Luke 24
Well, we have come to the final chapter of Luke’s gospel and you can turn in your Bibles to Luke 24. Luke 24, this great resurrection chapter, so we’re doing Easter in September, Easter in September. We looked last time at the burial of Jesus body. We ended the time last time with a special appreciation for these believing women, their loyalty to Jesus, their affection for him.
They were faithful, followed him ever since Galilee, and they followed him through the cross to the bitter end. And I’ll just remind you briefly by reading a few of the verses at the end of the last chapter, Luke 23, and looking at verse 49, it says, “All His acquaintances and the women who had accompanied him from Galilee were standing at a distance watching these things.”
They were watching, these women were, as Jesus was crucified by the soldiers, hung between two criminals. They were listening as Jesus prayed, “Father forgive them.” They were watching as the soldiers cast slots for his clothing. They were watching as the leaders of their own people acted with shameful cruelty, spreading the influence of their scorn, even to the passers by, to the soldiers who were there, even to the criminals on the cross, leading them in a chorus of mocking.
Though Jesus had told his followers repeatedly, that all that they were witnessing at this moment was going to happen, they were nevertheless heartbroken by the scene. To see this innocent one, Jesus, dying a death that he did not deserve, and the target of such vileness, and even from their own Jewish people, this whole thing, the whole scene, was crushing, overwhelmingly tragic, bitter to their souls and filling them with sorrow. How could it not do that, even knowing the truth?
This perfect, innocent Christ is hanging on the cross. He’s surrounded by wretched sinners who are committing vile sins. They’re, they’re firing off reproaches at him, like they’re firing arrows into his body, hanging there. And yet he is unaffected. He absorbs it all. He’s calm, serene. In fact, he, except for being pinned to a cross, he acts as he’s always acted, he does what he has always done. He forgives the penitent.
Forgiving the penitent criminal next to him promises that man immediate paradise, everlasting life. Three hours of darkness shroud the land, and when the lights come back on all eyes are on Jesus, all ears are attentive to hear him say, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” John’s Gospel, it records that he said, “It is finished, breathed his last, gave up his spirit.” He died, and it’s at this point his death that he has fulfilled Isaiah 53, that he’s fulfilled all these promises to take sinners sins upon himself, all the sins of all those who would ever believe.
From Adam all the way to those sinners who believe in Revelation. He’s paid the full penalty for our sins, and that death sealed it. That death was the payment. That death is it so that everything that happens following his death is about the honor of Christ. So shortly after his death, the soldiers coming to confirm his death, the women are there to watch still more. They watch Joseph of Arimathea come along with Nicodemus and a host of their servants. They come to retrieve the body of Jesus.
They take the body down from the cross carefully. They transported to over to the nearby tomb. Prepare the body for burial. They would have washed the body, prepared it as the text says. They wrapped it in a linen cloth applied to ointment and spices and aroma, aromatic spices. They laid him in the tomb, cut into the rock in which no one had ever been laid.
It says in verse 54 to 56, “It was preparation day, and the Sabbath was about to begin.” and the, “the women who had come with Him from Galilee, followed and they beheld the tomb and how His body was laid. And then after they returned, they prepared spices and perfumes. And on the Sabbath they rested according to the commandment.” Cover that last time now. So far so good, right?
These women have been practicing loyal devotion to Jesus. They’ve demonstrated a deep affection for him. They’ve shown all the right sentiment. Further, as we noted last time, they have subjected their sentiment to the law. They’ve been very careful to be obedient and, and lining their emotion under the Sabbath commandment to rest. If it were up to them on any other day, they would have rushed to the tomb to make sure that they applied the feminine touch to his burial and do it well. But they wait.
So these women, when the first day of the week comes, Sabbath restrictions are lifted, they’re ready. They’re well prepared to visit the empty tomb where they will hear the announcement of resurrection life and carry forth this good news that Jesus has been victorious over sin and death through his atoning work on the cross and triumphing in resurrected life; the eternal life that he promised in glory. These women are ready for the resurrection, right? Wrong. They are not ready.
In fact, what would you think if I told you that they are profoundly un-ready for what they are about to witness? In fact, I’ll go even further, not only are these women very poorly prepared for the resurrection, they have been and they continue to be here in a state of sinning and sinning in the most radical way possible for them to sin, as they return to the tomb this Easter morning. I’ll prove that in a moment, but now that I have your attention, let me tell you where we’re heading.
Luke 24 is such a critical chapter, and so I don’t want to dive into the details of the verses we have in front of us little by little yet. I’ll do that next week. But I want to make sure that we enter into this critical chapter in the right frame of mind. We’re going to move this morning through the entire chapter. We’re going to take a kind of a guided tour of the greater landscape that’s here just to make sure that we understand what Luke wants us to understand, to see what Luke wants us to see.
You might call this, this is how to see the resurrection. This is how to understand this great chapter. Luke, after all, you need to understand he wrote this entire Gospel sticking to his original purpose, his stated purpose from the very beginning. And he’s been very, very disciplined in doing so all throughout this Gospel. He told his benefactor Theophilus his purpose in writing in the very first few verses. He said, I’m writing all this so that you may know the exact truth. Another way to translate that is so that you may know with certainty the things that you’ve been taught.
He’s giving Theophilus and all of his readers. He’s giving them certainty, the things that have been been taught, certainty about doctrine. They’ve received doctrines of atonement, doctrines of resurrection, doctrine of illumination, doctrine of faith, doctrine of salvation, all that has come to them through the good teaching in their churches. But now I want you to know with certainty where those doctrines come from. I want you to know the historical reality. I want you to know the facts. I want you to see the evidence. I want you to understand the ground out of which all this grows.
