John 20:19-31
Today I would like to discuss the topic of
doubt. We can learn many things about
this subject by observing this episode between Jesus and Doubting Thomas; but
first, let’s look at the context. Verse
19 tells us that it was the evening of the first day. This was the Sunday on which Jesus was
resurrected. The first 18 verses of this
passage describe for us Mary’s encounter with the empty tomb. Upon finding the tomb empty, Mary immediately
went and alerted Peter and John, who ran to the tomb and investigated. Surely enough, all that was left in the tomb
was the burial cloths of Jesus. Peter
and John went home without seeing Jesus at that time. Mary, however, stayed by the tomb weeping and
Jesus appeared to her.
Mary went and told the disciples that she
had seen Jesus. Can you imagine the joy
they would have had? Their crucified
Teacher had arisen from the dead! There had
probably been some confusion over the empty tomb. The disciples may have wondered if someone
had stolen the body or something like that.
Mary’s news certainly came as a comfort.
That evening, the disciples assembled. We do not know exactly why they were meeting
together. They were probably discussing
the events of the previous weekend and praising God for Jesus’s
resurrection. Whatever they were doing,
they were doing so under the protection of dark and inside closed doors. The Jews had just put their Teacher and
Savior to death, and would probably try to punish His followers as well. Besides that, the Jews would probably try to
blame somebody for the empty tomb, and His disciples were the obvious choice.
Suddenly, Jesus appeared in their
midst. Some have conjectured that this
means that Jesus, in His resurrected body, was capable of phasing—that is,
walking through solid objects such as walls and doors. The passage does not indicate that,
however. It simply says that He appeared
in their midst. It does not take the
time to say how he did so. He probably
walked through the door. Walking through
the door isn’t really that interesting, which is why John doesn’t take the time
to explain that in great detail. If
Jesus had walked through a wall, I think John would’ve made an explicit note
about that.
Jesus greets them with the common greeting
of the Jews, “Peace be with you.”
Remember, Christ had been abandoned by His disciples on the night of his
death. Jesus was assuring them that
there were no hard feelings.
He showed them His hands and
His side, which still bore the marks of His suffering on the cross. He did this to prove two things: firstly,
that He was truly the man that they had followed for the previous three
years. He was no imposter. He was no look alike. Secondly, He did this to prove that He was a
man. He was not a spirit, or an
apparition, or a manifestation. He was
truly flesh and blood.
At this point we might wonder whether Jesus
was then in His glorified, resurrection body.
Some have suggested that Jesus’s body was later perfected and His scars
were removed, and that He maintained His wounds only longer enough to prove
that it was truly Him. People wonder
this because the Orthodox Church has always believed that our resurrection
bodies will be fashioned after Christ’s body, and that they will be free of
flaws. I, however, am of the opinion
that Jesus, even now, has those holes in His hands and feet, and that hole in
His side. I believe that we will behold
Him and see those wounds for ourselves.
Before Jesus left, He commissioned them and
breathed upon them, thereby granting them the Holy Spirit. He gives them a foretaste of the baptism of
the Spirit that they would receive some days later. He tells them that they would be arbiters of
forgiving sins, which is a topic that could fill an entire sermon by
itself.
In verse 26 we meet the main character of
our story—Thomas. Let’s take a few
moments to acquaint ourselves with this man.
Thomas was one of the 12 Disciples of Jesus. Most people know little or nothing about him
besides the fact that he doubted Jesus’s resurrection. There are a few other familiar passages that
involve him, however, that are not so negative.
In John 14:5-6 we find this familiar conversation between Thomas and our
Savior: “Thomas said to him, ‘Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?’ Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the
truth, and the life. No one comes to the
Father except through me.”
