The Greater Blessing Text: John 20:24-29
Introduction: The Idol of Empiricism
We live in an age that has made a god out of the five senses. The high priests of our secular religion chant the creed of "seeing is believing." This is the mantra of the empiricist, the materialist, and the skeptic. It sounds so reasonable, so scientific, so humble. But in reality, it is the height of arrogance. It is the creature telling the Creator the only acceptable terms under which he will deign to believe. It is man in the dock, with God on the witness stand, being cross-examined by a hostile attorney.
The story of Thomas is often mishandled. We have branded him "Doubting Thomas," as though his primary sin was intellectual uncertainty. But that is to read our modern therapeutic categories back into the text. Thomas was not simply a man with questions. He was a man issuing an ultimatum. He was not a humble seeker; he was a defiant holdout. His problem was not a lack of evidence; the testimony of ten of his closest friends, apostles all, was weighty evidence indeed. His problem was a rebellious heart that refused to submit to any authority but his own sensory experience.
This passage is therefore not a gentle commendation of asking tough questions. It is a gracious, yet firm, confrontation with the sin of unbelief. It is a story that demolishes the idol of "seeing is believing" and establishes the ground of all true Christian faith for all time: faith in the authoritative, apostolic testimony concerning the resurrected Christ. Jesus condescends to Thomas's weakness, but in so doing, He pronounces a greater blessing on all who would come after, on all of us who have not seen and yet have believed.
The Text
But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples were saying to him, "We have seen the Lord!" But he said to them, "Unless I see in His hands the imprint of the nails, and put my finger into the place of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe."
And after eight days His disciples were again inside, and Thomas with them. Jesus came, the doors having been shut, and stood in their midst and said, "Peace be with you." Then He said to Thomas, "Bring your finger here, and see My hands; and bring your hand here and put it into My side; and do not be unbelieving, but believing." Thomas answered and said to Him, "My Lord and my God!" Jesus said to him, "Because you have seen Me, have you believed? Blessed are those who did not see, and yet believed."
(John 20:24-29 LSB)
The Isolated Ultimatum (v. 24-25)
We begin with the setup. Thomas was absent, and in his absence, unbelief took root.
"But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples were saying to him, 'We have seen the Lord!' But he said to them, 'Unless I see in His hands the imprint of the nails, and put my finger into the place of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe.'" (John 20:24-25)
Notice the first critical detail: "Thomas... was not with them." Isolation is a breeding ground for doubt. Faith is a corporate affair. God has ordained the gathering of the saints as the primary means of grace for strengthening our faith. When you willingly separate yourself from the flock, you paint a target on your back for the prowling lion. Fellowship is not an optional add-on for the extroverted; it is a necessary bulwark against unbelief.
The other disciples give him the gospel. They give him the apostolic testimony in its purest form: "We have seen the Lord!" This should have been enough. The testimony of ten eyewitnesses who had spent three years with Jesus ought to carry some weight. But Thomas rejects their testimony wholesale. He sets his own terms, his own standard of proof. His statement, "Unless I... I will not believe," is the creed of a rebel. He demands a personal, physical, empirical verification. He wants to be the arbiter of truth. He will not trust the word of the community; he will only trust the data from his own fingertips.
This is a profound picture of the modern mind. We are told to "trust the science," but what is really meant is trust a certain kind of materialistic, empirical process that explicitly excludes the testimony of God. Thomas is the patron saint of all who say, "I will not believe in a Creator unless I can put Him in a test tube. I will not believe in the resurrection unless I can see the video footage." It is a demand for autonomy, placing the self at the center of all epistemology. But this is not how God works. He has established an authoritative witness, and our duty is to receive it, not to cross-examine it.
The Sovereign Intrusion (v. 26)
A week passes, and the disciples gather again, this time with Thomas present.
"And after eight days His disciples were again inside, and Thomas with them. Jesus came, the doors having been shut, and stood in their midst and said, 'Peace be with you.'" (John 20:26 LSB)
"After eight days" places us on the next Lord's Day. The early church was already gathering on the first day of the week to commemorate the resurrection. Thomas, to his credit, is back in the assembly. He may have been stewing in his unbelief, but at least he was in the place where the Lord was likely to show up. This is a lesson for all who wrestle with doubts: do not forsake the assembly. Put yourself under the preaching of the Word and in the fellowship of the saints.
And Jesus does show up. He comes while "the doors having been shut." This is a direct challenge to the kind of materialism Thomas was demanding. The resurrected Lord is not constrained by physics. He is not a resuscitated corpse; He is the firstfruits of the new creation. His body is a real, physical body, but it is a glorified body, operating by the laws of a higher reality. Jesus does not knock. He does not ask permission. He simply appears. He is sovereign over locked doors and locked hearts.
