The Resurrection of Jesus Christ

calendar -oriented very much, but it is hard to avoid the reality that it is what is known as Resurrection Sunday, and if you didn't know that, you would have been reminded, sadly, by the fact that we now live in a society where in the couple of months leading up to this particular day and that other day in December, there seems to be a rash of television specials, interviews, and books that come out, all meant to remind us and to instruct us that what we believe really isn't true anyways.

So it was just a few months ago, actually a few weeks ago now, that Bart Ehrman put out a new book,

How Jesus Became God, and so he's getting his free airtime on NPR and so on and so forth now, and so that kind of thing is extremely common, and one of the new things that came out in his new book is his theory that Jesus was actually not buried in a tomb, but in a common grave, and so on and so forth, and so even if you weren't really looking at a liturgical calendar, you'd be reminded just by how much stuff is thrown at us these days, with very little response, at least in the mainstream media.

Obviously there's still a quote -unquote Christian media, and there's all sorts of Christian radio and television stations and things like that running about, but certainly within the mainstream media, you would not hear much of a meaningful dialogue and interaction on these particular issues, and so with that in mind,

I thought it would be appropriate to look at the 24th chapter of Luke to remind ourselves of the primary issues relevant to the day, and hopefully be encouraged by some of the things we see here.

My focus actually would be post - resurrection, but it's always good to be reminded of what is said here in Luke's account of this particular portion of scriptural revelation.

On the first day of the week at early dawn, they came to the tomb, bringing the spices which they had prepared.

We've learned a lot about Jewish burial customs. It was customary to bury the body, that there would be an embalming process, and then later, at a later period of time, a removal of the bones of the body and the placing in what's called an ossuary, and the museums in Israel are now filling up with these ossuaries.

You may recall a few years ago, the story came out of the finding of the

James ossuary, and then the people trying to say they had found the Jesus family tomb and stuff like that, and all that went on with that particular situation, and they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the body of the

Lord Jesus. While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men suddenly stood near them in dazzling clothing, and as the women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, why do you seek the living one among the dead?

We will someday eventually get to this portion in our synoptic studies, someday.

I'm gonna have to find someone to make a commitment that if I get run over by a truck or something before we finish this, somebody else will finish it, just simply because it would just be wrong to get so far through the synoptic

Gospels and not finish up with the tough part, but if we eventually get there, one of the many, many, many allegations and issues that we will be dealing with is, well, was there, here's the assertion, if you look at Matthew, Mark, and Luke, well one says there was one angel, two, one angel, two men, and one man, or something along those lines, and see, they're all in contradiction.

Well, the reality is that I don't know too many men who stand near graves in dazzling clothing who are not actually angels.

It's fairly obvious it's being referred to here, and if there's two, then there has to be at least one, and so if you only focus upon one speaking or something like that, these kinds of alleged contradictions and things like that are some of the weakest.

I mean, there's some tough issues to deal with. There's no question about it in looking at Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, but this kind of stuff is not overly difficult to deal with.

And left again, you adopt that unusual standard that says that each one of these

Gospels is meant to be a, when I was younger,

I used to be able to, you know, say something like a CBS evening news reporter because they were supposed to be unbiased and just giving you the facts.

I can't think of anybody anymore I can use that actually follows standards of journalism anymore, where you're actually just supposed to be reporting the facts, not a spin on it, but unless you think that's what the

Gospels are supposed to be, that they are meant to be taken in that way, then you're not going to have any problems seeing what the purposes were.

Anyway, notice the message is delivered, why do you seek the living one among the dead?

He is not here, but he has risen. And then, very, very important,

I think, the next section, remember how he spoke to you while he was still in Galilee, saying the

Son of Man must be delivered to the hands of sinful men and be crucified and rise again. And on the third day, rise again.

