1 Corinthians 6:14 “And God both raised up the Lord and will also raise us up by His power.”
Once Jesus had destroyed principalities and powers in the lower parts of the earth, He then ascended to the surface of the earth where He entered His body that had been lying in the tomb the whole time that He had been in the heart of the earth. The above passage of scripture confirms the truth to us that Jesus body was raised from the dead by the power of God, for it links that concept to the saints also receiving their resurrected bodied at the end of the age. And so the moment that Jesus entered His body, it was instantly transformed from a dead mortal body to the live spiritual body that He now inhabits.
Luke 24:36-43 “Now as they said these things, Jesus Himself stood in the midst of them, and said to them, "Peace to you." (37) But they were terrified and frightened, and supposed they had seen a spirit. (38) And He said to them, "Why are you troubled? And why do doubts arise in your hearts? (39) Behold My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself. Handle Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have." (40) When He had said this, He showed them His hands and His feet. (41) But while they still did not believe for joy, and marvelled, He said to them, "Have you any food here?" (42) So they gave Him a piece of a broiled fish and some honeycomb. (43) And He took it and ate in their presence.”
After our Lord Jesus was raised from the dead He did not immediately ascend to the Father. We know that because we have the account in scripture of our Lord appearing to Mary early in the morning on the day He was raised from the dead, in which Jesus told her that He had not yet ascended to the Father (John 20:17). It was essential for the Lord Jesus to appear before the throne of God completely unspotted from the world in order to present His offering for the sin of the world, which is why He would not allow Mary to touch Him that morning. Later that evening however, after He had presented Himself before God, Jesus once again appeared to His disciples and on this occasion He allowed them to handle Him. The reason that Jesus could do that was because His eternal sacrifice as the spotless Lamb of God had been accepted by God once and for all, and Jesus could now interact freely with His disciples. Clearly, we see from the above quoted passage of scripture that the disciples were having a hard time believing what they were seeing, because just three days earlier they had witnessed the Lord Jesus being killed on the cross and they had also witnessed his body being buried in the tomb. Now they had the Lord standing in front of them, appearing out of nowhere. Jesus knew the thoughts of incredulity that were going through their minds as they tried to process what they were seeing, and so He invited them to handle His body, put their fingers into the holes in His hands where the nails had gone through and hole in His side where the spear had gone through. We Know Jesus did this because Thomas who was not present on that occasion, stated that he refused to believe that the Lord had been raised from the dead unless he could also place his fingers in Jesus’ hands and place his hand in Jesus’ side. Eight days later Jesus appeared to His disciples once again and Thomas was present on this occasion, and Jesus invited Thomas to do exactly that (John 20:24-28). But we also see in the above passage that the disciples were still struggling to get their minds around what they were seeing, and so Jesus ate some food in their presence to help them understand that they were not seeing a ghost but rather the risen Lord in His resurrected body. As an aside, the holes in our Lord’s hands, feet and side will remain there for all eternity, as a reminder of the sacrifice that He paid for our redemption.
Michael E.B. Maher
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