Praising and blessing God - in higher than Jewish strains now, though in the accustomed forms.
Amen. This "Amen" is excluded from the text by Tischendorf and Tregelles, in which they are followed by Alford. But the authorities in its favour are, in our judgment, decisive. Lachmann inserts it. Probably some might less see the import of it here than in the other Gospels. But who that has followed our Evangelist, until he leaves his readers with the Eleven, "praising and blessing God" after their Lord's ascension to the Father, could refrain from adding his own "Amen," even though the Evangelist had not written it? It is as though he had said, 'For such wonders, the record of which is here closed, let every reader join with those Eleven continually in praising and blessing God.'
For Remarks on the Resurrection-scene, see those on the corresponding section of the First Gospel - Matthew 28:1-15. But on the remaining portion of this chapter we add the following -- Remarks:
(1) Were we asked to select from the Four Gospels the six verses which bear the most indubitable marks of exact historic reality, we might be at some loss, from the profusion of such that stud the pages of the Evangelical Narrative. But certainly the doleful tale of the two disciples going to Emmaus-of expectations regarding Jesus of Nazareth, raised only to be crushed to the lowest, with the half-trembling, half-hoping allusion to the reports of His resurrection by "certain women of their company," and all this poured into the ear of the risen Saviour Himself, who had overtaken and made up to them as an unknown fellow-traveler (Luke 24:19-24) - this must be held by every competent and candid judge to pass all the powers of human invention. Some, perhaps, will think that the subsequent manifestation in the breaking of bread is stamped with a selfevidencing glory at least equally great. Perhaps it is. Or that scene in the apartment at Jerusalem, where the disciples were met the same evening, when the two who had hastened back from Emmaus entered it to tell their tale of transport, but were anticipated by one equally thrilling, and while they were all unburdening themselves, breathless with joy, the Redeemer made His own appearance in the midst of them! But the difficulty of deciding which is most life-like arises from the multitude of such scenes, whose reality those photographic Records have printed indelibly on the minds of all unsophisticated readers in every age and all lands.
And what those records do not relate bears higher testimony to them, perhaps, than even their positive statements. Apocryphal gospels would have been ready enough to tell us what passed between the risen Redeemer and the disciple who thrice denied Him, at their first meeting on the resurrection-morn. But while only one of the Four Evangelists notices the fact at all, even from him all the information we have is contained in the thrilling announcement by the company assembled in the evening to the two from Emmaus, "The Lord is risen indeed, and hath appeared to Simon!" Not for the perplexed only do we recur to this subject again and again. To look into these things is an exercise as healthy as delightful to those who love the Lord Jesus. For thus do we find ourselves in the midst of them; and the views which such scenes disclose to us of the person of the Lord Jesus, His Work in the flesh, His dying love, His resurrection-power and glory, have such a historical form as imparts to them undying life, immortal youth and beauty.
(2) How often in hours of darkest despondency are the disciples of the Lord Jesus favoured with His presence, though their eyes for a time are holden that they shall not know Him? For all He does, perhaps, at such seasons is to keep them from sinking, and cheer them with hopes of relief, through the talk, it may be, of some friend who speaks to their case and reminds them of forgotten truths and promises. But this is itself relief enough to be sweet in the meantime: and dimly though Himself may be discerned in all this, the feeling which it begets finds vent in such strains as these:
`Abide with me from morn to eve, For without Thee I cannot live: Abide with me when night is nigh,
For without Time I cannot die.' - KEBLE
But there are times when the presence of Jesus makes itself almost as manifest as when the eyes of the two at Emmaus were opened and they knew Him. And never, perhaps, more than "in the breaking of bread." It was indeed a common meal which those two prepared for their unknown Guest. But His taking the place of Master at their own table, and His "taking the bread, and blessing, and breaking, and giving to them" - bringing up the whole scene of the Last Supper, and disclosing to them in this Guest their own risen Lord-converted it into a communion in the most exalted sense. And thus sometimes, when we sit down to that table which He hath ordered to be spread, with no higher feeling at the moment than of simple obedience to a commanded duty, He "makes Himself known to us in the breaking of bread" as evidently as if Himself said to us with His own lips, "This is my body which is broken for thee. This cup is the New Testament in my blood shed for many, for the remission of sins; drink thou and all of it." But such vivid disclosures of Jesus to the spirit, like cordials to a sinking frame, are not what we live upon; and just as, when the end was answered, He vanished out of the sight of the two wondering disciples, and, when on the mount of transfiguration the voice was past, Jesus was left alone, the glory gone, and Jesus only, as before, with the three astonished disciples-so are we left to go up through this wilderness leaning on our Beloved through the medium of the word, of which Jesus Himself says, "Sanctify them through thy truth: Thy word is truth."
