crying. The verb here in the Greek, KLAIO, indicates that she is wailing, which is typical of Middle Eastern women. In Greek she is wailing, she is extremely distraught and emotional because she doesn't know what's happened to the body.

John 20:12 and she saw two angels in white sitting, one at the head and one at the feet, where the body of Jesus had been lying.

They are going to speak to her. What is interesting here is that when they speak to her they ask her question. How many times have you heard me say that the best way to have a conversation with somebody is to ask question. Get them to think. It kicked them out of the emotion zone into the thought zone. And that's a good way when somebody is grieving. Sometimes you have to let people grieve. It's emotional; it's not saying that there's anything wrong. It's wrong here. Why? Because Jesus is risen, and so they have to talk to her. Jesus will ask her the same question: "Why are you weeping?" If you ask somebody a question when they get emotional they have to stop and think about how they are going to answer it. That doesn't mean they are automatically going to stop being emotional. We've all had those situations, where you can ask some people questions till you're blue in the face and they never respond. But that's the technique that we are seeing here. They are asking a question: "Why are you weeping?" She says to them: "Because they have taken away my Lord and I don't know where they laid Him". That's why she is so upset.

John 20:14 When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing {there,} and did not know that it was Jesus.

John knows whom she sees; she doesn't know whom she sees. John tells us she saw Jesus, but she did know who it was. That may say something about a resurrection body, for so many times in these appearances He is not recognized by His disciples. One of two things is going on there. Either in some way He has veiled His appearance so they don't recognize Him right away, which is what I think is what's going on here. Some suggest that the resurrection body, because it is no longer corrupted by sin—of course His was never corrupted by sin—it would appear little different. I'm not buying that because His body would be different because He was not affected by sin. I think take it that what He is doing is veiling His appearance so they don't automatically or instantly recognize him.

Mary turns around, doesn't recognize Him. It could be there also that her eyes are filled with tears, and so He was rather blurry, but He asked her the same question: "Why are you weeping?" "Whom are you seeking?" is the second question. He is getting her to stop and think.

Now she thinks, who would this guy be? He's not a grave robber, so maybe He's the gardener, the only one who would be out here this early taking care of the tombs, taking care of the garden. She jumps to a conclusion: "If you carried them away, tell me where you have laid him and I will I will take him away". Then He just pronounces her name, Mary, and instantly at this point He unveils who He is. She hears and recognizes His voice.

I think there's an implication there that our voices will be recognizable, we will be recognizable, in our record resurrection body. Jesus said to her, Mary, and she turned and said to him, Rabboni, which is the Aramaic form of 'My rabbi'. That i on the end is like the first person pronoun: my rabbi, you are my teacher. Instantly she recognizes Him, knows who He is. Then we get into a very interesting little interchange. She sees Jesus, and I think that the language here, when Jesus says, "Don't cling to me", I don't think she's grabbing Him yet. I think she's about to, and so He saying don't cling to me, and the word that is used here is a word that could indicate touching. You'll hear some people say it indicates grabbing, but what if you compare this with the second appearance when He appears to the other women the verb is different there. They clung to his feet. They grab hold of his feet and they hold on. That's a different verb from this one. This is the same verb that John uses in first John when he says that the evil one can't touch you. It doesn't mean the evil one can't cling to you, it's that the evil ones not even going to be able to touch you because you're protected and kept from the evil one, in answer to Jesus' high priestly prayer.

I think what's going on here is that He doesn't want her to touch Him, and the best explanation that I have heard from this is that Jesus is still in the process–because He explains this. He says, "Don't touch me because I haven't ascended to the Father"—so the reason she isn't supposed to touch Him has to do with his ascending to the Father, He has something to complete.

In the Old Testament if you look at the description of what goes on, on the Day of Atonement. On the Day of Atonement there is a process where the high priest goes through this cleansing process. He takes off all of his clothes, goes through a ritual immersion, and puts on completely new clothes, white garments; everything symbolizing that he is completely set apart and sanctified for this process. Then he goes through all of the ritual sacrifice and then when he comes back he has to reverse that whole process. If he is touched by anyone who is not cleansed, if he is touched by anyone, then he has to start all over again.

That's the only thing I can see that provides a picture of what is going on here. Jesus has completed the payment for sins; His resurrection represents God the Father's authentication and acceptance of His of his sacrifice. We know from first Peter chapter three that he has made proclamation, I believe, to the fallen angels and their defeat in Sheol, and now He has to ascend to the Father. That is the best explanation I have come to understand as what is going on here, which is why He's not supposed to be touched. But between this appearance to Mary and the next appearance to the women they are able to cling to Him and He doesn't say, "Stop it". So something has to happen between this appearance to Mary and that appearance to the other women, and the only thing that makes sense is that between those two appearances He completed the mission, ascended to the Father and then came back to the earth.

We are told that Mary then told the disciples what she had seen, but they don't believe her.

March 16:9, 10 we are told in summary for Mark. [Now after He had risen early on the first day of the week, He first appeared to Mary Magdalene, from whom He had cast out seven demons. She went and reported to those who had been with Him, while they were mourning and weeping.

So the second appearance isn't to the men. The first appearance is to women and the interesting thing about that is that in the ancient world the Romans recognized women as valid witnesses in a legal setting. The Greeks did, but the Jews did not. It was prohibited by the rabbinical decisions and there are several statements that are made in the Mishnah. For example, we read in one place is the statement is, "a woman is permitted to testify in limited areas such as 'I have given birth' or 'I have not given birth', but she is not permitted to testify 'it is masculine' or 'it is feminine'. She can say she gave birth but she can't testify as to what the sex is. Then in another place in the Mishnah it says, "But let not the testimony of women be admitted on account of the levity and boldness of their sex".

So in a second temple Jewish context anybody who was writing an account that they wanted to be taken seriously, marshalling witnesses to some episode, would never put women in as witnesses, because that wouldn't be accepted. What Jesus is doing is showing that that women are not second-class. Second Temple Judaism was misogynist but Old Testament what was not. There was a clear recognition of the role of women as distinct from men, but they are equally in the image and likeness of God. And when Jesus comes He has a very significant ministry with women and it is to women He first appears. That says a lot about some of the distortions that you hear from, especially radical feminists, and how they try to miss-cast the New Testament as somehow being down on women. Of course their assumption is that if you say they are different roles, somehow that is chauvinistic. God created men and women have different roles but also emphasizes that both in the image and likeness of God.

And so as this comes to a conclusion, what we read in Matthew is, they went to tell the disciples after He appeared to the other women. Matthew 28:9 And behold, Jesus met them and greeted them. And they came up and took hold of His feet and worshiped Him.

They came and they held him by the feet—different verb. They grasp, they held on, showing that there is that something has changed since He told Mary not to touch.

Matthew 28:10 Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid; go and take word to My brethren to leave for Galilee, and there they will see Me.”

Again He says tell them to go to Galilee. They don't go.

The point is, we can doubt because we don't want to be people who just believe anything. But the evidence is there to show that the resurrection occurred. The tomb was empty, Jesus rose from the dead, and then He ascended to heaven, and the God man is at the right hand of the Father.

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