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Transcript 340D — "Touch Me Not" [Jn 20:17]
HC: Good evening. Welcome to Open Forum.
CALLER: Yes. I'd like to have your views on John 20:17, and just what is meant there.
HC: John 20:17. Okay. Let's look at that a moment. In John 20:17, "Jesus said unto Mary, Touch Me not, for I am not yet ascended to My Father. But go to My brethren and say unto them, I ascend unto My Father and your Father, and to My God and your God."
CALLER: What I really wanted to get down to is, where was Jesus? I thought after He had died that He went to His Father right away. Does this verse mean that He did go to hell?
HC: No. In this verse Jesus is simply saying that when He had finished His work He would ascend to the Father. Now it is true that when He hung on the cross He said to the thief next to him, "Today thou shalt be with Me in Paradise." Now Paradise is Heaven, where the Father is, where the Tree of Life is. And He also said, "Father, into Thy hands I commend My Spirit." So Christ in His Spirit went to be with the Father temporarily, while His body went into the grave. His body was put in the grave. It did not see corruption, we read in Acts 2:30. But it was the body of Jesus. Then He rose again on Sunday morning. That meant that in His spirit He no longer was in Heaven. So it was just momentarily that He was in Heaven.
However, when He went to be with the Father in His spirit, that was not the ascension. His work of the atonement was not completed in the total sense of the word. Actually, He did not ascend to the Father until forty days later.
Now when He did ascend to the Father, then a few days later He sent for the Holy Spirit. That is, the Holy Spirit was poured out. And that is language simply to indicate that God began His program to evangelize the world.
Now the role of the believer in the world is to be an ambassador of Christ, to represent Christ. We're strangers and pilgrims here, living in a very alien world, and our role is to preach the Gospel, to tell others about the Gospel. Until we have completed our task we cannot go to be with Christ eternally. We cannot stay with Him. This is what Mary wanted. Mary wanted to continue to be with Jesus. But Jesus said, "No, you can't. You can't hold on to Me now because I have to ascend to the Father." Earlier in John He had said, "If I don't go to the Father, then the Holy Spirit will not come." And it was God's program that Jesus would go to the Father. The Holy Spirit would then be poured out. That is, God would begin His program to evangelize the world. And Mary Magdalene and all the other believers would have a part in this, because they were ambassadors of His.
Anticipating this, He said to her, "Go to My brethren and say unto them, I ascend unto My Father and your Father." He dispatched her right then and there, to get on with the task of being a witness.
CALLER: Okay. Thank you. I talked to you once about three months ago about this thing of Jesus going to hell. And I didn't quite understand it then when you explained it. And I'm kind of being tossed around about what to think about this. Did Jesus actually go to hell and suffer for us? I know that it sounds like He did.
HC: The Apostles Creed says He descended into hell. Actually, to be in hell, for the unsaved of the world, means that they're going to be in a place outside of this world, and they're going to spend eternity there, under the wrath of God. Now they have to be removed from this earth because God has other plans for this universe. He plans to burn it with fire on the last day, at the end of time, and to recreate it New Heavens and New Earth, where righteousness dwells. So for the unsaved, hell is some other place. And it's a place where they will spend eternity.
Now Christ is the God-man. He became sin for us, and God poured out His wrath upon Him during the atonement, to such a degree that it became the equivalent of an eternity in hell. Now it wasn't necessary for Jesus to actually go to a place called hell. It was necessary that He suffer hell. The only reason the unsaved man has to go to a place called hell is because he can't remain on this earth. God has other plans for this earth. Otherwise he could be under the wrath of God on this earth.
So already beginning in the Garden of Gethsemane when He said "My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death," and with loud cries He throws Himself to the ground, and the sweat is pouring off His body like great drops of blood into the ground, He's already enduring hell. The wrath of God is being poured out upon Him. When He hangs on the cross, and the cry comes from His lips, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" that's hell, to be forsaken by God.
Now we can't really understand the suffering of Jesus because we don't understand the perfection of the holiness of God, the perfection of the righteousness of God. But just imagine, if we could get just a little bit of a mental picture. Here is Christ, who is God, who is eternal God and who has never committed any sin, who has never been at odds with God, because He is God and He's perfect in His righteousness and would never never, for any reason whatsoever, be under the curse of God. But now, under the atonement plan, He has become sin for us. That alone must have been intense suffering, that He became a cursed thing because of our sins.
And now, because of the fact that He's under the curse of God (and that's a mystery how God could be under the curse of God, but nevertheless this is what happened at the cross), He is abandoned by God, rejected by God, cast away from God like a dirty garment. For the perfect sinless Jesus, who is God Himself, to endure this kind of awful reproach and treatment must have been suffering that was absolutely intense.
In any case, whatever the suffering was, it became the equivalent of an eternity in hell for us who are saved. Otherwise the justice of God would not have been completely satisfied.
CALLER: So He didn't necessarily have to go to hell then.
HC: He didn't have to go down to a place called hell, but the Bible does use language that seems to suggest that He went down to a place. But it uses this language in describing the suffering of the cross. In Matthew 12:40 it says that He must be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The heart of the earth there is a figure of the punishment He must endure for our sins. The three days and three nights encompass the period from Thursday night, when He was in the Garden of Gethsemane until Sunday morning when He was resurrected – three nights and three days.
In Ephesians 4, when it describes our Savior saving us, it says He led captivity captive. And He descended into the lower parts of the earth, which is similar language to being in the heart of the earth. Now the lower parts of the earth are a synonym for hell. In other places in the Bible you find the term "the pit" as a synonym for hell. Satan comes out of the pit.
Now Jesus had to, in a sense, go into hell because that is where we are when he saves us. We are under the wrath of God. We are subject to God's righteous judgment because of our sins. This is where He finds us to save us.
Secondly, He had to go into hell, that is, He had to endure the wrath of God. He had to endure hell for our sins in order to save us.
And so for both of these reasons we see why He descended into the lower parts of the earth. And He led captivity captive. Now when He found us, we were captives of Satan. We were slaves of Satan. And He set us free from that bondage and made us bond servants of His.
CALLER: I see. Finally I see that.