<p>24:39 <i>See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Handle me and see For a ghost has not flesh and bones, as you see me having</i>- See on 1 Cor. 5:5. He is concerned at their excusing their lack of faith in Him by their various wrong ideas about disembodied existence. Here we see how theological error, such as belief in ghosts or an immortal soul, leads us away from simple faith.</p><p>Note that whilst flesh and <i>blood</i> cannot inherit the Kingdom, the risen, immortal&nbsp;Lord Jesus described Himself as flesh and <i>bones.</i> In fact, we find that &quot;flesh and bones&quot; &nbsp; are often paralleled (Gen. 2:23; Job 10:11; 33:21; Ps. 38:3; Prov. 14:30), and simply mean 'the person', or as the Lord put it on that occasion, &quot;I myself&quot;. We ourselves will be in the Kingdom, with similar personalities we have now that's a very challenging thought of itself. &quot;Flesh&quot; doesn't necessarily have to refer, in every instance, to something condemned. Who we are now is who we will essentially be in the eternity of God's Kingdom. Let's not allow any idea that somehow our flesh / basic being is so awful that actually, the essential &quot;I myself&quot; will be dissolved beneath the wrath of God at the judgment. The Lord is &quot;the saviour of the body&quot; and will also save our &quot;spirit&quot; at the last day; so that we, albeit with spirit rather than blood energizing us, will live eternally. Understanding things this way enables us to perceive more forcefully the eternal importance of who we develop into as persons, right now. The Buddhist belief that we will ultimately not exist, that such 'Nirvana' is the most wonderful thing to hope for, appears at first hearing a strange 'hope' to be shared by millions of followers. But actually, it's the same essential psychology as that behind the idea that 'I' will not exist in the Kingdom of God, I will be given a new body, person and character. It's actually saying the same- I won't exist. And it's rooted in a terribly low self-image, a dis-ease with ourselves, a lack of acceptance of ourselves as the persons whom God made us and develops us into. Whilst of course our natures will be changed, so that we can be immortal, it is <i>we</i> who will be saved; our body will be resurrected, made new, and our spirit &quot;saved&quot; in that day, reunited with our renewed and immortal bodies. We have eternal life in the sense that who we are now, in spiritual terms, is who we will eternally be. Our spirit, the essential us, is in this sense immortal; it&rsquo;s remembered with the Lord. In this sense, not even death itself, nor time itself, can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ (Rom. 8:35-39). Just as we still love someone after they have died, remembering as they do who they were and still are to us, so it is with the love of God for the essential us. Hence 1 Pet. 3:4 speaks of how a &ldquo;gentle and calm disposition&rdquo; or spirit is in fact &ldquo;imperishable&rdquo; (NAB)- because that spirit of character will be eternally remembered. This is why personality and character, rather than physical works, are of such ultimate and paramount importance. How we speak now is in a way, how we will eternally speak- I think that's the idea of Prov. 12:19: &quot;The lip of truth shall be established for ever: but a lying tongue is but for a moment&quot;. Our &quot;way&quot; of life and being is how we will eternally be- and for me that solves the enigma of Prov. 12:28: &quot;In the way of righteousness is life; and in the pathway thereof there is no death&quot;. In Jeremiah 18, God likens Himself to a potter working with us the clay. We can resist how He wants us to be, and He can make us into something else... we are soft clay until the 'firing'; and the day of firing is surely the day of judgment. The implication is that in this life we are soft clay; but the day of judgment will set us hard as the persons we have become, or have been made into, in this life.</p><p>The disciples thought the resurrected Christ was a spirit, a ghost. They returned to their old superstitions. Yet He didn&rsquo;t respond by lecturing them about the death state or that all existence is only bodily, much as He could have done. Instead He adopted for a moment their position and reasoned from it: &ldquo;A spirit has not flesh and bones as you see me have&rdquo;. The essence of His concern was their doubt in Him and His resurrection, rather than their return to wrong superstitions.</p>