This chapter, then, is no different and is written with that same purpose in mind, so that we may know with certainty the doctrine of the resurrection. So here’s the first point for the outline today, which is all about removing the chief impediment to seeing anything clearly. Number one: The sin that veils our sight. That’s the first point. The sin that veils our sight. The sin I’m referring to, which I just called a radical sin, and I’m using the lexical meaning of that word, radical. Radical is that which is essential, that which is fundamental. So it’s at the core.
So a radical sin is that which is essential or fundamental to all sinning. What is radical sin is the core of all sin. It is the root of all sins. So what is this radical sin? It is the sin of unbelief. Unbelief. These women did not come to the tomb on this Easter morning believing in the resurrection that Jesus promised. They did not anticipate any encounter with the risen Lord. What did they come to anoint, living Lord or dead body? They thought Jesus was dead, not alive. They did not expect him to be alive when they came to the tomb. So they did not believe that he would rise from the dead, and he said that he would.
Now, is that righteous or sinful? Perhaps you’re thinking. Well, wait a minute, pastor, aren’t you being just a little bit harsh toward these wonderful women? Didn’t you just commend them moments ago? No, I’m not being harsh. And yes, I did commend them. Both things can be true. In fact, I’m still commending them. In fact, we should all commend them. I think, in fact, we should even see ourselves in them. Understand, first, in commending these women, we don’t read about any of the apostles at the tomb, do we? Those guys fled. They’re nowhere near the tomb.
If the long ending of Mark has anything to say to us, anything of historical validity, which I think it does, the men, according to Mark 16:10, they were back at the Upper Room mourning and crying. I’m not poking fun at them when I say that, that’s Mark 16:10. And if we had been there, quite likely we would have been mixed in among them also mourning and crying over everything that had taken place.
So we can commend the women. They were there. They went back. We can commend the women for all that we said about them, but this does not mean that we’re to ignore their failure to believe, because this is the fundamental point of Luke and of all the Gospel writers, that we would not be unbelieving, but that we would be believing. And that by believing, we may be seeing and that by seeing, we may be understanding, and by knowing and understanding the truth, we may be rejoicing in hope. You see the track from belief to hope to joy to power. That’s what we need to see in this resurrection chapter. That’s what Luke is trying to show us.
So now that I’ve set this up, just let’s unpack this by starting to read from the verses that are here. So Luke 24:1 to 3, “Now on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb bringing the spices which they had prepared. And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.” Two key pieces of evidence there, first in what they did find, and second in what they did not find. They did find the stone rolled away and they did not find a body, just an empty tomb.
All the Gospel accounts record the same thing, namely that the tomb was empty. Further, no account, and this is very interesting, no account records the greatest miracle ever, the actual resurrection. We don’t see it. The live Cam at this location was turned in the off position. No one could see this happen. God alone, who witnessed the resurrection, only he was there to see it, to witness it.
Same thing with the creation of the heavens and the earth, by the way, God is the only witness. And so too with this, the greatest miracle of all, Jesus’ resurrection. God is the only witness to the actual happening miracle of resurrection. And you say, why would God do that to us? Listen, he’s actually doing us a great service by remanding us to faith. We either believe him at this point or we do not. And this is the dividing line of all humanity, those who believe in the creation of the heavens and the earth by the power of God alone, and those who believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead by the power of God alone.
Not seeing it for ourselves, because no one was there when God created the heavens and the earth, and no one was there when Jesus was raised from the dead in the tomb to witness it. We must trust God. We must believe him. And folks, that is the greatest gift of all to believe God, to take him at his Word, because the very first sin was a departure from that mindset. We disbelieved God. We did not take him at his word. We believed the liar and the deceiver and the murderer of all humanity instead of God, the return back to reconciliation with him, it’s by faith.
The women, they do peek in, they find the tomb empty and they don’t yell he’s alive, do they? In fact, they’re completely puzzled. Look at verses 4 and 5, “It happened that while they were perplexed about this, behold, two men suddenly stood near them in dazzling clothing, and when the women were terrified, and they bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, ‘Why do you seek the living One among the dead?’”
Now we should read the angels question here in the generous way possible. But general tone or not, that’s a rebuke from the angels. They’re not commending the women because they’re looking for the living one in a tomb. Verse 6, “‘He’s not here, but He is risen. Remember how he spoke to you while He was still in Galilee saying, the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of the sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again.’”
Ah, “and they remembered his words.” Those words were there rolling around somewhere. The angels just had to call them to the forefront, put those words before them again. There it is, the rebuke. It’s a mild and a general rebuke to be sure, but it is still a rebuke because they failed to remember. They failed to believe everything Jesus said. His betrayal and crucifixion had just happened. They witnessed it; happened just as he said. So their faith, even if weak, even if immature at this point, was still confirmed in the fulfilment of everything that they witnessed, everything that they saw.
So let me ask this question. We need to think about this for ourselves. Why did they stop believing here? Why did they only believe the bad stuff? Why not the good part? Why didn’t they see this through in faith? These women had followed from the start. They’d been there from the beginning. They had believed. They followed and believed all the way through the cross, to the cross, through the cross and to the grave. So why stop believing now? You got to ask. You ever wonder that about yourself? Because you should wonder that about yourself. Why do we do that?
Why do we believe so well up to a certain point and then drop off a Cliff into doubt? In fact, tell me, if this isn’t true about you, as you look toward the future, why do you look to the future with a dark foreboding, as if everything is going to crumble and fall apart and you’re going to be left penniless, friendless, forlorn, forsaken, whatever version of that fills your mind, practically. Why do we look at the future with great doubt? Why don’t we take the promises of God at face value and everything that’s been fulfilled literally in the past?
