Luke 24:25-27
The Things Concerning Him
Luke 24:25-27
October 26, 2025
Today we are returning to the Emmaus Road, so you’ll want to open your Bibles to Luke 24, and we’ll start at verse 13, Luke 24:13, as two of Jesus’ disciples have left the city of Jerusalem to make a seven-mile walk to the village of Emmaus. On the way, probably not long after they set out, they encountered the risen Lord Jesus though they failed to recognize him. And that is where their journey really began.
It’s been a couple weeks, so let’s begin by reading the account starting in verse 13, chapter 24. We’ll read through verse 27. “And behold, two of them were going that same day to a village named Emmaus, which was sixty stadia from Jerusalem. They were conversing with each other about all these things which had happened.
“And it happened that while they were conversing and debating, Jesus himself approached them and was going with them, but their eyes were prevented from recognizing him. And he said to them, ‘What are these words that you are discussing with one another as you’re walking?’ They stood still, looking sad, and one of them named Cleopas answered and said to him, ‘Are you the only one visiting Jerusalem and unaware of the things which have happened here in these days?’ And he said to them, ‘What things?’
“They said to him, ‘The 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 elders delivered him to the sentence of death and crucified him. We were hoping that it was he who was going to redeem Israel. Indeed, besides all this, it is the third day since these things happened.
“‘But also some 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. But him they did not see.’
“And he said to them, ‘Oh, foolish ones and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into his glory?’ Then beginning with Moses, and with all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things concerning himself in all the Scriptures.”
As we’ve seen the, the great irony that kind of runs through the narrative as these men are recounting what had happened to Jesus the Nazarene, the irony is that they don’t realize they’re speaking to Jesus the Nazarene. There’s no need to miss him so dearly, to mourn him so pitifully, or doubt his resurrection at all. After all, he’s alive and well. He’s walking with them, talking with them, teaching them. They’re prevented from recognizing him.
What is it that’s preventing them? What blindfold fixed over their eyes keeps them from seeing what’s right in front of their faces? No physical blindfold exists, of course, but there is some invisible blindfold, some spiritually blinding force in the heart that prevents them from perceiving the truth.
As Jesus starts to speak to them in verse 25 and addresses them, that’s what he addresses first, that blindfold. He loosens the knot on the spiritual blindfold and then helps them remove what is preventing them from seeing so clearly by doing a Bible study. Yes, Jesus did Bible studies, and you should, too.
It’s worth reflecting on, isn’t it? Jesus could have done, here, for these men, another miracle. He could have stood there in his resurrected body, disappearing and reappearing, disappearing and reappearing all around them, doing circles around them, could have magically transported them all to journey’s end in Emmaus, set them down for a gourmet meal created just by the power of his Word.
But he would never do that. He wouldn’t even entertain the idea because it is such a foolish and a profane notion. Why offer proof to overcome unbelief? What good is evidence to one whose heart is predisposed to doubt, whether disciples or enemies or anyone and everyone in between?
It’s just as he taught in Luke 16:31, “‘If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets,’” that is, the Holy Scripture, “‘neither will they be persuaded if someone rises from the dead.’” It is the power of God’s Word that is needed every time and all the time.
His omnipotent Word is the issue, the decreed plan of redemption found in the Scripture. His omnipotent Word is what called heaven and earth into existence. His omnipotent Word formed and filled everything. God has magnified his omnipotent Word according to all his name, because his Word is living and active. It’s sharper than any two-edged sword, extends from his mouth, never returning to him empty, but accomplishing all his good pleasure and succeeding in whatever he sends it forth to do, Isaiah 55.
By the Word of God, Jesus overcame the devil and his wily temptations in the wilderness. By the word of God, Jesus parried every attack of his enemies. He’s always able to turn the tables on them, call their conscience to account by the word of God, by the exposition of Scripture. By the word of God, Jesus converted sinners, called his disciples, encouraged, strengthened, and trained them. It was by the Word of God that Jesus not only accepted the cross, but he actually set his face like flint to run toward the cross. He endured the cross because of the word of God. He despised the shame, and now having overcome death as promised in the Word of God, he’s seated at the right hand of God, all because of the Word of God.
You can go all the way back to his childhood, and Jesus could recall that it was by the Word of God he came to recognize his own messiahship. It was a growing, maturing realization from his childhood onward that he himself was God’s elect one, the chosen Messiah, the Christ. You may remember back in Luke 2, I think that was ten years ago? It was at the age of twelve years, Jesus is in the temple, and he’s sitting in the midst of the teachers, listening to them, but also asking them questions. “And all who heard him,” Luke tells us, “were astounded at his understanding and his answers.” Where did he get that knowledge? From the Word of God. Jesus continued to study God’s Word, which caused him in Luke 2:52 to “advance in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and men.” So what was good and profitable for our Lord must, of course, be good and profitable for us, good and profitable for these men walking to Emmaus.
So as you practice expository listening today, and as I try to do expository preaching today, think and reflect on your own habits and your own tendencies. How do you handle your discouragements and doubts, or those of others? Do you go directly to Bible study with them? Or do you think that to be somehow not nice, cold, mechanical? I assure you there is a cold and mechanical way to do Bible study.
But for a heart that burns with the power of the Word of God and has the Spirit of God coursing through us, and the Word of God is dwelling richly within us, there’s no cold Bible study. There is no mechanical, rote approach to Scripture. We love the Word, and we know that it has all power to save and to sanctify and to help the hurting and heal the broken-hearted.
So what do you do when you minister to hurting people? Do you go to them with God’s Word, or do you use man’s word? Do you make use of human methods of helping others, including your own niceness? Or do you do what Jesus did skillfully, directly leading others through a careful study of God’s Word?
One more question: What would need to change in your life, in your heart, in your thinking, in your use of time, so that you can skillfully use the Word of God to minister to others, minister to yourself? What needs to change?
Let me give you two points for today. The first will be a shorter point; the second will be quite a bit longer. First point, verses 25-26, number one, Jesus exposes doubt with loving confrontation. Jesus exposes doubt with loving confrontation. The issue between doubt and faith in the truth really is the issue. If we doubt and disbelieve, we are in a no-man’s land of darkness and pain and sadness. We waffle, we hurt, we’re discouraged, we make bad decisions.
But when we anchor our hearts and our minds in the Word of God and the truth that he’s revealed, believing it, believing it to be good for our souls and good for the souls of others, and we administer the medicine to our own hearts and to the hearts of others, it makes all the difference in the world.
