The Bible Study Hour

Mark Daniels: The two disciples making their way to Emmaus that fateful Sunday were depressed and confused. Their savior was dead. Their hope was gone. And the last thing they expected was a sermon on the Old Testament prophets that predicted his coming and revealed his mission.

Welcome to the Bible Study Hour, a radio and internet broadcast with Dr. James Boice, preparing you to think and act biblically. As those two Christ-followers walked that dusty road, a stranger joined them, and their hearts burned as he preached a powerful sermon from Moses to Malachi.

Listen as Dr. Boice examines Jesus' message to two disheartened disciples on that first Easter Sunday. A sermon about himself, his death, his resurrection, and his purpose for coming.

Dr. James Boice: One of the great stories of the appearances of the Lord Jesus Christ to his disciples after the resurrection is the account of his appearance to the Emmaus disciples, which is recorded for us in Luke 24. It's an interesting story for a number of reasons, but one of the most interesting of all is the fact that our Lord preached a sermon on that occasion.

It's what is referred to in verse 27, which says, "Beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself." It's interesting that he preached a sermon, of course. Here he was, the Lord himself in his resurrected body, appearing to disciples who had known him in the days of his flesh before the crucifixion.

I suppose if we were designing the scene and we were causing it to unfold according to the type of expectations we might have, we would have Jesus simply presenting himself to them in emphatic language. They didn't know that he had been raised from the dead. He asked them why they were downcast. They explained it's because Jesus of Nazareth, whom we thought was a great prophet, has been killed, and this is the third day since all these things happened. We would expect Jesus to say, "Hey guys, look, it's me. Here, take a look at the nail prints in my hands. It's even me, Jesus, whom you know." But he doesn't do that.

Instead, we read that "beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself." In other words, he did what we are to do. We think that way today. We say, "Wouldn't it be wonderful if we just had a special revelation of Jesus to make everything clear?" That's not the way it is. Jesus set the pattern, and he said if you want to know me, you must know me by searching out the things that are written about me in the word of God.

But you know, I've read that text many, many times, and I suppose almost every time I've read it, I've wondered to myself, "What are those texts that the Lord must have referred to on that occasion?" Certainly this is a tantalizing verse. "Beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself." What were the passages he referred to? I'd like to know those. That would make a marvelous series. Take all the passages that the Lord used on that occasion as referring to himself and study them, and explain them, and apply them to the problems of our day. But it doesn't tell us. It simply says that he looked to the Scriptures and did that.

And yet, I hate to give up with a query like that, and I find myself coming back to that again and saying, "But surely there must be some way to have some idea what the texts were upon which Jesus preached this first great Easter sermon." And as I think about it, I think there are some clues. The first clue is the way that verse is written. "Beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he explained to them from all the Scriptures the things that concerned himself."

That's a clue because the Jews had a way of referring to the entire Old Testament—what we call the entire Old Testament—in terms of those three things: the Law, that is the Law of Moses; the Prophets; and the Writings, what is here called the Scriptures. They even had a little word for it. It was the word Tanakh, and each of the three letters of that Hebrew word stood for one of those three portions of the Scripture. The T stood for the Torah, the N for the Nevi'im (the Prophets), and the K for the Ketuvim (the Writings).

So when Jesus is said here to have begun with Moses and preached from the prophets in all the Scriptures the things that concern himself, that's a way of saying that he surveyed the entire Old Testament. So the first clue we have when we begin to say, "Well, what was his text for the sermon?" is that it wasn't just a single isolated text.

Jesus didn't merely say, "Well, you know, way back in that prophet that you probably haven't even read, in that chapter which you skip over because it follows the one in which all the difficult names occur, there is a verse hidden that probably nobody has ever noticed that does speak about me." That isn't the way he did it at all. He started with the Torah, the first five books, and he showed the things that were in them that spoke of him. And he went on to the Prophets and he showed the things that were in the Prophets that spoke of him, and he did the same thing likewise with the Writings, the third portion of the Old Testament. That's the first clue.

The second clue is even more helpful. And that is that although we're not told here precisely what texts the Lord Jesus Christ used when he preached this first Easter sermon, it does seem natural to suppose that the sermons that the first apostles preached would have followed roughly the same lines. That is, those sermons that are recorded for us in the book of Acts and the reflection of those sermons that we find in other portions of the New Testament.

