And he said to them, These [are] the words which I spoke to you while I was yet with you, that all that is written concerning me in the law of Moses and prophets and psalms must be fulfilled.
The risen Jesus stands among His disciples and points them back to His own earlier words — and behind those, to the Scriptures already written. Two questions follow: what did He mean by "the law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms," and what did the disciples still need before those writings made sense to them?
He does not start a new lesson. He picks up the thread He left with them before He died, and now He adds what was missing.
The risen Lord here recognises the very place where He had left His disciples in His earlier teaching. He reminds them of what He had already told them. Scripture was the great witness of the divine mind, and everything written there must certainly happen here. And now what does He do? "Then He opened their understanding, that they might understand the Scriptures." His power now joins itself to His earlier instruction. He is making good in them what He had already given them.
He names three sections, not a handful of passages. That puts His seal on the whole collection — and He does it as the risen Christ.
The critics who pull those ancient writings apart miss their true spiritual connection. It is "Christ"… Here, too, the Lord points to the well-known threefold division of the books of the Hebrew canon: the law, the prophets, and the psalms. These together made up the "scriptures," as the next verse shows. So, as someone has said, "we may accept the Hebrew scriptures from the pierced hands of Christ Himself in resurrection."
"The Psalms" does not mean only the book of that name. Each of the three names covers a group of books.
By the law was meant the Pentateuch. The prophets covered the historical books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings, along with the writings of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and the twelve minor prophets. The Psalms covered the rest of the books that make up the canon of Old Testament revelation. That section likely got its name because the book of Psalms stood first in the third great division of the Hebrew Scriptures.
The claim is not that a few verses happen to match. Writers separated by centuries all point to one person.
There are over three hundred prophecies in the Old Testament concerning Christ… These three hundred and more prophecies are like rays of light. The rays are not all the same length. Some are longer than others. Some come from as far back as Moses. Others come from a shorter distance, like Micah. Others come from Isaiah. These rays of light, shot across the centuries, meet on the Baby in Bethlehem's manger… He was the perfect answer to those prophecies. They spoke of Him, and He lit them up. No one could understand them properly until He came.
The word "fulfilled" also points ahead. The Pentateuch is the first five books of the Bible, the books of Moses.
The first coming of the Lord has already fulfilled much of what stands written in the Pentateuch. The rest will come true when He comes again to reign as King of kings and Lord of lords.
The verse names two things: His own spoken words and the written Scriptures. The next verse adds a third.
There are three things here. The first is the words of Jesus, which give faith its true basis. The second is the Scriptures. The third is their understanding, opened by the risen Lord. So they could say more than, We have heard these words, we have heard Him say it, we have listened to His own voice. They could say, It must be so, because God has said it. There is the real and true basis of faith. The words of the Lord Jesus, now in the Scriptures as God has given them, are the ground on which faith can always rest.
What He gives here is not yet the coming of the Spirit. Understanding and power are not the same thing, and they came in that order.
There you get the value of "He opened their understanding to understand the scriptures." That is one of the points we have to notice — the difference between intelligence and power. There was power when the Holy Spirit came down. But they received intelligence before they got power… He had now opened their understanding, and Peter could explain Psalm 109. But they still had no power.
- Spoken. The risen Christ points back to what He said before He died. He takes up His old teaching again instead of replacing it.
- Written. The three names cover the whole Old Testament: the five books of Moses, the prophetic and historical books, and the rest, headed by the Psalms.
- Fulfilled. Prophecies from many centuries meet in Him. Much came true at His first coming. The rest waits for the day He returns to reign.
- Understood. He opened their understanding first. Power came later, when the Holy Spirit came down.
- Grounded. Faith stands on three things: His words, the written Scriptures, and an understanding He Himself opens.
Then he opened their understanding to understand the scriptures,
The risen Jesus has just reminded the disciples that the Law, the Prophets and the Psalms all had to be fulfilled in Him. Then He does more than explain — He works on the hearers, and we are left asking why people who followed Him for years still needed their minds opened.
Earlier that day He had explained the Scriptures to two disciples on the road to Emmaus. But an open book cannot help a closed mind. One writer follows the order of what Jesus did:
He opened the Scriptures to them, and then their understanding, so that they might understand the Scriptures. Notice how these connect. He opened the Scriptures — all of them, mind you; Scripture carries weight from the very beginning. But that was not enough. Their understanding needed opening. The natural man has no spiritual discernment. He may have all the wisdom there is about this world and still be in the dark about any right understanding of the Scriptures.
Jesus added no new verses to their Bible that day. What changed was the shape they could now see in the old pages.
