But they were startled and frightened and thought they saw a spirit.
37. And they were terrified and affrighted. John does not mention this terror; but as he also says that Christ showed his hands and sides to the disciples, we may conjecture that some circumstance had been omitted by him. Nor is it at all unusual with the Evangelists, when they aim at brevity, to glance only at a part of the facts.
Five times Christ was seen the same day that he rose: by Mary Magdalene alone in the garden (Joh 20:14), by the women as they were going to tell the disciples (Mat 28:9), by Peter alone, by the two disciples going to Emmaus, and now at night by the eleven, of which we have an account in these verses, as also Joh 20:19. Observe, 1.
Commenting on Luke 24:36-49
Behold my hands, and my feet,.... The Evangelist John adds, "and side"; that is, the prints of the nails and spear, in his hands, and feet, and side; and the wounds they made there, and the scars they left behind; by which they might be convinced he was not a spirit, and be assured of the truth of his resurrection, and that in the same...