His greeting is "Peace be with you." For the disciples, this is a word of comfort. For Thomas, it is the prelude to a loving, surgical strike. It is the peace of the conqueror, the peace that comes after the decisive battle has been won. It is the peace that Christ purchased with His own blood, the very wounds of which Thomas was about to be confronted.
The Gracious Confrontation (v. 27)
Jesus immediately turns His attention to the one man in the room whose heart is full of turmoil, not peace.
"Then He said to Thomas, 'Bring your finger here, and see My hands; and bring your hand here and put it into My side; and do not be unbelieving, but believing.'" (John 20:27 LSB)
This is an act of breathtaking condescension and grace. Jesus heard Thomas's ultimatum, spoken a week earlier. The Lord of glory, who holds the universe together by the word of His power, stoops to meet the defiant demands of His creature. He quotes Thomas's own terms back to him. "You wanted to put your finger in the nail prints? Here they are. You wanted to put your hand in my side? Here it is."
In doing this, Jesus is not validating Thomas's method. He is exposing it. He is showing Thomas the foolishness of his demands by granting them. It is a loving rebuke. But the heart of the command is found at the end: "do not be unbelieving, but believing." The Greek is stark. Jesus tells him to stop being apistos (faithless, unbelieving) and become pistos (faithful, believing). This reveals that unbelief is not an intellectual problem to be solved, but a moral condition to be repented of. Faith is not a feeling; it is a command. It is an act of the will, enabled by grace, to submit to the authority of Christ.
The Great Confession (v. 28)
Faced with the resurrected Lord and His gracious offer, Thomas's unbelief evaporates. It is incinerated in the presence of glory.
"Thomas answered and said to Him, 'My Lord and my God!'" (John 20:28 LSB)
This is the theological climax of the entire Gospel of John. The book begins by declaring that the Word was God (John 1:1), and it ends with a disciple looking at the Word made flesh and declaring, "My Lord and my God!" The so-called doubter makes the most profound and explicit confession of Christ's deity in all the gospels.
Notice what Thomas does not say. He does not say, "Ah, the evidence is compelling. My hypothesis is confirmed." He does not give an intellectual assent to a proposition. He worships. His response is one of total surrender and adoration. And it is personal. He does not say, "You are Lord and God." He says, "My Lord and My God." This is the language of covenant. This is personal appropriation. This is saving faith. It is the transfer of ownership. Thomas is no longer his own; he has been bought with a price, the very price of the wounds he was invited to touch.
The text does not tell us if he actually touched the wounds. It seems most likely that he did not. The sight of his living, loving, and sovereign Lord was enough. The demand for empirical proof was shown to be the petty thing it was, and it was swept away by the tidal wave of revelation.
The Blessed Word (v. 29)
Jesus accepts Thomas's worship and then uses the occasion to establish the foundation of faith for the rest of human history.
"Jesus said to him, 'Because you have seen Me, have you believed? Blessed are those who did not see, and yet believed.'" (John 20:29 LSB)
Jesus acknowledges that Thomas's faith is real. He believed because he saw. But then Christ pronounces a greater blessing, a higher commendation, on a different kind of faith. "Blessed are those who did not see, and yet believed."
Who are these blessed ones? It is every single Christian from the day of Pentecost until the day of Christ's return. It is us. This blessing is for us. Our faith is not inferior to that of Thomas; in this one respect, it is superior. We have not seen the resurrected Christ with our physical eyes. We have not touched His wounds. Our faith does not rest on sensory experience. It rests on something far more solid and reliable: the authoritative testimony of the apostles, infallibly recorded for us in the Holy Scriptures.
This is not a commendation of a blind leap in the dark. It is a commendation of faith that trusts the designated witnesses. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of Christ (Romans 10:17). We believe because of what they saw. We trust their testimony. We stand on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus Himself as the cornerstone. To demand to see what Thomas saw is to reject the very blessing Jesus pronounces here. It is to say that God's chosen method of revealing Himself through His Word is insufficient for us.
Conclusion
The story of Thomas is our story. We are all tempted to set the terms of our surrender to God. We want proof on our own terms. We want a faith that fits neatly into our materialistic, scientific worldview. We want a God we can manage, a God who submits to our verification processes.
But the resurrected Christ will not be managed. He bursts through our locked doors, confronts our arrogant demands, and calls us to do one thing: believe. Believe not what our senses tell us, but what His Word tells us. The central fact of all history is that Jesus Christ rose from the dead. We have the sworn testimony of His chosen eyewitnesses. The evidence has been presented. The verdict is required.
And the only sane, rational, and saving response is to fall on our faces with Thomas and confess, "My Lord and my God!" This is not just a statement of fact; it is a pledge of allegiance. It is the end of our autonomy and the beginning of true life. And in this faith, a faith that rests on the testimony of the Word, we find ourselves among those whom Jesus Himself calls blessed.