Why don’t we look to the future and see those promises fulfilled literally in the future and take great joy and hope and look toward tomorrow, anxious to get out of bed on Monday morning and rush to the office or rush to the job site or whatever it is, so we could be proclaimers of resurrection, hope and joy and power? Why don’t we do that? Well, we’re seeing ourselves in these women, aren’t we? We’re seeing ourselves in these disciples.
These women aren’t the only ones to fail in faith at this most critical juncture. None of Jesus disciples believed in his bodily resurrection either, as he promised. Look at verses 9 and following. So these women, “remembered his words,” at the prompting of the Angel, “and when they returned from the tomb, they reported all these things to the eleven and to all the rest. Now Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary the mother of James and the rest of the women with them were there;” It was a good chorus of women and, “they were telling these things to the apostles. But these words appeared to them as nonsense, and they were not believing them. But Peter stood up, ran to the tomb; and stooping to look in, he saw the,” linen wrap, “linen wrappings only. And he went away by himself, marveling at what had happened.”
Now, if these women had reported all these things to the apostles, which Luke tells us twice that they did, once in verse 9 and once again in verse 10, that means that these women and there’s a, a group of them there, a chorus of them there. And so you understand that one woman is saying one thing and another woman is saying, it’s kind of like watching the view or something. They’re just all talking over the top of each other. So it may be hard to interpret everything, but I think that these men could piece together the content of verse 7, the words of the Lord Jesus that the angels reminded them of. The words that he had spoken to them, verse 6, “while still in Galilee.” Those disciples, those apostles were all there.
What words? We remember pretty clearly in Luke’s Gospel, Luke 9:22, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and the scribes, and be killed and be raised up on the third day.” Now, shockingly, seriously, shockingly, those are the words Luke 24:11. Those words are what these apostles, at this moment, slandered as nonsense. Leros means empty talk, idle tales. They’re putting all this resurrection talk on the same level as a fairy tale.
Their mindset at this point, it’s shocking, is on par with Bertrand Russell, the famous atheist, or any of the New Atheists. What are they doing? What’s wrong with them? Luke, along with all the biblical writers, is showing us the natural state of our fallen vision. What’s wrong with our natural ability to see? It’s that though we have 20/20 vision, perfect physical sight, apart from any divine help, listen, we can see absolutely nothing, our sin veils our sight, unbelief rears its ugly influence, clouds our vision, so that we really are legally and spiritually blind. We need faith to see. We need the grace of God to help us, first by the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit and then by his ongoing ministry of illumination to us to continue to unveil the truth, to continue to teach us, to continue to show us more and more and more. We need a heart that is ready to receive that, that wants that, that pursues that. It’s a heart of faith.
We need his help so desperately if we’re to see anything at all. Faith alone by God’s grace, that’s what gives us sight. Now we’re going to discover, verse 34, Jesus did appear to Peter. The Gospel, John tells us that. Luke has not recorded the appearance of Jesus to Peter himself. Jesus actually first appeared to Mary Magdalene. She was the first one to see Jesus alive. Luke hasn’t recorded that either.
But Luke has decided to use the bulk of this chapter in a section that is unique to his Gospel, to illustrate the need for faith. They illustrate it by the two disciples who are on this 10K walk from Jerusalem to Emmaus. Look starting in verse 13. “Behold, two of them.” These are two disciples. They “were going that same day to a village named Emmaus.”
When it says two of them, it means two of them who had heard this report from the women. Okay, so they hear the report, they’re kind of puzzling it over, and then they take off. They leave. They’re going to Emmaus. Emmaus may be named for some hot springs over there. Maybe they said we need a bath. I don’t know what they’re thinking. But anyway, they go into Emmaus, about 60 stadia, 7 miles, 10K from Jerusalem and they were conversing with each other about all these things which had happened.
It happened that while they were conversing and debating, Jesus himself approached and was going with them, but their eyes were prevented from recognizing him. And when we come to this section in our exposition, we’re going to answer the question. We’re going to ask and answer this question about what is it that prevented their eyes from seeing. Luke is vague here. Some say it was God that prevented their eyes from seeing. Some say Satan prevented their eyes. Some say of a sin or weakness, or whatever.
I’ll call my shot ahead of time by reading this short section from John Calvin. He says, “In this state of wretched corruption, after having been deprived of their light, the physical eyes are liable to innumerable deceptions, and are sunk into such gross stupidity that they can do nothing but commit mistakes, as happens to us incessantly.” You who think, I’ll believe it if I see it. Be warned, don’t be proud. We have mistakes and are seeing things, “as happens to us,” Calvin says “incessantly.”
“The proper,” continuing with Calvin, “the proper discrimination between truth and falsehood, therefore, does not arise from the sagacity of our own mind, but comes to us from the Spirit of wisdom. Physical sight alone, unaided by faith in the truth, uneducated by truth and by believing it, unaided by the illuminating ministry of the Holy Spirit, that physical sight alone avails us nothing. Nothing but error, nothing but distortion when it comes to spiritual things. Unbelief takes advantage of that weakness in seeing the errors in judgement that we make, because after all, our eyes are just a vehicle where things coming in. Unbelief takes advantage of that, distorts what we can clearly, plainly see.”
That distortion, that error, it’s not the end for God’s beloved people. Look at verse 17. Here’s Jesus walking with them. They don’t see who he is. They don’t know him, they don’t discern. I mean, they spend time with him. They followed him as disciples and here he is walking with them again. Can’t see it’s him. “He said to them, ‘What are these words that you’re discussing with one another as you’re walking?’”
That’s such a great question. It’s like, hey, fill me in on the gut. What’s going on, guys? This had to be great for him. “They stood still, looking sad. And one of them named Cleopas, answered, said to Him,” he’s the only one visiting Jerusalem. You’re “‘unaware of the things which have happened here in these days? And he said to them,” I love this again, “‘what things?’” do tell. “And they said to Him, ‘Things about Jesus the Nazarene.’ Who was a mighty prophet in deed and word in the sight of God and all the people, and how the chief priests and our rulers delivered Him to the sentence of death, and crucified Him. But we were hoping that it was He who was going to redeem Israel.
