John 20:24–29
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Good morning, everybody. Welcome again to 3rd Avenue Baptist Church. Great to have you all here with us today and good to be together to sing songs to our Lord and to open up His Word together as we sit together under its authority and under its power. Let me encourage you to take a Bible and turn with me to John chapter 20. If you're new to 3rd Avenue, this is one of the main things that you need to know about us as a church is that every Sunday morning we gather here and we open up this book right here, the Bible, to a certain passage or another. And usually, probably about 80, 85% of the time, I'm the guy who's standing up here behind this big white pulpit.
And my job is to take you to a particular passage of Scripture, read it, explain it, try to help you understand it, and then do some work applying it to your life, which really isn't meant to be exhaustive. It's meant to just kind of be a catapult for you as you go into the week. Just sort of, you know, spark some thoughts about how these passages apply to you. And then, you know, your job as a church member, as a listener to God's Word, is to take those thoughts and pursue them further, right? Speak to yourself. Preach to yourself about how the Word applies to your life.
We do this. We go to these 2,000, sometimes 3,000-year-old books, and we talk about them because we believe here at 3rd Avenue Baptist that this book is, in fact, the Word of God. We believe that it is inerrant. We believe that it is infallible. We believe that God uses it to bring life, spiritual life to people. And so even as we gather here on a perfectly good Sunday morning, what we're doing is praying to the Lord to use his word to bring life to our souls. That's true if you're a Christian. You need refreshment as a Christian. It's also true if you're here and you're not a Christian.
Our prayer for you today would be that God might even use this story that we're going to look at today to bring spiritual life to you. So turn with me to John chapter 20. If you're not familiar with the Bible and you're using one of these Red Pew Bibles like I've got here, you'll find this passage on page 906. We're going to be in just a few verses there of chapter 20, actually on page 907. What we're doing today is diving into the middle, or really the end of the, or the middle of the end, you might say, of John's gospel.
We're spending this fall looking at the last two chapters of the book. Just to bring you up to speed, just briefly, the gospel of John was written sometime in the first century A.D. So we're talking about 1,900 years ago, 2,000 years ago, something like that. And it was written by the Apostle John, one of Jesus' closest followers, who also wrote several other books in the New Testament. So if you know those books near the end, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd John, those are letters that this very guy wrote to churches in a certain region of the world then. He also wrote Revelation, the very last book of the Bible, and arguably one of the weirdest books in the Bible, and yet at the same time one of the most encouraging. And so if you read the Gospel of John and then go read Revelation, what you'll see are just all kinds of resonances between those two books. What John is doing in his Gospel here is telling us the events of Jesus's life. But he's not just doing it as a sort of bare history of events. He's not just doing it as a timeline. He's not just doing it as a
chronology. John's got a purpose in writing this Gospel. He has something that he's trying to accomplish in the writing of it and in you as you read it. And that purpose is that he wants to reveal and show you, the reader, that Jesus of Nazareth, this perfectly normal-looking guy who lived 2,000 years ago, is actually the long-awaited Messiah, the King of Israel, the Son of God. And his purpose is to get you and me not only to see that, but to also believe it and to put our trust in it and find salvation from our sins.
That's why he's writing. He tells us straight up that that's why he's writing. We'll look at that in just a few minutes. And in his last two chapters, that purpose is still bright and clear. What John is trying to do as he gives us these appearances of the resurrected Jesus to various people is that he's trying to convince us even still that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and get us to believe in him. Well, so far in these last two chapters, we've only been in chapter 20 so far for about the last three or four weeks, But what we've seen so far is the resurrected Jesus first appearing to Mary Magdalene outside the tomb, if you remember that from a couple of weeks ago.
And then last week we saw him appear to his disciples when they were even in a locked room, right? All the doors are locked, all the windows are locked, and yet Jesus just appeared to them, showing that he had a resurrected body that is like ours, but not really like ours also. He just appeared. That's what we've seen. Well, today we're going to be looking at Jesus' third appearance to people. And this time, it's to his disciples, but with particular focus on one of those disciples.
A man who has been known for about the last 2,000 years as Doubting Thomas. Now, our text today is particularly important, I think, because a whole lot of Christians have concluded that it actually contains the high-water mark of Christological confession in the book of John. Of all the people who recognize finally who Jesus is and who somehow articulate that in words, Thomas here in this particular passage gets it most right.
He says the truest, highest thing about Jesus that's said in the entire Gospel of John. And it's what John has been driving at really since the moment he opened the telling of his story. It makes sense that this would be the high watermark of the book because immediately after Thomas confesses that Jesus is my Lord and my God, that's when John turns to tell you the purpose of the book. You see that? So if you look at chapter 20, verse 24 through 29, that's what we're going to be looking at today. But immediately after Thomas gives this confession and Jesus sort of blesses him for that confession, that's when John turns and tells you why he's writing.
Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples which aren't written, but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. So even just from that, you can see how this story is functioning. The whole story has been moving toward this confession of Thomas that Jesus, you are my Lord and my God, and then immediately John says, that's why I'm writing, because I want you to believe that and confess that as well. What better way to make the point that John wants us to believe in Jesus than to show you one of Jesus' disciples, you might even say the most skeptical, the most hard-headed, the most hard-bitten of Jesus' disciples, in fact.
What better way to call us to believe than showing that man coming to a crystal-clear realization of who Jesus really is? There's no better way to do it. All right, well, before we read the text, let's remember where we are. In chapter 19, the chapter just before this, Jesus had been crucified by the Romans in consultation and conspiracy with the Jewish leaders. He'd been buried in a tomb that had belonged to Joseph of Arimathea. At the beginning of chapter 20, he's resurrected on Sunday, the third day after the crucifixion. And he's already appeared to Mary Magdalene. He's already appeared to at least, you know, ten of the disciples.
