The Appearances after the Resurrection

John 20:19-31

GOLDEN TEXT: “I am alive for evermore.”—Revelation 1:18

AS THE news of our Lord’s resurrection spread among His disciples, it naturally drew them together seeking for fresh evidence respecting it. There no doubt arose the fear that in spite of all they had heard concerning the fact that Jesus had been raised from the dead, there might still be some misunderstanding concerning it. They also knew the bitterness of the priests, which while seemingly satisfied in the crucifixion of Jesus, would now extend to His disciples, especially in view of the news that was circulating to the effect that their Master had been restored to life again. No wonder, then, that when they met in the upper room that first Sunday night, the doors were shut for fear of the Jews.

Scarcely had the two from Emmaus finished their account of how Jesus had appeared to them and opened up to them the Scriptures, showing that the Christ first must suffer and afterward enter into His glory, when they saw a stranger standing in their midst. It was Jesus. He came into their midst, not by opening the doors, as some have suggested, but miraculously, “the doors being shut.”

This in itself is a clear proof that in His resurrection Jesus was not limited by human flesh as He was before His crucifixion. The disciples, of course, were natural minded men, the Holy. Spirit which came upon them at Pentecost, not yet being given; hence the only evidence of His resurrection that would satisfy their human reasoning was just that kind of evidence which Jesus provided.

Later they would be able to put together the various facts concerning His many appearances to them, and realizing that on each occasion He appeared differently than on the other occasions, they would know that they had not actually seen Jesus’ glorified and divine body, but that He had manifested Himself to them in the flesh, in order to converse with them and assure them of the fact that He had indeed been raised from the dead.

In I Corinthians 15:3-8 the Apostle Paul mentions the various appearances of Jesus and how He was seen of different ones following His resurrection, and then Paul concludes, “Last of all He was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time.” This is a reference to Paul’s experience on the Damascus road. He did not see Jesus in any of the various fleshly manifestations as formerly given to His disciples during the days immediately following His resurrection. Paul caught a glimpse of the Master as a divine being, and even this brief and probably obscured glimpse of the heavenly glory, cost Paul the loss of his eyesight.

Jesus explained that those who were born of the Spirit are able to come and go as the wind, that is, invisibly. In His resurrection Jesus was born of the Spirit, and that is the reason why He was present with His disciples for forty days yet only on a few brief occasions did they see Him, and then because He specially manifested Himself to them.

The Apostle John explained that the hope of the church is to be made like Jesus and to see Him as He is. John further explains that we do not know as yet what we will be like in the resurrection, only that we shall be like Him. Paul tells us in the text already quoted, that he saw Jesus as one born before the due time. What Paul means by this is that he caught a glimpse of Jesus’ glorious divine body as all the church will see Him when they are born of the Spirit in the resurrection. Paul had not yet been born of the Spirit; hence his glimpse of the Master’s divine body was as one born before the due time.

Jesus’ expression to His disciples that a spirit does not have flesh and bones as they saw him manifesting at the time, should not be understood to mean that the Master was not then a spirit being. What He meant was that a spirit body is invisible; hence what they were witnessing was not His spiritual body, but as He said, flesh and bones, which was the manner in which He manifested Himself to them, even as angelic spirit beings of Old Testament times on occasions appeared in human form to deliver messages.

The Golden Text (Rev. 1:18) presents a vitally important truth. In the full text Jesus not only gives assurance of His being alive for evermore, but declares that He has the “keys” of hell and of death. By virtue of His death as man’s Redeemer—the acceptableness of which was demonstrated by the fact that the Father raised Him from the dead—Jesus now has the legal right or authority to unlock the prison house of death and set its captives free. This He does on behalf of the church in the “first resurrection,” and later on behalf of all mankind.—John 5:28

QUESTIONS:

What lesson is taught by the fact that Jesus appeared to His disciples in so many different forms?

Explain what the Apostle Paul means by his statement that he saw Jesus as “one born before the due time.”

What is meant by Jesus’ statement that He has the keys of death and of hell?

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