So, this discussion that Jesus had had with his disciples more than once, remember with Peter, and Peter says, you know, far be it from you

Lord. And Jesus says, get behind me Satan. And verse 7, there's a little three -letter

Greek word, di is the way it's pronounced. It is necessary, the

Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men. And the very used -to term,

Son of Man, very important, if you look back at Mark chapter 14, verses 60 and following, when

Jesus uses this exact terminology. And it's the basis upon which the death sentence is given, because the

Son of Man is an angelic figure, not even an angelic figure, a divine figure that receives worship and a kingdom in Daniel chapter 7.

And when Jesus applies this to himself, the chief priest says, what further evidence do you need?

You've heard the blasphemy with your own lips. This man deserves to die. And so, the

Son of Man material continues on. Post - resurrection, the

Son of Man must be delivered in the hands of sinful men, be crucified, and on the third day, rise again. And they remembered his words, and returned from the tomb, and poured all these things to the eleven and to all the rest.

Now, of course, it's the eleven now, because of what happens with Judas. But they had been called the twelve for so long that I forget which one it is, but one of the

Gospels will still use that term, especially because there's going to be one added back. The twelve would just become just another name for the disciples, even though there was one missing now because of the betrayal.

Now, they were Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary, the mother of James. Also, the other women with them were telling these things to the apostles.

There will be a huge discussion of the names lists. And that actually has become one of the really neat confirmations of the historicity of these narratives is, for a long time, people were wondering, man, those people back there did not have much in the way of imagination when it came to names.

I mean, everybody's named Mary. I mean, seriously? This is weird.

But the reality is, as boring as this study must have been,

I mean, I thank God for whoever did it, but wow, what a life it must be. People have actually been tabulating the names that have been discovered in the tombs, in all the archaeological research and digs.

Every time they try to build something around Jerusalem, the archaeology department has to get involved because everything is an archaeological site.

And they have to go rushing in there and try to save as much stuff as they can before it's obliterated by the modern buildings.

And there are people who have collated and processed and entered into databases, etc.,

etc., the names on the ossuaries and in the places of burial.

And lo and behold, when you take the names that we can identify as first -century

Palestinian grave sites and compare them with what we have in the

Gospels, they're within like three percent, one way or the other, in the utilization of names.

I mean, seriously? I put the numbers in that little book that I wrote very quickly a number of years ago in response to the tomb story.

But if I recall correctly, if you were walking down the streets of Jerusalem around this time and yelled out,

Mary, without any identification of Mary, daughter of Mary of such -and -such a city, just yelled out

Mary, about a third of the women would turn around and look at you. It's just how common

Miriam was as a name at that time. And that's what the grave sites have likewise demonstrated.

So they are reported as saying the Apostles, but these words appeared to them as nonsense, and they would not believe them.

But Peter got up and ran to the tomb, and we know that John does the same thing, but it doesn't get mentioned here.

In fact, he gets outrun to the tomb. Stooping and looking in, he saw the linen wrappings only, and he went away to his home marveling at what had happened.

And behold, two of them. Now, here we have a story that only Luke really wants us to understand and to hear about.

I'm sure there were other stories that could have been included, but each writer is now choosing what is most important to him.

And behold, two of them were going that very day to a village named Emmaus, which was about seven miles from Jerusalem.

And they were talking with each other about all these things which had taken place. While they were talking and discussing,

Jesus himself approached and began traveling with them. But their eyes were prevented from recognizing him.

Now, it's important to notice that terminology that's used there.

The term is krateo, which means to grasp hold of something.

And so there is a supernatural activity here where they are kept.

They have to be kept from recognizing who Jesus is. Now, some might say, well,

I don't know necessarily. Maybe it's just because the last person in the world they would expect to be walking with them would be

Jesus. I don't know. Obviously, later on, there is an opening of their eyes to recognize

Jesus. And so it seems to me that it's supernatural at the beginning and supernatural at the end. Because obviously, if they had recognized him immediately, then the ministry that he's going to have to them in the explanation of the

Scriptures would not have been able to take place because of their shock and amazement.

