John 20:18 - Exposition

Mary the Magdalene cometh and telleth the disciples . She rushes at once with speed and zeal, and the word is on her tongue, I have seen (she does not say, I have grasped him by the hand, or kissed his feet) the Lord , £ and how that he said these things to her. This special message, not recorded in Matthew 28:10 , was clearly not given to the women who held his feet. Some harmonists endeavor to identify the narrative in Matthew with this passage and others to make Matthew's narrative identical with the account of the revelations made to Joanna's party at a later hour, and therefore entirely distinct from this. John's account is free from ambiguity in itself, whereas the rapid summary given in Luke and the general impression produced by the whole group of events, as recorded by Matthew, suggest the need of supplementary intelligence. The narratives of the synoptists, then, record that in the course of this Easter Day a company of women who may reasonably be supposed to be those who bore the names of Joanna, Susanna, and others, and who had gone to the tomb with their spices, had been met by the Lord himself, either going or returning, and had received the summons to tell the disciples that he would see them in Galilee. The two disciples on their way to Emmaus had at length discovered that the mysterious stranger who accosted them and discoursed so fully was the Lord himself. They returned to Jerusalem to affirm the fact, and found the eleven rejoicing that the Lord had risen indeed, and that "he had appeared to Simon Peter." It would certainly seem, and is at length admitted by all, that the narrative given in the following verses of events occurring on the late evening of the Easter Day could be none other than that which Luke describes ( Luke 24:36 ). This is rendered somewhat perplexing by the record of Mark 16:12 , that the language of the two disciples was not accepted by τοῖς λοιποῖς , "the rest." But it is obvious from every one of the narratives how slow of heart even the apostles themselves were to accept the assurance of such unexpected and wonderful phenomena. The extreme dejection of the disciples, followed by their vigorous and invincible faith, is testified by each evangelist; but from the nature of the ease the resurrection of Jesus was, during the course of the entire day, doubted by some. The nature of the doubt, and the method in which it was put to rest, is portrayed in some detail by John (see note on verse 1).