Each of the four gospels contains a story about Jesus appearing to His disciples after the Sunday morning when they had found the sepulcher empty. For example, see Matthew 28:16-20; Mark 16:14-19; Luke 24:13-33; John 20:19-31, and John 21.

In Luke, there’s a story of two disciples walking from Jerusalem to the village of Emmaus, a walk of about seven miles. Shortly after they leave the city they are approached by another traveler who has noticed their troubled faces and serious talk and asks them what is troubling them. Walking along together, they ask the stranger, “Haven’t you heard of the troubles in Jerusalem, how the prophet from Galilee, who we hoped would be the one to save Israel, was given up to be crucified? And strange to say, when some of the women went on the third day to anoint His body, they saw angels who told them that he was not there but was risen from the dead.”

On hearing this, the traveler chides them for not believing, and says “Don’t you see that Christ had to suffer these things and to enter into his glory?” The stranger then tells the two disciples many things concerning Jesus, from the books of Moses, and the prophets, in the Old Testament. The two disciples listen with awe, but do not recognize the stranger. At length they arrive at Emmaus. The stranger appears to want to go on when the two stop, but they beg him to stop also, because it’s getting late in the day, and they want to hear more. So they all sit down to share the evening meal, and when the stranger takes up the loaf of bread and breaks it and gives them pieces, their eyes are opened and they recognize Him, and He vanishes.

One can imagine the stunned awe that came over them both as they realized that this was Jesus. They knew He was crucified, and yet He had walked and talked to them for several hours. The women were right! The angels were right! He was alive!

The New Church believes that there are internal meanings to all the stories in the Word of the Lord, the sacred scriptures, and that this internal meaning, within the literal stories about Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Joshua, Samuel, David, and the rest, and all the sayings of the prophets from Isaiah to Malachi, and the four gospels… this meaning is what makes the Word holy.

So what can we see here in this story? Well, that internal meaning in “Moses and the prophets” is the story of Jesus’ life in the world, from His birth in Bethlehem through all His growing years until His “death” and then His rising. Because Jesus knew that, and had certainly read the Scriptures and understood them internally, He knew for a long time how His earthly life was going to close, and that it was necessary for it to close as had been “written”, in order to save the human race. So He told the two disciples that story as they walked toward Emmaus.

More about that walk... In the Word, any mention of walking is really referring to how we live our lives from day to day. In many stories of the Word, it is said that someone walked with God. It is said that we should walk in His ways and that we should walk the straight and narrow path.

Also in this story we are told that this was a journey of sixty stadia (in the original Greek). Sixty (or other multiples of "six") represents the lifelong work of rejecting the temptations that come from our inborn selfishness. Apocalypse Explained 648. So, this journey to Emmaus means our life’s journey - as a person that is trying to follow the Lord’s teachings and become an angel.

The destination was Emmaus. In the Word any city represents a doctrine, an organized set of truths that we have put in order so that we can live according to them -- our rules of life. See Arcana Coelestia 402. They are not necessarily good, as with Jerusalem or Bethlehem, but can also be evil doctrines, e.g. Sodom or Babylon. My dictionary tells me that the name Emmaus means “hot springs”. Another universal meaning in the Word is that water means truth in its beneficial uses, but can also mean truth twisted into falsity by those in hell, in an opposite sense. See, for example, Arcana Coelestia 790. Think of the wells that Abraham dug, or the waters that Jesus promised to the woman of Samaria as they talked by Jacob’s well, or the pure river of water flowing out from under the throne in the New Jerusalem in the book of Revelation. In its converse sense, where water is destructive, think of the flood that destroyed all but Noah and his family, or the Red Sea that had to be parted so that the children of Israel could cross. The springs represented by Emmaus were holy truths bubbling up from the Word for us to use. And these are hot springs, and heat means love. So that's our destination, where truth and love together are flowing out for us to use, in a continual stream from the Lord.

This plain little anecdote about the disciples meeting the Lord on the road to Emmaus isn't just a story about Jesus's resurrection with a spiritual body. It is also a story of how we should be living our lives. We can be traveling toward heaven, listening to the Lord, walking in the way with him, and at the end He will break bread and have supper with us.

11. That the Lord’s fulfilling all of the Law means that He fulfilled the whole of the Word, is apparent from passages which say that He fulfilled the Scripture, and that all was accomplished. As for example, the following:

(Jesus) went into the synagogue...and stood up to read. Then He was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when He had opened the book, He found the place where it was written: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the contrite of heart, to preach freedom to captives and sight to the blind..., to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.” After closing the book..., He said..., “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” (Luke 4:16-21)

You search the Scriptures...; and these...testify of Me. (John 5:39)

...that the Scripture may be fulfilled, “He who eats bread with Me has lifted up his heel against Me.” (John 13:18)

...none of them has perished except the son of perdition, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. (John 17:12)

...that the word might be fulfilled which He spoke, “Of those whom You gave Me I have lost not one.” (John 18:9)

...Jesus said to (Peter), “Put away your sword in its place.... How then would the Scriptures be fulfilled, that it must happen thus?” ...All this was done that the Scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled. (Matthew 26:52, 54, 56)

The Son of man...goes away as it is written of Him..., that the Scriptures may be fulfilled. (Mark 14:21, 49)

So the Scripture was fulfilled which said, “He was reckoned with the impious.” (Mark 15:28, cf. Luke 22:37)

...that the Scripture might be fulfilled..., “They divided My garments among them, and for My clothing they cast lots.” (John 19:24)

After this Jesus, knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled.... (John 19:28)

...when He had received the vinegar, Jesus said, “It is finished (that is, fulfilled)!” (John 19:30)

...these things were done that the Scripture might be fulfilled, “His bones were not broken.” And again another Scripture says, “They shall look on Him whom they pierced.” (John 19:36-37)

And so on elsewhere where passages in the Prophets are cited and they do not say at the same time that the Law or Scripture had been fulfilled.

[2] That everything in the Word was written about the Lord, and that He came into the world to fulfill it, is also something He told His disciples before He went away, with these words:

(Jesus said to His disciples,) “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory?” Moreover, beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself. (Luke 24:25-27)

Furthermore:

(Jesus said to His disciples,) “These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all the things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning Me.” (Luke 24:44-45)

That the Lord in the world fulfilled the whole of the Word, even to its least particulars, is apparent from these words of His:

...assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will not pass from the Law till all is fulfilled. (Matthew 5:18)

From this it can now be clearly seen that the Lord’s fulfilling all of the Law does not mean that He fulfilled every one of the commandments in the Decalogue, but that He fulfilled the whole of the Word.