Deeper Commentary

16:1 And when the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Salome, bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him- As noted on Jn., Joseph had bought a huge amount of spices to anoint the Lord, far more than used even for the burials of the Caesars. But the women still bought some more. They too made their sacrifice, in order to anoint the Lord. This all arose from their abiding belief that He was Jesus the Christ, the anointed one; and their duty was therefore to anoint Him. Belief in the Lord Jesus as Christ can roll off the tongue and be apparently painless; but it demanded all for Joseph and the women.

In Matthew too, Mary Magdalene is first in the list. As discussed on :4, these women headed by Mary Magdalene are the primary witnesses to the Lord's resurrection. And of them, Mary Magdalene has primacy in the list, and she was the least qualified humanly speaking. She had a history of 'seven demons' [mental illness] and possibly prostitution. 'Magdalene' could mean 'the one with braided hair', something later criticized by Paul as inappropriate for Godly women, but referencing her dubious past. For "Magdalene" was not a surname but a term of differentiation. Or it may refer simply to Magdala, which she had now left because that is why she is known as the Magdalene, the woman from Magdala. Or again, it could mean a trader in perfume, which would explain her prominence in anointing the Lord's body.

16:2 And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun was risen, they went to the tomb- "They went" is an arresting present tense, they come, they draw near. We are being invited to play Bible television with the text and see the whole wondrous story time and again for the first time.

The language hints very much at a new creation beginning. And yet it began in darkness, not only literally, but also in the darkness of the disciples' disappointment, misunderstanding and weak faith. From all this, great light was to arise. 

Mary came seeking the Lord early in the morning… and this inevitably takes our minds to some OT passages which speak of doing just this:

-  “O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is;   To see thy power and thy glory” (Ps. 63:1,2). The resurrection of Jesus showed clearly both the power (2 Cor. 13:4) and glory (Rom. 6:4) of the Father. For Mary, life without her Lord was a dry and thirsty land. This was why she went to the grave early that morning. She was simply aching for Him. And she had well learnt the Lord’s teaching, that her brother’s resurrection had been associated with the glory of the Father (Jn. 11:40). She went early to the tomb to seek the Father’s glory- so the allusion to Ps. 63 implies. She was the one person who had actually believed in advance the Lord’s teaching about resurrection. And yet even she was confused- half her brain perceived it all and believed it, and was rewarded by being the first to see the risen Lord; and yet another part of her brain was simply overcome with grief, believing that the gardener had somehow removed the body some place else. And our own highest heights of spiritual perception are likewise shrouded by such humanity too.
- “I love them that love me; and those that seek me early shall find me” (Prov. 8:17) is written in the first instance of wisdom. And yet the Lord Jesus has “wisdom” as one of His titles (Mt. 12:42; 1 Cor. 1:24,30). Mary sat at the Lord’s feet to hear His wisdom; to her, she showed in practice what it means to comprehend Jesus as “the wisdom of God”. She anxiously heard His words. And thus she sought Him early…because she so wanted to hear His wisdom again. Of course, she loved Him. But that love was rooted in respect and almost an addiction to His wisdom. It was this that she loved about Him, and it was this which led her to the grave early. And it was this which led her to the honour of being the first to see the risen Jesus.
- “Yea, in the way of thy judgments, O LORD, have we waited for thee; the desire of our soul is to thy name, and to the remembrance of thee. With my soul have I desired thee in the night; yea, with my spirit within me will I seek thee early” (Is. 26:8,9) makes the same connection between seeking the Lord early, and loving His words.  

 

16:3 And they were talking among themselves: Who shall roll away the stone from the door of the tomb for us?- They had seen the stone rolled there (Mk. 15:46). We are being shown the problem: they went to anoint a body within an already closed tomb. This is recorded in order to give the impression of their devoted loyalty in the midst of mind numbing grief. And it is so psychologically credible. "Looking up..." (:4) implies they were walking along looking at the ground. It's typical of how those in grief would act, totally credible as description. Their love for the Lord is thereby well demonstrated.

