Mark 16

Mark closes where every Gospel must: at the tomb, and then beyond it. The Sabbath past, three women - Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome - buy sweet spices and come very early in the morning the first day of the week… at the rising of the sun (v. 2) to anoint the body of Jesus. Their only question is who will move the stone, for it was very great (v. 4). They find it already rolled away, and inside the tomb a young man in a long white garment, who steadies their fear with the announcement the whole book has been straining toward: Be not affrighted: Ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified: he is risen; he is not here: behold the place where they laid him (v. 6).³

The charge they are given is specific and tender: go your way, tell his disciples and Peter that he goeth before you into Galilee: there shall ye see him, as he said unto you (v. 7). Peter - who had wept after denying his Lord - is named by himself, so that the one most sure he had forfeited his place would hear that he had not. The women flee the sepulchre trembling and amazed, at first saying nothing to anyone, for they were afraid (v. 8). Then the risen Lord appears in person: first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom He had cast seven devils; then, in another form, to two of them walking into the country; and at last to the eleven as they sat at meat, where He upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart (v. 14), for they had not believed the witnesses of His rising.²

Out of that rebuke comes the sending. The risen Christ gives the eleven - and through them His church in every age - a commission as wide as the human race: Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned (vv. 15-16). He names the signs that will follow and confirm their word in that founding age, and then the Gospel ends not with a body in a grave but with a King upon a throne: So then after the Lord had spoken unto them, he was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God. And they went forth, and preached every where, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word with signs following (vv. 19-20).

Tap any highlighted phrase to jump to the commentary that unpacks it.

Mark 16 · He Is Risen (themed)L'AscensionGustave Doré · 1866

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Mark 16:1-8He Is Risen

1And when the sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, had bought sweet spices, that they might come and anoint him. 2And very early in the morning the first day of the week, they came unto the sepulchre at the rising of the sun. 3And they said among themselves, Who shall roll us away the stone from the door of the sepulchre? 4And when they looked, they saw that the stone was rolled away: for it was very great. 5And entering into the sepulchre, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, clothed in a long white garment; and they were affrighted.

The chapter opens on a small, human, heartbreaking errand. When the sabbath was past - the law had kept them home through the holy day - the three women buy sweet spices, that they might come and anoint him (v. 1), and they set out very early in the morning the first day of the week… at the rising of the sun (v. 2). This is the work of love after a death: to tend the body, to anoint it, to do the last decent thing for someone you cannot stop loving. They are not on their way to a miracle. They expect to find a corpse three days dead. And their one worry, voiced on the road, is purely practical: Who shall roll us away the stone from the door of the sepulchre? (v. 3). The stone is too great for them; they have no plan for moving it. It is worth sitting with how ordinary their grief is - how unprepared they are for what they are about to meet. The faith that will fill the church was not, on that first morning, even hoping for resurrection. It was carrying spices and wondering about a stone.³

Then they look up. And when they looked, they saw that the stone was rolled away: for it was very great (v. 4). Mark lingers on the size of it almost as an aside - the very thing they feared was unmovable is already moved. The barrier between the living and the dead, the seal of the grave, the great stone that the previous chapter watched being rolled to the door (15:46), has been rolled back. They enter, and they saw a young man sitting on the right side, clothed in a long white garment; and they were affrighted (v. 5). The white garment marks a messenger of heaven; the calm posture - sitting, at rest, on the right side - is itself a kind of announcement, for there is nothing left to do here. The fear of the women is the right reaction to standing where the power of God has just broken in. What unsettles them is not that something terrible has happened, but that something has happened far beyond anything they came prepared to handle.

6And he saith unto them, Be not affrighted: Ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified: he is risen; he is not here: behold the place where they laid him. 7But go your way, tell his disciples and Peter that he goeth before you into Galilee: there shall ye see him, as he said unto you. 8And they went out quickly, and fled from the sepulchre; for they trembled and were amazed: neither said they any thing to any man; for they were afraid.

