Luke 24:1-7

1. The Women at the Sepulchre: Luke 24:1-7.

Vers. 1-7. The women play the first, if not the principal, part in all those accounts; a special duty called them to the tomb.

They were, according to Matthew 28:1, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary (the aunt of Jesus); according to Mark (Mark 16:1), those same two, and Salome the mother of James and John; according to Luke (Luke 24:10), the first two, along with the wife of Chuza, Herod's steward (Luke 8:3). John names only Mary Magdalene. But does not Mary herself allude to the presence of others when she says (Luke 24:2): “ We know not where they have laid Him ”? If John names her so specially, it is because he intends to give anew the account of the appearance which tradition had either omitted or generalized (Matthew), and which, as having taken place first, had a certain importance. As to the time of the women's arrival, Luke says, Very early in the morning; Matthew, ὀψὲ σαββάτων, which signifies, not Sabbath evening, but (like the phrases ὀψὲ μυστηρίων, peractis mysteriis, ὀψὲ τρωϊκῶν, after the Trojan war; see Bleek): after the Sabbath, in the night which followed. By the τῇ ἐπιφωσκούσῃ, Matthew expresses the fact that it was at the time of daybreak. Mark says, with a slight difference, which only proves the independence of his narrative (to Luke 24:8), At the rising of the sun.

The object of the women was, according to Matthew, to visit the sepulchre; according to the other two, to embalm the body.

The fact of the resurrection itself is not described by any evangelist, no one having been present. Only the Risen One was seen. It is of Him that the evangelists bear witness. Matthew is the one who goes furthest back. An earthquake, due to the action of an angel (γάρ), shakes and dislodges the stone; the angel seats himself upon it, and the guards take to flight. Undoubtedly, it cannot be denied that this account, even in its style (the parallelism, Luke 24:3), has a poetic tinge. But some such fact is necessarily supposed by what follows. Otherwise, how would the sepulchre have been found open on the arrival of the women? It is at this point that the other accounts begin. In John, Mary Magdalene sees nothing except the stone which has been rolled away; she runs instantly to apprise Peter and John. It may be supposed that the other women did not accompany her, and that, having come near the sepulchre, they were witnesses of the appearance of the angel; then, that they returned home. Not till after that did Mary Magdalene come back with Peter and John (John 21:1-9). It might be supposed, indeed, that this whole account given by the Syn. regarding the appearance of the angel (Matthew and Mark), or of the two angels (Luke), to the women, is at bottom nothing more than the fact of the appearance of the angels to Mary related by John (John 20:11-13) and generalized by tradition. But Luke 24:22-23 of Luke are not favourable to this view. Mary Magdalene, having seen the Lord immediately after the appearance of the angels, could not have related the first of those facts without also mentioning the second, which was far more important.

In the angel's address, as reproduced by the Syn., everything differs, with the single exception of the words which are identical in all, He is not here. A common document is inadmissible. In Luke, the angel recalls to the memory of the women former promises of a resurrection. In Matthew and Mark, he reminds them, while calling on them to remind the disciples, of the rendezvous which Jesus had appointed for His own in Galilee before His death. Προάγει, He goeth before, like an invisible shepherd walking at the head of His visible flock. Already, indeed, before His death Jesus had shown His concern to reconstitute His Galilean Church, and that in Galilee itself (Mark 14:28; Matthew 26:32); ὑμᾶς, you, cannot apply to the apostles only, to the exclusion of the women; it embraces all the faithful. It is also certain that the last words, There ye shall see Him, do not belong to the sayings of Jesus which the women are charged to report to the disciples. It is the angel himself who speaks, as is proved by the expression, Lo, I have told you (Matthew); and more clearly still by the words, As He said unto you (Mark). This gathering, which Jesus had in view even in Gethsemane, at the moment when He saw them ready to be scattered, and which forms the subject of the angel's message immediately after the resurrection, was intended to be the general reunion of all the faithful, who for the most part were natives of Galilee, and who formed the nucleus of the future Church of Jesus. After that, we shall not be surprised to hear St. Paul speak (1 Corinthians 15) of an assemblage of more than 500 brethren, of whom the 120 Galileans of Pentecost were the élite (Acts 1:15; Acts 2:7); comp. also the expression my brethren (John 20:17), which certainly includes more than the eleven apostles. There follows in Matthew an appearance of Jesus to the women just as they are leaving the tomb. It seems to me that this appearance can be no other than that which, according to John, was granted to Mary Magdalene. Tradition had applied it to the women in general. Comp. the expressions, They embraced His feet (Matthew), with the words, Touch me not, in John; Tell my brethren (Matthew), with Go to my brethren and say unto them, in John. Finally, it must be remarked that in the two accounts this appearance of Jesus immediately follows that of the angel.

