The Resurrected Lord

Luke 24

Main Idea: Jesus rose from the dead on the third day, and he has changed lives down to this day. Are you open to the claims of Christ?

1. The Tomb Was Open and Empty (24:1-12).
   1. Surprising scene (24:3)
   2. Surprising men (24:4)
   3. Surprising message (24:5-7)
   4. Surprising report (24:8-12)
2. The Scriptures Were Opened and Fulfilled (24:13-27).
3. Their Eyes Were Opened, and They Recognized (24:28-35).
4. Their Minds Were Opened, and They Believed (24:36-49).
5. Heaven Was Opened, and Jesus Ascended (24:50-53).

We’ve come now to the end of Luke. Luke 24 recounts the one thing on which all of Christianity stands or falls: the resurrection. Without the resurrection, there is no Christianity. In fact, our own Bible tells us in 1 Corinthians 15 that if the resurrection did not happen and we believe it did, then we are fools.

So, in a sense, everything in Luke’s Gospel builds up to this one, final miracle. Nothing that happened before the resurrection has any meaning if Christ did not rise from the grave. His virgin birth is meaningless. His perfect obedience to God is meaningless. His miracles and teaching are meaningless. Even his crucifixion means nothing if Christ remains dead. It all hangs on the events of this final chapter.

So did the resurrection happen?

It might be helpful to remember why Dr. Luke decided to write this Gospel. He told us in Luke 1:1-4.

Many have undertaken to compile a narrative about the events that have been fulfilled among us, just as the original eyewitnesses and servants of the word handed them down to us. It also seemed good to me, since I have carefully investigated everything from the very first, to write to you in an orderly sequence, most honorable Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things about which you have been instructed.

This book of the Bible was written that “Theophilus” (lover of God) might have certainty concerning the teachings of the faith. As Luke points out in that introduction, we can have certainty because Christianity is a historical faith (“events that have been fulfilled”), a verifiable faith (“eyewitnesses”), and a biblical faith (“servants of the word”). Those same truths apply to the resurrection. We have historical, biblical, and verifiable evidence to make us certain that Jesus Christ is the resurrected Lord of all.

Think of watching the news over the course of a day when some major story is developing. That morning the story breaks. The reporter tells you that something big has happened but they’re still gathering the details. About midday they are interviewing eyewitnesses who add detail and human interest. Maybe a suspect or a key figure has been identified. Then by the evening news they’ve managed to put together a more complete report of what has happened.

Luke 24 is like that developing news story. In verses 1-12 we get the early report of something big happening. “The tomb is open and is empty.” In verses 13-27 we find two witnesses who get some background on the main subject of the story. “The Scriptures were opened and fulfilled.” But also in verses 28-35 they are able to verify the name of the person involved. “Their eyes were opened and Jesus revealed.” In verses 36-49 there is the first-person interview with the main focus of the story. Jesus appears in person in the newsroom. “Their minds were opened, and they believed.” Finally, in verses 50-53 the story comes to its end. Then, “heaven was opened, and Jesus ascended.”

Will you believe this good news? Are you open to the claims of Jesus Christ?

The Tomb Was Open and Empty

Luke 24:1-12

“The first day of the week” (v. 1) according to the Jewish calendar is Sunday. It’s “early dawn” (ESV) when the women go to the tomb to properly prepare Jesus’s body for burial. Matthew tells us they wondered how they would get into the tomb, since they’d seen a large boulder rolled into place to seal it. But the fact that they went anyway and went early tells you something about the devotion of these women.

Surprising Scene (24:3)

When they arrive they encounter three surprises. First, they are surprised to find the stone has been rolled away from the tomb. Another Gospel writer tells that an angel had flicked this massive stone away as you or I would flick lint off our shirts. That’s the first miracle in the scene.

But then they’re surprised to find that the tomb was empty. The body of the Lord Jesus was missing. That was no doubt distressing. They were already in mourning; now their loved one’s body was gone.

Surprising Men (24:4-5a)

Next they’re surprised by “two men . . . in dazzling clothes.” You can see how Luke writes with restraint as a historian. He first tells us how they appeared to the women. Later in verse 23 he tells us these were angels. Like everyone in the Bible who sees angels, the women “were terrified and bowed down to the ground” (v. 5). Nobody can look at the glory of even an angel and remain on their feet. What will it be like to see the glory of God?

Surprising Message (24:5b-7)

Then came the surprising message in verses 5-7. The question—“Why are you looking for the living among the dead?” (v. 5)—serves as both a correction and an announcement. You’re looking in the wrong place. No one goes to find a living person in a graveyard. “He is not here, but he has risen!” (v. 6).

