Then he said unto them, O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken:
On resurrection day the risen Christ joined two despairing disciples on the way to Emmaus as a hidden fellow traveler to comfort and teach them in their grief over His death. He rebuked them as foolish and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets had spoken, exposing unbelief that kept them from recognizing Him and drawing strength from prophecy. The prophets had plainly foretold that He must suffer and then enter His glory, so that what they took for the destruction of hope was the strongest evidence for faith. He kept His identity hidden until He had opened the Scriptures from Moses and all the prophets, so faith would rest not on His visible presence but on the unquestionable agreement of Scripture with His life, death, and resurrection. That opening made their hearts burn within them and turned them into joyful witnesses who hastened back to Jerusalem to share a living Saviour, calling all to diligently believe all prophecy and feed on the Word until Christ walks unseen beside them.
Emmaus Road Setting
On resurrection day two perplexed disciples were traveling from Jerusalem toward Emmaus, disheartened and faithless over Jesus' death and the reports that His tomb was empty. The risen Christ walked and talked with them as a hidden stranger and fellow traveler, the same in size as before with no immediately revealing marks. He asked why they conversed in sadness, while they told Him as a stranger of Jesus, a prophet mighty in deed crucified by wicked hands.
Though He thoroughly understood the prophecies, He accompanied them to teach and comfort them. That accompanying shows His identifying with suffering and perplexed people. It shows His remaining with them on difficult paths.
They had left Jerusalem in despair to return home and take up their old employment again. In doing so they were concealing their blighted hopes.
The risen Christ is just as near to people in despondency, walking beside them to offer peace and life if they accept Him. He comes near to people in grief, walks beside them, and brings comfort and peace. As He spoke with the two and opened the truths of God's word and strengthened them, so He later met Waldensian fugitives in their lonely retreats to encourage them to reject false guides and obey and worship God.
Meaning of Rebuke
The words are a rebuke for foolishness and slowness of heart to believe all that the prophets had spoken, exposing unbelief that kept the travelers from recognizing Him and from drawing support from prophecy. Their grief over His death reflected that unbelief in the prophetic testimony, which had plainly described how He would be treated and that He must suffer before entering His glory. Knowing those writings would have sustained faith and kept hope firm through His trial, death and resurrection, but failure to grasp them left them unable to recognize the risen Saviour and shaken in hope.
Belief must embrace all prophecy, not a little here and there, including the full Old Testament testimony about Christ in types and prophecies concerning His life, mission, death and resurrection. Faith was to rest on that evidence together with the events themselves rather than on seeing Him in person, for the prophecies of rejection, humiliation, death and resurrection were fulfilled as part of the Father and Son's purpose to secure salvation. Diligent study and belief in all the prophets have spoken is therefore required, since the stranger's opening of Moses and all the prophets showed how the Scriptures concerned Him.
Their grief, disappointment, sorrow and buried hopes left them unable to understand His lessons and how witnessed suffering could fit their hopes, because they had forgotten what He Himself had repeatedly told them would happen. They had not searched the Scriptures and had hardly grasped a suffering Saviour, talking only of their troubles with small faith instead of testing the report of His resurrection by Scripture. They should have trusted the prophetic testimony even when events overturned their hopes, for as He explained the Scriptures on the rough way their hopes revived as they remembered these things had been foretold.
The same slowness of heart belonged to disciples influenced by rabbis and popular hopes, who could not understand that His kingdom was not earthly or why He did not seek priests' support or establish Himself as earthly king. Though slow to believe, they loved Him and could be trained, with time spent with Him and evidence of His power preparing them to understand His kingdom and serve its work. The same slowness appeared at the transfiguration, when being overcome with sleep and failing to watch and pray they heard little of what passed between Christ and the heavenly messengers and did not receive the knowledge of His sufferings and the glory that should follow, losing the blessing of sharing His self-sacrifice. Yet they still received great light as eyewitnesses of His majesty, assured that all heaven knew of the nation's sin in rejecting Him, given clearer insight into the Redeemer's work, seeing and hearing things beyond human comprehension, and realizing Jesus was indeed the Messiah to whom patriarchs and prophets had witnessed and whom the heavenly universe recognized.
