That which was from the beginning, that which we have heard, that which we have seen with our eyes, that which we saw, and our hands touched, concerning the Word of life
and our hands have handled: After the glorious resurrection of our Lord, He appeared unto his disciples, saying, "Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have" (Luke 24:39). Perhaps John is remembering that sacred occasion when he asserts that they had "handled" or touched Christ. Jesus was not a phantom, a totally spiritual being who could not be touched; He was a real human being with a physical body. Wuest says, "Our Lord’s proof to the disciples that He was raised in the physical body in which He died was based on the scientific evidence of their sense of touch" (1 John 92). The apostles utilized three of the bodily senses in determining the reality of Jesus’ humanity: hearing, seeing, and feeling. Jesus was as real as the apostles’ ears, eyes, and hands. What more proof would one want? Twelve men, who had nothing to gain and everything to lose by lying, hazarded their lives in attesting to the reality of the incarnation of Jesus in human flesh. How can Cerinthus and the other Gnostics reply to this eyewitness testimony? John echoes Peter: "For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty" (2 Peter 1:16).