After His resurrection, why did Jesus tell Mary not to touch Him, but later tell Thomas to touch Him?

351 But to return to the text. Our Lord presents Himself here, as above mentioned. In saying therefore, "Touch me not," I conceive He means, You err in addressing Me here as the Object of your allegiance and worship. I have not yet entered on the throne of My kingdom; but go to My brethren (blessed word!) and tell them I do ascend; I am about to fulfil all their hopes; yea, far indeed beyond their hopes. I ascend; yet I ascend not separating Myself from them in the body of love; for in ascending I own them still as brethren; nay, I ascend in this character to their Father and Mine, to their God and Mine. So that in entering in as King of Glory where, and not here, they are to look for Me, I still am in perfect union with them as My brethren.

I do not doubt, in the impulse of her affection, that Mary was just about to do what her Galilean friends did afterwards — touch the Lord. She is checked by the word, "Touch me not." And why may she not touch Him? He tells her, "For I am not yet ascended to my Father." She was going to take up relationship with Christ on the old ground. That would not do. She was henceforth to know Him in a new place altogether. Where do we know Him? At God's right hand. We know not Christ after the flesh, but as the risen, ascended, and glorified Man. "Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say to them, I ascend to my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God" (John 20:17). Mary here had the most wonderful message given her that ever was committed to human lips down here to carry to others.

You might ask, Why did the Lord refuse Mary's touch, and yet let the Galilean women touch Him? I will take that up and fully answer that question at another time, God willing, only saying now that an earthly people will yet know and have Christ in their midst as the living Messiah. But Mary prefigures the heavenly saints, and illustrates what is the truth for us. She was only to know Christ as we know Him, i.e., as gone on high. I think when He said, "Touch me not, for I am not yet ascended to my Father," a thrill of disappointment would go through her heart, which meant: "Am I to lose Thee again, Lord? I lost Thee, and my heart was broken, and now I have found Thee." His reply seems to say this: "No, Mary, you knew Me here, and you lost Me. Now I am going back to a spot where you can always find Me and never again lose Me."

But why may she not touch Him? He let the Galilean woman hold Him, as we are told in Matthew 28:9, where the point is the resumption, in another day, of His relationships, with a remnant of His earthly people, though on the ground of resurrection. Why, then, will He not let Mary touch Him? The truth is simple. Here He is going to heaven. He is in a heavenly condition, and the saint, of this dispensation, is in Him there, in that new place, and on new ground altogether. Not by sight, nor by touch, is He to be known thenceforth, and in order to know that, there must be what comes out presently. There must be life, according to the position, in which Jesus now was, as risen, and about to ascend. This life was to be by the power of the Holy Ghost, who was, however, not yet come.

This appears to me to give much more force and distinctness to the passage, because Mary of Magdala here represents one who is still looking to Jesus according to the hopes of her nation, as well as the desires of the heart; one who could not but sorrow over His bodily absence, who would have had a mournful pleasure in thinking of His dead body even still there. Thus we can readily understand the instinct, as it were, with which she laid hold of the Saviour directly that she knew Him. But at once He forbids it; and this is the more striking, because, as has been often remarked, in the gospel of Matthew, when the Galilean women seized His feet, He does not refuse it from them, but, on the contrary, accepted their homage. Nay, more, in this very chapter of John, we see how the Lord invites incredulous Thomas eight days after to reach his finger, and thrust his hand into His side.

In Mary Magdalene we see one to whom the world had become an empty place; indeed her hopes seemed blighted now that her Lord had died. If there has been with us, as with her, true association with our Lord Jesus Christ in His rejection, He will lead us into the light and joy of the blessed fact that death could not hold Him. Mary had "stood by the cross;" she had also "stood without at the sepulchre," and now she hears His voice in resurrection — the voice that she had thought was forever hushed in death — calling her by name, "Mary." He reaches her affections and she recognizes Him, seeking, apparently, to embrace Him, but he says, "Touch Me not; for I am not yet ascended to My Father." Notice He did not say only "Touch me not," but "Touch Me not for I am not yet ascended". Implicit in this is the truth that she could not have Him back in the conditions which existed before he went to the cross, but she was to know Him in ascension, in entirely new conditions.

In the simple utterance of her name He revealed Himself to her and she instantly responded to Him as her Master. All that is recorded, however, in verses 11-15, shows that she was seeking His body as dead, and hence her first thought on finding Him alive was doubtless that of a resumption of associations on the old basis, which had prevailed in "the days of His flesh." This it is which accounts for the Lord's opening word to her, "Touch Me not." In view of the new relationship which He was about to announce to her, and through her to the other disciples, He showed her in this decisive way that relations could not be resumed just as they were before. His death and resurrection had changed everything. He was no less a Man than He was before He died, yet having laid down His life, He had taken it again in a new state and condition suited to the heavens into which He was about to ascend. Hence relations with Him must be on a new basis.

Representing the feelings of the godly Jewish remnant, she would cling to her risen Lord, with the thought that now that He has come back, no longer in humiliation but in resurrection glory, He will take His place on earth as the rightful Heir of all things. But Mary and the remnant are to learn that before the kingdom glories, God has yet greater glories for Christ, and far deeper blessings for His people. Thus the Lord can say, "Touch Me not; for I am not yet ascended to My Father: but go to My brethren, and say to them, I ascend to My Father, and your Father; and to My God and your God".

The faith of the future day of the Lord's presence will be associated with an Object of sight and of touch, as it were. It will be of the sort signified by the action of the Jewish women who, when they saw the Lord after His resurrection, "took hold of his feet and worshipped him (Matt. 28:9). But Mary Magdalene on the same day was instructed by the risen Christ in the exercise of faith of a higher order — faith which requires nothing visible or tangible in its object, but penetrates even unto the Unseen Presence on high. To her the Lord said, "Touch me not, for I am not yet ascended to my Father" (John 20:17). She was surely to learn from this utterance that earthly relationships with the Messiah were suspended, and heavenly ones about to be established between the ascended Saviour and His own.

Touching His feet was merely in a spirit of deference, a kind of worship, whereas the other has a deeper meaning. Mary thought she had got Him back again as Messiah in this world, and the Lord says, No, I am not going to be bodily present here, you must not touch me, but go to my brethren, and say to them, "I ascend to my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God." And there He associates His disciples with Himself as gone up on high; while Mary was made the vessel of the communication of this heavenly character in so calling them His brethren.

Hence we hear nothing now of not touching the Lord because of His ascension to His Father, nor of going to His brethren, and saying to them, "I ascend unto My Father and your Father, and My God and your God." On the contrary, grace will condescend to those who demanded signs and tokens ere they would believe; and they will stand overwhelmed and abashed at the fulness of visible proof when Messiah returns here below. There is peace to them; "for this man shall be the peace" in that day also, whatever the pride and power of the foe. But there will not be the same mission of peace in the power of His risen life; all their iniquities forgiven, all their diseases healed, but not the place of the Church to forgive or retain sins in the name of the Lord.