"Touch me not"

Verse by Verse The Four Gospels by Ogden and Skinner, p. 683

John 20:14-17

Mary turned around and saw Jesus, but through her tears she did not recognize him, and when asked who she was looking for, she replied to that man she supposed was the gardener:

"Sir, if thou have borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away."

Jesus spoke her name: "Mary."

Then she recognized him: "Rabboni" (Master).

Mary instantly desired to embrace him, but his first embrace was reserved for his Father—then mortals.

"Hold me not," he gently explained to her, "for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascent unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God" (JST John 20:17).

There would not be a respectful separation between immortals and mortals.  Jesus taught: He is first my Father and God, then your Father and God.  And Jesus himself was not more than mortal friend and associate in the divine work; he was Savior, Lord, and God to those brethren and siters and to all humankind.

If, as the Savior indicated, he had not yet ascended to his Father, where had he been? The answer is more gloriously and plainly presented in Doctrine and Covenants 138 than anywhere else in scripture.

Frank Judd, Essential New Testament Companion, 53

"Some have taken this to mean that nobody was allowed to touch Jesus until He ascended to heaven.  A better tranlstion of the Greek verb, however, is probably, 'Stop holding on to me.' Mary had already witnesses Jesus's crucifixion (see John 19:25) and did not want to lose Him again. . . . The Joseph Smith Translation seems to support this interpretation by modifying Jesus's response to 'Hold me not' (JST, John 20:17)."

Elder Bruce R. McConkie

We cannot believe that the caution which withheld from Jesus the embrace of Mary was anything more than the building of a proper wall of reserve between intimates who are now on two sides of the veil. If a resurrected brother appeared to a mortal brother, or if a resurrected husband appeared to a mortal wife, would they be free to embrace each other on the same terms of intimacy as had prevailed when both were mortals? But perhaps there was more in Jesus' statement than Mary related or than John recorded, for in a very short time we shall see a group of faithful women hold Jesus by his feet as they worship him. The seeming refusal of Jesus to permit Mary to touch him, followed almost immediately by the appearance in which the other women were permitted to hold his feet, has always been the source of some interpretative concern. “The King James Version quotes Jesus as saying ‘Touch me not.’ The Joseph Smith Translation reads ‘Hold me not.’ Various translations from the Greek render the passage as ‘Do not cling to me’ or ‘Do not hold me.’ Some give the meaning as ‘Do not cling to me any longer,’ or ‘Do not hold me any longer.’ Some speak of ceasing to hold him or cling to him, leaving the inference that Mary was already holding him. There is valid reason for supposing that the thought conveyed to Mary by the Risen Lord was to this effect: ‘You cannot hold me here, for I am going to ascend to my Father.’ But the great message that was preserved for us is Jesus’ eternal relationship to his Father. ‘My’ Father and ‘your’ Father—Elohim is the Father of all men in the spirit, and of the Lord Jesus in an added and special sense. He is the Father of both Jesus’ spirit and his body. ‘My’ God and ‘your’ God—and again Elohim is the God of all men, but in Jesus’ case, though he himself is a God and has all power, though he is a member of the very Godhead itself, yet is he everlastingly in subjection to the same God who is our Father” (The Mortal Messiah: From Bethlehem to Calvary, 4 vols. [1979–81], 4:264–65).