Appearances & Impact of the Resurrected Jesus

After Jesus' resurrection, His disciples developed a strong conviction that God had raised Him bodily from the grave and that He truly was the Son of God, the promised Savior.

Late in the evening, on the day Jesus rose from the dead, Cleopas and his wife rushed back to Jerusalem and burst into the room where Jesus’ followers were gathered. They heard the others speaking. “It’s true! The Master has been raised up—Simon saw him!”

Cleopas said, “We saw Him, too!” and recounted what had happened on the road and how they recognized Jesus when He broke the bread.

As they spoke, Jesus Himself suddenly stood in their midst and said, “Peace be with you.”

Since they thought they were seeing a ghost, they were frightened. Jesus comforted them. “Why the fear? Why the doubts? See my hands? See my feet? It’s really me! Go ahead, touch me; prove I’m not a ghost. Ghosts aren’t made of flesh and bone like I am.”

Filled with joy and amazement, they stood there in disbelief. It all seemed too good to be true. So Jesus asked for food. They gave Him a piece of leftover fish, and He ate it right before their eyes.

That night, Thomas, one of Jesus’ closest followers called “The Twin,” was not with them. So some of those who had been there told him, “We saw the Master.”

But he replied, “I don’t believe it. I need to see the nail wounds in His hands, put my finger in them, and stick my hand in His side, or I won’t believe it.”

The next week, His followers were in the room again, but this time, Thomas was with them. Even though the doors were locked, all of a sudden, Jesus stood in their midst and said, “Peace to you.”

Turning to Thomas, he said, “Put your finger in the wounds in my hands; verify that they are real. Put your hand in the spear wound in my side. Don't continue in your faithlessness. Believe.”

Thomas responded, “My Master, my God!”

By now, many of Jesus’ followers had clearly seen Him more than once. They touched Him. They saw Him eat. He stood among them. They heard His voice. They observed His mannerisms and saw His wounds. They could say without a doubt that Jesus had risen bodily from the dead.

Twenty-five years later, Paul of Tarsus cited several sightings of the resurrected Jesus (including one time when 500 believers saw Him at once) as an integral part of God’s good news: Jesus died for our sins, was buried, and rose on the third day all in accordance with the Writings of God’s prophets. He went on to say that he (Paul) saw Him as well. For them, there is no question: Jesus died but is now alive.

When Thomas exclaimed, “My Master, my God!” almost 2,000 years ago, he was declaring his transformation from skepticism to a belief not only in Jesus’ resurrection but in His deity. Jesus responded with a benediction for future hearers of this good news: “You believe because you saw me with your eyes, Thomas. Blessed are those who believe without seeing me.”

John, one of Jesus’ closest followers, wrote a book about Him so that his readers would “believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God and that by believing, may have life in His name.” Thomas and the others saw, touched, heard, and believed. Those who did not have that privilege down through the centuries have based their belief on the New Testament writers’ proclamations, Old Testament prophecies fulfilled, Jesus’ claims and miracles, and the fact that Jesus’ body was never found.