In John 11, we read of the story of
Lazarus. Jesus was going to travel to Bethany
Very little is known about the origins of
Thomas. He was known as Thomas and as Didymus. It was very common for Jews in the first
century to have a Greek name and an Aramaic name, Aramaic having replaced
Hebrew as their national language a few centuries before. Both John 11 and John 20 state that Thomas was
also called the Twin. That is a strange
choice of a translation, however. You
see, both Thomas and Didymus are proper names, meaning the Twin, Thomas being the Greek rendering and Didymus being the
Aramaic. It is assumed that Thomas was a
twin, though we are never actually told that he was, nor are we informed as to
who his twin might be. We do know that
Thomas died a martyr’s death on December 21st, 72 A.D. He was thrust through by a spear, just as His
Savior had been. He was probably the
only apostle to travel outside of the Roman Empire, having established a church
in India
Well, for some reason or another, Thomas
was not there with the rest of the disciples.
When Jesus was arrested, the disciples had been scattered. For some reason, Thomas had not met back up
with his fellow disciples. Perhaps he
feared the Jews too greatly. Perhaps he
was simply distraught at losing His master.
Whatever the cause, this teaches us that we can miss a lot when we aren’t
with our Christian brethren. Christian
fellowship is a major theme in the New Testament. It is a necessary part of the Christian
life. When we forsake the assembling of
ourselves together, we lose touch of the body of Christ. Refusing to be around your Christian brethren
would be like your eye shunning your hand.
It’s silly. It’s petty. It’s dangerous. I’m not just talking about going to
church. There are way too many people
who never miss a Sunday at church and yet have never really experienced the
communion of the saints. Fellowshipping
with your Christian brethren ought to be a lifestyle.
The disciples wasted no time informing him
of their Savior’s resurrection, but to their surprise, instead leaping for joy,
Thomas refused to believe them. Now, in
the Old Testament, it only took two or three witness to substantiate any story,
yet Thomas refused to believe ten of his closest companions. He did not doubt their sincerity. He knew that they had nothing to gain from
tricking him. What he doubted was their
credibility. They were not worthy of his
belief. He could not rest his decision
to believe on their witness.
I think this tells us a lot about Thomas
and about human nature as well. Thomas
refused to believe that Jesus had been resurrected from the dead because he
believed that that was impossible. The
concept of Jesus coming back to life didn’t fit into Thomas’s worldview, and so
he rejected it. Because he couldn’t
understand it, because he couldn’t wrap his head around it, he rejected
it.
We commonly do the same thing. We put God into our own little box. We define Him by human standards. We only trust Him when He follows the rules
of logic as we understand them. We only
rest in His will when we understand the reasons for what He is doing. That is not faith, however. That is just concurring about a good idea. We as Christians are called to a life of
faith, and that means following God even when we don’t understand what’s going
on—even when we can’t fathom where God is taking us or how He’s going to get us
there. Faith is trusting that God is
infinite and that we are finite and that His ways are immeasurably superior to
our own.
Too often when we are called to faith—an implicit
approval of God’s actions—we allow doubt to creep in. We just know that something is impossible,
and so we just know that God could never do it.
We begin to doubt whether God can change a heart or heal a body. We begin to wonder if God can really take
away a loved one’s cancer in a moment or resolve our business issues
overnight. Many times God doesn’t answer
prayer that dramatically, and so deep down we begin to define for ourselves
what is possible and what is not possible, and we impose those limitations on
God. Let me tell you something: God is
so much greater than we can even begin to understand. We can’t even begin to understand the
doctrine of the Trinity—the basic nature of our God. How can we begin to place Him in our own,
human boundaries? This is exactly what
Thomas did.
Thomas made himself the only standard of
truth. Sure, Jesus’s other ten disciples
had all told him that Jesus was alive, but that didn’t mean anything until he
verified it with his own two eyes. He
insisted that he would not believe that Jesus has been raised until he looked
upon Jesus with his own eyes. Not only
must he see Jesus, but he must also touch Jesus. He must utilize all his senses before he is
sure. How foolish! Thomas had no excuse. First of all, Thomas, along with the rest of
the disciples, had been told by Jesus time after time that He would die and be
raised again after three days. Thomas
should have been remembered Jesus’s words and rejoiced to hear them fulfilled! Secondly, Thomas should have believed the
other ten disciples. Jesus had
established the Disciples as the foundation of the Church, but apparently that
didn’t mean that they were trustworthy.