Prophets Foretold Suffering Glory
The prophets plainly taught that Christ had to suffer before entering into His glory, and knowing this would have sustained faith and kept hope firm through His trial, death and resurrection. Belief must embrace all that they spoke, not a little here and there, including a suffering Saviour, and failure to search the Scriptures and test the report of the resurrection left buried hopes, sadness and small faith. The words that stirred hope sounded like His own because they opened the prophecies from Moses and all the prophets concerning Himself.
What was taken as the destruction of all hope in His death is from the prophets the very strongest evidence for faith, for every detail concerning Him was fulfilled in His life and death. The crucifixion itself was the climax of the evidence that belief in Jesus was right, and understanding this restored and strengthened faith.
The prophecies form a connected chain from the days of the patriarchs to that time, foretelling what happened to Him, including His rejection, humiliation, death and resurrection. These events were part of the purpose of the Father and Son for securing salvation, for He suffered and died to bear the penalty of human transgression. Opening the eyes to this chain helped restore faith among the gathered disciples.
Careful study and comparison of Scripture would have shown the prophecies fulfilled in Jesus and recognized Him as the promised Messiah, correcting mistaken expectations of a temporal kingdom and relieving confusion. Priestly interpretations and traditions shaped to human ambition had obscured the prophecies, with maxims and traditionary lore, teachers' additions and clouded minds causing truths to be lost. When the understanding was opened to the Old Testament, depths were seen that even the writers had not fully seen, quickening understanding from the obscurity of dawn to the radiance of noon as truth was sought as hidden treasure.
Humble study would have shown that Christ fulfilled the signs of His first coming, including His entry into Jerusalem and His coming sacrifice leading people to search prophecy and recognize Him as Messiah. Pride led the Jewish rulers to misread prophecy by applying the glory and power of His second coming to His first, rejecting the evidence of His divinity and mission.
His suffering makes salvation possible, so that those who repent and are converted and come to the Father through faith in Him receive forgiveness of sins.
Christ Grounds Faith in Scripture
Christ kept His identity hidden while He interpreted the Scriptures, beginning with Moses and all the prophets, to lead the two to intelligent faith in His life, His character, His mission to earth, and His death and resurrection. The rebuke for slowness to believe all the prophets had spoken meant that Christ ought to have suffered death and then to enter glory, and it opened into exposition of the things in all the Scriptures concerning Himself. Faith was to be established on all the types and prophecies of the Old Testament, and what they took as the destruction of all hope in His death was shown from the prophets to be the very strongest evidence for faith. This connected the prophetic Scriptures with the truth that He had risen, giving abundant evidence of His resurrection that led to calm and joyful belief.
He did not first reveal Himself in His true character as risen from the dead and then open the Scriptures, because He knew they would be so overjoyed to see Him again that their souls would be satisfied and they would not hunger for the sacred truths He wished to impress indelibly upon their minds. He performed no miracle to convince them but made explaining the Scriptures His first work, rather than making Himself known at once and satisfying them with joy. He wanted them to receive that light given that day so they might impart it to others, who should in turn spread the precious knowledge until thousands of people received it.
Faith was to take firm root not because it rests on His personal testimony and visible presence, but because the typical law and the prophets of the Old Testament agreeing with the facts of His life and death give unquestionable evidence of the truth. Faith was to rest on this scriptural evidence together with the events themselves, rather than on seeing Him in person, with the Old Testament law and prophets agreeing with His life, mission, death, and resurrection. Christ explained from Moses and the other Scriptures the types and prophecies concerning Himself, establishing faith through the Old Testament witness rather than a miracle. Though they had not yet recognized Him, the truths He taught had taken root in their discouraged hearts.