Discouragement vanishes. Depression goes away. We’re lifted up. We see the world from God’s perspective. We rejoice. We’re filled with gratitude, we’re heartened, we’re encouraged, we’re strengthened. We march on toward Christ-like behavior and attitudes. The Holy Spirit fills us with his, the fruit of his Word.
So that is the issue, the difference between doubt and faith, unbelief and belief. Doesn’t matter what you’re going through, what trial you face, what sadness you endure. Doesn’t matter what relational problems you have, what financial problems you have. Doesn’t matter what physical problems you have. If you trust God, fully trust God, anchored into his Word, you march on in victory.
And that’s why Jesus starts by rebuking these two. It’s a mild rebuke, but it is a rebuke. He tells them how they’re acting. Then he tells them what explains their behavior. He said to them, “‘Oh, foolish ones and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken.’” How are they acting? Foolish. It’s one of four different words translated into our English as fool. The Greeks, evidently thinking themselves to be wise, needed to have many different ways of expressing their scorn upon the foolish. So you have four different words.
But this is a milder word, here. It is a milder word for “foolish,” but it does have a chiding sense. He says, “You two are being dense, senseless, mindless.” What’s the reason for that? He says it’s because they’ve been slow. Slow is a word that refers to a deficient mental perception, translated dull, sometimes translated stupid. Not an insult; it’s just for those who have the ability and the capacity to know better, but they don’t use their faculties to rightly reason. They’re being dull, a bit stupid.
So he says, “You two are being dense, senseless, because you’re dull in your heart to believe the Bible.” It’s pretty direct, isn’t it? Mr. Meek and Mild? He’s getting right to the point. I mean, if this is the Wonderful Counselor at work to counsel these discouraged men, we should take some notes. He goes right to the heart of the problem. The reason for their sorrow and sadness is that they’re slow to believe the Bible, slow to believe what the prophets have spoken, dull to hear and believe and understand and embrace what God has revealed.
And that is senseless and dense, is it not? Not to believe what the God of infinite knowledge and wisdom tells us, and to prefer instead our own feelings, our own intuitions, our own experience, our own training and education, our own gut instincts, do our own thing. It’s not too smart, is it?
Had they believed, they would have never doubted. They would have no need for Jesus to say in verse 26, “‘Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into his glory?’” He wouldn’t even had to pitch that rhetorical question at them. But he had to. There’s an interrogative particle that starts the sentence and expects a yes answer to this question. In other words, it was most certainly necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into his glory.
Jesus repeatedly told his disciples these things, as we’ve noted a number of times in our study: Luke 9:22, Luke 9:44, Luke 12:50, Luke 13:32 and 33, Luke 17:25, Luke 18:32 and 33. Those are just the ones that are in Luke. Those are the predictions of Jesus which his angels actually point to in verse 7 of our text of this chapter. He’s reminding the women. He’s sending them back with that reminder of what he had told them while back in Galilee. He’s sending them back to remind the others. Go tell the other disciples, especially those Apostles. Go tell them.
Notice, though, in talking with these two, notice that he doesn’t here remind them of his own teaching. Jesus wants them to remember and consider the canonical Scripture, the written word of God. Why is that? It’s so that afterwards, when the blindfold does come off, they will see that his teaching on the one hand and biblical canonical teaching on the other hand are one and the same. What does that tell you? Same divine authority, same divine source. Jesus’ Word and the written canonical Word of God are one and the same: inspired, infallible, inerrant truth.
So in verse 26 he wants them to see the connection, notice there, between suffering and glory, and it’s in that order, always in that order: suffering and then glory. That’s the pattern in the fallen world before and after the cross. Ever since righteous Abel in Genesis chapter 4 all the way to the tribulation martyrs of Revelation chapter 6, first suffering and then glory. It’s the pattern.It’s a necessary pattern. Necessary: that’s our little verbal friend delta epsilon iota, or dei, which points to what is so because of necessity, in this case divine necessity.
So why was it necessary, as Jesus said? Why was it necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into his glory? Why did God order the plan of redemption that way? Why is the suffering of Christ in particular necessary? Why not bypass the suffering, just leapfrog over all that part, go straight to the glory? Well, the d-e-i, dei is the word, as that verb indicates, the plan of redemption, it’s a matter of divine necessity. In other words, there’s a theological reason for this. It’s rooted in the essence and the character of God. It has to do with his truth and his justice. And what does that truth and justice demand? It demands that the Christ must suffer these things and then enter into his glory, the glory that’s ordained for Christ.
Divine justice demands that every sin gets its just reward, that every sin against God is punished. We understand that, in the case of the unbelieving, the reprobate, that they will spend eternity in Hell, suffering what’s due to their sins, for every sin that they have committed against God and his holiness. We understand that. But on the other side, if God would show mercy to any, even one, if he would save a sinner, then he must provide in Christ a substitute who will receive their punishment because his justice must be satisfied. God does not overlook any sin, not one sin, not even a millisecond of us not loving God with our whole heart, soul, strength and mind, and not a millisecond of us not loving our neighbor as ourself.
It is the power of God’s Word that is needed every time and all the time.” Travis Allen
Every sin, every errant thought, every imagination that doesn’t comport to his holiness, everything that we do and say that doesn’t advance his righteousness, all those things are sins, and we do them all the time. Divine justice demands that those sins be punished, and if he’s to save any one of us, well, then it’s Christ who has to absorb all of that for those whom God would save.
Divine justice demands that the one who gave himself up as a substitutionary atoning sacrifice for the sins of sinners, though himself innocent, divine justice demands that that one receive a just reward for his sacrifice. “He committed no sin, no deceit was found in his mouth, and yet he suffered and died for our sins.”
It’s okay. Divine justice took care of that, too. “As a result of the anguish of his soul, he will see it and be satisfied,” Isaiah 53:11. And then verse 12, “Therefore, I will divide for him,” that is, Christ, “a portion with the great. He’ll divide the spoil with the strong because he poured out his soul to death. He was numbered with the transgressors, and yet he himself bore the sin of many, interceded for the transgressors.”
Listen, this is his due reward. Give it to him. Give him glory. He has suffered. He’s taken a cross on himself. What should prevent this man from being duly rewarded, righteously regarded, esteemed above all creation, that heaven and earth, angels and men cry out, “Worthy, worthy, worthy is the Lamb”?