The women who came to the garden tomb weren't looking for the risen Lord; they came to anoint the body. But their love of the Lord was counted to them as seeking Him (Mt. 28:5). Here's an example of our prayers and needs being answered whilst we are yet speaking. They worried about what had already been sorted!

16:4 And looking up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled aside- "Looking up" enables us to see them walking with their heads down in sadness. The Angel descended and did this before the women arrived; for on the way, they had worried about how they would roll the stone away, but when they got there, they found it done already (Mk. 16:2,4). Women unable to roll away a stone recalls the scene when Rachel and her girls were unable to roll the stone away from the well until Jacob did it (Gen. 29:3,10). The idea would therefore be that the Lord's tomb was in fact a well of living water, the gift of the Spirit, which would flow for God's people after and on account of His resurrection; and this idea is elsewhere stated specifically by the Lord in John's Gospel. 

They apparently didn't see the Angel sitting on the stone who is mentioned in Mt. 27:2. Perhaps the Divine plan was that they ought to have been searching for the empty tomb and rejoiced on finding it; and believed without the revelation of Angels. But eventually they needed the Angelic revelations. We too can walk by Angels sitting on stones...

We note the emphasis of "they saw", also in :5 and in :6 "Behold / see the place where He lay". The other Gospels give even more examples. These women were the first eye witnesses of the events of the Lord's resurrection, and Mary Magdalene the first to see the risen Lord. The verb can mean "to observe something with sustained attention" [Walter Bauer and Frederick William Danker, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and other Early Christian Literature p. 360]. At the end of Mk. 15 we have these same women likewise described as seeing / observing His death, embalming and burial. They were the eye witnesses to it all. Luke and John stress the women standing, both at the cross and the tomb. Matthew and Luke stress the seeing / observing. Between them, the records present these women as the legal witnesses. Female witness was disallowed in Jewish and Roman courts. But not with God. He chose those whose disqualifications were in fact their qualifications, and He does the same with us.

16:5 And entering into the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed- If "the right side" refers to where the Lord had lain, we are invited to see Him now as enthroned superior to Angels, with them at His right hand, subject to Him. This is visual representation of what Hebrews 1 states specifically.

16:6 And he said to them: Do not be alarmed- The idea is 'You do not need to be fearful, unlike these soldiers who are paralyzed by their own fears'. Their weakness is still apparent in the record, because Mt. 28:8 says that they left the scene "with fear...".  

You seek Jesus the Nazarene who was crucified. He is risen! He is not here! See the place where they laid him!- The women had come to anoint the Lord's dead body, with apparently no expectation that He would indeed rise the third day as He had predicted. And yet the Angel generously counts this to them (Mt. 'I know / perceive / accept / count it') as if they were actively looking for Jesus. Their obvious error- that they assumed Him to still be dead- is not rebuked because the good news is simply so much greater. The resurrection records are full of such imputed righteousness. Lk. 24:5 enquires why they are 'seeking the living amongst the dead'. They were not seeking the living- they had come to anoint a dead body. Yet they are graciously counted as seeking Jesus as if they were seeking for a living person. John's record has the Lord asking Mary whom she is 'seeking', and this is how John's Gospel opens, with the Lord enquiring of His followers whom they were seeking (Jn. 1:38; 20:15). This question as to the Lord's identity echoes down to us, for we too can feel a devotion and identity with the idea of 'Jesus' without perceiving that He really is alive and active. The Lord counted righteousness to them, they are commended by the Angels for ‘seeking the Lord’- even though that seeking was deep in their subconscious. Yet the record notices that even incipient faith and understanding in those women, and counts it to them. Would that we would be so generous in our perception of others. The weeping, helpless standing afar off at the cross are described as still following the Lord Jesus and ministering to Him, as they did in the happier Galilee days (Mk. 15:41). Their essential spirit was understood and credited to them, even though their actions seemed to belie this. Likewise our essential desires are read as our prayers, even if the words we use seem quite different.