The messenger steadies them before he stuns them: Be not affrighted: Ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified: he is risen; he is not here: behold the place where they laid him (v. 6). Notice how the sentence is built. He names the very Jesus they are looking for - the man of Nazareth, the one which was crucified, no other - and then turns the world inside out: he is risen; he is not here. And he points to evidence anyone can check: behold the place where they laid him. The slab is empty. The body that was wrapped and laid there two evenings before is gone. Then comes the commission, and with it the trembling exit: they went out quickly, and fled from the sepulchre; for they trembled and were amazed: neither said they any thing to any man; for they were afraid (v. 8). It is a strikingly honest ending. The first witnesses of the resurrection do not stride out in triumph; they run, shaking, struck speechless. The good news is so large it frightens them before it gladdens them - which is its own quiet testimony that they did not invent it. No one fabricating a tale of victory writes the heroes fleeing in terror.

Christ Connection - He Is Risen; He Is Not Here

This is the sentence the whole Gospel of Mark has been moving toward, and the whole Christian faith rests on it being true in the plainest possible way: he is risen; he is not here: behold the place where they laid him (v. 6). The body that the centurion watched die (15:39), that Joseph wrapped in linen and laid in a tomb hewn out of rock with a stone rolled to the door (15:46), is gone. The grave is empty; the slab can be pointed at; the One who was crucified is alive. The apostle Paul tells us this is not one truth among many but the ground the gospel stands or falls upon: I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures (1 Cor. 15:3-4)². He presses it to the edge: if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain (1 Cor. 15:14). Everything hangs here. And then he turns from the edge to the joy of it: now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept (1 Cor. 15:20). The empty tomb is not a private wonder for Jesus alone; it is the first sheaf of a harvest, the promise written into history that death is a defeated power. He Himself had said it on the road - The Son of man… shall be killed, and after three days rise again (Mark 8:31) - and now the messenger in white says it back to His mourners as accomplished fact: he is risen. The crucified Lord lives; the grave could not keep Him; and because the tomb is empty, the gospel is true.

Christ Connection - Tell His Disciples and Peter

There is a single word in the messenger's charge that carries the whole gospel in miniature: go your way, tell his disciples and Peter that he goeth before you into Galilee (v. 7). Why and Peter? Peter is one of the disciples; the word would have reached him. He is named separately on purpose - because Peter, of all of them, had the most reason to think the word was no longer for him. Just chapters before, in the courtyard while his Lord was on trial, Peter had denied Him three times with oaths and curses, and when the cock crew he went out, and wept bitterly (Mark 14:72). A man who fails like that does not assume he still belongs. So the risen Lord sends back a message with his name stitched into it, so the denier would hear, before he could even ask, that he had not been cut off. This is exactly how the wounded Christ deals with the one who wounded the relationship: He seeks him out by name. The same pattern runs all through the Gospel - I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance (Mark 2:17); the shepherd who goes after the one. And it is the grace held out to every reader who is sure their failure has put them outside: the resurrection message comes addressed not only to the faithful, but to the one who fell - and Peter.

Sit with the two small words the messenger adds: and Peter (v. 7). The risen Lord could have said simply, “tell his disciples” - Peter was a disciple, the word would have come to him. But Jesus has him named on his own, because the man who had denied Him with oaths was surely certain, that morning, that he no longer had a place. The grace of the resurrection reached for him first and by name. Most of us carry some version of Peter's certainty - a failure we are sure has quietly disqualified us, a moment we said or did the very thing we swore we never would, after which we have lived as though God's good word must now be for other people and not for us. The risen Christ's first recorded instruction cuts straight against that. So bring the thing you are most sure has cut you off - the denial, the cowardice, the long drift - and hear your own name stitched into the message that was sent back for Peter. The empty tomb does not only announce that Christ is alive; it announces that He is alive and still calling the one who failed Him. Do not write yourself out of a story the risen Lord is writing you back into.

Mark 16:9-14He Appeared First to Mary Magdalene

9Now when Jesus was risen early the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had cast seven devils. 10And she went and told them that had been with him, as they mourned and wept. 11And they, when they had heard that he was alive, and had been seen of her, believed not.