It is the sin of unbelief. These women did not come to the tomb on this Easter morning believing in the resurrection that Jesus promised.” Travis Allen
“Indeed, besides all this, it is the third day since these things happened. But also some of the women among us astounded us. When they were at the tomb early in the morning and not finding His body, they came, saying that they had also seen a vision of angels who said that He was alive. Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just exactly as the women also said.” And here they land on a dark note. “But Him they did not see.”
See what’s happening? They, too, heard the report of the women. They heard that reminder of Luke 9:22 coming from the proclamation of the angels, the announcement. But against that angelic reminder, what do they focus on in the final analysis after everything exciting that’s been proclaimed to them? And in verse 24, “Him they did not see.” Notice Jesus doesn’t respond by saying, hey, listen, I get it. You guys never seen a resurrection before. I get it, let alone heard of one. He didn’t say, yeah, you know, I guess I was a bit vague and cryptic when I was talking about all that. Talk about resurrection should have been clearer.
No, Jesus is not going to commit the sin of slandering Holy Scripture. He’s not going to commit the sin of degrading and diminishing the perspicuity or the clarity of the Scripture or his own teaching. That wouldn’t be true. God is always clear. He does not stutter. Why does he give words of prophecy? Why does he give revelation? To confuse us, to be muddled. Why’d he give us the Bible? To reveal, to unfold, to help us to understand.
There’s no, there’s no problem in God. There’s no vagueness in the Scripture. There’s no vagueness in Christ teaching. No. Instead he points to the true culprit of their error. It’s the sin that veils their sight. Look at verses 25 and 26, “He said to them, ‘O foolish ones and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not,’” Look at this word, necessary. “‘Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into his glory?’”
Necessary, what is it that made Christ suffering and entering into glory a matter of necessity? Many, many ways we could answer that question, and we will when we get to this point in our exposition. But we can just bottom line it with this: What is it that made Christ suffering and entering into glory a matter of necessity? It is this: God said it, God determined it, it is the decree of his perfect will. It is his good pleasure to do so, that Christ would suffer for sins and enter into glory.
It’s the whole plan of redemption declared by God from before the foundation of the world. That’s what made it a necessity. So verse 27, “Then, beginning with Moses,” and all, “and with all the prophets, He interpreted to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures.” Listen the determining factor in accepting or rejecting the resurrection, which is the same determinative factor in accepting or not accepting the doctrine of creation or anything else that the Bible teaches about God, on man and sin and salvation. The determinative factor is whether one has faith or not.
In faith, presence or absence of faith is tested in what seems to some to be an absence of evidence. Notice I didn’t say that there is no evidence, or that there’s scant evidence or illogic or irrationality. There’s more evidence for the resurrection than for any other fact in human history. Further, apart from faith in God, reason is reduced to irrationality, the embrace of folly and contradiction, an endless maze of futility that leads either to madness or to degradation or to both.
That’s what unbelief does for you, that’s what skepticism produces is sin. Sinful reasoning, sinful thinking, but “faith comes by hearing,” Romans 10:17, “hearing by the word of Christ.” which is why Christ gave these two sightless disciples the gift of Scripture explained. Beloved, that’s why a preacher standing up here Sunday after Sunday is so vital to you.
It is a gift again of the living Christ to have Scripture explained, expounded, exposited, elucidated. It falls flat without the working of the Holy Spirit. We grant that, that is a given, but it’s Christ’s good pleasure and it’s the Spirit’s work to make what we’re doing right here effective to you for illumination and understanding and learning and exhortation and growth to maturity in the strengthening of your faith. Now put a finger here and turn over. We’re going to come back to these two disciples in a moment, but just want to take a quick pause and go back to Matthew 27:62.
Prior to the resurrection, Matthew 27:62, and try to imagine for a moment what it may have looked like if the disciples and the women had believed his words. I want to show you this by way of contrast. Look at Matthew 27:62 and following, “now on the next day,” day after the preparation. What’s the day after the preparation? Sabbath. Look at the chief priests and the Pharisees, those keepers of the Sabbath. Look what they’re doing, not keeping the Sabbath.
Okay. All right, so they are gathered together with Pilate the Roman. What are they doing with him? Well, they said, “Sir, we remember that when he was still alive, that deceiver said, after three days I’m to rise again. Therefore, order for the grave to be made secure until the third day, lest his disciples come and steal him away and say to the people, he has risen from the dead, and the last deception will be worse than the first.” Isn’t it so interesting that sinners like to project their own sinful reasoning on you? That’s what they’re doing here to Jesus and his disciples.
Pilate said in verse 65, to them, he said, “you have a guard, go make it as secure as you know how. And they went and made the grave secure, and along with the guard they set a seal on the stone.” Now to be clear, these men didn’t believe in the resurrection promises of Jesus either. But notice this, contrary to Jesus own disciples, they did remember his words. And remembering his words, they acted on his words. Sinfully I’ll grant you. But they acted, didn’t they?
They’re trying to prevent what they thought would create a cult following led by Jesus the deceiver and his grave robbing disciples, to perpetuate the fraud, bilk millions out of their followers, whatever it is a cults do. So what if the disciples had remembered his words like these guys did? What if they remembered the promise of resurrection? Well, we’d probably be reading something like this in Luke 23:54. “It was the preparation day and the Sabbath was about to begin,” and then we’d read this, and so the whole company of Jesus disciples grabbed their lawn chairs, packed their snacks and drinks, made a huge bonfire in front of the tomb, and waited for Jesus to come out.
