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Luke 24 takes us to the afternoon of the resurrection. Two followers of Jesus are walking from Jerusalem towards Emmaus, confused and deeply discouraged by everything that has happened. Jesus Himself comes alongside them, although they are prevented from recognising Him. After listening to their disappointment, He challenges them for being slow to believe what the prophets had spoken. Then comes one of the most remarkable verses in the Gospels: beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, Jesus explains “in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself”. Luke does not tell us exactly which passages Jesus used, but the conversation invites us to look back through Scripture and see how God had been preparing the way for Christ all along.
One of those great biblical pictures is Passover. In Exodus 12, Israel was delivered from judgment through the blood of the lamb placed upon the doorposts. John the Baptist would later point to Jesus and declare, “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” Yet Passover was only part of the picture. Leviticus 16 takes us to the Day of Atonement, when the high priest entered the Most Holy Place and offered sacrifices for the sins of the people. One goat was sacrificed, and another carried the confessed sins of Israel away into the wilderness. The ceremony impressed upon God’s people both the seriousness of sin and their need for atonement before a holy God.
Hebrews helps us see where these Old Testament pictures were leading. Christ came as the greater High Priest and entered the Most Holy Place not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood, obtaining eternal redemption. The repeated sacrifices could never become the final answer to sin, but Jesus offered Himself once and for all. The message also draws a striking parallel with Barabbas in Matthew 27. The guilty man is released while the innocent Christ goes to the cross in his place. Scripture does not explicitly identify Barabbas as the Levitical scapegoat, but the picture powerfully illustrates substitution: the innocent One takes the place of the guilty. As Paul writes, God made Christ, who knew no sin, to be sin for us so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.
This helps us understand why the cross must never become ordinary to us. Sin separates people from God, and reconciliation requires far more than good intentions or religious effort. Christ bore the cost Himself. When He died, the temple veil was torn, and Hebrews tells us that we may now come boldly to the throne of grace. The believer’s response should therefore include gratitude, repentance and a growing desire to live in the freedom Christ has purchased. When we stumble, we do not run away from God – we return to Him. Like the disciples on the Road to Emmaus, the more clearly we see Christ throughout the Scriptures, the more clearly we understand both the seriousness of our sin and the extraordinary grace of the Saviour who gave Himself to bring us home.
The message asks what Jesus may have explained when He opened the Scriptures to the two disciples on the Road to Emmaus.
The teaching follows four major biblical pictures:
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- Passover – deliverance from judgment
The blood of the lamb protected Israel in Exodus 12 and points forward to Christ. - The Day of Atonement – sin dealt with before God
Leviticus 16 shows sacrifice, cleansing and the removal of sin. - Christ’s once-for-all sacrifice
Hebrews explains that Jesus, our greater High Priest, accomplished what repeated animal sacrifices could never finally accomplish. - The innocent taking the place of the guilty
Barabbas is released while Christ goes to the cross, giving a vivid picture of the substitution at the heart of the gospel.
- Passover – deliverance from judgment
The central question becomes personal: how seriously do we understand our need for forgiveness, and how grateful are we for what Christ has done to provide it?
Read Luke 24:13-35 again, then spend some time in Exodus 12, Leviticus 16 and Hebrews 9-10. Rather than reading them as disconnected passages, ask how each one helps you see the person and work of Jesus more clearly. Then take time simply to thank Him for the price He paid to bring you near to God.