There in Isaiah 53:12, “I’ll divide him a portion. He’ll divide the spoil with the strong. He himself bore the sin of many.” The referent of all those masculine singular pronouns, he, him, himself, is none other than the central figure of all Scripture, the Christ of God. He’s the one, the only one who can and did fulfill divine justice.
So God is just. Every sin gets its just sentence, and he is also, God is also the justifier of the one who puts faith in Christ. So he shows mercy to every sinner who will believe in him because he’s dealt with their sins.
Christ is the one in whom all things cohere. Christ is the one to whom all things point. “Through him, God reconciles all things to himself, having made peace through the blood of his cross, things in earth and things in heaven.”
And since God has revealed this plan of redemption by the prophets in the Scripture progressively over time, kind of like a dimmer switch going up in a room so that increasing over time, it gets brighter and brighter and brighter until that light is on, like a surgical light in a surgical room, casting away every shadow, so everything is seen. And that comes in the incarnation, in the work of Jesus Christ.
God’s revealed this plan of redemption, and since he’s done that progressively over time, the truth and integrity and faithfulness of God is at stake, here. He put himself on record, written record in black and white, saying, This will happen, and therefore his integrity is at stake. If one jot or tittle of the law fails, cast it all away. Turn this book into kindling for your fire because it doesn’t matter. But not one jot, not one tittle has passed away from the law. All is fulfilled, will be fulfilled. He has to fulfill all that is spoken about the Christ as a matter of necessity, as Jesus says here, because “God is not a man that he should lie or change his mind.”
So had these men studied their Bibles, had these men believed as Jesus himself had done, studied and believed, well, this meeting on the Emmaus Road would have been a sweet reunion of very, very close friends, followed by an eager conversation about Jesus entering into his glory, about the plan. What’s next? What do you want us to do? But because that hasn’t happened, and they need that blindfold taken off, Jesus does a Bible study. He counsels their souls in the Word of God, doing a Bible study.
Number two, here’s my longer point: Jesus promotes faith with skillful exposition. Jesus promotes faith with skillful exposition. The Bible study, verse 27, is what we would call Old Testament Survey. But at this point in the timeline of redemptive history, there’s no distinction between Old and New Testaments because the New Testament has not yet been written. And so it’s just Bible study for them. They have one Bible. It’s called the Old Testament to us. But it says in verse 27, “Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets,” that’s another way to say “beginning with the beginning,” “he interpreted to them the things concerning himself in all the Scriptures.”
Not unlike many today, not unlike many of us as well, these men understood some things concerning the Messiah. I mean, they outlined those things for Jesus as he asked them the question, “‘What things are you talking about?’” They went into some of the things that recent events concerning the Messiah. They had more that they could have, would have drawn off of. They had more that they could have gone into the Bible and talked about. But they didn’t take into account all that was written in all the Scripture because they didn’t take into account everything that God had written. They had a distorted picture of the work and the person of the Messiah. These men saw the glory of Christ in the Scripture, but they failed to see the sufferings of Christ.
It’s too bad because it’s really the sufferings of the Christ, the cross of Christ, far from demonstrating the failure of hope, that suffering, that negativity, that bad news is really the accomplishment of divine salvation. It’s the suffering of Christ and the cross. When it shows up in our own lives, it’s the suffering that gives way to glory. It’s the hard things we go through that improve us, not the easy things. Rather ironically, these disciples are blind to the glory of the Messiah because they ignored and rejected the suffering.
Calvin says there’s a common mistake, here, at the root of this. He says, “What is here said,” what Jesus said to them, “what is here said was not confined to these two persons, but as a reproof of a common fault was intended to be conveyed by their lips to the rest of their companions.”
Listen, even this, we can call this a failure on their part to believe, slow of heart to believe, they were foolish, even this in the good providence of God is going to be so useful to the disciples they talk to later. They’re going to say, Man, you guys, were we dumb! Let, let me show you, get out your Bibles. Let’s go through the Scripture together. In fact, that kind of conversation has happened ever since this incident.
This is why Jesus begins with Moses. He goes to the beginning, more accurate translation “from Moses and from all the prophets.” So there’s a coordinating conjunction, there, that joins and equates Moses and all the prophets. We could say Moses is the prototypical prophet. Others follow in the same pattern. So all, Moses and all the prophets, all the writings, all of Scripture is prophetic Scripture. So all of it inspired, prophetic, authoritative; and Jesus took them through the prophetic Scripture.
And you can skip ahead in your Bible, look at verse 44. You can see the trifold division of the Old Testament: the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms. We know that as the Torah, the Law; the Nevi’im, the Prophets; and the Ketuvim, the Writings. That’s the three-fold division recognized by the Jews, by the rabbis, by us today in the Old Testament.
So Jesus went through the Scripture, starting with Moses, going all the way through the prophets, and he illuminated the sense for them as he showed them the things concerning himself. The verb therefore illuminating the sense or showing them or unfolding for them is diermeneuo. It’s means to illuminate, to make something clear or intelligible, and that’s exactly what he did.
Now the question, here, is, how did he do it? How did he do that? The text doesn’t say, does it? Luke doesn’t tell us. Commentators differ in their opinions about how Jesus took them through the Old Testament. Some say he went back to Genesis and then moved sequentially historically through the Scripture. Some insist that he didn’t proof-text. He didn’t just take, isolate verses and cite them, but he probably moved more thematically through the Scripture.
Some say he took various doctrines and developed them in a biblical, theological way to show the progressive revelation and clarity of that doctrine, say, of atonement or of sacrifice or whatever it is, and trace that all the way through the Old Testament. Others say, no, he took different aspects of the Messiah’s work and mission and unpacked those from the Old Testament, showing himself to be prophet, priest, and king, and unpacking that through the whole Old Testament. Which is it? Let me remind you, Luke doesn’t say. So it’s impossible to say, really, what approach he took.
And I think that’s really the genius of the Holy Spirit in this account. He sends us, all of us, back to the Old Testament in many and various ways, all of us trying to attempt our own retracing of the steps that Jesus took with these disciples. It’s brilliant, really. I mean, obviously it’s the Bible, it’s the Holy Spirit, right?
The different men and women who return again and again and again to the Bible all the way through the history of the church, they interpret these things afresh, they view them from different angles, and they keep discovering new insights. There is no end to the glory of Christ in the Scripture, for “in him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” And it is our joy to discover that. Isn’t that great?