And he's already promised the coming of the Holy Spirit. He's promised the authorization of the church to speak for him in the time of his absence. If you remember that from last week, the keys of the kingdom language. All of that happened in the passage just before this one. And so that, with Jesus having appeared two times and already starting to do this kingly, authorizing, spirit-giving work among his people, that's where we pick up the story now. So look with me at John chapter 20, verse 24. Now Thomas, one of the twelve, called the twin, was not with them when Jesus came.
So the other disciples told him, we have seen the Lord. But he said to them, 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. Eight days later, his disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, peace be with you. And then he said to Thomas, put your finger here and see my hands and put out your hand and place it in my side.
Do not disbelieve, but believe. Thomas answered him, My Lord and my God. Jesus said to him, Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed. I think that's just a wonderful passage of Scripture. Just a wonderful telling of an event that happened as Jesus was presenting himself to his disciples. It's a wonderful passage, partly, or the reason that it is so famous, in fact, is because it is so wonderful, but there's a reason that it is so famous.
Thomas' conversion here from this kind of invincible, I-will-never-believe unbelief, from that to this joyful embrace of Jesus is really one of the most dramatic conversions that you get in the entire Bible. I mean, you've got Paul who gets converted on the road to Damascus. You've got other people who are converted, the woman at the well in John chapter 4. But this is definitely one of the most dramatic conversions of the Bible. And his confession of Jesus as being my Lord and my God is maybe not just the high watermark of John's gospel.
It might be the high watermark of verbalized Christological confession in the entire New Testament. Like sort of revelation and what the angels say about Jesus. This may be the highest thing that any human being says about Jesus Christ. I mean, you think about it. my Lord and my God, it's just an astounding thing for a person to say, especially a devout first century Jewish person. You would just never, as a Jewish person, ever call another human being my God. It just wouldn't happen. And yet here's Thomas, this hard-bitten, pessimistic skeptic saying that very thing about Jesus. So it's extraordinary in that way. Beyond that too, though this is not just a story about something that happened way back in the past and it doesn't really have any relevance to it it's just a cute story it's not that at all because in the very last verse of it you can see that Jesus immediately sees the significance of Thomas's confession he sees what's happened there and immediately where does his mind go his mind goes essentially
to us to those of us throughout history who are going to believe in Jesus and make that same confession and yet not have the ability to see the scars in Jesus' hand and to see the scars in his side. So it's not just a bare story from history. It's a story from history that has lessons for us. But I think the most important lesson that we can learn, there's going to be a lot of stuff that we talk about today, but I think the most important lesson that we can learn, the The most fundamental thing that we can pull out of this text is also the most simple thing.
And it's this. Jesus really did get up from the grave. So stop doubting and believe that. I mean, that's the main point, right? That's not just me saying something about the text. That's actually what John is driving at here. It's the point that's being made to Thomas as he sees the scars in Jesus' hands. it's also the point that's being made by John to you. Jesus really did get up from the grave. So stop doubting and believe.
I want to look at this text this morning in three points. Number one, we're going to look at Thomas' unbelief. Number two, we're going to talk about Jesus' scars. And number three, we're going to talk about our responsibility. Thomas' unbelief, Jesus' scars, and our responsibility. And friends, my prayer this morning as we look at this text, as we think about this very famous Bible story, is that you will, whether you're a Christian or not, my prayer is that you will be convinced anew and maybe even astonished anew at the fact that Jesus, even though he was crucified, even though he had nails put through his hands and nails put through his feet and a spear put into his side until blood and water flowed out, even though he was buried in the tomb, despite all of that, Jesus of Nazareth is alive and reigning on the throne of his God and Father.
See, the reason I want you to be convinced of that anew, the reason I want you to be astonished by that anew is that it is so easy to forget that. Even as Christians, even though we say we want to organize our lives around the resurrection of Jesus, it's so easy for us to let the things of this world dim the glory and the astonishment of the fact that Jesus the crucified is alive. And yet it's true. And it's magnificent and it's glorious. And sometimes we just need to force our minds to re-embrace that truth and rejoice in it.
So that's what we're doing this morning. We're going to do it first by looking at point number one, Thomas' unbelief. Thomas' unbelief. So in last week's text, in the story that John tells about Jesus appearing to his disciples, he does that on the evening of the first day after his resurrection on Sunday. He appears to his disciples. That's how John kind of puts it. He came and he stood among them. Now, why does John put it like that? And why does he use words like Jesus appeared or Jesus came and stood among them?
He doesn't mean that just in the normal way that you and I might come and stand among each other, right? I mean, you came this morning and you stood among people this morning. And the way you did it was that you drove in your car or whatever and you walked through the door and somebody could easily just say that you came and stood among them, right? That's not what John means at all when he says that. What John means when he says something like Jesus appeared or Jesus came and stood among them is that he just appeared. He just came and stood among them. Even though all the doors and windows were closed and locked, even though there was no way into or out of the room, there Jesus was all of a sudden.
Well, in our text today, John tells us that when that happened on the evening of that first day after Jesus' resurrection, John tells us that one of those disciples was not present when that happened. And that's the man that's come to be known as Doubting Thomas. Now, the name Doubting Thomas is a little bit unfortunate. It's partly unfortunate because it's just a shame that there is a Christian in heaven who is known throughout all of history as Doubting Thomas. I'm sure he's not super happy about that.
