---
title: John 20:18
url: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/john-20-18/
markdown: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/john-20-18.md
type: verse
perspective: Protestant (historic Nicene) response to Jehovah's Witness teaching
reference: John 20:18
testament: NT
section: Gospels
index: https://jw-apologetics.app/llms.txt
---

# John 20:18

## Text (Berean Standard Bible)

> Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord!” And she told them what He had said to her.

## NWT Wording of the Key Phrase

- NWT (2013 revision): "Mary Magdalene came and brought the news to the disciples: 'I have seen the Lord!' And she told them what he had said to her."

## JW Usage

Witnesses receive Mary Magdalene's announcement as part of the resurrection witness pattern, fitting the Watchtower's framing of the resurrection as a real event by which Jesus continues his ministry as a spirit creature. The Greek verb "I have seen" (heōraka) tends not to be flagged for what it implies about the visible bodily appearance of the risen Lord.

## Protestant Usage

Mary's announcement is Greek heōraka — "I have seen." Same verb used at John 20:25 ("we have seen the Lord") and at Mark 16:7, where the angels promise the disciples "you will see him." In Acts 1:11, the angels at the ascension say Jesus "will come in the same manner as you have seen him going into the sky" — visibly, bodily, with witnesses. And Revelation 1:7 promises "every eye will see him." The Watchtower's invisible-parousia doctrine of 1914 cannot be reconciled with these uses of "see." Mary did not "discern him with mental eyes" at verse 18 — she saw him with her own eyes, addressed him by name in verse 16, and was told not to keep clinging to him in verse 17. The consistent New Testament pattern is bodily, visible appearances by the risen Christ — and that is the pattern by which he promised to return.

## Arguments Using This Verse

- [Visible, Bodily, Every Eye — The Return Acts 1:11 Promised](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/visible-bodily-return-acts1.md) — Acts 1:11 / Revelation 1:7 / 1 Corinthians 15:51-53 [Eschatology]