In Matthew's mind, does the promise, There shall they see me, exclude all appearance to the apostles previous to that which is here announced? If it is so, the contradiction between this declaration and the accounts of Luke and John is glaring. But even in Matthew, the expression, There [in Galilee] ye shall see me, Luke 24:7, is immediately followed by an appearance of Jesus to those women, and that in Judaea (Luke 24:9); this fact proves clearly that we must not give such a negative force to Matthew's expression. What we have here is the affirmation of a solemn reunion which shall take place in Galilee, and at which not only the apostles, but the women and all the faithful, shall be present. That does not at all exclude special appearances granted to this or that one before the appearance here in question.

The following was therefore the course of events:

Mary Magdalene comes to the sepulchre with other women. On seeing the stone rolled away, she runs to inform the disciples; the other women remain; perhaps others besides arrived a little later (Mark). The angel declares to them the resurrection, and they return. Mary Magdalene comes back with Peter and John; then, having remained alone after their departure, she witnesses the first appearance of Jesus risen from the dead.

On the Resurrection of Jesus.

I. The fact of the resurrection.

The apostles bore witness to the resurrection of Jesus, and on this testimony founded the Church. Such is the indubitable historical fact. Yet more: they did not do this as impostors. Strauss acknowledges this. And Volkmar, in his mystical language, goes the length of saying: “It is one of the most certain facts in the history of humanity, that shortly after His death on the cross, Jesus appeared to the apostles, risen from the dead, however we may understand the fact, which is without analogy in history” (die Evangel. p. 612). Let us seek the explanation of the fact.

Did Jesus return to life from a state of lethargy, as Schleiermacher thought? Strauss has once for all executed justice on this hypothesis. It cannot even be maintained without destroying the moral character of our Lord (comp. our Comm. sur Jean, t. ii. p. 660 et seq.).

Were those appearances of Jesus to the first believers only visions resulting from their exalted state of mind? This is the hypothesis which Strauss, followed by nearly all modern rationalism, substitutes for that of Schleiermacher. This explanation breaks down before the following facts:

1. The apostles did not in the least expect the body of Jesus to be restored to life. They confounded the resurrection, as Weizsäcker says, with the Parousia. Now, such hallucinations would suppose, on the contrary, a lively expectation of the bodily reappearance of Jesus.

2. So far was the imagination of the disciples from creating the sensible presence of Jesus, that at the first they did not recognise Him (Mary Magdalene, the two of Emmaus). Jesus was certainly not to them an expected person, whose image was conceived in their own soul.

3. We can imagine the possibility of a hallucination in one person, but not in two, twelve, and finally, five hundred! especially if it be remembered that in the appearances described we have not to do with a simple luminous figure floating between heaven and earth, but with a person performing positive acts and uttering exact statements, which were heard by the witnesses. Or is the truth of the different accounts to be suspected? But they formed, from the beginning, during the lifetime of the apostles and first witnesses, the substance of the public preaching, of the received tradition (1 Corinthians 15). Thus we should be thrown back on the hypothesis of imposture.