Now understand something before I try to tackle some of this. Our Lord had three or four hours on an afternoon walk to take these guys through a survey of the Old Testament. I have about thirty minutes. Our Lord had more time than we do. Our Lord is the central subject of all these texts. He knows them so thoroughly and so perfectly, and his mind is, further, not addled by weakness, sinfulness, forgetfulness, as is the mind of your pastor.
So I’m not able to provide a thorough biblical theology or even an adequate treatment of theological themes, types, figures, progressive unfolding of the nature of the role, the work, the types, the offices of Christ in this time we have remaining. Entire courses are offered on these issues, and they only scratch the surface of Scripture’s central figure.
I can tell you, upon entering heaven I’m signing up straightaway for that course Old Testament Survey taught by Jesus Christ. What about you? I mean, if I could be in on any conversation, this is the one. So having set your expectations sufficiently low enough that I can meet them, the bar is so low, I might be able to trip over it, that’s no disparagement of me as a preacher. I’m just trying to say this is broad and vast and deep and wide. How do you get your arms around it? And I can tell you I’ve been struggling with that.
So let’s narrow the scope a little bit and put this into manageable, a manageable approach and hopefully a manageable time frame for you as well. What we’ll do is we’ll feature the writings of Moses, hit key highlights in the Pentateuch, and we’ll make mention of the prophets and the writings, but mainly Moses. So warm up your fingers and go ahead and turn back to Genesis in your Bibles. Genesis is the first book of Torah, the law of Moses, known by the Greek word Pentateuch, Pentateuch meaning five books, referring to Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. All those books, including all the books of the Bible, but all of those testify to the sufferings of Christ and to the glories that follow.
So what we’re going to do is we’re going to start at Genesis 3:15, the, what’s called the first Gospel, the protoeuangelion. Genesis 3:15, but I’m going to back up and read a couple other things as well. Keep in mind as we approach this, this glorious Gospel, the central figure of the Gospel, Christ Jesus, the, the God-man, who is the one and only mediator between God and man, God decreed all of this before time began. Before creating the heavens and the earth and all they contain, God decreed it, God chose it, God predestined it.
In fact, Titus 1:2 says that “God, the God who cannot lie,” he took this hope of eternal life, and he promised the hope of eternal life before time began. To whom was that promise made before time began? Before there was heaven and earth or anything in it, including angels and human beings, before time began, who was there? God, the triune God. So Titus 1:2 points to an intra-trinitarian agreement called the Pactum Salutis or the Council of Peace. It’s a pre-temporal, pre-time agreement, so to speak, among the Persons of the Trinity. This is language we use to try to understand and explain this, so it’s inaccurate, I know, but it’s the best we can do to get our arms around what was happening before time began.
God’s plan of salvation, to save his people, to call us with a holy calling, as Paul says in 2 Timothy 1:9, was “according to his own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus,” when? “from all eternity.” This is an eternal decree. God predestined the wisdom of his eternal salvation, 1 Corinthians 2:7, “before the ages to our glory.” Again, this is decreed from eternity, and yet it’s revealed in time. The blessed and the only true and living God, the one who exists eternally in three persons, it was according to the good pleasure of the counsel of his will he chose to create the heavens and the earth to reveal and to magnify his triune glory, to show his triune love.
Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” God by his Spirit through the Son, the eternal Word. “All things came into being through by him,” John 1:3, “apart from him, nothing came into being that has come into being.” He called into existence the heavens and the earth, and he said, “Light shall shine out of darkness, and it was so.”
God formed the earth, and he filled it by the infinite wisdom of his perfect design. Read Psalm 8. Read passages in Job that unpack the manifold wisdom of God in the created order. You can read in for yourself in Genesis 1 and 2 how he supplied the earth super-abundantly with the fruits of his goodness. He designed the earth, its plants, its animals in creative beauty, ultimately giving the greatest honor to mankind, which is creation’s crowning glory.
God created Adam and Eve in his own image, according to his own likeness. He created Adam and Eve to enjoy loving fellowship with their Creator. They would converse with him in communion. They would learn from him as a child learns from his father. They’d commune with one another, a loving relationship of a marriage, a one-flesh partnership for life. And together they would delight in the goodness of God’s creation. They’d be thrilled to discover all of its mysteries that God had packed into the earth and it, and the heavens and the skies and the, and the seas.
He’d be keen to develop its resources and, and develop the earth and garden it, turn the entire thing into a paradise. They were to grow. They were to become the conduit of God’s eternal love. The inter-trinitarian love is now a love ad extra,that is, outside of himself, that goes through mankind to all the earth. They would exercise by that love a wise dominion over all creation.
And all that came to a screeching halt when Adam and Eve sinned against God. How could they do that? They chose to believe the deceptive fantasy of Satan, a creature, over and against the reality of what God had done, who he showed himself to be.
God said in Genesis, if you’ve got your Bible, you can turn back to Genesis 2:16-17, “Yahweh, God commanded the man, saying, ‘From any tree of the garden you may surely eat, but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat it, for in the day that you eat from it, you will surely die.’” So the condition for living, the condition for eternal life: Just trust me, just believe me. You will live joyfully in my world. You’ll be content to obey my will, because my will is good, my heart is kind.
Satan slithered along and said to the woman in verse 4 of chapter 3, “The serpent said to the woman, ‘You shall surely not die, for God knows,’” here’s his ulterior motive. Don’t trust that guy. He looks good on the outside. Let me tell you what’s really going on, Eve. “‘God knows in the day you eat of it, your eyes will be open. You’ll be like God, knowing good and evil.’” He’s jealous. That is a heart, he’s got a heart of envy.
The woman pondered this, verse 6, “saw the tree was good for food, that it was a delight to the eyes. The tree was desirable to make one wise, so she took from its fruit and ate. She gave also to her hapless husband standing with her, and he ate. “The eyes of both of them were opened, they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together, made themselves loin coverings.”
God comes to confront the guilty couple, and he begins by pronouncing a curse upon the serpent. But in that curse, the first Gospel, the protoeuangelion, the pre-temporal promise that God would redeem and save and reconcile his people to himself by his grace through faith in the one that he appointed, Christ, from before time began, here it is, revealed in time in the context of a shocking fall into sin. Look at Genesis 3:14, “Then Yahweh God said to the serpent, ‘Because you’ve done this, cursed are you more than any of the cattle, more than any beast of the field. On your belly you will go, dust you will eat all the days of your life.”
