Doubting the truths of the Bible is seen as normal these days. One can read this in books and articles. Doubt and not-believing (the next step) are considered fully human in a time in which people no longer believe that anyone can know the truth. Thomas, one of the disciples of our Lord Jesus Christ, often serves as example of this human phenomenon of doubt. One can doubt the factual truths of the Word of God, for Thomas doubted the fact of the resurrection. Can doubting the truths of God's Word be good? Can one use the doubt and non-believing of Thomas as an example to defend our doubting? The answer to both questions has to be negative.

We shall first deal with the story in the Gospel of John where Thomas' doubting is mentioned. It will then become clear why we are not allowed to make use of Thomas' doubt to defend our doubt, and why doubting is sinful and wrong.

To begin with, in John 20:24-29 the apostle speaks about Thomas who did not want to believe that Christ Jesus had risen from the dead on the basis of the testimony of the other disciples. Thomas wanted to see with his own eyes.

However, we do not have here as such the story of “The doubt of Thomas.” This would be a wrong title. In the immediately following verses, 30 and 31, the apostle John tells us that,

Christ did many other signs in the presence of His disciples which are not written in this book, that is, in his Gospel, but, he says, these things are written in order that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that, by believing, you may have life in His name.

In other words, what John wrote about was the great works of Christ Jesus while on earth. Also in this little story in which Thomas with his disbelief has a place, John speaks about the work of Christ in the presence of His apostles. Christ is busy working the work of God. Here we have the story about Christ convincing Thomas of the truth, the true facts, concerning His resurrection in glorious newness. Christ did this and John wrote about it in order that we may believe. Let us give this story a closer look.

In the early evening of the day of His resurrection, Christ had appeared in the midst of the disciples while Thomas, presented here as one of the Twelve, was not present. The other disciples told him: “We have seen the Lord.” This implied that He rose from the dead and was alive. Thomas reacted with stubborn unbelief. He did not want to be convinced by the testimony of the others. He wanted to see for himself, and not just see, but also touch and feel the marks of the wounds. It had to be absolutely clear to him that what the others had seen was not a vision, not a spirit, or something of that nature. For how is it possible that a real person, with a true physical body that can be seen and touched, can be in a room one moment and can be gone the next moment? How is it possible that a real person of flesh and bones can just appear and disappear while all the doors are locked? To Thomas it sounded very much like the others had seen a vision or a spirit.

On the first day of the next week, the disciples were again in the house. This time Thomas was with them. Again the Lord Jesus entered while the doors were locked and suddenly He stood in their midst and said: “Peace to you.” Immediately after this salutation of peace (this is the impression which the text gives) Christ came to Thomas with the message of peace, and thus with the peace itself. The purpose is clear: Thomas had to be convinced. Thomas had to believe in Christ Jesus as the risen One.

To reach that goal, the Lord said to Thomas: “Put your finger here, and see my hands.” Thomas had said to the other disciples:

If I do not see in His hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger in the mark of the nails, I will not believe.

Seeing was not enough. It had to be accompanied by touching and feeling the mark. In answer to this demand of Thomas, the Lord now told him to do exactly those things, though in a reverse order. Perhaps, the touching came first as the most important, most convincing proof. Thomas had said also: “And (if I do not) place my hand in His side, I will not believe.” So Christ told him: “And come with your hand and put it in my side.” Thomas had to feel also the scar of the wound made by the sword where it had pierced Christ's side. This touching and seeing was to prove that Christ Jesus was fully physically present and was the very same Lord Jesus who had been nailed to the cross and pierced with the sword. “And,” so the Lord added, “do not be non-believing, but be believing.”

We see here, in the first place, the intense loving care of Christ Jesus for Thomas, full of undeserved grace. There is some rebuke in what Christ does and says, but the rebuke is very mild. It is just as mild and forebearing and forgiving as with the others. Why was it so mild? This was because of the situation being so shortly after the death of Christ, when the disciples were still ignorant about the teaching of the Scriptures regarding Christ's death and resurrection.