Mk. 16:6 adds to the other records "Jesus of Nazareth", as if emphasizing the Lord's humanity and death as compared to the wonderful reality of His resurrection.

The idea may be that He is 'Not here in a tomb, in a place for the dead', in the spirit of Lk. 24:5 "Why do you seek the living amongst the dead?". There is no hint that the women obeyed and went to see the place where the Lord lay. They had arrived at the tomb and had gone in and found the body missing (Lk. 24:3,23), and then the Angel[s] appeared to them. Now the Angels are inviting them to go into the tomb again and behold the place where the Lord's body had lain- perhaps because now there were Angels sitting at the head and feet of where the Lord's body had lain (Jn. 20:12). Along with imputed faith and righteousness, the disobedience of the disciples is also emphasized by the records. They struggle to believe His clear predictions of resurrection, are disobedient to the various commands to witness about it, disbelieve the women, and still appear depressed and sceptical that it is really Him when He appears to them for the third time in Galilee. Or it could be that they did go and see the place where the Lord lay, and yet found the body missing and were confused (Lk. 24:3,23)- even with an Angel standing there telling them the Lord had risen as He had said!

16:7 Go tell his disciples, and Peter, that he goes ahead of you into Galilee. There shall you see him, just as he told you-
Angelic unity with the risen Lord Jesus is brought out by a comparison of the words spoken to the women after the resurrection. Mk. 16:7 has the Angels telling the women: “He is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him, as he told you”. But Mt. 28:7 has the Angel saying: “He is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him. Lo, I [the Angel] have told you”. Perhaps what the Angel said was: “… as he told you… Lo, I have told you”, thus bringing out the new unity between the risen Christ and the Angel.

The Lord's original plan to meet them first in Galilee was changed; for He appeared to them in Jerusalem after they had first disbelieved. He was so eager to see them; and their faith and obedience was weak. This addresses their obvious although unspoken question: 'Where's the body? When can we see Him?'. The answer was 'As He explained before, you must show your obedience to Him by going into Galilee and there you will see Him'. But this plan, explained by the Lord earlier and now repeated by the Angel, was cut short by the Lord Himself. For right after this, He appears to Mary and the women. Right there, and not in Galilee. And soon afterwards He appears to the eleven in Jerusalem; and when He does finally meet the disciples in Galilee, this was the third appearance He had made to them, the earlier two having been in Jerusalem (Jn. 21:14). This change of plan was perhaps partly quite simply from the excitement of love, emotions which are still possible even within Divine nature. But partly it may have been because of the very weak state of the disciples' faith, and the Lord's sense that He must act urgently so that they did not lose faith permanently; see on Go quickly and tell.... The idea of the Lord going before them into Galilee is based upon the Lord's teaching in Mt. 26:31,32: "I will smite the shepherd and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered abroad. But after I am raised up, I will go ahead of you into Galilee". The 'going ahead' is also a sheep and shepherd allusion; although the sheep would be scattered, the Lord would go ahead of them into Galilee and like sheep obedient to the shepherd's voice, they would follow Him there. But perhaps the Lord now realized that their faith and obedience was just not enough for them to do that, and so He appeared to them anyway. Indeed, according to John, the disciples appeared to have finally returned to Galilee in order to return to their fishing business, despite having met the risen Lord in Jerusalem. They were very slow to really grasp the reality of His resurrection. The Gospels are their own account of their preaching, and it's as if they are telling the world how slow they had been to believe and were urging the world to do better than them, and to believe more quickly.

The urgency required was partly because the wonder of the good news does itself impart an urgency to our presentation of it. And we need to analyze our own approach to witness and discern whether there is any sense of urgency to it; the record of baptisms in the early church was of immediate baptism, the very moment the person had believed, rather than waiting as many do today until a convenient time and place. But the urgency was also to tell the disciples before they totally lost their faith. The Lord was clearly concerned that they would lose faith entirely; and this explains His change of plans concerning revealing Himself to them in Galilee.