4. The empty tomb and the disappearance of the body remain inexplicable. If, as the narratives allege, the body remained in the hands of Jesus' friends, the testimony which they gave to its resurrection is an imposture, a hypothesis already discarded. If it remained in the hands of the Jews, how did they not by this mode of conviction overthrow the testimony of the apostles? Their mouths would have been closed much more effectually in this way than by scourging them. We shall not enter into the discussion of all Strauss's expedients to escape from this dilemna. They betray the spirit of special pleading, and can only appear to the unprejudiced mind in the light of subterfuges. But Strauss attempts to take the offensive. Starting from Paul's enumeration of the various appearances (1 Corinthians 15), he reasons thus: Paul himself had a vision on the way to Damascus; now he put all the appearances which the apostles had on the same platform; therefore they are all nothing but visions. This reasoning is a mere sophism. If Strauss means that Paul himself regarded the appearance which had converted him as a simple vision, it is easy to refute him. For what Paul wishes to demonstrate, 1 Corinthians 15, is the bodily resurrection of believers, which he cannot do by means of the appearances of Jesus, unless he regards them all as bodily, the one as well as the other. If Strauss means, on the contrary, that the Damascus appearance was really nothing else than a vision, though Paul took it as a reality, the conclusion which he draws from this mistake of Paul's, as to the meaning which must be given to all the others, has not the least logical value.

Or, finally, could God have permitted the Spirit of the glorified Jesus, manifesting itself to the disciples, to produce effects in them similar to those which a perception by the senses would have produced? So Weisse and Lotze think. Keim has also declared for this hypothesis in his Life of Jesus. But, 1. What then of the narratives in which we see the Risen One seeking to demonstrate to the apostles that He is not a pure spirit (Luke 24:37-40)? They are pure inventions, audacious falsehoods. 2. As to this glorified Jesus, who appeared spiritually to the apostles, did He or did He not mean to produce on them the impression that He was present bodily? If He did, this heavenly Being was an impostor. If not, He must have been very unskilful in His manifestations. In both cases, He is the author of the misunderstanding which gave rise to the false testimony given involuntarily by the apostles. 3. The empty tomb remains unexplained on this hypothesis, as well as on the preceding. Keim has added nothing to what his predecessors have advanced to solve this difficulty. In reality, there is but one sufficient account to be given of the empty tomb: the tomb was found empty, because He who had been laid there Himself rose from it.

To this opinion of Keim we may apply what holds of his explanation of miracles, and of his way of looking at the life of Jesus in general: it is too much or too little supernatural. It is not worth while combating the Biblical accounts, when such enormous concessions are made to them; to deny, for example, the miraculous birth, when we admit the absolute holiness of Christ, or the bodily resurrection, when we grant the reality of the appearances of the glorified Jesus. Keim for some time ascended the scale; now he descends again. He could not stop there.

II. The accounts of the resurrection.

These accounts are in reality only reports regarding the appearances of the Risen One. The most ancient and the most official, if one may so speak, is that of Paul, 1 Corinthians 15. It is the summary of the oral teaching received in the Church (Luke 24:2), of the tradition proceeding from all the apostles together (Luke 24:11-15). Paul enumerates the six appearances as follows: 1. to Cephas; 2. to the Twelve; 3. to the 500; 4. to James 5. to the Twelve; 6. to himself. We easily make out in Luke, Nos. 1, 2, 5 in his Gospel (Luke 24:34; Luke 24:36 et seq., Luke 24:50 et seq.); No. 6 in the Acts. The appearance to James became food for Judeo-Christian legends. It is elaborated in the apocryphal books. There remains No. 3, the appearance to the 500. A strange and instructive fact! No appearance of Jesus is better authenticated, more unassailable; none was more public, and none produced in the Church so decisive an effect...; and it is not mentioned, at least as such, in any of our four Gospel accounts! How should this fact put us on our guard against the argumentum è silentio, of which the criticism of the present day makes so unbridled a use! How it ought to show the complete ignorance in which we are still left, and probably shall ever be, of the circumstances which presided over the formation of that oral tradition which has exercised so decisive an influence over our gospel historiography! Luke could not be ignorant of this fact if he had read but once the 1st Epistle to the Corinthians, conversed once on the subject with St. Paul...; and he has not mentioned, nor even dropped a hint of it! To bring down the composition of Luke by half a century to explain this omission, serves no end. For the further the time is brought down, the more impossible is it that the author of the Gospel should not have known the 1st Epistle to the Corinthians.

