Luke 24:13-35 And, behold, two of them went that same day to a village called Emmaus, which was from Jerusalem about three score furlongs.… The evidence for the resurrection of Christ is of two kinds, predictive and historical. From the Old Testament it appears that Messiah was to rise; from the New, that Jesus of Nazareth did rise, and therefore is the Messiah. Among the predictive witnesses, the first place is due to that ancient and venerable order of men, styled patriarchs, or heads of families, whose lives and actions, as well as their words, were descriptive of the person, in faith of whom they lived and acted, instructing, interceding for, and conducting their dependents, as representative prophets, priests, and kings; looking forward unto the Author and Finisher of their faith and ours, who, by dying and rising again, was to exhibit to the world the Divine fulness of all these characters. In the class of the predictive witnesses of our Lord's resurrection, the second place is claimed by the law. When we see the Levitical high priest arrayed in the garments of glory and beauty; when we behold him purifying all the parts of the figurative tabernacle with blood, and then entering within the veil, into the holiest of all, to present that propitiating blood before the offended Majesty of heaven; is it possible, even though an apostle had not applied all these circumstances for us, to detain the imagination a moment from fixing itself on the great High Priest of our profession; the plenary satisfaction made on the cross; His resurrection in an immortal body, no more to stand charged with sin, no more to see corruption; the purification of the Church by His precious blood; His ascension into heaven, and intercession for us, in the presence of God? Next to the patriarchs and the law, the prophets press for admittance, to deliver their testimony; for "the testimony of Jesus," as saith the angel in the Revelation, "is the spirit of prophecy." Some of these give their evidence in the ancient way of figure and emblem; others, with less reserve, in express literal declarations. A fact of so extraordinary a nature as the resurrection of a body from the dead, predicted, as we have seen, at sundry times and in divers manners, by the patriarchs, the law, and the prophets, cannot be supposed to have happened without sufficient witnesses of its accomplishment. (Bishop Home.) Parallel Verses KJV: And, behold, two of them went that same day to a village called Emmaus, which was from Jerusalem about threescore furlongs. |
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