The initial plan had been that the women also would need to go to Galilee before meeting the Lord (Mt. 28:7). The Lord changed that plan and appeared to the women immediately; but His plan was still that He would reveal Himself to His male disciples for the first time in Galilee. But He soon changed that plan too, for the other records make it clear that the Lord twice appeared to them in Jerusalem (Jn. 21:14). 

Put together the following passages:
- The disciples’ return to Galilee after the resurrection was a result of their lack of faith (Jn. 16:31,32)
- But the Lord went before them, as a shepherd goes before His sheep, into Galilee (Mt. 28:7). Even in their weakness of faith, He was still their shepherd, they were still His sheep, and He led them even then.
- The Lord told them to go to Galilee (Mt. 28:10). He accepted their lower level of faith. And He worked through that and led them through it.  

The return to Galilee is seen in an even worse light once we reflect on the circumstances surrounding the first calling of the disciples, nearly four years earlier. John’s Gospel implies that they were called at Bethany; whereas the other Gospels say they were called whilst fishing at the sea of Galilee. This is usually, and correctly, harmonized by concluding that they were called as John says in Bethany, but they then returned to their fishing in Galilee, and the Lord went there to call them again. So returning to their fishing in Galilee had already been shown to them as being a running away from the call of their Lord. And yet still they did it. And yet John’s inspired record is so positive; he speaks as if the disciples were called at Bethany and unwaveringly responded immediately. The point that they actually lost their intensity and returned home is gently omitted from specific mention.

16:8 And they went out and ran from the tomb. Trembling and astonishment had come upon them, and they said nothing to anyone. For they were afraid- There has always been opposition to spreading the Gospel outside our own environment. Jonah was unwilling to take it to Nineveh, Israel failed miserably in their intended role as a missionary nation, and the apostles showed remarkable reluctance to obey the command to take Christ into all the world in the first century. The women were told to go tell the disciples of the resurrection, but they went away and told nobody, Mark records (Mk. 16:7,8). The other records say that they did tell the disciples. There is no contradiction here; Mark’s point is surely that they were reluctant to obey the great commission initially.

It was only later that they told the disciples, once their fear subsided and joy began to be their dominant emotion. We recall how the shepherds were told not to fear but to focus upon the joy of the Lord's birth (Lk. 2:10). Fear and joy do not remain coexistent for long, and to their credit, the women's joy became greater than their fear. See on :10 Fear Not. But putting meaning into words, what were they fearful about? Surely they now realized that they had so failed to believe the Lord’s clear words about His resurrection; and they knew now that since He was alive, they must meet Him and explain. So their fear related to their own sense of unworthiness; and yet it was paradoxically mixed with the “great joy” of knowing His resurrection. And there is reason to understand that those women are typical of all those who are to fulfil the great commission. 

The accounts of the Lord’s resurrection and the imparting of that good news to others are studded with the idea of speedy response. “Go quickly and tell his disciples… and they departed quickly… and did run to bring his disciples word” (Mt. 28:7,8). The accounts show how Mary “quickly” told the disciples, the women did likewise, the two on the way to Emmaus ran back to town and urgently told the others that the Lord had risen… and then the record climaxes in bidding us take that very same good news of the resurrection to the whole world. But the implication from the context is that it is to be done with the same spirit of urgency. We are merely continuing in the spirit of those who first spread that good news.

After initially saying nothing, they did eventually tell the disciples. Matthew and Luke omit this disobedience to the Lord's command to witness. The record in a beautiful way both covers their weakness, and yet also brings it out. In fact resistance to the command to tell others, or being slow to fulfil it, is another theme of the resurrection accounts.

