Why was jesus unrecognizable after the resurrection

First, just because the text says that the disciples thought they had seen a spirit when they actually saw Jesus Luke , does not indicate that He looked different. Since they knew He had been killed, seeing His resurrected body caused them to think that He was in spirit form rather than physical. Second, the reason the two disciples who were traveling on the road to Emmaus failed to recognize Jesus initially was not because Jesus had a different body, but because God had miraculously prevented them from recognizing Him.

A final person often mentioned as not having recognized the Savior allegedly because Jesus had a different body is Mary Magdalene.

John certainly testifies of her initial in ability to identify Jesus. As with the above cases, there is no indication in John that Jesus had anything other than His risen crucified body cf. There are at least four possibilities, however, as to why Mary failed to recognize Jesus right at first. Once all of the Scriptures are taken in to account, one can see clearly that Jesus physically rose from the grave in essentially the same body that was crucified on the cross.

Published May 26, I believe God was trying to convict these believers of their lack of faith. In other words, God was emphasizing to them their lack of belief. He caused them to be extra-thick-headed in order that when they realized what was going on they would be embarassed and deeply convicted of their lack of faith. The fearful followers of Jesus did not understand or believe that Jesus was to raise from the dead. God wanted them to be deeply moved and to deeply repent of their lack of faith.

When he, in my opinion, put a bit of a cloud over their minde, causing them to not even know who they were talking to, it caused them to be convicted to their soul when he opened their minds, both to see him, and to understand the full gospel.

It is a bit tough to know for sure how disfigured Jesus was after his resurrection. I have already given my view of the cause of their not recognizing him.

However, you may very well have something here. We have to speculate about how disfigured Jesus was, including partial loss of his beard and whether this might have caused them to not recognize them. You may have a point there.

This may be a factor. On the one hand, his wounds may have made him unrecognizable, but on the other hand, the fact that he had wounds also made him more recognizable because everyone knew the wounds he had just received.

In fact, it was the wounds he showed them which convinced the skeptical disciples John Another possibility is that in his resurrected body Jesus looked similar, but also different. He may have looked sufficiently different in his resurrected body that even close friends may have required a second look to realize who it was. First, by seeing Jesus again, the disciples knew he had actually been resurrected. Second, by seeing Jesus take different forms or materialize as different people just as the angels had done in the Old Testament , they knew he was no longer the man Jesus, but now Jesus had changed into a spirit being.

Other scriptures show that Jesus is no longer an earthly man. After his resurrection, Jesus also demonstrated the ability to appear within a locked room among the believers John and disappear right in front of them Luke