Luke 24:36-43
And while they were telling these things, He Himself stood in their midst. But they were startled and frightened and thought that they were seeing a spirit. And He said to them, "Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? See My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself; touch Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have." [And when He had said this, He showed them His hands and His feet.] And while they still could not believe it for joy and were marveling, He said to them, "Have you anything here to eat?" And they gave Him a piece of a broiled fish; and He took it and ate it before them.
Remember, the gospel writers record several previous appearances
of the resurrected Lord Jesus. The appearances began early Sunday
morning when several women arrived at the garden tomb with spices
to anoint the body of Jesus. They were met by two angels in dazzling
apparel who said to them, "Why do you seek the living One
among the dead? He is not here, but He has risen. Remember how
He spoke to you while He was still in Galilee, saying that the
Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and
be crucified, and the third day rise again." (Luke 24:1-8.)
The women reported this experience to the disciples in Jerusalem,
but the disciples thought it was nonsense and would not believe
them. According to John 20:14 and Matthew 28:9-10, Jesus first
appeared to Mary Magdalene when she came back to the garden, then
to the other women who returned. He then appeared to Simon Peter
privately sometime that Sunday (Luke 24:34), and then on Sunday
afternoon he appeared to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus,
followed by this evening appearance to the disciples who had gathered
in the upper room in Jerusalem (Thomas was not in the room at
that time).
Why did Jesus appear in Jerusalem, rather than, say, in Galilee
or in the desert? Looking back, according to Luke, "...it
came about, when the days were approaching for His Ascension,
that He resolutely set His face to go to Jerusalem" (9:51).
In Psalm 110:4 we are told that the Messiah should be "a
priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek." Melchizedek
was the King of Jerusalem (called Salem in the time of Moses)
and a priest of the Most High God. He provide bread and wine as
well as a blessing to Abraham, who had just defeated the enemy
who had taken his nephew Lot captive (see Genesis 14:19-20; Hebrews
7:1-2). Jerusalem was the city where God promised David that after
he died, "...I will raise up your descendant after you, who
will come forth from you, and I will establish his kingdom...forever"
(2 Samuel 7:12-13). It was in Jerusalem the city of peace that
our Lord in his humanity presented himself to his people as the
Son of David, the Prince of Peace, and the Passover Lamb. Jerusalem
was the city in which he was crucified as "King of the Jews"
and buried, and then was raised from the dead as the victorious
King of kings. It was in Jerusalem, therefore, that he appeared
to his disciples as their risen Lord and God, and it was in this
city where he would commission his disciples to become witnesses
once he sent the Holy Spirit. It was in Jerusalem that he would
ascend to his heavenly Father. It was in Jerusalem that the church
would be born and from which it would spread out into the world.
And it is to Jerusalem that our Lord will come for the second
time to set up his earthly kingdom.
Jerusalem is the city of peace where the Prince of Peace will
rule. And the Prince of Peace gives his peace to all of us who
have made peace with him, and then we are able to share that peace
with all those around us. Don't you hunger for the day when every
man, woman, and child will be at peace with God? Then to every
individual we meet we can say out of a peaceful heart, "Shalom-peace
be with you." The Prince of Peace is going to make sure that
it happens, and it began in Jerusalem through his death and then
his resurrection.
According to John 20:19-24 it was Sunday evening when ten of our
Lord's apostles met in a room behind locked doors. They were fearful
that the Jewish leaders would arrest them because of their association
with Jesus. And appearing before them was Jesus, the "Prince
of Peace" of Isaiah 9:6. John records that he said, "Peace
be with you." Our Lord's presence equals peace. His blessing
of peace means the absence of spiritual unrest, fear, and anxiety;
and the assurance of God's loving presence under all circumstances,
which we experience by exercising faith in God and his Son. This
same Jesus had told his disciples on Thursday evening, "Peace
I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives,
do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, nor let it be
fearful." (John 14:27.) This was the peace that Jesus obtained
for all his followers by his death on the cross.
Here stood the man they had all considered their dead Messiah.
You can imagine their shock and fear, for the last time they had
seen Jesus he had been beaten almost beyond physical recognition.
His head and face had been bruised and covered with dried blood
and fresh blood from the thorns on his brow. His hands and feet
had been pierced with Roman nails, and his side had been pierced
with a Roman sword. They all had seen him die, and then they had
witnessed Joseph and Nicodemus take him down from the cross and
carry him to Joseph's own tomb. Now three days later he suddenly
appeared before them as if out of thin air. They must have thought,
"This is too much, it's impossible. It must be the pressure
of these last three days. We are all seeing the same 'spirit.'
But the 'spirit' is greeting us! What is going on?" Then
they heard him say, " Peace be with you." But regardless
of those reassuring words, they were startled and frightened.
