Faith’s full assurance of the fact of the Lord’s resurrection
I shall examine the details of the resurrection elsewhere. Here I only consider its bearing in this Gospel. The sabbath ended (Saturday evening with us-chapter 28), the two Marys come to see the sepulchre. At this moment that was all they did. Verses 1-2 are not consecutive; verses 2-4 go together. When the earthquake and its attendant circumstances took place, no one was there except the soldiers. At night all was secure. The disciples knew nothing of it in the morning. When the women arrived at dawn, the angel who sat at the door of the sepulchre reassured them with the tidings of the Lord’s resurrection. The angel of the Lord had come down and opened the door of the tomb, which man had closed with every possible precaution.1 They had in truth only guaranteed by unexceptionable witnesses the truth of the apostles’ preaching, by placing the soldiers there. The women, by their visit the evening before, and in the morning when the angel spoke to them, received a full assurance to faith of the fact of His resurrection. All that is presented here is the facts. The women had been there in the evening. The intervention of the angel certified to the soldiers the true character of His coming forth from the tomb; and the visit of the women in the morning established the fact of His resurrection as an object of faith to themselves. They go and announce it to the disciples, who-so far from having done that which the Jews imputed to them-did not even believe the assertions of the women. Jesus Himself appears to the women who were returning from the sepulchre, having believed the words of the angel.
(1. But I apprehend the Lord Jesus had left the tomb before the stone was rolled away; that was for mortal eyes.)
The disciples’ commission
As I have already said, Jesus connects Himself with His former work among the poor of the flock, afar from the seat of Jewish tradition, and from the temple, and from all that linked the people with God according to the old covenant. He appoints His disciples to meet Him there, and there they find Him and recognize Him; and it is there, in this former scene of the labors of Christ, according to Isaiah 8-9, that they receive their commission from Him. Hence we have not the ascension of Christ at all in this Gospel, but all power is given unto Him in heaven and in earth, and, accordingly, the commission given to His disciples extends to all nations (Gentiles). To them they were to proclaim His rights and make disciples of them.
A risen, mighty Saviour; the revelation and confession of the
Father, Son and Holy Spirit as the holy name for all nations
It was not, however, the name of the Lord only, nor in connection with His throne at Jerusalem. Lord of heaven and earth, His disciples were to proclaim Him throughout all nations, founding their doctrine on the confession of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. They were to teach, not the law, but the precepts of Jesus. He would be with them, with the disciples who thus confessed Him, unto the end of the age. It is this which connects all that will be accomplished until Christ sits upon the great white throne with the testimony that He Himself rendered on the earth in the midst of Israel. It is the testimony of the kingdom, and of its Head, once rejected by a people that knew Him not. It links the testimony to the nations with a remnant in Israel owning Jesus as Messiah but now risen from the dead, as He had said, but not to a Christ known as ascended on high. Nor does it present Jesus alone, nor Jehovah, as any longer the subject of testimony, but the revelation of Father, Son and Holy Spirit as the holy name by which the nations were connected with God.