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him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away. 16 Jesus saith unto her, Mary. She turned herself, and saith unto him an, Rabboni ; which is to say, Master. 17 Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto and your Father, and [° to] my God, and your God. 18 Mary Magdalene 0° came and told the disciples that she had seen the Lord, and that he had spoken these things unto her.

nn add, in the Hebrew tongue.

00 render, cometh, bringing tidings to.

thou is em

to an unknown person. phatic. I will take him away] She forgets her lack of strength for this, in the overbearing force of her love. (Meyer.)

16.] With one word, and that one word her name, the Lord awakens all the consciousness of His presence: calling her in that tone doubtless in which her soul had been so often summoned to receive divine knowledge and precious comfort. She turned herself] seems to imply that she had not been looking full at Him before. Rabboni may mean either my Master, or only Master; which last appears to be the case here.

That she

gives way to no impassioned exclamations, but pours out her satisfaction and joy in this one word, is also according to the deepest psychological truth. There is an addition found in some of our copies, "and she rushed forward to touch Him:" this is an explanatory gloss to the words "Touch me not"-but doubtless it represents what really was the fact. It was the former name, with which He called her: His former appellation, in which she replied; and now she seeks to renew the former intercourse.' (Luthardt.)

17.] The connexion between the prohibition and its reason is difficult, and has been very variously given. The sense seems to me to be connected with some gesture of the nature alluded to in the addition quoted above, 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. "Thou desirest to touch Me, Mary, and to enjoy friendly intercourse with Me: but that may not be now, for I

go to my my Father,

Rom. viii.

• omit.

fa.xxii. 22. 29. Heb. Eph.. 17.

ii. 11.
ch. xvi. 28.

permit Myself to be seen only for a purpose connected with Mine Office, the confirmation of your faith. But when I shall have ascended to My Father, the time will come that thou mayst enjoy intercourse with the most perfect, not by earthly touch, but by such as befits that place,-heavenly and spiritual." Grotius. With this my view nearly agrees, not confining (as indeed neither does he) the latter enjoyment to heaven itself, but understanding it to have begun here below. Leo the Great interprets very similarly see in my Greek Test.

but go....] 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. to my brethren] 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. ii. 11. my Father, and your Father] This distinction, my... and your . when "Our" seems so likely to have been said, has been observed by all Commentators of any depth, as indicating an essential difference in the relations. Cyril of Jerusalem says, "My Father, by nature: your Father, by adoption." Similarly Augus tine; adding, "Nor did He say Our God" wherefore here also is a difference in the relation. "My God, in subjection to whom I am in my human nature, your God, between whom and you I myself am the Mediator." So that the my is the ground and source of the your: God is His God, directly and properly but our God, through Him. And the words my God indicate that He is still Man: see Eph. i. 3, and often in the epistles: 1 Cor. iii. 23: and especially Heb. ii. 11. In the words I ascend is included His temporary stay which He was now making with them -I am ascending-i. e. 'I am on my way.'

i1 Cor. xv. 5.

19 ip Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, 4 when the doors were shut, where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you. 20 And when he had so said, he shewed unto them k ch. xvi. 22. his hands and his side. * Then were the disciples glad, when they saw the Lord. 21 Then said Jesus to them 1 ch. xvii. 18, again, Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you. 22 And when he had said this, he

19. 2 Tim.

ii. 2. Heb. iii. 1.

P render When it was evening therefore, on that same day.
A render, the doors being shut.

19-23.] In the freedom of His spiritual and triumphant life, He appears to and commissions His own. Compare Luke xxiv. 36-49; Mark xvi. 14-18.

19.] The circumstance of the doors being shut is mentioned here and in ver. 26, to indicate what sort of appearances these were. Suddenly, unaccounted for by any approach, the Lord rendered himself visible to his disciples. Nor did this affect the truth of that resurrection Body, any more than his occasionally withdrawing himself from mortal sight affected the truth of His fleshly Body. Both were done by that supernatural Power dwelling in Him, by which His other miracles were wrought. It seems to have been the normal condition of His fleshly Body, to be visible to mortal eyes of His risen Body, not to be. But both these He could suspend when He pleased, without affecting the substance or truth of either.