The risen Lord's first appearance is itself a sermon on grace. Now when Jesus was risen early the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had cast seven devils (v. 9). Of all the people He might have come to first - the eleven, the inner three, His own mother - the living Christ shows Himself first to a woman He had once delivered from sevenfold torment. The detail is not incidental; Mark keeps it on the page. The depth of her former bondage is the measure of His former mercy, and now she is the first eyes to see Him alive. She does the only natural thing: she went and told them that had been with him, as they mourned and wept (v. 10). The disciples are not waiting in hope; they are grieving as men whose cause has died with their master. And their response to the first resurrection report is the response that will repeat through this whole section: they, when they had heard that he was alive, and had been seen of her, believed not (v. 11). The news is simply too good, and the grief too settled, for them to take it in.

12After that he appeared in another form unto two of them, as they walked, and went into the country. 13And they went and told it unto the residue: neither believed they them. 14Afterward he appeared unto the eleven as they sat at meat, and upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they believed not them which had seen him after he was risen.

The pattern holds and deepens. After that he appeared in another form unto two of them, as they walked, and went into the country (v. 12) - the brief notice of the longer road-to-Emmaus scene told elsewhere - and again, when these two carry the report back, neither believed they them (v. 13). Three waves of witness now, and three refusals. So at last he appeared unto the eleven as they sat at meat, and upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they believed not them which had seen him after he was risen (v. 14). The word upbraided is strong; the risen Lord does not paper over their failure. But weigh what this honesty tells us. Mark, writing the church's own founding story, records that its first leaders were stubborn doubters who had to be rebuked into belief - not visionaries primed to see what they wanted. Faith was forced on them by a fact they kept resisting. And weigh, too, the mercy underneath the rebuke: He corrects them, but He does not replace them. The same eleven who would not believe are the eleven He is about to send into all the world. He reproves their hardness and then entrusts them with everything.

Christ Connection - He Appeared First to Mary Magdalene

That the risen Christ appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had cast seven devils (v. 9) is exactly the kind of thing the Gospel keeps doing, and it is no accident here at the end. The One who throughout Mark reached for the leper, the unclean, the demon-tormented, the ones the world had written off, now - in His risen glory, with all of heaven open to Him - comes first to a woman He had carried up out of sevenfold darkness. Her past bondage is named not to shame her but to magnify Him: this is whom the Lord of life chooses to greet first. It is the same heart that said, They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick… I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance (Mark 2:17)². And the unbelief that follows in these verses only sharpens the grace, for it is met not with rejection but with patience: the risen Christ keeps coming - to Mary, to the two, to the eleven - pressing past their hardness until they believe. The living Lord is not a reward for the strong-hearted who got it right. He is the seeker of the delivered woman, the patient teacher of the doubting men - the same yesterday in Galilee and today outside the empty tomb.

Read these verses honestly and they are oddly bracing: the heroes of the church's founding are doubters. Mary tells them He is alive and they… believed not (v. 11). The two come back from the road and neither believed they them (v. 13). The Lord finally stands among the eleven and has to upbraid them with their unbelief and hardness of heart (v. 14). These are the men who will shortly carry the gospel to the ends of the earth - and at this moment they cannot make themselves believe the best news ever spoken. There is real comfort in that for anyone who has felt their own faith come slow and stubborn. Belief in the resurrection was not, for the first disciples, a sunny disposition or an easy leap; it was a fact that had to break through grief and doubt and a settled certainty that it was all over. If you find that you believe haltingly, that hope has to fight its way past a heavy heart, you are in the company of the eleven. And notice the great mercy of the scene: the risen Lord did not wait for them to summon faith on their own. He came to them - again, and again, and again - until they did. He is patient with slow believers. Bring Him your halting belief and let Him keep coming.

Mark 16:15-20Go Ye Into All the World

15And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. 16He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.

Out of the rebuke comes the sending, and the scope of it is breathtaking: Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature (v. 15). Every word stretches the horizon wider. Not stay but go; not to one city or one people but into all the world; not to a chosen few but to every creature. The good news that began with one carpenter calling fishermen by a Galilean lake is now to be carried to the whole human race without exception. This is the same trajectory the whole Bible has been on - the promise to Abraham that in him all families of the earth would be blessed, the vision of the nations streaming in - now made an explicit marching order. The risen Lord does not gather His own into a safe and private circle; He flings the doors open and sends them out. The church does not exist for itself. It exists to go, and to keep going until every creature has heard.

