'And as they thus spake, Jesus Himself stood in the
midst of them, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you.
37. But they were terrified and affrighted, and
supposed that they had seen a spirit. 38. And He said
unto them, Why are ye troubled? and why do thoughts
arise in your hearts? 39. Behold My hands and My feet,
that it is I Myself: handle Me, and see; for a spirit
hath not flesh and bones, as ye see Me have. 40. And
when He had thus spoken, He shewed them His hands and
His feet. 41. And while they yet believed not for joy,
and wondered, He said unto them, Have ye here any
meat? 42. And they gave Him a piece of a broiled fish,
and of an honeycomb. 43. And He took it, and did eat
before them. 44. And He said unto them, These are the
words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with
you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were
written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and
in the psalms, concerning Me. 45. Then opened He their
understanding, that they might understand the
scriptures, 46. And said unto them, Thus it is written,
and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from
the dead the third day: 47. And that repentance and
remission of sins should be preached in His name among
all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. 48. And ye are
witnesses of these things. 49. And, behold, I send the
promise of My Father upon you: but tarry ye in the
city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from
on high. 50. And He led them out as far as to Bethany;
and He lifted up His hands, and blessed them. 51. And
it came to pass, while He blessed them, He was parted
from them, and carried up into heaven. 52. And they
worshipped Him, and returned to Jerusalem with great
joy: 53. And were continually in the temple, praising
and blessing God.'--LUKE xxiv. 36-53.
There are no marks of time in this passage, and, for anything that
appears, the narrative is continuous, and the Ascension might have
occurred on the evening of the Resurrection. But neither is there
anything to forbid interpreting this close of Luke's Gospel by the
fuller details contained in the beginning of his other treatise, the
Acts, where the space of forty days interposes between the
Resurrection and the Ascension. It is but reasonable to suppose that
an author's two books agree, when he gives no hint of change of
opinion, and it is reasonable to regard the narrative in this
passage as a summary of the whole period of forty days. If so, it
contains three things,--the first appearance of the risen Lord to
the assembled disciples (vs. 36-43), a condensed summary of the
teachings of the risen Lord (vs. 44-49), and an equally compressed
record of the Ascension (vs. 50-53).
I. The proofs of the Resurrection graciously granted to incredulous
love (vs. 36-43). The disciples were probably assembled in the upper
room, where the Lord's Supper had been instituted, and which became
their ordinary meeting-place (Acts i.) up till Pentecost. What
sights that room saw! There, when night had come, they were
discussing the strange reports of the Resurrection, when, all
suddenly, they saw Jesus, not coming or moving, but standing in the
midst. Had He come in unnoticed by them in their eager talk? The
doors were shut. How had this calm Presence become visible all at
once?
So little were they the enthusiastic, credulous people whom modern
theories which explain away the Resurrection assume them to have
been, that even His familiar voice in His familiar salutation,
tenfold more significant now than ever before, did not wake belief
that it was verily He. They fled to the ready refuge of supposing
that they saw 'a spirit.' Our Lord has no rebukes for their
incredulity, but patiently resumes His old task of instruction, and
condescends to let them have the evidence of two senses, not
shrinking from their investigating touch. When even these proofs
were seen by Him to be insufficient, He added the yet more cogent
one of 'eating before them.' Then they were convinced.
Now their incredulity is important, and the acknowledgment shows the
simple historical good faith of the narrator. A witness who at first
disbelieved is all the more trustworthy. These hopeless mourners who
had forgotten all Christ's prophecies of His Resurrection, and were
so fixed in their despair that the two from Emmaus could not so far
kindle a gleam of hope as to make them believe that their Lord stood
before them, were not the kind of people in whom hallucination would
operate, as modern deniers of the Resurrection make them out to have
been. What changed their mood? A fancy? Surely nothing less than a
solid fact. Hallucination may lay hold on a solitary, morbid mind,
but it does not attack a company, and it scarcely reaches to
fancying touch and the sight of eating.
Note Luke's explanation of the persistent incredulity, as being 'for
joy.' It is like his notice that the three in Gethsemane 'slept for
sorrow.' Great emotion sometimes produces effects opposite to what
might have been expected. Who can wonder that the mighty fact which
turned the black smoke of despair into bright flame should have
seemed too good to be true? The little notice brings the disciples
near to our experience and sympathy. Christ's loving forbearance and
condescending affording of more than sufficient evidence show how
little changed He was by Death and Resurrection. He is as little
changed by sitting at the right hand of God. Still He is patient
with our slow hearts. Still He meets our hesitating faith with
lavish assurances. Still He lets us touch Him, if not with the hand
of sense, with the truer contact of spirit, and we may have as firm
personal experience of the reality of His life and Presence as had
that wondering company in the upper room.
II. Verses 44-49 are best taken as a summary of the forty days'
teaching. They fall into stages which are distinctly separated.
