The Word Before Experience — Anton Bosch

The Road to Emmaus in Luke 24

Luke chapter 24, and we have a long reading and a very long passage this morning. I'm obviously not going to speak on every verse, but at the same time we have to deal with this whole passage in one go because there's mainly a main message, a single message that comes out of all of these verses, and so we do need to deal with it all in one.

So the reading is from Luke chapter 24, from verse 13 through 35. Luke chapter 24, verses 13 through 35, and it's the account of the two on the road to Emmaus. So Luke chapter 24, verse 13. Now behold, two of them were traveling that same day to a village called Emmaus, which was seven miles from Jerusalem.

And they talked together of all these things which had happened. And so it was, while they conversed and reasoned, that Jesus himself drew near and went with them. But their eyes were restrained so that they did not know him.

And he said to them, What kind of conversation is this that you have with one another as you walk and are sad? Then the one whose name was Cleopas answered and said to him, Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem?

And have you not known the things which have happened there in these days? And he said to them, What things? And so they said to him, The things concerning Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet, mighty indeed, and word before God and all the people, and how the chief priests and our rulers delivered him to be condemned to death and crucified him.

But we were hoping that it was he who was going to redeem Israel. Indeed, besides all this, today is the third day since these things happened. Yes, and certain women of our company who arrived at the tomb early astonished us.

When they did not find his body, they came saying that they had also seen a vision of angels who said he was alive. And certain of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it, just as the woman had said.

But they did him they did not see. Then he said to them, O foolish ones and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken. Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into his glory?

And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. Then they drew near to the village where they were going, and he indicated that he would have gone further.

But they constrained him, saying, Abide with us, for it is toward evening and the day is far spent. And he went in to stay with them. Now it came to pass, as he sat at the table with them, that he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them.

Then their eyes were opened, and they knew him, and he vanished from their sight. And they said to one another, Did not our heart burn within us while he talked with us on the road and while he opened the scriptures to us?

And so they rose up that very hour and returned to Jerusalem and found the eleven, and those who were with them gathered together, saying, The Lord has risen indeed and has appeared to Simon. And they told about the things that had happened on the road and how he was known to them in the breaking of the bread.

The Resurrection Begins a New Creation

So we know clearly this is the third day. This is the first day of the week, the Sunday. This is the new beginning for Israel. They counted from Sunday through Saturday, and Sunday was the beginning of the week.

And Jesus rises and he initiates a new beginning for his saints and for the church. And so it says two of them were traveling that same day, that was the day of the resurrection that we've just read of in the previous section, and they were traveling to a village called Emmaus, which was seven miles from Jerusalem.

Now, I know if you have a different translation, it may give you the distance in furlongs or in stadia, but it's all translated to approximately seven miles. We don't know where Emmaus is today. It was obviously a very small, obscure village which doesn't exist anymore.

Christ Draws Near to the Brokenhearted

And so they're on the road, and they talk together of all these things which had happened. And it was that they conversed and reasoned that Jesus himself drew near and went with them. Now, Jesus obviously is now glorified.

He is resurrected and glorified, and he is clearly able to translate himself from one place to the other without having to physically walk from one place to the other. And he is now omniscient, has restored the full capacity of God.

He knows everything. And so he instantly knew about these two who were going on the road to Emmaus. He also recognized that they were troubled. And sometimes when we look at God's omniscience, it tends to be a very cold, scientific thing, that God somehow understands and knows everything.

There is nothing that goes on in the face of this world or anywhere in the universe that he doesn't know. And not only does he know something about it, but he knows the intimate, exact details of every situation.

He knows every detail about us. He knows what goes on in our hearts. While those who are pastors and shepherds are able to understand some of what goes on in people's lives, no one knows exactly what goes on in your heart except the Lord Jesus.

But he knows. And he knew the heartache. He knew the frustration, the disappointment that these two were dealing with. And in his omniscience, he draws alongside them. Remember, we've seen in the book of Hebrews that he is touched with the feelings of our infirmities.

He is touched by our weaknesses, by our issues, by our struggles. And so he is not far from us. He draws near to us. And so wherever he was physically manifest at that stage, and remember it's hard now to apply to him human qualities, even though he still has a human body but a resurrected and glorified body, he is not limited by time and space anymore.