The opening of their understanding (v. 45) was not yet the gift of the Spirit of God. It did give them a true perspective on the Scriptures, which they had lacked. This opening connects with the next verse, which supplies a key. Without that key you cannot grasp the main message of the Old Testament. The Messiah must suffer first, be crucified and buried, then rise the third day. This knowledge would open their eyes to many passages that had been little more than dead letters to them before.
He had told them all of this before His death. What is new now is that His power goes with the words.
He reminds them of what He had already told them. Scripture was the great witness of the divine mind, and everything written there must surely happen here. And now what does He do? Simply the consistent follow-through of that earlier teaching. "Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures." His power now joins itself to His earlier instruction. He is making good in them what He had already given them.
The Holy Spirit had not yet come down when this happened. One writer separates understanding from power, and shows what the disciples did while they had only the first.
There you have the value of "He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures." That is what enabled Peter. This is one of the points we have to notice: the difference between understanding and power. There was power when the Holy Spirit came down, but they received understanding before they received power… He had now opened their understanding, and Peter could explain Psalm 109. But they had not yet received power, and so they carry on in the old way, casting lots.
Christ opened their minds for a purpose. Their witness could now stand on two grounds: what they had seen, and what God had said.
An important thing remained — the basis of true faith: the words of Christ and the testimony of Scripture. This He sets before them. But two things were still needed. First, they needed the capacity to understand the word. So He opens their understanding, that they might understand the Scriptures, and establishes them as witnesses who could not only say, "This is how it is, for we have seen it," but "This is how it had to be, for God has said so in His word."
Jesus is no longer here to explain the Scriptures in person. Yet that work goes on, through Someone He sent.
Though Jesus has gone on high, He has sent His representative to carry on this very work of unfolding the meaning of the Scriptures… He carries on this work of unfolding the word of God, of which our Lord gave us samples. Remember too our Lord's words: "it is to your advantage that I go away." So we can say that this work of the Spirit, enlightening our minds and guiding us into all truth, is even more effective than if our Lord had stayed here as the teacher. The reason is simple. He was outside them and explained things to them, while the Spirit is within, and acts directly on the mind.
Dependence on God does not cancel effort; the two run together.
It is not enough to understand the Scriptures in a merely intellectual way. We need a further touch, as it were… Two sides go together. We make the effort — we read the Scriptures, we meditate, study, use a concordance — while at the same time a work of God takes place.
- Opened text. Christ opened the Scriptures first, showing that all of them — Law, Prophets and Psalms — speak of Him.
- Opened mind. An open Bible was not enough. Christ had to open the mind itself, since natural cleverness gives no spiritual discernment.
- Opened key. They gained perspective: the Messiah must suffer first, then rise — the key that turned dead letters into living pages.
- Opened mouth. With that understanding they could testify on two grounds: we saw it, and God had written it must be so.
- Opened still. The Spirit does from within what Christ did from outside that day, alongside our own reading and study.
and said to them, Thus it is written, and thus it behoved the Christ to suffer, and to rise from among the dead the third day;
The risen Jesus points His disciples back to what was already written about Him. Why did the Christ have to suffer, and why does everything hang on His rising?
One writer traces how far back that writing goes.
"THE CHRIST SHOULD SUFFER." So it was written. It was not an afterthought of His. His cross was not an accident, not something unforeseen; it was written that it had to be so. It was written in the book of God's purposes before the world was made. It was written also in the Holy Scriptures, so that people of faith long ago could read it and hope. And the Scriptures cannot be broken.
One writer draws out what that settles for the preacher:
"It is written," said the risen Lord, and what is written must stand. It is as unshakable as the throne of God. Heaven and earth will pass away, but not the smallest stroke of it will fail. All of it must come true. What was written about the sufferings and resurrection of Christ has come true, and this is what the gospel preacher must tell people.
Why "should" the Christ suffer? One writer gives two reasons. The first is what God is:
First. It was because of what God is in Himself, and always was. He is righteous, holy, and hates sin. At the same time He is gracious, merciful and patient, a God who would spare sinners; a God of love.
His second reason is man, who put the distance there. So who should make the first move?
On whose side should the first move towards reconciliation come? On man's, of course, because it was he who created this distance from God… Instead, the first move comes from God Himself, the offended One, in His rich and overflowing grace! He makes it known that He does not want the distance to remain. Man would not repair it, and cannot, so the blessed God undertakes to do it. That is why God's requirements had to be met, and the penalty man had brought on himself had to be borne.
The verse joins the suffering to the rising on the third day. One writer shows why both were needed.
