# Luke 24.39

<!-- type: passage | created: 2026-04-26 | updated: 2026-05-28 -->

**Book:** [Luke](/codex/luke-the-evangelist/) · NASB95

## Verse

> <span class="rl-speech">See My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself; touch Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.</span> (Luke 24:39, NASB95)

## Immediate context (±2 verses)

**NASB95** ([NASB95](/codex/nasb95/))
> <span class="rl-speech">But they were startled and frightened and thought that they were seeing a spirit.</span>
> 
> And He said to them, <span class="rl-speech">'Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts?'</span>
> 
> **'See My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself; touch Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.'**
> 
> And when He had said this, <span class="rl-speech">He showed them His hands and His feet.</span>
> 
> While they still could not believe it because of their joy and amazement, He said to them, <span class="rl-speech">'Have you anything here to eat?'</span> (Luke 24:37-41, NASB95)

## Setting

- **Speaker:** the resurrected Jesus.
- **Audience:** the eleven remaining disciples gathered in Jerusalem; the immediate hearers include the two Emmaus-road disciples who have just returned to report their own encounter (Luke 24:33-35).
- **Location:** Jerusalem, in a private residence (probably the upper room).
- **Time period:** Easter Sunday evening, c. AD 30, the same day as the resurrection. The narrative chain: morning empty-tomb (24:1-12) → afternoon Emmaus-road encounter (24:13-32) → evening upper-room appearance (24:36-43).

## Theological reading

The verse is **the most explicit single-verse statement of bodily resurrection** in the Gospels. Three claims:

1. **Personal continuity.** *Egō eimi autos*, "it is I Myself." The risen Christ is the same person as the crucified Christ, same identity, same history. Not a different being inhabiting the same form; not a "spiritual" Christ alongside the physical Christ. *I Myself*.

2. **Physical bodily reality.** *Sarka kai ostea*, "flesh and bones." The risen Christ has *flesh* and *bones*, physical bodily substance. He is *touchable*, *seeable*, *eatable*, the verse-cluster includes Jesus eating broiled fish (vv. 41-43), which a non-physical body could not do.

3. **The categorical contrast, "a spirit does not."** *Pneuma sarka kai ostea ouk echei kathōs eme theōreite echonta*. Jesus *explicitly* contrasts His resurrection state with a *pneuma* (disembodied spirit / ghost). His body is not a spirit; it is *flesh and bones*. The disciples' first-instinct interpretation (v. 37, "they thought they were seeing a *pneuma*") is *explicitly corrected* by Jesus.

## Anti-docetism, the doctrinal centerpiece

The verse is the **most decisive anti-docetism text in the NT**. Docetism, the heresy that Christ only *seemed* (*dokeō* "to seem") to be physical, with no real bodily existence, was a major early Christian heresy (Cerinthus, Marcion, the Valentinian Gnostics, the Manicheans). Docetists held that:

- Matter is evil / inferior to spirit
- A truly divine being could not really inhabit material flesh
- Christ's physical presence was illusory; the resurrection (if any) was spiritual-only

Luke 24:39 *flatly contradicts* every docetic claim:
- Christ has *flesh and bones*, not just appearance of flesh.
- He is *touchable*, physical contact possible.
- He *eats* (vv. 41-43), physical metabolic process.
- He *contrasts His state with a spirit*, explicitly distinguishing.

The verse is therefore one of the load-bearing texts for orthodox Christology against docetic-Gnostic Christologies. The patristic anti-Gnostic literature (Irenaeus *Against Heresies*; Tertullian *On the Flesh of Christ*) cites Luke 24:39 extensively.

## The nature of the resurrection body

The verse contributes to the doctrine of the resurrection body, both Christ's specifically and (by extension via 1 Corinthians 15) the believer's eschatologically:

1. **Physical / material continuity.** The resurrection body is the *same body* (Christ shows the disciples *His* hands and feet, the same that bore crucifixion wounds, John 20:27).

2. **Transformed / glorified.** Yet the body has new properties, passing through closed doors (John 20:19, 26), recognizable yet not always immediately recognized (Luke 24:16; John 20:14-16). The resurrection body is *glorified*, not merely resuscitated like Lazarus's.

3. **The Pauline development** (1 Corinthians 15:42-49). The resurrection body is *imperishable*, *glorious*, *powerful*, *spiritual* (*pneumatikon*, meaning "Spirit-empowered" / "Spirit-animated," not "non-physical"). Same body, transformed.

The resurrection is not the abandonment of the physical for the spiritual; it is the *redemption* of the physical, bodily existence raised to imperishable, Spirit-empowered glory.

## Apologetic significance

The verse anchors:

1. **Bodily resurrection**, against ancient docetism, modern Bultmannian demythologization (resurrection as "mythical truth" in the disciples' subjective experience), and "spiritual resurrection" theories (the disciples experienced something real but the body remained dead).

2. **Anti-Gnosticism, anti-Manicheanism**, material reality is *good*; redemption includes bodily transformation, not escape from the physical.

3. **Eschatological hope of bodily resurrection for believers** (1 Corinthians 15:42-58; Philippians 3:21). The believer's hope is not a disembodied "going to heaven when you die" but a future bodily resurrection in transformed glory. Luke 24:39 grounds this with Christ as the firstfruits.

