Commentary on the Gospel of John

                                    Chapter Twenty

                                                                                                                                              Verses 11-18

Mary Magdalene had to have followed Peter and John to Jesus' tomb because she was there when they walked away. She stood outside the sepulchre weeping, and then she happened to look into the tomb and saw two angels that the other women had previously seen. Apparently, these two angels had made themselves invisible to Peter and John. Mary Magdalene had not seen these two angels before because she had left the sepulchre as soon as she saw that the stone had been rolled away.

The angels asked Mary why she was weeping. Mary still did not believe in Jesus' resurrection because she told the angels that she wept because she thought someone had taken Jesus' body and buried Him she knew not where. Mary then turned away from the sepulchre and saw Jesus, but she did not recognize Him. Jesus had the power to blank out a person's mind so that they could not recognize Him until they were ready to believe in Him as their Savior and Lord. Jesus asked her why she wept and who she sought to find. In other words, Jesus asked her if she wept for the body of a friend and was she looking for that body or was she looking for her risen Savior. Jesus asked the mob who came to arrest Him whom they sought for, but they only sought for a mere human. John 18:14. Mary, still not believing, thought Jesus was the gardener, and she asked Him if He had taken the body of Jesus. When Jesus called her by her name "Mary," she knew immediately that she had heard that voice of tenderness and compassion before, and that caused her to recognize Him, and she called Him "Master." This event happens to be the most beautiful example of God's activation of conscious faith in His resurrection in the entire New Testament. Christ knows all of His believers who become saved by grace, and Mary and all of His other disciples, were saved by grace before they recognized Him as their risen Savior. John 10:27; Romans 8:29-30. Christ knows everyone who will become saved by His grace before they become actively conscious of the meaning of His death, burial, and resurrection. John 3:3; I Corinthians 15:1-4. But Christ will make certain that every one of His believers will come to an active recognition of Him as their risen Savior either in their lifetime or immediately following their physical deaths. Hebrews 9:27.

Apparently, Mary reached out to touch Jesus because He told her not to touch Him. Jesus had not yet ascended to Heaven to apply His blood to the mercy seat in the Holy of Holies in Heaven to satisfy His Father that He had purged the sins and evil of all His believers whom He would save by His grace. Leviticus 16:14; Hebrews 9:11-15. Jesus could not allow Mary to touch Him because she still had sin in her life that had not yet been purged by Jesus' application of His blood to the mercy seat, and whatever sin touches it stains. Jesus had to be absolutely pure and immaculate when He applied His blood to the mercy seat in Heaven. Later, when the other women held Him by His feet, He had already ascended to Heaven which meant their sins had already been forever purged. Matthew 28:9.

When Jesus told Mary to go and tell her brothers in Christ that He would ascend to His Father, He did not mean His formal ascension at the end of His earthly ministry. Jesus meant that He would immediately ascend to Heaven to apply His blood to the mercy seat. Jesus knew that He would later explain to all of His believers all of the Old Testament scriptures that prophesied about Him including the symbolic meaning of the high priest who entered the Holy of Holies in the Tabernacle and later in the Temple to apply the blood of a bullock to the mercy seat on the Ark of the Covenant that symbolized the mercy seat in Heaven. Luke 24:44-45.

Jesus then instructed Mary to tell her brothers in Christ that His Father and God was just as much their Father and God as He was. John 17:18-24. God does not accept believers in Christ as being equal to Christ, but He will love them to the same extent that He loves His own Son, and He will accept them into Heaven because they all have been thoroughly cleansed by the blood and water that flowed from Jesus on the cross. I John 1:7; Revelation 1:5-6; Ephesians 5:25-27. Mary obeyed the Lord and went and told her brothers that she had seen her risen Lord and related to them all He had told her.

Jesus honors women. Jesus honored women by appearing to a woman and then to other women first, but the first person who believed in Jesus' resurrection was the Apostle John. John 20:8.