Charles Ellicott Commentary Luke 24:41

"And while they still disbelieved for joy, and wondered, he said unto them, Have ye here anything to eat?" — Luke 24:41 (ASV)

While they yet believed not for joy.—We again note St. Luke’s characteristic tendency to psychological analysis. As men sleep for sorrow (Luke 22:45), so they disbelieve for very joy. What is brought before their eyes is too good to be true.

Have ye here any meat?—Literally, anything to eat, any food. Here again there is an agreement with St. John (John 21:5). A new crucial test is given of the reality of the resurrection-body. It could be no shadow or specter that thus asked for food.

This we all feel; but the further question—whether there was not only the power to receive food, but a life in any sense dependent upon the laws which govern the bodily life of men—leads us into a region of problems which we cannot solve, and on which it is profitless to dwell.

What seems suggested is a spiritual existence capable, by an act of volition, of assuming, in greater or lesser measure, corporeal conditions. We note how the Apostles afterwards dwelt on what had occurred as a proof of their Lord’s resurrection: they had eaten and drunk with Him (Acts 10:41).