<p>28:10&nbsp;<i>Then Jesus said to them: Fear not</i>- See on 28:8&nbsp;<i>They departed quickly.&nbsp;</i>Their fear was wrong, the Angel had urged them not to fear, and yet they still feared.&nbsp;</p><p><i>Go tell My brothers-&nbsp;</i>Mk. 16:7,8 says that initially their fear was so great that they were resolved not to tell anyone anything, i.e. to be disobedient to the commission to tell their brethren the good news. And so the Lord Himself intervenes to urge them to go tell their brethren. Note how the Lord uses the term &quot;My brothers&quot;. He was anxious to demonstrate that His resurrected, glorified status did not mean that His human brethren were not His brethren any longer; just as in Jn. 21 He addresses the disciples with a slang word, &lsquo;guys&rsquo; AV &ldquo;children&rdquo;,&nbsp;<i>paidos</i>, to emphasize His humanity, urging them that His God and Father is theirs (Jn. 20:17,18). We note that it was fear which held them back from obeying the commission to preach, and it is fear which likewise stymies so much of our obedience to the great commission. Fear of consequence, of what others may think of us, of our own unworthiness, fear that we may have misunderstood... all these fears are what stop obedience to the clear, simple command to take the good news directly and personally to others.</p><p><i>&quot;</i>Go tell my brothers<i>&quot;</i> is quoting from the LXX of Ps. 22:23, where in the context of predicting the Lord&rsquo;s death and resurrection, we read that therefore &ldquo;I will tell of Your name to my brothers&rdquo;. The &ldquo;I&rdquo; is clearly Jesus Himself; and yet, as we have elsewhere shown at length, when His people preach in His Name, this is effectively Him preaching. And so the first preacher of the Lord was to be those women. They were to tell His brethren the good news of His resurrection, or, as Ps. 22 puts it, to declare the Name of Yahweh to them. For His resurrection was the declaration and glorification of that Name to the full. Thus Acts 4:10-12 definitely connect the Lord&rsquo;s resurrection and the declaration of the Name. The &ldquo;things concerning the name of Jesus Christ&rdquo; would have been those things which concern His death and resurrection.&nbsp;&ldquo;I will&nbsp;<i>declare</i>&nbsp;thy name unto my brethren&rdquo; (Heb. 2:12) uses the same Greek words as in Mt. 28:10, where Mary is told to go tell her brethren of the resurrection.&nbsp; Rom. 15:8,9 speaks of how it is the Lord Jesus personally who was to fulfil those words through His death, which confirmed the promises of God: &ldquo;Now I say that Jesus Christ was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises<i> made</i>&nbsp;unto the fathers: And that the Gentiles might glorify God for&nbsp;<i>his</i>&nbsp;mercy; as it is written, For this cause I will confess to thee among the Gentiles, and sing unto thy name&rdquo;. And yet these words are applied by the Lord to Mary She was to be Him, in the fulfilment of the great commission to tell the world.</p><p>The women were told by the risen Lord to &ldquo;tell My brethren&hellip;&rdquo;. In Acts 12:17 the same Greek words are used by Peter: &ldquo;Go show these things&hellip; to the brethren&rdquo;. Peter felt that his deliverance from prison was like the Lord&rsquo;s resurrection, and perhaps consciously he used the Lord&rsquo;s words to Mary Magdalene. Peter then went &ldquo;to another place&rdquo; just as the Lord did on saying those words. He saw that his life was a living out of fellowship with the Lord&rsquo;s mortal experiences, every bit as much as our lives are too. The same words occur also in 1 Jn. 1:2,3: &ldquo;That which we have seen and heard the teaching, death and resurrection of Jesus declare we unto you&rdquo;, our brethren. It&rsquo;s as if John is acknowledging that the Lord&rsquo;s commission to Mary was in fact binding upon us all; for we are represented by her. &nbsp;</p><p><i>To go to Galilee and there shall they see Me</i>- The initial plan had been that the women also would need to go to Galilee before meeting the Lord (: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).&nbsp;</p><p>Put together the following passages:<br />-&nbsp;The disciples&rsquo; return to Galilee after the resurrection was a result of their lack of faith (Jn. 16:31,32)<br />-&nbsp;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.<br />-&nbsp;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.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p><p>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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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.</p><p>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 &ldquo;a woman had no right to bear witness, because it was concluded from Gen. 18:15 that she was a liar&rdquo;. And Josephus (<i>Antiquities Of The Jews</i>&nbsp;4.219) concurs: &ldquo;Let not the testimony of women be admitted because of the levity and boldness of their sex&rdquo;. 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. &nbsp;</p>