He had to die and rise again from the dead on the third day, and the souls of men were worth so much to Him that He came for that. The gospel that Paul preached, and there is no other true gospel, was "that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures." 1 Corinthians 15. His resurrection was as necessary as His death. In that same chapter, written to people who had believed this gospel, it says, "If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins."
Everything the disciples were about to be sent out to announce rests on this one sentence.
It is of the greatest importance to have a clear understanding of the solid ground on which "repentance and remission of sins" are announced to every creature under heaven… God — blessed forever be His holy name — has been pleased to set before us with all possible clearness the moral ground on which He commands all men everywhere to repent, and the righteous ground on which He can proclaim to every repentant soul the perfect remission of sins.
The same writer turns the necessity into a measuring rod that cuts both ways:
Sin was so hateful that Christ had to suffer. But — all praise to redeeming love! — such were the sufferings of Christ that God can forgive us our sins according to the infinite value He puts on them. The two go together… so while our peace flows like a river, we must never forget the humbling fact that our peace was founded in the indescribable sufferings of the Son of God.
Before He says "thus it is written," He opens their minds. Three things come together there:
First, the words of Jesus as the true basis of faith. Second, the Scriptures. Third, their understanding opened by the risen Lord. So they could say more than, "We have heard these words, we have heard Him say it, we have listened to His own voice." They could say: it must be so because God has said it. There is the real and true basis of faith.
What He did for them that day is not meant to stop with them:
Notice why He opens the Scriptures when He is with His own people, and opens their understanding too. They had not yet received the Holy Spirit, but we have, so the Lord expects a Christian to have his understanding opened. Why do we so often fail to understand? Something has come in that stops our souls being taught by Christ.
- Written. The cross was no accident and no afterthought. It stood in God's purposes before the world began, and in Scriptures that people of faith had long read.
- Necessary. The "must" comes from two facts: what God is, holy and yet loving, and what man is, unable to repair the distance he created.
- Suffered. Sin was so hateful that Christ had to suffer. His sufferings were so valuable that God can forgive according to the worth He puts on them.
- Risen. The rising on the third day is as necessary as the dying; without it faith is futile and sins remain.
- Opened. The risen Lord opens the understanding. Faith then rests not on hearing a voice but on what God has said — and He still expects open minds today.
and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name to all the nations beginning at Jerusalem.
On the day He rose, Jesus turned His own death and resurrection into a message for the whole world. The verse says what to preach, in whose name, to whom, and where to start.
Each Gospel closes with a commission, and commentators tell them apart. One writer marks out Luke's as the one for gospel work today.
What right do we have to preach the gospel, and where did we get our commission? We got it from Luke 24. The commissions in Matthew's and Mark's Gospels have a Jewish character. They were given specially to "the eleven." The Matthew commission has yet to be fulfilled. The Mark commission was carried out in the days of the apostles. But this one in Luke's Gospel is ours, and it will run on until this gospel day is finished. It was given not to "the eleven" only, but to "them that were with them" also, and we come in there.
The message does not go out on general grounds. It goes out in a name.
It is to be preached in Christ's name, and we must bring in Christ as the ground of it — that is really grace. Repentance is the intelligent judgment that, under grace, we pass upon all that we have done, and upon all that we are. It is not mere sorrow for sin. Of course it must be a judgment we pass on ourselves, knowing what God is. Otherwise it would be incomplete.
Many people define repentance as just changing your mind. One writer says that falls short.
Repentance is not merely a change of mind. Do not let such a definition take hold of your mind. No doubt a mighty change of mind always comes with faith in Christ. The soul is completely turned around. But the change is not merely intellectual. It is moral. The soul comes to sit in judgment on itself. It pronounces God's judgment on its own ways, taking the place of a sinner, yes of a lost one, before God.
The verse names two things to preach, not one. One writer explains why both must stay.
They were to preach repentance and remission of sins in the name of the Risen Christ. Note that it was not remission of sins only, but repentance too. Without repentance, remission of sins could not be received. Repentance leads to self-judgment and confession. It produces the state of soul in which forgiveness of sins can be received and enjoyed... Repentance is not a condition of forgiveness, for God announces forgiveness to everyone who will receive it. But repentance brings the soul into that blessed state where it can thankfully receive the divine gift.
One writer turns this into a question for preachers.
Have we too lightly skipped over the "repentance" in our desire to arrive at the "remission of sins"? By all means say often, "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved." But always remember: that was the brief word Paul gave to a repentant man, not to a careless sinner.
Jerusalem was the city where they had just killed Him.
The guilty murderers of the Son of God were the very first to hear the sweet news of pardoning love. In them all men could see a pattern of what the grace of God and the blood of Christ can do. The grace that could pardon Jerusalem sinners can pardon anyone. The blood that could cleanse the betrayers and murderers of the Christ of God can cleanse any sinner outside the boundaries of hell.