He opened their understanding to see the unity and truth of Scripture, explaining that Moses and the prophets had foretold that His life, mission, sufferings, and death would fulfill God's word. He showed that the prophetic Scriptures testify to Him and explain the plan of salvation, bringing hope and comfort, and He revealed meanings about Christ that their writers themselves had not seen. After His resurrection on the walk to Emmaus He led them to realize He had put them in possession of truth whose value they little suspected, opening their understanding to understand the Scriptures. He had reproved their slowness and promised that the Comforter would bring His teachings to their remembrance.
The illuminating power in the Scriptures quickens faith, and their hearts burned within them while He taught them by the way. Their eyes were clouded and they could not at first take it in, though He laid the Scriptures open to their understanding, tracing His very history as the Christ of God and showing that everything that had transpired was written there. The words of the stranger stirred hope in them because they sounded like Christ's own words. The truths He spoke sank into their hearts and took root, and as they heard the Scriptures explained concerning Himself, their hearts burned within them.
Only when that work was done and the truth was firmly rooted did He reveal Himself to make their joy full, and then vanish from their sight. He made Himself known in breaking bread by revealing the marks of His crucifixion, and only then did they recognize Him. Through that conversation they came to recognize the risen Jesus, giving abundant evidence of His resurrection that led to calm and joyful belief and declaration that Christ had risen. His resurrection became the great truth at the center of the church's faith and hope.
The rebuke tenderly revived their hopes so they wanted Him to abide with them, as He walked the rough way with them opening the prophecies to them. As educator after His resurrection to the lonely, disappointed disciples traveling to Emmaus, He opened to them the Scriptures concerning Himself, and that teaching bound their hearts with holy, new, and sacred hope and joy. The same post-resurrection teaching was given to those assembled in the upper chamber.
Disciples Transformed Into Witnesses
As He talked with them by the way and opened the Scriptures their hearts burned within them, and their joy exceeded their former despair. They forgot hunger and fatigue, left the prepared meal untouched, and late at night retraced their way to Jerusalem over a rough, dark, moonless road, stumbling and losing the path yet pressing on with light hearts. They could not keep their newly found knowledge to themselves but longed to impart it to the other disciples, that all might rejoice together in a living Saviour risen from the dead.
When they received light they returned and found those whom God had led and was still leading, and told them they had seen Jesus and had talked with Him. True light does not lead to disunion, to taking a different line, or to drawing disciples away, but leads back to those chosen to bear living testimony, to share the experience with them and to seek counsel from those of deep experience bearing the last warning message. It shows that the light better fits a people to stand in God's great day. Their report that He had opened their eyes to the chain of prophecy foretelling what had happened to Him helped restore faith among the gathered disciples. Their experience remains an example of the joy found in holy fellowship centered on Christ and the plan of redemption.
Present Call to Believe
The rebuke to the two travelers to Emmaus stands as a call to humble, believing search of the plain truth of the Bible, which warms the heart with the love of God. They were sad and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets had spoken even while the risen Son of God walked and talked with them as a fellow traveler. The prophecies of rejection, humiliation, death and resurrection were fulfilled as part of the Father and Son's purpose to secure salvation, and therefore diligent study and belief in all the prophets have spoken is required. That same slowness to believe is blameworthy in the last days, when people should diligently search Scripture and respond to evidence rather than resist truth or rely on assumptions.
The meaning of the sacred Word is not seen or appreciated until Christ opens the mind to comprehend it and the Holy Spirit conveys its true significance to the soul. Every searcher for truth has the same experience as those disciples when coming to the Word with a teachable heart. The same divine Teacher enlightens those who keep their hearts open to heaven. The same opening of understanding by the Holy Spirit shining upon the sacred page gives knowledge of what is truth when Daniel, Revelation, and the other prophecies of the Old and New Testaments are studied with prayer.
