Recently in one of our Wednesday evening fellowships, we discussed this scripture from Luke. You are encouraged to read it before going further as you will need to know what is under consideration. Bear in mind that this incident occurred after Jesus was resurrected and had already appeared in different places to others.
First, we note that Jesus just suddenly appears in their company. This startles and frightens the group as they think they are seeing a spirit. Jesus must convince them otherwise so He shows them His hands and feet which have His wounds, and He eats a piece of broiled fish in front of them.
Contributing to their being frightened by Jesus’ appearance is also their struggle to understand the scriptures as the gospel writers noted in other places. Right after this (Luke 24:44-48), we see Jesus again affirming that He was to be raised from the dead on the third day, and that He had to help them understand the Scriptures about this.
So, here we have Jesus standing in the midst of these disciples following His resurrection. The question which we want to consider is this: In which body is He standing before them? And you might say, “Jeff, what do you mean?“ To answer that we must go to First Corinthians 15:20-23. In affirming the resurrection of the dead in general and Christ’s resurrection specifically, Paul states that Christ is the “first fruits” of those to be resurrected to life. I think that most of us know that Jesus has been the first and leads the way for the rest of us to be resurrected from death to life.
But we must move on to verses 42-45. (You may want to read those in between as well.) Paul explains for his questioners how the resurrection works. A perishable, natural body is placed into the ground. An imperishable, spiritual body is raised to life.
Now if Jesus’ resurrection followed this order, then He was resurrected in His spiritual body. This means He still looked pretty much like Himself, was able to eat, had flesh and bones (of some kind) and had little trouble getting around.
Which body? What do you think?