16:9 Now when he had risen from the dead early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast out seven demons- One would have expected that the Lord Jesus would have first of all appeared to His dear mother, after resurrecting. His mother could so easily have taken this as yet another snub, similar to the way in which He had rebuked her for not knowing He must be in His Father’s house, how He addressed her at Cana as “Woman” and asked her what He had to do with her; how He told those who informed Him that His mother was outside that all those who heard God’s word were His mothers; how He said that His mother wasn’t blessed for suckling Him, but rather, blessed were all those who heard God’s word. And the way He chose to appear to the other Mary rather than His own mother could have been taken by her as yet another snub. Yet these incidents weren’t snubs. The Lord loved His mother, with a depth of passion and emotion that maybe we [and she] will never know. Yet He wanted the best for her spiritually. He wanted her to relate to Him for who He really was, not for who she perceived Him to be. It must have so hurt the Lord to work with her in this way. And so it is with His workings with us, as He seeks to bring us to know Him in truth. It must be hard for Him to bring distress into our lives. Yet with His dear mother, it worked. For the next we read of her, she is meeting with the rest of the ecclesia in Jerusalem (Acts 1:14), and, according to how we read Revelation 12, the Lord Himself saw her as clothed with the sun in glory, responsible for the birth of Himself as the man child, who would bring the Kingdom of God on earth. She made it in the end.

Mary Magdalene was the least qualified to be a witness. Women's testimony was not accepted in the Roman world; and Mary had previously been seriously 'demon possessed', probably referring to mental illness. And in addition to that she had worked as a prostitute. Yet she was the one chosen by the Lord as His star witness. We should not therefore worry about our own apparent inadequacy as witnesses. The Lord delights to use our inadequacies in this work of witness.

Mary Magdalene is always noted first in the appearance lists in the gospels. It is unusual that the first appearance would involve women as in that culture their role as witnesses would not be well accepted. It is a sign of the veracity of the account, because if an ancient were to create such a story he would never have it start with women. But inspiration disregards this. The Lord so wanted those women to be His leading witnesses. Joachim Jeremias quotes extensively from Jewish sources to show that “a woman had no right to bear witness, because it was concluded from Gen. 18:15 that she was a liar”. And Josephus (Antiquities Of The Jews 4.219) concurs: “Let not the testimony of women be admitted because of the levity and boldness of their sex”. And so it should not surprise us that He chooses today the most unlikely of witnesses, indeed, those who somehow shock and arrest the attention of others.   

16:10 She went and told them that had been with him, as they mourned and wept- The account of the disciples' response to the realization of the resurrection shows perfectly how men will rise above every barrier, both within them and without, to speak the good news of what they now realize to be absolute truth. Mary, bashful ex-hooker that she was, "went and told them that had been with him", the broken-down women "with great joy... did run to bring his disciples word" , those on the Emmaus road "went and told it unto the residue", "the other disciples therefore  "told Thomas, John told Peter "It is the Lord", and finally they all "went forth, and preached everywhere" the news of the resurrection (Mt. 28:8; Mk. 16:10,13,20; Jn. 20:25; 21:7). The speed and spirit of the narrative pounds away at a major theme: The natural desire to tell others the Gospel of the Lord's resurrection. This same spirit of urgently passing on good news pervades the preaching recorded in Acts.

Note that the disciples are described as "weeping" for the loss of Jesus, the Greek word meaning specifically to weep aloud (Mk. 16:10). And yet the Lord appears to them in that state and upbraids them for not believing His words and for having hard hearts (Mk. 16:14). Faith is so crucial- and for all their love of Him, they didn't have much faith in Jesus. Are there similarities with ourselves? Do we on one hand love Him, and yet remain hard hearted to His words?

