The Road to Emmaus: Discovering an Eternal Jesus
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About this ebook
From Creation to the Coming of His Kingdom, Jesus has and always will be the heart of humanity. Jesus was present and active on earth long before His birth in Bethlehem. Many Christians believe that Jesus originated in the New Testament, but that is far from the entire Biblical History. The Road to Emmaus is a journey through the Bible to find an Eternal Jesus.
Larissa Payton
Larissa Payton is an author, a poet, and a lover of the Word of God. She has been married to Gehrig Payton since 2005 and has a combined family of five kids and eight grandchildren. She received a business degree from Indiana Institute of Technology and a master’s degree in Christian ministry from Oral Roberts University.
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The Road to Emmaus - Larissa Payton
Copyright © 2022 Larissa Payton.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means,
graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by
any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author
except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
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views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,
and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.
Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture taken from the New King James Version®.
Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®,
NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission of Zondervan. All
rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The NIV
and New International Version
are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.®
Scripture marked (KJV) taken from the King James Version of the Bible.
Scripture quotations marked (AMP) are taken from the Amplified Bible, Copyright ©
1954, 1958, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.
Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation,
copyright ©1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of
Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations marked NLV are taken from the New Life Version,
copyright © 1969 and 2003. Used by permission of Barbour Publishing,
Inc., Uhrichsville, Ohio 44683. All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-6642-7540-9 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-6642-7542-3 (hc)
ISBN: 978-1-6642-7541-6 (e)
Library of Congress Control Number: 2022915133
WestBow Press rev. date: 9/26/2022
To my
husband, Gehrig Payton, my best friend, and honest
critic; my children, who are always proud of me; and a host of
friends, relatives, and associates who have taken this journey
with me and inspired me along the way. I love you all.
CONTENTS
41724.pngIntroduction
Part 1: Walking the Road to Emmaus
Chapter 1: Prophesy on the Road to Emmaus
Part 2: Discovering the Eternal Jesus: From Creation to the Coming Kingdom
Chapter 2: Angel of the Lord
Chapter 3: The Glory of God
Chapter 4: The Lamb of God
Chapter 5: By Any Other Name
Chapter 6: Immanuel
Chapter 7: The Eternal Jesus
Conclusion
The Author’s Epilogue
Bibliography
About the Author
Notes
INTRODUCTION
40996.pngThe purpose of this book is to show others that Jesus has always existed. We say that Jesus is eternal, and he is God. But have we searched for him in the Old Testament?
From creation to the coming of his kingdom, he has been and always will be the heart of humanity. Our purpose as Christians is to know and understand his divine existence and to foster a relationship with him.
I want to remove the limits from Jesus as being only in the New Testament and open the Bible to Jesus’s existence from Genesis to Revelation. Jesus was present and active on earth long before his birth in Bethlehem.¹ From Genesis to Malachi, the Old Testament reveals Jesus in prophecies and appearance to God’s chosen people. This book will open your understanding of an eternal Jesus who existed long before the world began, visualize him in creation, and follow him through the books of the Bible into the New Testament. It should enlighten the Old Testament images and prophecies and clarify New Testament writings about Jesus when we see him throughout the Bible.
The Old Testament affirms that the Almighty God, or Yahweh, alone is the universal Creator, ruler, judge, and Savior. According to the New Testament, Jesus is also the Creator, ruler, judge, and Savior. I say that to confirm that Jesus is Lord.² I reflect on the Old and New Testaments, sometimes referring to the familiarity of the New Testament and confirming it with Old Testament scriptures. John 1:10 says, He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him.
I want the world to get to know the eternal Jesus.
What was the eternal Jesus doing throughout Old Testament history? Was he waiting around for his incarnation? Was he vexing his heart as he watched the best of sinners destroy themselves through ill-fated attempts to please God with law-keeping and the offerings of sacrifice? Maybe he just watched from the sidelines as the Father worked away on His own? None of these situations made sense to me.³
It does make sense to me that the Son of God was busy in heaven and frequently visited earth, appearing to people in different forms, primarily the Angel of the Lord and the glory of the Lord. My curiosity prompted me to seek and find the truth about Jesus in the Old Testament and help other believers to do the same.
All believers have some biblical knowledge of who Jesus is. However, they must understand that the New Testament does not define the origin of Jesus. It does describe Jesus as a human man on earth and exemplifies a sinless, perfect human who sacrificed himself for our liberties. Understanding the role of Jesus in the context of our historical and current beliefs is crucial to recognizing him as Lord and Savior. It shows that he has consistently implemented God’s plan and will continue to do so for all eternity.
Jesus is the cornerstone of our spiritual salvation. I want to show and prove that Jesus is more than just a figure in prophecy. I want to prove that Jesus appeared to humankind throughout history at the Father’s prompting, intervening in humanity’s affairs. I want to show that Christ’s redemption was part of God’s plan from the beginning.⁴ The process and purpose are and always will be to redeem humanity back to God. Jesus is God in the flesh. The appearances in the Old Testament were not in the flesh
per se, but his appearance was real, nonetheless. In total, the Old Testament begins the story that Jesus completes in the New Testament.
Part One
WALKING THE ROAD
TO EMMAUS
I must start this section by talking about the why. Why did I start walking on the road to Emmaus? In October 2019, I was driving along in my car when I had an open vision of Jesus. In this vision, he said, I love you,
four times to me. I could clearly see his face, hair, and eyes. I felt such love as I had never felt before or since. I knew I needed to know more about him. After this encounter, my love affair with Jesus began. I knew that I wanted to learn about him not just in the New Testament but also in the Old Testament.
I wanted to share my love for Jesus with everyone, so I knew I had to be trained. That same month I signed up for Oral Roberts University. My path was to be an author of both Christian fiction and nonfiction books. My first book was to be Jesus in the Old Testament. I had the concept and started the research but was not able to pull it together. When I took the theology