VICTORIAN VILLAGE Life Style
Luke 24:45-49 (ESV) “45 Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, 46 and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, 47 and that repentance for[c] the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. 48 You are witnesses of these things. 49 And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.” First, in these verses, let us observe the gift our Lord bestowed on His disciples immediately before He left the world . We read that He “opened their understanding that they might understand the Scriptures.” We all need an enlightenment of our understanding. “The natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor. 2:14). Pride, and prejudice, and love of the world blind our intellects, and throw a veil over the eyes of our minds in the reading of the Scriptures. We see the words, but do not thoroughly understand them until we are taught from above. Second, in these verses, let us observe the remarkable manner in which the Lord Jesus speaks of His own death on the cross . He does not speak of it as a misfortune or a thing to be Chaplain’s Corner
lamented, but as a necessity. He says, “The Messiah must suffer, and rise again the third day.” The death of Christ was necessary for our salvation. His flesh and blood, offered in sacrifice on the cross, was “the life of the world” (John 6:51c). Without the death of Christ, as far as we can see, God’s law could never have been satisfied, sin could never have been pardoned, man could never have been justified before God, and God could never have shown mercy to man. The cross of Christ was the solution to a mighty difficulty. It untied a vast knot. It enabled God to be “just and the justifier” (Rom. 3:26b) of the ungodly. It enabled man to boldly draw near to God and to feel that he might have hope, though a sinner. Christ, by suffering as a substitute in our stead—the just for the unjust—has made a way by which we can draw near to God. We may freely acknowledge that in ourselves we are guilty and deserve death. Yet we may boldly plead that One has died for us, and that for his sake, believing in him, we claim life and acquittal. Let us ever glory in the cross of Christ. Let us regard it as the source of all our hopes and the foundation of all our peace. Ignorance and unbelief may see nothing in the sufferings of Calvary but the cruel martyrdom of an innocent person. Faith will look far deeper. Faith will see in the death of Jesus the payment of man’s enormous debt to God, and the complete salvation of all who believe. Commentary by J.C. Ryle
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