Jesus Appears to the Eleven

Biblical Christianity affirms that Jesus is the divine person of the Son of God who united to Himself a true human nature possessing both a body and a soul. Since the incarnation, the eternal Son of God has possessed both a divine nature and a human nature. Evidence for His true humanity can be found throughout the New Testament. For example, our Lord’s commending of His spirit to God at His death testifies to His having a true human soul (Luke 23:46). Matthew Henry comments on our Savior’s asking God to receive His spirit: “By this it appears that our Lord Jesus, as he had a true body, so he had a reasonable soul.”

Proof that Jesus’ human nature includes a true human body is present throughout Scripture as well. Today’s passage in particular shows that Jesus had a true physical body before He died and that this physical body was resurrected so that the Son of God will remain incarnate forever. Luke 24:36 tells us that while the Emmaus disciples were conversing with the Eleven about how Jesus had appeared to several of His followers after His death, our Savior Himself appeared (vv. 33–35). At first, the gathered disciples thought that they were seeing a ghost, but Jesus sought to assuage their fears by calling them to look at His hands and feet and to touch His body to see that He was standing there in the flesh (vv. 37–39). Most likely, Jesus was telling them to look at His extremities to see the marks made by the nails that had been used to affix Him to the cross. The existence of such marks would prove that the body they saw and touched was the very body that had been nailed to the cross, now restored to life.

Despite seeing and touching our Lord’s physical flesh, the disciples still doubted that it was really Him, risen from the dead. Instead of rebuking them, however, Jesus asked for something to eat and then consumed a piece of broiled fish. Mere spirits do not eat, so this further showed that Jesus was and remains a living and breathing human being (vv. 40–43). Henry writes, “Jesus Christ was no spirit or apparition, but had a true and real body, even after his resurrection.”

Jesus has united Himself to the humanity of His people forever, all for the sake of our eternal salvation. The ancient historian of the English church known as the Venerable Bede comments that the Son of God “became incarnate, suffered, and was raised from the dead . . . to lead us, who had incurred God’s anger by sinning, back to God’s peace by his act of reconciliation.”