After Jesus’ appearance to His disciples on the Sunday evening of His resurrection, a full week passed before He appeared to them again, this time while Thomas was with them. He was absent when Jesus had earlier appeared to them, and as had been their own reaction to Mary Magdalene and the two on the road to Emmaus when these reported that they had met the risen Lord, so was Thomas’ reaction now to them: their words appeared as nonsense to him, and he refused to believe it. He wasn’t superstitious or unscientific, and understood the fearful reality of death as something from which mortal life cannot escape once firmly within its jaws, of which Jesus’ life surely was, having been so brutally put to death and His life fluids drained from Him. That fear of death was what the devil had used to subject men to slavery (Heb 2:15), and was what perhaps kept Thomas from being among the others when Jesus first appeared to them; see Mat 26:31, Mar 14:50, Joh 20:19. Consequently, unless he saw and touched the imprints of the nails in His hands and feet and could put his hand into His side that the soldier had pierced, he would not believe that it was actually Jesus whom they had seen. The others were born again during that first appearance when He breathed on them His resurrection Spirit, so it is perhaps significant that it was on the eighth day when a child was circumcised and the firstborn given to the Lord that He appeared to them again. For they were now the firstborn of the Firstborn from the dead, a new creation, a holy and pleasing sacrifice acceptable to God; Lev 22:27. It was also on the eighth day after a week of ordination that Aaron and his sons began their official duties as priests to the Lord. For Jesus’ disciples were now to be a holy and royal priesthood; 1Pe 2:5,9.
On that eighth day when Jesus appeared again it was likely in Galilee, not Jerusalem. For He had commanded them to leave for Galilee (Mat 28:10,16), and they would have felt safer in their home surroundings than in the city of their enemies who had crucified their Lord. It was also as before, the doors locked, perhaps still as an indication of their fear, but especially to indicate the supernatural nature of Jesus’ resurrection body, the sudden appearance of which would have been just as startling to Thomas as it was to the rest of them over a week earlier; Luk 24:37-38. After speaking a word of peace to them to calm their fears, what did Jesus then speak directly to Thomas? See Joh 20:27. Although Thomas and the other disciples imagined Jesus wasn’t there earlier when they were trying to convince him that they had seen the Lord and he had refused to believe it, what does His knowledge of their conversation indicate about His actual presence with them? How is that presence not unlike the omniscient, omnipresent nature of God? How did Thomas then appropriately respond to reflect this understanding? See Joh 20:28. How was his confession even greater than that of the other disciples, whose experience firmly established for them Jesus’ resurrection? Who else did John record expressing a similar confession of Christ’s divine nature in response to a similar display of supernatural knowledge? See Joh 1:48-49.
What might Jesus’ words to Thomas to bring his hand and put it into His side, which had been pierced by the soldier, indicate about His resurrection body? Although it was physically real and able to be touched, should we imagine that while manifested in their presence His resurrection body was otherwise just like our mortal bodies? Cf. Luk 24:39 where instead of flesh and blood as is the common way to describe mortal man (see Mat 16:17, Gal 1:16, Eph 6:12, Heb 2:14), Jesus describes His body as flesh and bones. While the soul or life of mortal flesh, whether of man or animals, is in the blood (Lev 17:11), should we necessarily assume that the soul / life of Jesus’ immortal body after His resurrection must also be identified with blood in that body, as if it could be poured out again? See 1Co 15:50; cf. Luk 20:36. Is the soul / life of Jesus that was clearly identified with His physical blood as a mortal man necessarily still bound up in blood that flows through His resurrection body as He sits at the right hand of God? Cf. Heb 9:11-14. Where in particular do we see the life of Jesus manifested today? Cf. Joh 6:53-56,63, 1Co 10:16-17, 12:12-14,20,27, 2Co 4:10-11. Just as our blood brings life to every part of our physical body as it flows through it, in some metaphysical way does not the blood of Christ, the very life of Jesus, that was poured out for our salvation bring life to each part of His body, the Church, of which we are a part? Cf. Heb 9:14, 1Pe 1:2, 1Jo 1:7. Is it possible then that Thomas really was able to put his hand into the pierced side of the resurrection body of Jesus because the nature of that immortal body was necessarily different from our mortal bodies? In particular, is it possible that that manifestation of His resurrection body lacked blood, because the life-blood of His mortal body had been poured out to become the life-blood of His spiritual body, the Church?