Three authors interpret Jesus words- Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended
What does Jesus mean?
20:17 Do not cling to Me, for I have not yet ascended. Mary was expressing a desire to hold on to His physical presence for fear that she would once again lose Him. Jesus’ reference to His ascension signifies that He would only be temporarily with them and though she desperately wanted Him to stay, He could not. Jesus was with them only for 40 more days and then He ascended (Acts 1:3–11). After He went to the Father, He sent the Holy Spirit (“The Helper”) so that they would not feel abandoned (see note on 14:18, 19).
Mary had known Jesus personally as a Man. She had seen miracles happen when He was bodily present. So she concluded that if He was not with her in a visible way, then she could have no hope of blessing. The Lord must correct her thinking. He said, “Do not cling to Me simply as a Man in the flesh. I have not yet ascended to My Father. When I do return to heaven, the Holy Spirit will be sent down to the earth. When He comes, He will reveal Me to your heart in a way you have never known Me before. I will be nearer and dearer to you than was possible during My life here.”
Then He told her to go to His brethren and tell them of the new order that had been ushered in. For the first time, the Lord referred to the disciples as “My brethren.” They were to know that His Father was their Father, and His God was their God. Not until now were believers made “sons” and “heirs of God.”
The Lord Jesus did not say, “Our Father,” but “My Father and your Father.” The reason is that God is His Father in a different sense than He is ours.
John 20:17 is one of the most perplexing sections in the Gospel. The difficulty relates especially to the concept of ascension presented in it. Mary is given a message to the disciples that Jesus is about to ascend to the Father; why not rather that he is risen from the dead?
If ascension is Jesus going to the Father, how can that be separated from his death and resurrection as a “lifting up” to the Father? Mary is told not to attempt to hold on to Jesus because he has not yet ascended; Thomas is invited to thrust his hand into the wounds of Jesus. Does the ascension take place between the two occasions?
We begin with the observation that v 17 is reminiscent of Matt 28:10. There the message for the disciples is that they are to go into Galilee to meet Jesus (it is in the angelic declaration of 28:7 that the women are to tell them that Jesus is risen). Matthew’s message thus assumes the resurrection of Jesus; so does the message through Mary. The last thing that the disciples have learned about Jesus is that his body is missing; here they are to learn that he is alive, and on his way to his Father to complete his saving task.
We should further observe that the emphasis in the word to Mary is not the negative ‘I am not ascended,’ but the positive “I am ascending.” v 17 should not be split into two halves, but be seen as one, and its unity maintained.
‘Do not insist on touching me, for I am not yet ascended to my Father; however, I will not delay much to go.… This is what you must say to my brothers, that they may be better prepared than you have been to understand the nature of my presence’ The paraphrase “I will not delay much to go” is better rendered “I am on my way,” or “I am in process of going”. That suggests that the “ascension” to which Jesus refers, which has not happened but which is on the way, relates especially to the work that Jesus is accomplishing in the completion of his saving task, i.e., in his mediation of the saving sovereignty of God to the world. This work of his, for which he dies and rises and ascends to the Father, has been made known to the disciples, especially in the Upper Room discourses. We recall his promise to prepare a place for the disciples in the Father’s house (14:2); to banish their sadness and fill them with joy through reunion with them (14:18–19; 16:16–22); the new relationship whereby the Father and the Son will make their home with them (14:21–23); the new era of effective prayer and power in their service for God (14:12–14; 16:23–24); and above all the bestowal of the Paraclete-Spirit, who will take the place of Jesus and expound his revelation to them and enable them to carry out their mission.
The virtual replacement of the language of resurrection with that of ascension is an indication that the two are fundamentally one, and indissolubly bound with the death of Jesus.
BDF F. Blass, A. Debrunner, and R. W. Funk, A Greek Grammar of the New Testament (University of Chicago/University of Cambridge, 1961)
Beasley-Murray, G. R. (2002). John (Vol. 36, pp. 376–377). Dallas: Word, Incorporated.
Beasley-Murray, G. R. (2002). John (Vol. 36, p. 377). Dallas: Word, Incorporated.MacDonald, W. (1995). Believer’s Bible Commentary: Old and New Testaments. (A. Farstad, Ed.) (pp. 1567–1568). Nashville: Thomas Nelson.
MacArthur, J., Jr. (Ed.). (1997). The MacArthur Study Bible (electronic ed., p. 1627). Nashville, TN: Word Pub.