And probably in the new heavens and the new earth, Jesus will give him a new name. But until then, he's stuck with it, and we know him as Doubting Thomas. It's also a little unfortunate because it doesn't exactly capture what was going on in Thomas' mind at this point. Now, probably what you're expecting me to say is, oh, we shouldn't be so mean to Doubting Thomas. We shouldn't call him Doubting Thomas. Let's call him Reasonable Thomas, or let's call him Questioning Thomas, or let's call him He Wants Some Evidence Thomas, or something like that.
No, that's not what I'm going to tell you. What I'm going to tell you is that doubting Thomas is not accurate. It doesn't fully capture what was going on in Thomas' mind. Because what was going on in Thomas' mind was not just doubt. It was rank unbelief. He was not just doubting. He didn't just have some reasonable questions. He was saying, I will not believe that Jesus has been risen from the dead. It was rank and invincible unbelief.
And it was right in line with Thomas' character throughout the entire story. We don't know a whole lot about this guy, Thomas. The text there in verse 24 says that he was obviously one of the 12. He was called the twin. So we don't know if that's just kind of a name or maybe it's his surname or maybe he was in fact a twin brother to a brother or to a sister. We don't know. He had this nickname, the twin, much better than Doubting Thomas. He's probably sad that he had to not be called the twin anymore, but Doubting Thomas. But that's all the text really tells us about him.
He shows up two other times in the Gospels, both of them in John. And both times he shows up, he kind of shows himself to be this sort of dark, droll kind of guy. He's a little bit sarcastic. He's a lot pessimistic. And he definitely thinks of himself as this sort of cut through the junk, get to the point kind of guy. Just tell me straight up how it is. And don't give me any of this religious, spiritual mumbo-jumbo. That's how he shows up in the text.
The first time he shows up is in chapter 11 when Jesus gets word that his friend Lazarus first has fallen ill and then has died. The story behind that, I mean, you can go back and listen to the sermon if you want a lot of detail on it. But basically, Jesus had a friend named Lazarus. He gets word that the guy is sick. The trouble in the story, though, other than Lazarus being dead, is that Lazarus' family lives near Jerusalem. And by the time that story is told in John's book, by the time Lazarus dies, the Jewish rulers have already decided that Jesus is an enormous threat and they want to kill him.
So tensions between Jesus and the Jewish rulers, by the time Lazarus dies, are at a fever pitch. And literally everyone around Jesus knows that to go to Jerusalem at this point is enormously dangerous. Because the Jews are going to do everything they can to get rid of Jesus, to arrest him, maybe even to kill him. And if you got killed by the Romans, the likeliest thing that would happen is that you, as a follower of Jesus, would also be killed. Well, despite that, Jesus gathers his disciples around him and he says, My friend Lazarus has died. He was sick, but now he's fallen asleep. He's died.
And for your sake, I'm glad that we didn't go while he was still alive because we're going to go now. And I'm going to resurrect him from the dead and you're going to learn from that. That's kind of the subtext of the whole thing. And so he says, let's go. You know, despite the danger, despite the fact that the Jewish rulers are, you know, up in Jesus' face, he says, let's go to Jerusalem. And then you get Thomas, right after he says that, saying this. So Thomas, called the twin, said to his fellow disciples, let us also go, that we may die with him. Now, Christians have sometimes tried to read that as this, like, this courageous thing.
Let us also go and die with him, the king. that's not what it that's not thomas's character that's not how he plays in the book that is a droll pessimistic cut through the junk assessment of the situation it's like all right fine let's go with him and we'll wind up on a cross too he's pessimistic second time he shows up is chapter 14 in the middle of this speech jesus is giving the disciples on on the night of the last supper if you remember back a couple years ago when we were studying that that long speech through kind of throughout the night right it starts in the upper room at the last supper and then they leave the upper room they start walking through the the city at night and Jesus is talking to them essentially what he's doing is trying to settle them down right I mean they they know they have a sense that things are not right that something is about to happen and it's the crucifixion that's going to happen and he's trying to settle them down he's preparing them for the time when he's going to be away from them after his ascension into heaven and at the beginning of chapter 14 one of the things he tells them is that when he goes back to his father he's going to prepare a place for them
because when all is said and done Jesus wants his people to be with him in heaven where he is he says you know the way to get to that place that I'm going to prepare for you what he means by you know the way is that the way to the father's side is through the suffering of the cross that's what he means and basically everybody knows that right in order to get to the glory You've got to go through the suffering. Jesus was about to do that, and he's telling his disciples, you're going to get there. You're going to get to the place that I've got prepared for you, but you know the way to it.
The way to it is through the same kind of suffering that I'm about to endure. That's what he meant. But Thomas, at that point, isn't going to have all of that religious mumbo-jumbo, so he butts in and just says, Lord, we don't know where you're going. How can we know the way to get there? Now, Jesus answers him with the famous line, And I, I am the way, the truth, and the life. The way you get there is through me, he says. But you can see what Thomas is doing there with that question. Lord, we don't know where you're going.
How are we supposed to know the way to get there if we don't even know what the destination is? He's just putting on his cut through the junk attitude and going, No, no, no, no, no, enough of that. I don't want to hear any more of that. We don't even know where you're going, so there's no way that we can know the place. In a way, it's kind of a sad attitude to take, isn't it? I mean, everybody knew that Jesus was talking about spiritual things. Everybody knew that Jesus wasn't just talking about a geographic destination and the road that led there.
What Thomas is doing even there is refusing to look past the sort of just flat, concrete, geographical realities of this world in order to realize that maybe there's something beyond this world. He's taking a cut through the junk attitude and trying to act like that's somehow a virtue. I've known people like that, haven't you? I mean, maybe if you're like me, you even see one of those people in the mirror every morning when you wake up.