That is particularly so because some of these sermons, certainly the sermon preached at Pentecost, was preached without a great deal of study or premeditation within a very short time of the events that are here recorded at the very last portions of the gospels. In other words, Christ rose, he explained how that was necessary on the basis of the Old Testament in the hearing of the apostles, then he ascended into heaven telling them to wait until the Holy Spirit should be given. The Holy Spirit came, and on that occasion Peter stood up and without a great deal of premeditation, and certainly without a great deal of prior study, began to expound the texts that spoke of Jesus Christ.

Where did Peter get his outline? From the teaching that Jesus had already given him. That is particularly true because it was the nature of rabbinical teaching that what the master said, the disciples memorized. Jesus departed from that somewhat—he was far more creative than the writings—but nevertheless it was the pattern. He was the rabbi, they were the disciples, and what the rabbi said, they learned, often by rote. That's why we have in the different gospels the sayings of Jesus Christ repeated again and again, sometimes in different settings by the different writers who wrote the things down. They memorized them. They had a capacity for doing that that we don't have.

And so if Peter and the others who were present when Jesus began to expound these things, not only here on this occasion but later as we're told in the chapter he did in the hearing of all the apostles, they would have remembered the texts. They would have said to themselves, "So that's what those texts mean." And when they had an opportunity, as they did to stand up and themselves present the gospel, these quite naturally are the texts that came to their mind. So with those two clues, let's look at some of the texts that Jesus must have used on this occasion.

Peter's speech on Pentecost, the first truly Christian sermon, you find it in Acts 2. Peter uses three great texts in that sermon. One has to do with Pentecost itself. It's drawn from Joel, the prophecy that in the last days God was going to pour out his spirit upon all flesh. Peter began with that, naturally, explained that that prophecy was fulfilled that day in Jerusalem in the sight and hearing of all the people. From there he went on to preach Jesus. Now as he did that, he drew in two great texts from the Old Testament.

The first one is from the 16th Psalm. Peter quotes what we call verses 8 through 16. "I saw the Lord always before me because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken. Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices; my body also will live in hope because you will not abandon me to the grave, nor will you let your Holy One see decay. You have made known to me the paths of life, and you will fill me with joy in your presence."

This was apparently a popular text, not only for Peter but for other preachers of the gospel in these early days as well because Paul, for example, also quotes this text later on in Acts on the occasion that he had to preach at the synagogue in Antioch. Why was it so important? Well, the reason this text was so important to Peter and the others and is presumably one of the texts that Jesus expounded to the Emmaus disciples is that David, who is writing here, says "You will not abandon me to the grave, nor will you let your Holy One see decay."

Interesting thing about that, you see, is that David couldn't possibly have written that about himself. This is what Peter points out as he begins to expound it. He says David didn't write this about himself because David did die and his body did see decay. As a matter of fact, he says, we still have the tomb of David around. All you have to do is look and there's the tomb of David, and the very fact that the tomb of David is there is evidence of the fact that when David wrote this in the 16th Psalm, he was not writing of himself.

If he wasn't writing of himself, in what way was he writing? Well, obviously he was writing as a prophet, and he was looking forward to the one who should come, and he was saying of him, "You will not abandon his soul to the grave, and you will not let your Holy One see corruption." That is the body of Jesus Christ in the tomb in the three days between his death and resurrection did not decompose. And so those are the points of Peter's sermon. David did not write it about himself. David wrote it about the Messiah, even Jesus. Number three, that prophecy has been fulfilled, and number four, we are witnesses that that's so.

That's not the only text he used. Later on in the sermon, he referred to the 110th Psalm, verse one. It's interesting that this verse is the verse of the Old Testament which more than any other is quoted in the New Testament. Here's a little bit of trivia for you. Next time you're at a retreat and they play Christian trivia, ask that question: "Which verse of the Old Testament is most quoted or referred to in the New Testament?" The answer is Psalm 110, verse one.

People who count this up say it's there in the New Testament, either direct quotation or referred to at least 25 or 30 times. "The Lord said to my Lord: Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet." One reason why this text is so important is that it goes back to an incident that occurred in the lifetime of the Lord himself. The people of the day were trying to trip him up. They were asking him all kinds of difficult questions, and he was fending them off easily as one would expect; nothing ever caught him by surprise.

