As the sun rose on Resurrection Sunday another light of dawn was also breaking forth to dispel the impenetrable darkness of death through which man could not see and that the devil had used to enslave the world; Heb 2:14-15. At first there were the angelic proclamations to the women at the tomb announcing the resurrection, but even those couldn’t overcome the darkness, for where was His body? That was the crux of the discussion the two disciples on the road to Emmaus were debating when “Jesus Himself approached and began traveling with them”. Like Mary just hours before, they didn’t at first recognize Him as such (Luk 24:15-16, Joh 20:14). Only later when they came to realize that it was Him and to understand with His other disciples that His immortal, resurrection body was necessarily different from the mortal body they had come to know, did the darkness of death begin to dispel. For that Day of our salvation that began in darkness was now breaking forth as the light of the Son shown brighter and brighter, illumining the life in Him that lies beyond, but only through, death. It was in this way by removing the fear of death that Jesus bound the strong man to plunder his house, thus overthrowing the god of this world to establish God’s kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.
In not recognizing Jesus for who He was, does the Scripture say that it was because Jesus had disguised Himself so they wouldn’t know it was Him? See Luk 24:16; cf. Joh 20:14. I.e., the issue wasn’t that Jesus Himself was unrecognizable, but it was their own eyes that prevented them from seeing that it was Him. For note that these two on the road to Emmaus did in fact eventually come to see Him for who He was, as did Mary Magdalene. Also recall how the demons who saw in the spiritual realm immediately knew who Jesus was, even though righteous men like John the Baptist couldn’t see it so clearly; Mar 1:24, 5:7, Luk 7:20. For, recall from 1Co 15:37, 44 that the natural body our physical eyes see is only a bare grain of the spiritual body that is resurrected to eternal life, and our physical eyes are quite blind to that spiritual realm. Note also that the NAS prevented in Luk 24:16 means to hold fast and is the same word used for seizing or laying hold of someone in the sense of an arrest. I.e., there was clearly something about man’s fallen state that arrested their eyes so that they could not see it was Him. What does this remind us about there being things that “though seeing we do not see” that now can only be seen as “through a glass, darkly,” through the eyes of faith, but that in time we shall see more clearly as our faith becomes sight? Cf. Deut 29:3-4, Isa 42:18-20, 44:18, Jer 5:21, Eze 12:2, Mat 13:13, Joh 9:39-41, 1Co 13:12. What does it also remind us about there being a spiritual counterpart to our physical sight from which men have been blinded or cut off as a result of the Fall, so that, like those who are physically blind, we are all spiritually crippled and must rely on other senses, especially faith in the truth of God’s word, and the still, small voice of His Spirit, to avoid stumbling in that spiritual darkness? As we grow old in this physical life and often lose many of our physical senses, do we not expect these will be restored to us in our own resurrection from the dead? In the same way, what should we also understand about the restoration in that day of our spiritual senses, that as we ceased to be innocent children, atrophied even faster so that now we are hardly aware that we ever had them, except as we are reminded of them “out of the mouths of babes”? Although the other disciple on the road to Emmaus remains unnamed, who does Luke identify as one of them? See Luk 24:18, and note that Cleopas is an abbreviation of Cleopatros (illustrious father), a Greek name. Is this man the same person as Clopas in Joh 19:25? Note that according to lexicons, this name is of Hebrew or Aramaic origin, meaning my exchanges. Also note that the spelling in Greek isn’t quite as close in Greek as it appears in English: in addition to the epsilon Κλεόπας is spelled with an omicron whereas Κλωπᾶς uses an omega. What very important fact do we know about this Clopas? See Joh 19:25 and observe that Clopas’ wife was none other than the mother of James and Joseph (abbreviated Joses, Mar 15:40), who was with Mary Magdalene at the cross (Mat 27:56), at the tomb when Jesus was buried (Mat 27:61), again at the tomb on resurrection morning when they discovered it empty (Mat 28:1) and then later that morning when Jesus appeared to them (Mat 28:9). I.e., if the Cleopas Luke names as one of the disciples on the road to Emmaus is the same as the Clopas in Joh 19:25, then he would have been the husband of the other Mary, who with Mary Magdalene discovered the empty tomb and met the risen Savior just hours earlier. However, having just mentioned that Mary in Luk 24:10, Luke would almost have to be hiding that relationship by not mentioning it just 8 verses later if in fact the Cleopas on the road to Emmaus was her husband. Hence, although it is possible, it is by no means certain and there are good reasons to doubt that the Cleopas on the road to Emmaus was the same person as the second Mary’s husband Clopas.