Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses were the two women that took up their seat right over against the sepulchre, to see where Christ was laid, Matthew 27:61; Mark 15:47. They had bought spices some time of that day after they knew he must die, or else they bought them immediately after his burial, as they went home, for they rested on the sabbath day. They had now got some others into their society, and came very early upon the first day of the week,
(See Poole on "Matthew 28:1", as to the particular time), intending to show their last act of love to their friend by embalming his body.

The stone which Joseph had rolled to the mouth of the sepulchre, when he had laid in the body, Matthew 27:60, and the Jews had sealed, Matthew 27:66, and which, as they came walking, they were so troubled about, how they should get it removed, Mark 16:3. How it came to be rolled away Matthew telleth us, Matthew 28:2.

Probably when they entered in they saw no angels, for one may reasonably suppose, that if they had they would hardly have adventured to enter in; but at their coming out, being satisfied that the body was not there, the angels made themselves visible to them; for it followeth, (see Luke 24:4-8).

Who those two were is variously guessed; that the name of the one was Cleopas, appeareth from Luke 24:18. Some will have the other to have been Luke, but he in the beginning of his Gospel distinguishes himself from eyewitnesses, Luke 1:2. Some will have it to have been Nathanael; others will have it to have been Simon, from Luke 24:34, and 1 Corinthians 15:5. But these things are so uncertain, that all the instruction we can learn from them is the vanity and uncertainty of traditions. This Emmaus was from Jerusalem about sixty furlongs, which make seven miles and a half, according to our computation.

There is nothing more ordinary, than for persons walking and riding upon roads to make the present news of the time. The subject of their discourse. There had great things happened in Jerusalem, the death of our Saviour was such; and those things which attended his death were very extraordinary; and it is not at all to be wondered that a discourse of them should fill every mouth, especially every disciple’s mouth.

He overtook them upon the way, and joined himself to their company. It is a good thing to be discoursing of Christ, it is the way to have his presence and company with us.

God by his providence restrained their eyes, that though they saw a man, yet they could not discern who he was. We may learn from hence that the form or figure of Christ’s body after his resurrection was not changed. His body had the same dimensions, the same quantity, colour, and figure, and was in itself a proper object for human eyes; for otherwise there had been no need for their eyes to be held. From hence also we may learn the influence which God hath upon all our members and senses, and how much we depend upon God for a daily power to exercise our natural faculties. Our Lord had no mind that these two disciples should at first discern who he was, that he might draw out their following discourses, and from them take occasion to prove from Scripture the certainty of his resurrection. From this text we may gather, how hard the Lutherans are put to it to maintain the real presence of the body of Christ, wherever the sacrament of the Lord’s supper is administered; for this they must maintain, that although the body of Christ after his resurrection was the same that was crucified, and so obvious to sense, yet he had not only a power to make it insensible and invisible, which we grant, but that he hath also a power to multiply it, and make it in one and the same instant to be in so many places as his supper is administered in; and also that he willeth it at the same time to be imperceptible by any human senses in all those places: for it is apparent from hence, that it was not at all times imperceptible; it might at this time have been seen, had not the disciples eyes been held, that they could not know him.

Not that he, from whom the secrets of no hearts are hidden, did not know what they were discoursing about, but that he had a mind to hear them repeated from them, that from their repetition of them he might take the better advantage to instruct them.