And eventually he got to the end of their period of questioning and he said to them, "Well, now I'm going to ask you a question. You've been asking me questions, I'm going to ask you a question." He says, "When David in the 110th Psalm, David writing, says: The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet, of whom is he speaking?" That's the Messiah. "Now," he said, "is that his son?"

Traditional answer to that, of course, was yes, of course the Messiah is to come in the line of David. Everybody knew that. David would have a son who would have a son who would have a son who would have a son, and eventually one of these sons, grandsons, great-grandsons, great-great-great-great grandsons of David would be the Messiah. "Now," said Jesus, "if that's the case, if the Messiah is the son of David, how is it that David in this verse calls him Lord?"

You see the problem. A son would call his father Lord, but a father would not call his son Lord. How is it that David the king calls his son, grandson, great-grandson, whatever it may be, Lord? "The Lord said to my Lord—the Messiah—sit upon the throne." There was only one answer to that. The answer is that David called the Messiah his descendant Lord because that descendant of his, the Messiah, was more than a mere man.

That Messiah was going to be God. And therefore, though he is also the son of David, he is nevertheless at the same time David's Lord. And that text, speaking not only of the divinity of the Messiah, also speaks of the plurality within the Godhead because it is the Lord Jehovah who speaks to Adonai the Lord, the Messiah, the God-man, sit upon your throne until I make your enemies your footstool. You see, when you begin to look into the text that way, how significant that was for the early Christian preaching.

And Peter on this occasion remembered the text as we might expect him to do and he said, "Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you have crucified, both Lord and Christ." So we turn to that great sermon on Pentecost and already we have two of the great texts that our Lord must have used and which we know on another occasion he did use to speak about his ministry.

In the fourth chapter of Acts, we have another sermon of Peter's. Here Peter is called before the Sanhedrin and he's defending himself. The record of it is in verses 8 through 12. And in the midst of this relatively short version of his sermon, we have reference to another text. It's Psalm 118, verse 22. And the way we have it quoted in Acts is this: "The stone you builders rejected has become the capstone."

When the temple of Solomon was being built, the builders set up a stone that didn't fit, and so it was laid aside and they went on with the building of the temple. And when they finally came to a great final stone, the capstone of the structure, and they didn't have it, they sent down to the quarry and said, "Well, we need the final stone." And the word came up the stone was sent up long ago.

So they looked around and as they looked around they finally found the stone that they had laid aside. And so it became a proverb: "The stone which the builders rejected has become the capstone." That in a way was a prophecy of Jesus Christ. He was the capstone of God's structure of revealed religion, and yet when he came he was laid aside, he was pushed aside, he was crucified by the builders of Israel.

And yet God had determined, as being an incident which is interpreted prophetically, that that one who had been laid aside should be the capstone of it all. In other words, it's a way of saying that the crucified Messiah should be both Lord and King. This incidentally was a favorite text of Peter's because not only did he preach it here before the Sanhedrin, he incorporated it along with several other texts in his first letter, where he refers to Isaiah 28:16 and Isaiah 8:14, two other texts that talk about the stone which God has used to establish and build his church, a sure foundation upon which we build.

I find myself asking sometimes why it is that the different writers have different texts that are favorite texts for them, and I think in Peter's case it's really not difficult to answer that question. Why did Peter like these texts that talk about Jesus as the rock? The obvious answer is that Peter's name was rock. Actually, Peter's name was stone, and if you want to draw upon the contrast that our Lord makes in the 16th chapter of Matthew, perhaps more properly to be taken as a little stone.

Jesus said to Peter after his great confession of the divinity of Christ, "Behold, you are Peter," and the word there *petros* means a little stone. "But upon this stone," and he was referring to himself, "this rock, I'm going to build my church." I guess even in Peter's day there were people who went about saying, "Well, Peter, you certainly are a rock. You certainly are a firm foundation for us to build upon."

