LUKE 24.
There are certain great principles of life—of life from the dead—of life in Christ—in which the saints of God are led out to walk to the glory of God. One of these is, " We walk by faith, not by sight." In this we are at once brought to the sacred Scriptures, and to Christ of whom they testify, also having the Holy Ghost by whom the holy men of God were moved of old, by whom testimony is given to Christ and who dwells in us forever.
It does not say, We walk by faith, and by sight; but, We walk by faith, not by sight.
The journey of the two disciples going to Emmaus has been given to teach us something of this. All God's children are taught it—it is one of their simple actings in the life with which they are quickened.
When the rich man in hell entreated that one might be sent from the dead to his five brethren, that they might be kept from coming to that place' of torment, he was refused his request, and was told, " they have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them," and " if they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead," Luke 16:27-3127Then he said, I pray thee therefore, father, that thou wouldest send him to my father's house: 28For I have five brethren; that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment. 29Abraham saith unto him, They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them. 30And he said, Nay, father Abraham: but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent. 31And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead. (Luke 16:27‑31). The sight of one rising from the dead would do them no good if they would not hear Moses and the prophets, for faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God, Rom. 10:1717So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. (Romans 10:17).
While Christ walked with His disciples in the flesh, they had much of the sight of Christ, and so had the people of the world too: but the disciples were blessed by the word of Christ; and those who were not blessed by His word, were not blessed at all.
In this we see the ignorance of Christ's disciples drawing out much of His compassion to them they were much disposed to walk by sight, but He could not suffer them so to do: they were very slow to walk by faith, hut He could not conduct them in any other course.
Why did the women carry spices with them to the sepulcher on the first day of the week-the third day after Christ was crucified? Was it what He said that made them do so? or was it what they saw, together with their own thoughts upon it, but without any reference to a word on the matter that came out of His mouth? This it was! They beheld the sepulcher and how His body was laid, and then they went to prepare the spices and ointments, but they did not remember His words. If they had remembered His words, they would on this third day, have gone to see the empty sepulcher, and to look for their risen Lord; and the very sight of the stone rolled away would have been a joyous sight, and not to have found the body of the Lord Jesus, would have been a sight more joyous still. But the very acts by which the purposes of God are accomplished, will perplex those who have not communion with the mind of God, in those acts. They who saw His works for forty years, but did not learn His ways, could not enter into His rest; and therefore the word of warning is, " To-day if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts." Heb. 3.
But God was merciful to those poor ignorant women, who though ignorant yet were full of love to Jesus, and He sent the two men in shining garments to say to them, " Why seek ye Him that liveth among the dead? He is not here, but is risen; remember how He spake unto you when He was yet in Galilee, saying, The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again. And they remembered His words."
And even the very apostles themselves were in a worse state than those women. God would warn us through them that the very chief of Christ's disciples, even His chosen apostles, could not walk by sight without misery to themselves and dishonor to Him.
There are then the two disciples going to Emmaus, " And behold, two of them went that same day"-the day on which they should have known that Christ was risen from the dead—" to a village called Emmaus, which was from Jerusalem about three score furlongs. And they talked together of all these things which had happened. And it came to pass, that while they communed together and reasoned, Jesus Himself drew near, and went with them." The subject of their conversation was, " the things that had happened." The nature of the conversation was, that they " reasoned" together. They told what one person did, and what another person said, and then they puzzled themselves to know why all this was Oh! poor disciples!
Did you speak one word of what God had said in all this matter, and what God had done, and of all the, glory that was now awaiting you? Oh no! And now if walking by sight has got them into their trouble, God will show them and through them show us, that it is not by sight that He will get them out of it. Objects of sight may draw out one's own thoughts; but it is by the word of God that He communicates His. As these two disciples communed together and reasoned, Jesus Himself drew near and went with them. But their eyes were holden that they should not know Him, and yet they were about to learn more of Him. But first Christ had to cast down their imaginations; and so He said unto them, " What manner of communications are these that ye have one to another, as ye walk, and are sad? And the one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answering, said unto Him, Art thou only a stranger in Jerusalem, and hast not known the things which are come to pass there in these days?" Jesus was indeed only a Stranger in Jerusalem, and He would make those disciples to know themselves strangers with Him there. His Father had given Him a cup, and He drank it. He laid down His life for the sheep; and with regard to what the people in Jerusalem had done against Him, it was only that He that sitteth in the heavens might laugh, and the Lord might have them in derision. (Ps. 2.)
But Jesus drew out those two disciples by asking them, "What things? " And they said unto Him. "Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, which was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people; and how the chief priests and our rulers delivered Him to be condemned to death, and have crucified Him. But we trusted that it had been He which should have redeemed Israel; and beside all this, today is the third day since these things were done. Yea, and certain women also of our company made us astonished, which were early at the sepulcher; and when they found not His body, they came, saying, that they had also seen a vision of angels, which said that He was alive. And certain of them which were with us went to the sepulcher, and found it even as the women had said; but Him they saw not." Such was their account of the things that had happened in Jerusalem, and their own thoughts about them. Jesus heard them and said, "O fools! " They saw what the chief priests had done, but they did not see what God had done—they were not walking by faith—they were slow of heart to believe all that the prophets had spoken. It was there they were to learn Christ and the purposes of God about Him; and so " beginning at Moses, and all the prophets, He expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself." The things concerning Christ can only be learned in the Scriptures, not in the things happening in any place; for we walk by faith, not by sight. You may truly see an important act in the workings of God, and yet be quite ignorant of the purpose of God in that act, or what further result will follow. All these must be learned of God; and He has set them, so far as He sees we need to know them, in His Scriptures, and has given His Spirit to show Christ and the connection of the things with the glory of Christ, and this without the aid of the things of sight. " Their eyes were holden that they should not know Him," because their walk was to be, NOT by sight—there is the exclusion of sight in our walk of faith,. I dare not allow a picture of Christ, or any kind of image of Christ, that I might learn Him the better, or even look for a sight of Christ Himself after the flesh; it is in the Scriptures that the things concerning Him are to be learned; and "the word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart." See Rom. 10.
We who know the truth can have the same communion with the Father and the Son as they who saw with their eyes and handled with their hands what they have declared unto us of the word of life. " That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the word of life; (for the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and show unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us;) that which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the 'Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ." 1 John 1.
After Christ had reproved and corrected and instructed those two disciples, He then tested their affection for Him and their desire to have Him with them; for when they drew nigh unto the village whither they went, He made as though He would have gone further. And as the faithful of old, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, might have had opportunity to have returned; so those two disciples, if they had been mindful of their own sad state as they reasoned together, had now an opportunity to go back to it again, for Jesus made as though He would have gone further; but it was not so; they loved His presence, they wished Him to stay with them, and so " they constrained Him, saying, Abide with us; for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent."
" And He went in to tarry with them. And it came to pass, as He sat at meat with them, He took bread and blessed it, and brake and gave to them. And their eyes were opened and they knew Him; and He vanished out of their sight." In this there was further witness of, " not by sight; " for when their eyes were opened, and that they knew Him, instead of His adding something to what He had already taught them, He vanished out of their sight, and left them in happy meditation on the words He had spoken, instead of sadness in reasoning on the things that had happened. " And they said one to another, Did not our hearts burn within us, while He talked with us by the way, and while He opened to us the Scriptures? "
May we thus have communion with Christ, according to that which is written, and according to the power of His Spirit.
May we be kept from the sadness of our own reasoning on the things that happen, that we may not he as fools but as wise; " for whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope " (Rom. 15.).