Luke 24

Luke 24:1-11

PERIOD NINTH.THE AND , Luke 24:1-53.§ 145.—FIRST VISIT OF THE WOMEN TO THE , Luke 24:1-11.See notes on Matthew 28:1; Matthew 28:5-8; Mark 16:2-8; John 20:1-2.5. The living—The living one. Among the dead—In the sepulchre where the dead repose.7. Saying—From this passage it would seem that our Lord had, even before leaving Galilee, assured these women that he was to be crucified and rise again. Perhaps they had assigned it a symbolic meaning and forgotten it; and now it is brought fresh by the angelic words to their memories and they realize its fulfilment.

Luke 24:12

§ 146.—PETER AND JOHN VISIT THE , Luke 24:12.Given more fully in John 20:3-10.

Luke 24:13

13. Two of them—Two from them; that is from among the Christian body. One of them is named; but, says Bloomfield, “the evangelist, by omitting the other, has greatly exercised the commentators in guessing.” The best conclusion, as Stier thinks, is that of the German preacher: “Since the apostle has not named the other, let each of you put himself in his place.” You may learn much from such company. We make little doubt that Luke intends us to understand that the unnamed disciple was the evangelist himself. For, 1. His naming Cleopas shows a purpose to indicate that his not naming the other was not because he did not know his name. He could have named the other if some reason did not deter. 2. That reason probably was the same reason which deterred John from mentioning his own name—modesty.

Thus we bring John, Mark, (see note on Mark 14:51,) and Luke under the same analogy. All three beheld Jesus, and all three introduce their own persons without mentioning their own names. 3. Two evangelists were chosen eye-witnesses. (See note on Luke’s preface.) The other two were not official eye-witnesses and ministers of the word; but each once saw the Lord; Mark as Jesus was on his way to death, Luke as he was on his way from death. This is one of the thousand delicate and occult proprieties which the thorough student of the Bible finds. 4. Cleopas is apparently the elder and more positive Christian of the two. Luke was the subordinate, deeply interested in the scene, and perhaps but newly acquainted with its facts.

This may have been his first full contact with Jesus and his history; and by this rencontre, and the marvellous discourse of Jesus, his heart may have been profoundly awakened to a burning interest in the whole of the Lord’s earthly life. Thus was he prepared for his work as an historian. 5.

The details of the whole incident are those of deeply interested memory. There are throughout, all the delicate touches of one who narrates an old and touching reminiscence. 6. The only counter argument is drawn from the fact that Luke professes not to have been an eye-witness. Not quite so. Luke professes to have obtained his history from eye-witnesses; which fact he states in order to show the reliability of his history. But that can hardly be strained into a denial that he ever saw Jesus in a single instance.

Though Jesus in his resurrection body may once have crossed his sight, it was none the less necessary for his work that he should strictly canvass the original eye-witnesses of the Lord’s earthly life, and none the less important to the confirmation of his work that he should declare the originality of his sources.To a village called Emmaus—See notes on parallel passage in Mark. It took Dr.

Thomson three hours’ moderate riding over hill and vale to arrive at Jerusalem from the place he identifies as Emmaus.

Luke 24:15

15. Reasoned—Comparing opposite views (as the Greek word implies) in regard to the late events.

Luke 24:16

16. Their eyes were holden—Restrained. Mark says that Jesus appeared to them in another form. It is thereby a nice question, whether the change was in the form of Jesus or in the eyes of the disciples. Some say both; making a superfluous amount of miracle. If their eyes were influenced, of course, optically speaking, Jesus would appear in another form; or the change of form may have holden their eyes.

Luke 24:17

17. What manner of communications—Our Saviour is suddenly nigh the disciples, and his inquiry is in that tone and style which imply that he may give relief. Sad—The word describes the expression of their countenances, sad-faced.

Luke 24:18

18. Whose name was Cleopas—This name is Greek, being an abbreviation of the name Cleopatros, the feminine of which is the celebrated name Cleopatra. It is not the same with Clopas (as it should be spelled) of John 19:25; which is a Hebrew name, the same with Alpheus.

Luke 24:19

19. What things?—He who asks a question does not affirm that he does not know the answer. He may act as a teacher, a catechist, or an experimentist, to draw out and develop the mind of another. This last was our Lord’s design. A prophet—He has not the faith to say the Messiah. The late events have dashed that hope, but he still dare style him what Moses was called, a prophet mighty in deed and word. Before God and all the people—A brief confession of unbroken faith in the genuine character of the Crucified One.

Luke 24:21

21. Should have redeemed Israel—Equivalent to saying, we once had faith that he would be the true Messiah. To redeem Israel, doubtless included the idea of removing the Roman yoke; but it also implied the introduction of a reign of truth and righteousness. Perhaps even the world would be renovated to its Edenic state, inhabited by the holy dead in their resurrection glory. The third day—They doubtless here refer to the three days so often mentioned as connected with his death and burial. The period had passed, but the world is not renewed.

Luke 24:22

22. Certain women… made us astonished—Something strange has taken place, but not such as to answer our expectations. These women found not his body, indeed, and a vision of angels said “he is risen;” and some of our men went to the sepulchre and found no body.

