"Behold the realization of the words." — It si^ifies, "You now see actually fulfilled, the words which I so often spake to you, saying that the predictions ahout my sufferings roust be accom- plished. You could not then believe that I was really going to suffer and afterwards rise again. You see now that it was true."
[Must be ful filled.] The Greek word here translated " must,*' is the same that is rendered " ought " in the 26th verse, and " behoved " in the 46th.
[Law of Moses... prophets,., Psalms.] It should be remembered that this threefold division was the Jewish division of the Old Testament. They classed all its contents under these tliree heads.
When our Lord speaks of the things in the " law of Moses " concerning Himself, there can be little doubt that He points to all the types and figures which were emblems of Himself, and specially to the sacrifices.
45. — [Opened he their understanding, dc] We are taught here that the minds of the disciples had been closed by prejudice and traditional interpretations. Our Lord opened the doors and windows of their minds, and let in the light.
Poole remarks, " He did not open their understanding with- out the Scripture ; He sends them thither. He knows that Scripture would not give them a sufiicient knowledge of the things of God, without the influence and illumination of His Spirit. They are truly taught by -God who are taught by His Spirit to understand the Scriptures. Christ gives gieat honour to the Scriptures. The devil cheats those 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."
Cornelius a Lapide tries in vain to argue from this verse that the laity cannot understand the Bible without the teaching of the Church, that the Bible is not suited for the laity, and that the apostles had the knowledge of the Scriptures specially intrusted to them. — There is not the slightest proof that the apostles alone had their " understandings opened " on the present occasion. On the contrary, the context distinctly tells us that those who were here assembled were the apostles and "they that were with them." — Moreover, the fact that our Lord opened the understandings of all, is a plain proof that all, whether apostles or not, require teaching from above, and that Christ is aole, ready, and willing to give it to all, whether apostles or not, as long as the world stands.
AQ. — [Thus it is written.] This is a general expression, signifying " It was written in Scripture that things concerning me should take place in the way in which they have taken place." It was " written " that it should be so, and it was necessary, or " beho-