And the reason these texts in my judgment were so important to Peter is that Peter wanted to say and he knew deeply in his own heart because after all he had denied the Lord, that he was no rock. No man is a rock. The best of us were a pebble, we're scattered about, we're not stable at all. And Peter wanted to say, and he did say, and he said it faithfully again and again, "If you want a rock, if you want a sure foundation, look to Jesus. Jesus is the rock." And so he drew those great texts out of the Old Testament to refer to Jesus' ministry.

After Peter and the others are released by the Sanhedrin, they go to the others in Jerusalem, the other Christians, and at the end of that fourth chapter, we have these believers in Jerusalem bursting into another hymn of praise in which a fourth great text from the Old Testament is quoted. They quote from the second Psalm, verses 1 and 2. "Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together against the Lord and against his anointed one." Paul also quotes from this psalm at Antioch in that sermon I mentioned earlier.

You know the second Psalm. The second Psalm is a mocking description of the way in which the kings and the rulers of this world take counsel against the Lord and against his anointed. They say, "Look, if we're going to shake off the bonds of God, we're going to have to get together and do it jointly. There's strength in numbers." So they band together and they say, "Let's take our stand against God, let's declare ourselves independent, let's cast off his yoke, let's do our thing, let's forget about the law of God."

And God who looks down upon this act of cosmic treason does not tremble. God laughs, and his laugh is a laugh of derision. He says, "Behold, I have set my king upon my holy hill, my holy hill of Zion," and the king is Jesus Christ. That text is an Old Testament way of saying what Paul says in the letter to the Philippians, namely that the day is coming in which before him every knee shall bow.

In the ninth chapter of Acts, we have another suggestive text. Here Philip has been sent by the Holy Spirit to the Ethiopian, and the Ethiopian when he comes to him is reading from a manuscript, a manuscript he perhaps acquired in Jerusalem. It turns out that it was Isaiah, and the portion from which he was reading was Isaiah 53.

"He was led like a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb before his shearer is silent, so he did not open his mouth. In his humiliation he was deprived of justice. Who can speak of his descendants? For his life was taken from the earth." The eunuch turned to Philip and said to him, "Of whom is the prophet speaking? Is he speaking about himself or is he speaking about another?" And Philip, we are told, took that text and on the basis of that passage began to teach Jesus.

Jesus, you see, who was led like a lamb to the slaughter, who as a lamb before his shearers is silent, opened not his mouth and so on. That great chapter from the heart of that great Old Testament prophecy in a clearer way than any other text in scripture unfolds the reality of what we call in theology a vicarious atonement. That is one dying on behalf of another, the innocent paying the price of the guilty.

And Philip took that great text and said, "That was written of Jesus. That was not written of Isaiah, that was not written of the Jewish people, that was not written of mankind in general. That was written of Jesus because only Jesus was the innocent one, the perfect lamb, who was able to pay the price of sin, and he did it in Jerusalem on what we call Good Friday."

You turn a little further on in the New Testament and come to Hebrews. I mention Hebrews because it presumably is written by a Jew, though we don't have his name, to Jews to explain how Jesus the Jew was the fulfillment of everything in Judaism and is the savior of the Gentiles as well. I mention it because in the first chapter of Hebrews alone, seven Old Testament prophecies are quoted as having been fulfilled by Jesus Christ.

Psalm 2:7, Second Samuel 7:14, Deuteronomy 32:43, Psalm 104 verse 4, Psalm 45 verses 6 and 7, Psalm 102 verses 25 to 27, and Psalm 110 verse one, the first we already looked at earlier. And then just in case that isn't enough, we have the second chapter and in the second chapter four more texts: Psalm 8 verses 4 to 6, Psalm 22 verse 22, Isaiah 8 verse 17, and Isaiah 8 verse 18. According to the author of Hebrews, these texts and all the great texts and themes of the Old Testament point to Jesus.

And you know, when we begin to talk about the Old Testament texts and themes, we open up a whole new box of possibilities. Because you see, as you read these New Testament books, it's not just a case of here and there scattered throughout the Old Testament a collection of texts that refer to Jesus and are fulfilled by him. It's a far more profound situation than that. What they say again and again and in a variety of ways is that the whole Old Testament, all of it, all its themes, all its parts properly understood point to Jesus.

