Before entering upon this, it is necessary to define in a few words the position of Mary. For this we will borrow the striking and beautiful language of another: “She represents, I doubt not,” (that is before her risen Lord had made Himself known to her), “the Jewish remnant of that day, personally attached to the Lord, but not knowing the power of His resurrection. She is alone in her love: the very strength of her affection isolates her. She was not the only one saved, but she comes alone to seek—wrongly to seek, if you will, but to seek—Jesus, before the testimony of His glory shines forth in a world of darkness, because she loved Him....It is a loving heart.... occupied with Jesus, when the public testimony of man is still entirely wanting. And it is to this that Jesus first manifests Himself when He had risen.” This entirely explains the words of Jesus to her, “Touch me not.” There must have been some gesture on the part of Mary, some outstretching of her hand to express the ardency of her love, as if Jesus risen would now be the Messiah on earth. (This will entirely remove the apparent contradiction between this and the account in Matthew, according to which the woman held Jesus by the feet and worshipped Him, because in that gospel He is presented as the Messiah.)
But He had not come back now to establish His kingdom on earth, for, as He says to Mary, He had not yet ascended to His Father. Before the manifestation of His glory in this world, He was about to associate His redeemed with Himself in His own heavenly relationship. He had said before this, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. He had died, and the fruit had been produced, and He now places His own, on the ground of redemption, in His own heavenly relationship, so that we obtain a glimpse here of the end of God’s counsels in conforming His own to the image of His own Son, who having glorified God on the earth, and finished the work which had been given Him to do, was about to be glorified as Man—as the Man of God’s counsels—at God’s right hand.