That would be the story, wouldn’t it? Something like that. They didn’t do that because they had less faith, so to speak, if I could use that word. They had less belief in the bodily resurrection of Jesus than even the enemies of Jesus had. Notice the enemies took Jesus words literally when his own disciples failed to do so. I don’t understand the instinct of many interpreters today who want to try to find all kinds of ways to make prophecy in Jesus words not literal and spiritualize the outcome instead. I think it’s that old Greek error that doesn’t like material things, that thinks the spiritual is somehow elevated, abun, above the material. When God created material and immaterial both, called them good and in Adam brought them together, called the whole thing very good. The enemies took his words literally when his own disciples failed to do so and they are not commended for it.
Okay, now go back to, that was the interlude. Let’s go back to Luke 24 again. Unbelief does not allow us to see what is there in plain sight. Unbelief disables our ability to see, distorts our interpretation of clear evidence, so that we cannot know, cannot understand truth and reality. And truth be told, we all struggle with this, don’t we? We fight, don’t we?
Everyday we fight through dullness of heart, we fight through weakness in believing. We’re like that grieving father who asked Jesus to have pity on his demon possessed son who kept throwing his son into the fire, trying to drown him. And he said, Lord, if you can, will you help me? And Jesus said, what are you talking about? If you can, have you heard about, have you seen, if you can, everything is possible to the one who believes and the, the man responded and he did give us all words to speak in our prayers, didn’t he? Lord, I do believe. Help my unbelief.
All of us Christians are in the same situation. We have faith. We Christians have faith by God’s grace, because of the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit. We have a new nature, a new nature that its first and only instinct is to believe and trust all that God has said. We have eyes to see, ears to hear, hearts to believe and understand and follow. We do have a heart of faith. And yet, because we live here in these weakened conditions of these bodies not yet glorified, our faith is so often weak, so often vacillating.
We go from faith to doubt so quickly, sometimes in the same breath, sometimes in the same prayer. We are like these men on the road to Emmaus, foolish, slow of heart to believe in all that the Scripture says. Like the women, we believe in Jesus and his power, but we act in such contradictory ways, don’t we? We bring spices to a tomb, to anoint a body of a Jesus who said plainly, I’m not going to be there. What are we doing? Seems silly though doesn’t it? And we often catch ourselves in error.
We often catch ourselves in foolish thinking, foolish reasoning of unbelief. And God is, God is so kind, so gentle, so patient with us. I like how John Calvin says it, “I readily acknowledge, they sinned in not immediately raising their minds to that prediction, which they had heard from the lips of their master, when he foretold that he would rise again on the third day. But that defect is forgiven.”
Is it a defect of believing in faith? Yeah. Is that sin? Yeah. Wait a minute. Did he just die for sins? Yeah, that defect is forgiven. Continue with Calvin, “Thus God frequently accepts with fatherly kindness the works of the Saints, which without pardon, not only” would it, “would not have pleased him, but we would even have been justly rejected with shame and punishment.” It’s therefore an astonishing display of the goodness of Christ that he kindly, generously presents himself alive to the women who did him wrong in seeking him among the dead. There will be more to say about those thoughts in the weeks to come.
But in the next point, point number two, let’s see this. And the point, next points are shorter. Number two: The faith that gives us light. The faith that gives us light. The first point is the sin that veils our sight. And now point number two: the faith that gives us light. We come back to the narrative at Luke 24:28, where Jesus filled the minds of these two disciples with the best teaching ever.
Would you have loved to have been there? I would have loved to have been there for any of Jesus sermons. I mean his 12 year old questions in the temple. I’ve been sitting at his feet. These guys are feasting on the truth that they’re hearing, reflecting. They’re lost in thought and wonder, but they are interrupted here by their journey’s end and now the prospect faces them of losing the company of this amazing teacher that hits them.
So look at verse 28, “They approached the village where they were going, and He,” Jesus, “acted as though He were going farther. They urged him strongly, saying, ‘Stay with us, for it is toward evening, and the day is now nearly over.’ So He went in to stay with them. And it happened that when He had reclined at the table with them, He took the bread and blessed it, and after breaking it, He was giving it to them. Then their eyes were open and they recognized Him. And He vanished from their sight.”
Breaking bread with them, as he had done 1000 times before, as when he fed the 5000 and the 4000. He took the bread, blessed it, broke it, gave it out to them. He is, after all, the bread of life, isn’t he? John 6:35, he gives his people the bread that comes down from heaven, namely John 6, I believe it’s 43. Namely himself. He gives himself so that one may eat of that bread and never die. It’s in this act, Jesus feeding them. Maybe. Maybe they make the connection between the literal food he’s giving them at that meal and the spiritual food that he’s given them on the road, reflecting even on some of the things he had taught them from the law of Moses, that God gave his people bread in the wilderness.
Their faith makes the immediate leap in maturity, grants sight. The veil here is removed from their eyes. They no longer see him, only physically. He’s banished from their sight. But now they really see him. They see him with the light of faith. Doesn’t take long to dawn on them. What’s happened? They got to go tell the others. They just come from Jerusalem. Emmaus again, about 6-7 miles, 10, 10 kilometers from Jerusalem. So they run back. They recorded the personal best for that 10K run, I can guarantee you. And verse 32 says, “They said to one another, ‘Were not our hearts burning within us while he’s speaking to us on the road.’ While He was opening up the scriptures to us. They stood up at that very hour, returned to Jerusalem and found gathered together the eleven and those with them who were saying the Lord has really risen and has appeared to Simon.”
They were relating their experiences on the road and how he was recognized by them in the breaking of the bread. Back and forth the stories are going. Peter and the eleven sharing with Cleopas and his friend. Vice versa. Notice faith here has an instant effect: Spiritual joy, energy, effervescent excitement filled hope. All this cements in them a conviction that you would think would never again waver and then Jesus shows up. Man, they go right back to doubting, again.
