Thomas

By Barnabas Piper

Scripture Reading: Mark 3:13-19, John 14:1-7, John 20:24-29, Acts 1:9-14

It is easy to look at the disciples and wonder how they could’ve been so slow to understand who Jesus was. How could they have any doubts about Him? He was right in front of them. But we have the advantage of being on this side of the resurrection, so we can see the whole story of Scripture. And some of us still have the propensity to doubt! Had we been with the disciples, we likely would’ve been just like them.

While Peter was the most bold and outspoken of the disciples, Thomas wasn’t afraid to express questions that made it hard for him to believe. In John 14, in the middle of the upper room discourse, Jesus was assuring His disciples that He would come again and gave His final encouragement and charge to them just before being arrested. Immediately after Jesus said definitively, “If I go away and prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to myself, so that where I am you may be also,” Thomas piped up with a question, asking how they could know where Jesus was going or how to get there (John 14:3–5). Jesus’s response leaves little room for doubt.

“I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will also know my Father. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”
—John 14:6–7

Twice in four verses Jesus made declarations of His lordship and about the way of salvation. Scripture defines faith as “the reality of what is hoped for, the proof of what is not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). This is where I see Thomas wanting to have faith but wrestling to believe in what he could not see. He was a disciple, one of Jesus’s closest friends for three years. He was with Jesus at His arrest and with the rest of His followers after His death. He was a true follower of Christ, but he still struggled to believe.

After Jesus rose from the dead and appeared to the rest of the disciples, Thomas was absent. When the other disciples told Thomas about their encounter with the risen Lord, Thomas said, “If I don’t see the mark of the nails in his hands, put my finger into the mark of the nails, and put my hand into his side, I will never believe” (John 20:25). Maybe he said this with arrogant defiance, but it seems more likely that he yearned to believe and simply could not. He had followed Jesus to the very end, but he did not know how to reconcile a man He saw die with one who had supposedly risen again.

So Jesus did what He does when seeking His beloved people: He gave Thomas reason to believe. He appeared again and showed Thomas His wounds. He didn’t leave any room for misunderstanding—with the same clarity that He had in the upper room.

“Because you have seen me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.”
—John 20:29

He was summoning Thomas, and everyone who reads these words, to faith. For His “righteous one will live by faith,” which is how He calls us to live (Hebrews 10:38).

We have the whole of Scripture, yet we still doubt. Like Thomas, we struggle to follow Jesus, who we forget is always with us (Psalm 46:1, Hebrews 13:5). And so Jesus’s words are for us too. He is preparing a place for us to be with Him (John 14:3). He is the way, the truth, and the life (v.6). And we are blessed if we believe without seeing, by faith.

Written by Barnabas Piper