John 20:19-23
Jesus Appears to His Disciples
19 On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” 20 After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.
21 Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” 22 And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”
Matthew 28:9
Jesus Disciples Touch Him
9 Suddenly Jesus met them. "Greetings," he said. They came to him, clasped his feet and worshiped him.
Luke 24:38-39
Jesus Asks His Disciples To Touch Him and Quit Doubting
38 He said to them, "Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? 39 Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have."
John 20:24-29
Thomas Touches the Resurrected Jesus
24 Now Thomas (also known as Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. 25 So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!”
But he said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”
26 A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” 27 Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.”
28 Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!”
29 Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
Genesis 3:1-24
The Fall of Man
1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?"
2 The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.' "
4 "You will not surely die," the serpent said to the woman. 5 "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."
6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the LORD God called to the man, "Where are you?"
10 He answered, "I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid."
11 And he said, "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?"
12 The man said, "The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it."
13 Then the LORD God said to the woman, "What is this you have done?"
The woman said, "The serpent deceived me, and I ate."
14 So the LORD God said to the serpent, "Because you have done this,
"Cursed are you above all the livestock
and all the wild animals!
You will crawl on your belly
and you will eat dust
all the days of your life.
15 And I will put enmity
between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and hers;
he will crush your head,
and you will strike his heel."
16 To the woman he said,
"I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing;
with pain you will give birth to children.
Your desire will be for your husband,
and he will rule over you."
17 To Adam he said, "Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, 'You must not eat of it,'
"Cursed is the ground because of you;
through painful toil you will eat of it
all the days of your life.
18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
and you will eat the plants of the field.
19 By the sweat of your brow
you will eat your food
until you return to the ground,
since from it you were taken;
for dust you are
and to dust you will return."
20 Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living.
21 The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. 22 And the LORD God said, "The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever." 23 So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken.24 After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.
Touching Jesus after His death, is evidence that He was, in fact, resurrected by His Father...And although the disciples did doubt that He would rise and live again (after He had died), He did...The above are accounts that Jesus was touched or asked His Disciples to touch Him after His resurrection...
Thomas did not believe Jesus had resurrected...Thomas actually wanted to physically see and touch His actual wounds and nail marks in His hands...He wanted to put his finger into Jesus' nail wounds and into His side where He had been speared, while on the cross...Jesus appeared to His disciples a week after Thomas had said these things and He said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see My hands...Reach out your hand and put it into My side...Stop doubting and believe.”...His wounds were real...
The wounds that Thomas touched on our LORD's body show that the world is wounded...They were wounded when Adam and Eve fell from grace in the Garden of Eden...For us to get back to the garden, we need His touch and His power of healing...
By touching Jesus, Thomas and the others now knew our lives are not random, and we do not live in vain -and then just die...By touching Him they felt something greater...But not only did they touch Him, He had touched their lives in a major way...His resurrection gave them the power and courage to be different...They were (at first) hiding behind locked doors for fear that the Jewish Leaders would be looking for them...They were His students and His Original Disciples...Their lives were dramatically touched and changed after His resurrection...They now would no longer hide and they would go on to do Acts as His Apostles...The major event of the resurrection changed the way they lived...They had to tell people about Him, and they did...He still lived, they would tell people...They now knew they had seen the Living Truth...
When Thomas touched Jesus, He had scars and indentations in His healed skin...His scars and indentations showed His sufferings on the cross...But He had died...And even though He died His skin continued to live and become healed...His wounds were not open and unhealed, when He met with His disciples...This wounded world can be healed...One day we will be back to the Paradise of Heaven...God will heal this world through His Son Jesus...