But he sees these two and he draws near to them. And that speaks of God's wonderful grace and mercy, that he draws near to those who are of a broken heart. He draws near to those who are struggling. The problem is that we don't always recognize him.

And I think that in this are some important lessons for us this morning. Because sometimes we say, well, God's far away. God is not interested. God is not involved. As that song that Bette Midler and Cliff Richard made very famous, God is watching us from a distance.

No, he is not watching us from a distance. He is intimately involved in our suffering. He is intimately involved in our heartache and our disappointments. He is intimately involved in the issues that we deal with.

And he draws alongside. He is that friend that sticks closer than a brother. And so Jesus draws near to them. It's interesting that as we've been looking at the book of Hebrews, that we find that word, and we're going to come back to that word in Hebrews, where it says, let us draw near.

We need to draw near to him. But he draws near to us. And so their eyes were restrained so that they did not know him. I'm going to come back to this verse, because this is really a very important part of understanding the message of this passage.

And so they see him, but they just recognize him as another man. I tried to imagine how this would have happened. I would imagine that he somehow just appeared behind them in a moment and thinking of when I'm walking out on the trails and there's someone else who's behind me and walking faster than me.

I'm aware of them. And they eventually catch up and may overtake. But somehow, obviously, this is all supernatural, miraculous. He appears there behind them, and then he catches up with them, and he starts walking with them.

But they don't recognize him as Jesus. They don't recognize him as anything other than just another man who's on his journey to Emmaus or wherever he was making out that he was going. Verse 17, and he said to them, What kind of conversation is this that you have with one another as you walk and are sad?

So he noticed their sadness. He noticed their frustration. He knew exactly what they were talking about. And I thank God that while we have the privilege of prayer, and prayer is absolutely important, that we express our needs and our desires and our hearts before God.

At the same time, he knows even before we ask, even before we pray. He knows our conversation. He knows the conversations between spouses. He knows the conversations between us and unbelievers. He knows the conversations that go on in our own hearts and minds.

Don't tell me you don't talk to yourself. He even knows those conversations. He knows. But he's asking them, What are you talking about? What conversation is this that you're so sad about? So clearly, he wants us to express our issues to him, even though he knows.

And I think it's important because sometimes we say, Well, you know, if he knows everything, then why do we need to pray? Well, we need to pray because he wants to hear it from our own lips. He wants us to make that confession.

And what is the confession? The confession is, Lord, we don't understand. We need help. We need you to open our eyes. We need you to explain things to us. We need you to answer our prayers. And so then it says in verse 18,.

Cleopas, the Cross, and the Meaning of Christ's Death

Then one whose name was Cleopas answered and said to him, Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem? And have you not known the things which has happened there in these days? I've never heard it here, but in South Africa, we have a saying, particularly in Afrikaans, and the saying is, Are you a stranger in Jerusalem?

The thing simply means, where have you been? Are you under a rock? Don't you know what's going on? And so that's the question to him. And obviously it's clear that what was happening, what had happened, was not obscure, as we've said all along.

Jesus, this is a very public thing. There are thousands and thousands of people in Jerusalem. There are thousands of people at the trial. Many, many had come to see the crucifixion, and according to these guys, nobody should not have known what was going on.

Now, notice that one of them was Cleopas. Now, most times when I hear people speak about this passage, they assume that these are two men. I'm not sure that they are two men. It doesn't tell us who the other one was.

The one is Cleopas, and that is a male name. Now, we find the name in John 19, verse 25. It's spelt a little differently, but it's the same name. There stood by the cross of Jesus his mother, and notice his mother's sister.

Her name is Mary, and she is the wife of Clopas, or Cleopas, and Mary Magdalene. So Cleopas is then Jesus' uncle by marriage. So his mother, his mother's sister, we don't know her name, and sorry, her name is Mary, and the wife of Cleopas, or Clopas.

So it's possible that the two who are traveling on the road to Emmaus may have been Clopas and his wife. There's nothing in the text that says that they were two men. If they were, they were people who were very closely related to Jesus, who knew him very well, and certainly she was there at the cross, one of the few who stood right at the cross when Jesus was being crucified.