This was not what the women were expecting. The reason they weren’t expecting it was because they had not remembered the Lord’s teaching. He had told them in Galilee and several times throughout his earthly life that he must suffer, die, and rise again three days later. They should have been waiting those three days in anticipation instead of mourning. But they forgot the gospel, and their forgetting took them to the tomb.

It’s not until they remember the Lord’s teaching about the empty tomb that their lives change. Nothing could be more important in the Christian life than remembering the gospel. One of our great challenges as Christians is keeping the truth of our Lord uppermost in our minds. We leak. We forget. We wander and stray. But if we keep our feet in the path of his teaching, then we’ll never be overcome in times of trouble and sorrow. We will be the only people rejoicing even in the face of death if we keep our minds fixed on his gospel!

Surprising Report (24:8-12)

The ladies remember (v. 8), and as soon as they remember, they take a surprising report back to “the Eleven” and to “all the rest” of the disciples back in the city of Jerusalem (v. 9). Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Mary the mother of James were chief among the women. You may remember their names from Luke 8:2. These are some of the women who financially supported Jesus’s ministry. They traveled with the Lord and were dedicated to him. They were known and respected.

But they were not believed (v. 11). The apostles and the disciples acted like male chauvinists toward these women. And that’s not me being hard on these men; that’s the testimony of history. In that day a woman’s word would not be accepted in a court of law, for example. Women were regarded, as they sometimes are by prejudiced men in our day, as emotional, given to hysteria, and intellectually untrustworthy. This, by the way, is a proof that these things happened. In that day if you wanted your report to be credible, you would not have had a woman be the main witness to the story. If you were making it up, you would have used a male to first report the incident because of prejudice against women.

Even in our own day, we have a ways to go in honoring women as full image bearers of God and servants to Christ. Even today there is real prejudice, antagonism, and chauvinism against women in the church—even though the church would have closed its doors in Jerusalem if it had been up to the men going to the tomb early in the morning to prepare the body. This ought not be so. Since God’s word sets free, there’s no contradiction between the full liberty of our sisters and full submission to the limits of Scripture. May the Lord give his church the grace to dignify and magnify the work of God in and through women while at the same time embracing the Scriptures to define our roles. Let us root out any injustice in our own hearts toward our sisters.

These male followers of Jesus reacted just as the world would have reacted, and they nearly missed the greatest news story ever told: the resurrection. Verse 12 says, “Peter, however, got up and ran to the tomb.” I think Peter ran with desperation and longing. Oh, for another memory with his Lord to replace the last memory of his failure and cowardice! Peter found the linen cloths by themselves—which would be strange if some grave robbers had taken the body as a hoax or to ridicule the disciples. That’s why Peter went home “amazed at what had happened.”

At the end of scene one, when the initial reports come in, everyone is startled and marvels, but no one really knows yet what has happened. All that’s really known is the tomb was open and empty.

The Scriptures Were Opened and Fulfilled

Luke 24:13-27

Remember, Luke set out to teach us that we can believe with certainty the Christian faith because it is a biblical faith. That means that what happened on that Sunday morning was in keeping with what God said he would do in the Scriptures centuries before these events. That’s what we learn in the second scene.

It is still “that same day” (v. 13). The news story is still developing. There were two disciples going to Emmaus, which was about seven miles from Jerusalem. They’re talking together about everything that’s happened when “Jesus himself came near and began to walk along with them” (v. 15). Verse 16 tells us, “But they were prevented from recognizing him.” Now, they didn’t prevent themselves from recognizing Jesus; someone else did. God kept them from recognizing Christ at this point. In a spiritual sense they are walking and talking blind.

The Lord asks them what they’re discussing. We don’t know much about the disciple in verse 18 named Cleopas. But Cleopas will forever be remembered for what he said next: “Are you the only visitor in Jerusalem who doesn’t know the things that happened there in these days?” Imagine being known for asking Jesus whether he knew about the crucifixion. That’s hilarious! Jesus is the only one in the world who does truly know!

Our Lord has a sense of humor. He plays along and asks them, “What things?” (v. 19). Verse 17 tells us they’re discouraged. They’re like the ladies at the tomb. They don’t understand what’s happened either. But they break things down for Jesus as they knew them. First, they say that Jesus was from Nazareth and that he was a mighty prophet who taught and did miracles. His ministry was done before God and all the people. His ministry had integrity. But their own religious leaders betrayed him when they “handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him” (v. 20). Then they tell the Lord about the women at the tomb (vv. 22-24). These men know the facts of the gospel, but they don’t yet recognize the face of the gospel.

