We saw him with our very own eyes. We gazed upon him and heard him speak. Our hands actually touched him, the one who was from the beginning, the Living Expression of God.
Then, looking into Thomas’ eyes, he said, “Put your finger here in the wounds of my hands. Here—put your hand into my wounded side and see for yourself. Thomas, don’t give in to your doubts any longer, just believe!”
See my pierced hands and feet. See for yourselves, it is I, standing here alive. Touch me and know that my wounds are real. A spirit does not have a body of flesh and bone as you see that I have.”
After the sufferings of his cross, Jesus appeared alive many times to these same apostles over a forty-day period, proving to them with many convincing signs that he had been resurrected. During these encounters, he taught them the truths of God’s kingdom.
Write the following to the messenger of the congregation in Smyrna. For these are the words of the one who is the Beginning and the End, the one who became a corpse, but came back to life:
saying to me: Write in a book what you see and send it to the seven churches: to Ephesus, to Smyrna, to Pergamum, to Thyatira, to Sardis, to Philadelphia, and to Laodicea.
Who achieved all this and made it happen? Who guides the destiny of each generation from the first until now? I am the one! I am Yahweh, the first, the unchanging one who will be there in the end!”
then how would we expect to escape punishment if we despise the very truths that give us life? The Lord himself was the first to announce these things, and those who heard him firsthand confirmed their accuracy.