Another writer brings the same principle down to the person listening today.
But why begin at Jerusalem first? Because God always begins with the worst spot, and the worst man in this hall tonight will most likely be the one who will be saved tonight. Jesus said to them: begin at the spot where My blood was shed, where they shouted for My death. Preach forgiveness there. Then go to Samaria, and after that to the ends of the earth.
Starting at Jerusalem did not keep the message inside Israel. Luke's account looks at people as sinners, whoever they are. One writer notes who is still named first.
In Luke, suited to that Gospel, we have the gospel's moral subject and scope, taking in Jew and Gentile alike as sinners; for he looks especially at man... It is beautiful to see that the need and ruin of man are fully met. Yet testimony "to the Jew first" is not forgotten, even if Jerusalem was first in guilt as well as in privilege.
- Proclaimed — commentators point to Luke's commission as the one that covers gospel work today. It was given not only to the eleven, but to those with them.
- In His name — Christ Himself is the ground of the message. That is what makes it grace and not demand.
- Repentance — not a change of opinion. It is the soul judging itself before God, taking the place of a lost sinner.
- Forgiveness — God announces it to everyone who will receive it. Repentance is not a price paid. It is the state in which the gift can be thankfully taken.
- Beginning at Jerusalem — God starts at the worst spot. If grace reaches the men who killed Christ, no one is beyond its reach. From there it runs out to all nations.
And *ye* are witnesses of these things.
The risen Jesus has just said that repentance and remission of sins must be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. He then turns to the men in front of Him with four words that raise three questions: who He meant, what they could say, and how they could do it.
"These things" points back to what they had lived through with Him. One writer marks out what they could report, and what only the Spirit could.
Only the Spirit could bear witness of the glory He had entered at the right hand of God. But they could testify to the Lord's life here on earth. They could testify to His death and resurrection, and to what He had shared with them during the forty days before His ascension.
Many read these words as spoken to the eleven alone. The chapter itself says otherwise.
Notice also to whom He says, "You are witnesses of these things." It was not only the eleven who were there when the Lord came and stood among them. So it was not a group of apostles only. "And they rose up the same hour and returned to Jerusalem, and found the eleven gathered together, and those who were with them." The apostles were there, but the brothers were there, and the sisters too, I believe.
The witnesses carry a two-part message, and each part answers something different.
He commands that repentance and remission of sins be preached in His name. Repentance necessarily shows the great moral work in man. Remission of sins is God's great provision of grace through redemption, to clear the conscience. Both were to be preached in His name. Repentance leaves no room for man's worthiness. It is seeing and confessing that there is no good in man, in me. It is worked by grace, and cannot be separated from faith. It is man giving himself up as altogether bad, and resting on God as altogether good to the bad.
The message went out first from the city that had cast Him out.
If any place on earth was more wicked than the rest, more stained by man's sin, more steeped in all the wrongdoing carried out in it, it was Jerusalem. Yet there it was that God's grace was first to be set out! There, where the Son of God had been cast out and despised, divine grace was to be first proclaimed. But this grace was to take in all nations, not merely one nation. The cross would be, so to speak, the grave of Judaism. It would open the way for repentance and remission of sins to be preached among all nations, beginning at the worst spot on earth.
Seeing and hearing were not enough. One writer says why they first had to wait.
They had to "wait" until they got the power. How could they go without it? Who but the Holy Spirit could speak adequately of the love of God, of the person, work and glory of Christ? Who but He could enable anyone to preach repentance and remission of sins?
They already had peace. Power was the missing part:
It is as if He had said, I have laid the ground of your peace, but now you need power. You have the peace. I announced peace to you and showed you what it rests on. But you must have power to deliver this wonderful testimony.
A witness reports what he himself knows. That principle sets both the limit and the strength of anyone's testimony.
There is no sermon so powerful as the one drawn from experience. "One fact is worth a bushel of theories." If I speak what my soul knows, and not what I have merely heard from others, I speak in power... So if you know only the forgiveness of sins, bear witness to that. If you know justification, or sonship, or whatever truth you have made your own, tell it out faithfully and clearly, by lip and life.
- Seen — their witness covered His life, His death, His resurrection, and what He taught them in the forty days after He rose. That was the ground they could stand on.
- Sent — He gave them a double message. Repentance is God's moral work in a person. Remission of sins is His provision of grace that clears the conscience.
- Started — the preaching had to begin in Jerusalem, the city that rejected Him. From that worst spot it spread to all nations.
