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Luke-Acts III. Living Hope, 24:32–35

Then everything changed. The lights go up. What had been gloom is now bright with hope. So the end of the text is totally different from the beginning. And when hope is alive, what is the difference?

(1) Hope brings an enthusiasm for life. This is my interpretation of this verse: “They said to each other, ‘Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?’ ” (Lk 24:32). My definition of what that means is “enthusiasm for life.” They were dead in the water. They were gloomy and despairing. Jesus came and took them for a project. He made hope where hope had gone out like a flame. And once there was hope, these men were alive again. Good religion brings hope as sure a rain brings the flowers. Dead churches are a contradiction in terms. Where Jesus is recognized there is an enthusiasm for life.

(2) When hope comes alive, we want to find our kind. “That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven and their companions gathered together” (Lk 24:33). In these days I am not attached to a church; I travel about the country visiting a different church nearly every Sunday. Often I am in churches where the people obviously have the Spirit in Christ. They see him clearly. And always these people linger with each other. They want to be with their kind. We share our experiences with the Lord. We feed on each other. It’s hard to be a Christian alone. And when you have experience with Jesus (as these fellows had), you can’t keep it to yourself. You have to get around your kind and tell your story.

(3) A living hope will make us share our “recognition experience.” Remember how Paul often told his “recognition experience.” We call it “the Damascus Road experience.” I don’t have a Damascus Road experience, but I do have my own “recognition experiences.” They are several, for Jesus has come near several times in my life. Those are the warm times, the heart-stirring times. John Wesley often told of his Aldersgate. I can tell of the time Christ came near in an especially discouraging time. I was in Asheville. I had a vision of how some things were going to work out in Baptist life. My story was not well received. Often I was told I was wrong. But inside I knew the critics were wrong. I took a volume of Harry Emerson Fosdick’s sermons from the shelf and began to read a sermon titled, “How to Stand Up and Take It.” It was late at night. But in that nighttime the darkness went away. The Lord Christ himself came near and steadied me with reassurance. To be right was more precious than to be approved. That is a “recognition experience” of mine. It is not old; that event happened twelve years ago, and it seems it was last night.

Luke-Acts Conclusion

It is one thing to be saved; it is something more to have recognition experiences of Christ. Our people languish for hope because their recognition experiences have been aborted. Help the people to see the resurrected Christ. Help others look for that Christ as he comes near and walks along with them. Help the people to read the Scriptures in the new way Jesus reads them. Lead the people to break bread in such a way as to see the Christ who is near. Put your people in the company of their kind. Encourage them to share their own “recognition experiences.” All these things tend to the recreation of faith and hope. And despair goes away and hope comes in its place. We begin to act like people who have been with Jesus. That’s the idea.

St. Luke, Vol. III Vers. 13–35

VII. A single lesson more remains: we see THAT THE FIRST DELIGHTED IMPULSE OF A SOUL, REJOICING AT HAVING FOUND JESUS, IS TO GO AND TELL OTHERS OF HIS PRESENCE AT THE FEAST (see verses 32–35). These happy disciples could not wait even till morning. The Lord had vanished, but His argument remained; “while they were musing the fire burned.” Now they began to remember peculiar experiences along the way. Oftentimes a new disclosure of Christ’s presence turns the believer back upon hours in which he now sees the Holy Spirit was dealing with him; why did he not recognize it sooner? Memories of communions are always precious, if the joy has remained. Life gathers a fresh impulse from the disclosure. We are sure that walk out to Emmaus with Jesus in companionship was wonderfully sweet; but the walk in back again over the same path was not without comfort. Every stone and bush would make them think of Him. (C. S. Robinson, D.D.)

An Exposition of the New Testament, Volumes I–III Chapter 24

Ver. 32. And they said one to another, &c.] After Christ was gone, being surprised at what happened, that they should not know him all that while; and that as soon as they did, he should disappear, or withdraw himself in this manner: did not our hearts burn within us while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the Scriptures? concerning himself, his sufferings, death, and resurrection, which are in Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms. The Scriptures are as a sealed book to men, learned and unlearned; and none so fit to open them as the lion of the tribe of Judah: he did open and explain them to these his disciples, as well as conversed with them about other things, as they travelled together; and his words came with such evidence, power, and sweetness, that they were ravished with them; their minds were irradiated with beams and rays of divine light; their hearts were warmed and glowed within them; they became fervent in spirit, and their affections were raised and fired; they found the word to be as burning fire within them; and they now knew somewhat what it was to be baptized with fire, which is Christ’s peculiar office to administer; see Psal. 39:3; Jer. 20:9 they seem as it were not only to reflect on these things with wonder and pleasure, but also to charge themselves with want of thought, with inattention and stupidity; since they might have concluded from the uncommon evidence, force, and energy with which his words came to them, who he was, seeing no man could speak as he did, and with such effect as his words had.

