John 20:17

John 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 touching deeper, because spiritual began. 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 In a true and living faith they shall embrace Him with a touch never more to be withdrawn or interrupted.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 Lord's address to Mary, ought not to pass unnoticed. The reader may compare what has been said on chap. John 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 follow ‘My 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 Acts 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 Saviour's 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 John 20:27 (comp. Luke 24:39), has often been dwelt upon as if it afforded evidence of the untrustworthy nature of the whole narrative before us. Yet a moment's consideration will satisfy any one that the difference in our Lord's 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.