4. **Anti-mythicism / debunking-plagiarism apologetic** (per ris3n's note cluster). The bodily-physical resurrection of Luke 24:39 is *categorically different* from pagan dying-god myths, which typically involve seasonal-cyclical reanimation, spiritual-symbolic resurrection, or vegetative-cycle metaphor, not bodily-historical reanimation in transformed glory.

## Patristic / scholarly note

Ignatius of Antioch (*Smyrnaeans* 3, c. AD 110), the earliest patristic citation, explicitly cites Luke 24:39 against docetic Christology: "after His resurrection He ate and drank with them as one in the flesh, although spiritually He was united to the Father." Irenaeus (*Against Heresies* III.21-22, c. AD 180), Tertullian (*On the Flesh of Christ* 5; *Against Marcion* IV.43), Origen (*Against Celsus* II.61), Augustine (*Sermons on the Resurrection*) all use the verse against various docetic and Gnostic Christologies.

The verse anchors the credal affirmation: "I believe in… the resurrection of the body" (Apostles' Creed). The Reformation maintained this; the Westminster Confession 32-33 ("Of the State of Men after Death, and of the Resurrection of the Dead").

Modern conservative: N. T. Wright (*The Resurrection of the Son of God*, 2003), extensive treatment of bodily resurrection against modern revisionist alternatives. Gary Habermas (*The Risen Jesus and Future Hope*, 2003); Mike Licona (*The Resurrection of Jesus*, 2010); Murray Harris (*Raised Immortal*, 1985); Anthony Hoekema (*The Bible and the Future*, 1979).

## Key words

- [G4561 - sarx](/codex/g4561-sarx/), *sarx* (flesh), paired with bones
- [G4151 - pneuma](/codex/g4151-pneuma/), *pneuma* (spirit), categorically contrasted with the resurrection body
- *G3747 - osteon*, *osteon* (bone)
- [G0386 - anastasis](/codex/g0386-anastasis/), *anastasis* (resurrection), the theological category
- [G1453 - egeiro](/codex/g1453-egeiro/), *egeirō* (raise), the related verb

## Connection to other passages

- [Matthew 28.6](/codex/matthew-28-6/), the empty tomb / resurrection narrative
- [1 Corinthians 15.3-8](/codex/1-corinthians-15-3-8/), the appearances / pre-Pauline creed
- 1 Corinthians 15:42-49, Pauline doctrine of the resurrection body
- John 20:19-29, parallel evening appearance + Thomas's encounter ([John 20.28](/codex/john-20-28/))
- Acts 1:3, Christ "presented Himself alive… by many convincing proofs"
- Luke 24:13-32, Emmaus road; recognized in breaking bread

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## Quoted in

**Arguments and defeaters:**

- [Argument from the Narrative-Identity Convergence](/codex/argument-from-the-narrative-identity-convergence/), via [Luke 24.39-40](/codex/luke-24-39-40/)
- [Argument from the Resurrection](/codex/argument-from-the-resurrection/)
- [Argument from the Universal Burial Convergence](/codex/argument-from-the-universal-burial-convergence/), via [Luke 24.36-43](/codex/luke-24-36-43/)
- [Causal Adequacy Argument](/codex/argument-from-the-proportionate-causality-convergence/), via [Luke 24.36-43](/codex/luke-24-36-43/)
- [Modal Argument from Mind](/codex/modal-argument-from-mind/)
- [Nag Hammadi Suppressed Gospels Objection Defeater](/codex/nag-hammadi-suppressed-gospels-objection-defeater/)
- [Resurrection-Centric Growth Argument](/codex/resurrection-centric-growth-argument/), via [Luke 24.39-43](/codex/luke-24-39-43/)

**Concepts:**

- [Christianity](/codex/christianity/)
- [Crucifixion Remains of Yehohanan](/codex/crucifixion-remains-of-yehohanan/), via [Luke 24.39-40](/codex/luke-24-39-40/)
- [Hell and Eternal Punishment](/codex/hell-and-eternal-punishment/)
- [Incarnation](/codex/incarnation/), via [Luke 24.39-43](/codex/luke-24-39-43/)
- [Jesus Said](/codex/jesus-said/), via [Luke 24](/codex/luke-24/)
- [Oneness Pentecostalism](/codex/oneness-pentecostalism/)
- [Resurrection of Jesus](/codex/resurrection-of-jesus/)
- [Resurrection of Jesus - Minimal Facts Case](/codex/resurrection-of-jesus-minimal-facts-case/), via [Luke 24.36-43](/codex/luke-24-36-43/)

**Lexicon:**

- [G0386 - anastasis](/codex/g0386-anastasis/)
- [G4561 - sarx](/codex/g4561-sarx/)
- [G4983 - soma](/codex/g4983-soma/)
- [G5590 - psyche](/codex/g5590-psyche/)

**Passages:**

- [John](/codex/john-the-apostle/)
- [Luke 1.1-4](/codex/luke-1-1-4/)
- [Matthew 14.14](/codex/matthew-14-14/)
- [Matthew 19](/codex/matthew-19/)
- [Matthew 26.41](/codex/matthew-26-41/)

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_Scripture quotations taken from the **New American Standard Bible®** (NASB), Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995 by **The Lockman Foundation**. Used by permission. All rights reserved. [www.lockman.org](https://www.lockman.org)_