And I get it. I understand. There's a certain satisfaction. There's a certain pride in being able to say, look, I don't put up with nonsense. I'm a hard-bitten guy. I'm a hard-bitten woman. I do not put up with nonsense. I take the world as it is. I deal in concrete realities, and I don't want to hear any of that spiritual, metaphorical, literary mumbo-jumbo. There's a certain pride in that, and I get it. And I genuinely, I'm not even kidding you, I have quite a bit of that attitude in myself.
But friend, if that's you, if you resonate a little bit with Thomas in all of this, then let me just maybe challenge you with a couple of thoughts that I think Thomas learned through the course of his life with Jesus. Here's the first one. Is it possible that the world as it really is has just a little bit more to it than what you can see on the surface? Is that possible?
Is it possible, is it just barely possible that there are some realities, not metaphors, not mumbo-jumbo, but realities that aren't just laying there on the surface? I think if you're honest with yourself, if you look back over your life, you'll see that the answer to that question has got to be yes. And it doesn't take that much to get there. I mean, all you got to do is go look at a mountain, go look at the ocean, go look at an annular solar eclipse.
And you know what it's like to feel a little bit of wonder and to understand that, wow, this world has got something going on in it that is beyond me, that's not just sitting there on the surface. Is that possible, that the world as it really is has got more going on than you're giving it credit for. It's worth thinking about. Here's a second thought. Is the resurrection of Jesus, is Jesus himself, is the gospel of Jesus Christ really just a bunch of spiritual mumbo-jumbo anyway?
Or is it one of those realities that shapes history? Well, what I would say and what I would challenge you with is that, no, the resurrection of Jesus isn't religious mumbo-jumbo at all. It's history. It really happened. When we Christians say that it happened, we mean that it happened in the same way that it happened that George Washington was the first president of the United States. We think there's enough evidence for us to say, yep, looks like George Washington was in fact, historically speaking, not metaphorically, but really the president of the United States.
There's enough evidence for that. And when we Christians say that Jesus was resurrected, we mean exactly the same thing. There's enough evidence, historically speaking, not metaphorically or literarily, but historically to say, yes, Jesus got up from the dead. And friend, if that's true, if the resurrection is something that happened in history, then it's not religious mumbo-jumbo. It's not just a story that we tell each other to encourage one another. It's real, and it shapes history, and it ought to shape your life.
That's what Thomas eventually came to see. This wasn't just a story. This wasn't just an encouragement. It's real. But he's not there, is he, at the beginning of this whole thing. In fact, when the story opens, Thomas is in this place of hard core unbelief. Look with me at verses 24, 25. So Thomas, one of the twelve, called the twin, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, we have seen the Lord.
But he said to them, 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. Okay, now let's look at it. What happens at first is pretty straightforward. John tells us that Thomas wasn't with the disciples when Jesus first appeared to them in the passage just prior to this one. And so they go tell him just straight up, hey, hey, Thomas, guess what? Good news. We have seen the Lord. And then Thomas answers with this just amazing statement.
Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails and place my finger into the mark of the nails. He says it twice. And place my hand into his side, I will never believe. Now that's a really fascinating response, isn't it? And it is hardcore in its refusal to believe. So what's Thomas really saying here? Well, you look at what he says there in verse 25. For one thing, you can see that he is insistent on pulling this news of a resurrected Jesus down into the very real, very physical, very solid realm of historical reality.
He has absolutely no interest in a metaphorical resurrection. He has absolutely no interest in an encouraging story that's going to give him strength to live through next Tuesday. He wants to know, did Jesus really rise from the dead? That's important to see. It's critical, in fact, because it rules out any idea, and skeptics will sometimes make this case, it rules out any idea that the disciples were just victims of some kind of wishful thinking or a mass hallucination, or that they just came up with an idea of spiritual, metaphorical resurrection of Jesus in order to encourage each other. People have said that throughout history.
Skeptics have made that case. There are people who will not become Christians because they think that's exactly what happened. The disciples just kind of made up a metaphorical or spiritual resurrection of Jesus to encourage themselves, but it didn't really happen in the stuff of real life. That's even said sometimes, amazingly, by people who somehow call themselves Christians. that Jesus didn't really rise from the dead. He just did so spiritually or metaphorically, like a good springtime story of renewal that we can tell each other after a hard winter.
But see, that's exactly, that skeptical argument right there is exactly where Thomas' hard-bitten skepticism is really, really helpful. Because he just wasn't interested in that kind of fake resurrection. That wasn't going to cut it with him. No, if he was going to walk around saying and telling other people that Jesus was alive, he was going to have to be convinced that that was really historically true, not just metaphorically so. He was going to have to touch the nail scars.
He was going to have to touch the scar from the spear. Metaphor just wasn't going to do it for him. Now, why is that important? It's important because if you ever hear anything, If the only thing you ever hear about Christians and Christianity is this, then you need to hear this. We don't believe in a metaphorically resurrected Jesus. This is not just a nice springtime story. You know, when we say Jesus got up from the dead, we mean it.
Nail scars and all. That's what Thomas demanded. And he was right in that sense to do so. But notice something else here about the way Thomas says this. I want you to notice the particular way Thomas worded his demand. There's a way that Thomas could have worded this demand that we could have been entirely sympathetic with. Because he could have said something like, listen, guys, thank you for telling me that you've seen the Lord. Thank you for telling me that. I remember that he said, you know, that he would be crucified and on the third day resurrected.
And guys, if I see the nail marks in his hands, and if I touch the nail marks in his hands, And if I touch the scar in his side, then I will believe. That's very different, isn't it, from what he actually said. What he said was this defiant, unless I see, unless I touch, I will not ever believe. You can see the difference, right, in those two ways of putting it.