And so I think that there's a specific purpose being accomplished here.

Their eyes were prevented from recognizing him. And he said to them, what are these words that you're exchanging with one another as you are walking?

And they stood still looking sad. One of them named Cleopas answered and said to him, are you the only one visiting

Jerusalem and unaware of the things which have happened here in these days? I don't know about you. But I detect a small element of sarcasm in Cleopas's words.

I think there's something similar here to do you live in a lead mine or something along those lines, because are you the only one visiting

Jerusalem and unaware of the things which have happened here in these days? It's the talk of the town.

And Jesus wants them to explain, not that he doesn't know. And he said to them, what things?

And they said to him the things about Jesus the Nazarene, who is a mighty, a prophet, mighty indeed in word and the sight of God and all the people.

Now the chief priests and our rulers delivered him to the sentence of death and crucified him. But we were hoping.

We were hoping. This is in what's called the imperfect in the original language.

It refers to a continuous action in the past. The idea being that they had been experiencing an ongoing hope in the past, not in the present.

But we were hoping that it was he who was going to redeem Israel. And there was, of course, a very rich tradition and belief amongst the

Jewish people of the coming Messiah. There were all sorts of different ideas as to what the

Messiah was to do and to accomplish. And certainly what was not expected was that the

Messiah would suffer and die at the hands of the Romans in the most ignoble possible way.

And so they know that there is a need for the redemption of Israel.

They know that there is one that is going to come from God to redeem Israel. But the very sadness upon their face and the language they express demonstrates beyond all shadow of a doubt that from their perspective, the events that have taken place have ended that hope for them.

This was not what they expected the Messiah to be, nor did they understand Jesus' own teaching on this particular subject.

Indeed, besides all this, it is the third day since these things happened.

Now, a couple of years ago, it hasn't been that long ago, but a couple of years ago,

I spent an entire class time on the big issue of the timing of the crucifixion.

And I'm not going to do that again today, but let me just briefly, especially because every year at this time it comes up, just briefly point a couple of things out to you.

It is very common, Bart Ehrman is one of the people that says this, to say that Matthew, Mark, and Luke have one timing, one day for the crucifixion, and John a different day for the crucifixion.

And they base that upon some rather simplistic misunderstandings of what the

Passover was. The Passover was not a single meal, it was a multi -day celebration.

And it's all based on the idea that, well, John was just trying to make a connection that Jesus is the Passover lamb, and so he moves it one day, it's all theological, and John isn't historical anyways, so let's not bother.

Don't worry about it. Well, we spent an entire class time just looking at John and demonstrating that John actually says the exact same thing as the

Synoptic Gospels do. The same thing is true as to the time of the day.

We've seen, for example, that Matthew, Mark, and Luke use Jewish reckoning of time, John uses

Roman reckoning of time. There's a six -hour difference between them, so when you read ninth hour versus third hour, it's got to know which clock you're supposed to be looking at.

We, of all people, shouldn't have any problem with that, living in Arizona. What time is it there? Well, I don't know.

Have you moved your clocks recently? Well, I'm not sure. Did we spring forward, fall back? I don't know. So we understand how clocks can change a little bit and things can get confused.

But there's all sorts of stuff for that. But the big thing, a lot of the cult groups like to use, in fact, someone just this week asked me about this, and it was raised to them by someone in a cult group.

They like to say, well, look, you're just following your church traditions and stuff like that.

The reality is that Jesus could not have been crucified on Friday, because it says three days and three nights.

And so there are some people that will say, well, three days and three nights mean that Adam and Eve have been as early as Wednesday.

Others will say Thursday, but you've got to have the three days, three nights, Jonah in the whale, da -da -da, da -da -da.

And they ignore two real obvious facts. First of all,

Jewish reckoning of time, any portion of a day is a complete day. So even these men say it's been three days since these things have happened.