for fear of the Jews] This was natural enough;- the bitter hatred of the Jews (both people and rulers) to their Master,-and His own prophetic announcements,-would raise in them a dread of incipient persecution now that He was removed. came Jesus] not, by ordinary approach; nor through the closed doors;-nor in any visible manner;-but the word describes that unseen arrival among them which preceded His becoming visible to them. stood in

(literally, into) the midst] Compare Luke,
ver. 36. The into (see on ch. xxi. 4) de-
notes the coming and standing, in one-
the standing without motion thither, which
in ordinary cases would be standing as the
result of motion thither. Peace be
unto you] See on Luke ver. 36, and ch.
xiv. 27. 20.] answers to Luke, ver.
39. Then were the disciples glad]
The first and partial fulfilment of ch. xvi.
20-22 see notes there.
:
The dis-
ciples seem to have handled Him: see

ver. 25.

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render, the Father.

Luke, ver. 39; 1 John i. 1, and below,
21.] Peace be unto you'
is solemnly repeated, as the introduction
of the sending which follows. The minis-
ters and disciples of the Lord are mes-
sengers of peace. This view is more na-
tural than that of Euthymius, "they were
probably in excitement from their great
joy, and He calms them, that they might
listen to what He was about to say."
as my Father hath sent me] He confirms
and grounds their Apostleship on the pre-
sent glorification of Himself, whose Apostle-
ship (Heb. iii. 1) on earth was now ended,
but was to be continued by this sending
forth of them. This commission was not now
first given them, but now first fully assured
to them and their sending forth by Him
their glorified Head, was to be, in character
and process, like that of Himself by the
Father.

22.] To understand this verse as the outpouring of the Spirit, the fulfilment of the promise of the Comforter, is against all consistency, and most against St. John himself:-see ch. xvi. 7, and ch. vii. 39. To understand it rightly, we have merely to recur to that great key to the meaning of so many dark passages of Scripture, the manifold and gradual unfolding of promise and prophecy in their fulfilment. The presence of the Lord among them now was a slight and temporary fulfilment of His promise of returning to them; and so the imparting of the Spirit now, was a symbol and foretaste of that which they should receive at Pentecost-just as, to mount a step higher, that itself, in its present abiding with us, is but the firstfruits and pledge (Rom. viii. 23. 2 Cor. i. 22) of the fuluess which we shall hereafter inherit. The relation of this saying to the effusion of the Spirit is the same which chap. iii. bears to Baptism, chap. vi. to the Lord's Supper, chap. xvii. 1 to the Ascension,

19 xviii. 18.

breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost: 23 m whose soever sins ye remit, they are m Matt. xvi. remitted unto them; [and] whose soever [ sins] ye retain, they are retained. 24 But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus n ch. xi. 16. came. 25 The other disciples therefore said unto him, We

come.

Bomit.

He

&c.' (Luthardt.) Further this giving of the Spirit was not the Spirit's personal imparting of Himself to them, but only a partial instilling of His influence. proceeds forth in His work (as in His essence) from the Father and the Son: this breathing of His influence was an imparting of Him from the Son in His risen Body, but that Body had not yet been received up, without which union of the God-manhood of the Son to the glory of the Father the Holy Spirit would not What was now conferred is plain from our ver. 23-whereby authority to discern spirits and pronounce on them is re-assured (see Matt. xviii. 18) and from Luke, ver. 45, by which a discerning of the mind of the Spirit is given to them. We find instances of both these gifts being exercised by Peter in Acts i., in his assertion of the sense of Scripture, and his judgment of Judas. Both these however were only temporary and imperfect. That no formal gifts of Apostleship were now formally conferred, is plain by the absence of Thomas, who in that case would be no apostle in the same sense in which the rest were.

he breathed on them] The very same word in the LXX version is that in Gen. ii. 7, expressing the act of God in the original infusion of the spirit of life into man. This act is now by God Incarnate repeated, sacramentally (so we have the words "Take, Receive" [they are the same in the original], in Matt. xxvi. 26 and the parallels) representing the infusion of the new life, of which He is become by his glorified Humanity the source to his members: see Job xxxiii. 4; Ps. xxxiii. 6; 1 Cor. xv. 45. 23.] The present meaning of these words has been spoken of above. They reach forward however beyond that, and extend the grant which they reassure to all ages of the Church.