One is the language of being open to believing, right? see this evidence, then I'll believe. The other is shutting the door on belief and basically demanding evidence that Thomas doesn't think is ever coming. That's why he says that. It's not a prayer that he thinks is going to be answered to see the scars of Jesus. He's basically just putting something out there that he thinks will never happen. I mean, it would be akin to me saying, look, unless you go to the moon and bring me a piece of the cheese it's made of, I will never believe in Jesus. That's what he's doing. He's talking about something that he thinks is never going to happen. Well, what do we make of that? I mean, how do we sort of analyze Thomas here? What do we think about this? I mean, on the one hand, we've already talked about it. Thomas's hardcore unbelief, his hardcore skepticism, his insistence on the physical is really important because it shows us that the disciples weren't just gullible
pushovers, right? I mean, they didn't just immediately believe. None of them. They needed evidence. In fact, their first inclination was to not believe, and that's important. These guys were not just sad, broken-hearted saps who were just looking to believe in the resurrection on the slightest bit of evidence or suggestion. And Thomas here was dead set against believing anything of the sort. So the charge that gets made against them, well, they're just duped.
They were hoaxed. They were tricked. They were weak-minded fools. And so they believed in a resurrection of Jesus when everybody knows that's impossible. It just doesn't hold water. And Thomas' whole world had to be turned upside down in order for him to believe in the resurrection. He was not a weak-minded, gullible fool. Quite the opposite. And yet, on the other hand, as useful as that is, as helpful as that is, this was not a good place for Thomas to be in, was it? This kind of hard-bitten skepticism, this pessimistic, I will never believe, was not a good place for him to be in.
Especially not after spending three years with Jesus. I mean, Thomas had heard Jesus' predictions of his death, his resurrection. He'd seen the miracles, and yet his heart was sealed up tight to the possibility that maybe, just maybe, Jesus actually would rise again just as he promised. His heart was sealed up tight against that. And Thomas isn't unique in that, is he? I mean, the fact is, your heart, my heart, all of our hearts are sealed up tight against that possibility until God unseals them.
every one of us before the Lord opens our eyes before he regenerates our hearts we are all of us frozen in this kind of invincible unbelief and then God does the miracle of calling your dead soul to life and you see see that's what Christians call the doctrine of total depravity the doctrine of total depravity doesn't mean that we are as bad as we could possibly be what it means is that our hearts and our minds and our wills are completely and totally closed up and frozen to the truth.
They are irreparably bent toward unbelief, as frozen against the truth as Thomas was here. And yet, despite the kind of hopelessness of that doctrine of total depravity, there's another doctrine that we Christians hold to as well, and that's the one we call effectual grace. Or what I call sometimes battering ram love. You know what effectual means, right? It's a 50-cent theological word that just means it's effective. It's something that's effective.
Every time it's used, every time it's poured out, it accomplishes what it's meant to accomplish. So effectual grace would be grace that when God chooses to show it to a person, always has the effect of bringing them to life. It always melts the ice of unbelief off that person's heart. It always brings the dead to life. It always opens a person's eyes to the beauty of Jesus and brings them to faith. It's love that acts like a battering ram against any obstacle that you have erected to God's truth. That's what effectual grace is.
And friends, that's the kind of grace that if you're a Christian, God has already used in your life. Because, friend, no matter what your experience of coming to Christ was, for some of you, you know, I've heard a lot of your stories as I do membership interviews, and for some of you, you have dramatic conversion stories. Like, it's just clear that on a particular day, at a particular time, God just blew the doors open on you. For others of you, it's way more gradual. You grew up in a Christian home.
You went to church with your parents. You heard the gospel every Sunday. And the gospel felt to you less like a battering ram than it did a sort of rising sun. But, friend, whatever your testimony is, what I am here to tell you is that none of us started out as kind of Christians. We all started as dead in our trespasses and sins, as closed up to the truth as Thomas. And it took a miracle to bring you to spiritual life.
Never, ever forget that. Never, ever think that you started out halfway on the road to heaven. It's what Thomas experienced, that battering ram kind of love, and it blew his heart open. Point two, Jesus' scars, not just Thomas' unbelief, but Jesus' scars are the next thing I want you to notice. So in verse 26, what's happened here is that we basically fast-forwarded a week past this first time that the disciples saw Jesus.
That was on the Sunday that Jesus was resurrected. And so eight days later would be the following Sunday. Now, how does that work? Because a week is seven days, right? It's not eight days. So shouldn't eight days later be the Monday? Well, no, because the Hebrews did what we don't do and what is called inclusive counting. So if you're going to say, you know, eight days from now, you have to count not just tomorrow. You have to count the day you're in. So to say eight days from today would be Sunday. That's today, right? Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday.
Right? It's inclusive counting. So eight days later, you're back on Sunday. Just incidentally, this is how we get that Jesus rose on the third day after the resurrection. That's confused some people, right? And so you even have some Christians who have said, no, no, no, no. He didn't die on Good Friday. He died on Good Thursday because that would give us the three days that we need to get to Sunday. But that's not the case. It's inclusive counting again. The three days are Good Friday, Saturday, and Resurrection Sunday. Those are the three days, right? That's just for free. Anyway, the disciples are gathered together again.
It's Sunday again. But this time, Thomas was there too. That's really the only difference. The doors are still locked. These are not, you know, grand, courageous people. All of a sudden, you're right, they have not actually received the Holy Spirit. Jesus has just promised that that's going to happen at Pentecost. These are still scared people. They're still locked in the house because they're scared of what the Jews are going to do to them if they find them. And then it happens again, really, just like it had a week prior. I mean, it's the same kind of language. Jesus just came and stood among them, door locks and walls notwithstanding.