Is there anybody in here who loves snakes? Because I sure don’t. Every time I see snakes out there in the wild, not in the city, I’ll get in trouble, but out there I shoot them. I don’t like snakes. There’s enmity between me and the snake. I’ve got theological grounds for it because verse 15 says, verse 15, “I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed. He shall bruise you on the head and you shall bruise him on the heel.”
So interesting, isn’t it, that God, Yahweh God, announces this Gospel not directly to the man and the woman, but indirectly to them. But he announces it to Satan. He announces victory over the adversary of all adversaries, the chief villain of all time in history, the devil, who’s a murderer from the beginning, in fact the greatest mass murderer that ever was. He announces it to the devil. Jesus went in the spirit and made proclamation to the spirits now in prison, the devil’s buddies cast into the abyss since Genesis chapter 6. He went and proclaimed his victory on the cross to them as well. He saw his Father do it first.
Here, Genesis 3:15, though in seed form, this first Gospel contains all the essential elements of the whole Gospel, a Gospel that is going to, as I said, in seed form, grow, blossom, flourish, show itself progressively through time in the rest of the Scripture. It comes into full bloom in the incarnation of Jesus Christ. He would redeem the seed of the woman through the seed of the woman, that is to say, by a man born from her. It’s not common to speak of a woman’s seed. A man’s seed, yes, but a woman’s seed? Interesting. Already a hint at the Immaculate Conception, the miraculous conception of Jesus Christ in the womb, the seed of the woman.
Paul said in Galatians 4:4, “God sent forth his Son in the fullness of time, born of a woman, born under the law to redeem those under the law.” We see in Genesis 3:15 that this man would rise above Adam. He’d surpass Adam and therefore a greater Adam who’d pass the test, this man who would win the right to redeem.
The first man, Adam, became a living being and he failed. The last Adam, 1 Corinthians 15:45, he passed the test. He became a life-giving spirit. He breathed new life, divine life, into his people by giving them the Holy Spirit, another reward of his faithfulness and obedience. That’s his exaltation, by the way.
So Christ, the life-giving spirit, imparts a new nature, one that’s at enmity with a satanic nature, one that’s at enmity and hostility with a fallen nature. “God said, ‘I will put enmity.’” That is to say, this new nature is imparted by God. He’s the one that takes the initiative. “‘I will put enmity.’” He gives a new nature imparted by divine regeneration. This is the grace of sovereign initiative. It’s not by human initiative, effort, works. No, it’s by God’s initiative. Regeneration comes by his Spirit.
The redeemer, Genesis 3:15, he suffers a bruised heel, points to a vicarious suffering of Christ. It was revealed over time, progressively in Revelation, as a substitutionary atonement, particularly in Levitical sacrifice, as the worshipper would come and put his hand on the animal, and the priest would slit the throat of the animal as he’s confessing his sins over the animal. Is that animal guilty?
Even the substitutionary atonement is hinted at not only here, but then in, further in verse 21 of the same chapter. God replaces the coverings that Adam and Eve had made for themselves, these fig leaves that are already wilting. God replaced those coverings with garments of skin taken from animals that God himself had slain. Here’s God providing a blood atonement, the first animal sacrifice in Scripture. It’s the vicarious suffering of an innocent victim.
Again, it points to Christ. Though Christ suffered as an innocent sacrifice to atone for our sins, the seed of the woman through suffering would deliver a mortal wound and crush the serpent’s head. 1 John 3:8 says that “the reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.” And indeed he did. He crushed his head. He pulverized it.
Now, I don’t know how long that took. That’s just one verse in Genesis from this humble preacher. Jesus, the greatest preacher ever, the subject of every single verse, he had three or four hours in Moses and the prophets; and I know, based on all the teaching we have recorded of him in an economy of words, he was able to distill his points and move rapidly from text to text to text. And you say, You’d better get on it, schoolboy; you’re, you’re wasting time.
So moving on, the antediluvians, those living prior to the Noahic flood, looking for salvation through the seed of the woman promised in Genesis 3:15, we, we read in Genesis 4:1, that “the man knew his wife Eve,” Genesis 4:1, “and she conceived and gave birth to Cain. And she said, ‘I’ve gotten a man with the help of Yahweh.’” What’s she excited about? Could this be the promised seed? Is this the fulfillment?
Well, no, it wasn’t. Cain succumbed to sin, killed his righteous brother Abel and proved himself disqualified. He’s not the seed. What about Seth? After giving birth to Seth, Eve said in Genesis 4:25, “‘God has,” sent, “set for me another,’” notice the word, “seed,’ ‘in place of Abel, for Cain killed him.’” She’s got a lot of hope in Seth. Even his children began to call upon the name of the Lord in verse 26.
But as we keep reading, it’s not long before the pattern of birth and death and birth and death and birth and death became established. Hope faded as men’s wickedness increased over time, resulting in greater bloodshed until the whole earth was soaked and God needed to intervene in the judgment of the Flood to wash that all away. And even though in Genesis chapter 6 verse 8, “Noah found favor in the eyes of God,” he himself was disqualified after the Flood, in Genesis 9:21, when he became drunk. He’s not the seed either.
But God did say in establishing this in the Noahic covenant, Genesis 9, verse 9, “‘Behold, I established my covenant with you, with your descendants after you,’” and descendants, guess what word that is: seed, zera, pointing to the future for fulfillment of the Genesis 3:15 promise.
We know that from Noah onward, there were a series of biblical covenants, all, all of these biblical covenants unfolding what theologians see as an overarching, what they call theologically a covenant of grace, that covenant of grace encapsulating all those biblical covenants.
So the Noahic, Abrahamic, Mosaic, Davidic, the New Covenant, all unfolding God’s plan of redemption and accomplishing it. They portray Christ coming to fulfill what’s promised in the covenants and to fulfill the types in the covenants. He’s the reality behind the shadows. He’s the substance of all these covenants.
So in the Noahic covenant, Christ is the ark that brings his people to safety, 1 Peter 3:18-22. Christ protects his people from the overwhelming flood of divine judgment. In the Abrahamic covenant, starting in Genesis 12, verse 7, “‘To your seed I will give this land.’” It’s reiterated in chapters 15, chapter 17. We find promises about the seed of Abraham.
In fact, turn over to Genesis 22, Genesis 22, where God tested Abraham. You remember this promised seed, Isaac, not Ishmael, but Isaac. He tells, tells Abraham, “‘Take that promised son, Isaac,’” his seed. He says, “‘Take your son, your only son, the one whom you love. Let me make it real clear for you, Isaac, go there, offer him there as a burnt offering.’”
