We will go through many scriptures that a well-informed Russellite would have to confuse those who are seeking the truth, answer them quickly, and move on.
“And when she had thus said, she turned herself back, and saw Jesus standing, and knew not that it was Jesus.” John 20:14 Their claim is that Jesus was resurrected in a spiritual body, that His physical body is hidden away in a gaseous form later to be revealed. (I think when you tell a lie, you ought to at least be creative!!)
No person in their right mind would have expected what Mary Magdalene encountered that very early Sunday morning at the sepulcher. She ran and found Simon Peter and John out of her mind with fear: “they have taken away the Lord out of the sepulcher, and we know not where they have laid Him.” Peter and John ran to see just what they could make of the situation. John outran Peter but Peter went into the tomb first. The Book says, “Then went in also the other disciple, who came first to the sepulcher, and he saw, and believed. What did he believe? What he had been told; “they have taken away the Lord!!” Mary is now beside herself, weeping. She had conversed with the two angels, but either couldn’t comprehend what they were saying or just outright, did not believe them!! They asked her why she wept. She answered as she had told Peter and John, “Because they have taken away my Lord.” The angels tried to reason with Mary: “why seek the living among the dead? He is not here but is risen: remember how He spoke unto you when He was yet in Galilee. Saying, ‘The Son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again”. At this moment she looked out from within the tomb and saw Jesus, although she did not recognize Him. Mary was alone, the angels were still seated inside the tomb, and she sees someone outside who she might have thought had known the person or persons that had taken the body of Christ and she had her back to Him.. At this moment, Jesus spoke to her. She thought Him a gardener. (What a gardener would have been doing there working at around day-break would be also impossible to explain.) Can’t you just imagine Mary was thinking; “where is Peter and John when you need them!” Intent on finding where they had laid the Lord, Mary with her back to Jesus hears the voice that would have awakened the ALL the dead and one day will!! Jesus calls her by NAME. Immediately, she turned herself, and says unto Him, Rabboni; which is to say, Master.” She is by now close enough to Christ that she is clinging to His clothing. Jesus says to her; “stop clinging to Me. For I have not yet ascended to the Father. But be on your way to My brothers and say unto them, ‘I am ascending to My Father and your Father and to My God and your God.”
The message is clear. “Stop clinging to Me, go and tell My disciples I will be leaving to the Father’s abode, soon, meet Me as I had previously directed!!” This was the first Sunday evening service!! To ignore the real message and concentrate on “touch Me not” causes a misconception and misunderstanding of the message intended by the Lord.
Did Jesus resurrect in the body He had previously inhabited? Yes, Mary was not expecting to see Him, it was early in the morning, and she was hysterical, thinking someone had stolen His body away. What brought her to sense was Jesus calling her name. Was His resurrected body spiritual? No, telling the same event Luke records Jesus showing His hands and feet remarking “a Spirit hath not flesh and bones, as you see Me have”, He also asked for food: “Have you here any meat?” that for which a spirit has no need. “He took it and ate it before them”. Luke 24:43