How strange this is, isn’t it? Look at verse 36, “Now,” they were telling all these things. “And while they were telling all these things, He Himself stood in their midst and said to them, ‘Peace be to you.’ But being startled and frightened, they’re thinking that they’re seeing a spirit.” I like the King James, ‘They thought they saw a ghost.” They thought they saw a ghost. “He said to them, ‘Why are you troubled, and why are doubts rising in your hearts?” It’s like I thought we solved this.
So Jesus turns so kindly, so graciously to strengthen their faith with evidence. He gives them reasons to shore up their weak faith. He gives them answers to silence all these sinful doubts that bubble up out of the habits of thinking. Verse 39, “‘See my hands and my feet, that it is I, Myself; touch Me and see, for a ghost doesn’t have flesh and bones, as you see that I have.’ When He said this, He showed them His hands and His feet. And while they were still not believing because of their joy, because they were still marveling, he said to them, ‘Have you anything here to eat?’”
Okay, look, I’ll, I’ll show you. He gave, “They gave Him a piece of broiled fish and He took it and ate it before them.” Notice again, seeing does not necessarily result in good believing. The eyes are a tool, they are a vessel, or a channel of God that he’s given us to receive and take in information. Information needs good processing. Good information can go through bad processing and result in bad conclusions. These facts require interpretation. All the same set of facts, but how is it that the believing and the unbelieving come to completely different conclusions? Because only a believing heart has the ability to interpret correctly.
Jesus has just entered a closed and locked room. He’s come and stood in their midst. Bodily passing through the physical barriers of the walls would stop most bodies. So they think he’s a ghost. But here, his physical body, though he’s proven it, didn’t compel them to believe in the physical body of the resurrection, they still thought they’re seeing a ghost. Bad processing, wrong interpretation.
Even after seeing his hands and his feet, verse 41, they still cannot believe, so he offers to persuade them, eating a piece of fish. Evidence is not the basis of faith. That is backward. Faith receives and accurately interprets evidence because only by believing God can we see evidence clearly. Faith doesn’t originate from examining body parts. Scientific observation of the mastication, the digestion of food.
Faith that believes God comes from a heart which is enabled by God to know and understand and apprehend the truth. That is what settles the mind. That is what rests the heart. That is what grants a firm and unshakable conviction in the truth. Here are Jesus disciples, eleven of his best. They’ve been chosen by him. They’ve been walking with him for years. If anyone is set up to have a favorable view of Jesus resurrection based on physical sense perception, when the object of their devotion is standing right in front of them, it’s these guys. They don’t trust with their eyes or seeing what their hands are telling them.
They refuse to believe he’s risen from the dead. So what changes everything for them? Jesus did another miracle and he did the only miracle that can allow them to truly see. He opened their mind to understand the Scriptures. He doesn’t open their eyes, so the eyes, physical eyes, can trust what the physical eyes are telling them. He opens their minds to understand the light of the Scripture.
Look at verse 44, “Now he said to them, ‘These are my words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things which are written about Me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.’ Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and He said to them, ‘Thus it is written, that the Christ would suffer and rise again from the dead the third day.’” You hear the repetition on the, the grounding of our faith. “These are My words,” verse 44, “‘My words which I spoke to you.’” About, what about all the things written about me? Written where? The Bible, the Holy Bible, Law of Moses, the prophets, the Psalms. That’s the way they talked about the Old Testament then.
The Holy Spirit generates faith through the written word of God, through the Scripture, the resurrected Christ. Verse 45, opened their believing minds to understand the Scriptures and then he said to them, “thus it is written,” look there men, look there, see me, faith in the written Word of God. That is the key that opens the mind to truth, apprehends the resurrection, the creation, all that the Scriptures teach from Genesis to Revelation. It gives light.
We have time for one more short point, number three: The hope that gives us life. The hope that gives us life. We had said number one, it talked about the sin that veils our sight, that sin is unbelief. Talked about the faith that gives us light. Light being, knowledge, truth, understanding, apprehension of the truth.
Thirdly, the hope that gives us life. Luke, from the very beginning of the chapter has telegraphed the glorious end of the chapter. Look back at Luke 24 verse 3. Luke refers here to the body of Jesus. He doesn’t just refer to the body of Jesus, it’s not just Jesus. He says the Lord Jesus, doesn’t he, puts the word Lord in front of Jesus. This is the first time Luke has referred to him that way, and it won’t be the last.
In fact, all through the book of Acts, it is the Lord Jesus, the Lord Jesus, the Lord Jesus, over and over and over. It’s a title that benefits his victory over sin and death, in Satan, and his glory: Lord. We get another indication in Luke 24, early in Luke 24 when the angels referred to Jesus in verse 5 as the living one, the living one. In what we’ve read together this morning, we see how this resurrected glorified Lord Jesus Christ is the living one.
He’s able to give life, open eyes that don’t see clearly, verse 31. He’s able to open minds that don’t think clearly, verse 45, so they can understand the most important treasury in heaven or on earth, the Holy Scriptures. And by believing the truth of the written Word of God, the hearts of the disciples now lifted to new heights of glory, new heights of joy.
They’re given a new mission. They’re empowered with the same power that raised Jesus from the dead. Look at verse 45 and following, “And He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and He said to them, ‘Thus it is written, that the Christ would suffer and rise again from the dead on the third day, and that repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in His name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem.’”
Men, you are at the epicenter of this great and glorious transforming work of God, starting here from you Jews, but going out to all the nations that cover the earth with this, your witnesses of these things. Verse 48, “‘And behold, I am sending the promise of My Father upon you., but you’re to stay in the city until you’re clothed with power from on high.’ And He led them out as far as Bethany, and lifting up His hands, He blessed them. And it happened that while He was blessing them, He parted from them and was carried up into heaven. And they, after worshipping Him, returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and they were continually in the temple blessing God.”