First we have (ver. 44) the reiteration of Christ's earlier
teaching, which had been dark when delivered, and now flashed up
into light when explained by the event. 'These are my words which I
spake,' and which you did not understand or note. Jesus asserts that
He is the theme of all the ancient revelation. If we suppose that
the present arrangement of the Old Testament existed then, its
present three divisions are named; namely, Law, Prophets, and
Hagiographa, as represented by its chief member. But, in any case,
He lays His hand on the whole book, and declares that He, and His
Death as sacrifice, are inwrought into its substance. 'The testimony
of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.' Whatever views we hold as to
the date and manner of origin of the Old Testament books, we miss
the most pregnant fact about them if we fail to recognise that they
all point onwards to Him.
Another stage is marked by that remarkable expression, 'He opened
their mind.' His teaching was not, like ours, from without only. He
gave not merely instruction, but inspiration. It was not enough to
spread truth before the disciples. He did more; He made them able to
receive it. He gives no lesser gifts from the throne than He gave in
the upper room, and we may receive, if our minds are kept expectant
and in touch with Him, the same inward eye to see wondrous things
out of the Word.
Verse 46, by its repetition of 'and He said,' seems to point to
another stage, in which the teaching as to the meaning of the Old
Testament passes into instructions for the future. Already Jesus had
hinted at the cessation of the old close intercourse in that
pathetic 'while I was yet with you,' and now He goes on to outline
the functions and equipment of the disciples in the future period of
His absence. As to the past sufferings, He indicates a double
necessity for them,--one based on their having been predicted;
another, deeper, based on the fitness of things. These sufferings
made the preaching of repentance and forgiveness possible, and
imposed on His followers the obligation of preaching His name to all
the world. Without the Cross His servants would have no gospel.
Having the Cross, His servants are bound to publish it everywhere.
The universal reach of His atonement is implied in the commission.
The sacrifice for the world's sin is the sole ground of remission of
sin, and is to be proclaimed to every creature. Mark that here the
same word is employed in connection with proclaiming Christ's Death
as in John's version of this saying (John xx. 23), which is misused
as a fortress of the priestly power of absolution. The plain
inference is that the servant's power of remission is exercised by
preaching the Master's death of expiation.
The ultimate reach of the message is to be to all nations; the
beginning of the universal gospel is to be at Jerusalem. The whole
history of the world and the Church lies between these two. By that
command to begin at Jerusalem, the connection of the Old with the
New is preserved, the Jewish prerogative honoured, the path made
easier for the disciples, the development of the Church brought into
unison with their natural sentiments and capacities.
The spirit of the commandment remains still imperative. 'The eyes of
a fool are in the ends of the earth.' A wise and Christlike
beneficence will not gaze far afield, and neglect things close at
our doors. The scoff at the supporters of foreign missions, as if
they quixotically went abroad when they should work at home, has
no point even as regards Christian practice, for it is the people
who work for the distant heathen who also toil for home ones; but it
has still less ground in regard to Christian conceptions of duty,
for the Lord of the harvest has bidden the reapers begin with the
fields nearest them.
The equipment for work is investiture with divine power. A partial
bestowment of the Spirit, which is the Father's promise, took place
while Jesus spoke. 'I send' refers to something done at the moment;
but the fuller clothing with that garment of power was to be waited
for in expectancy and desire. No man can do the Christian work of
witnessing for and of Christ without that clothing with power. It
was granted as an abiding gift on Pentecost. It needs perpetual
renewal. We may all have it. Without it, eloquence, learning, and
all else, are but as sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal.
III. Verses 50-53 give us the transcendent miracle which closes the
earthly life of Jesus. We cannot here enter on the large questions
which it raises, but must content ourselves with simply pointing to
the salient features of Luke's condensed account. The mention of the
place as 'over against Bethany' recalls the many memories of that
village where Jesus had found His nearest approach to a home, where
He had exercised His stupendous life-giving power, whence He had set
out to the upper room and the near Cross. His last act was to bless
His followers. He is the High-priest for ever, and these uplifted
hands meant a sacreder thing than the affectionate good wishes of a
departing friend. He gives the blessings which He invokes. His wish
is a conveyance of good.
The hands remained in the attitude of benediction while He ascended,
and the last sight of Him, as the cloud wrapped Him round, showed
Him shedding blessing from them. He continues that attitude and act
till He comes again. Two separate motions are described in verse 51.
He was parted from them,--that is, withdrew some little distance on
the mountain, that all might see, and none might hinder, His
departure; and 'was carried up into heaven' by a slow upward
movement, as the word implies. Contrast this with Elijah's rapture.
There was no need of fiery chariot or whirlwind to lift Jesus to the
heavens. He went up where He was before, returning to the glory
which He had with the Father before the world was. The end matches
the beginning. The supernatural birth corresponds with the
supernatural departure.
We have to think of that Ascension as the entrance of corporeal
humanity into the divine glory, as the beginning of His heavenly
activity for the world, as the token of His work being triumphantly
completed, as the prophecy and pledge of immortal life like His own
for all who love Him. Therefore we may share the joy which flooded
the lately sorrowful disciples' hearts, and, like them, should make
all life sacred, and be continually in the Temple, blessing God, and
have the deep roots of our lives hid with Christ in the glory.