Christ reproached slowness of comprehension rooted in maxims and traditionary lore by which truths spoken by the greatest Teacher were lost, and after His resurrection He put the disciples in possession of truth whose value they little suspected. He opened their understanding to understand the Scriptures and explained the Old Testament so they saw in its teaching a meaning the writers themselves had not seen. His words are bread from heaven, and as they ate His words their understanding was quickened. As they diligently sought truth as for hidden treasure they better understood the value of the grace and righteousness of Christ, stepping in comprehension from the obscurity of dawn to the radiance of noon.
The same burning of heart comes to those seeking the righteousness of Christ when they dwell upon the themes of the great salvation and contemplate the word. Meditating on the incarnation of Christ and the great sacrifice made to save from perdition and to bring in pardon, peace, and everlasting righteousness fills the soul with nourishing food and sets it aglow with grand and elevating themes. Holiness and truth, grace and righteousness then occupy the thoughts, self dies and Christ lives in His servants. Jesus unseen walks by their side surrounding them with the holy atmosphere of His presence, feeding them with the bread of life through His teaching. He is pleased when they talk with relish of His lessons of instruction and holy things, and when truth abides in the heart the love of Christ is a well of water springing up into everlasting life that flows from the lips in the things God has prepared for those who love Him, leaving no place for criticism of God's servants or picking flaws with His message.
Jesus walks beside His followers unseen and calls them to be reconverted, turning hearts back to belief. His presence and instruction in Scripture bring holy joy. Those who feed on the Bread of life and cherish His lessons speak of holy things rather than criticizing.
Being slow of heart to believe is failure to respond with faith and action to what God has made clear. The rebuke applies to leaders who do too little to recognize ripe opportunities for service, prepare and send workers, and win souls while there is still time. Christ reproves those slow to understand and believe the truths God has given, who may possess truths essential to salvation without recognizing their value, including the doctrine of grace and salvation through Jesus Christ.
On resurrection day the risen Christ joined two despairing disciples on the way to Emmaus as a hidden fellow traveler to comfort and teach them in their grief over His death. He rebuked them as foolish and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets had spoken, exposing unbelief that kept them from recognizing Him and drawing strength from prophecy. The prophets had plainly foretold that He must suffer and then enter His glory, so that what they took for the destruction of hope was the strongest evidence for faith. He kept His identity hidden until He had opened the Scriptures from Moses and all the prophets, so faith would rest not on His visible presence but on the unquestionable agreement of Scripture with His life, death, and resurrection. That opening made their hearts burn within them and turned them into joyful witnesses who hastened back to Jerusalem to share a living Saviour, calling all to diligently believe all prophecy and feed on the Word until Christ walks unseen beside them.
Emmaus Road Setting
On resurrection day two perplexed disciples were traveling from Jerusalem toward Emmaus, disheartened and faithless over Jesus' death and the reports that His tomb was empty. The risen Christ walked and talked with them as a hidden stranger and fellow traveler, the same in size as before with no immediately revealing marks. He asked why they conversed in sadness, while they told Him as a stranger of Jesus, a prophet mighty in deed crucified by wicked hands.
Though He thoroughly understood the prophecies, He accompanied them to teach and comfort them. That accompanying shows His identifying with suffering and perplexed people. It shows His remaining with them on difficult paths.
They had left Jerusalem in despair to return home and take up their old employment again. In doing so they were concealing their blighted hopes.
The risen Christ is just as near to people in despondency, walking beside them to offer peace and life if they accept Him. He comes near to people in grief, walks beside them, and brings comfort and peace. As He spoke with the two and opened the truths of God's word and strengthened them, so He later met Waldensian fugitives in their lonely retreats to encourage them to reject false guides and obey and worship God.