The

words, closely considered, amount to this: that with the gift and real participation of the Holy Spirit, comes the conviction, and therefore the knowledge, of sin, of righteousness, and judgment; -and this knowledge becomes more perfect, the more men are filled with the Holy Ghost.

Since this is so, they who are pre-eminently filled with His presence are pre-eminently gifted with the discernment of sin and repentance in others, and hence by the Lord's appointment authorized to pronounce pardon of sin and the contrary. The Apostles had this in an especial manner, and by the full indwelling of the Spirit were enabled to discern the hearts of men, and to give sentence on that discernment: see Acts v. 1-11; viii. 21; xiii. 9. And this gift belongs to the Church in all ages, and especially to those who by legitimate appointment are set to minister in the Churches of Christ not by successive delegation from the Apostles,-of which fiction I find in the New Testament no trace,-but by their mission from Christ, the Bestower of the Spirit for their office, when orderly and legitimately conferred upon them by the various Churches. Not however to them exclusively, though for decency and order it is expedient that the outward and formal declaration should be so:-1 :- but in proportion as any disciple shall have been filled with the Holy Spirit of wisdom, is the inner discernment, the "judgment," his.

:

The word retain here corresponds to "bind" in Matt. xvi. 19 (see the distinction there); 'xviii. 18, and the word remit here to "loose" there. 24-29.] He

proves Himself to His own to be Lord and God, to be believed on by them, though not seen. Thomas's doubt, and its removal. Peculiar to John. 24.] was not with them-for what reason does not appear. Euthymius says, "It is probable that he, since the scattering of the Apostles, . . . . had not yet joined them." But I incline, with Stier, to think that it could not have been accidentally (Lücke), nor because he was, as Grotius supposes, "occupied by some engagement." On such a day, and in such a man, such an absence must have been designed. Perhaps he had abandoned hope;-the strong evidence of his senses having finally convinced him that the pierced side and wounded hands betokened such a death that revivification was impossible. 25.] He probably does not name the Feet, merely because the Hands and Side would more naturally offer them

have seen the Lord. But he said unto them, Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe. 26 And after eight days again his disciples were within, and Thomas with them: " then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace be unto you. 27 Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side and be not faithless, but believing. 28 [And] Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God. 29 Jesus saith unto

render, as before, put: it is the same word. a render, Jesus cometh.

selves to his examination than the Feet, to which he must stoop. He requires no more than had been granted to the rest but he had their testimony in addition, and therefore ample ground for faith to rest on. Olshausen calls him the

Rationalist among the Apostles.' 26.] There is not the least reason for supposing, with Olshausen, that this appearance was in Galilee. The whole narrative points out the same place as before.

The eight days' interval is the first testimony of the recurring day of the resurrection being commemorated by the disciples:-but, it must be owned, a weak one; for in all probability they had been thus assembled every day during the interval. It forms however an interesting opening of the history of THE LORD'S DAY, that the Lord Himself should have thus selected and honoured it. 27.] Our Lord says nothing of the "marks of the nails:"-He does not recall the malice of his enemies. The words imply that the marks were no scars, but the veritable wounds themselves;-that in His side being large enough for a hand to be thrust into it. This of itself would shew that the resurrection Body was bloodless. It is "reach hither and behold" in the case of the hands, which were exposed-but merely "reach hither and put" in the case of the side, which was clothed. So Meyer: but it may be questioned, whether this was so.

be not faithless] not merely, 'Do not any longer disbelieve in my Resurrection;'-but Be not (do not become)-as applied generally to the spiritual life, and the reception of God's truth-faithless, but believing. That Thomas did not apply his finger or his hand, is evident from the reason given by our Lord for his

:

I omit.