The Gospel that began in the temple ends in the Temple. Luke is the Gospel author here in Luke 24, in the resurrection chapter. That kind of keeps everything in Jerusalem, though there are in, according to Matthew and Mark, many things that took place in Galilee and John as well. Luke wants to just focus all their attention on the epicenter of truth, the epicenter of resurrection power and glory.
Three things to draw to your attention here as we wrap up. First, the nature of the resurrection. Second, the target of the resurrection appearances. And third, what the resurrection means for us. So the nature of the resurrection, the target of the resurrection appearances, and then the what the resurrection means for us. First, the nature of the resurrection. And that’s been hinted at in what we’ve read already. Jesus rose from the dead bodily, but we can see clearly, he did not rise in the exact same body that entered into the tomb.
I want you to go back to the Scripture, 1 Corinthians 15, which we read earlier, 1 Corinthians 15, and I’m going to start where we weren’t reading. Start in verse 35. We know that Jesus emerged from the tomb in a resurrected body, but we know that it was not a body of weakness, not a body that could succumb to death any longer. His existence is a new kind of existence, something that has never been seen before. And if you want an analogy, Paul’s going to give you some.
But someone will say, 1 Corinthians 15:35, “Someone will say, ‘How are the dead raised? And with what kind of body do they come? You fool! That which you sow does not..” He’s answering a fool. He’s answering fools here. So it’s not just an insult to you, the reader, he’s talking about actual fools there in the Corinthian church. So if you read the letters, you’ll see who’s full of them. “But you fool! That which you sow does not come to life unless it dies; and that which you sow, you do not sow the body which is to be, but a bare grain, perhaps of wheat or of something else. But God gives it a body just as He wished, and to each of the seeds a body of its own.
Forgiving the penitent criminal next to him promises that man immediate paradise, everlasting life.” Travis Allen
“All flesh is not the same flesh, but there’s one flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another flesh of birds, another of fish.” And, “there are also heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is one, and the glory of the earthly is another. There is one glory of the sun, another glory of the moon, another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory.” All those are just simply analogies or illustrations, differing kinds and degrees of glory in nature.
And he precedes that with, you don’t expect to plant an acorn and out pops more acorns. You don’t expect to plant a corn seed, you know, piece of corn and out pops a little more little corns, popcorn. You expect a stalk to rise. You expect to plant the acorn outcomes a tree in time. So he makes these analogies and then he goes on after talking about the different glory of different bodies, he says this starting at verse 42, “Same way with the resurrection of the dead. It’s sown a corruptible body, raised an incorruptible body; it’s sown in dishonor, it’s raised in glory; it’s sown in weakness, it is raised in power;
“It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. Now if there’s a natural body, there’s also a spiritual body.” You’re just the seed. Your body goes into the ground and it’s going to come out something else. “So also it is written, ‘The first man, Adam, became a living soul.’ Last Adam became a life-giving spirit. However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural; then the spiritual. The first man is from the earth, earthy; the second man is from heaven.”
That’s what’s happened with our Lord. The first instance of this kind of resurrection ever. Truly a body, truly made of matter, but composed in such a way that it’s, it’s different, isn’t it? E. Earl Ellis writes this, “The resurrected Jesus is characterized by glory and by flesh. He can appear and vanish at will. He can eat fish. Strangely different and yet the same. He’s otherworldly and yet he is very earthy.” End Quote.
He’s raised incorruptible, he’s raised in glory, he’s raised in power, he’s raised a spiritual body and he himself is a life-giving spirit. His resurrected body is no longer subject to the ailments and the weaknesses that he endured in the days of his earthly ministry. What the writer to the Hebrews calls “the days of his flesh.”
What Thomas Goodwin identifies as, “The frail passions and affections that work suffering in him, a wearing and a wasting of his spirits. No longer that our Lord Jesus, now resurrected and ascended to glory, he exists in an improved state. He’s still flesh and blood, but he is far different. It is far different than the reality that we ourselves are experiencing now. He is the living One, just as the Angel said, and not only in the sense that he himself is alive and living, that his once dead body is now animated. No, he has a life in himself and he is a life-giving spirit forever.”
Let’s make a brief second point about the target of the resurrection appearances. Let me ask you this question. Did the resurrected and glorified Lord Jesus ever appear to an unbeliever? Can you think of one biblical example, post resurrection, prior to second coming in judgement when the risen Lord Jesus shows himself to unbelievers? You say well what? Paul on the Damascus Rd. Anybody who he visits for salvation is an unbeliever at that point, right? Okay, you got me.
Apart from those who the meeting of the risen Christ results in their salvation. You see any unbelievers who abide in unbelief, who abide in skepticism, who the risen Lord Jesus Christ visits. We saw in Matthew 27:66 how the chief priests and the Pharisees received permission from Pontius Pilate to post a guard at the tomb. If we kept on reading, we’d see that an Angel came down from heaven against their best efforts, caused an earthquake, rolled away the stone. That stone, as some sources say, took 20 men to roll it into place, it was so heavy. The Angel just went, bink. Moved away.
it says in Matthew 28:4, “The guards quaked for fear of him.” Became like dead men. Guards saw the Angel. It took off. They went back into the city, reported to the chief priest what had happened. They’re bribed to keep their mouths shut. You know what they failed to see? They didn’t see the risen Lord Jesus, did they? In all the resurrection appearances of the Gospels, to Mary Magdalene, to Peter, to the women, to the two disciples on the Emmaus Rd. In all the appearances that Paul listed in 1 Corinthians 15:5 to 8, to Cephas, to the Twelve, to the 500 disciples on the mountain in Galilee, to James, then to all the apostles lastly to Paul himself.