Their problem is not intellectual. The problem is not that they don’t know some things they need to know. The problem, beloved, is spiritual. That’s why Jesus begins with the rebuke of verse 25: “How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken!” They believe some things, but not all things. They don’t yet believe the resurrection, and in referring to the prophets, Jesus is referring to the Old Testament, to the Bible in his day. So the Lord says, “Wasn’t it necessary for the Messiah to suffer these things and enter into his glory?” (v. 26). It was necessary because God said he would do it in the Old Testament. It was necessary because God was bound by his word. So the Lord gives them what must have been the mother and father of all Bible studies ever! “Then beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted for them the things concerning himself in all the Scriptures” (v. 27).

Two observations are critical: First, Jesus believes the whole Bible is about him. That means we cannot think it’s all about us. The Lord Jesus went from Moses (Genesis) through the whole Scripture teaching about himself. This means we don’t properly read our Bibles until we see how it connects to Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection. The Bible tells one story all about Jesus as the star. You and I are in the Bible too—we are the ones whose sins killed Jesus—but he is the subject and the hero.

Second, Jesus believes our faith should not be rooted in personal experience only; our faith should be rooted in the Bible. We have a biblical faith. We believe these things because the Bible predicted them and they were fulfilled in history. We don’t make up the meaning of these things. The meaning is there in the Bible itself. God will not let the message that saves the world rest on human experience and oral testimony. He wrote it down beforehand so we could verify it. He wrote it down so we could pass it on from generation to generation. Christianity is God saying to all the world, “I told you so! I told you I would deliver you, and I did it just like I said.”

What do you root your faith in? Is your faith simply rooted in some personal experience? Or is your faith actually built on the Word of God and Jesus Christ as he is revealed in the Word of God?

The tomb was open and empty. The Scriptures were opened and fulfilled.

Their Eyes Were Opened, and They Recognized

Luke 24:28-35

I trust you see something by now. The facts of the gospel and even a biblical interpretation of the gospel are not enough to truly see Jesus. We need God—the same God that caused them not to recognize Jesus at first (v. 16)—to open our eyes spiritually.

That’s what’s happening in this section of Scripture. We can’t get to know Jesus merely through Bible study and intellectual understanding. We must have revelation from God.

They are near Emmaus. The Lord Jesus is still playing with them. Verse 28: “He gave the impression that he was going farther.” Our Lord really does have a playful side to him.

J. C. Ryle states that Christ “does not always force His gifts upon us, unsought and unsolicited. He loves to draw out our desires, and to compel us to exercise our spiritual affections, by waiting for our prayers” (Luke, 373). In other words, the Lord likes to be sought and desired, and he was drawing that out of the disciples. Perhaps that’s why he does not come to us so quickly and easily in our times of prayer and Bible reading. He’s pulling out of us our truer and deeper desire for him.

So he pretends with these disciples, and in verse 29 they “urged him” to stay with them. So the Lord does. And when they sit down to eat, the Lord blesses and breaks bread with them. “Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him” (v. 31). This is the passive voice again: they did not open their own eyes; someone—God—opened their eyes for them. The moment they had their eyes opened, they recognized Jesus, and the moment they recognized Jesus, “he disappeared from their sight.”

Can you imagine the look on their faces? What amazement there must have been! I am sure they looked at each other and said, “Did you see that? That was the Lord Jesus! He’s alive!” And they thought about how they felt while Jesus talked with them. They said, “Weren’t our hearts burning within us while he was talking with us on the road and explaining the Scriptures to us?”

I once had Mormon missionaries visit my home to tell me about Mormonism. They offered me a copy of their supposed Scriptures and said, “When you read it, see that your heart burns, and then you’ll know it’s true.” Friends, a burning heart is no proof of religious claims. It might be that heavy lunch you had. It was Christ’s presence with them that gave them this warm feeling. They had walked and talked with God. And even the veiled presence of the resurrected Lord has enough glory in it to heat a person’s soul. His presence was everything even when they couldn’t recognize it.

Right away, “they got up and returned to Jerusalem” (v. 33). They’d just walked seven miles to Emmaus. Now they’ve seen the resurrected Lord and they high-step it back the seven miles to Jerusalem. They’ve got good news to tell! When they get back to Jerusalem they find “the Eleven” and others gathered in the upper room. While they were on the road to Emmaus the Lord had also appeared to Simon Peter, and he had given a report. So they shared what had happened with them also (v. 35).

The story is developing. We had the empty tomb. But now we’ve got two other appearances—one to Peter and one to the two disciples going to Emmaus. The newsroom continues to put together its breaking story: The tomb was open and empty. The Scriptures were opened and fulfilled. Their eyes were open, and they recognized Jesus.