16:11 And they, when they heard that he was alive and had been seen by her, disbelieved- There is a strong theme in the Gospels that the disciples repeatedly disbelieved the news of the resurrection. And yet they were appealing for people to believe the message of the Lord's resurrection and be baptized into it. But they made that appeal on the basis of their own weakness and slowness to believe. They considered it "Idle talk" (Lk. 24:11), which means literally the talk of the crazy. They assumed this was a story of the once demon-possessed Mary Magdalene, an outcome of her previous mental disturbance. When the Lord had so clearly foretold His resurrection. Luke is pointing out their own disbelief, implying it was almost to the point of blasphemy. Each of the Gospel writers brings out a sense of inadequacy about themselves or the disciples, this self-criticism, in different ways.

16:12 And after these things he was manifested in another guise to two of them as they walked on their way into the countryside- The two could well have been Cleopas and his wife Mary, who had been at the crucifixion (see on Lk. 24:13). We wonder why He appeared in various forms which as it were disguised Him. Perhaps this was because He wanted them to believe with a minimum of miracle; He wanted them, as He wants us, to join the dots and believe, rather than having His in-your-face revelation directly to as it were force belief. And maybe the lesson was also that the same Lord can reveal Himself to us in different ways and forms through the persons of various ordinary people. Note too that morphe, "guise" or "form", does not refer to His essential nature, but to His appearance and deportment. This is valuable to bear in mind when considering the usage of morphe in Phil. 2 "the form of God".

16:13 And they went away, and told it to the rest, who did not believe them either- Although the disciples accepted that Jesus had appeared to Simon, they didn't believe the account of Cleopas and his friend. The record emphasizes their refusal to believe- and then goes on to appeal to the hearers or readers of their message to learn from their slowness, and to believe and be baptized (:16). Their stubborn refusal to believe is so emphasized.

16:14 And later he was manifested to the eleven themselves as they were eating; and he rebuked them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they did not believe those that had seen him after he had risen- The Lord “upbraided” the disciples for their immaturity and unbelief concerning His cross and resurrection. The Greek word is always used in a very severe context of ‘reviling’ (Mt. 5:11; 11:20; 27:44; Rom. 15:3; 1 Tim. 4:10); it’s a tough and abusive word. It appears out of place when applied to the Lord. Yet what it indicates is that the Lord was so angry with them for not believing the witness of the women. Discounting people’s experience of Jesus merely on account of their gender or background was so angering to the Lord. And He’s the same today.

A read through the Gospels reveals the deep frustration and anger of the Lord Jesus because of the blindness of the disciples. Mark's record brings this out especially. The following comments by the Lord, almost under His breath, were all made within a matter of days of each other: "Peter said, Declare unto us this parable. And Jesus said, Are ye also yet without understanding? Do not ye yet understand?... do ye not yet understand, neither remember the five loaves of the five thousand? Perceive ye not yet... having eyes, see ye not? and having ears, hear ye not?... how is it that ye do not understand?... O faithless generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer you? (with reference to the disciples' faithlessness)... the disciples were astonished at His words. But Jesus answereth (i.e. responded) again, and saith unto them, Children ...and they were astonished out of measure... Jesus went before them: and they were amazed... and he took again the twelve, and began to tell them what things should happen... Jesus said unto them, Ye know not what ye ask" (Mt. 15:17; 16:9; Mk. 8:18,21; 9:19; 10:1,24-32). Notice the stress on "how long" and "yet". The Lord clearly was disappointed at the slow rate of development. Their blindness was an agony to Him. Especially does this come out in His attitude to the disciples after His resurrection. The exalted Son of God, the Son of God, poured out His anger on those eleven men. You get the sense of them cowering before the presence of a super-human intellect, beneath a force of personality that could concuss men when turned against them. He upbraided them for their lack of perception, their lack of understanding (Mk. 16:14; Lk. 24:25). As I read the record of this, there's part of me that feels so sorry for them. Thoughts of sympathy skate through my mind: they weren't a bad crowd... only ordinary men... just poor little human beings down here on earth... only men... only human beings... limited by their own nature. But this wasn't how the Lord saw it at all. He was angry with them. The picture of the Son of God, the exalted Son of man with eyes as a flame of fire, upbraiding His friends, those he had died for... because they hadn't understood something which he knew and they knew had been within their power to. The picture is awesome. 

