36 And as they spake these things, he himself stood in the midst
of them, and saith unto them, Peace _be_ unto you. 37 But they
were terrified and affrighted, and supposed that they beheld a
spirit. 38 And he said unto them, Why are ye troubled? and
wherefore do questionings arise in your heart? 39 See my hands and
my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit
hath not flesh and bones, as ye behold me having. 40 And when he
had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. 41 And while
they still disbelieved for joy, and wondered, he said unto them,
Have ye here anything to eat? 42 And they gave him a piece of a
broiled fish. 43 And he took it, and ate before them.
The incidents of the day on which Jesus rose from the dead, as recorded by
Luke, form not only a sequence in time, but also move in logical order.
The empty tomb can be explained by no other theory than that of a
resurrection; but this was only negative proof. To it was added the actual
appearance of Jesus to two disciples on their way to Emmaus. Yet this was
not evidence enough. Some persons might believe that such an appearance
had been a mere vision, a phantom, a ghost; therefore, as Luke relates the
appearance of Jesus to the eleven disciples in the upper room, after night
had fallen, he lays stress upon the fact that Jesus appeared in bodily
form. When the disciples saw him they thought that they did see a mere
specter, an apparition, a spirit, just as many persons have thought, even
to the present day; but to forever dispel such a false impression, Jesus,
by every possible appeal to the senses, made it evident that he possessed
not an “immaterial,” or “spiritual,” or “celestial” body, but the
identical body of flesh and blood which on Friday had been crucified and
laid in the tomb; in that actual body, scarred by the cruel nails, a body
capable of eating food, a material body which could be touched and felt,
he appeared to his disciples. Moreover, he solemnly declared that he was
not a disembodied spirit; he showed them the wounds in his hands and feet;
he declared that a spirit does not have flesh and bones which they saw he
had; and finally, to remove every lingering doubt, he took “a piece of a
broiled fish” and “ate before them.” The appearances and disappearances of
Jesus after his resurrection may have been mysterious or miraculous as was
his walking upon the sea in the days of his previous ministry; but he gave
his disciples to understand by every conceivable, sensible sign that he
had risen from the dead in his actual, physical, human body. The theory
that the resurrection can be explained as a hallucination, a vision, or an
apparition is forever silenced by the testimony of Luke, the careful
historian, the intelligent physician. Upon the foundation of the
established fact of a literal, bodily resurrection, this superstructure of
our Christian faith firmly stands.