Jesus asked them two questions: (1) "Why are you troubled?"
Their minds were filled with fear and perplexity. At this moment
in their spiritual growth they were experiencing the same despair
and unbelief that the two disciples on the road to Emmaus had
experienced over the previous three days. Jesus was the Prophet
to come, mighty in deed and word in the sight of God and all the
people. He was to be the Redeemer of Israel, according to all
the prophets-yet the chief priests and their rulers had delivered
him up to the sentence of death and crucified him (see Luke 24:19-20).
And (2), "Why do doubts, or questions, arise in your hearts?
You have the Scriptures, and I have told you many times, '...all
things which are written through the prophets about the Son of
Man will be accomplished. For He will be delivered up to the Gentiles,
and will be mocked and mistreated and spit upon, and after they
have scourged Him, they will kill Him; and the third day He will
rise again.'" (Luke 18:31-33.)
Then Jesus said, "See My hands and My feet, that it is I
Myself: touch Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and
bones as you see that I have." I was just reading about the
New Age idea that the spirit of Christ came on Jesus at his birth,
stayed on him until the cross, and then left Jesus, and now just
the spirit of Christ remains. Proponents of this idea don't believe
in the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ. But there are several
observations we can make about this verse that show that these
disciples were not dealing with a "spirit" but with
the fulfillment of all prophecies concerning a bodily resurrection,
which should also encourage us about our own life, death, and
resurrection:
1. Our Lord's resurrected body could be touched.
2. Our Lord's resurrected body was made of flesh and bone rather than flesh and blood. In this world the life is in the blood; in eternity life is in the Son (see 1 Corinthians 15:45).
3. Our Lord's resurrected body had some of the same outward design it had before his death ("See My hands and My feet....").
4. Our Lord's resurrected body retained the scars from his earthly experience on the cross (and it will for eternity as a memorial of his great sacrifice).
5. Our Lord's resurrected body could consume food.
Sixty years later John would write: "What was from the beginning,
what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we beheld
[the Greek word here is theaomei, a careful and deliberate
vision that interprets its object] and our hands handled, concerning
the Word of Life-and the life was manifested, and we have seen
and bear witness and proclaim to you the eternal life...."
(1 John 1:1-2.) John also wrote, "Beloved, now we are children
of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we shall be. We know
that, when He appears, we shall be like Him, because we shall
see Him just as He is." (1 John 3:2.) As Christ's Spirit
housed in his resurrection body walked among them, so shall we
be-our spirits will be housed in a body that is fit for eternity,
never to die again. We will have personality, a voice, taste,
smell, design, and function.
An unknown author wrote:
On the day of the crucifixion the disciples were filled with sadness;
on the first day of the week with gladness. At the crucifixion
they were hopeless; on the first day of the week their hearts
glowed with certainty and hope. When the message of the resurrection
first came they were hard to convince, but once they became assured
they never doubted again. What could account for the astonishing
change in these men in so short a time? The mere removal of the
body from the grave could never have transformed their spirits
and characters. Three days are not enough for a legend to spring
up which would so affect them.
Did you ever doubt or are you still doubting that Jesus rose from
the dead? The disciples struggled with doubt about the resurrection
until Jesus appeared and they were able to see him, touch him,
and even watch him eat a meal with them. That experience eliminated
their doubts, but there was still Thomas who was absent at the
time, so let's turn to John's gospel, where we will pick up the
episode of the famous "doubting Thomas."
John 20:24-29
But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came. The other disciples therefore were saying to him, "We have seen the Lord!" But he said to them, "Unless I shall see in His hands the imprint of the nails, and put my finger into the place of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe." And after eight days again His disciples were inside, and Thomas with them. Jesus came, the doors having been shut, and stood in their midst, and said, "Peace be with you." Then He said to Thomas, "Reach here your finger, and see My hands; and reach here your hand, and put it into My side; and be not unbelieving, but believing." Thomas answered and said to Him, "My Lord and my God!" Jesus said to him, "Because you have seen Me, have you believed? Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed."
Thomas was a disciple who had been chosen by Jesus early in his ministry (see Luke 6:15). He was a twin. When Jesus wanted to go to Bethany to visit the grave of Lazarus, Thomas realized the Jewish leadership was looking for Jesus and that if he went anywhere within the city of Jerusalem he was putting his life on the line. So showing a mixture of courage and pessimism, Thomas said to his fellow disciples, "Let us also go, that we may die with Him." (John 11:16.) George Matheson wrote:
...the skepticism of Thomas comes out in the belief that the death of Jesus would be the death of His kingdom. "Let us go, that we may die with Him." The man who uttered these words had, at the time when he uttered them, no hope of Christ's resurrection. No man would propose to die with another if he expected to see him again in a few hours. Thomas at that moment had given up all intellectual belief. He saw no chance for Jesus. He did not believe in His physical power. He had made up his mind that the forces of the outer world would be too strong for Him, would crush Him.
