CRITICAL NOTES
Luke 24:1. Very early in the morning.—Rather, “at early dawn” (R.V.); lit. “deep dawn.” And certain others with them.—Omit these words; omitted in R.V. Probably a harmonistic insertion.
Luke 24:4. Two men.—I.e., men in appearance. Shining garments.—Rather, “dazzling apparel” (R.V.); the word “shining” literally meaning “flashing.”
Luke 24:5. The living.—The ground of the rebuke lies in the designation applied to our Lord, “the Living One” (absolutely)—He who hath life in Himself (John 5:26), and of whom it is elsewhere said, that God raised Him up; “having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that He should be holden of it.”—Speaker’s Commentary.
Luke 24:6. Yet in Galilee.—These were women from Galilee to whom the angels spoke (see chap. Luke 23:55).
Luke 24:7. Sinful men.—The Gentiles (chap. Luke 18:32).
Luke 24:11. Idle tales.—R.V. “idle talk.”
Luke 24:12. Then arose Peter, etc.—This verse is omitted by one of the great uncial MSS., D., but is no doubt genuine. Departed, wondering in Himself.—Rather, “departed to his home, wondering,” etc. The change arises from connecting the phrase translated “in himself” with “departed” and not with “wondering,” and rendering it by “to his home.”
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Luke 24:1-12
The Empty Tomb.—None of the evangelists describe the rising of Jesus from the dead, but all of them assign it to an hour early in the morning of the first day of the week, before the visit of the women to the tomb where He had lain. They came to the place as the day began to dawn, but Jesus had already left the tomb. The rising of the Sun of Righteousness anticipated the dawn of the natural day. Three classes of persons are here mentioned as having relationship with Christ, each possessing special characteristics—the women, the angels, and the apostles.
I. The love of the women.—As soon as the Sabbath was past and the darkness of the night was about to give way to the coming day, the band of holy women assembled together and set out for the tomb, carrying the spices with which they proposed to anoint the body of their Lord. Love to Him made them regardless of their own comfort, and generous in their gifts to Him, and drew them together into holy fellowship one with another. Bountiful provision had been made by others already for embalming the body of Jesus, but they will not be satisfied unless they are allowed to join in showing this last mark of affection for Him. It is the motive that animates us that gives value to the offerings we make to God or the services we seek to render to our fellows. Love to Christ is the one strong emotion that distinguishes these women all through the incident here recorded, but in the course of the strange experience through which they passed many other emotions and feelings rose to the surface. On their way to the tomb they were anxious about being able to carry through the work on which they were bent. The stone that sealed the tomb was large, and they wondered who would roll it away for them. Yet, after all, the obstacle existed only in their imaginations, for when they reached the tomb the stone was rolled away. In like manner many of the obstacles that our imaginations conjure up as likely to hinder our service of Christ or of our fellows disappear of themselves if we press on resolutely in the path of duty. Feelings of surprise, perplexity, and fear filled their minds when they came to the tomb and found it open and empty, and had a vision of angels; but these feelings were succeeded by great joy as they realised the fact that He whose lifeless body they had come to embalm had risen from the dead, in accordance with the prophetic words He had spoken in Galilee, but which they had been unable to understand. Love to Jesus kept alive a spark of faith within their hearts, and they gradually attained to that spirituality of mind which enabled them to grasp spiritual truths and to understand the deep significance both of Christ’s death and of His resurrection. In obedience to a very natural impulse they hastened to convey the news of the resurrection to their fellow-disciples. Yet, as often afterwards in the experience of those who proclaim the gospel, their message did not win immediate credence; the faith which filled their hearts did not find entrance to those of others, and the tidings they brought seemed as idle tales. In their disappointment the words of the prophet may well have recurred to their minds, “Lord, who hath believed our report?”
II. The kindly ministrations of the angels.—As angels heralded the birth of the Saviour, so was it fitting that they should herald His rising from the dead. On the one occasion their message was that He who was Lord of all had deigned to assume our nature and appear in fashion as a man; now they proclaim Him as the conqueror of death, and as having entered into a glorified existence and delivered from the weaknesses and limitations of the condition which he had for a time accepted. They appear as guardians of the tomb where He had lain, and reveal, by their words and manner, their deep interest in the mystery of the redemption of the human race by the sufferings and death of their Divine Lord. They can scarcely understand the slowness of these disciples in comprehending the great fact of the resurrection, and their words are almost a reproof—“How could it be thought that the Living One could remain among the dead, or could be long holden of the bands of death?” Very beautiful and tender is the way in which the minds of the disciples are gradually prepared to receive the assurance that Christ had indeed risen. Had He appeared to them at once in living form, as they journeyed to the tomb, or had He presented Himself to them at the instant they stood by it and found it empty, the sudden shock of wonder and joy might have been too great for them; but in His love He caused the truth to distil slowly into their minds. First, the sight of the empty tomb prepared them for some great event that had happened, and then the message of the angel filled their hearts with wonder, joy, and hope. It is as we are able to bear it that spiritual truth is communicated to us.