The experience of emotion on reflection at the Lord's sufferings can be yet another area where our spirituality isn't genuine. The scene of those 11 grown men mourning and weeping at the loss of their Lord makes me think 'They  were a soft hearted lot really, behold how they loved him...'. But then the Lord appears to them and upbraids them for being hard hearted and indifferent to His words (Mk. 16:10,14). His upbraiding of them must have really hurt- for they must have been sure that they were anything but hard hearted towards Him.

The even greater commission to go into all the world with the Gospel followed straight on from Christ upbraiding the eleven "with their unbelief and hardness of heart" (Mk. 16:14,15). That 'upbraiding' must have left them wallowing in their weakness. It would have been quite something. The Son of God upbraiding His friends. But straight on from that: "Go ye... go ye into all the world" (Mt. cp. Mk. shows “go ye” was said twice). And He told them to preach that those who believed not would be damned- after having just told them that they were men who believed not. Mark’s record stresses three times in the lead up to this that they “believed not”; and then, he records how they were told to go and preach condemnation on those who believed not (Mk. 16:11,13,14,16). They were humbled men who did that. The idea of taking the Gospel world-wide was in fact alluding to Is. 66:17-20. Here those who are spared the ‘Gehenna’ of the last day judgment will have a sign placed on them, as upon Cain, and they will then be sent “unto the nations…and they shall declare my glory among the gentiles”. The rejection process glorifies God’s righteous Name, and this world-wide exhibition of the rejected will actually bring men “out of all nations” (:20) to God, just as Israel’s condemnation was an “instruction” unto the surrounding nations. The connection shows that in our obedience to the great commission, we go forth as condemned men who in our case, like the disciples, have known the wonder of grace.

16:15- see on Mk. 14:9.

And he said to them: You are to go into all the world and preach the gospel to the whole creation- The essential spirit of the great commission was “Go!”, following on as it does from the repeated commands to “go” and share the glorious news that Christ had risen. And yet so many congregations of believers seem to stress instead “Come in to us!”. And every manner of carrot is dangled before the public to entice them to ‘come in’ to some church event. But the emphasis was clearly, and should still be, upon ‘going’ to people. Our turning of ‘Go!’ into ‘Come to us’ is all part of a wider picture, whereby the group of hard core, desperate men who first followed Jesus, the whores, the gamblers, the mentally ill, the marginalized women… have all been diluted into a religion of conformists, a spiritual bubble in which we risk nothing, sacrifice nothing, and comfortably continue in the way of our fathers who were also members of the same church as we are.

The Lord twice told the disciples: "Go ye... go ye" (Mk. 16:15 cp. Mt. 28:19 and contexts). He was encouraging them to do the natural corollary of what they had experienced. We are to preach to “all the world” (16:15)- the kosmos. In the last days, the Gospel will go to “all nations”- every ethnos (Mk. 13:10). The parallel record in Mt. 24:14 has Jesus saying that it must go to the whole world- oikoumene. What did He actually say? I suggest He used both words, in an emphasis of just how universal the witness would be: ‘The Gospel will be preached in the whole oikoumene, yes, to every ethnos…’. This is all some emphasis- every creature (individual), in the whole world system, every part of society (kosmos), of every nation (ethnos), on the whole planet (oikoumene) was to have the message. And this is our unmistakable mandate. The number of different words used by the Lord was surely intentional.