The terms of the message are laid out with great plainness: He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned (v. 16). Read the sentence carefully, because its two halves are not mirror images. The way of salvation is described fully - believeth and is baptized - faith owned and faith confessed, the inward turning and its outward sign together. But when the verse names what brings condemnation, it does not say “he that is not baptized”; it says he that believeth not. The weight of the warning falls squarely on unbelief. What shuts a person out is the refusal of the good news itself - the turning away from Christ - not the mere absence of a rite. This matches how the rest of the New Testament speaks: he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed (John 3:18). The stakes the verse sets before every hearer are real and ultimate, and that is precisely why the commission is so urgent: people are genuinely lost or genuinely saved, and the message the church carries is the difference. To preach the gospel to every creature is not optional pageantry; it is rescue.

17And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; 18They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover. 19So then after the Lord had spoken unto them, he was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God. 20And they went forth, and preached every where, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word with signs following. Amen.

The Lord then names signs that will accompany the message as it goes out: In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover (vv. 17-18). These are best understood for what the closing verse says they are - the way God confirmed the word in the founding age of the church, His own attestation that the gospel the apostles preached was true. The book of Acts shows them coming to pass: the disciples speak in other tongues, cast out evil spirits, and heal the sick in Jesus' name; Paul is unharmed when a viper fastens on his hand. The point of the signs is never the sign itself, and certainly never a dare - nothing here commands a believer to seek out serpents or poison to prove anything; the scene is one of unexpected protection, not engineered risk. The signs are God's signature on the message, exactly as Scripture elsewhere says: the great salvation was confirmed unto us by them that heard him; God also bearing them witness, both with signs and wonders, and with divers miracles (Heb. 2:3-4). The accent falls on the One being preached, not on the wonders that point to Him.

And then the Gospel ends - not at a grave, but at a throne. So then after the Lord had spoken unto them, he was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God (v. 19). The story that opened with Jesus stepping out of the Galilean crowd to be baptized in the Jordan closes with Him received up out of the sight of His own into heaven itself. Received up is a passive again, like the empty tomb's “he is risen”: the Father raised Him from the dead and the Father takes Him up on high. And He does not merely depart - He sat, He took His seat on the right hand of God. To sit at the right hand is to be enthroned, to hold the place of highest honour and authority. The final picture Mark leaves us is not of an absent teacher but of a reigning King. Then the disciples obey: they went forth, and preached every where, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word with signs following (v. 20). The book ends mid-stride, with the gospel already on the move - and the risen, enthroned Lord not watching from a distance but working with them. The mission is His before it is theirs, and He never leaves the field.

Christ Connection - The Gospel to Every Creature

The risen Christ's charge - Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature (v. 15) - is the widening of a promise as old as Abraham, now thrown open to the whole earth. From the beginning the purpose had been a blessing that could not be contained in one nation: in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed (Gen. 12:3). The prophets saw it coming - the LORD's servant given for a light to the Gentiles, that He might be God's salvation unto the end of the earth (Isa. 49:6). And the One who gives this commission is the same Lord of whom John saw it written that He had redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation (Rev. 5:9). The reach of the gospel is exactly as wide as the reach of His cross: He died for the world, and so the news of Him is owed to every creature. No people is beyond it, no language outside it, no person too far gone for it. This is why the church goes - not to extend its own borders, but because the risen King has a claim on every soul He bought, and a word of life for every creature under heaven. The empty tomb that begins this chapter is the reason the gospel must reach the ends of the earth: a living Lord has good news, and it is for all.

Christ Connection - Received Up, and Sat on the Right Hand of God

Mark's last word about Jesus is a coronation: he was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God (v. 19). This is the answer to the cross and the crown of the resurrection. The One who was mocked with a crown of thorns and a robe of purple, who was lifted up between two thieves, is now lifted up into heaven and seated in the place of highest authority. The eyewitnesses watched it happen: while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight (Acts 1:9)², and two messengers promised that this same Jesus… shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go (Acts 1:11). And to sit at God's right hand is to take the throne David foresaw a thousand years before: The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool (Ps. 110:1) - the very psalm Jesus had pressed upon His questioners earlier in this Gospel (Mark 12:36). Peter would preach it as the heart of the good news: God hath raised up… this Jesus… Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted (Acts 2:32-33). So the Gospel that announced in its first line that this is the Son of God (1:1) ends with that Son enthroned in heaven. He is not gone; He is reigning. The crucified carpenter of Galilee is Lord of all - and from that throne He still works with His church, as the last verse says, the Lord working with them (v. 20).