Luke 24:25

25. O fools—The Greek word means destitute of discernment in the higher or spiritual faculty; unwise, unintuitive. Slow of heart—Not hard of heart but slow. Not springing and grasping divine truth. The head is confused because the heart is sluggish.

Luke 24:26

26. Ought not Christ—He speaks the great word; not prophet but Christ, the Messiah. To have suffered—Here is a great question. Even to this day infidels like Gibbon object that the Messiah of prophecy is but a conquering hero. But is he not too a suffering Messiah? Prophecy written and uttered does indeed say much more of the glorious than of the suffering Messiah. But what mean those visible and acted prophecies—the sacrifices, the bloody ritual of the Old Testament, if they did not prefigure the great sacrifice which had just been offered in Jerusalem? Those had been a constant acted and visible prophecy of a suffering Messiah. Enter into his glory—By ascension. So that his suffering should be on earth, and his glory at the right hand of God.

Luke 24:27

27. Beginning at Moses—How sad must be the mental state of that theologian who can profess to believe in Christ and yet assert that Moses is not the author of the Pentateuch! He has here the testimony of Christ risen from the dead to the prophetic authority of Moses. Expounded… Scriptures… concerning himself — Who would not find his heart burn within him to hear this discourse on the prophecies from this great expounder? But we have its substance in these very Gospels; and in the Epistles, especially to the Romans and to the Hebrews.

Luke 24:28

28. Made as though—Rather acted as though. Moved on his course, not in dissimulation, for he would have gone on his way sorrowfully and justly if they had not detained him with loving violence.

Luke 24:30

30. He took bread—They readily resigned to him the dignity of host and president of the table. Gave to them—But ate not himself. It is plain that this was not a sacramental but an ordinary meal.

Luke 24:31

31. And their eyes were opened—Utterly shallow and rationalistic is the interpretation of Alford, making these disciples discover Jesus by his mode of breaking bread! If neither voice, nor form, nor person, revealed the Lord, how absurd to suppose that his manner of breaking bread should accomplish the discovery. These two were not apostles, nor is it probable they were specially familiar with his style of breaking bread. And they knew him—There he stood, this very Messiah, of whom all Scripture was the harbinger; the sufferer, the heir of glory, the judge of the earth. Before this moment he could not reveal himself without disturbing their minds so as to unfit their understanding of the Scripture. And now he could reveal himself, to show that his exposition was authoritative and divine, being his own. He vanished—This finished the demonstration. He did not merely step out of the door. As they were beholding him, the place he occupied became at once vacant space. Then they knew that it was their Lord, and that their Lord was truly divine. Not Mary Magdalene, nor Peter, nor John, nor the whole college of apostles had as yet received such a favour as this vouchsafed to these two disciples, the one to us unnamed, and the other but a name!

Luke 24:33

33. Rose… hour—Their fatigue is gone, and the darkness with which they deterred and detained their guest detains not them. Returned to Jerusalem—A night walk over a rough uneven road. The eleven—So called as their official number; but as Thomas was absent and Judas dead, there were but ten.

Luke 24:34

34. Saying—This word refers to the eleven and them that were with them. Hath appeared to Simon—Of this appearance to Peter we have no narrative. But that the fact was known to the apostolic Church is evident from 1 Corinthians 15:5-7.

Luke 24:35

35. And they told—Mark says, nor believed they them, which Alford unwisely pronounces inconsistent with this passage. But the inconsistency is not in the Evangelists, but in the actors in the scene. They believed and they did not believe. They believed that a vision, or something, had taken place; they believed that Christ had risen and had been seen by Peter; and yet they could not realize the fact, either from strangeness or from joy. See note on Luke 24:41. It is probable that my readers and myself would have been in much the same state of mental ambiguity.

Luke 24:36

36. Stood in the midst of them—There he was. Could they doubt their own sight? And saith—It is his voice; can they doubt their own hearing? Peace be unto you—Words how like him! The spirit in the voice stronger proof than the voice itself. Harriet Martineau in her better days, when writing an imaginative narrative of our Saviour’s times, reverently abstained from putting words of her own devising into his mouth. But when the simple Evangelist makes him speak, it is the same Jesus himself.

Luke 24:39

39. A spirit hath not flesh and bones—We have here, in opposition to materialism, the clearest possible assertion of the independent existence of spirit. There is no other explanation of these words which does not insult the Saviour and abuse his language.In regard to the nature of our Lord’s risen body previous to the ascension, we may say that there are FOUR different opinions prevalent. The first supposes a body in substance entirely new substituted for the previous body; the second, a body the same in substance and attributes; just as Lazarus’s natural unchanged body was raised the same as before death; the third, a body the same in substance but endowed with new properties and powers; the fourth, the same body glorified as completely as after his ascension.We reject the first as being no resurrection at all, but a creation; and doubt the fourth as not provable if true. That the third is preferable to the second may thus appear.Perhaps all will grant that our Lord’s ordinary stay or abode between his resurrection and ascension was in the invisible; his visible appearances during the forty days being only occasional. His body possessed then normally, and perhaps we may say naturally, in its risen nature, the power of invisibility, at will.