And so they said, Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem, and have you not known the things which happened there in these days? And then verse 19, And he said to them, What things? So Jesus is obviously playing dumb, and sometimes it's necessary for him to do that, because it's necessary for us to confess our own hearts.

The problem is that we have issues. We have problems, things that we don't understand. We have emotional problems, intellectual problems, spiritual problems, and we bear them, but we don't want to express them.

And Jesus feels the need for them to make a confession. He knows what's in their hearts, but he wants them to express them. And, folk, we need to learn to express our needs before God. Husbands and wives need to learn to confess their needs to one another in order to have and build a good relationship.

But in our relationship with the Father, we need to express our needs. And so he says, What things? And they said to him, The things concerning Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet. So they recognized that he's a prophet, and he's mighty indeed, and word before God and all the people.

And how the chief priests and our rulers delivered him to be condemned to death and crucified him. Now, obviously, that just looks like a statement of what had happened, but I want you to notice something.

He says how the chief priests and our rulers, so he's speaking as a Jew, delivered him to be condemned to death, to the Romans, and crucified him. So who crucified him? According to him, the chief priests and our rulers crucified him.

So he is recognizing their guilt in the process. Now, remember, we want to be careful just by the way. We want to be careful on this point because there are Christians who are anti-Semitic who hate Jews because they say, Well, the Jews crucified Jesus.

We cannot go there. While, yes, Peter on the day of Pentecost, remember, it says that you took him with wicked hands and crucified him. So Peter also puts the blame squarely on the shoulders of Israel.

At the same time, this is not a blame game. Jesus didn't die because Israel rejected him or because Israel handed him to the Romans. Jesus died for our sins. It was our sins that took him to the cross.

If anyone is guilty, then each one of us is guilty of Jesus' death because it is because of our sins that he died. So to try and say, Well, it's the Jews' fault or it's the Romans' fault. No, it's not their fault.

It's my fault. If anyone is guilty, I am guilty because my sins necessitated him to die on that cross of Calvary. So while they take responsibility on behalf of the nation, at the same time, we cannot look at Israel and say, Well, you know, you are the Christ killers.

That's a word that is popular in some circles. No, Israel, yes, they crucified the Messiah, but the Romans were also part of that whole deal, as we've seen, and you can't really shift the blame because at the end of the day, Pilate makes the decision.

Pilate had life and death in his hands. Pilate could have released Jesus. He could have put him in protective custody, as they later did with Paul. But Pilate hands him over to be crucified. So they are both guilty.

Political Expectations and Replacement Theology

Anyway, so there's the story. But we were hoping that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel. Indeed, beside all this, today is the third day since these things happened. I've spoken many times about the fact that they were looking to Jesus as a political Messiah, and here it is again.

When they say we were hoping he was going to redeem Israel, they're not meaning this in a spiritual sense, but they're meaning it in a political sense, that he was going to save Israel from the Romans.

This was a huge problem they had, and it is becoming an increasing problem here in America. I listened to a famous preacher this morning, very briefly, and what he does is, and this is the thing, and I'll probably do a study on this in the next few months.

One of the errors we have in Christianity is what we call replacement theology. Replacement theology says that God is done with Israel, all of the promises of the Old Testament are now given to the church.

We don't believe that replacement theology is right, because that makes God a liar. God made irrevocable covenants with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob, confirmed it with Moses and with Israel at Mount Sinai.

So if God has finally and totally rejected Israel, then God has broken his covenants. It's as simple as that. So God is dealing with the church today, he will come back to Israel. So that is the classical problem, but we have a new form of replacement theology, which has risen in these last couple of years, and it does not replace Israel with the church, but replaces Israel with America.

So that all of the promises, and this is a famous preacher, well-known as an expositor, taking all Old Testament scriptures that God applies to Israel, and he now applies them to America. Folk, we cannot do that.

It's about the church right now, and it will be about Israel at a later stage. Everything else is secondary. And so we have to be careful that we don't get into the same mindset that these people got into, where it was about their nationalism, not about their salvation.