There was a mighty difference, no doubt, between Christ’s preaching and his ministers’: he preached as one who had authority, not as the scribes, not as ordinary ministers, but with more majesty and power; but as to the saving efficacy of his words, that depended upon his will; where he pleased to put forth such efficacious grace, there his words became effectual; where he did not, they were not so: Christ preached in the hearing of hundreds, who yet continued unbelievers, and perished in their unbelief. There is a great deal of difference also between one minister’s preaching and another’s; some kind of preaching of itself makes men’s hearts to freeze, others make them to burn; but where preaching makes our heart to burn within us, Christ throws in the coal, which the best preacher doth but blow up: only the Spirit of God is pleased to work (as Erasmus saith) secundum quod nactus est organon, according to the instrument it worketh by, and to concur with rational and spiritual means in order to rational and spiritual ends. But wherever any soul is baptized with fire at hearing a sermon, it is also baptized with the Holy Ghost. Christ will not always cure blind eyes with clay and spittle, though he did it once. These were disciples before the fire was kindled in their hearts; Christ’s preaching did but blow it up. We ought so to speak in our preaching, so to open and apply the Scriptures, as our discourses may have a rational tendency to make the hearts of our hearers to burn within them, not so as to make them dead, and sleepy, and cold, or lukewarm; and then to know that it must be Christ’s work to inflame them, when we have said all that we can say.

Spirits sometimes (by God’s permission or direction) assumed human shapes. They seeing a human shape, and not able on the sudden to conceive how a human body should come into the midst among them, without any more noise or notice taken of it, were affrighted, as we usually are at the sight of apprehended apparitions. From hence we may conclude, that either the world, and the best men in it, have been in all ages deceived, and a few atheists have been wiser than them all, or there are such beings as spirits.

The Jews ordinarily divided the Old Testament into the law, the prophets, and the holy writings, which they called the Hagiographa. The Book of Psalms was one of the last sort, and one of the most noted amongst them. So as by these three terms our Saviour understands all the Scriptures of the Old Testament. He tells them, that he had before his death, while he conversed with them, told them that all things (which were very many) which were found in any of these books concerning him must be fulfilled: he had told them so, Luke 18:31; Matthew 16:21; Matthew 17:22; Matthew 20:18; Mark 9:31; Mark 10:34.

He did not open their understanding without the Scriptures, he sends them thither; and he knew the Scriptures would not sufficiently give them a knowledge of him, and the things of God, without the influence and illumination of his Spirit: they are truly taught of God, who are taught by his Spirit to understand the Scriptures. Christ gives a great honour to the Scriptures. The devil cheats those souls whom he persuades to cast away the Scriptures in expectation of a teaching by the Spirit. The Spirit teacheth by, not without, not contrary to, the Holy Scriptures.

All the Divine predictions are certain and infallible. The Jews did maliciously and freely prosecute our Saviour to death, and God did certainly foresee how their wills would be determined, and the event was accomplished accordingly.

It is questioned by none, but by the promise of the Father our Lord meaneth the promise of the Spirit, as it came down in the days of Pentecost. This effusion of the Spirit was promised under the Old Testament, Isaiah 44:3; Jeremiah 31:33; Ezekiel 36:27; most eminently, Joel 2:28, the apostle himself interpreting this prophecy, Acts 2:16-18. See also Acts 1:8, where the fulfilling of this promise of the Father, as it is called Acts 1:4, is put before—and ye shall be witnesses unto me, both in Jerusalem, and in Judea and in Samaria; and is also expounded by, But ye shall receive power, after the Holy Ghost is come upon you. Our Lord also had said, I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever. John 14:16. In this text he saith, that he will send him; so also John 15:26; John 16:7; thereby confirming his disciples in this, that he was equal with the Father, and that the Holy Ghost was sent by the Father and him, yet sent by the Father upon the prayer of the Son, and in his name, John 14:16,John 14:26. This Holy Spirit is also called, power from on high; the power of the Highest, Luke 1:35. But here the gifts of the Holy Ghost may be understood, as also in Acts 1:8, where it is said this power should be received after that the Holy Ghost should come upon them: until this time should come, which was in the days of Pentecost, Acts 2:1, the disciples were bound to stay at Jerusalem, which accordingly they did. And we may from hence conclude, that these words of our Saviour were spoken to his disciples after his appearance to them in Galilee, (of which Luke saith nothing), which was the place where (as most think) he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once, 1 Corinthians 15:6.