“ON the first day of the week,” the morning of the resurrection, the loving followers of Christ are taught the needlessness of earthly attractions. Two men in “shining garments” witness unto them that “Christ is not here, but is risen.” In all this scene we are taught the tardiness and reluctance with which we learn the resurrection; the apostles will not believe the testimony of the women. Peter visits the sepulcher himself; he beholds nothing but the “linen clothes,” (all that should be visible if resurrection was in spirit enjoyed,) and he only departs, “wondering in himself at that which was come to pass.”
The disciples going to Emmaus, and the occurrences connected with it, describe to us the progress from Jewish thoughts and hopes to happy communion with Christ himself. The highest enjoyment, the most honored place on earth, is the knowing the presence of Christ in breaking of bread here was the fulfillment of that word: “Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst.” Their hearts practically learned the blessed effects of the broken body and shed blood of Jesus; they passed from every thought to the one grand absorbing one of the presence of the living Jesus; and it is evident that the revelation of Christ, as the living head of the Church, is here in type, as the manner of it to the Jew is foreshown in His manifestation to “the eleven and them that were with them,” though the testimony of “the two,” which is the Church’s testimony, is previously declared.
But Israel is not yet abandoned; all the blessings must flow out to Jerusalem first; all must begin there; but yet they will not be confined to it, for they shall be proclaimed among “all nations.” (or Gentiles.) And though the disciples must. continue in Jerusalem, they, as it became witnesses of the grace of Jesus, are seen “continually in the temple, praising and blessing God,” for God had not yet cast it off. While God owned it, so must they; yet I say, though they are thus righteously so to act, are they taught, by the place and manner of His parting scene, the true place and manner of blessing on earth. He led them out as far as Bethany, i.e. the house of the grace of the Lord. With hands directed upwards, He blessed them. How they are practically led in the same path with Christ, as is foreshown here, namely, from Jerusalem to Bethany, will be our inquiry while meditating on the Acts of the Apostles, which, if the Lord will, I propose to pursue in the next part.