Abraham, amazingly, Genesis 22, he’s in the process of obeying God when God stopped him, stayed his hand. God had always intended this, but he sent in a substitutionary sacrifice to stand in place of Isaac, a ram caught in the thicket by its horns, Genesis 22:13. And in verse 14 Abraham called the name of that place, “YAHWEH will provide.” As it is this day in the mount of YAHWEH, it will be provided.
God would provide not only the seed, but the substitute. Indeed, God would provide a substitutionary atoning sacrifice on another mount, one called Calvary. This promised seed, Jesus the son of Abraham, the son of Isaac, the son of Jacob, who is the sacrificial lamb also for all who believe. That’s how Abraham passed the test. He returned to the, the state of the garden by believing in God, who is able to raise the dead, Hebrews 11:19 says, that God will fulfill his promise that God would save. And so Genesis 15:6, “Abraham believed God, and he counted it to him as righteousness.”
God’s revealed this plan of redemption, and since he’s done that progressively over time, the truth and integrity and faithfulness of God is at stake, here. ” Travis Allen
Abraham proved his faith in God by offering his son Isaac, not withholding his only son. And God delivered them both in Genesis 22:16, “‘By myself I have sworn,’ declares YAHWEH, ‘because you’ve done this thing and you’ve not spared your son, your only one, indeed, I will greatly bless you, and I will multiply your seed as the stars, the heavens as the sand which is on the seashore. Your seed shall possess the gate of his enemies, and in your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed because you’ve listened to my voice.’” Another way of translating that, another way of stating that, I should say, You’ve heeded my voice. You’ve believed me, and you obey it.
Christ is Abraham’s seed. He’s the one through whom all the nations, the earth will be blessed. He’s the ultimate child of promise, starting with Isaac, then Jacob, whose name is changed to Israel, and Christ is the child of promise.
We turn to Exodus. In Exodus, you can flip over there, but God sent Israel, as we know, into Egypt to protect the nation from a famine. But he had plans, plans to extract his people and show his power over Egypt, the superpower of the time, and its gods. He wanted to extract his people and show himself glorious over all the gods of all the earth.
So God raised up one called Moses, and God sent him to his people, Israel. And when God chose to deliver them, he distinguished between the Egyptians and the Israelites on a night when he would kill all the firstborn of Egypt. Israel’s babies would have been caught up in that as well, but God mercifully granted them a sacrifice, a substitute, a lamb, one per family, and used the blood of that lamb to act as an atonement, a covering for all who believe. Exodus 12:13 says, “‘The blood shall be a sign for you, and I will see the blood and I will pass over you. There shall be no plague among you to destroy you.’” Passed over you, you know what’s commemorated ever since then? Passover, the Passover sacrifice.
It’s John the Baptist later who identified Jesus as that atoning sacrifice, John 1:29. He said, “‘Behold, the Lamb of God, which takes away the sin of the world.’” Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 5:7, “Christ, our Passover has also been sacrificed. And because of that, we’re to clean out the old leaven.”
You know what he’s referring to, there? That’s the Feast of Unleavened Bread. You commenced the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread by rooting through your home and finding every bit of leaven, which represents sin, casting it out. And Paul uses that as an example of how we’re to purge sin from the congregation itself. You know what feast is underway when these two disciples left Jerusalem for Emmaus? The Feast of Unleavened Bread. These two disciples walking with Jesus to Emmaus, they’re walking with the, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.
Also in Exodus, we see in chapter 20 the Law of Moses, called the Law of Moses because it was given to him at Sinai. And there’s a Mosaic covenant summarized in Ten Commandments, then elaborated further in a sacrificial system, the priesthood, the tabernacle, all the accoutrements of worship. According to Colossians 2:17, “the substance of all these things belongs to Christ.”
But let me focus in on one piece within the Holy of Holies, a place called the mercy seat. The mercy seat is the lid, the covering of the Ark of the Covenant, and that mercy seat in the middle of the lid of the Ark of the Covenant is flanked by two golden cherubim. And that place, that mercy seat, is called the place of propitiation, the hilasterion. It’s the place where the blood is sprinkled to appease the wrath of God. The sacrifice itself, the blood that satisfies the wrath of God for sins, is a related word called the hilasmos. Again, this is all picturing Christ. He’s the covering. He’s the blood. “God sent his Son to be the propitiation,” 1 John 4:10, the hilasmos, “for our sins.”
We come into Leviticus, and almost every page in Leviticus pertains to Christ. He fulfills all the burnt offerings, all the grain offerings, the peace offerings, the sin offerings, the guilt offerings. In Christ is the cleansing for sin that defiles worse than leprosy. It’s more disgusting, sin is, than leprosy. All the defilements of body and soul cannot compare to what sin does to a life. And he, Christ, not only cleanses us from sin, but purifies us in his holiness. Christ is the great High Priest, not over the, not after the Aaronic order, but after the order of Melchizedek, as prophesied in Psalm 110:4, and then elaborated further in Hebrews 5, 6, and 7.
“We have a high priest,” Hebrews 7:26, “who,” the writer says, “is holy and innocent and undefiled and separated from sinners, and he’s exalted above the heavens.” This high priest doesn’t need to, like Aaron and the other high priests of Israel, he doesn’t need “to offer up daily sacrifices, first for his own sins and then for the sins of other people, because this he did once for all when he offered up himself.”
We go to the book of Numbers. In the book of Numbers, Jesus identified himself as the bronze serpent that God lifted up to deliver his people from the judgment that he himself had sent to them. You remember that once again Israel was complaining, and they’re not content, they’re not grateful, they don’t have humble, thankful hearts, and instead they complain. They grumble against Moses; they grumble against God.
Turn over to Numbers chapter 21 and verse 6. What did YAHWEH do? “YAHWEH sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people so that many of the people of Israel died. And then the people came to Moses and said, ‘We have sinned because we’ve spoken against YAHWEH and against you. Pray to YAHWEH that he may remove these serpents from us.’”
The poison of those serpents is flowing through their veins, coming close to their hearts to cause a clotting and a cardiac arrest. This is an urgent crisis, a dire need, and Moses prayed for the people. There he is: the mediator between God and man, again pictured in Christ.