You’re never going to find that Jesus was seen by those who abide in unbelief. Jesus explained why, telling the Jews in Luke 13:35. He said, “You will not see me until the time comes when you say, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” From that we can derive a principle, and we can state that principle both negatively and positively. First, negatively, God does not dance to the tune of unbelieving skeptics. He doesn’t stoop to try to defend himself and prove himself to those who have a heart of unbelief.
I once worked with a wonderful, very competent man, did most of his growing up in Rhodesia, which is now Zimbabwe, and then South Africa. When he was run out of Rhodesia, finally came to the United States, is where I worked with him for a while. He’d grown up in a Catholic orphanage. There’s an orphan abandoned there, but he grew up in the Catholic orphanage and was pretty severely treated by the nuns, very harshly treated there, developed a bad, bad taste in his mouth for religion, rejected God walked away from all of that.
And when I knew him, he was the staunchest atheist, very intelligent man, competent. And yet he would scoff and mock at my Christianity by saying, if Jesus wants to prove himself, why does the 50 foot Jesus come descending from the sky and saying I’m Jesus, I’m here, I exist. To which I said, Frank, if that really happened, would you bow and believe? And with a twinkle in his eye, hardly missing a beat, he said no, he was honest. Why? Because there’s always a way to explain some weird phenomena.
The issue is not evidence, folks, the issues and more facts in your evangelism. Realize that what needs to take place in the person you’re talking to about the gospel, you need to be regenerated by the Spirit of God. That’s something you can’t do, I can’t do. But faith does come by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ. Preach to them. Give the Spirit ammunition. Let him aim that gun at their heart. Let him do what no man can do.
God doesn’t dance to the tune of unbelieving skeptics. Neither should we. We sanctify Christ as Lord in our hearts, always prepare to give an answer with gentleness and respect for the hope that’s within us. But we do not accept their unbelieving presuppositions and try to prove God to them. No, we declare, we proclaim, we tell them the truth, and we pray and ask God to convert.
A second truth that we can state positively. Though God doesn’t dance to the tune of the of unbelief, God does delight to show himself to the believing. He does delight to show himself to the faithful, to those whom he has chosen in Christ Jesus. Listen, the resurrection of Jesus is a seal of divine approval on Christ’s redemptive work. It’s the reward of redemption. It’s the promise of glory for us.
The resurrection of Jesus is God’s gift of love to his people, to us the redeemed. It’s a gift that’s intended to bless God’s people, primarily them. There are benefits that accrue to the unbelieving world around us as they experience the favor. It’s been done to us. Clear thinking, good planning, good laws, just and righteous principles which we vote for, and vie for, and argue for, what we teach. But this gift of the resurrection, it’s for us. Why is that?
Because here’s a third and final sub-point here. God chose us for glory. God chose us for glory. This is what the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Lord Jesus means for us. If you’re still in 1 Corinthians 15, look at verse 48 “As is the earthly, so are those who are earthy; and as is the heavenly, so are those who are heavenly. And just as we have borne the image of the earthy, we also will bear the image of the heavenly.” What’s he saying? He’s saying what the Lord Jesus is now, we shall one day be.
We shall be like him, John assures us, because we shall see him as he is. You know what else John says? He immediately follows that assurance of joy, of being like him, ’cause we’re going to see him just as he is. He follows that assurance with a call to piety to live holy lives. Everyone who has this hope fixed on him purifies himself just as he is. Pure hope leads to an empowered life of holiness, a striving for righteousness in the outworking of this great salvation that we’ve been given, all by resurrection power.
The same power that raised Jesus from the dead is a work in you to overcome sin? I know you struggle with sin, as do I. I know you fight the fight, but don’t ever demean the power, the resurrection power of God by saying I can’t quit sinning. That’s a lie. The apostle Paul, he sees, he latches on to this hope and he sees in this a, a life of good and profitable labor for us, a life of fruitfulness. Skip ahead. I’d love to read all this. We just don’t have time. But just go down to verse 58, he says, “Therefore, my beloved,” after everything I’ve taught you about resurrection, the doctrine of the resurrection, “be steadfast, my beloved brothers, be immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.” That’s the result.
That’s the result that Luke is aiming for. He, being a often, a companion with the apostle Paul filled with the apostle Paul’s doctrine teaching, the interpretation, the right interpretation of all the facts of the gospel. The result is of learning from the historical facts of Luke 24, the effect of that amazing chapter on our lives in the history of the resurrection that’s recorded there.
That leads to the doctrine of this resurrection that we believe. It’s holiness and fruitfulness and joy because of resurrection hope. Beloved, may God remove the sin of unbelief that veils our sight for all of us. May he strengthen the faith that he’s given us, so that we have greater light, greater knowledge, greater understanding, so we can comprehend, along with all God’s saints, the height, the depth, the breadth, the width of his love for us. And may he fill us with this hope that gives us life, the life of salvation, a life of holiness and fruitfulness, all of our days. Let’s do that together, Amen.
Let’s pray. Father, thank you so much for this chapter that’s before us. We’ve just briefly reviewed it, kind of skipped off the wave tops, but there’s so much depth to explore. And here at the outset, before we get into the chapter in any great detail, we do want to ask for your help at the outset that you would give us, by the Spirit, illumination to understand the things that you have given us there. The things that Jesus taught to his disciples so long ago, that he, being Lord of the church and head of the church, rejoices to teach even now.
I know that there is a smile fixed across his face as he looks down and hears us unfolding these truths, that he looks for with great anticipation to the weeks ahead, as we explore the, the glories of his resurrection power and glory. We just ask for your favor Father on all of us individually, or, or your favor on us as a church. We would learn and grow and come to love and worship the Lord Jesus Christ because he is worthy. It’s in his name we pray. Amen.