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.

46. The Holy Spirit Is the Divinity Emanating from the Lord, and It Is the Lord Himself

Jesus said in Matthew:

All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the completion of the age. (Matthew 28:18-20)

We have already shown that the Divine called the Father and the Divine called the Son are united in the Lord. Now, therefore, we must show that the Holy Spirit is identical with the Lord.

[2] The Lord told His disciples to baptize in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, because there is a trine or trinity in the Lord. For there is the Divinity called the Father, the Divine humanity called the Son, and the emanating Divinity called the Holy Spirit. The Divine called the Father and the Divinity called the Son are the originating Divinity, and the emanating Divinity called the Holy Spirit is the instrumental Divinity.

That no other Divinity emanates from the Lord than the Divinity which is Himself is something that will be seen in short works to come regarding Divine providence and Divine omnipotence, omnipresence, and omniscience, for it entails a deeper investigation.

[3] That there is a trine in the Lord may be illustrated by comparison with an angel. An angel has a soul and a body, and also something emanating. That which emanates from him is himself beyond his person. (I have been given to know much about this emanation, but this is not the place to present it.)

[4] Everyone who looks to God is, after death, first taught by angels that the Holy Spirit is not someone different from the Lord, and that to emit and emanate means nothing else than to enlighten and teach by His presence, which depends on a person’s reception of the Lord. Most people after death accordingly put away the concept they had formed in the world regarding the Holy Spirit, and accept instead the view that the Holy Spirit is the Lord’s presence in a person by means of angels and spirits, by which and in accordance with which a person is enlightened and taught.

[5] Furthermore, the Word customarily refers to the Divine by two names, and sometimes three, which nevertheless constitute one Divine. So we find, for example, Jehovah and God, Jehovah and the Holy One of Israel, Jehovah and the Mighty One of Jacob, and God and the Lamb. Because these are one and the same, we are also told in other places that Jehovah alone is God, that Jehovah alone is holy, and that He is the Holy One of Israel, and no other besides Him. We find also that instead of God He is sometimes called a Lamb, and instead of a Lamb, sometimes God — the first in the Prophets, the second in the book of Revelation.

[6] That the Lord alone is meant by the Father, Son and Holy Spirit in Matthew 28:19 is apparent from the verses that precede and follow there. In the preceding verse the Lord says, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.” And in the following verse He says, “Lo, I am with you always, even to the completion of the age, ” thus speaking of Himself alone. He spoke, therefore, as He did in order that His disciples might know that He had in Him a trinity.

[7] For it to be known that the Holy Spirit is not some other Divinity than the Lord Himself, we must show what is meant in the Word by spirit. By spirit is meant the following:

1. A person’s life in general.

2. Because a person’s life varies in accordance with his state, therefore by spirit is meant the life’s varying affection in a person.

3. It is also the life of a regenerate person, the life called spiritual life.

4. Whenever the term spirit is applied to the Lord, however, it means His Divine life, thus the Lord Himself.

5. In particular it means the life of His wisdom, which is called Divine truth.

6. Jehovah Himself, that is, the Lord, spoke the Word through the prophets.