Moses prayed for the people, and then, verse 8, “YAHWEH said to Moses, ‘Make a fiery serpent, set it on the standard, and it will be that everybody who is bitten, everyone who is bitten and looks at it will live.’ Moses made a bronze serpent, set it on the standard. It happened that if a serpent bit any man, when he looked to the bronze serpent, he lived.”
I ask you, I ask you medical doctors, what connection is there to eradicating, treating poisonous serpent bites and looking at a bronze serpent on a stick? Zero, you answer? Right answer. Think about that. What do they need to do? Believe in the remedy, trust Moses and his word, look upon the serpent. Just do what God says and you’ll live.
Jesus is the greater Moses. He’s the better mediator of a better covenant, and he’s the greater symbol of deliverance. And in both cases, between Jesus on the cross and the serpent on the stake, that instrument of divine deliverance is totally offensive to those who are stricken by death, isn’t it?
No one wants to look at a bronze serpent when that’s the very thing that inflicted the pain on you. No one wants to look at a dying Christ on a cross, either, a stark reminder of what each one of us deserves as a just payment for our sins. But nevertheless, God says, “Look and you will live.” John 3:14: “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up so that whoever believes in him will have eternal life.” You want to live? Look. Look at the remedy that God provided.
The final book of Moses, Deuteronomy, literally, second law, that’s what the word means, deuteronomos. It reiterates the Sinaitic covenant, the Mosaic covenant. Most of Deuteronomy is sermonic material of Moses. He delivered it to the next generation of Israelites. Why the next generation, the second generation that came out of Egypt? Why did it, why to them? Because all their parents were dead. They did not believe. They came out of Egypt, saw all of God’s power, his miracles, his greatness, and they distrusted him still. So God wiped them out, strew their bodies all over the wilderness in Sinai, and raised up their children.
Now their children are grown, forty years later. They’re ready to enter into the Promised Land under Joshua’s leadership, not Moses’. He’s a great mediator, a wonderful prototypical prophet, but he sinned. He sinned against God. He did not regard God as holy in the incident of striking the rock instead of speaking to it as God had said. So God said, You’re not going to enter, you failed. You failed as a mediator. You failed as my prophet. I’m going to raise up the Christ, one of many references to Christ in Deuteronomy.
They all give, there’s so many things to say, but just one in Deuteronomy 8:3, Deuteronomy 8:3, God gave Israel manna to feed them while they were journeying in the wilderness, so they didn’t have to plant crops, plow, plant, cultivate, feed, sow, soil, all the things that farmers have to do. They didn’t have to wait over all those years. They wandered all the time, and God still fed them, fed them, fed them. Why’d he give them this manna, this bread from heaven? Deuteronomy 8:3 says “that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of YAHWEH.”
You know Jesus, he said the same thing, making a connection directly to that text in John chapter 6 in verse, starting in verse 49. This is after he fed the 5,000, by the way, with two fish and five loaves, miraculously feeding 5,000 men, and really they are probably 10 to 20,000 if you include the women and the children.
But Jesus makes this connection in John 6:48. He says, “I’m the bread of life.” You come chasing after me for plain old bread. Though it’d be miraculous, it’s only going to feed you for today. “I’m the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died.” It’s a double reference. It’s talking about the manna only being able to sustain their physical life. But further, why did they die? Why did God lay their bodies all over the wilderness? Because they disobeyed. They didn’t trust him.
So Jesus says, “‘This is the bread which comes down from heaven so one may eat of it and not die. I’m the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he’ll live forever. And also, the bread which I give for the life of the world is my flesh.’” His body was broken for us. His blood was shed to make us partakers of a new covenant. And now that he is risen from the dead, his resurrected life feeds us continually with true bread from heaven. He imparts eternal life to us by the Spirit.
I realize that’s only scratching the surface of the surface of what is available to us in the Old Testament concerning Christ. You could say it’s the tip of the iceberg, but it’s really not even that. It’s just a few snowflakes we’ve examined on the tip of that tip of the iceberg. Yet we feel so inadequate. We come into this vast depth and breadth and height and length of the Old Testament and see Christ is everywhere. We could survey the Old Testament, see Christ’s essential nature as the God-man, the only one who is truly God, truly man, having two natures, one human, one divine.
Christ is the Son of Man. It’s a term associated in Ezekiel with Christ. Ezekiel, the son of man, he is the mediator. He represents God to a sinful people and stands in the gap for sinners before a holy God. But we find out that there is only one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus. Even though God addressed Ezekiel over and over again, son of man, son of man, son of man. Look at what these people are doing. Look at what these people are doing. Should I not be offended? Should I not judge them? Oh, yes, you should, Lord. Yes, you should.
According to Daniel 7:13, the Son of Man receives an exalted future. As we see, not only is he there for suffering, but also for glory. The Son of Man receives, Daniel 7:13 and following, dominion, glory, a kingdom, that all peoples and nations and men might serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion which won’t pass away. His kingdom is one which will never be destroyed. Why? A reward for his obedience.
We know he’s not only the Son of Man, he’s also the Son of God. Psalm 2:7, “‘You’re my son. Today I’ve begotten you, and how blessed are all who take refuge in him.’” Psalm 10, 110:1: “YAHWEH says to my Lord, ‘Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool.’” Jesus drew out that implication, saying in Luke chapter 20, “‘If David calls him Lord, how can he be his son?’” I mean, figure out this little mystery for me. He’s the Son of God. He’s got a divine nature. He’s the Son of Man. He’s got the nature of a man. He’s the perfect representative between God and man.
We could go on surveying the Old Testament, see his federal role, his covenantal role, as Christ is the representative head of a new humanity. He’s the better Adam, therefore the last Adam. So where Adam failed, as we’ve already gone through, Christ succeeded. He triumphed. He merited our salvation. We continue surveying the Old Testament and see Christ’s mediatorial work unpacked, there, where he suffers in the place of sinners, dies in their stead, especially in that magisterial Isaiah 53, or as we read earlier in Psalm 22, crucifixion portrayed in detail there.
But beyond his suffering and dying for sins, which for us in our time all that is complete, his mediatorial work continues in eternal perpetuity, onward and onward in the three offices of his mediatorship: prophet, priest, king. Every prophet of the Old Testament failed in some way. Every priest in the Old Testament failed in some way. Every king in the Old Testament failed in some way, all pointing to the need for one to fulfill it all.