It doesn't matter. He was just there. And again, he gives that greeting the third time that he said it in eight verses, in case you were wondering if John thinks that's important. Three times Jesus says the same thing in eight verses. Peace be with you. Shalom. You know that Paul uses the word shalom, the Greek word for it, in every single one of his epistles in the New Testament? It's an important word, because we are, because of Jesus, at peace with God.
It means all is well. But then look what happens in the next verse, verse 27. Then Jesus said to Thomas, put your finger here and see my hands. And put out your hand and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe. It's just an extraordinary moment in the story. And several things are happening all at once here. So let's unpack it. Let's pull back some of the layers. For one thing, I wonder if you've ever noticed this.
In those words to Thomas, this is a minor detail. This is not the point of the text, but it is a super important and interesting observation. Jesus shows here in these words to Thomas that he doesn't have to be present to know what his people are saying and thinking. You notice that? Thomas didn't say, he didn't lay down that evidentiary necessity. I got to see his hands and feet and side. He didn't lay that down in Jesus' physical hearing and yet Jesus knew. He knew about Thomas' challenge.
He knew his words. He knew his heart, too. You know, that's something, that fact that Jesus knows. He knows his people. He knows our words. He knows our thoughts. He knows our motives, our attitudes, everything. That's something that the Bible teaches in lots of places, that Jesus knows the hearts of his people. And I think as I start to think about it, it's a thought that manages to be both very comforting to me but also incredibly unsettling at the same time. I mean, it's comforting because the fact is that sometimes you and I, as we go through this crazy life, don't even know what's going on in our hearts and minds.
I mean, there are times when we can feel sad and there's absolutely no reason for us to feel sad. Sometimes we can feel confused or we can feel discouraged. There are other times when we just feel just kind of, you know, dull. We don't know our own minds. We don't know our own hearts. And yet Jesus does. He knows your mind better than you know your mind. He knows your heart better than you know your heart. When you get sad for no particular reason, he knows that and he understands it. When you're confused about your motives or confused about the way you're feeling or interacting with people and things just feel off, Jesus knows that and understands it.
He knows your sadness. He knows your confusion. He knows your depression or your dullness all the way to the bottom. And it makes total sense to him. Which is comforting because what it tells me is that that sadness and depression and confusion and dullness, even though it may feel like it sometimes, is not endless. It has a bottom. And Jesus knows where that is. I find enormous comfort in that.
Just knowing that there's a bottom to it all. And Jesus is even present there. It's comforting. It's also unsettling to think about, isn't it? It's unsettling because it tells me that Jesus knows the things about me that nobody else knows. He knows the deepest thoughts in my mind. He knows the darkest thoughts in my mind. He hears the things that I mutter under my breath. He knows the things that pop up in my head that I try my best to push down.
And what do you do with that? What do you do knowing that Jesus knows all of that stuff? Well, one thing you do with it is that you remember that God sees everything and knows everything about you and you let that chasten you and challenge you and yes, maybe even unsettle you a little. You let it create a check in your mind against the very human tendency to run off to sinful and unbridled places. Yeah, you do all that with it. It's unsettling in that way.
All of that's true. But you know the other thing you do with that? The other thing you do with the realization that God knows everything about you. You flip it on its head and you let it also comfort you. That's what you do with it. You let it comfort you because you realize that God knows everything about you. He knows you all the way to the bottom. He knows your worst tendencies. He knows your worst day, your worst minute, your worst hour. He knows what you are capable of.
He knows the evil that you're able to do and think. And he loves you anyway. Friend, would that be true of anybody else in your life? Would that be true of anyone else in your life? If your whole mind and heart and motives and everything were laid bare in front of them and a spotlight were shown on the worst moments of your life, would anybody in your life stick with you if they knew it all? Jesus does.
He knows it all. And he loves you anyway. Find comfort in that glorious thought. I want you to see another thing here. Jesus meets Thomas. When he confronts him, he meets him right at the excruciating point of his unbelief. You see that? He goes right at it. He takes him head on, even at the point that Thomas intended to be as far out of reach as the moon. He never thought anybody would take him on at that point of unbelief.
And yet Jesus goes right at it. It's interesting to me that the text doesn't tell us whether Thomas actually touched the scars. You ever notice that? I think the movie in our mind generally plays that Jesus presents his hands on his side and, you know, Thomas touches him, right? That's generally how the movie plays. The text doesn't actually say that. In fact, it kind of seems like he didn't do it. I mean, his reaction there in the next verse does not seem to have been the result of a careful physical investigation of the wounds, right?
He doesn't like, there's no break in the story, and then he steps back and says, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it looks like you're actually wounded and it's looking like it worked out pretty well for you. So, yep, I'm good. No, it seems more like just the presence of Jesus and his simply offering to meet Thomas' challenge was enough, right? And so Thomas just cries out as soon as he's in the presence of Jesus, my Lord and my God. But he meets Thomas. He goes at Thomas right at the point of his unbelief.
You want to see the scars? Okay, here you go. That's very, very typical of Jesus. You read the Gospels, he tends to run right at the thing that a person is clinging to. He tends to run right at the thing that's keeping somebody from believing in him. So for Thomas here, it was this hard-bitten, worldly-wise, evidence-demanding skepticism. Jesus goes right at it. For Mary Magdalene, the thing that was keeping her from believing that Jesus was raised from the dead was her grief, right? She was in this storm of grief and it just overwhelmed her and Jesus went right at that grief with compassion.
