5 And the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified. 6 He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay. 7 And go quickly, and tell his disciples that he is risen from the dead; and, behold, he goeth before you into Galilee; there shall ye see him: lo, I have told you. (Matthew 28:5-7 KJV)
William Burkitt’s Commentary
Observe here, 1. Our Lord’s resurrection asserted and declared, He is risen. God never intended that the darling of his soul should be lost in an obscure sepulchre. He is not here, says the angel; that is, in the grave, where you laid him, where you left him. Death hath lost its prey and the grave has lost her guest.
Observe, 2. It is not said, he is not here for he is raised, but, He is risen. The word imports the active power of Christ, or the self quickening principle by which Christ raised himself from the dead. He showed himself alive after his passion. Ac 1:3
Learn hence, That it was the divine nature or godhead of Christ, which raised his human nature from death to life. Others were raised from the grave by Christ’s power, he raised himself by his own power.
Observe, 3. The testimony or witness given to our Lord’s resurrection; that of an angel: The angel said, He is not here, but risen. But why is an angel the first publisher of our Lord’s resurrection? Surely the dignity of our Lord’s person, and the excellency of his resurrection, required that it should be first published by an angel; and accordingly it is worthy of our observation, how very serviceable and officious the holy angels were in attending upon our Saviour in the days of his flesh; and angel foretells his conception to the blessed Virgin; and angel proclaims his birth to the shepherds; an angel succours him in his temptation in the wilderness; an angel comforts him in his agony in the garden; and at his resurrection the angel rolls away the stone from the sepulchre, and brings the first tidings of it to the women. In his ascension the angels bore him company to heaven: and when he comes again to judgment, he shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels.
Observe, 4. The persons to whom our Lord’s resurrection was first made known, to women, to the two Marys. But why to women? God will make choice of weak means for producing great effects, knowing that the weakness of the instrument redounds to the greater honour of the agent.
In the whole dispensation of the gospel, Almighty God intermixes divine power with human weakness. Thus the conception of Christ was by the power of the Holy Ghost; but his mother, a poor woman, a carpenter’s spouse: so the baseness, being crucified between two thieves; but the powers of heaven and earth trembling, the rocks rending, and the graves opening, showed a mixture of divine power. God will honour what instruments he pleases, for the women, the two Marys, is the discovery of Christ’s resurrection first made? Possibly it was a reward for their magnanimity and masculine courage.
These women cleaved to Christ when the apostles fled from him, and forsook him; they assisted at his cross, they attended at his funeral they watched his sepulchre. These women had more courage than the apostles, therefore God makes the women apostles to the apostles; he sends them to tell the apostles of the resurrection, and they must have the news at the second hand.
O what a tacit rebuke was thereby given to the apostles! A secret check, that they should be thus out-done by poor women. These holy women went before the apostles in the last services that were done for Christ, and therefore the apostles here come after them in their rewards and comforts.
Observe, 5. The evidence which the angel offers to the women, to evince and prove the verity and certainty of our Saviour’s resurrection; namely, by an appeal to their senses; Come, see the place where the Lord lay. The senses concerning the truth of his own resurrection; Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: and indeed, if we must not believe our senses, we shall want the best external evidence for the proof of the truth of the Christian religion; namely the miracles wrought by Christ and his apostles: for what assurance can we have of the reality of those miracles, but from our senses; therefore says our Saviour, If ye believe not me, yet believe the works that I do; that is, the miracles which I have wrought before your eyes. Now as my senses tell me that Christ’s miracles were true, so they assure me that the doctrine of transubstantiation is false.
From the whole note, That the Lord Jesus Christ, by the omnipotency of his godhead, revived and rose again from the dead, to the terror and consternation of his enemies, and the unspeakable joy and consolation of believers.