You go back and you start with Genesis, and it's not just a text like Genesis 3:15, the Protoevangelium, that speaks of Jesus. Spoken to Satan of the seed of the woman who one day would crush his head, though he would wound his heel. That's a prophecy of Christ who would be hurt by Satan but who would destroy Satan and his works. Yes, that. But it's not just that, it's the themes of Genesis too. And so you turn to Genesis and you find Jesus as the seed of the woman, and Jesus as the seed of Abraham, and Jesus as the expectation of all the prophets and of the patriarchs.

Turn to the book of Exodus and you find Jesus prefigured in the tabernacle. That book gives the instructions for how the tabernacle was to be built. The tabernacle illustrated the way to God. It had a great altar outside upon which the lamb was placed, upon which the blood was poured out. It had within the tabernacle the incense and the showbread, and finally the great veil that led into the Holy of Holies. All of that is a type that points to Jesus.

Jesus is the lamb slain, he is the altar, he's the showbread—he said, "I'm the bread of life"—he's the incense within, and when the veil is torn, it showed how the way was opened into the Holy of Holies by Christ's death. All of that in Exodus. You turn to Leviticus and you find Jesus in the sacrifices. That's the book which above all in the Old Testament shows how the sacrifices were to be performed in Israel.

Jesus is the scapegoat upon whose head the sins of Israel were confessed and which was then driven into the wilderness. Jesus is the animal killed on the Day of Atonement whose blood was sprinkled on the mercy seat within the Holy of Holies of the tabernacle. Jesus is seen there. Turn to Numbers. There you have that great story of the people and the snakes and the death in the camp and how they cried out to Moses and how Moses cried out to God and how they erected a bronze serpent upon a staff.

And the word went out, "Whoever looks to that serpent on the staff will be healed." And those who looked were healed. It was a great prefiguring of Jesus Christ, one that John the Evangelist picks up in his gospel in the third chapter and says, "Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so was the Son of Man lifted up, that whoever looks upon him and believes on him should be saved."

Turn to Deuteronomy, and there you find the prophecy of a prophet who should come, who should speak the words of God, one like unto Moses and one who is superior to Moses in every way. And so on through all the books of the Old Testament until you come at last to Malachi, the last book of our arrangement of the Old Testament, and there Jesus appears as the sun of righteousness risen with healing in his wings.

Now, I confess that I don't know how much of that sermon the Lord preached on that trip from Jerusalem to Emmaus that day. But it was a long way; it would have taken several hours. I suppose he preached that and a great deal more. But what I do know, although I can't give you with certainty the details of the Lord's sermon, is this: the Lord Jesus did not only preach the sermon that day. That is the sermon the Lord Jesus Christ continues to preach to all who turn to this word to seek out where he, the subject of it all, might be found.

And you know, that's what he did with the Emmaus disciples. When he appeared to them, he opened their eyes to understand who he was, and he did that on the basis of the Scriptures which he opened to them. But once he had opened the Scriptures and opened their eyes, we're told at the very end of that chapter, then he opened their minds that they might have understanding of all those things in the Scripture that were written of himself.

If you want to be wise, that's the way to be wise. If you want to grow in knowledge, that's the way to grow in knowledge. Read this book, beginning with Genesis and going the whole way through to Revelation. And as you read it, ask the Lord Jesus Christ who speaks in it to preach that sermon to your heart.

And if you do that, I assure you that the Bible will never be the same for you again. And what is far more important, you will never be the same because you'll find the Lord Jesus everywhere, and it'll be your great delight and joy to go out and serve him. Let us pray.

Our Father, do bless this sermon of the Lord's to our hearts, and give us ears to hear. Give us minds and wills that are ready to obey, and give us a love for those words that will cause us to study them and seek them out regularly, and faithfully, and obediently, and so grow not only in knowledge but also in love for Jesus about whom this book speaks. For we pray in his name. Amen.

Mark Daniels: You're listening to the Bible Study Hour featuring the teaching of Dr. James Boice.

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I'm Mark Daniels, and I'm glad you listened in. The road to Emmaus is a road everyone who would be a better Christian must walk. It's a journey that starts in doubt and ends in joy, love, and true devotion. Join Dr. James Boice as he visits the scene of the two disciples who lost their faith and were headed home in sorrow on the road to Emmaus. That's next time on the Bible Study Hour, preparing you to think and act biblically.