The Manifestation of the Risen Christ

Christ rose from the dead and was manifested to”witnesses preordained of God” (Acts 10:40). These witnesses were to make his Resurrection known to others.

No human eye was privileged to see our Lord in thefirst moment of his Resurrection. An angel was the herald of his rising glorious from the dead.

After the Resurrection, our Lord did not live constantly with his disciples. But he appeared to them repeatedly,and thus he proved two needful facts: the truth of the Resurrection itself, and the glory of the Risen Lord. Had our Lord lived withthe disciples as he had lived with them before his Passion, it might be thought that he rose to the same life as before.

On the very day of the Resurrection, our Lord appeared”in another shape” to the two disciples who werejourneying to Emmaus (Mark 16:12; Luke 24:13-16). After the Resurrection, Christ appeared in his own shape to some who were well disposed to believe in him, and in another shape to those who were prone to doubt. The two disciples on the way to Emmaus said that they “had hoped that it was he who should have redeemed Israel” (Luke 24:21). Their hope was, as their very words show, a thing of the past. Our Lord therefore showed himself to these disciples as he was in their own minds, that is,as a stranger.

Christ proved the truth of his Resurrection to his disciples, “to whom he showed himself alive after his passion,by many proofs, for forty days, appearing to them, and speaking to them of the kingdom of God” (Acts 1:3). Thus Christ strengthened the faith of the disciples, and supplied them with argument to use in carrying out their mission.

Our Lord’s proofs of his Resurrection were perfectly adequate. He made use of the testimony of the angels, and of the scriptures. He showed that he had a true and solid body, notan apparent body, and he identified this body by the marks of his wounds. In his risen body, he ate and drank with his disciples,heard them and spoke to them, and discoursed on the scriptures. Throughout the appearances to his disciples, our Lord manifested the reality of his body and also the reality of his human soul, for he used the soul-faculty of intellect-he reasoned. Finally, our Lord showed his power and glory by entering through closed doors,and by disappearing suddenly from the presence of his disciples.