Luke 24:45–48

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.

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 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.

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.

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."

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.

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.

"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.

"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.

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.

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.

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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.