Matthew's account mentions only the two following appearances: 1. to the women at Jerusalem; 2. to the Eleven, on a mountain of Galilee, where Jesus had appointed them to meet Him (οὗ ἐτάξατο πορεύεσθαι). We at once recognise in No. 1 the appearance to Mary Magdalene, John 20:1-17. The second is that gathering which Jesus had convoked, according to Matthew and Mark, before His death; then, immediately after the resurrection, either by the angel or by His own mouth (Matthew). But it is now only that Matthew tells us of the rendezvous appointed for the disciples on the mountain. This confirms the opinion which we had already reached, viz. that we have here to do with a call which was not addressed to the Eleven only, but to all believers, even to the women. Jesus wished again to see all His brethren, and to constitute His flock anew, which had been scattered by the death of the Shepherd. The choice of such a locality as that which Jesus had designated, confirms the conclusion that we have here to do with a numerous reunion. We cannot therefore doubt that it is the assembly of 500 spoken of by Paul, 1 Corinthians 15. If Matthew does not expressly mention more than the Eleven, it is because to them was addressed the commission given by Jesus, “to go and baptize all nations.” The expression: “ but some doubted,” is also more easily explained, if the Eleven were not alone. Matthew did not intend to relate the first appearances by which the apostles, whether individually or together, were led to believe (this was the object of the appearances which took place at Jerusalem, and which are mentioned by Luke and John), but that which, in keeping with the spirit of his Gospel, he wished to set in relief as the climax of his history, that, namely, to which he had made allusion from the beginning, and which may be called the Messiah's taking possession of the whole world.

Mark's account is original as far as Luke 24:8. At Luke 24:9 we find: 1. an entirely new beginning; 2. from Luke 24:8 a clearly marked dependence on Luke. After that, there occur from Luke 24:15, and especially in Luke 24:17, some very original sayings, which indicate an independent source. The composition of the work thus seems to have been interrupted at Luke 24:8, and the book to have remained unfinished. A sure proof of this is, that the appearance of Jesus announced to the women by the angel, Luke 24:7, is totally wanting, if, with the Sinaït., the Vatic., and other authorities, the Gospel is closed at Luke 24:8. From Luke 24:9, a conclusion has thus been added by means of our Gospel of Luke, which had appeared in the interval, and of some original materials previously collected with this view by the author (Luke 24:15-16, and especially 17, 18).

III. The accounts taken as a whole.

If, gathering those scattered accounts, we unite them in one, we find ten appearances. In the first three, Jesus comforts and raises, for He has to do with downcast hearts: He comforts Mary Magdalene, who seeks His lost body; He raises Peter after his fall; He reanimates the hope of the two going to Emmaus. Thereafter, in the following three, He establishes the faith of His future witnesses in the decisive fact of His resurrection; He fulfils this mission toward the apostles in general, and toward Thomas; and He reconstitutes the apostolate by returning to it its head. In the seventh and eighth appearances, He impresses on the apostolate that powerful missionary impulse which lasts still, and He adds James to the disciples, specially with a view to the mission for Israel. In the last two, finally, He completes the preceding commands by some special instructions (not to leave Jerusalem, to wait for the Spirit, etc.), and bids them His last farewell; then, shortly afterwards, He calls Paul specially with a view to the Gentiles. This unity, so profoundly psychological, so holily organic, is not the work of any of the evangelists, for its elements are scattered over the four accounts. The wisdom and love of Christ are its only authors.

IV. The importance of the resurrection.

This event is not merely intended to mark out Jesus as the Saviour; it is salvation itself, condemnation removed, death vanquished. We were perishing, condemned: Jesus dies. His death saves us; He is the first who enjoys salvation. He rises again; then in Him we are made to live again. Such an event is everything, includes everything, or it has no existence.