Meaning of Rebuke
The words are a rebuke for foolishness and slowness of heart to believe all that the prophets had spoken, exposing unbelief that kept the travelers from recognizing Him and from drawing support from prophecy. Their grief over His death reflected that unbelief in the prophetic testimony, which had plainly described how He would be treated and that He must suffer before entering His glory. Knowing those writings would have sustained faith and kept hope firm through His trial, death and resurrection, but failure to grasp them left them unable to recognize the risen Saviour and shaken in hope.
Belief must embrace all prophecy, not a little here and there, including the full Old Testament testimony about Christ in types and prophecies concerning His life, mission, death and resurrection. Faith was to rest on that evidence together with the events themselves rather than on seeing Him in person, for the prophecies of rejection, humiliation, death and resurrection were fulfilled as part of the Father and Son's purpose to secure salvation. Diligent study and belief in all the prophets have spoken is therefore required, since the stranger's opening of Moses and all the prophets showed how the Scriptures concerned Him.
Their grief, disappointment, sorrow and buried hopes left them unable to understand His lessons and how witnessed suffering could fit their hopes, because they had forgotten what He Himself had repeatedly told them would happen. They had not searched the Scriptures and had hardly grasped a suffering Saviour, talking only of their troubles with small faith instead of testing the report of His resurrection by Scripture. They should have trusted the prophetic testimony even when events overturned their hopes, for as He explained the Scriptures on the rough way their hopes revived as they remembered these things had been foretold.
The same slowness of heart belonged to disciples influenced by rabbis and popular hopes, who could not understand that His kingdom was not earthly or why He did not seek priests' support or establish Himself as earthly king. Though slow to believe, they loved Him and could be trained, with time spent with Him and evidence of His power preparing them to understand His kingdom and serve its work. The same slowness appeared at the transfiguration, when being overcome with sleep and failing to watch and pray they heard little of what passed between Christ and the heavenly messengers and did not receive the knowledge of His sufferings and the glory that should follow, losing the blessing of sharing His self-sacrifice. Yet they still received great light as eyewitnesses of His majesty, assured that all heaven knew of the nation's sin in rejecting Him, given clearer insight into the Redeemer's work, seeing and hearing things beyond human comprehension, and realizing Jesus was indeed the Messiah to whom patriarchs and prophets had witnessed and whom the heavenly universe recognized.
Prophets Foretold Suffering Glory
The prophets plainly taught that Christ had to suffer before entering into His glory, and knowing this would have sustained faith and kept hope firm through His trial, death and resurrection. Belief must embrace all that they spoke, not a little here and there, including a suffering Saviour, and failure to search the Scriptures and test the report of the resurrection left buried hopes, sadness and small faith. The words that stirred hope sounded like His own because they opened the prophecies from Moses and all the prophets concerning Himself.
What was taken as the destruction of all hope in His death is from the prophets the very strongest evidence for faith, for every detail concerning Him was fulfilled in His life and death. The crucifixion itself was the climax of the evidence that belief in Jesus was right, and understanding this restored and strengthened faith.
The prophecies form a connected chain from the days of the patriarchs to that time, foretelling what happened to Him, including His rejection, humiliation, death and resurrection. These events were part of the purpose of the Father and Son for securing salvation, for He suffered and died to bear the penalty of human transgression. Opening the eyes to this chain helped restore faith among the gathered disciples.
Careful study and comparison of Scripture would have shown the prophecies fulfilled in Jesus and recognized Him as the promised Messiah, correcting mistaken expectations of a temporal kingdom and relieving confusion. Priestly interpretations and traditions shaped to human ambition had obscured the prophecies, with maxims and traditionary lore, teachers' additions and clouded minds causing truths to be lost. When the understanding was opened to the Old Testament, depths were seen that even the writers had not fully seen, quickening understanding from the obscurity of dawn to the radiance of noon as truth was sought as hidden treasure.
