The love of Christ: Thomas
Reach your finger here, and look at My hands; and reach your hand here, and put it into My side. Do not be unbelieving, but believing (John 20:27).
Thomas is listed as one of the Lord’s twelve disciples in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke. But it is only when we come to the Gospel of John that his character is filled out. When Lazarus falls ill in John 11, we learn that Jesus loved Martha and her sister Mary, and Lazarus their brother (v. 5). After two days Jesus decided to go into Judea. His disciples warned Him He endangered His life by returning to that area. Jesus tells His disciples Lazarus was sleeping and He would go to him to wake him up. They did not understand the Lord’s simple illustration of His greatest miracle, and He had to tell them plainly Lazarus was dead. And then we hear Thomas speak for the first time, not to the Lord but to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with Him” (v. 16). His heart was troubled and full of foreboding. He was a spiritual pessimist.
John 14 begins with the beautiful words “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me.” It was almost as though the Lord was speaking just to Thomas. The Lord had told the disciples about His death and resurrection more than once. He demonstrated He is the resurrection and life by bringing Lazarus back to life. The Saviour also said, “And where I go you know, and the way you know” (v. 4). But Thomas contradicts the Saviour, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” In extraordinary grace to His faithless disciple He replies, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” He used Thomas’s failure to give one of the great “I am” statements we find in John’s Gospel.
The Lord appears in resurrection to His disciples in John 20:19-23. But Thomas was not there. We sometimes criticise him for being absent. But perhaps the Lord allowed this so Thomas could respond in faith in the light of Jesus’ words in John 14. But that did not happen. Thomas’ reaction is shocking, “Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe” (v. 25, ESV). Thomas teaches us that unbelief is an action of our will. It is not that we cannot believe, but that we will not believe.
Eight days later the Lord appears again, and this time Thomas is there. The Lord’s first words were “Peace to you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Reach your finger here, and look at My hands; and reach your hand here, and put it into My side. Do not be unbelieving, but believing.” At that moment, Thomas’ troubled and disbelieving heart was humbled in worship, and he expressed words the saints of God have delighted to repeat down the centuries, “My Lord and my God!” Also at that moment, he understood as he had never understood before, that the Son of God loved him and gave Himself for him. The Lord also blesses us as those who have never seen the Lord yet have believed in Him. May the Lord bring His peace to our troubled hearts and assure us, even when our faith seems non-existent, and we feel we don’t have the experiences and confidence of other disciples, that He loves us. He wants us to rest and live in the power of that love by faith. Thank God for the story of Thomas!