The Gospel of Mark does not end with a farewell; it ends with a King taking His throne and a church already on the road. He was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God. And they went forth, and preached every where, the Lord working with them (vv. 19-20). Hold those two clauses together, because they are the shape of the Christian life. Christ is enthroned - not absent, not waiting passively, but reigning; and the same risen Lord is working with His people as they go. The Great Commission was never a charge handed to the eleven and then filed away in the first century. The book closes mid-sentence, with the gospel still moving, precisely so the reader would understand the story is not finished - you are inside it. The risen Christ still sends, and still works alongside those He sends. So the practical question this final chapter leaves is plain and personal: who, in the ordinary traffic of your life this week, has not heard the good news plainly - a neighbour, a coworker, someone in your own house - and what would it look like to be one of those who went forth? You do not go alone or in your own strength. The promise stitched into the last verse is that the Lord goes with you, working where you cannot see, confirming the word you carry. The tomb is empty; the King is enthroned; the message is moving - and there is room in the sentence for you.

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Further study

Mark 16 · Greek interlinear with lexiconBible Hub
The Greek text of Mark 16 word by word, each word parsed and linked to its lexicon entry - useful for the passive verb behind “he is risen” in verse 6 (ēgerthē, “he has been raised”), for the command to “preach the gospel” in verse 15 (kēryssō + euangelion), and for the phrase “received up” in verse 19.
Mark 16 ↔ Psalm 110 · 1 Corinthians 15 · Acts 1Intertextual Bible
Traces the threads tying Mark 16 to the rest of Scripture - the empty tomb and the third-day rising (v. 6) read against 1 Corinthians 15:3-4, 20; the session at God's right hand (v. 19) against Psalm 110:1; and the ascension against the eyewitness account of Acts 1:9-11.
Mark 16 - Translators' NotesNET Bible
The NET Bible's detailed footnotes on Mark 16 - the women's arrival at the sepulchre and the announcement of the rising (vv. 1-8), the appearances of the risen Lord (vv. 9-14), and the commission, the signs, and the ascension that close the Gospel (vv. 15-20).

Where this echoes in Scripture

He Is Risen

He Appeared First to Mary Magdalene

Go Ye Into All the World

Mark 16

Tap any highlighted phrase to jump to the commentary that unpacks it.

Mark 16 · He Is Risen (themed)L'AscensionGustave Doré · 1866

· · ·

Mark 16:1-8He Is Risen

Christ Connection - He Is Risen; He Is Not Here

Christ Connection - Tell His Disciples and Peter

Mark 16:9-14He Appeared First to Mary Magdalene

Christ Connection - He Appeared First to Mary Magdalene

Mark 16:15-20Go Ye Into All the World

15And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. 16He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.

Christ Connection - The Gospel to Every Creature

Christ Connection - Received Up, and Sat on the Right Hand of God

· · ·

Further study

Mark 16 · Greek interlinear with lexiconBible Hub
The Greek text of Mark 16 word by word, each word parsed and linked to its lexicon entry - useful for the passive verb behind “he is risen” in verse 6 (ēgerthē, “he has been raised”), for the command to “preach the gospel” in verse 15 (kēryssō + euangelion), and for the phrase “received up” in verse 19.
Mark 16 ↔ Psalm 110 · 1 Corinthians 15 · Acts 1Intertextual Bible
Traces the threads tying Mark 16 to the rest of Scripture - the empty tomb and the third-day rising (v. 6) read against 1 Corinthians 15:3-4, 20; the session at God's right hand (v. 19) against Psalm 110:1; and the ascension against the eyewitness account of Acts 1:9-11.
Mark 16 - Translators' NotesNET Bible
The NET Bible's detailed footnotes on Mark 16 - the women's arrival at the sepulchre and the announcement of the rising (vv. 1-8), the appearances of the risen Lord (vv. 9-14), and the commission, the signs, and the ascension that close the Gospel (vv. 15-20).

Mark 16

Mark 16:1-8He Is Risen

Mark 16:9-14He Appeared First to Mary Magdalene

Mark 16:15-20Go Ye Into All the World