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.