- Supplied — peace they already had from His own lips. Power they had to wait for, because no one can preach forgiveness without the Holy Spirit.
- Shared — the room held more than the eleven. A witness speaks what his own soul knows, so tell out the truth you have made your own, by lip and life.
And behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you; but do ye remain in the city till ye be clothed with power from on high.
The risen Jesus has just opened the Scriptures to His disciples. He has named them witnesses of His death and resurrection, with a message for every nation that starts at Jerusalem. Then He tells them to stop, not to start. Why does such an urgent mission begin with waiting? And what is the "promise" that makes the wait worth it?
The disciples were not empty-handed when Jesus said this. They had forgiveness, and He had just given them the ability to read the Scriptures rightly. One writer marks off the promise from both of those gifts:
It is worth noting that the promise of the Father is different from repentance and forgiveness of sins. It is also different from having your understanding opened to understand the Scriptures. The disciples already had these things. They still had to wait for the promise of the Father. Until the Spirit came down, they were not clothed with power from on high.
The phrase "from on high" names a source and rules out every other one. It also raises a question: who was the promise made to?
Not power from earth. Not power from learning. Not power from education. Not power from human skill of any kind. Not power from men or by men. But "power from on high." ... This power is "from on high" — not just from the place He was going to, but from the place where He would be exalted. The power would come down from the scene of His exaltation, and it was tied to His exaltation. ... And this "power from on high," He tells them plainly, was "the promise of the Father." To whom was that promise made? To Christ Himself. Not to us, but to Him, the exalted, glorified Man.
That leaves human ability with nothing to contribute to the work:
Christianity exists by the power of God. The greatest man on earth can pass on nothing. No man, however great, ever brought to Christ any natural quality that His service could use... Man glories in man — in his genius, learning, intellect and eloquence. But none of these things are of value in Christ's service.
If training and eagerness could launch the mission, these men had both:
The Lord was speaking to the eleven apostles, the men the church is built on as its foundation. The Spirit had done a powerful work in them, and for three years or more they had received special teaching such as no men before them ever had. Yet none of this gave them the power they needed. However eager they were to start their great work of witness, they were at a standstill until the Spirit came. They spoke not one word of witness until then. But then their mouths were opened at once — and with what astonishing results!
To be clothed with power is to have something put on you from outside. One writer ties it to the anointing that marked Jesus' own service:
If they stayed in Jerusalem, they would be clothed with power. This is essential for Christianity, and quite different from the spiritual understanding they had already been given... They, like Christ, must be "anointed with the Holy Spirit and with power"; they must wait for "power from on high."
The Spirit's coming did more than equip preachers. It also witnessed to what the cross had accomplished:
The presence of the Holy Spirit on earth is the witness of accomplished redemption... So the Holy Spirit coming down on the day of Pentecost was the sure sign that redemption was complete. Or rather, it was the proof that God had accepted the finished work of Christ and was resting satisfied in it.
That command to stay belonged to that moment, not to ours. One writer puts the question directly and answers it:
What were they waiting for? Not power first of all, but the coming down of the Holy Spirit — and with Him came power and everything else. We have seen plainly that the Spirit has come from heaven once for all... So what are we to wait for and pray for? Surely not for the Spirit whom we already have.
The delay is over, and so is the excuse:
We do not have to wait now. The Holy Spirit has come from the Anointed Man in glory. With Him has come power for all that we are called to be and to do as children of God and servants of the Lord Jesus Christ.
- Promised. The gift is the Father's promise. It is not forgiveness, and not understanding the Scriptures. The disciples already had both.
- Sent. The Father promised the Spirit to Christ, and the power comes down from the place of His exaltation. No human learning, skill or eloquence can replace it.
- Clothed. Being clothed means power put on from outside — the same anointing with the Spirit and power that marked Christ's own service.
- Halted. Without the Spirit even the apostles were at a standstill and spoke not one word. With Him their mouths opened at once.
- Finished. The Spirit's coming proved that God was satisfied with Christ's finished work. He has come once for all, so the waiting is over and the power is here now.
And he led them out as far as Bethany, and having lifted up his hands, he blessed them.
Luke's Gospel does not end with a sermon or a command. It ends with a gesture. The risen Jesus walks His disciples out to a familiar village, raises His hands, and blesses them. The place, the posture, and the timing all carry meaning — and the blessing was still going on when He left.
Of all the places on earth, He chose one that was dear to Him. Rising from the dead did not cool His love for what He loved before.
It was a spot that used to be most precious to Him, and, notice it well, was not less precious to Him after He rose from the dead. There is no greater mistake than to think that He loved someone before He died and stopped loving them once He rose. So it seems to stand in open contradiction to those who deny the reality of the resurrection body and its proper affections. He was indeed a real man, though the Lord of glory.