Now these are good guys, these two, walking on the road, but they were caught up by what was commonly accepted and commonly being believed at the time. And they couldn't see the reality that Jesus was not a political saviour, but he was a spiritual saviour.

And yes, obviously he will come as a political king at a later stage at the end times. So we believe that he was going to redeem Israel. And indeed, beside all this, today is the third day since these things happened.

Now, you would think that when they spoke those words, this is the third day, the penny would have dropped. Because many times Jesus had said, I will rise on the third day. And so their own confession is, this is the third day.

And yet they don't believe. And yes, certain women of our company, which we saw last week, who arrived at the tomb early astonished us. And when they did not find his body, they came saying that they had also seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive.

And certain of those who were with us, that was those who were in the upper room, remember Peter and John, went to the tomb and found it just as the woman had said, but him they did not see. Now, notice that there's one thing missing in their description of what had happened.

And that is the word, he is risen. The angel said he is risen. But for them, there was no resurrection. All that happened was Jesus was missing. The body was not there. They didn't understand anything beyond that.

Unbelief and the Prophets' Testimony

And the reason I say that is Jesus' response. Jesus then said to them, O foolish ones and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken. So clearly they did not believe the resurrection.

Otherwise Jesus would not have rebuked them. Jesus is not unfair. He's not going to rebuke someone for something that they're not guilty of. But they clearly don't believe. Now, remember I said last week that there is a pattern in these three appearances.

Jesus, well, these three accounts of the resurrection. The one at the tomb and the angels speaking to the woman, the road to Emmaus, and then the upper room. Luke selects those three of the many appearances of Jesus.

And in each one of those three, there is a pattern. And the pattern begins with unbelief, a statement of unbelief on the part of the observers. The response is a rebuke. In the first case, a rebuke from the angels.

Here it's a rebuke from Jesus. O foolish ones, you're so stupid. And then in the upper room, the same thing happens. Jesus rebukes them for their unbelief. And then a revelation of the truth. So the same pattern happens in all three.

And obviously Luke is making a very important point. And so notice that he does not say what the angel said. The angel said, don't you remember what he told you? He said he was going to rise. But here Jesus is saying, don't you believe the prophets?

Obviously referring to the Old Testament. And so foolish ones and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken. So they believed some of what the prophets said, but they didn't believe the parts about the resurrection.

And they didn't believe the parts about Jesus being despised and rejected, Isaiah 53. So they believed some parts but not all. And isn't that the problem today? I think that probably all of us believe in some, maybe even most, of the Bible.

But do we believe all of it? And that's the problem because the bits that we don't believe may just be the most important parts. The most difficult parts to understand from a human point of view. How do you understand the resurrection?

How do you understand that the Messiah, the deliverer of Israel, the Saviour, is going to die on the cross? And yet we have to believe the things that even look like they're impossible. That look like they just don't make sense.

And you say, well, you know, does that mean that we have to park our brains at the door when we come to church or when we open? No, I've always advocated that we must have an intellectual understanding supported by a spiritual understanding.

And I'm going to come back to that idea in a moment. We must understand. But there are certain things we have to accept by faith. There are certain things that we cannot prove. And those are the things that sometimes we reject.

And we say, well, how could God have created everything in six literal days? Which is becoming increasingly difficult to believe as we are being bombarded with all sorts of pseudo evidence against a literal six-day creation.

And then obviously the problem with that is that if you reject that, then you have to reject the resurrection. Because if one part is not true, then the rest cannot be true. So either we believe the whole of the word of God or we don't believe at all.

And so you're slow of heart. You're slow of heart. Notice he's saying, can't you get it? Verse 26, ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into his glory? So it's a reciprocal question.

He's not asking them to answer because he knows they can't answer. They don't know the answer. But if they had understood the scriptures, if they'd understood the Old Testament, they would have understood that he had to suffer and then enter into his glory, speaking about his resurrection and his glorification.

The Old Testament Reveals Christ

Verse 27, and beginning at Moses, the first five books, and all the prophets, including the Psalms, he expounded to them in the scriptures the things concerning himself. This is the heart of this passage.

I know that we get caught up in him being made known to them as they broke bread. We get caught up in other aspects, but this really is the heart of the passage. He explains to them from the scriptures.

