When Seeing is not Believing
Introduction
Our world has always been a world that seeks for some kind of physical evidence to prove a spiritual reality. It was true in the day of Jesus and it is certainly true now. Even among good-intentioned believers, there still seems to be an affinity for physical signs to prove spiritual truths. I believe this is at the basis of the letter I received once from a person in another city.
I believe that the heart of this individual is very good. He or she wants people to repent and have everlasting life. I agree with that! However, I do not need to look for a slanting of the sun in the sky or any other physical sign to tell me that what He said is true. People do not need signs, they need the Savior!
Turn to John 20:26-31. We have already (vs. 19-25) seen how our resurrected Lord changed the disciples' faith from fear to courage.
Now, let us see two more results from the power of the resurrection.
I. He Changed Unbelief To Confidence (vs. 26-28).
Why was Thomas not with the other disciples when they met on the evening of Resurrection Day? Was he so disappointed that he did not want to be with his friends? But when we are discouraged and defeated, we need our friends all the more! Solitude only feeds discouragement and helps it grow into self-pity, which is even worse.
Perhaps Thomas was afraid. But John 11:16 seems to indicate that he was basically a courageous man, willing to go to Judea and die with the Lord! John 14:5 reveals that Thomas was a spiritually minded man who wanted to know the truth and was not ashamed to ask questions. There seems to have been a "pessimistic" outlook in Thomas. We call him "Doubting Thomas," but Jesus did not rebuke him for his doubts. He rebuked him for unbelief: "Be not faithless, but believing. " Doubt is often an intellectual problem: we want to believe, but the faith is overwhelmed by problems and questions. Unbelief is a moral problem. We simply will not believe.
What was it that Thomas would not believe? The reports of the other Christians that Jesus Christ was alive. The verb said in John 20:25 means that the disciples "kept saying to him" that they had seen the Lord Jesus Christ alive. No doubt the women and the Emmaus pilgrims also added their witness to this testimony. On the one hand, we admire Thomas for wanting personal experience but on the other hand, we must fault him for laying down conditions for the Lord to meet.
Like most people in that day, he had two names: "Thomas" is Aramaic, "Didymus" is Greek, and they both mean "twin." Who was Thomas' twin? We do not know-but sometimes you and I feel as if we might be his twins! How often we have refused to believe and have insisted that God prove Himself to us!
Thomas is a good warning to all of us not to miss meeting with God's people on the Lord's Day. Because Thomas was not there, he missed seeing Jesus Christ, hearing His words of peace, and receiving His commission and gift of spiritual life. He had to endure a week of fear and unbelief when he could have bee experiencing joy and peace! Remember Thomas when you are tempted to stay home from church. You never know what special blessing you might miss!
But let's give him credit for showing up the next week. The other ten men had told Thomas that they had seen the Lord's hands and side, so Thomas made that the test. Thomas had been there when Jesus raised Lazarus, so why should he question our Lord's own resurrection? But, he still wanted proof, for seeing is believing.
Thomas' words help us to understand the difference between doubt and unbelief. Doubt says, "I cannot believe! There are too many problems!" Unbelief says, "I will not believe unless you give me the evidence I ask for!" In fact, in the Greek text, there is a double negative: "I positively will not believe!"
Jesus had heard Thomas' words. Nobody had to report them to Him. So, the next Lord's Day, the Lord appeared in the room (again, the doors were locked) and dealt personally with Thomas and his unbelief. He still greeted them with "Shalom-peace!" Even Thomas' unbelief could not rob the other disciples of their peace and joy in the Lord.
How gracious our Lord is to stoop to our level of experience in order to lift us where we ought to be. He granted Thomas his request as well. There is no record that Thomas ever accepted the Lord's invitation. When the time came to prove his faith, Thomas needed no more proof!
Our Lord's words translate literally, "Stop becoming faithless but become a believer." Jesus saw a dangerous process at work in Thomas' heart, and He wanted to put a stop to it.
It is not easy to understand the psychology of doubt and unbelief. Perhaps it is linked to personality traits. Some people are more trustful than others. Perhaps Thomas was so depressed that he was ready to quit, so he "threw out a challenge" and never really expected Jesus to accept it. At any rate, Thomas was faced with his own words, and he had to make a decision.
John 20:29 indicates that Thomas' testimony did not come from his touching Jesus, but from his seeing Jesus. "My Lord and my God!" is the last of the testimonies that John records to the deity of Jesus Christ.
It is an encouragement to us to know that the Lord had a personal interest in and concern for "Doubting Thomas." He wanted to strengthen his faith and include him in the blessings that lay in store for His followers. Thomas reminds us that unbelief robs us of blessings and opportunities. It may sound sophisticated and intellectual to question what Jesus did, but such questions are usually evidence of hard hearts, not of searching minds. Thomas represents the "scientific approach" to life- and it did not work! After all, when a skeptic says, "I will not believe unless-" he is already admitting that he does believe! He believes in the validity of the test or experiment that he has devised! If he can have faith in his own "scientific approach," why can he not have faith in what God has revealed?
We need to remind ourselves that everybody lives by faith. The difference is in the object of that faith. Christians put their faith in God and His Word, while unsaved people put their faith in themselves.
II. He Also Changed Death To Life (vs. 29-31).
John could not end his book without bringing the Resurrection miracle to his own readers. We must not look at Thomas and the other disciples and envy them, as though the power of Christ's resurrection could never be experienced in our lives today. That was why John wrote this Gospel-so that people in every age could know that Jesus is God and that faith in Him brings everlasting life.
It is not necessary to "see" Jesus Christ in order to believe. Yes, it was a blessing for the early Christians to see their Lord and know that He was alive but that is not what saved them. They were saved, not by seeing, but by believing. The emphasis throughout the Gospel of John is on believing.
There are nearly 100 references in this Gospel to believing on Jesus Christ.
You and I today cannot see Christ, nor can we see Him perform the miracles (signs) that John wrote about in this book. But the record is there, and that is all that we need. "So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." As you read John's record, you come face to face with Jesus Christ, how He lived, what He said, and what He did. All of the evidence points to the conclusion that He is indeed God come in the flesh, the Savior of the world.
The signs that John selected and described in this book are proof of the deity of Christ. They are important. But sinners are not saved by believing in miracles. They are saved by believing on Jesus Christ. Many of the Jews in Jerusalem believed on Jesus because of His miracles, but He did not believe in them! Great crowds followed Him because of His miracles; but in the end, most of them left Him for good. Even the religious leaders who plotted His death believed that He did miracles, but this "faith" did not save them.
Faith (evidentiary) in His miracles should lead to faith in His Word, and to personal faith in Jesus as Savior and Lord. Jesus Himself pointed out that faith in His works (miracles) was but the first step toward faith in the Word of God. The sinner must "hear" the Word if he is to be saved.
The ten disciples were changed from fear to courage, and Thomas was changed from unbelief to confidence. Now, John invites you to trust Jesus Christ and be changed from death to eternal life.
If you have already made this life-changing decision, give thanks to God for the precious gift of eternal life.
If you have never made this decision, do so right now.
"Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on him" (John 3:36).