The choice held more than memory.
Bethany is remarkable as the spot where He ties the hearts of those attached to Him to the place He was going… So Bethany connected heaven with the person of Jesus.
They did not wander there. The leading out is part of the blessing.
I fully accept, and I believe it is perfectly true, that the words "He led them out" express the character of all real blessing. They describe exactly what must happen to every person who receives blessing of this kind. And you will find this. The more heavenly and distinct the blessing is, the more you will have to be led out for it… Could anything be more precious than to see the blessing coming from those pierced hands, the very same hands?
The raised hands repeat an older scene. Aaron was Israel's first high priest. After he offered the sacrifices, he lifted his hand toward the people and blessed them.
All these offerings picture the one sacrifice of Christ. He was sin offering, burnt offering and peace offering alike. He is the reality behind all the sacrifices found in Leviticus. With this in mind, we can see the wonderful match between what Aaron did and what our blessed Lord did. The Lord had finished offering His sacrifice, and His resurrection proved that God had accepted it… On the foundation of that one perfect and effective sacrifice, He had become the channel between the heart of God and His people, carrying all the blessing He had secured by His death.
One writer sets Aaron's blessing beside this one.
When we read the four verses that close the Gospel of Luke, we feel at once how far more wonderful were the uplifted hands and the blessing of the Lord Jesus. He blessed them just as He ascended into heaven, to take up His High Priestly work there. He had accomplished propitiation by His blood on earth.
Look at who stood under those hands. They had earned nothing.
He went up in the very act of blessing His disciples. When we remember what they had proved themselves to be, this is indeed touching. Six weeks before, all had abandoned Him and run away. One had denied Him with oaths and curses, and to all of them He might have said what He did say to two: "O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe." Yet on these foolish, faithless, cowardly disciples He lifted up His hands in blessing. And His blessing still comes down on us too. We live in the day when the Spirit is given, and yet we are very like these men.
Luke told this moment twice — here, and again at the start of Acts. The two accounts do not report the same thing.
In the Gospel we learn what the Lord was doing at the moment He parted from them. He was blessing them — a blessing which was not finished (Luke 24:51), and we may say will never be exhausted. His instructions were completed in Acts 1:9. His blessing was not ended in Luke 24:51.
The last scene answers the first.
It has been well said that the Gospel of Luke ends in perfect keeping with the way it began. It opened by showing you the priest of the order of Levi serving on earth in the temple. It closes with the Priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek going up to heaven.
- Led — You do not stumble into blessing of this kind. He walks His own out to it, and the more heavenly it is, the further He leads them.
- Lifted — The raised hands are a priest's hands after sacrifice, and they are pierced hands. The blessing flows from finished work, not from good behaviour.
- Loved — Bethany shows a risen Christ who still loves what He loved before. His resurrection body is real, and so are its affections.
- Undeserved — The men under those hands had fled, denied, and doubted. That is precisely who the blessing falls on, then and now.
- Unfinished — His words to them ended; His blessing did not. He left in the act of it, and it has never been exhausted.
And it came to pass as he was blessing them, he was separated from them and was carried up into heaven.
The last thing the disciples saw of Jesus on earth was His hands raised over them in blessing. He left in the middle of that act, and Luke's wording raises a question: did the blessing ever stop?
Luke does not say Jesus blessed them and then went. He says the parting happened while He was blessing . One writer weighs what that wording means:
The real sense of the expression is that His blessing was an unfinished act! Although His position is changed since He has gone on High, He is still in the process of blessing His people.
Luke tells the ascension twice — here, and again at the start of Acts. The two accounts do different work:
Luke is the only historian of the ascension; Mark just mentions it, but gives no details about it... In Acts we learn what the disciples had been asking, and how the Lord finished answering them before He left. The gospel tells us what the Lord was doing at the moment He parted from them. He was blessing them — a blessing that was not finished, and we may say will never be exhausted. His instructions ended in Acts 1:9. His blessing did not end in Luke 24:51.
Why could He bless them at all? An older pattern gives the answer — Aaron, the priest who offered Israel's sacrifices:
The moment that Aaron had finished offering the sacrifices, he could bless the people. Until that moment he had never acted that way toward them... it shows us on what ground it is that people can be blessed, namely, the acceptance of the sacrifice. Without Christ's death, pictured in those offerings, this could not have happened. Once God has accepted the sacrifice, He can bless righteously.