But the most important thing is really simple. If you were to right now whip out your smartphone, and for those of you who have smartphones, which is pretty much everybody today, except for just a few people who remain nameless.

But if you were to whip that out and go to translate .google. You didn't have to put your hand up,

Roxy. I was trying to avoid any specific mentioning of things. But I just can't do it.

But if you go to translate .google .com and put in English for your input and Greek for your output, and type in the word

Friday, what will appear on the other side in Greek letters, but fairly easy to figure out, is the word pros -uk.

And you might wonder why that's relevant. Well, that means preparation.

It's a verb that means preparation, to prepare. And so it becomes a substantive in the sense of preparation day.

That's the normal word for Friday in the Greek language today. And it came from the New Testament.

It came in the New Testament because the preparation day, when was the Sabbath? Was Saturday. And so the day you prepared everything for the

Sabbath was preparation day, which was Friday. And all the Gospels say the crucifixion took place on preparation day.

Now people say, well, but there was a special high Sabbath, and there was this, and it's just, it's all special pleading.

The fact is, all the Gospels say it happened on Friday. And it's the actual day for Friday. Um, most people don't catch that because most of our translations will render it as preparation day.

And so we sort of missed that, not realizing that that's the actual Greek term for Friday.

Our Greek brother isn't here today. He could have confirmed that for me. It would have been really cool for him to go, yeah, yeah.

But maybe we'll remember to do that some other time. But so it's, when you hear folks digging this up and stuff like that, just keep in mind that a little closer examination will reveal the harmony of the

Gospels at that point. So he says, it's the third day since these things happened. But also some women among us amazed us when they were at the tomb early in the morning, did not find his body.

They came saying they had also seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive.

So the men in shining garments, yes, that is indeed angels. Some of them, some of us who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as exactly as the women also had said.

But him, they did not see. And so they are pretty much up to speed on the current stuff.

It does make us all wonder what was going on between Friday afternoon and Sunday morning.

There has been all sorts of speculation down through the years about what was Saturday like for the followers of Christ.

And from our perspective, it's real easy to go, man, why didn't they hear?

Why didn't, you know, indication is that, you know, even here, you know, the angels said to the women, did he not tell you this?

And they remembered. Yeah, yeah, I did. So you would wonder, why weren't they sitting around combing through the

Scriptures and with great anticipation looking forward to that Sunday morning?

Evidently, they were not. Evidently, they were not. There might be some application here of the necessity of supernatural enlightenment of the mind that's going to come out here in Luke 24, certainly in regards to the coming and presence of the

Holy Spirit. But there's,

I think, more purposes we'll see here in a moment. And he said to them, O foolish men and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken.

There is absolutely no question whatsoever that from the viewpoint of the early church, from the apostolic viewpoint, that the

Christian faith is not some new religion. While there is newness in what has taken place, while there are things that were hidden from the prophets of old, one thing that cannot for a second be questioned is the fact that the fulfillment in Christ is a fulfillment of prophetic utterances and divine prophecy.

That to believe the prophets is to follow Jesus. No question about it.

And when you look at the term foolish, that might seem rather harsh on Jesus's part.

But the reality is that the term refers to lack of understanding.

There was a lack of understanding. There's a foolishness. There's a slowness of heart to believe in all the prophets have spoken.

And it's easy for us to look back at them and say, well, it was before the Spirit. We have the Spirit now. We've got it all figured out.

But to be honest with you, there is a tremendous amount of slowness of heart to believe all the prophets have spoken in our day as well.

We may talk about prophetic fulfillments of the ancient texts and things like that.

But certainly within what calls itself academia, there is a tremendous amount of naturalistic materialism that causes people to be even slower of heart than these men would have been to believe in all the prophets have spoken.

Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into his glory?

Now, it would seem by the rhetorical question and the context in which it is placed, that the expectation that Jesus has is that a true and believing reading of the prophets should have told them these things.

