27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.
The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Lk 24:27.
We are on the first stage of the objective of this Road to Emmaus, a spiritual journey and a must for every believer to undertake. The first stage is to become interacted with the Scriptures which all point to the Lord Jesus. In Luke 24 He had to start with Moses, through the prophets and culminate in the Psalms. It is obvious if we have this experience that Jesus will not start with Moses and the Law, but in the Gospels. The reason is that we have come to Jesus not via Moses, but via the Gospel message. For this chapter in Luke He was speaking to Jews, and as such the trajectory through Scripture for them must start with the Law, and through the parts where God promises to write His Law on the human heart. Our trajectory is not the same. We have no relationship to the Law, only we access Grace by faith.
A dear friend alerted me to the fact that we cannot dump the whole Old Covenant as in the narrative shows that Jesus started with Moses, the prophets and Psalms because they all point to Him being Messiah to the Jews first and it is because of the Old Covenant we get access to Jesus, and it is the Old Covenant that provides every access through Jesus to their respective blessings. Whilst I am majoring on where Jesus would open the Scriptures to us today we cannot but respect that Jesus was Jewish and that even though we do not come to Salvation via the preparation of the Law and the Prophets our trip back to them secures a heritage that Jesus came FIRST to the Old Covenant people and we access those Scriptures through faith in Christ, and their blessings in Him, He is our connection to Moses and the Prophets.
I have to make this correction because many may make a wrong conclusion that I am offloading the relevance of the Old Testament in a Marcionite way. No, the Old Covenant is fulfilled in Christ and beautified in Him.
We are not trying to glimpse the Risen Lord, as they were, we need to see the Ascended King.
We need to see Him as Ascended King, enthroned on the Holy Hill because Psalm 2 maps the transition between the reign of Kings of men to the King of Kings. For that we must jouney from the Gospel, through Acts, so see that His glorification is key to the existence of the Church, and the progression of His eternal programme.
Yet there is once again a necessity to face the fulness of Jesus again, not like how we have emphasized the Gospel Jesus over His current ministry at the Right Hand, interceding and transitioning us closer to His Eternal fulness where Kingdom, Church, Israel shall occupy each their eternal estate., Yet by majoring on the Gospel Jesus, we miss the parts where Kingdoms of the earth come and go, and we need to see the Jesus who is coming for us, is not the Suffering Servant, but the Glorified King.
This perspective that I am sharing here, is transmitting the Will of God for us, to gain a eternal vision, rather than what is majored on, about our immediate needs met only, and ignoring that the immediate needs are met in the context of the Eternal Will of the Father. We begin to flow better in this perspective, because it makes more sense of His Earthly mission, and how this projects into the longest ministry of Christ yet, over 2000 years at the Right Hand.
Something Scott Hahn, American theologian speaks concerning the Eucharist being the Present Parousia that makes sense, in that the Church guards every time that whilst they partake the Bread, as here in Luke 24 too, Jesus is seen as He is, and seen in the measure of our own transitioning from glory to glory and from faith to faith as we are partakers of that same parousia through our engagement in that Eucharist. Sometimes our eschatological vision is compartmentalised into future filing systems in our theology. Cannot be. That is why we are on this Emmaus road, to transport us on a quest to acquire an eternal vision.
And just as Mary experienced the full on identity of Jesus, not yet conceived, she said “Be it according to your word.” We grasp that the angel came at the right time when Mary was ready to receive all this eternal information.
Yet we on this road have Jesus Himself announcing to us the fullness of His Kingdom and our destiny in that context. Yet we have focussed only on the journey to Calvary and ressurection, our journey ending with His Ascension. Yet we have ignored the best part, how He overcame and sat down at the Right Hand. Ephesians 2 says we are sat with Him in that place, in the measure we comprehend who He is.
So we must only start in the Gospels, but see that when the Holy Spirit descends on the 120, Jesus is already at the Right Hand, and the first thing He asks the Father, is to send His Holy Spirit upon that company to start a dispensation of Grace, a time when Grace will in each generation, save and sanctify. Yet by the time we have gone through the teaching in the Epistles, understanding true theology, we come to the outworking of all this in Revelation when the angel comes to John, and as He comes when John enters the “Day of the Lord” in the Spirit dimension He is ready for meeting the Glorified Lord. He is ready to understand all things from being in the place of the Throne. The Emmaus road whilst it ends in Emmaus, Emmaus fades as we behold Him as He is! That is the objective of this series, the objective of this spiritual exercise. It is down to us to allow Jesus to walk us beyond the Gospels, to the outworking of all things in Revelation.
Maranatha!
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