I'm going to come back to this again in a moment. But notice he expounds to them in all the scriptures. In other words, that the Old Testament, from Genesis through Malachi, their order is a little bit different at the end, all of them reveal Jesus.

And don't just reveal him as the Messiah, but reveal him as the sacrifice. Jesus is revealed in the tabernacle. Jesus is revealed in the sacrifices that are made day after day after day. Jesus is revealed right through the Old Testament.

And Jesus goes through the scriptures. Now, obviously, in the walk, and I don't know how long it took, a couple of hours, he couldn't have gone into every single scripture, but he goes through all of the Old Testament, all of the books, and shows how that each one of them reveals Jesus.

And, of course, in John chapter 5, Jesus himself said, and remember, if they were one of his followers, they may have heard these words and yet didn't pay attention. He says, you search the scriptures.

He's speaking to the Pharisees. You search the scriptures, meaning the Old Testament. Remember, they didn't have the New Testament. You search the scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life.

And these are they which testify of me. So, if they had been there, they would have got this. Or maybe not. But the statement is very, very clear. Folk, we have to be careful how we deal with the Old Testament.

As I said earlier, people are using the Old Testament to come up with all sorts of harebrained ideas and all sorts of doctrines and theologies that are not scriptural. The Old Testament primarily teaches us about Jesus.

Teaches us about Jesus. And when we start getting into the Old Testament and we start seeing pictures about America and about Russia and about this and that and Ukraine and whatever else, we've missed the point.

The point of the Old Testament is not about anything other than Jesus Christ. The same with the New Testament. And so, Jesus' accusation to the Pharisees is you search the scriptures. They knew the scriptures.

They could recite. Many of them could recite those scriptures verse by verse from the beginning right through to the end. Not only did they know them, but they debated them. They discussed them. They argued about the meaning and the interpretation of the various scriptures.

But he says, but you are not willing to come to me that you may have life. So he says, you search the Old Testament because you think the scriptures will give you life. But he says, no, the scriptures don't give you life.

I am the life. And if you don't find me, you're not going to find life. Many people are trying to find life in the Bible, in the New Testament. But they don't want to find it in Jesus. Jesus is the only one who can give life.

Abiding With Christ Above All Other Priorities

I'm rushing along because we have quite a bit of ground to cover this morning. Then they drew near to the village where they were going and indicated that he would have gone further. So he's again looking for some kind of response.

I think this is another important step in this whole passage. Sometimes it looks like the Lord wants to do something different. But what was he doing? He was testing them. He was testing them. He was seeing whether they were serious about their relationship with the Lord Jesus.

They didn't know this was Jesus, but he was declaring Jesus to them. Here's a man who opens the scriptures and explains to them Jesus. Now they're going to just let him go? Well, thank God they didn't.

They said, no, no, no, you need to stay here. Folks, sometimes we let go of Jesus too easily. We say, well, thank you, Lord, that was great. Folks, I'm particularly concerned that we come to church and we hear 45 minutes of exposition and that's it.

We go home and we do whatever we do. But they say, no, we want to hear more. They say, well, we're concerned that you're going to go on the road and it's dangerous. Well, in fact, it wasn't so dangerous that they were not going to turn around and go back all that way again.

They just wanted more time with him. And that was the right decision. Can you imagine what would have happened if they said, OK, bye, see you? They would have had a wonderful revelation of the Old Testament, but they would never have seen him face to face.

And folks, I think sometimes we give up on our prayer life too quickly. Sometimes we move on to whatever else we're busy with. And I can imagine they had things to do. They were going to have a meal and they were going to see their friends or their family, whoever they were traveling to go and see.

And there was some excitement about seeing friends again and having a meal and resting and all of these kinds of things. But they recognized there was something more important than just having a meal with their friends or family.

Jesus was more important. Sadly, I think many times we fail the test. And this was a test. Jesus was testing them. And many times we fail the test because other things take priority over Jesus. Other things take priority over his word.

And we flip from one thing to the other instead of spending time and saying, Lord, no, don't go on. Stay here with me. In John's gospel, Jesus says it this way. He says, abide in me and I in you. Remain.