No, he must witness this for himself.
Verse 26 says that the disciples were
gathered together again, Thomas included, 8 days later. In the Hebrew mind, eight days later was what
we would call one week later. So, the
disciples gathered together again on the first day of the week. One would presume that they were probably in
each other’s company more often than once a week, but Sunday seems to be the
day that Jesus dignified with His presence.
We see this day established throughout the New Testament as the day of
commemoration of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Thomas made sure that he was with them this
time so that he could verify their reports with his own eyes and hands. Can you imagine the type of week he had? Imagine yourself in college. Imagine that you have a professor who is very
dear to you and to whom you have drawn very close. No, imagine that he died, but your fellow
students are telling you that he is alive again. Can you imagine the confusion, the
excitement, and the anxiety that you would go through while you waited to
confirm the reports? Well, Thomas was
causing himself needless strain, as Jesus subsequently told him.
This time, the doors were closed, and yet
Jesus came in. The ESV says that the
doors were locked, but the same word can simply mean closed, as many other translations render it. I think that this indicates that the
disciples were shut up for fear of the Jews, rather than implying that Jesus
made a habit of ignoring doors. Once
again, it does not say that Jesus walked through a wall or through a closed
door, although that is possible. After
walking with two of His disciples on the road to Emmaus, Jesus stopped at a
house with them. After He had broken
bread, He vanished. Speculation is
dangerous, so I’ll leave it at that.
Jesus walked in and greeted them just as He
had done a week before. “Peace be with
you,” he says. Immediately, He turned to
Thomas and invited him to see and touch the holes that had been left in His
body. He called Thomas to believe what
he had previously doubted. Now, let me
clarify two things. Firstly, doubt is
sin. We are called to child-like faith
in our Heavenly Father. We are called to
brotherly trust in Jesus Christ. We are
sinning when we do not fully commit ourselves to God. The first and greatest commandment is that we
love God with our heart, soul, mind, and strength. If we give our hearts to God but hold back
our minds, or visa versa, we are holding back from God that which He deserves
and owns.
Secondly, doubt is not the unforgiveable
sin. Doubting God leads to doubting
one’s salvation. Weak faith is just
that—faith. It is weak, but it is truly
faith. Jesus did not storm in and
reprimand Thomas for his disbelief. He came
to him gently and showed him His wounds.
He offered Himself to Thomas as proof so that he might believe. What a gentle Savior we have! What a generous Father we have! We have been given and are continually given
many signs from the hand of God. We have
been given a magnificent world that shows forth the power and beauty of our God. We have been given the seasons as a reminder
of the faithfulness of God. Praise God
that He continues to reveal Himself to us, despite our doubt and disobedience!
Our response to doubt must be the same as
Thomas’s. He says, “My Lord and my
God!” It does not say that Thomas took
Jesus’s invitation to touch His scars.
Immediately upon seeing Jesus, he responded in faith. We have here a clear confirmation of the
deity of Jesus. What kind of Teacher
would Jesus have been if He was not God and yet allowed His disciples to call
Him that? The fact that Jesus silently
accepted Thomas’s worship is a clear affirmation that He deserved such
worship. Jesus did not earn this deity,
as some cults suggest. No, the first
chapter of John makes it very clear that Jesus, the Word, was God from the
beginning.
Thomas acknowledged not only that He was
God, but that He was also the Lord, or Master.
He had been granted the Kingdom.
He had been given authority over all things in Heaven and on Earth, and
accordingly, deserved obedience and submission.