Humble study would have shown that Christ fulfilled the signs of His first coming, including His entry into Jerusalem and His coming sacrifice leading people to search prophecy and recognize Him as Messiah. Pride led the Jewish rulers to misread prophecy by applying the glory and power of His second coming to His first, rejecting the evidence of His divinity and mission.
His suffering makes salvation possible, so that those who repent and are converted and come to the Father through faith in Him receive forgiveness of sins.
Christ Grounds Faith in Scripture
Christ kept His identity hidden while He interpreted the Scriptures, beginning with Moses and all the prophets, to lead the two to intelligent faith in His life, His character, His mission to earth, and His death and resurrection. The rebuke for slowness to believe all the prophets had spoken meant that Christ ought to have suffered death and then to enter glory, and it opened into exposition of the things in all the Scriptures concerning Himself. Faith was to be established on all the types and prophecies of the Old Testament, and what they took as the destruction of all hope in His death was shown from the prophets to be the very strongest evidence for faith. This connected the prophetic Scriptures with the truth that He had risen, giving abundant evidence of His resurrection that led to calm and joyful belief.
He did not first reveal Himself in His true character as risen from the dead and then open the Scriptures, because He knew they would be so overjoyed to see Him again that their souls would be satisfied and they would not hunger for the sacred truths He wished to impress indelibly upon their minds. He performed no miracle to convince them but made explaining the Scriptures His first work, rather than making Himself known at once and satisfying them with joy. He wanted them to receive that light given that day so they might impart it to others, who should in turn spread the precious knowledge until thousands of people received it.
Faith was to take firm root not because it rests on His personal testimony and visible presence, but because the typical law and the prophets of the Old Testament agreeing with the facts of His life and death give unquestionable evidence of the truth. Faith was to rest on this scriptural evidence together with the events themselves, rather than on seeing Him in person, with the Old Testament law and prophets agreeing with His life, mission, death, and resurrection. Christ explained from Moses and the other Scriptures the types and prophecies concerning Himself, establishing faith through the Old Testament witness rather than a miracle. Though they had not yet recognized Him, the truths He taught had taken root in their discouraged hearts.
He opened their understanding to see the unity and truth of Scripture, explaining that Moses and the prophets had foretold that His life, mission, sufferings, and death would fulfill God's word. He showed that the prophetic Scriptures testify to Him and explain the plan of salvation, bringing hope and comfort, and He revealed meanings about Christ that their writers themselves had not seen. After His resurrection on the walk to Emmaus He led them to realize He had put them in possession of truth whose value they little suspected, opening their understanding to understand the Scriptures. He had reproved their slowness and promised that the Comforter would bring His teachings to their remembrance.
The illuminating power in the Scriptures quickens faith, and their hearts burned within them while He taught them by the way. Their eyes were clouded and they could not at first take it in, though He laid the Scriptures open to their understanding, tracing His very history as the Christ of God and showing that everything that had transpired was written there. The words of the stranger stirred hope in them because they sounded like Christ's own words. The truths He spoke sank into their hearts and took root, and as they heard the Scriptures explained concerning Himself, their hearts burned within them.
Only when that work was done and the truth was firmly rooted did He reveal Himself to make their joy full, and then vanish from their sight. He made Himself known in breaking bread by revealing the marks of His crucifixion, and only then did they recognize Him. Through that conversation they came to recognize the risen Jesus, giving abundant evidence of His resurrection that led to calm and joyful belief and declaration that Christ had risen. His resurrection became the great truth at the center of the church's faith and hope.
The rebuke tenderly revived their hopes so they wanted Him to abide with them, as He walked the rough way with them opening the prophecies to them. As educator after His resurrection to the lonely, disappointed disciples traveling to Emmaus, He opened to them the Scriptures concerning Himself, and that teaching bound their hearts with holy, new, and sacred hope and joy. The same post-resurrection teaching was given to those assembled in the upper chamber.
