John 20:6-26

6 There is a blessed contrast between the resurrection of Lazarus and the vivification of our Lord. Lazarus saw corruption. Christ saw none. Lazarus was raised bound foot and hand with grave clothes and his face was covered with a handkerchief. These are the signs of mortality and corruption. These are the symbols of weakness. Our Lord was raised in power. His feet were free, His hands untrammeled, His face uncovered. He had the power to take up His soul again. He had the strength to remove the grave clothes and roll aside the stone. He is not merely the Resurrection, but He is the Life!

8 How tragic is unbelief! Peter and John, His closest companions, refuse to credit His word when He tells them of His sufferings and death and resurrection. Now they had witnessed His shameful death, they had seen His empty tomb, and still they doubt His word!

11 Mary Magdalene, probably from the town of Magdala, had been possessed with seven demons. The Lord healed her and she became part of that elect company of women who dispensed to Him of their possessions (Luk_8:2-3). She seems to have been among the last to leave the tomb, after witnessing where Joseph of Arimathea bad laid Him. Along with some of the other women she seems to have been at the tomb very early, in order to complete the preparation of His body for burial. Peter and John seem to have left her. She does not take a look and leave. She lingers, and her faith is rewarded by the unspeakable boon of being first to behold the risen Christ. Peter and John, when they looked, saw the grave clothes. She saw the messengers, but is not satisfied with anyone but her Lord.

11-18 Compare Mar_16:9-11.

16 What a world of pathos lies within the range of the human voice! There was no need to tell Who He was, once He had caressed her name as He only could intone it. "Miriam!" And immediately she recognizes the voice of her beloved Lord and Teacher. She alone is told of

His victorious ascension to the Father, immediately after His resurrection. She carries the glorious news to the rest.

17 In the Scriptures, omissions are often of supreme significance. To accord with the character of the account, this ascension of our Lord is mentioned only here. The other narratives omit it entirely. But it is still more significant to note the silence as to the nature and object of this ascension. The reason is clear. John is not detailing the celestial glories of Christ. That belongs to Paul's later ministry. The conquest of the cross of Christ is not confined to earth. It places Him at the bead of the whole universe. Messengers and sovereignties and authorities and powers among the celestials are all made subject to the Crucified One. After His resurrection He was proclaimed throughout the universe as Lord of all. When was this proclamation made? When was His public investiture with the tokens of His universal sovereignty? Surely that could not wait for forty days, until after His public ascension. Doubtless it was done soon after He delegated Mary to carry the news to His disciples. Then He ascended, and the crucified King of the Jews is acclaimed the Conqueror over all the powers of evil and the universal Suzerain. How little did His disciples dream of His exalted honors!

19-20 Compare Mar_16:14; Luk_24:33-43.

22 Here is where the disciples received the holy Spirit. Pentecost was an enduement with power. Spirit is the vital force in the universe. Adam became a living soul as soon as the breath of God entered his body. So here the breath of Christ imparted the vital spirit which He had promised them after His glorification. Our breath is poisonous, death-dealing. His is vital, life-giving.

23 In the proclamation of the kingdom the disciples certainly were given the right to forgive sins, or the opposite. Though the claims of priestcraft to this power at present are false, this should not blind us to the fact that such authority was given to His disciples by our Lord, and was exercised so long as the kingdom was proclaimed to Israel. This promise should make us hesitate in appropriating all in this account to ourselves, or to claim all its promises as our own.