성경 주석서

XXVIII.

(1) It will probably help the student to place before him, in their right order, the recorded appearances of our Lord Jesus after His resurrection:—

(1.) To Mary Magdalene, John 20:14; Mark 16:9.

(2.) To Mary Magdalene and the other Mary, Matthew 28:9.

(3.) To Peter, Luke 24:34; 1Corinthians 15:5.

(4.) To Cleopas and another disciple at Emmaus, Luke 24:13-35.

(5.) To the eleven, or more strictly, the ten Apostles at Jerusalem, Mark 16:14; Luke 24:36; John 20:19.

(6.) To the eleven Apostles at Jerusalem, John 20:26.

(7.) To the disciples—five named, and others—by the Sea of Galilee, John 21:1-24.

(8.) To the Eleven on a mountain in Galilee, Matthew 28:16; Mark 16:15.

(9.) To the five hundred brethren, possibly identical with.

(8), 1Corinthians 15:6.

(10.) To James the brother of the Lord, 1Corinthians 15:7.

(11.) To the Eleven at Jerusalem before the Ascension, Mark 16:19-20; Luke 24:50; Acts 1:3-12.

In the end of the sabbath.—Literally, late on the Sabbath; St. Mark, “when the Sabbath was over;” St. Luke, “very early in the morning.” St. Matthew’s addition, “as it began to dawn,” brings his narrative into harmony with St. Luke’s. The order of facts appears to have been as follows:—(1) Mary Magdalene and the other Mary, the mother of James the Little, watched the burial just before the Sabbath began on the evening of the day of the crucifixion. (2.) They stayed at home during the twenty-four hours of the Sabbath. (3.) On the evening of that day (the Sabbath-rest being over) they bought spices for the embalmment. (4.) At earliest dawn, say about 4 A.M., they set out to make their way to the sepulchre, and they reached it when the sun had risen (Mark 16:2).

(2) There was a great earthquake.—The words imply, not that they witnessed the earthquake, but that they inferred it from what they saw. The form of the angel is described in Mark 16:5 as that of a “young man” in white or bright (Luke 24:4) raiment. This was the answer to the question they had been asking as they came, “Who shall roll away the stone for us?” (Mark 16:3). That would have been beyond their strength.

(3) Like lightning.—The word employed by St. Luke to describe the “raiment has the same force. The “white as snow” has its counterpart in the record of the Transfiguration (Mark 9:3) and the vision of the Ancient of Days in Daniel 7:9.

(4) The keepers did shake.—The words imply that the two Maries when they reached the sepulchre saw the soldiers prostrate in their panic terror.

(5) The angel answered and said. . . .—We do not read of any words as spoken by the women, but the words which they now heard were an answer to their unuttered questionings and fears. The bright one on whom they gazed knew their distress and amazement at the sight of the emptied sepulchre, and told them that there was no cause for fear.

(6) He is not here.—It is not given to us to fix the precise moment when the grave was opened and the risen Lord came forth from it, but the indications point to the time at or about sunrise. There was an obvious fitness in the symbolism of the Resurrection of the Son of Righteousness coinciding with the natural “day-spring.” (Comp. Luke 1:78.)

Come, see the place.—Comp. the description in John 20:5-6, the “linen clothes,” or bandages, that had swathed the limbs, the napkin, or sudarium, that had veiled the face.

The report in St. Mark (Mark 16:6-7) nearly coincides with this. St. Luke is somewhat fuller (Luke 24:5-7), introducing the question, “Why seek ye the living among the dead?” and a more detailed reference to our Lord’s prophecies of His resurrection.

(7) He goeth before you into Galilee.—The words seem to point to a meeting in Galilee as the first appearance of the risen Lord to His disciples, and St. Matthew records no other. No adequate explanation can be given of the omission of what the other Gospels report, if we assume the whole Gospel to have been written by the Apostle Matthew. On the hypothesis that it is a “Gospel according to Matthew,” representing the substance of his oral teaching, the absence of this or that fact which we should have expected him to record may have been due to some idiosyncrasy in the scribe, or, so to speak, editor of the Gospel. It is possible that if the disciples had believed the report brought by the women the mountain in Galilee would have been the scene of the first meeting between them and their Master; but they did not believe, and required the evidence which He in His compassion gave them, in order to quicken their faith and lead them to obey the command thus given.

(8) They departed quickly.—It is natural that independent narratives, given long years afterwards, of what had passed in the agitation of “fear and great joy “should present seeming, or even real, discrepancies as well as coincidences. The discrepancies, such as they are, at any rate, show that the narratives were independent. The best solution of the questions presented by a comparison of the Gospel narrative at this stage is that Mary Magdalene ran eagerly to tell Peter and John, leaving the other Mary and Joanna (Luke 24:10), and then followed in the rear of the two disciples (John 20:2). Then when they had left, the Lord showed Himself first to her (John 20:14), and then to the others (Matthew 28:9), whom she had by that time joined, and then they all hastened together to tell the rest of the disciples.