As so often with reading the Gospels, it is profitable to imagine the tone of voice in which the Lord spoke the words which are recorded. "Go ye into all the world  and preach the gospel to every creature". If only we could sense the intensity of desire, the deepness of spiritual meaning, which His voice would have conveyed. We must have the spiritual ambition to take the Gospel to the whole world- no matter how small our world may be. The world of our street, of our town, nation- and as far as we are able, the whole planet. Paul had this ambition, quite apart from any personal commission he received.
The great commission is framed in language which picks up on the descriptions of the Lord’s own preaching earlier in His ministry. His idea clearly enough is that He will no longer be on earth; therefore His people must be ‘Him’ to the whole earth:

 

16:16 He that believes and is baptized shall be saved, but he that disbelieves shall be condemned- In the very context of the Lord upbraiding them for their slowness to believe the Gospel of His death and resurrection, they were asked to go and teach others that he who didn’t believe this same message would be damned (Mk. 16:15,16). Their witness, as it is recorded in the Gospel records, is therefore shot through with recognition of their own weakness. They record how Peter their leader was described by the Lord as a “satan” (Mk. 8:33). They were good fishermen- yet their records show that never do they record themselves as catching a fish without their Lord’s help. In this they set a model for our witness; it must be shot through with a full recognition of our weakness, our own struggles to believe that which we invite others to believe. And the more real, the more credible. Not only did the Gospel writers portray their own weakness and slowness to believe; they write in such a way as to minimize their own personalities and presence. They don’t continually harp on about the fact they were really present.

16:17 And these signs shall accompany them that believe- in my name shall they cast out demons, they shall speak with new tongues- All the "they shall" clauses in :17 and :18 were fulfilled in various examples of Divine protection to the early preachers of the Gospel. "If they drink any deadly thing..." is worded in a conditional way, and we have no Biblical example of this happening, although traditions exist of various apostles being unharmed by poison.

16:18 They shall pick up snakes, and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall in no way hurt them. They shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover- See on :17. In Old Testament times, God described His whole people as His anointed one, His Christ: “The Lord is a strength unto his people, and he is the saving strength of his anointed” (Ps. 28:8 RVmg.). The whole people were His anointed King, His Messiah, the anointed one. And so it is for all those today who are “in Christ”. Thus the prophecy about Christ personally that He would tread upon snakes and wild animals (Ps. 91:13) is quoted as being fulfilled in the disciples, who ‘were’ Christ on their preaching mission (Lk. 10:19; Mk. 16:18).

Not being hurt alludes to the promise of how the restored Israel would be in Is. 43:2. Those somewhat confused men and women were now the new Israel.

16:19 So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was received up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God- The 'speaking to them' could refer to His general teaching throughout the 40 days. Or we could read the emphasis as therefore on the fact that the great commission was His last word to His people; after He spoke that, He was received into Heaven. We might expect to read that He 'ascended', but Mark's focus is on His being received into heaven. The ceremony of His 'receiving into heaven' is recorded in more detail in Revelation 4 and 5. Paul alludes here in saying that the Lord was received up into glory (1 Tim. 3:16). The cloud which "received" Him (Lk. 24:51; Acts 1:9) was therefore a cloud of glory. It was a sign of His acceptance by God, visible to the watching disciples.

The Ethiopic text brings out the reality more strongly: "Our Lord, the Lord Jesus" was received up to "his own Father". Our man is now there in Heaven, with His Father. He is God's right hand man, functioning as God without being God the Father Himself. As noted on Acts 7:56, the Lord is seated at God's right hand; but He stands up in passion and intercession for His people on earth. He is not in that sense sedentary, passively sitting.

16:20 And they went and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them and confirming the word by the signs that followed. Amen- Luke has the disciples returning to Jerusalem and focusing upon praise of their ascended Lord; Mark focuses upon their obedience to the great commission, the Lord's last word to them. That witness was made, as ours should be, in a spirit of homage and praise to the Lord Jesus. And He who was now in Heaven worked with them in their witness. Any obedience to the great commission will result in a definite sense of the Lord's working with us, even if the form of confirmation of our word has changed from miraculous gifts to more subtle forms of Spirit manifestation. The same word for 'working with' is used in 2 Cor. 6:1, again in the context of evangelism, when Paul remarks that the Lord Jesus is a worker together with "us". The promise of His co-working with us is not therefore limited to the disciples who first heard Him.