Mary. For the rich young ruler in another place, It was his possessions that were keeping him from following Jesus. And Jesus went right at it. Sell everything you've got and come follow me. I wonder what that is for you. And what is it that you're clinging to that keeps you from believing in Jesus? What is it that keeps you from saying, you know what? Yes, I believe in Jesus. I am a Christian. Is it some academic philosophical questions?
Is it some sin you don't want to give up? Is it some sense of your own proud self-reliance? I mean, what is it that keeps you from being a Christian? I don't know. That's a conversation you need to have between your own heart and God. But friend, let me tell you how it goes down. If God decides to show you grace and save you, guess where he's going to launch his assault right from the very beginning. At whatever that thing is that you care so much about. that it's keeping you away from Jesus.
That's where he'll launch it. Maybe as you think about it, that's happening right now. Maybe somehow the bricks in your heart are starting to move. Maybe there's some room in them that's never been there before, and you're thinking, man, this Jesus, it's compelling. I think I might believe in Jesus, and maybe God is running an assault right at the thing that's keeping you from coming to Jesus. If that's happening in your heart right now, do you know what you need to do? Like right now, before this sermon is over, you know what you need to do if God's assaulting your heart like that?
Quit. Give up. Lay down the sword. Open up the drawbridge and let him in. Stop trying to defend your little kingdom against the God of the universe. I mean, you know that if God is doing that in your heart, you know that he is assaulting your heart not to cause you pain, but to give you the joy of eternity. Why are you keeping the doors closed? Put your faith in Jesus. Believe in him and stop fighting what God's doing in your heart.
I want you to see another thing here. Just here in verse 27. And that's the just plain but extraordinary fact that the scars from the crucifixion remain on Jesus' glorified body. You ever stop to just think about that for a second? The scars from the crucifixion remain on Jesus' resurrection body. I've often wondered what that might mean for us and our resurrection bodies on the last day.
I mean, does the fact that Jesus' scars are still there, does it mean that we too are going to carry scars from this life? I mean, I've got one right here, right between my eyes. There's a little sort of circular, half-circular scar right between my eyes. And that's because when I was 10 years old, my grandfather took me hunting, handed me a .30-06 shotgun. And as a 10-year-old, I stuck the butt of the gun under my arm and put the scope up to my eye and shot. and the scope went pow. Both a deer and a 10-year-old boy went down with that one shot.
Is that little half-moon scar still going to be there when I get to the resurrection? What about the scars that aren't physical? Are those still going to be there when we get to the resurrection? I don't know. Maybe. I mean, if they are, they're going to be transformed. All those scars are going to be transformed gloriously into trophies of God's goodness to us. These tragedies in our lives that are rewritten into stories of grace.
But the Bible doesn't say anything about our own scars and what happens to them. All it tells us is that Jesus' scars are still there. And I think maybe it's most likely, as I think about it, as I try to speculate about it a little bit, as I look at what the Bible seems to say, I think it may be that his scars will be the only scars left in eternity because they've swallowed up all the other ones. That's what I think.
You know, Christians have often remarked that one of Christianity's most powerful answers to the problem of evil in the world is that we have a God with scars. Christians have said that over and over again. And for a long time, to be perfectly honest, I just kind of had a hard time resonating with that observation. Like, what does that mean? One of Christianity's most powerful answers to the problem of suffering and evil in the world is that we have a God with scars. I mean, why does it matter to the problem of evil that God has scars?
Why does that matter? I mean, the evil is still there. the suffering is still there Hamas is still killing children in acts of terrorism over in Israel people are still dying all over the world the suffering is still there why does it matter that God suffered how is that an answer in any way whatsoever to the problem of evil that's a good question but here's what I think I've come to realize over the years when Christians say that the scars of Jesus are a powerful answer to the problem of evil they don't mean that they're an answer on the rational philosophical level.
That's not what they mean. That's not what Christians mean. They don't mean that those scars are the rational philosophical answer to the problem of evil. There are other rational philosophical answers. And if we started talking about those we could actually get a long way understanding the problem of evil on that level. Now what Christians mean is not that the scars are the rational answer to the problem of evil. What they mean is that the scars assure us that God knows and cares about the suffering that we experience.
It's not just an academic problem to him. He's not some deistic philosophical God that sits up in the heavens and has no experience of the suffering that we experience. Christians don't mean that the scars make the problem of evil understandable or that they make it go away or that they answer it. What they mean is that the scars assure us that God knows and he cares. And he's determined, not just in an academic way, but in a personal way, in a way that has scarred even him to one day set it all right.
I don't know if you've ever studied or read about the carnage and the awfulness of World War I. It was just an awful time in human history. And some people even say that even though more people died in World War II, the experience of World War I was maybe the worst few years in the history of humanity. The world was soaked in blood and tears and green poisonous gas all over the face of Europe. And in the wake of all of that, a man named Edward Shilito wrote a poem called Jesus of the Scars.
Here's what he wrote. In the wake of World War I, he wrote this. If we have yet never sought, we seek thee now. Thine eyes burn through the dark, our only stars. We must have sight of the thorn pricks on thy brow. We must have thee right now, O Jesus of the scars. The heavens frighten us. They are too calm. In all the universe, we have no place.
Our wounds are hurting us. And where is the balm? Lord Jesus, by thy scars, we claim thy grace. The other gods were strong, but thou wast weak. They rode, but thou didst stumble to a throne. But to our wounds, only God's wounds can speak. And not a God has wounds, but thou alone.
