While the disciples and others who loved the Lord Jesus were in a house in Jerusalem, and those who had seen Him alive that day were telling the rest of them about Him, suddenly He stood among them.
He said, “Peace be unto you!” Yet they were very frightened; those who had seen Him that day could not have been afraid as the others, who thought Him to be a spirit.
He asked them, “Why are ye troubled? ... Behold My hands and My feet, that it is I myself; handle Me and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see Me have.”
He showed them His hands and His feet where the nails had been so cruelly put through (Psalm 22:1616For dogs have compassed me: the assembly of the wicked have inclosed me: they pierced my hands and my feet. (Psalm 22:16); John 20:25, 2725The other disciples therefore said unto him, We have seen the Lord. But he said unto them, Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe. (John 20:25)
27Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing. (John 20:27)). Yet they did not think He was real. Then He asked for food, and ate before them.
A Real but New Body
By those plain ways they learned He was the One they loved: by His voice, by seeing His wounds, by touching Him, talking to Him, seeing Him eat, and by His same tender care for them.
God had said when an animal was offered in sacrifice for sins, the blood was to be poured out on the altar (Deuteronomy 12:2727And thou shalt offer thy burnt offerings, the flesh and the blood, upon the altar of the Lord thy God: and the blood of thy sacrifices shall be poured out upon the altar of the Lord thy God, and thou shalt eat the flesh. (Deuteronomy 12:27)). That showed the life had been taken, as natural life is in the blood. So Christ, the holy sacrifice for sinners, gave His blood, His life. But He had a far greater life though different: He appeared without opening the door and could vanish from them, yet He said, “It is I Myself.”
We do not understand this, but we can wonder and believe and joy as those people then did in the great fact that the Lord Jesus rose. He was not to stay long on earth, but to have those who had known Him before be certain that He was alive again.
He showed them that evening, the same as He did the two on the walk to the village that all these things had been written of Him in the Scriptures. He said, “Thus it is written, and thus it behooved (necessary and right for) Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day.”
Told to Wait
We might think angels would be sent to tell of the One who came to die for men, but the Lord told His disciples who had believed and loved Him, had seen Him die, then seen Him alive again, to “preach” (tell forth) this story to all nations. They did go to all people, and some of them also wrote all these things, so now when anyone tells the story of Christ they speak from the Word of God through those men.
Further Meditation
1. What was different about the Lord’s resurrection body?
3. We, too, can spread the wonderful news of salvation offered to men by a risen Christ. For encouragement on this topic listen to The Great Commission by C. H. Mackintosh.