In the second place, we notice here a difference with the way in which Christ dealt with the two men on the way to Emmaus (Luke 24). The eyes of these two men were kept from recognizing the risen Lord. Christ first taught them how the Scriptures clearly spoke of the suffering and death and of the rising of the Messiah. In other words, before the two men of Emmaus could see and recognize the Lord with their physical eyes, they had to correctly know the prophetic teaching of the Scriptures. For them it was: first believe the Scriptures and then see and recognize. With Thomas it is the other way: first touch and see, and then believe. Why was there this difference in the way of working faith?

The answer is in v. 24. It says there that Thomas was one of the Twelve, one of the apostles. These apostles were chosen to be the eye and ear witnesses of all that Christ Jesus had done and spoken when on earth, and so to be the foundation of the church. This is clear, for instance, from the requirements as stated in Acts 1:21-22 for the election of an apostle in the place of Judas. As with the others Thomas had to be one who touched and saw and heard the Lord before and after His death and resurrection. The apostle John writes in his first epistle (1 John 1:1) that he and the other apostles proclaimed “that which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and touched with our hands…” Therefore, in bringing Thomas to faith through making him touch and see, Christ was busy with securing the firm foundation on which His church had to be built. There should not be a crack in this foundation. Christ could not allow one of the apostles, one of the eye and ear and hand witnesses, to deny the testimony of the others. This would totally undermine the witness of the others. Imagine that ten proclaimed: He died for our sins and He rose for our justification, and that one would go against that and proclaim: it is not true, it is a fantasy, a hallucination. If this had been the case, all modern critical unbelief would have had a basis in Thomas' critical counter-testimony.

However, Christ took care of things. He revealed Himself as the risen One also to Thomas. Thus the testimony of the eye and ear and hand witnesses was made unanimous. We see the first result of this work of self-revelation of Christ in Thomas' testimony, spoken in worship: “My Lord and my God.” Having seen and touched, he believed that Jesus is the Messiah, the Lord, and that He is the eternal Son of God. Christ's resurrection is the clear proof that all that Christ had revealed and said before His death was true, completely true.

From all this it is evident that we cannot, on good grounds, compare our doubt today with the doubt of Thomas. Thomas was an apostle. He was and had to be eye and ear and hand witness of what Christ Jesus said and did. When Thomas did not believe, it was just after the death of Christ. Besides, Thomas did not doubt God's Word; he was ignorant about its meaning. Our situation is totally different. We live almost twenty centuries later. We have the whole Bible and in it both the Old Testament prophecy, as well as the New Testament fulfillment, presented to us in the unanimous testimony of all the apostolic hand and eye and ear witnesses.

This leads us to the second result of Christ's work here. Thomas' testimony: “My Lord and my God” is now basis for the faith of the church of all ages. It is the basis for the faith of all those who do not see with their eyes and touch with their hands, but yet believe because the Scriptures of both Testaments testify, and in them also Thomas testifies: Jesus has risen. Therefore, He is Lord and God. He is truly the Saviour.

Thus we see in this text that the living Christ, according to the testimony of an eye and ear and hand witness, took care that the testimony about Him as the One who died as a payment, a ransom, for sin and who rose from the dead for our justification and sanctification would be unanimous. The foundation for His church does not show any cracks. Therefore, after this care and work of Christ, doubt regarding the factuality of His death and resurrection, and per consequence, of all that Christ spoke and did, may be human, even common, in an unbelieving environment, but must be characterized as sinful disobedience. The same is true with regard to non-believing. Certainly, the Lord will forgive also these sins, when we repent. However, we cannot call doubting what the Lord tells us in the Gospels through the eye and ear witnesses a good thing. Doubting and non-believing is an offense to Christ. Faith, God's work of grace, meets with beatitude of Christ;

Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.

Blessed are those who believe also the testimony of Thomas as this was worked by the Lord Himself.