What did Jesus say about Mary Magdalene?

It is at this moment that the Lord reveals Himself to her by one word. She cannot do without Him, and she shall not for a single second more. "Mary" falls upon her ear. That is all. "Jesus says to her, Mary." He had said before, "And he calls his own sheep by name, and leads them out; and when he puts forth his own sheep, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him: for they know his voice" (John 10:3-4). Do you and I understand what it is to be thus called of the Lord by name? And do we answer Him just as she did that day? Oh! what a revelation to her soul. "She turned herself, and says to him, Rabboni: which is to say, Master" (ver. 16). Why does the Holy Ghost tell us she turned herself? We saw just now that when she saw angels she turned her back on them. Now she sees a man, and she turns her back on him. It was Christ she was looking for, but she had not at that moment found Him. But all is revealed to her in one word, "Mary." She had heard that blessed voice before, in the day when He delivered her from the sevenfold power of the devil, and in a moment she turns herself The truth is out. He is there. She has found the One whom her heart desired above all things.

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.

As in her sadness Mary turns away from angels, her sorrow and the devotedness of heart had brought the Lord near, though she did not know Him. She had known Him after the flesh, but was not prepared to know Him in resurrection: the earthly relationship was all that she understood. The Lord asked her, not only why she was weeping, but “whom are you seeking?” Supposing Him to be the gardener, she wanted only to learn of Him where the Lord's body was, and she would take it away. She seems to think it unnecessary to explain who the “Him” is. Nor does she even think of how she would take the body away, or where. In her disconsolate grief, she turns away even from Him!

But one word from His lips changes everything, “Mary.” He calls His own sheep by name, and she knows His voice. Turning again, she says, “Rabboni,” which is more than simply “Rabbi” (teacher) but “my great Teacher.” The wonder of the miracle of His resurrection does not even occur to her: all she thinks of is Him whom she loves now there before her eyes. No doubt involuntarily she went forward to touch or grasp Him.

But He tells her, “Do not cling to Me, for I have not yet ascended to My Father.” On the basis of an earthly relationship she can no longer touch Him. His death has set that aside. Compare 2 Corinthians 5:16. But He announces to her a new relationship, and gives her the great honor of carrying this message to those whom He calls “My brethren.” He was to ascend to “My Father and your Father, and to My God and your God” (v. 17). For in resurrection He is the Head of a new creation, not the first creation, of which Adam was head and failed, but one in which God is now in a vital way Father to all who know His blessed Son. It is a spiritual and heavenly relationship, yet He does not say, “our Father,” for His unique Sonship must always have prime place, and a place set apart from all others. The term “My Father involves the fact of the deity of the Lord Jesus, while “My God” involves His Manhood. “your Father implies that believers are partakers of the divine nature by new birth. “Your God” involves our identification with Christ as His brethren in manhood.

All the time that Jacob was struggling for a submissive character with Rachel he never found it but as soon as he gave Rachel up he did. Now this is a hard way to find submission. What Jacob desired most on earth practically, Rachel, he had to give up. Dear friends, do you not think it is a good lesson to us all? What have we got here on earth anyway? What is there on earth worth living for? Mary Magdalene had to do that as well, she had to give up that which for her was most precious. The Lord Jesus told her, "Touch me not, for I have 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), in other words, 'You are going to have me in glory, Mary,' He as much as said, 'You will not have me on earth any longer, you may be heartbroken because you have not got me here, but you are going to have me in glory'. That is just what our souls need, to have our hearts looking up to Christ there in the glory.

The Lord was virtually telling Mary that, though He was all that she had on earth, yet now she was no longer to have even Him on earth, but she would have Him in heaven, in the Father's own presence, all her hopes and her blessings now centered there, together with all the brethren of the Lord. Obediently she bore this wonderful message to the disciples (v. 18).

Grace would now intervene. "On saying this, she turned round366 and beholdeth Jesus standing, and knew not that it was Jesus." How often the like may be for our dull hearts! But He never acts beneath His name, and speaks that we may know Him. "Jesus saith to her, Woman, why weepest thou? Whom dost thou seek?" This last was a leading question. Till He is known, however, there is still darkness, though there may be love. "She, thinking that He was the gardener, saith to Him, Sir, if thou didst carry Him off, tell me where thou laidest Him, and I will take Him away." One word dispels all the difficulty and doubt, the expression, not of our love to Him, but of His love to us. "Jesus saith to her, Mary." The work was done, the great discovery made. He had died, He was now risen, and He appeared first to Mary of Magdala. She that had sown in tears reaps now in joy. The Lord appreciated her abiding at the tomb in sorrow, even though but an empty tomb. Her heart was now filled with joy; and, as we shall see, the joy would run over to gladden other hearts, the hearts of all that believed.

It was the Good Shepherd calling His own sheep by name. She was the same to Him as ever; He stood in resurrection power; but His love was the same to her, certainly no less than when He cast seven demons out of her. Doubtless there was a sameness in the expression of her name which went straight home to her heart and recalled her from her dream about His Person, once dead but now in truth alive again for evermore. Soon she would learn that, as He lived, so did she also, alive to God in Jesus Christ her Lord. But for the moment to know Himself alive, Himself uttering her name with unutterable love, was the fruit of Divine grace that touched and best satisfied her heart.