28.]

faith below, being, not, "Thou hast touched me," but, Thou hast seen me. The Socinian view, that these words, My Lord and my God, are merely an exclamation, is refuted, (1) By the fact that no such exclamations were in use among the Jews. (2) By the introduction to them, "Thomas said to him." (3) By the impossibility of referring the words my Lord to another than Jesus: see ver. 13. (4) By the utter psychological absurdity of such a supposition: that one just convinced of the presence of Him whom he deeply loved, should, instead of addressing Him, break out into an irrelevant cry. (5) By the further absurdity of supposing that if such were the case, the Apostle John, who of all the sacred writers most constantly keeps in mind the object for which he is writing, should have recorded any thing so beside that object. (6) By the intimate conjunction of the seeing and believing in our Lord's answer, which necessarily makes this his saying the expression of his belief:-see below. Dismissing it therefore, we observe that this is the highest confession of faith which has yet been made;—and that it shews that (though not yet fully) the meaning of the previous confessions of His being the Son of God' was understood. Thus St. John, in the very close of his Gospel (see on vv. 30, 31) iterates the testimony with which he began it-to the Godhead of the Word who became flesh: and by this closing confession, shews how the testimony of Jesus to Himself had gradually deepened and exalted the Apostles' conviction, from the time when they knew Him only as "the Son of Joseph (ch. i. 46), till now, when He is acknowledged as their LORD and their GOD.

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him, [Thomas,] because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet Cor. 1:3: have believed.

o 2 v. 7. 1 Pet. i. 8.

30 ry And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence p ch. xxi. 25. of his disciples, which are not written in this book:

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г

r ch. iii. 15, 16: v. 24.

1Pet.

31 9 but these are written, that ye might believe that a Luke i. 4. Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life a through his name.

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XXI. 1 After these things Jesus b shewed himself again to the disciples at the sea of Tiberias; and on this wise shewed he himself. 2 There were together Simon Peter,

а

i. 8, 9.

and Thomas called Didymus, and a Nathanael of Cana in a ch. i. 45. Galilee, and the sons of Zebedee, and two other of his b Matt. iv. 21.

I omit.

b

I read and render, Yea, and many other signs did Jesus.

z render, may.

a render, in. b render, as in ch. i. 31; ii. 11; iii. 21; ix. 3; xvii. 6, manifested. c render, he manifested himself on this wise.

d not expressed in the original.

29.] The reason, because thou hast seen me, blames the slowness and required ground of the faith: the assertion, thou hast believed, recognizes and commends the soundness of that faith just confessed. Wonderful indeed, and rich in blessing for us who have not seen Him, is this, the closing word (see below) of the Gospel. For these words cannot apply to the remaining Ten: they, like Thomas, had seen and believed. All the appearances of the forty days,' says Stier, were mere preparations for the believing without seeing.' On the record of them, we now believe: see 1 Pet. i. 8.

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30, 31.] FORMAL CLOSE OF THE GOSPEL (see notes on ch. xxi.). 30.] Yea, and, or, moreover: meaning, This book must not be supposed to be a complete account.' signs] not, as many interpret the word, proofs of His resurrection,'-but, as ch. xii. 37 and elsewhere in this Gospel, miracles, in the most general sense-these after the Resurrection included:-for St. John is here reviewing his whole narrative, this book. The mere miracle-faith, so often reproved by our Lord, is not that intended here. This is faith in Himself, as the Christ the Son of God and the Evangelist means, that enough is related in this book to be a ground for such a faith, by shewing us His glory manifested forth (see ch. ii. 11).

31.]

that believing ye may have life] Thus he closes almost in the words of his

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in his name]

prologue, ch. i. 4, 12. These words (see Acts iv. 10; 1 Cor. vi. 11) describe the whole standing of the faithful man in Christ,-by which and in which he has life eternal.

CHAP. XXI. 1-23.] THE APPENDIX. THE GLIMPSE INTO THE FUTURE. And herein, 1-8. The significant draught of fishes. I reserve the remarks on this chapter to the end, thereby better to put the reader in possession of the evidence which I shall there gather up into one, but which will present itself as we go on. I will only state here, that whether written by St. John himself (of which I feel no doubt) or not, it is evidently an appendix to the Gospel, which latter has already concluded with a formal review of its contents and object at ch. xx. 30, 31.

1.] After these things, compare ch. v. 1; vi. 1, at a subsequent time. manifested himself] This expression is nowhere else used by St. John of the Lord's appearances, but only in Mark xvi. 12, 14. The use of the verb here indicates that the

to them.

usual state of the Lord at this time was one not of manifestation, but of invisibility 2.] Nathanael is named by St. John only: see ch. i. 46 ff.: Thomas also by St. John only, except in the catalogues of the Apostles. the sons of Zebedee are nowhere else named by John;-they may however be here mentioned as in reminiscence of the draught of fishes which

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