Wednesday, November 8, 2023

WHY JESUS WALKED TO EMMAUS

 Admittedly, this commentary contains some extrapolation, but it is based on scripture. It is me adding 1 + 1 and getting 2. I am referring to Herod’s mistaking of Jesus as John the Baptist resurrected. In his usual manner, Jesus would think it necessary to prove to the man who would be king wrong.

 

The murder of John the Baptist would have been heartbreaking to those who he baptized. Just think about that; John was beheaded just for telling the truth!

The Tetrarch Herod had just stolen his brother, Philip’s wife, Herodias (Mat 14:3). John said one thing, “It is not lawful for thee to have her” (Mat 14:4). That one truth cost John his head and denying that cost Herod eternal life.

Just what Law was that? “You shall not commit adultery” (Exod 20:14). Committing adultery is double faceted; (1) lying with another man’s wife as if she is your own, and (2) the worship of idols is adultery, or fornication, against God. The head of John became the idol of his wife and his step-daughter. It is supposed that they would keep it on the platter in Herod’s palace as a trophy for victory.

Jesus could have pardoned Herod for his sin because no sin is too great for His mercy.

Herod gave John credit for something that was not true. He said to his servants, “This is John the Baptist; he is risen from the dead; and therefore mighty works do shew forth themselves in him” (Mat 14:2). Herod thought that Jesus was John who had been resurrected. Herod had John killed, but then thought that he had arisen. John had not. Jesus was God in the flesh and John was a dead man, whose soul lived on in glory!

How is that known? When Jesus died, John did arise. “Where does it say that?” you ask. 

And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many. (Mat 27:52-3)

 John, even though his body was in one place and his head another, nothing was too hard for God.

John was sleeping. He would not sleep forever, but only until the resurrection. Paul wrote that the Jews require a sign (1 Cor 1:22). Although Herod thought that Jesus was John who had awakened, as it turned out, his nightmare came true; John would soon wake up and appear to him!

How could it be that those who arose from their graves included John? “His disciples came, and took up the body, and buried it, and went and told Jesus” (Mat 14:12). John’s body was buried; it was not put into a tomb. His grave could be opened by supernatural causes and men would not be required to roll back the stone, as people assumed with the resurrection of Jesus.

Further evidence is that John was a saint. Based on divine inventory, as with Lazarus, the last in should be first out! Lazarus had already arisen, but John had not. It was his time to be awakened.

But would he not have decayed over the years? Yes, like Lazarus, he would stink (John 11:39); he would stink very badly, if not for new flesh that was incorruptible.

Resurrection is the restoration of the flesh. In modern terms perhaps his DNA was used by God to make him a new person. That, readers, is the process of rebirth. It begins with trust, passes beyond life unto death, and ‘born again’ is an engendering by God above. (Strong 2006).

Was John a ‘saint’? A saint is a follower of Christ who is morally pure. Literally, a saint is an ‘awful thing’ (ibid). A headless man fits that description quite well!

John’s head was not with his body. It was asleep somewhere else, indubitably in Herod Antipas’s palace.

Those saints “appeared to many.” Herod Antipas was alive and well when Jesus died. It seems that the long dead John may have appeared to Herod.

Where was John’s head? Probably in the city of Tiberius where the palace of Herod Antipas was and to which the springs of Emmaus was near.

After Jesus was resurrected, for some reason, he was on His way to Emmaus. Why would he go to Emmaus immediately upon being resurrected? Perhaps, to see John who was resurrected that same day, if my incite is true! Jesus was on the way to Herod Antipas, probably to appear to him; to show Herod the real Jesus and stand alongside John to convince Herod that, not John, but Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life (John 14:6).

Jesus was unrecognizable. He had been glorified. Scripture reveals that when the regeneration process was complete; after Jesus died and was resurrected, they conjectured, “Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into His glory?” (Luke 24:26). They failed to recognize Jesus because He had been glorified. No longer was his Person or even His flesh subject to the world for He had overcome the world.

After serving the men who walked with Him at one of their homes, Jesus just disappeared. “Jesus himself stood in the midst of them, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you. But they were terrified and affrighted, and supposed that they had seen a spirit. (Luke 24:36-37).

The Substance of Jesus had changed. His flesh was such that it revealed His Spirit. They could obviously see the Image of God within Him just as with the first Adam whose Image was a Phantom (ibid). What would Jesus look like? The ‘Son of God’ that Nebuchadnezzar saw in the fiery furnace (Dan 3:25).

However, this commentary is more about John and Herod Antipas. I submit that Jesus went to Emmaus only to join John there and both appear to Herod together to prove to Herod that Jesus is not the arisen John, but God Himself. Perhaps he wanted to show Herod His new flesh to persuade Herod to become a Christian despite his adulteress relationship with Herodias.

Jesus then overcame the world. Concluding supper, which by the way, Jesus did not eat, “Their eyes were opened, and they knew Him; and He vanished out of their sight” (Mat 24:31), then immediately appeared to the remaining eleven apostles who were still eating their suppers; “Jesus himself stood in the midst of them, and saith unto them, ‘Peace be unto you’” (Luke 24:36).

Jesus, soon after his resurrection made the rounds and appeared to many. It makes sense that John did the same thing if he was one of the saints that was resurrected with Jesus. [1]

As it turned out, King Agrippa was persuaded that Antipas was traitorous with the accusation that he conspired against Tiberius Caesar with Sejanus and was now plotting against Caligula Caesar.

Antipas died in exile, and as early historians believe, he was executed. If so, what he did with John, others did to him. Was he persuaded by a possible visit from both John and Jesus? That remains unknown.

Consider now the story of the other Lazarus and the rich man; The rich man begged Abraham in Paradise that his brothers be warned. He replied to them, “If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead” (Luke 16:31).

Antipas may have seen both John and Jesus after they arose from the dead, but he would still not believe. He might have seen two but remained unpersuaded.

Herod Antipas had his mind set on his own fantasies: (1) That he should be king but as it turned out Agrippa became King of Judea. That was also the royal title of Jesus. It stands to reason that Herod feared Jesus who was the true heir to the Judean throne. His resurrection would have frightened him for obvious reasons! (2) His other fantasy is that he would be the favored one, not of Jesus, who was ‘King of kings,’ but Caligula who would soon have that title as Caesar.

The evidence suggests that although Herod may have seen two men arise from their graves, that he still did not believe. He lies to this day in his grave at Lugdumen in Spanish Gaul… and is still awaiting his own resurrection. He will be and then Jesus will say to him, “I never knew you: depart from me, you that work iniquity” (Mat 7:23).

With that said, Jesus and John are both still alive. Time has no significance to the dead. There is no record of John ever entering the grave again. The best bet is that John is in Paradise and both he and Abraham are in Jesus’s Bosom; and that John, like Jesus, has already been glorified, and indeed, Jesus surely found his head in Emmaus to make him whole!



 

 



[1] In my book, The Skull of Adam, I assumed that John appeared to Herod and confronted him for breaking so many laws for Herod was a usurer, a schemer, and a traitor to Caesar as well.

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