(3) What a testimony to the divine authority and evangelical sense of the Old Testament Scriptures have we in the expositions of them by the Lord Jesus, first to the two going to Emmaus, and afterward to the company of disciples assembled at Jerusalem on the same evening of the resurrection-day? He who denies, or would explain away, either of these-and both certainly stand or fall together-must settle it with Christ Himself; but with those who, in our day, dispute even His authority, and yet call themselves Christians, this is not the place to dispute-nor, perhaps, would it be of much avail But,
(4) Who that reads with simple faith what is here written of Christ's direct access to the human spirit, and power to open its faculties to the reception of truth (Luke 24:45), can doubt His proper Divinity? It is indeed, no more than He is said to have done to Lydia (see the note at Acts 16:14); nor is it more than the father of the lunatic boy ascribed to Him with tears (see the note at Mark 9:24); and we must get rid of the whole Gospel History before we can free ourselves of the necessity of believing that Jesus has this glorious power over the human heart. But to free ourselves from tiffs obligation we want not. It is our joy that it is written in the Evangelical Narrative as with a sunbeam, and reflected in all the subsequent writings of the New Testament. But for this, who would commit the keeping of his eternal all to Him? But "we know in Whom we have believed, and are persuaded that He is able to keep that which, we have committed unto Him against that day" (see the note at 2 Timothy 1:12).
(5) The identity of the Risen with the Crucified body of the Lord Jesus is beyond all doubt what our Lord intended to convince His disciples of, by eating before them, and by showing them His hands and His feet, with "the print of the nails." This is a truth of unspeakable importance, and delightful beyond the power of language to express. The varying forms in which He appeared to the disciples, in consequence of which He was not always immediately recognized by them, suggests the high probability that the resurrection bodies of the saints too will possess the same or analogous properties; and the conjecture that a process of progressive glorification during the forty days of His sojourn on earth, and consummated as He "went up where He was before" - though it derives but slender support from the words of John 20:17, "I am not yet ascended" - may possibly have something in it. But one little fact speaks volumes on the perfect identity of the Risen Jesus Himself with Him who in the days of His flesh endeared Himself to the disciples in the familiar conversations of life-that when His appearance in the garden quite deceived Mary Magdalene that one word "Mary!" fixed His identity to her beyond what all other proofs perhaps could have done (see the note at John 20:16). And is it beyond the bounds of legitimate inference from this, that personal recognition, implying of course the vivid recollection of those scenes of the present life which constitute the ties of dearest fellowship, will be found so to connect the future with the present state-the perfection and glory of the one with the weakness, and wants, and tears, and vanities of the other-as to make it forever delightfully manifest that with all its glory it is but the efflorescence of the present life of the redeemed?
(6) And Thou art gone up to the Father, O Thou whom my soul loveth! It is Thy proper home Thou hast but ascended up where Thou wast before. And it was expedient for us that Thou shouldst go away. For otherwise the Comforter would not have come. But He is come. Thou hast sent Him to us; and He hath glorified Thee as Thou never wast nor, without Him, would have been in the Church. Now, repentance and remission of sins is in course of being preached in Thy name among all nations. Beginning at Jerusalem, bloody Jerusalem, it shall reach in its triumphs the most desperate cases of human guilt. But Thou shalt come again, and receive us to Thyself, that where Thou art we may be also. Even so, come, Lord Jesus! The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with all that read these lines. Amen.