Do you remember the occasion when Jesus returned to that upper room after his alleged crucifixion 'and saith unto them, his (disciples), Peace be unto you' (Luke: ) and his disciples were terrified on recognising him? WELL, why should they be terrified? When one recognises one's long-lost friend or one's beloved, the natural reaction is to feel over joyed, elated and one wants to embrace and kiss the hands and feet of the beloved. Why duid they get terrified? OK, the disciples thought they were seeing a ghost. But Jesus didn't look like a ghost. So why did they think that?
You see, the disciples of Jesus were not EYE-witnesses or EAR-witnesses to the actual happenings of the previous 3 days, as vouched for by St.Mark who says that at the most critical juncture in the life of Jesus, 'they all forsook him and fled' (Mark 14:50). All the knowledge of the disciples regarding their Master was from hearsay. Thay had heard that their master was HANGED ON THE CROSS; they had heard that he had GIVEN UP THE GHOST; they had heard that he was DEAD AND BURIED FOR THREE DAYS. If one is confronted by a person with such a reputation then the conclusion is inescapable; they must be seeing A GHOST. Little wonder these ten brave men were petrified!
To disabuse their minds from the fear that gripped them, Jesus reasonws with them. He said 'Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself:' To put it in colloquial English, this is how he told them; WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU FELLOWS, CANT YOU SEE THAT I AM THE SAME PERSON - who walked and talked with you, broke bread with you - flesh and blood in all respects.
Why do doubts enter your minds? 'HAndle me and see, for a spirit has no flesh and bones as you see me have' (Luke 24:39). In other words he is telling them: If I have FLESH and BONES, then I am not a GHOST, not a SPOOK and not a SPIRIT! Jesus is telling them as recorded in this verse, in Basic English, that what the disciples were asked to HANDLE AND SEE was not a translated body, not a metamorphosed body and not a resurrected body, because a RESURRECTED body because a resurrected body is SPIRITUALISED body. He is telling them in the clearest language hunaly possible that he is NOT what they were thinking. They were thinking that he was a SPIRIT, a RESURRECTED body, one having been brought bcak from dead. He is most emphatic that he is NOT!
Jesus himself pronounced that the resurrected bodies get spiritualised. In the Gospel of ST. Luke, Chapter 20, where the learned men of the Jews - 'the chief priests and the scribes with the elders' had come to him with a number of posers, and among the was one about a Jewess who had 7 husbands in turn, one afteranother according to a Jewsess custom, and in time all 7 husbands and the woman too died. The trap that the religious hierarchy was trying to spring on him ws: which one of the 7 husbands was going to possess the woman on the Other side - at the resurrection? Jesus debunked their false notion of th resurrection by saying that at the resurrection 'neither shall they die any more; (Luke 20:36) meaning that the resurrected persons will be immortalised. They will be not subject to death any more, omore hunger or thirst, no more fatigue. In short, all the instruments of death will be powerless against the resurrected body. Jesus continues to explain 'for they are equal unto the angels' ie SPIRITS.
To assure them further after having offered his hands and feet for inspection and verification that his was a materail, physical body, and that all their bewilderment and disbelief was unjustified, he asked his discipes: 'have you here any meat? (Meaning something to eat). 'And they gave him a piece of broiled fish and of a honeycomb, and he took it, and did eat before them' (Luke 24: 41-43).
What was Jesus trying to prove by all his demonstraions of wanting his hands and feet to be handled and chewing and mastication broiled fish andhoneycomb? Was all this a pretence, make-belief, an act or a drame? NO!!!!! Said Schleliermacher in 1819, Albert Schweizer records him saying, 'IF CHRIST HAD ONLY EATEN TO SHOW THAT HE COULD EAT, WHILE HE REALLY HAD NO NEED OF NOURISHMENT, IT WOULD HAVE BEEN A PRETENCE - SOMETHINGDOCETIC' (IN QUEST OF THE HISTORICAL JESSU P64).
Jesus is telling you in the most unambiguous lamguage that he is NOT A SPIRIT - not SPIRITUALISED, not a RESURRECTED person, and yet the whole Christian world believes that he was. Who is lying> You or him? How is it possible that you (each and every Christian) are reading your Holy Bible in your own mother tongue and yet eah and every language group is made to understand the exact opposite of what they are reading. How have you been programmed?
Please tell me as to who is lying? Is it Jesus or a thousand million Christians of the world? Jesus says NO! to his being resurrected, and all of you say YES!! Whom are we Muslims to believe, Jesus or his so-called disciples? We Muslims would rather beleive the Master. Did he not say: 'The disciple is not greater that the MAster' (Matthew 10:24).