Their Minds Were Opened, and They Believed

Luke 24:36-49

Now it’s time for that in-studio interview with the main character of the story. “As they were saying these things, he himself stood in their midst. He said to them, ‘Peace to you!’” (v. 36).

First, notice the phrase “he himself.” See also in verse 15 when “Jesus himself came near” the two going to Emmaus. The phrase teaches us that this was no fantasy or delusion; this was Jesus himself—in the flesh. The Lord proves that to them when he says,

“Look at my hands and my feet, that it is I myself! Touch me and see, because a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you can see I have.” Having said this, he showed them his hands and feet. (24:39-40)

When we speak of the resurrection, we speak of a literal, physical or bodily rising from the dead. This is no ghost. This is not merely a “spiritual resurrection.” It is the Lord Jesus himself.

Second, notice the greeting the Lord gives: “Peace to you!” Verse 37 says, “They were startled and terrified and thought they were seeing a ghost. Now Luke doesn’t give us a detail that John 20:26 gives us—they were in the room with the doors locked because they were afraid of the Jewish leaders. The door is locked, but Jesus just comes on in the room. You would have been afraid too! And you might have thought he was a ghost too! So you would have needed to hear him say, “Peace to you.”

But you would have needed to hear him say that for another reason.

This was a wonderful saying, when we consider the men to whom it was addressed. It was addressed to eleven disciples, who three days before had shamefully forsaken their Master and fled. They had broken their promises. They had forgotten their professions of readiness to die for their faith. They have been scattered, “every man to his own,” and left their Master to die alone. One of them had even denied him three times. All of them had proved backsliders and cowards. And yet behold the return which their Master makes to his disciples! Not a word of rebuke is spoken. Not a single sharp saying falls from his lips. Calmly and quietly he appears in the midst of them, and begins by speaking of peace. “Peace be unto you.”

He is far more willing to forgive than men are to be forgiven, and far more ready to pardon than men are to be pardoned.

Free, full, and undeserved forgiveness to the very uttermost is not the manner of man. But it is the manner of Christ. (Ryle, Luke, 379)

No word from the Lord is as sweet to the weak as “peace to you.”

The Lord bids them peace. He then shows them his body. They’re so excited they can’t believe it. They’re overcome with joy.

Then we get another hilarious point in the story: “He asked them, ‘Do you have anything here to eat?’” (v. 41). Well, if you think about it, it’s been over three days since he had anything to eat. So he eats while they talk amongst themselves.

After the Lord finished his fish, verses 44-49 tell us he held another Bible study with them. He had given them physical proof of his resurrection in verses 38-39. Now, once again, the Lord gives them biblical evidence of his resurrection. In the process of teaching them, “He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures” (v. 45). Their minds were opened, and they believed.

I believe the Lord held this second study not only so they would understand the Scriptures as head knowledge, but also so they would be prepared for their mission. He tells them that they must preach repentance and forgiveness of sins to all nations starting right there in Jerusalem. They can’t remain locked in that room afraid. They must go out to the people who murdered Jesus and to all the world telling others that he is risen and there is forgiveness with God. That’s their purpose. And they must do this in the power of the promise of God—who is the Holy Spirit.

Christians since that night have done just that. That’s why we exist: to tell the world that Christ is risen from the dead and that everyone must repent of sin and seek his forgiveness by faith if they wish to live with God. We are, by biblical faith, witnesses of these things.

The tomb was open and empty. The Scriptures were opened and fulfilled. Their eyes were opened, and they recognized. Their minds were opened, and they believed. Are you open?

Heaven Was Opened, and Jesus Ascended

Luke 24:50-53

If Christ is alive, where is he now? The answer of verses 50-53 is that he’s in heaven at the right hand of the Father. These last few verses are deceptively simple. In these verses are volumes of theology, too.

Jesus has carried our humanity into glory. He rose in the same body that he showed to the disciples. Jesus is ruling over all things in heaven. And as Paul tells us in his letters, everything is being placed under his feet. Jesus is in heaven interceding for us.

The story is not over. The end of Luke 24 is merely the beginning of the church. We are meant to worship him with great joy until all nations do the same. We don’t need to go to the temple in Jerusalem to bless God. We have become the temple of God in whom he lives. We bless him everywhere we go.

This is our story, this is our song, praising our Savior all the day long.

Reflect and Discuss

1. If the tomb had held Jesus’s body, what do you think that would have meant for Christianity? (See 1 Cor 15.)
2. How does Christ’s resurrection affect our lives today?
3. How would you say you’ve gotten to know Jesus better in the course of this study?
4. Take some time to give God thanks for showing you more of himself. Any knowledge we have of the Lord comes by the gracious work of the Holy Spirit in our lives.