Luke 24:40

Luke 24:40

Note:

I. The doubts of the disciples. There were some things respecting their Master which these disciples strangely doubted; and there were other things, which they as strangely, as it seems to us, did not doubt at all. They doubted whether He were risen, as some had reported; but they had no doubt that, if He were risen, all was well with them. They doubted whether those who said that they had seen Him were correct in their statement; but they had no doubt that, if these witnesses were correct in their report, theyhad no further ground for sorrow or doubt or fear. They doubted whether this person, who now stood in the midst of them, was really their old Master, Jesus of Nazareth; but they had no doubt that, if this were really He, they had abundant cause of rejoicing.

II. The Lord's way of meeting the doubts of His disciples. "He showed them His hands and His feet." His object in doing this was not only to convince them that He was no spectre, no shadow; but that He was the very Christ who had been crucified. The nail-prints were the proof, not only that He had died, but that He had triumphed over death; that, though "crucified through weakness, He lived again by the power of God." Strange as this kind of recognition, this way of fixing the doubted identity, may seem, it was satisfactory. The mother in the story knew her long-lost child by the scar on the shoulder received in infancy; so was the Son of God recognised by the nail-prints and the bruises of the Cross. He who raised Him from the dead, left these scars still visible, these marks of death and weakness, these memorials of the Cross and its nails, in order, by means of them, to speak to us, to give demonstration of His true death and true resurrection, that thereby we might be comforted exceedingly: nay, made like those of whom it is written: "Then were the disciples glad, when they saw the Lord."

H. Bonar, Short Sermons,p. 249.

References: Luke 24:40. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. v., No. 254; Ibid., Evening by Evening,p. 24.Luke 24:41. Ibid., Sermons,vol. vii., No. 425.Luke 24:44. A. B. Bruce, The Training of the Twelve,p. 582.Luke 24:45. Spurgeon, Evening by Evening,p. 19.