III. The unbelief of the apostles.—Blameworthy as was the reception which the apostles gave to the first tidings of the resurrection, their unbelief shows us that nothing but the actual fact of Christ’s having risen from the dead could have produced the change in them which they subsequently underwent. Men whose minds were so unprepared for the event were not likely to have been the subjects of hallucination. Their doubt tends to “the more confirmation of our faith.” One indication of incredulity is that the apostles did not go at once and in a body to verify the reports which the women had brought them. St. Luke speaks merely of St. Peter as setting out to visit the tomb, while the fourth evangelist tells us that he himself was the only one who accompanied him. The intensity of feeling which animated him is indicated in his “running” to the tomb. He who had sinned so grievously against his Master is not afraid at the thought of the possibility of meeting Him, for his mind is cleansed and strengthened, and his love quickened, by the genuineness of his repentance. He saw that the tomb was empty, and that the grave-clothes were carefully folded up and laid aside. It cannot be that enemies have violated the sanctity of the grave and taken away the body. Can it be after all that the tidings the women brought are true, and that these signs of deliberation and care indicate that the Lord, come to life again, has divested Himself of the habiliments of the grave, as no longer fit for Him? Yet a little while and the wonder which this sight has aroused will be dissolved in joy, as the penitent apostle again beholds the face of his Master. The last time he saw Jesus was at the moment when he was strenuously denying that He knew the Man;—then “Jesus turned and looked on Peter.” The circumstances and emotions of this first interview between the disciple and the Lord after the resurrection are not revealed to us; they are a secret, known only to them. Holy reticence concerning the most sacred moments of our lives is not inconsistent with full and open testimony to the Saviour.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON Luke 24:1-12
I. The love and devotion manifested by these holy women.—
(1) In their visiting the tomb at early dawn; and
(2) in the preparations they had made for embalming the body of their Lord.
II. Their surprise and distress at finding the tomb open and the body of the Lord Jesus no longer in it.—That which should have given them encouragement and hope was only a ground of anxiety and sorrow.
Luke 24:4. “Much perplexed.”—Parallel between the announcement of the Nativity and that of the Resurrection.
1. On both occasions heavenly visitants speak words of encouragement and hope to anxious, expectant souls.
2. On both occasions attendant circumstances are related at length, but a veil of mystery hangs over the beginning of the Incarnation and of the Resurrection of the Lord.
“Two men.”—The supposed discrepancies in the number of the angels seen near the sepulchre of Jesus are effectively dealt with in the well-known words of Lessing: “The evangelists do not count the angels. The whole grave, the whole region round about the grave, was invisibly swarming with angels. There were not only two angels, like a pair of grenadiers who are left behind in front of the quarters of the departed general; there were millions of them. They appeared, not always one and the same, not always the same two; sometimes this one appears, sometimes that; sometimes at this place, sometimes at that; sometimes alone, sometimes in company; sometimes they said this, sometimes they said that.”
Luke 24:5-6. The Living not Among the Dead—
1. A gentle remonstrance.
2. The announcement of a fact.
Luke 24:5. “The living.”—The Living One and the Cause of life, for He said, “I am the Resurrection and the Life” (John 11:25).
The Living Sought Among the Dead.—Who comes under these words of rebuke, and does this now?
I. It is done, in the worst sense, by those whom Scripture calls “the children of this world.”
II. The same question has its application to formalism in religion.
III. We approach more nearly to its first meaning when we speak of its bearing upon the case of doubters.
IV. Upon those Christians who never advance beyond the cross and the grave into the clear light and full glory of a risen Saviour.—Vaughan.
Luke 24:6. “Is risen.”—The Resurrection is
(1) a restoration of the broken bond between soul and body;
(2) a continuation of the previous life (cf. Luke 24:39); and
(3) a glorification of the former existence.
Luke 24:7. “Sinful men.”—According to Jewish phraseology the Gentiles are denoted by this epithet. The sins of the Jews themselves are recalled by the word “delivered.”
Luke 24:8. “They remembered His words.”—By which we are taught that, though they had made little proficiency in the doctrine of Christ, still, it was not lost, but was choked up, until in due time it yielded fruit.—Calvin.
Luke 24:9. “Told all these things.”—Compare their journey to the sepulchre with their return from it. Then their hearts so heavy with sorrow; now “anointed with the oil of gladness above their fellows.”
Luke 24:10. “And other women.”—Among them was Salome, the mother of James and John (Mark 16:1), and perhaps also Susanna, mentioned by St. Luke in connection with Joanna in Luke 8:3.
Luke 24:11. “They believed them not.”—The verb is in the imperfect and implies persistent incredulity. “They disbelieved them.”—Farrar.
Luke 24:12. “Wondering.”—The sight which produced merely wonder, in the case of St. Peter, produced belief in the case of St. John (John 20:8).