You Are Witnesses Of These Things
YOU ARE WITNESSES OF THESE THINGS
LUKE 24:46-53
What were the disciples to do with this message? How would they be equipped?
Luke concludes his Gospel with notable brevity, because he was already planning his second “treatise,” and intended to enlarge on some of the events of the forty days in that place. Hence his rapid treatment of the period of instruction (24:44-48), and of the Galilean appearances mentioned elsewhere. Forty days precede 24:50.
They came back to the city “with great joy,” says Luke. Let it be again emphasized that Luke had spoken with these men. Literary theories aimed at destroying the tradition of his authorship, and along with it the authenticity of his narrative, fall far short of their object. Luke was a competent historian, and sifted his evidence. Moreover, the life of peril and toil which necessarily followed his holding such convictions was not the life which one would choose apart from the drive and compulsion of a commanding faith.
Paul, too, was in the background. Luke knew him intimately. He must often have heard from Paul himself about the events which transformed the persecutor of the church into its greatest apostle. Paul, too, applied the powers of his keen analytical mind to the evidence for the empty tomb in the garden, and the simple explanation of that overwhelming fact.
The “great joy” of the group who came back from Bethany was also translated into historic fact. The church was born of it, and the church in the first century, indeed in the generation after the ascension of its Founder, is a solid reality. Some tremendous conviction gave power and coherence to a feeble, scattered group. The earthly ministry of Jesus ended in apparent defeat. The powers of evil and dissolution seemed victorious. Look again at 24:21 and catch the atmosphere of broken hopelessness. Doubt was dispelled, despair quenched, fear cast out, defeat turned into a victory manifest in history. How? There can be only one explanation.
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his great mercy, begat us again unto a living hope, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, unto an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, which fadeth not away.”