Christ is the prophet God promised Moses, Deuteronomy 18:18: “‘I will raise up a prophet from among their countrymen like you. I’ll put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him.’” The perfect teacher, prophet, revealer of God’s will. Christ is the great High Priest that God promised. He’s greater than Aaron, according to the priesthood of Melchizedek, who not only serves us in this life, but also on in perpetuity in the life to come.
Christ is the King God promised. We haven’t even seen or talked about that, have we? The, the Davidic covenant, God’s promise to David according to 2 Samuel 7:13, “‘I’ll establish the throne of his kingdom forever.’” It’s exactly what the angel Gabriel was referring to, the Davidic covenant, fulfillment in Christ when he told Mary in Luke 1:32-33. “‘He will be great. He’ll be called Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David. He’ll reign over the house of Jacob forever. His kingdom will have no end.’” Fulfillment, Davidic covenant. He’s prophet, priest, and king.
We’ve mostly surveyed the necessity of Christ suffering these things, hardly touched on the other part that Jesus identifies in verse 26, the part that he must enter into his glory. So you got a couple minutes? Prophet, priest and king: Let’s run through those again. In his prophetic office, Christ is going to continue throughout eternity, teaching his people, teaching us. He’s going to daily reveal further layers of infinite glory of God the Father, he being assisted by the illuminating ministry of the Holy Spirit, who indwells every single one of us.
Though we are mere creatures now, we’re going to be delivered, glorified from any weakness of the flesh, any sin, anything that clouds. There’s going to be no blindfold then. You know what we going to continue to do with our great prophet? Learn and rejoice and discover, our souls being thrilled, our minds being exploded. We’re invited to explore this never-ending treasury of the divine mind, led by the treasure-keeper himself, “in whom is hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”
That’s his prophetic office going on into eternity in his priestly office. Yeah, he’s going to continue his priestly ministry. No longer does he need to interpose the blood of his sacrifice for our sins because we will have our sins removed, gone, never any presence of sin for us forevermore.
No, instead he’s going to keep on as a priest does, interceding for us, praying for us so that we’ll understand the things that he gives us. He’s going to stimulate us, provoke us, evoke, otherwise encourage our prayers. So drawing out our prayers as we pray with him, our great High Priest, and he aligns us in perfect accordance with the will of the Father.
Christ is going to agree with our prayers. Why? Because we pray according to God’s will all the time, just like he does. We’re going to join him. He’s going to lead our prayer meetings. Think prayer meetings then will be poorly attended like they can be now? No. We’re going to rejoice in praying with him. We’re going to love being there, hearing about the will of God unfolded and what we get to do next. And we’re going to join him in prayer. Ora et labora. We’re going to pray and then work.
The unfolding, the eternal unfolding of the knowledge of the truth, the infinite mind of God is going to stir our glorified affections and inform our glorified prayers and lead to glorified action forever. Is this cool, or what?
In his kingly office, Christ is going to continue to lead us no longer as a wartime king like David who needs to put down his enemies to protect his people. That work is done. That’s over, that’s history. He’s now a peace-time king like King Solomon. He’s going to administer a glorified kingdom in wisdom. He’s going to beautify his kingdom, and he’s going to beautify us in wisdom and holiness, his kingdom citizens.
Christ is going to bring into his kingdom the glory and honor of the nations, “that God the Father may receive all glory and honor and power, for he created all things, and by his will they existed and were created,” Revelation 4:11.
He’s a wise king, building, beautifying, administrating, and Christ is going to lead us in blessed labors, intelligent industry, abundant productivity, fruitfulness in that time to the glory and the honor of God forever. We’re the people, we the people are going to rejoice to follow him. We’re going to go wherever he goes.
All this by the exercise of Christ’s perfected, glorified, ascended mediatorship as prophet, priest, and king. This is the satisfaction of his ascension glory: us glorified with him, we learning his mind, praying according to his will, doing all the Father’s will.
In closing, take a look at verse, go back to Luke 24, take a look at verse 32 just to see how Jesus’ teaching affected these two disciples. He suddenly left. We’ll get to that next step. But he suddenly left and they said to one another, “‘Were not our hearts burning within us while he was speaking to us on the road, while he was opening up the Scriptures to us?’” We’ll get to them.
But think about it. If their hearts are burning within them, these men, still encased in sinful flesh, they still have ahead of them the struggle of the Christian life to always mortify the flesh, vivify the Christian graces, grow in spiritual virtues, repent, repent, repent. These men who like us, they groan inwardly as they wait eagerly for their adoption as sons, the redemption of their bodies and glory.
If all that and more was true of these two disciples, and yet their hearts burned within them, beloved, imagine how much more the heart of our risen Lord, now rejoicing here with them in victory, no longer subject to death, but perfected in resurrection power, resurrection glory. Imagine how his beautiful heart is partaking, here, of an infinite delight, how he’s rejoicing to see these men for whom he died, bought and paid for.
He rejoices with the Father who will just in forty days send the Holy Spirit to indwell them, to take up residence within them, to adopt them, to seal them, and then to take up his teaching role, delighting to illuminate the minds of his people, teach them, give them the gift of thrilling discoveries in the excellencies of “him who has called us out of darkness and into his marvelous light.”
You know what? He’s rejoicing. He’s satisfied. He’s thrilled. He’s delighted. But up to this point, he hasn’t fully removed their blindfolds yet, has he? He has informed their faith. He’s prepared them to interpret accurately what their believing eyes are about to see, what their eyes are about to behold. So when we come back next week, the blindfold comes off. For now, let’s pray.
Our Father, what a great redemption story you have told, scripting it from before the foundation of the world. We are so thankful for what you have done, for what you’ve accomplished in Christ. We’re so thankful for just this short little survey, inadequate though it may be, but it is, it does make the case or make the point that this, this redemption story knows no end. There’s no bottom.
We continue to go deeper and deeper still, and our minds and our hearts are lifted up higher and higher into heaven to contemplate the things that “eye has not seen, nor has ear heard, nor has any heart conceived or has entered into the heart of man all that God has prepared for those of us who love you.”
So thank you for this great salvation, and thank you for causing so many of us to believe, to put our faith in him. Thank you for removing that blindfold, for confronting our spiritual pride, causing us to be humble and contrite, to tremble at your Word.
We know that there are people here who do not yet know you, maybe people listening online who have not believed. Please be gracious to them, Father, according to your will. Open their blind eyes, take off the blindfold, and let them see the glorious, majestic Lord Jesus Christ. It’s in his name we pray. Amen.