Charles Ellicott Commentary Luke 24:39

"See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye behold me having." — Luke 24:39 (ASV)

Behold my hands and my feet.—This test thus offered to the disciples, like that afterwards given to Thomas, was to be proof for them that they were not looking on a spectre from the shadow-world of the dead. The Resurrection was a reality, not an appearance.

In St. John’s words, which our hands have handled (1 John 1:1), we have an interesting coincidence with the use of the same word here. The conditions of the problem must remain, however, transcendental and mysterious. There is a real corporeity, and yet there is a manifest exemption from the common conditions of corporeal existence.

St. Luke’s narrative presents an undesigned coincidence with that of John 20:25. What Thomas asked for was the evidence which, he had heard, had been given to others. Without that evidence he could not, he felt, believe.