Disciples Transformed Into Witnesses
As He talked with them by the way and opened the Scriptures their hearts burned within them, and their joy exceeded their former despair. They forgot hunger and fatigue, left the prepared meal untouched, and late at night retraced their way to Jerusalem over a rough, dark, moonless road, stumbling and losing the path yet pressing on with light hearts. They could not keep their newly found knowledge to themselves but longed to impart it to the other disciples, that all might rejoice together in a living Saviour risen from the dead.
When they received light they returned and found those whom God had led and was still leading, and told them they had seen Jesus and had talked with Him. True light does not lead to disunion, to taking a different line, or to drawing disciples away, but leads back to those chosen to bear living testimony, to share the experience with them and to seek counsel from those of deep experience bearing the last warning message. It shows that the light better fits a people to stand in God's great day. Their report that He had opened their eyes to the chain of prophecy foretelling what had happened to Him helped restore faith among the gathered disciples. Their experience remains an example of the joy found in holy fellowship centered on Christ and the plan of redemption.
Present Call to Believe
The rebuke to the two travelers to Emmaus stands as a call to humble, believing search of the plain truth of the Bible, which warms the heart with the love of God. They were sad and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets had spoken even while the risen Son of God walked and talked with them as a fellow traveler. The prophecies of rejection, humiliation, death and resurrection were fulfilled as part of the Father and Son's purpose to secure salvation, and therefore diligent study and belief in all the prophets have spoken is required. That same slowness to believe is blameworthy in the last days, when people should diligently search Scripture and respond to evidence rather than resist truth or rely on assumptions.
The meaning of the sacred Word is not seen or appreciated until Christ opens the mind to comprehend it and the Holy Spirit conveys its true significance to the soul. Every searcher for truth has the same experience as those disciples when coming to the Word with a teachable heart. The same divine Teacher enlightens those who keep their hearts open to heaven. The same opening of understanding by the Holy Spirit shining upon the sacred page gives knowledge of what is truth when Daniel, Revelation, and the other prophecies of the Old and New Testaments are studied with prayer.
Christ reproached slowness of comprehension rooted in maxims and traditionary lore by which truths spoken by the greatest Teacher were lost, and after His resurrection He put the disciples in possession of truth whose value they little suspected. He opened their understanding to understand the Scriptures and explained the Old Testament so they saw in its teaching a meaning the writers themselves had not seen. His words are bread from heaven, and as they ate His words their understanding was quickened. As they diligently sought truth as for hidden treasure they better understood the value of the grace and righteousness of Christ, stepping in comprehension from the obscurity of dawn to the radiance of noon.
The same burning of heart comes to those seeking the righteousness of Christ when they dwell upon the themes of the great salvation and contemplate the word. Meditating on the incarnation of Christ and the great sacrifice made to save from perdition and to bring in pardon, peace, and everlasting righteousness fills the soul with nourishing food and sets it aglow with grand and elevating themes. Holiness and truth, grace and righteousness then occupy the thoughts, self dies and Christ lives in His servants. Jesus unseen walks by their side surrounding them with the holy atmosphere of His presence, feeding them with the bread of life through His teaching. He is pleased when they talk with relish of His lessons of instruction and holy things, and when truth abides in the heart the love of Christ is a well of water springing up into everlasting life that flows from the lips in the things God has prepared for those who love Him, leaving no place for criticism of God's servants or picking flaws with His message.
Jesus walks beside His followers unseen and calls them to be reconverted, turning hearts back to belief. His presence and instruction in Scripture bring holy joy. Those who feed on the Bread of life and cherish His lessons speak of holy things rather than criticizing.
Being slow of heart to believe is failure to respond with faith and action to what God has made clear. The rebuke applies to leaders who do too little to recognize ripe opportunities for service, prepare and send workers, and win souls while there is still time. Christ reproves those slow to understand and believe the truths God has given, who may possess truths essential to salvation without recognizing their value, including the doctrine of grace and salvation through Jesus Christ.