In Mary of Magdala we have one whose character has been foully aspersed, as though she had been an impure woman. Scripture does not so speak of her, nor should we, though men may call institutions founded for poor fallen ones after her name. What is recorded is, "out of whom he had cast seven devils" (Mark 16:9). It may be noticed moreover that, in the three instances of this immoral class given us in the Gospels, the Lord does not disclose their names. His grace had met the woman of Samaria (John 4), as also the sinner of the city who found her way into Simon's house (Luke 7); and to the one brought into the temple (John 8) He does not indeed speak peace, nor would He then condemn, but as the true light that searches the conscience of all He says to her, "Go, and sin no more." Mary of Magdala had in a special way been under the power of demons. We were all at one time the willing slaves of the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience. But Mary showed her appreciation of the mercy that had been extended to her by being one of those "who also when he was in Galilee followed him and ministered unto him" (Mark 15:44); and although she was not as well instructed as her namesake of Bethany, or she would not have brought sweet spices to the sepulchre to anoint Him, yet she showed the depth of her devotion to His adorable person by remaining there even when Peter and John "went away again unto their own home." She is a fitting type of the church, knowing the Lord when it was yet dark, and commissioned by Him to deliver that wondrous message to the disciples, "I ascend unto my Father and your Father, unto my God and your God."

Mary Magdalene was conscious of what the Lord had done for her in casting out seven demons! "She ministered unto Him." In Luke 7 we find a nameless woman, and it is wonderful grace that keeps her name secret. But people jump to conclusions and so identify Mary with her; but not so. There is nothing to show that Mary's past had been impure.

In this chapter we find how grace goes forth in service. "It came to pass afterward, that he went through [the country], city by city, and village by village." How indiscriminate is His "preaching and announcing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God"!192 Anywhere and everywhere grace can go as to its sphere, but it distinguishes according to God's will; because He must be sovereign. He pardons whom He will, and whom He will He hardens. The twelve were with Him; and not they only, but "certain women who had been healed of wicked spirits and Infirmities, Mary, who was called Magdalene,193 from whom seven demons had gone out, and Joanna, wife of Chuza, Herod's steward, and Susanna, and many others who ministered to him of their substance." Thus we find grace produces fruits now, in this present life. I think it plain and certain that Mary Magdalene is not the person described in the last chapter as the woman who was a sinner. Tradition fluctuates, some supposing that the forgiven woman was Mary Magdalene, others Mary the sister of Lazarus; but to my own mind the internal evidence is conclusive that she was neither the one nor the other. In fact, there is evident moral beauty in the absence of her name. Considering that she had been a notoriously sinful woman in the city, why name her? The story was not to inform anyone who she was, but what the name of Jesus had been to her. It is His name, not hers, that is the great matter. And hence all the effect produced in her by the Spirit of God is according to this. She does not go before His face, but behind Him. She is at His feet, weeping, washing His feet with tears and wiping them with the hairs of her head. The Spirit of God, therefore, casts a veil over her person. However much she might be the object of grace, there is no indulgence of human curiosity. It was a part of the very plan of the Spirit that her name should not be mentioned. Mary, sister of Lazarus, stands before us in Scripture (whatever legends feign) a character evidently and altogether different, and remarkable, I should judge, for moral purity, as well as for that insight into God's mind which was brought about by the grace that gave it to her. "To him": so Wellhausen, with ℵAL, etc., 1, 33, Memph. Arm., Aeth. Edd. (So Harnack) adopt "to them," after BDE and later uncials, 69, Amiat. Syrrpesch cu sin.

So also Mary Magdalene, although a desperate case, manifested evil of a wholly different nature. It was not corruption, but Satan's power. She was possessed; as we are told here, "from whom seven demons had gone out." This was her scriptural description, and uniformly so wherever she is brought before us. Never is moral looseness attributed to her.

But besides Mary Magdalene, one of those who ministered to the Lord of their substance was Joanna, the wife of Chuza, Herod's steward.194 Thus God called where one might least expect it: and she who was connected with the Court of the false king rejoiced to be permitted to follow the despised but true King, Jesus of Nazareth.

But others were not wanting — "Susanna and many others," but of whom we know nothing, save that which grace gave them, in honouring Jesus to find their everlasting honour. They were attracted by the Lord Jesus, and ministered to Him as they could.

Do not confound this woman with Mary in John's Gospel (not named by Matthew and Mark). The one anointing took place at the end of the Lord's ministry, the other far earlier which Luke here records. The one was the anointing of Himself by a saint devoted to Him; the other by a sinner without a character, just being brought to God. They were wholly different facts. We do not find Mary of Bethany weeping over the Lord, or any sign of penitence there. If you speak of some resemblance, how could there but be, if divine love worked in the heart of either the lately abandoned woman or the long proved child of God? Some have supposed her to be Mary Magdalene. This is another of the fallacies of tradition, and irreconcilable with scripture. Mary of Magdala comes forward first in the next chapter (Luke 8) as a stranger. "And certain women which had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities, Mary called Magdalene, out of whom went seven demons, and Joanna the wife of Chuza, Herod's steward, and Susanna, and many others." These are brought before us as altogether new persons. This Mary is nowhere spoken of as having been a woman of loose life; hers was the dreadful lot of having seven demons dwelling in her — an extremely awful case as a prey to the power of the devil, whether men believe it or not. Such is the difference that scripture makes between the two women.

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.