Was it not necessary for the Messiah to suffer these things and to enter into his glory?

Wow. There's no response given.

I can just sort of, can you sort of imagine? They're sad and at first they're thinking, this guy's clueless.

I mean, he, you know, you don't even know what's going on here. And then the first thing is to call them foolish and slow of heart and unbelieving.

And then to hit them up with a graduate level

Bible quiz. Uh, was it not necessary? I mean, if you just read it, would you not have understood?

Was it not necessary for the Messiah to suffer these things and to enter into his glory? And they're, they're like, well, we've heard a lot about the glorious Messiah and delivering

Israel from political oppression and stuff like that. But this suffering part, um, not computing here.

This is not, you know, and so we, we once again have a warning here of what happens when tradition, uh, overtakes scripture as the primary source of instruction.

And certainly that had happened with pretty much everybody at this particular point in time. So then beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, he explained to them the things concerning himself in all the scriptures.

Now, uh, give me a second here. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.

Oh, it skipped on me. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 words.

18 words in Greek. 18 words. Um, I don't know about you, but I, I, I know a lot of Christian theologians and historians and, and stuff that really wish there was more than 18 words there.

I mean, I think we get a, we get a glimpse. I mean, if we were to sort of take all, if we were to sort of take like Peter's Pentecost sermon and a bunch of the sermons in the synagogues, you know,

Paul, and then go to Hebrews and, and pull all that stuff together.

And then look at the, the epistles where there are references to Old Testament texts.

That would give us at least an outline, I think, of what these men experienced as they're walking along the road to Emmaus.

Um, but it would be an incredible thing. Um, I sort of wonder,

I don't know, but will we sort of get to find out, you know?

I mean, are there big screens in, in heaven, you know? And can we, we'd like to watch what happened.

Could we, could we sort of see what happened on the road to Emmaus? I'd love to, you know, maybe we'll just be so far beyond that we won't even be able to I sure would like to, uh,

I sure would like to have been the proverbial, you know, bug on the wall type thing to, to have listened in to what that conversation was like.

Something tells me it was heavily one -sided. I don't think there was a lot of give and take on this one.

I think it was, um, really quiet in learning mode, shall we say.

And so, uh, I love to think about that. And of course there's that, uh, rather well -known work of art, uh, of the, of Jesus walking with the disciples on the road to Emmaus.

And, uh, he's gesturing and they're just, uh, listening. And, uh, what a, what a privilege, uh, that would have, uh, would have been for them.

And they approached the village where they were going, and he acted as though he were going farther. So they start, you know, there's the path that leads in the village, and he's not going over that part of the path, you know.

And they urged him saying, stay with us for his gang toward evening, and the day is nearly, is now nearly over. So he went in to stay with them.

And when he had reclined at the table with them, he took the bread and blessed it, and breaking it, he began giving it to them.

Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him, and he vanished. From their sight.

So in the breaking of the bread, uh, why that?

Well, there's been all sorts of speculation that, uh, this has some Eucharistic significance or something like that.

I think it's fairly obvious that, uh, even as we look at the life of the apostles and, and, uh, not just the twelve, but there would have been times there was more than just the twelve, uh, that Jesus' giving of thanks and, uh, prayers must have been a pretty amazing thing.

And it seems quite fitting that at that very point in time, uh, when the living bread from heaven is, uh, breaking the bread and blessing it, and, uh, giving it to them, that that time their eyes were opened.

And so, once again, uh, there just seems to be a very obvious external power, uh, in, in, in action here.

Um, and he vanished from their sight. That does not mean that Jesus, uh, Jesus broke bread.

Uh, he wasn't, it wasn't, uh, a ghost. It wasn't a spirit.

Uh, but while we do not have any, and I know it's real popular right now due to certain movies to, uh, pretend to know a lot about, uh, heaven, uh, personally,

I think it's best to go with the Bible there rather than four -year -olds. But anyways, um, uh, when you, uh, when you put it all together, uh, the resurrection body is incorruptible.

