Friend, a miracle needs to be performed for us to recognize Jesus in the pages of the Bible. We require divine intervention for us to stop misinterpreting Scripture by leaving the suffering and glories of the Messiah out of it. God has to open our eyes, hearts, minds, and understanding so that we can see the glories of Calvary, the wonder of redemption, the beautiful, wonderful, terrible cross, and the mighty resurrection of Jesus (see Acts 16:14).
And this thought brings us back to the beginning of our story, where God kept the disciples from recognizing Jesus as He walked along with them. Why did God do this? What was He teaching those disciples, and us, by keeping them from recognizing Jesus?
It makes sense now. Jesus was giving these disciples an object lesson, a picture story of the truth He just taught them. Just as they were walking along with Jesus and looking right at Him, but didn't recognize Him, even so, they were reading their Bibles, looking directly at it, but didn't recognize Jesus in the pages. They didn't see the message of His suffering and death for their sin, His resurrection for their justification, His ascension to glory.
Imagine those disciples talking with each other after this event. This isn’t recorded for us in Scripture but we can imagine an exchange similar to the one below. We'll call one disciple Malcolm and the other Clopas:
Malcolm: "Can you believe we were walking right along with Jesus, talking to Him and listening to Him, and we didn't even recognize Him? I mean, we were looking right at His face, looking into His eyes, but not understanding who He was! Wow, we were truly blind, weren't we?"
Clopas: "Yes, we were! But what's even more amazing is that you and I have been reading our Bibles for years, looking right into its pages, and we didn't recognize Jesus in it. For all these years we missed that the Messiah would be beaten and wounded for our transgressions, that He would be bruised for our iniquities (Isaiah 53:5), that He would be struck on the face with a rod (Micah 5:1). We didn't understand that He would be killed and crucified on a tree (Deuteronomy 21:23) and that He would rise from the dead on the third day (Hosea 6:1-2, Jonah 2). Talk about blindness!"
Malcolm: "Yes, and oh, how thankful I am that Jesus miraculously opened my eyes, and I finally recognized Him! I mean I really saw it was Him! And now that's how I read my Bible, too! He's opened my eyes to see Him in every book on every page! Yes, I finally understand that Jesus was put into the deep sleep of death and had His side opened that I might become His bride (Genesis 2). I see that He was my Passover Lamb who saved me from the wrath of God (Exodus 12), and my Scapegoat who bore my sin away (Leviticus 16). I finally see clearly! Just yesterday, I was reading and saw Jesus as the end of the "seventy sevens" who came to "finish transgression", to put an end to my sin, and to bring in everlasting righteousness. Yes, my sin is gone, and I'm righteous through His suffering death and powerful resurrection. Oh, Clopas, I can finally see! My heart is burning with love for Jesus like never before!"
"They said to each other, "Didn't our hearts burn within us as he talked with us on the road and explained the Scriptures to us?" Luke 24:32 (NLT)
Question 6. Please share your thoughts on the above conversation. What did these two disciples learn through this experience?
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Peter writes, "The wonder of illumination by the work of the Holy Spirit in regeneration. A divine work of God. So, in evangelism, we no longer need to attempt to change people's minds, hearts, lives through argument or clever speeches, illustrations, man's techniques in evangelism we simply need to present Christ in the simplicity of the gospel itself. All the angst is taken out of evangelism. We trust the Spirit to do what we on our own could never do."
Oh, friend, once God opens our eyes to the central message of the Bible, the sufferings and glories of the Messiah, we begin to see Him everywhere! With our eyes opened to see Jesus, our hearts burn with love!
We see Him as the Seed of the woman (Genesis 3:15) who would destroy the head of the serpent, the devil himself, but would be bruised in His flesh while doing so. Oh, our hearts do BURN with love for Him as we see Him climbing Calvary's hill, weighed down with a cross and our sins, going there for us to fight Satan. We see Him bruised in His flesh, pierced and wounded there, wearing a crown of thorns and suffering death, all that He would defeat our enemy and secure our victory and freedom. "In this way, he disarmed the spiritual rulers and authorities. He shamed them publicly by his victory over them on the cross" (Colossians 2:15).
We see Him nailed to the tree of Calvary, remembering that anyone hung up on a tree is under God's curse (Deuteronomy 21:23), and this good news causes us to rejoice. Seeing Jesus, our hearts overflow with love that He would stoop so low as to receive our curse, take our separation from God, that we might enjoy eternal blessings from our Father, being united with Him forever.
As we keep looking there at Calvary, our hearts keep expanding, bigger and bigger, as God pours out His love into our hearts by His Spirit (Romans 5:5). Looking to Jesus, we become awestruck, our mouths gaping open at the sight of Love crucified for us, and of Forgiveness rising out of the grave for us. Our hearts burn and break, are crushed and cured, are torn and treated, all at the cross of Calvary, all by the resurrection power of the Living Jesus.
Question 7. Do you see how the church needs to rediscover the gospel? Do you understand that this is the one message of power and love? Have your eyes been opened to see the need to focus on THIS message of the dying and rising Messiah? The crucified and risen Christ? Have you made the connection between seeing the cross/resurrection of Jesus and having your heart burn with love for Him? Please make an honest assessment and answer these questions as you feel led:
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Miles writes, "The only message that should resound in the church and in our personal walk with God is Jesus and Him crucified, buried and resurrected."
Peter writes, 'I love the phrasing of this truth: "Looking to Jesus, we become awestruck, our mouths gaping open at the sight of Love crucified for us, and of Forgiveness rising out of the grave for us. Our hearts burn and break, are crushed and cured, are torn and treated, all at the cross of Calvary, all by the resurrection power of the Living Jesus."'