Luke 24:32-35. And they said one to another, Did not our heart burn within us? — This reflection of the disciples, on this affair, is natural and beautiful. It is as if they had said, How strange it is that we should not have discovered him sooner, when we found his discourses have that effect upon us, which was peculiar to his teaching. For did not our very hearts glow within us, with love to God and our Divine Instructer, as well as to the truths which he made known to us by opening the Scriptures? They found the preaching powerful, even when they knew not the preacher; it not only made things of the greatest importance very plain and clear to them, but, together with a divine light, brought a divine warmth into their souls, and kindled therein a holy fire of pious and devout affections: and this they now notice for the confirming of their belief, that it was indeed Jesus himself who had been talking with them all the while. And they rose up the same hour — Not being able to conceal such good news, or to defer the publication of that which they believed would give their brethren such joy, as they felt in their own breasts; they therefore, late as it was, rose up from their unfinished meal, that very hour, and made all possible haste to Jerusalem, that they might declare to the other disciples the wonderful story, and give them full assurance of their Lord’s resurrection.

— Our heart burn within us - This is an expression denoting the deep interest and pleasure which they had felt in his discourse before they knew who he was. They now recalled his instruction; they remembered how his words reached the "heart" as he spoke to them; how convincingly he had showed them that the Messiah ought to suffer, and how, while he talked to them of the Christ that they so much loved, their hearts glowed with intense love. This feeling was not confined to them alone. All the followers of Jesus know how precious and tender are the communications of the Saviour, and how the heart glows with love as they think or hear of his life, and sufferings, and death.

He opened to us - He explained to us the Scriptures. See Luke 24:27.

This narrative shows us,

1. How blind people may be to the plainest doctrines of the Scriptures until they are explained to them. These disciples had often read or heard the Scriptures, but never, until then, did they fully understand that the Messiah must suffer.

2. It is proper there should be those whose office it is to explain the Scriptures. Jesus did it while on earth; he does it now by his Spirit; and he has appointed his ministers, whose business it is to explain them.

3. If people attempt to explain the Bible, they should themselves understand it. They should give their time and talents to a suitable preparation to understand the sacred volume. Preaching should consist in "real," and not "fancied" explanations of the Scriptures; the real doctrines which "God" has taught in his word, and not the doctrines that "men" have taught in their systems.

4. Here was convincing evidence that Jesus was the Messiah. This was but one of many instances where Jesus convinced his disciples, contrary to their previous belief. In this case the evidence was abundant. He first satisfied them from the Old Testament that the very things which had happened were foretold; he then dissipated every doubt by showing "himself" to them and convincing them that he was truly the Christ. There was no chance here for deception and juggling. Who would have met them and talked with them in this way but the real Saviour? Who would have thought of writing this narrative to help an imposture? What impostor would have recorded the dulness of the disciples as to the plain declarations of the Old Testament, and "then" have thought of this device to prop up the narrative? Everything about this narrative - its simplicity - its tenderness - its particularity - its perfect nature - its freedom from all appearance of trick - shows that it was taken from real life; and if so, then the Christian religion is true, for here is evidence that Jesus rose from the dead.

— 32-34. They now tell each to the other how their hearts burned—were fired—within them at His talk and His expositions of Scripture. "Ah! this accounts for it: We could not understand the glow of self-evidencing light, love, glory that ravished our hearts; but now we do." They cannot rest—how could they?—they must go straight back and tell the news. They find the eleven, but ere they have time to tell their tale, their ears are saluted with the thrilling news, "The Lord is risen indeed, and hath appeared to Simon." Most touching and precious intelligence this. The only one of the Eleven to whom He appeared alone was he, it seems, who had so shamefully denied Him. What passed at that interview we shall never know here. Probably it was too sacred for disclosure. (See on [1746]Mr 16:7). The two from Emmaus now relate what had happened to them, and while thus comparing notes of their Lord's appearances, lo! Christ Himself stands in the midst of them. What encouragement to doubting, dark, true-hearted disciples!

