A Real Man Has Really Risen

Now, let it be known and understood that our faith is that those very limbs that lay stiff and cold in death, became warm with life again; that the very body with its bones, and blood, and flesh which lay there, became again instinct with life, and came forth into a glorious existence! Those hands broke the piece of honeycomb, and the fish in the presence of the disciples; and those lips partook of the same. And He held out those wounds, and said, “Reach here your finger, and put it into the print of the nails.” And He bared His side, the same side, and said, “Reach here your hand, and thrust it into My side and be not faithless, but believing.” He was no phantom, no spectra! As He Himself said, “A spirit has not flesh and bones as you see I have.” He was a real man as much after the resurrection as He had been before! And He is real man in glory now, even as He was when here below! He has gone up—the cloud has received Him out of our sight. The same Christ who asked Peter, “Do you love Me?”—the same Jesus who said to all His disciples, “Come and dine”—a real man has really risen from a real death into a real life! Now we always need to have that doctrine stated to us plainly, for though we believe it, we do not always realize it, and even if we have realized it, it is good to hear it again so as to let our minds be confirmed about it. The resurrection is as literal a fact as any other fact stated in history, and is so to be believed among us. “He is not here: for He has risen.”

A Visit to the Tomb, Sermon 1081 - Charles Haddon Spurgeon