It possessed, also, a superiority to the control of gravitation, to the need of food, clothing, and other bodily necessities, and, probably, a superiority to disease and a second mortality. But these are all new powers; possible by miracle, but not belonging to man or to Jesus corporeally as a man.

The third, therefore, seems the preferable view.This view assumes, that although our Lord’s risen body had its own proper form and substance, and its own proper outline and limitation, yet that he was able, more or less, to modify it at will. so as to retain or resume traces, constituent parts, or substantive properties of its former self, such as wounds, limbs, flesh, and bones. However modified, temporarily or permanently, by will or by nature, it would be the same body; able to prove itself such to human eyes by resuming its old familiar peculiarities. So he could identify himself to Thomas, John 20:25; he could be grasped by the women, John 20:29; could (like the angels in Genesis 18:8; Genesis 19:3) invest himself with apparent garments, and eat and drink before his disciples. Luke 24:41-43.By his self-modifying power he could not only enter the invisible instantaneously, (Luke 24:31,) but could appear under another form, (Mark 16:12;) could pass through any material impediments, doubtless by those interstices between particles which science has so amply revealed as belonging to solid bodies. John 20:19.* Nor was the rolling the stone from the tomb by angels necessary so far as his power was concerned; but necessary to render visible to the world’s perception, the external reality of the resurrection. So it was, apparently, that our Lord after his resurrection (as at no previous time) seemed often times unrecognisable to the best acquainted eyes.

John 20:14; John 21:4; John 21:7; John 21:12. So his ready presence (Luke 24:36) at different places evinced his power of invisible and, probably, instantaneous transference through space at will.[* In the most solid bodies the ultimate particles are supposed to be immensely smaller than the spaces between them.

In a body as dense as water they are, proportionately, as “one hundred men distributed over the whole surface of England.”—Sir William Armstrong’s Presidential Address before the British Association, 1864. All this involves not the idea either that his body was properly glorified, as after his ascension; or, as some imagine, that it underwent a gradual glorifying process through the forty days. The endowment with the properties belonging to a resurrection body (properties possessed even by the risen wicked) is one thing; his investiture at his enthronement with his full Mediatorial glories at God’s right hand is quite another thing.

Luke 24:41

41. Believed not for joy—They believed not at first from the strangeness of the matter; they believed not next from fear; and now they believe not from joy. And yet through all this there was a belief, but not the realizing power. Any meat—As if to give them one of the most ordinary proofs of bodily existence, he called for food and did eat before them.

Luke 24:44

44. These are the words—Words, by a Hebraism, signifies the things or events signified by the words. These refers to the events of his death, resurrection, and reappearance. No longer need the apostles doubt, when this whole train of strange events is but the fulfilment of his sayings and of the Scriptures.

Luke 24:45

45. Then—As his discourse furnished a complete view of the whole system of Scripture fulfilments now accomplished. Opened he their understanding—By a direct internal enlargement and enlivening of their spiritual faculties. Understand the Scriptures—So that, as the final result, they might go from this wonderful interview better qualified for their future office, after the ascension, described in the following verses.

Luke 24:46

46. Said unto them—A subsequent continuation of discourse to the same them, on the same general subject, but with less reference to time or place. It behooved—Not only to fulfil Scripture, but to fulfil the great scheme of salvation of which Scripture itself is a part.

Luke 24:48

48. Witnesses—See notes on Luke 1:2.

Luke 24:49

49. And behold—A new point is here presented parallel with Acts 1:4. The promise of my Father—The thing promised—Luke has not anywhere told us what this promise was; but his words presuppose what John tells us Luke 14:16-26; Luke 15:26; Luke 16:7-11. Tarry… Jerusalem—This must have been uttered after the return to Jerusalem from the visit to Galilee.Matthew 28:16-20; John 21:1-24. Endued with power—Clothed with power as with a garment.

Luke 24:50

50. Led them out—From Jerusalem, where, doubtless, they tarried after their return from Galilee. As far as to Bethany—Εωςεις, as far as into. That is, to the point where the into commenced; to the entrance, but not into Bethany. Luke implies in Acts 1:12, that the ascension took place from the Mount of Olives, which agrees with the present passage; for Bethany is upon the eastern slope of that mountain. Barclay, in his “City of the Great King,” identifies a hillock overhanging the margin of Bethany as clearly the true place. The summit of the Mount, where now stands the Church of the Ascension, certainly could not have been the spot.

Luke 24:51

51. Parted from them—By his already commenced upward movement. It interrupted, as it were, his benediction, so that he ascended with hands outspread in blessing them. By a cloud upborne, he soon disappeared from sight; but for such a departure his apostles felt not grief, but abounding joy. Up into heaven—See note on Mark 16:19. The picture of the ascension, with its results upon their minds, is at once exquisitely beautiful and perfectly natural.

Luke 24:52

52. Worshipped him—Not merely reverence to a present superior, but adoration of an absent Supreme.

Luke 24:53

53. Continually in the temple—Religions engagements occupied the whole time. Theirs was now a religion of joy; their worship was praising and blessing. How powerful the contrast of their present courage with their despair at the death of Christ.