And they say, no, Jesus, don't... Well, they didn't know his name, but don't go. Stay here with us. And so he indicated that he would have gone further. But they constrained him, saying, abide with us, for it is toward evening.

Interesting those words, abide with us. Not just come and have a meal. No, stay with us. Remain with us. For it is towards evening and the day is far spent. And he went in to stay with them. Jesus is a very willing guest.

If we invite him in, he will come in. But if we shut the door, he will go. And at this point, it's up to you. You see, Jesus had done all the groundwork. He had appeared, he had arrived. Again, we understand they didn't know who he was, but he was there.

He spent time, he gave them the scriptures. He gave them everything. And then he said, now you choose. Now, he doesn't say that in those words, but that's what it boiled down to. You choose. You want more of me?

Or you want me to go? And they said, no, Lord, stay. And, folks, he has done everything to build that relationship with us. He's died for us at the cross. He's given us his word. But now it's up to you and up to me to say, Lord, no, we don't want you to go.

We want you to stay. We want this relationship to continue. And he went in to stay with them. Now, it came to pass as he sat at the table with them that he took bread, blessed and broke it, and he gave it to them.

Recognizing Jesus Through the Word Rather Than Experience

Now, this is a difficult verse because there are many who say that they had communion because the passage near the end, I think third to last verse says that he was known to them in the breaking of the bread.

And normally when we speak about the breaking of the bread, we mean communion. The problem here is that he only took bread. He didn't take wine. And so the important elements of a communion, and I don't want to use the word service because remember for them it wasn't a service.

They would have communion as part of their meal at the end of the meal just like Jesus did at the Last Supper. They would take bread and they would take wine and they would remember the Lord. Now, I don't think that this is what he is doing.

He's simply the guest of honor and it's up to him to break the bread. And so as he breaks the bread, sorry, he blessed it and he broke it and he gave it to them. But maybe they were the ones who were part of the 5 ,000 where Jesus did exactly the same thing.

He broke the bread, blessed it, and he said to the disciples, now go and give to the people. Maybe they're beginning to remember things. I don't know. It says, and then their eyes were opened and they knew him and he vanished from their sight.

Suddenly, the Holy Spirit opens their eyes. Some speculate that as he broke bread they could see the marks in his hands. That may be possible, but clearly what we see in verse 16, which I think we're going to come back to in a moment, but what we saw in verse 16 is that God had restrained their eyes so that they could not recognize him.

So God now opens their eyes and they see him. They recognize who Jesus is. And, folk, here is the important lesson. Let me deal with the next verse and then get there. And they said to one another, did not our heart burn within us while he talked with us on the road and while he opened the Scriptures to us?

Notice what they said. We must pay attention to the details. They don't say, did our hearts not burn within us as he broke the bread and we recognized him? That wasn't what excited them. Of course there was a great thing.

But what is it that excited them? When he opened the Scriptures. When he opened the Scriptures. And so if we go back to verse 16 then, why were their eyes restrained so that they did not know him? And why does he open their eyes at the meal?

For one important lesson, and this is the point of the passage as far as I'm concerned. He did not want them to build their relationship on him, on their experiencing him, seeing him. He wanted them to build their faith on the word of God.

And so he opens the word and reveals himself from the word and that excites them. You see, here's the problem. We say, no, we don't want the word. We want to see Jesus. This is the emphasis in most modern churches today.

Experience. I once did a study and typed in experiencing Jesus in Google and came up with thousands and thousands of hits. It's all about experiencing Jesus. No, if you don't get him in the opening of the word, you will not experience him.

You cannot build your relationship on an experience. You must build your experience on the teachings of the word of God. Yes, experiencing him is important. It's important that they saw him and they recognized who he was.

But if that was all they had, their faith would be on shifting sand because our experiences are fleeting. Can you think back on the most wonderful experience you had in your life? Whatever that may have been.

Can you remember exactly how it all was? No. We just know, yeah, there was that time and it was it was great, whatever it was. But the word of God endures forever. Our emotions change. Our feelings change.

Time moves on. But the word of God endures. And if we're going to build our relationship on saying, well, I saw Jesus. This is what many. I had a vision of Jesus. But guaranteed the time will come you say, well, was that real?