Touch me not.
Mary Magdalene discovers that the body of Jesus is not in the tomb. She runs and tells the disciples, someone had taken away his body. The disciples run to the tomb, and found it as Mary had described; Empty.
They leave the tomb area, and return to their homes. Mary remained outside the tomb when see sees two men dressed in white, Scriptures reveal to us that they were angels. Mary turns and sees another man standing near by, she believes him to be a gardener. The man asked her, why are you crying? She tells him, and He responds by calling out her name, “Mary.” She recognizes the voice to be that of Jesus, than she moves toward Him to embrace Him.
As Mary was about to Touch the Lord, His response to her was,
John 20:17, “Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father.” So why was Mary told not to touch him?”
As the two women went on their way to tell the disciples the good news, Jesus met them on the road. There is no mention of the time that had elapsed when he said, “Go to my brethren,” to where He met them on the road. But something had changed. Now in Matthew 28:9, the two women were not prevented to take hold the Lord’s feet, and worshipped Him.
The same evening of Jesus resurrection, He had gone to be with his disciples.
John 20:20. The Lord shows the disciples the imprints where the nails had been driven into his hands, and the wound the Roman’s spear left in His side. It was not recorded in Scripture that any-one had touched him in that room.
Thomas was not with the disciples the first time when Jesus showed himself to them. When Thomas was told what the apostles had witnessed, He believed not. Eight days later, the disciples again are with Jesus in the room, only this time Thomas was present.
Jesus invites Thomas to come over and, “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.”
So what changed? Why were the two women, a short time later able to hold Jesus feet? And 7 days later, Jesus invites Thomas to “Thrust your hand into my side?”
The answer may be in the words that followed, “Touch me not.” Jesus said to Mary, “I am not yet ascended to my Father.”
One of Jesus many offices, and titles may give us a clue. The whole levitical system of worship was modeled after the heavenly. Jesus came as a Lamb without spot or blemish, the perfect sacrifice. After His resurrection, what office was He about to fulfill? It was the office of High Priest, after the order of Melchizedek.
He alone was qualified to fulfill this office. He had thrown open the door to heaven, and paved the way to the Father.
Zechariah 6:13, “He shall be a priest upon his throne: and the counsel of peace shall be between them both.”
Hebrews 4:14, “We have a great High Priest that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God.” Verse 15. “For we (Christians) have not an High Priest which cannot be touched with the feelings of our infirmities.”
As our High Priest, He went one time before His Father, presenting His sacrifice,
Matthew 26:28, “For this is my blood of the New Testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.” Jesus was to be the first of the resurrection, and the first-fruit unto the Father.
Romans 5:9, “Being now justified by His (Jesus) blood, we (Christian’s) shall be saved from wrath through him.”
Ephesians 1:7, “In whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace.”
Lets go back to what the Lord said to Mary outside the tomb. “Touch me not, for I am not yet ascended to my Father: But go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ASCEND unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God.” And Mary leaves.
Mary, by Jewish law was considered to be unclean. To touch the Lord at this time outside the tomb, would have been to defile him. Jesus had not yet ascended to the Father. He had been washed clean in the baptism of resurrection. The price He gave was His life, and now His sacred blood was to be delivered by Him, our High Priest to the Father, pure and without spot or blemish.
Hebrews 9:12, “By His (Jesus) own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.” With verse 14. “How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God (the Father,) purge (cleanse) your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?”
In the time that elapsed where He told Mary not to touch Him, to where Jesus met both the women on the road to tell the disciples the good news, it appears that He had ascended to the Father, into the Holy of Holies in heaven with His redeeming, and cleansing blood.
Leviticus 17:11, “For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar, to make an atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes an atonement for the soul.”
The pouring out of blood on the altar was the focus point of the Jewish religious system. For the Jews, it was a temporary sacrifice, having to be repeated yearly.
At the last supper, Jesus raised His cup and said, “This cup is the new testament in My blood, which is shed for you.” Our High Priest with the blood of His sacrificed ascended into heaven, sprinkled the books, the altar, the tabernacle, and the vessels of the ministry in heaven, just as it had been done in the Jewish temple. Type, antitype.
Hebrews 9:22, “Almost all things are by the (Mosaic) law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission. Verse 23, “The heavenly things themselves (are purged) with better sacrifices than these.” That better sacrifice was Jesus Christ.
If His blood had not been applied in this manner in heaven, it would be of no benefit to Mary, the apostles, no-one. I also believe the Holy Spirit would not have been sent, and His gifts distributed until the unclean (man in the flesh) was made clean by the blood of the Lamb.
Hebrews 9:20-21, is a quote from Exodus 24: 3-8, “This is the blood of the testament which God hath enjoined unto you. Moreover he sprinkled with blood both the tabernacle, and all the vessels of the ministry,”
Jesus as our great High Priest, after the order of Melchizedek, had to enter once into the holiest place of heaven.
So, in that short period of time between Mary, “Touch me not,” until both women held his feet and worshiped him, Jesus Christ, our High Priest ascended into heaven, presented himself to the Father, and this fulfilled all the requirements. So why were the two women the first to lay hands on the Lord? My thinking is, “They Believed by Faith” where the apostles and other disciples had fallen into doubt.
Phil LaSpino www.seekfirstwisdom.com