The risen Lord had left the upper room, and soon after a spiritually
and emotionally despairing Thomas joined the other disciples.
But now something had changed: The other disciples said to him,
"We have seen the Lord! Thomas, it was wonderful! We were
all here in this room and the door was locked, and suddenly in
the midst of our despair he stood among us and said, 'Peace be
with you.' Then he showed us his hands and feet as proof of his
death on the cross. And then he asked us for some fish and he
ate it! Thomas, rejoice with us!" But Thomas the skeptic
said, "Unless I shall see in His hands the imprint of the
nails, and put my finger into the place of the nails, and put
my hand into His side, I will not believe." (John 20:25.)
Thomas was saying, "Listen, you guys, I was at the cross
when you were. I saw what you saw-his crucifixion, the Roman soldier
piercing his side with a spear. He was dead within six hours.
The women believed he was dead and made preparation to put spices
on his body. The Jews believed he was dead, so they and the Romans
allowed Joseph and Nicodemus to take him from the cross and bury
him in Joseph's tomb. And then I heard that the Jewish leaders
assigned a group of temple soldiers to guard his tomb in case
we came and rolled away the stone from in front of the tomb, stole
the dead body, hid it, and then said, 'Jesus has risen.' But you
know we didn't do that because we all believed he was dead and
it was all over for us. Now quite frankly, unless Jesus appears
to me and I am allowed to touch his hands and side, I have to
tell you I cannot believe he has been raised from the dead. In
fact, I will not believe." He had missed the earlier appearance
of the "Prince of Peace" and also his blessing, "Peace
be with you," so he remained in a state of spiritual restlessness
and doubt in spite of the witnesses all around him. He was like
the man of whom Paul would later write, " If we have hoped
in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied."
(1 Corinthians 15:19)
Thomas was willing to believe that Jesus rose from the dead if
Jesus would fulfill certain conditions based on the senses: (1)
Hearing about his resurrection from his fellow apostles was not
enough. (2) He had to see in his hands the mark of the nails.
(3) But seeing would not be enough; he had to feel by putting
his hand into Jesus' side. Now some eight days after the resurrection
of Jesus Christ, the disciples were again meeting behind closed
doors. They were still in Jerusalem and I assume they were still
using the upper room as a meeting place. Jesus appeared for the
sixth time to confront Thomas. He stood in their midst and again
said, "Peace be with you."
Remember, Jesus had not been physically present eight days earlier
when Thomas had expressed his doubt and unbelief. But he had been
spiritually present, because he had heard each and every word
of unbelief. So in a spirit of firm love our wonderful risen Lord
and Savior was about to dispel Thomas' doubts about his physical
resurrection! He said, "Thomas, I heard you say to the other
disciples eight days ago, 'Unless I shall see in his hands the
imprint of the nails, and put my finger into the place of the
nails, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.'"
At this point Thomas could have done as so many have down through
the ages since the resurrection of Jesus: simply leave the room,
regardless of the overwhelming evidence, because of pride or embarrassment.
Or he could have said, "It's the wine and I am having delusions,
or it's a smoke-and-mirror trick."
Jesus said, "Thomas, you need to see and feel. Well then,
reach here your finger, and see my hands; and reach here your
hand, and put it into my side; and be not unbelieving, but believing."
The Scriptures do not indicate that Thomas walked over and did
what the Lord commanded him to do as he had boasted he would have
to do, but his conclusion seems to witness that he actually submitted
to his Lord's commands. I can hardly believe that he didn't, because
his senses simply had to be satisfied. You can see him in your
mind's eye slowly walking over to the Lord Jesus and placing his
finger into his wounds. Once he investigated our Lord's body you
can see him falling to his knees before the resurrected Jesus
Christ and confessing, "My Lord and My God! Jesus, I submitted
to your lordship in the days of your humanity, but now I realize
because of your bodily resurrection that you are also God, and
my God. My Lord is my God." At that moment, for Thomas the
son of a man became the Son of God. Because he is God, death has
no power over him or anyone who believes in him as God.
Jesus continued with a rebuke: "Thomas, because you have
seen me you believe. All the prophets, all the Scriptures, and
all the miracles should have been enough for you to believe that
I am the Son of God. Faith is the belief in invisible realities.
It is not blind faith that I expected from you; I had plenty of
evidence to demonstrate to you that I am the Son of God. If I
had never shown up physically you still should have believed in
me and in the word of God through the prophets."