Aaron's hands and the Lord's hands did not look the same:
Aaron also raised his hands to bless (Lev. 9:22), but his hands had not been pierced. Those of the Lord Jesus had indeed been pierced, and that is how the disciples saw Him ascend.
The words "carried up" say something about what went into heaven:
In that same body He was "carried up into heaven"... "a cloud took him out of their sight" (Acts 1:9). You could not say that a spirit was carried up, and no cloud is needed to take a spirit out of human sight. He was still a Man.
One writer sets this parting beside the fall that began human history:
Jesus had often gone to that spot outside Jerusalem. There was the family that He loved. There He leads the disciples for the last time on earth. From there, in the act of blessing, with uplifted hands, He parts from them and is carried up into heaven — the risen Man, the Lord from heaven. What a contrast with the man who fell, and all the earth through him, passing on the curse to his sad descendants! Here it is not the first Adam, but the Last.
Luke opened his account in the temple, with a priest named Zechariah at his duties. The last scene answers the first:
The Gospel of Luke ends in perfect keeping with the way it began. It opened by showing you the priest of the order of Levi serving on earth in the temple. It closes with the Priest forever, after the order of Melchizedek, going up to heaven. The Gospel of Luke began with Zechariah, but it ends with Jesus about to begin His priestly work on high.
Watching Him go might have crushed them. Instead they were full of joy, because they knew where He had gone:
With hands uplifted in blessing He was parted from them. They knew He had gone to the exaltation of God's throne. They knew that place was the only one worthy to receive Him — it was His due. Infinite perfection had received its just recognition, and as they felt this, their hearts were filled with exultant joy and praise.
- Sacrifice first. Aaron could bless only after God accepted the offerings. Christ's raised hands rest on a death already accomplished — and that is the ground on which God can bless.
- Blessing unbroken. Luke says He was parted while blessing. The act was never finished, and that blessing has never run out.
- Pierced hands. The disciples' last sight of Him was of pierced hands, lifted over them in blessing.
- Carried up as Man. No one would say a spirit was "carried up." The risen Lord entered heaven in a real body — the Last Adam, unlike the first man, who brought the curse.
- Joy as the result. They knew He had reached the throne that was His due, so they went back praising God. The Gospel that opened with a priest on earth closes with the Priest at work on high.
And *they*, having done him homage, returned to Jerusalem with great joy,
Luke's Gospel ends with the disciples worshipping a Lord who has just gone up into heaven. Their last sight of Him was His hands raised over them in blessing, and they walked back to the city full of joy.
The order matters. He blessed them first, and their worship came after.
He who filled with blessing the hearts devoted to Him in His life was still blessing them when He was separated from them for heaven. "And they worshiped him." Such was the fruit of His blessing, and of His great grace... He who blesses us does not only give a blessing. He also gives the power that returns a blessing to God. The risen Lord Jesus gives the power of real worship to human hearts on the earth.
They worshipped Him, and He did not stop them. One writer lines this up with earlier times when He accepted worship.
We also worship the Son. Although He became man, He always was and is God. He is worthy to be worshipped. Even when on earth He accepted worship from men (Matt. 14:33; John 9:38). When He ascended to heaven the disciples still worshipped Him (Luke 24:52).
This was not the first time people worshipped while a man passed out of sight into God's presence. One writer finds something here that had never happened before.
When Moses went into the cloud, shut in as if behind the veil of God's sanctuary, the people rose up and worshipped, every man at his tent door (Exodus 33). So here the risen Son of Man enters within the cloud (Acts 1:9), as within the veil of the true temple. The people outside recognise the power of His ascension there, and again look after Him, and worship. But it is here, and only here, that they are His own people worshipping Him personally.
Losing someone you love rarely brings joy. Their joy came from knowing where He had gone.
With hands uplifted in blessing He was parted from them. They knew He had gone to the exaltation of God's throne. They knew that place was the only one worthy to receive Him; it was His due. Infinite perfection had received just recognition, and knowing this, their hearts were filled with overflowing joy and praise.
The news that He was leaving had once crushed them. The leaving itself did the opposite, and one writer carries that from their day to ours.
The disciples saw Him ascend, and overflowing worship was the result. They returned to Jerusalem with great joy. Before His death He told them He would leave them, and sorrow had filled their heart (John 16:5-6). But when it happened, sorrow was forgotten. Their joy was so full that they were continually in the temple praising and blessing God. We too have reason for the same unspeakable joy in this present time of grace, whatever our circumstances, for "we see Jesus crowned with glory and honor" (Heb. 2:9).
They went back to the same city they had left. What changed was not where they lived, but what held their hearts.