There are many who claim to respect the teachings of Jesus. They claim to be followers of His lifestyle
and morality, but they do not believe that He is their Master, that is, they do
not believe that He has a claim over their lives as a King. Jesus said, “If you love me, keep my commandments.” Jesus is no mere teacher. He is a sovereign ruler and He demands your
obedience. You cannot have Him as a
Savior or Teacher if you will not have Him as your Lord.
In verse 29 Jesus responds, “Have you
believed because you have seen me?
Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” The New Testament is clear on how Jesus felt
about people who would only believe after their standards of verification were
met. In Matthew 16:1, the Pharisees and
Sadducees come to Jesus and ask him for a sign from Heaven. They wanted Him to prove, to their
satisfaction, who He really was. Now,
they had witnessed His miracles, so they had ample proof of His divine origin
and mission, but hey had blasphemed the Holy Spirit by ascribing His handiwork
to the Devil. In verse 4, Jesus
responds, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will
be given to it except the sign of Jonah.”
In Luke 4:12, Jesus, quoting Deuteronomy, says, “You shall not put the
Lord your God to the test.” God does not
have to prove anything to us. He
deserves our respect and belief just by virtue of being God. A righteous and faithful generation believes
despite what seems like a lack of evidence.
Even in seasons of darkness and trouble, true children of God confide in
Him.
I’d like to spend a few minutes discussing
that last phrase of verse 29: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have
believed.” In the immediate context,
Jesus was probably referring to the other ten disciples, who had believed the
report of Mary Magdalene without requiring visual confirmation. Their faith was more pure, uninhibited, and
without reserve than Thomas’s. Even
though they had failed to recall Jesus’s own prophecies regarding His death and
resurrection, they believed that He was alive when Mary told them.
I think this phrase has a much wider
meaning, however. As I said before,
Thomas wound up many years later in India Roman Empire .
Now, Jesus was a very famous person.
Many people had witnessed His miracles and many had spread the news far
and wide throughout the Roman Empire . Thomas, however, took the Gospel to those who
had probably never heard of Him at all.
The possibility that the people of India
You and I are such people. We believe in someone that we have never
physically seen. We have never audibly
heard the words of Jesus Christ.
Certainly we have witnessed the power of the Spirit in our lives and in
the world, but we have not actually seen the holes in Jesus’s hands and the
wound in his side. Jesus tells us that
our faith is more blessed than that of Thomas.
Thomas swore that he would never believe until he saw Jesus with his own
eyes. Good thing Thomas lived in the days
of Jesus. Thankfully, he was able to see
and believe. I’m afraid there are many
today who are similarly skeptical. They
want God to prove Himself to them. They
want God to prove to their satisfaction that He is real. I tell you, friends, if you’re waiting for
Jesus to come and show you the holes in His hands, then you’re going to die in
your sin. When you finally see Jesus, He
will be your Judge and not your Savior.
I think that there is another relevant
application we can draw from this verse.
There is an epidemic in our country that is ravaging the Church. It’s called adolescence—that period in a
young adult’s life when he tries out all that the world has to offer. Young people are not only allowed, but
actually encouraged in many instances, to sow their wild oats. Their parents make excuses for them and their
pastors fail to shepherd them and watch for their souls. Many times, Christian youth end up leaving
the church for a period of time until they figure out that the world has
nothing that can satisfy their urges.
Sometimes they never come back.
Teenagers especially insist on learning everything the hard way. They refuse to accept their parents’ word for
it. They must see what the world is like
for themselves.
Well, I think we know what Jesus would
say. “Blessed are those who have not
seen and yet have believed.” I think it
is a great blessing to be ignorant of how life is outside of the communion of
God’s covenant. Now what I’m not talking
about is sheltering kids from everything.
I’m not suggesting that children should be locked in their rooms until
they’re thirty. What I am suggesting to
you, what I’m pleading for from the young people of this church, is that you
believe without seeing. Don’t tempt
God. Trust the word of those who have
ventured away from God and found the world to be an empty, shallow mistress. Don’t be one of those people who plan on
getting “right with God” after you’ve had your fun. Sin, even forgiven sin, has
consequences. Sin causes pain and
estrangement, not only for you, but also for those whom you trample as you
dabble in lawlessness. Don’t find out for yourself how unsatisfying the world
is!