Do you see the point of that? Do you see the point of what Edward Shilletel was saying in the wake of World War I? He was saying, look, you can offer all the academic answers to the problem of evil, and there are some good ones. There's the greater good argument, and the human responsibility argument, and the o felix culpa argument. There's all those arguments, and they get you a long way. But this right here is where we see that the problem of evil is not just an academic problem to our God. Our tears aren't just a rational exercise to him. They're personal.
The scripture says he bottles up all of our tears because he cherishes them. One author said that his scars are his credentials to suffering people. That he knows and cares about what they're experiencing. He's not aloof to it. He has a personal stake in it. And he's going to bring it all to a crashing end one day. Friends, to have a God, to have a God who stumbled to his throne is to have a God who knows and cares for us.
Here's the last thing, briefly. Number three, our responsibility. Our responsibility. In verse 28, of course, all of Thomas' unbelief crumbles and he utters this highest, most glorious profession of faith in all of the book, my Lord and my God. There's some other places in this gospel where people call Jesus Lord. That was actually a fairly common form of address. It's not that high a Christological confession. Really, most of the other places in the Bible, it's just calling Jesus kind of sir.
But here, though, when Thomas says it like this, connected with the other phrase, my God, when he says my Lord and my God, you've got to give it the full significance, like everything the Old Testament means when it calls God Lord. He is the Lord of hosts. He's the one who commands the seas and the storm. He's the one who's conquered death. He is Lord. He is Yahweh of Israel. That's what Thomas means. And then that second term there, my God, brings this whole gospel full circle. I mean, you realize that, right? First verse of the book said, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
That's the first thing John wants you to know about Jesus. And here, finally, at the end of the story, somebody gets that. My Lord and my God. It's an extraordinary thing to say. It's such a strange thing to say about another human being that some people have read this and tried to explain it away by saying that Thomas was just surprised, and he was basically saying, oh my God! You know, like you shouldn't but might sometimes. My Lord, my God, that is not what's going on here. If Thomas were just surprised, John would not have written it down and we wouldn't still be reading it 2,000 years later.
Thomas is confessing who Jesus is, that he's the Word, who was with God and who was God and who became flesh and dwelt among us. Just by the way, I want you to just notice here. When you read verse 28, is Thomas a Christian there? Well, yeah, of course he is, right? I mean, everybody knows that. Like, that's the moment of his conversion. We all know it. Nobody's ever had a question about that, right? Thomas is a Christian. Here's what I want you to see from that.
I want you to see how easy it is to become a Christian. There aren't 14 steps that Jesus says Thomas has to go through now in order to be a Christian. Thomas just realizes who Jesus is, and bam, he confesses it, my Lord and my God, and he's a Christian. And all of eternity is his. Friend, if you're here and you're not a Christian today, and you're kind of in a cloud wondering, what would I have to do to be a Christian? What do I have to do? What do I have to do? It's so easy. You just recognize who Jesus is.
You repent of your sins. You put your faith in him. You confess him to be who he says he is, my Lord and my God. that's how you become a Christian. It's not difficult. You don't have to wait on some emotional experience. To bow your knee to a king is not an emotional experience. It's an act of allegiance. You give your life to him. You confess him to be who he is. And you say, now, Jesus, I'm one of yours. I am a Christian. Take in your name. Look at that last verse, finally, verse 29.
The ESV has this as a question. Jesus said to him, have you believed because you have seen me? It's not really a question. There's no punctuation in the original Greek. It probably is not meant to be taken as a question, but a statement. Thomas, you have believed because you have seen me. That's probably what it means. He's stating that, yes, Thomas has seen the scars, and he's believed, and that's a good thing. I think sometimes we read this as if there's a but in between the two sentences.
You have believed, Thomas, because you have seen me. But the ones who are really blessed are the ones who have not seen and yet have believed. I think that's how we sometimes read it. But there's no but there. There's no but in the English. There's no but in the Greek. There's just not. Jesus is saying two things that are good but that are related to one another. Thomas, you have seen my scars and you have believed and that's good. But immediately, immediately when he says that, Jesus' mind turns to those who will believe, not having seen, but having heard the word of those who have seen.
You see what he's saying there? See, every single one of us that are Christians came to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ based on the testimony of these who saw him. That's how every single person who is a Christian became a Christian. Believing the eyewitness testimony of those who saw him. So if you're not a Christian, do you know what your responsibility is? Do you know what Jesus is saying here? He's saying, yeah, yeah, yeah, you're not going to see, you're not going to see the scars.
That was for those who were the eyewitnesses. Your responsibility, and blessed are you if you do it, Is to believe when you haven't seen. But only when you've heard what Thomas is telling you. Friends, some of you need to do that. Some of you need to do that. One day, you're going to see the scars. You are. One day, you're going to see the scars. But on that day, friend, it will be too late.
Because on that day, when Jesus comes back, or you stand before him on the day of your death, you'll see the scars. but you'll see them either as one who has been redeemed and is looking forward to eternity or as one who is about to be condemned because today is the day of salvation and the way people become Christians today is by listening to what Thomas said that Jesus is my Lord and my God let's pray our lord jesus we praise you and worship you and honor you today as the one who is resurrected and reigning on the throne of heaven our lord god all authority and power and might in the universe belong to you and you have called each and every one of us to recognize you for who you are to bow our knee before You and to put our faith and our trust
and our belief in You. Father, we pray that those of us who are Christians would do that anew today, that we would renew our faith in You, that we would renew our determination to follow hard after You until we face You in heaven. And Lord, we pray that if there are those who are not yet Your people here today, Lord, we pray that You would use that effectual grace to break their hearts of stone and give them a heart of flesh so that they see the beauty of Jesus and come to Him in faith. Our Lord, we pray all of this in the name of Jesus, our Lord and our Savior and our Redeemer.
Amen.