And now see what they do: the disciples worship Him. Their hearts are linked with the heavenly Saviour. They had been looking for an earthly kingdom; now they have a heavenly Friend. Their eyes follow Him into heaven. They return to Jerusalem, the seat of God's interests on earth, "with great joy, and were continually in the temple, praising and blessing God."
One writer looks past the first disciples to the last days of the church on earth.
We see by faith the risen, victorious Man, ascended into heaven. We receive the benefit and blessing that flows to us as a result. So great joy will also be our portion at the end of the assembly's history on earth, and we too shall be found together "praising and blessing God."
- Blessing first. He blessed them, and their worship was the fruit of that blessing.
- Power given. He gives the blessing, and He also gives the power to return a blessing to God. Real worship is His gift to human hearts.
- Him Himself. They worshipped the risen Son, and He accepted it. He became man, but He always was and is God.
- Joy, not loss. The news of His leaving had filled them with sorrow. The leaving itself filled them with joy, because the place He went to was His due.
- Great joy still. They carried that joy back to Jerusalem, and the same joy belongs to believers now and at the end of the church's history on earth.
and were continually in the temple praising and blessing God.
The Gospel of Luke ends in the same building where it began, but with a very different sound. The disciples have just watched their Master leave, yet they carry great joy back to Jerusalem — so what turns a farewell into worship?
Luke's first chapter and his last chapter both stand in the temple. The difference between the two scenes tells the story of the whole book. (Older translations read "praising and blessing God" here, and the writers below quote it that way.)
Luke starts and finishes with a temple (1:9; 24:53), but there is a great difference. In Luke 1 the people stand outside (v. 10), and inside is a priest who cannot speak (v. 20)! But at the end of the Gospel the disciples "were continually in the temple", and there they were "praising and blessing God" (24:53).
Earlier these same men were shaken by the news that He was leaving. Their joy after He went needs an explanation.
These men were distressed and troubled when they knew their Lord was going away. He had to comfort them by telling them of His Father's house, and of His coming again to take them there. But when He had gone they showed no sign of loss. They were not sorrowing orphans, but men overflowing with confidence and joy. Something must explain this… They were clearly the true priests, offering up spiritual sacrifices to God, even though they were not sons of Aaron.
What they had watched was not a loss but an arrival. A real Man, with flesh and bones, had taken His place at God's right hand.
…He has ascended as a Man with "flesh and bones" to God's right hand. This has turned what looked like the defeat of God's purpose for man into a most glorious and everlasting victory. Man fell in Adam: man is exalted in Christ.
Their worship was itself a gift. One writer traces where the power to praise came from.
"And they worshipped Him." That was the fruit of His blessing, and of His great grace… The One who blesses us does not only give a blessing. He also gives the power that returns a blessing to God — the power of real worship, given to human hearts on the earth by the Lord Jesus, now risen from the dead.
Luke says they were there "continually". That word matches the way He left them, with His hands still stretched out over them.
Their full hearts overflowed with gladness, and rose up to the blessed source of it in the heart of God. They recognised Him as the source of all the blessing they had been brought into… So we might say that their unending worship was the answer born in them to the unending blessing shown by those outstretched hands.
They stood in the same courts as everyone else, but they were not there for the same reason.
They fill the temple, but not as worshipping Jews, with sacrifices and reminders of sins. They fill it as believing souls, with thanksgiving for the resurrection and the forgiveness of sins.
Where they stood had not changed. Who they belonged to had.
After Christ's ascension, the disciples returned to Jerusalem and to the temple. But they no longer belonged to the Jewish religious system that had cast out their own Messiah. They were there rejoicing, praising and blessing God without a break, as a priestly company for God's interests, linked with the glorified Christ.
Their joy is not a one-off burst of feeling. Luke has sounded that note from the start, and it is tied to strength.
Luke's is very much a Gospel of joy; there is a great deal about it all through. It begins, continues, and closes with joy (see Luke 1:14, 44; 2:10; 10:17; 15:7, 10, 23; 24:41, 52). Show me a joyless Christian, and I will show you a weak one… the Spirit of God has said, "The joy of the LORD is your strength" (Nehemiah 8:10).
- Cause — a Man has gone up to God's right hand. What looked like defeat became victory: man fell in Adam, man is exalted in Christ.
- Gift — the One who blesses also gives the power to bless Him back. Worship here is the fruit of His grace, not the disciples' effort.
- Reach — the temple once held a silent priest, with the people shut outside. Now it holds a company inside, praising.
- Content — they come with thanksgiving for the resurrection and the forgiveness of sins, not with reminders of sins.
- Result — His raised hands kept blessing, and their worship kept answering. Joy opens Luke's Gospel, runs through it, and closes it.