Then our risen Lord gave a word of encouragement for all the future
believers who would come into a personal relationship with him
in the days, years, and centuries ahead, who would never have
the personal privilege of walking with the Lord as his first disciples
did: "Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed."
Peter would write to a second generation of Christians in western
Turkey some thirty years later and say, "...though you have
not seen Him, you love Him, and though you do not see Him now,
but believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible
and full of glory, obtaining as the outcome of your faith the
salvation of your souls." (1 Peter 1:8-9.)
What exactly did Jesus mean, "Blessed are they who never
have seen?" He did not want men and women to approach him
as their Lord and Savior out of blind faith. Peter wrote to the
church in Asia, "As to this salvation, the prophets who prophesied
of the grace that would come to you made careful search and inquiry,
seeking to know what person or time the Spirit of Christ within
them was indicating as He predicted the sufferings of Christ and
the glories to follow." (1 Peter 1:10-12.) Our Lord Jesus
was saying, "Blessed are those who inquire, investigate,
and come to the conclusion based on the evidence of the prophets,
the miracles, the cross, the resurrection, the Ascension, the
sending of the Holy Spirit, as well as the changed lives of the
disciples, that the risen Jesus is God." What he wants is
for us to look at what the Scriptures say about Jesus and see
how he measures up, how he exactly fits the prophecies of the
Christ. He is not asking us to just say, "Well, I have this
wonderful feeling about Jesus; we just sang a great song about
him, and I am going to believe in him." He doesn't want that
kind of faith because it's faith in a Jesus of our imagination.
He wants us to believe in the Jesus who has been revealed in the
Scriptures-the prophecies, the gospels, and the epistles. That
is the Jesus who is going to come again as Lord of lords and King
of kings, and then every knee will bow and every tongue confess,
"My Lord and my God!" whether they want to or not. It
is not a blind faith or an emotional faith by which we come to
him, but one resulting from careful inquiry.
The temptation to doubt the resurrection of Jesus Christ from
the dead is not sin, but refusing to investigate your doubt is
sin. Some people rejoice in their unbelief; they love the search
but have no desire to find the treasure. Thomas expressed his
doubts to the other disciples concerning the resurrection of Jesus
from the dead, but when the evidence was presented to him he was
willing to bow his knee to his risen Lord and God.
Jesus wanted all of us who have not seen him physically risen
to understand that we have no cause to envy those who had an opportunity
to see and who believed only after they saw him. We are not at
a disadvantage. It is a higher calling to be able to believe without
seeing because we have had to dig harder for the truth, but once
we discovered from the Scriptures and from the changed lives all
around us that Jesus was truly risen from the dead, our hearts
were filled with his gifts of everlasting joy, peace, and salvation.
Frank Morison was an English journalist who set out to prove that
the story of Christ's resurrection was nothing but a myth. In
reviewing his research of the life of Jesus he said:
I wanted to take this last phase of the life of Jesus...to investigate the origins of its literature, to sift some of the evidence at first hand, and to form my own judgment on the problem it presents. I will only say that it effected a revolution in my thought. Things emerged from that old-world story that previously I should have thought impossible. Slowly but very definitely the conviction grew that the drama of those unforgettable weeks of human history was stranger and deeper than it seemed. It was the strangeness of many notable things in the story that first arrested and held my interest. It was only later that the irresistible logic of their meaning came into view.
In time his investigation led him to place his faith in the
risen Christ and then to write a classic book entitled Who
Moved the Stone?.
Have you ever doubted that Jesus rose from the dead? The question
is most serious. May I encourage those of you who are doubting
his physical resurrection to turn to the word of God, but before
you begin your investigation, ask the one and only living God
to open the eyes of your heart so that you will be able to discover
the truth concerning Jesus. And the greatest evidence after you
study the Scriptures is the lives that have been changed. Something
has happened to an awful lot of us! If you want proof, look at
the life of the person sitting next to you. The men and women
around you have committed their lives to Jesus Christ. That's
evidence enough.
I believe, based on my own experience and that of millions of
other followers of Jesus who took the time to investigate the
evidence as presented in the word of God, that you will in time
discover the truth that Jesus is the risen Son of God and the
only one in the universe who can save us from the wrath of God.
You will also discover that Jesus is the only one we can turn
to in order to be forgiven of our sins. Once you discover that
there is enough evidence to show that Jesus is the Son of God,
you then need to bow your knee to him by faith and invite him
to become your Lord and Savior. Based on that simple act of faith
he will forgive your sins, and then he will give you the gift
of eternal life, as well as the gift of the Holy Spirit to empower
you to live a life that is pleasing to him now and into eternity.
If you still have doubts that Jesus rose from the dead, let me
encourage you: Let the investigation begin!
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