Note: Let’s Get Fired Up!

— There was a mighty difference, no doubt, between Christ’s preaching and his ministers’: he preached as one who had authority, not as the scribes, not as ordinary ministers, but with more majesty and power; but as to the saving efficacy of his words, that depended upon his will; where he pleased to put forth such efficacious grace, there his words became effectual; where he did not, they were not so: Christ preached in the hearing of hundreds, who yet continued unbelievers, and perished in their unbelief. There is a great deal of difference also between one minister’s preaching and another’s; some kind of preaching of itself makes men’s hearts to freeze, others make them to burn; but where preaching makes our heart to burn within us, Christ throws in the coal, which the best preacher doth but blow up: only the Spirit of God is pleased to work (as Erasmus saith) secundum quod nactus est organon, according to the instrument it worketh by, and to concur with rational and spiritual means in order to rational and spiritual ends. But wherever any soul is baptized with fire at hearing a sermon, it is also baptized with the Holy Ghost. Christ will not always cure blind eyes with clay and spittle, though he did it once. These were disciples before the fire was kindled in their hearts; Christ’s preaching did but blow it up. We ought so to speak in our preaching, so to open and apply the Scriptures, as our discourses may have a rational tendency to make the hearts of our hearers to burn within them, not so as to make them dead, and sleepy, and cold, or lukewarm; and then to know that it must be Christ’s work to inflame them, when we have said all that we can say.

— And they said one to another,.... After Christ was gone, being surprised at what happened, that they should not know him all that while; and that as soon as they did, he should disappear, or withdraw himself in this manner:

did not our hearts burn within us while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the Scriptures? concerning himself, his sufferings, death, and resurrection, which are in Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms. The Scriptures are as a sealed book to men, learned and unlearned; and none so fit to open them as the lion of the tribe of Judah: he did open and explain them to these his disciples, as well as conversed with them about other things, as they travelled together; and his words came with such evidence, power, and sweetness, that they were ravished with them; their minds were irradiated with beams and rays of divine light; their hearts were warmed and glowed within them; they became fervent in spirit, and their affections were raised and fired; they found the word to be as burning fire within them; and they now knew somewhat what it was to be baptized with fire, which is Christ's peculiar office to administer; see Psalm 39:3 they seem as it were not only to reflect on these things with wonder and pleasure, but also to charge themselves with want of thought, with inattention and stupidity; since they might have concluded from the uncommon evidence, force, and energy with which his words came to them, who he was, seeing no man could speak as he did, and with such effect as his words had.

— Luke 24:32-33. Οὐχὶ ἡ καρδία ἡμῶν καιομένη ἦν ἐν ἡμῖν;] Was not our heart on fire within us? The extraordinarily lively emotions are, as in all languages, represented under the image of burning, of heat, of being inflamed, and the like, Wetstein and Kypke in loc.; Musgrave, ad Soph. Aj. 473. Hence the meaning: Was not our heart in an extraordinarily fervent commotion? Comp. Psalm 39:4; Jeremiah 20:9. Quite naturally the two disciples abstain from explaining more fully the excitement of feeling that they had experienced, because such an excitement, comprehending several affections, rises into consciousness, as divided into its special elements, the less in proportion as its experiences are deep, urgent, and marvellous. The connection of the question with what precedes is: “Vere Christus est, nam non alia potuit esse causa, cur in via eo loquente tantopere animus noster inflammaretur,” Maldonatus.

2794 καίω (kaiō): vb.; ≡ Str 2545; TDNT 3.464—1. LN 14.63 burn, (pass.) to be burned, be consumed (Lk 12:35; 24:32; Jn 5:35; 15:6; Heb 12:18; Rev 4:5; 8:8, 10; 19:20; 21:8+; 1Co 13:3 v.r.); 2. LN 14.65 ignite, to light (a wick), (Mt 5:15+)

Swanson, J. (1997). Dictionary of Biblical Languages with Semantic Domains: Greek (New Testament) (electronic ed.). Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems, Inc.