In the final two verses of our passage,
John explains why it is that he had included these specific stories from the
life of Christ. There were many other
miracles that Christ had done, not only in the three years before His death,
but more specifically after His resurrection.
Why is it that these were the only ones included? So that we might believe, and that believing,
we might have life. Why are we given
this strange story about Thomas? So that
we might believe without seeing. The
purpose of John’s entire Gospel was so that we might have a trustworthy account
of the life of Christ so that we might believe on Christ and live.
John says something very similar in 1 John
1:1-4. He says, “That which was from the
beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have
looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life—the
life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to
you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to
us—that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too
may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and
with his Son Jesus Christ. And we are
writing these things so that our joy may be complete.” John is asking us to trust him. He is asking us to take his word for it. John heard Jesus’s teaching. He saw Him dead and alive once again. He touched our Savior’s resurrected body. He did all these things so that we might
believe, even though we’ve never had these experiences. Had the news of Jesus’s life, death, and
resurrection been lost in ancient history, we would have been condemned to a
life of hopeless ignorance. Jesus,
however, commissioned His disciples as witnesses of the Resurrection to spread
the hope of eternal life. John, for one,
made sure that he faithfully fulfilled his commission. We must believe his testimony. We must embrace the Savior whom he sets forth. We must take hold of the life offered in the
person and work of Jesus Christ.
We must not be like Thomas. Ten of his closest companions, the very men
whom Jesus called to be witnesses of the resurrection, all confirmed the same
news, and yet he would not believe. He
stubbornly refused to look outside of himself for confirmation. We do not have this luxury, my friends. If we reject the witness of the Apostles, we
will do so to the peril of our souls.
In conclusion, I’d like to share a few
thoughts about doubt and what to do about it.
Firstly, as I said before, having doubts does not mean that you are not
a Christian. It does mean that you need
to mature spiritually, but then again, we all need to do that. Secondly, I think that doubt is both a tool
of God and a weapon of Satan. Certainly
doubt is a weapon in Satan’s arsenal. He
seeks every day to sully the name of Christ and to weaken the foundations of
our faith. He has utilized science in
this endeavor, but he has also used liberal Christian scholarship.
I believe, however, that God also uses
doubt. He uses it to humble us by
showing us our weakness. He works
through our doubt to bring us crawling back to Him. The question is, when you have doubts, what
are you going to do about it? Are you
going to let them continually eat away at your faith? Or, by overcoming them, are you going to
strengthen your faith in Christ and your resolve to serve Him?
I offer to you three ways to react to
doubt. I have three m’s. Firstly, meet with the Lord in prayer. You’ll notice that that is my first
suggestion for just about everything.
Take your doubts to God. Be
honest about it with Him. He already knows
your heart. He knows your thoughts. Give them up to Him. Ask Him to strengthen your faith. Ask for forgiveness for doubting Him. Meditate on His character and love and ask
Him to move in your life freshly every day.
Secondly, meditate on the ways that He has
revealed Himself to you before. Read the
Bible. Read of His faithfulness to the great
saints of Scripture and throughout Church history. Think about the ways that He has revealed
Himself to you in the beauty and the power of nature, as well as in the
providences of your own life. Don’t
tempt Him. Don’t ask Him for a sing; think
of all the signs He has already given you.
Thirdly and finally, maintain Christian
fellowship, especially among those who are seasoned veterans in the army of
God. Older saints have many war stories
they can tell you from their own experiences.
They can tell of God’s faithfulness and communing presence. Share your doubts with them. Maybe they’ve been there. Maybe they’ll have just the words you need to
remove your doubts and replace them with joyful, peaceful faith.
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