Although God made clear first thing Sunday morning—the day of first-fruits—that Jesus had risen from the dead as the first-fruits of the resurrection (cf. Lev 23:10-11), it took time for His disciples to actually believe it. For thinking only in terms of the physical resuscitations from the dead they had seen, they had yet to comprehend the different nature of His resurrection from the perishable, natural body that was sown in death to an imperishable, spiritual body fit for the much greater reality of eternal life from which sin has separated mortal man; 1Co 15:42-44. Thus, unable to account for His missing body, in spite of the angelic vision announcing Jesus’ resurrection, Mary Magdalene reported to Peter and John that Jesus’ body had been removed from the tomb; Joh 20:2. Even after Jesus appeared to her later that morning and she came to recognize Him (Joh 20:16), those she told wouldn’t believe it (Mar 16:11, Luk 24:11). Neither would Thomas believe it even after He had appeared to the other apostles (Joh 20:24-25). For such is the veil of death, an impenetrable darkness through which man cannot see and that the devil had used to enslave mankind with fear since the fall; Isa 25:7-8, Heb 2:14-15. But now, through His resurrection from the dead, Jesus broke the power of death and brought to light life and immortality (2Ti 1:10, NET), thus stripping the strong man of His armor (Luk 11:21-22).
Recall that Matthew indicates that Jesus’ appearance to Mary Magdalene also included Mary the mother of James and Joseph; Mat 28:9. To whom did the resurrected Jesus appear next after first appearing to the two Marys? To whom would Mark and Luke’s accounts seem to indicate He appeared next? See Mar 16:12, Luk 24:13-33. But to whom else does Luke record that the Lord had also appeared when the two on the road to Emmaus returned to Jerusalem to report their encounter with the risen Savior? See Luk 23:34. In summarizing the gospel he preached, who does Paul also list of first importance for establishing the gospel message as true to whom the resurrected Lord appeared, before He appeared to all the apostles? See 1Co 15:5. It is clear then that Jesus also appeared to Simon Peter (Cephas, cf. Joh 1:42) at some time before His appearance to the rest of the apostles that evening that both Luke and John record (Luk 24:36, Joh 20:19). The question then is, after appearing to the two Marys, did He appear next to Peter, or to the two men on the road to Emmaus?
How far was Emmaus from Jerusalem, and during what time of the day was Jesus with the men on the road to Emmaus? See Luk 24:13-33. As the average walking speed is 3 miles per hour, how long would the journey have taken the men? About what time would they have arrived in Emmaus, as it was “getting toward evening” and the day was “nearly over” or had “declined”? So about what time would they have begun their journey, and about what time would Jesus have joined them? About what time would they have recognized Jesus and He vanished from their sight, and what time would they have arrived back in Jerusalem and found gathered “the eleven and those who were with them”? Is it reasonable to assume that around the same time that those were reclining at the table with Jesus in Emmaus, that Peter also would have been gathering for dinner with others, and most likely with those with whom the two on the road to Emmaus found him when they returned a couple hours later? Does it seem likely then that Jesus would have appeared to Peter after appearing to those on the road to Emmaus, since the description of that appearance would indicate that it was more personal and not corporate?
It seems most likely then that Jesus would have appeared to Peter sometime after appearing to the two Marys in the mid to late Sunday morning of His resurrection, but before appearing to the two men on the road to Emmaus in the early to midafternoon that day. While “God is Spirit” (Joh 4:24) and omnipresent through His Spirit, and Jesus as the Son of God through His Spirit may also be understood as being omnipresent (cf. Joh 1:48), should we also suppose that it is possible for His literal, physical, resurrection body to be omnipresent? I.e., is it possible that Jesus was physically appearing to Peter at the same time He was appearing to the two men on the road to Emmaus? See Deut 29:29, but consider: Clearly, before His resurrection there is no indication that this was possible, being bound by the same physical laws by which men are bound in this physical realm; for example, He was physically present in one location when He saw Nathanael under the fig tree, but not physically present in both places. Although we don’t know what laws may govern a natural body that has been raised a spiritual body, is it at least reasonable to suppose that any manifestation of that spiritual body as a physical body in this present physical world would still be governed by the same physical laws as the natural body from which it was sown? Consider also Jesus’ statement that resurrected men are like angels (Luk 20:36), but we have no indication that angels are able to be physically omnipresent; cf. the physical manifestation of the Lord and two angels to Abraham in Genesis 18, and the two angels to Lot in Genesis 19.
But this brings us to another consideration: Is it possible that after Jesus vanished from the presence of the two men in Emmaus that He could have immediately appeared in the presence of Peter or have been almost immediately transported wherever He wanted to be? While we would expect the same “conservation of miracles” that God seems to restrict Himself in dealing with mankind, choosing to follow the natural laws He has ordained except in rare circumstances, we cannot rule out such a possibility. For if the Spirit of the Lord was able to snatch Philip away from the Ethiopian eunuch so that he found himself at Azotus quite a distance away (if such is how we are to understand Philip’s “rapture”; see Act 8:39-40), how much easier would it be for Jesus’ spiritual body to be transported in like manner? We should consider that after thousands of years of scientific inquiry we are still just coming to understand the laws that govern our physical world; how very much less then can we possibly know about those laws that govern the spiritual realm from which our sin has separated us all that time, and how those laws might interact with our physical realm? See again Deut 29:29.