Um, is the fact that the resurrection body is not limited, uh, by, is it, is it limited by time?

What's time after, after the resurrection? What, how is that measured? How is that seen? How is that experienced?

I don't know. I mean, if I really believe the Bible says, eye is not seen, ear is not heard, hasn't entered into the heart of man.

So, uh, I either have to believe that or all the other stuff that people can come up with. It's all speculation.

Um, but John pretty much clearly tells us that Jesus can enter locked rooms.

For us, that seems to deny physicality, but I think that's to limit things way too much and to ignore the emphasis that the text is emphasizing, and that is the physical resurrection of Christ.

And so he said to one another, were not our hearts burning within us while he was speaking to us on the road, while he was explaining the scriptures to us?

Um, what must that have been like? Uh, we,

I think, need to be careful, lest we fall into a form of hyper red letterism.

Um, that would have been an incredible privilege, uh, to be in their shoes and to have their sandals,

I guess. And to have heard this kind of, of explanation of the prophetic witness.

Uh, but the spirit of God is no less capable of causing our hearts to burn in the instruction of his truth than Jesus was.

Um, and so, uh, I think what we can take away from this is that God delights to open up his word to his people.

And just as he did that then through the ministry of Christ, he does that now through the ministry of the spirit of God.

And they got up that very hour and returned to Jerusalem and found gathered together the 11 and those who were with them.

So it wasn't just 11, there was others. Saying the Lord has really risen and has appeared to Simon. And they began to relate their experiences on the road and how he was recognized by them in the breaking of the bread.

While they were telling these things, he himself stood in their midst. It doesn't say he knocked on the door, etc, etc.

So it seems to be similar to what we have in, uh, John. Uh, he said, peace be to you.

But they were startled and frightened and thought they were seeing a spirit. And he said to them, why are you troubled?

Why do doubts arise in your heart? See my hands and my feet that as I myself touch me and see for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.

Um, so very clearly, uh, those who would want to deny the reality of the physical resurrection, uh, have to simply turn these texts into myth and legend.

They, that's one of the reasons why, uh, these individuals will try to date the

Gospels as far away from these events as possible. To provide maximum amount of time for the creation of mythology and legend.

And get these things as far away from eyewitnesses and living witnesses as possible. Uh, it's all, it's all part and parcel of the same attempt.

Uh, because very clearly these words would indicate to us a concern.

Uh, first of all, a, a recognition that at first the disciples are thinking they're seeing a spirit.

Uh, but Jesus makes sure that they understand, uh, see my hands and my feet.

So why would he do that? Well, obviously because the signs of the crucifixion. Uh, touch me and see for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.

And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. While they still could not believe it because of their joy and amazement.

He said, I didn't have you anything here to eat. They gave him a piece of broiled fish and he took it and ate it before them.

So there is a clear purpose in why, uh, the

Gospel writers include this information. Uh, one of the greatest heresies of the early church were those who denied not only the physical nature of Christ, but then taught the idea that there was really no resurrection.

It was just simply a spiritual, uh, situation. Uh, not a, uh, not one that would have any direct relevance to rising from the dead.

And you have clear concern by the expression of these actions on the part of the

Lord Jesus. Now he said to them, and this is very, this is where I wanted to get to. We've got just a few minutes now. He said to them, these are my words.

I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things that are written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the

Psalms must be fulfilled. Notice the, uh, recognition of the old

Testament division, uh, the law, the prophets and the writings that are found in these words.

What's being said is I told you this before. And one of the very, one of the very first things that Jesus then emphasizes instructionally with his disciples afterwards is the old

Testament witness, the scriptural witness to the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ.

And he reminds them, I told you these things while we were walking along the dusty roads of Galilee.

