---
title: John 20:27
url: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/john-20-27/
markdown: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/john-20-27.md
type: verse
perspective: Protestant (historic Nicene) response to Jehovah's Witness teaching
reference: John 20:27
testament: NT
section: Gospels
index: https://jw-apologetics.app/llms.txt
---

# John 20:27

## Text (Berean Standard Bible)

> Then Jesus said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and look at My hands. Reach out your hand and put it into My side. Stop doubting and believe.”

## NWT Wording of the Key Phrase

- NWT (2013 revision): "Next he said to Thomas: 'Put your finger here, and see my hands, and take your hand and stick it into my side, and stop doubting but believe.'"

## JW Usage

The Watchtower teaches that Jesus' physical body was either dissolved into gases or otherwise removed, and he was raised as a spirit creature — Michael the Archangel returning to spirit form. The Thomas episode is read as Jesus materialising a temporary body to convince his disciples, since a "real" spirit- creature resurrection would not have been visible or touchable. The crucial detail — that Jesus shows the wounds of his crucifixion — is taken as accommodation to weak faith rather than as proof of bodily continuity.

## Protestant Usage

Jesus invites Thomas to put his finger in the nail-marks and thrust his hand into his side. The body Thomas is asked to touch is the same body that was crucified — wounds and all. Compare verse 25 and verse 39 of Luke 24: "see my hands and my feet ... a spirit does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have." Jesus deliberately picks "flesh and bones" instead of "flesh and blood" — the Pauline idiom for mortal weakness — to make the contrast explicit. The risen body is real, physical, and continuous with the pre-resurrection body. If the body had been dissolved into gases, Thomas would have been touching a fabrication. Either Jesus deceived his disciples, or the Watchtower's spirit-creature resurrection cannot stand. And the next verse settles the chapter: Thomas, touching the wounds, cries out "My Lord and my God." Jesus does not correct him.

## Arguments Using This Verse

- [The Bodily Resurrection of Jesus](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/bodily-resurrection.md) — A spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have [Deity of Christ]