I can't say Jesus went through a lot trouble to prove to Thomas.
I agree with you on that. However, I wasn't referring there to just the incident with Thomas and the fingers in Christ's wounds.
Jesus also had an encounter with one of the women at the tomb, with two disciples that he walked alongside and talked to over the course of miles, and with the Apostles with whom he revealed himself in his glorified body in several different ways.
I did use the expression "went to some trouble" and we might say that none of these things was really "a lot of trouble" for Christ, but he did make it a point to reveal himself in a number of different ways to a number of different followers of his and did so over the course of hours. Indeed, he went on to reveal himself to several hundred witnesses during the next weeks that led up to the Ascension.
I actually thought about mentioning Thomas sticking his hand in the wounds and decided not to. That doesn't prove whether Christ was flesh and blood when he ascended to heaven.
Why not? Are ghosts made up of physical matter like flesh? And of course the main point was to show that the person--in the same body--whom Thomas was looking at was the same one that was crucified on the Cross.
Well if you believe that flesh and blood is in heaven, that is a direct contradiction of what Paul said -therefore Paul must not be led by the spirit of Christ or at least some of his sayings.
Throughout my years I have heard ministers say that we have a *man* in heaven advocating for us and we'll say Jesus is flesh blood - then speak of Christ's glorified. And at another point in time give a sermon that flesh and blood cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.
Christ's body is the only one and he is God, so that's an obvious exception. Paul and those ministers were teaching about the status of and prospects for humans--all of their listeners, that is. But when the expression, "flesh and blood," is referred to in Scripture, it customarily means "mere" flesh and blood. It's not a lesson in biology or something that necessarily is about the nature of Christ's body after the Resurrection.
Consider this verse, for example--
“Jesus answered and said to him,
“Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven." Matt 16:17
It's quite apparent that the reference there is to ordinary, unredeemed people and what they might have said about the issue.
My belief is as long as Jesus was on Earth he used a fleshly body when necessary and a spiritual body when necessary.
If you want to believe that, you will, but the Bible doesn't teach it and I cannot think of a single Christian denomination that teaches it. That should be meaningful to anyone who wonders what the truth of this matter is.