And you didn't think you were walking with a spirit then. Um, that's, uh, all these things which are written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the

Psalms must be fulfilled, must be fulfilled.

Again, that same term, die. Uh, it's necessary that these things be fulfilled. Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures.

And he said to them, thus it is written that the Messiah would suffer and rise again from the dead the third day and that repentance for forgiveness of sins be proclaimed his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.

You are witnesses of these things. Behold, I'm sending forth the promise of my father with you, but you are to stay in the city until you are clothed with the power from on high.

So notice please verse 45 especially. Possibly as you think about this verse, you will not experience the common frustration that is ours as believers, especially at this time of year when you are faced with the the mockery of the unbelieving world.

Even faced by the mockery of those who proclaim themselves to be

Christians, but are actually unbelievers in regards to the things of the word of God.

For there are many of those. Um, and they are given tremendous freedom to express their unbelief, uh, in the world today.

When that happens, remember verse 45. Then he opened their minds to understand the script.

Now, some of you might be saying, sounds like a bit of a cop -out.

Sounds like a bit of a cop -out. Um, if you have done apologetic work in your own experience, you have talked with people who in your seeking to reason with them and to demonstrate errors in their understanding of scripture, their misuse and abuse of scripture, have basically said to you, um, you know, you just lack the spirit.

If you just had the spirit like I have, then you'd see what these texts really mean. And once you've heard that from about the 20th person, all of whom contradict each other, um, you start rather naturally, um, stepping back from, from saying anything like, well, you know, it's the spirit that we must depend upon for enlightenment and so on and so forth.

At the same time, here you have the disciples themselves.

No one is going to accuse them of having an anti -supernatural bias.

Certainly not, uh, at this point in time. Yeah, they've got a tradition issue.

There, there is that, and they're going to continue to have a tradition issue. All the way to the Mount of Ascension, uh, they're going to have a tradition issue all the way until the

Spirit of God comes. And even after that, God's going to have to send down a, a dream to Peter three times.

You have to whack him over the head with a dream, uh, to get him to start examining his tradition. So, um, yeah, there's, there's all that going on.

But no matter what else we say, we have to recognize that there is a spiritual element to the proper handling and understanding of the

Christian scriptures. I mean, why else would he have said that these men were, were slow of heart?

It's not that, well, it's so obscure that there has to be this supernaturally opening of your eyes, sort of like a

Gnostic thing, where if you just, if you get initiated right, then all of a sudden, uh, you know, you, you discover that it's actually, it's every fourth letter.

You know, if you just read every fourth letter and put that there's a secret message in there, that's, that's, that's not what's being said.

But there is something about the very text of scripture that is in its origin supernatural.

And therefore there needs to be an opening of the mind.

Now, what has closed mind? What has closed the mind? Well, it's all sorts of things. We've already listed a number of them.

Tradition can close the mind and ignorance can close the mind and selfishness and every kind of sin can close the mind.

I mean, there's just all sorts of things that can close the mind. That process began the day that Adam partook of the fruit.

But opening the mind is a gracious act and it's something that God himself has to do.

So when you see really intelligent people grossly mishandling the scriptures, you can either blow a gasket, uh, get all angry and upset, or thank

God that God in his mercy has opened your mind so that you do not mishandle the scriptures in that way.

And that you see the consistency and harmony of the word of God as well.

That's an important thing to keep in mind that it can help you. Some people, you know, I often get the question, how do you stay sane with some of the people you deal with for hours on end on television or in debates and stuff like that?

It's like, well, you know, I keep this in mind. I keep this in mind and I think we need to keep it in mind as well.

Okay. All right. We are out of time. Let's, uh, let's close our time with the word of prayer.

Our gracious heavenly father, we thank you for this day where we do indeed remember that great act of redemptive grace, the cross, the burial, the resurrection.

We live in light of that. We trust that our own resurrection will come about because of that.

And Lord, may we rejoice in that truth this day. We thank you. We love you.