John 20:29

John 20:29

I. St. Thomas loved his Master, as became an apostle, and was devoted to his service; but when he saw Him crucified, his faith failed for a season with that of the rest. Being weak in faith, he suspended his judgment, and seemed resolved not to believe anything till he was told everything. Accordingly, when our Saviour appeared to him, eight days after His appearance to the rest, while He allowed Thomas his wish, and satisfied the senses that He was really alive, He accompanied the permission with a rebuke, and intimated that by yielding to his weakness, He was withdrawing from him what was a real blessedness. Consider then the nature of the believing temper, and why it is blessed.

I. Every religious mind, under every dispensation of Providence, will be in the habit of looking out of and beyond self, as regards all matters connected with the highest good. For a man of religious mind is he who attends to the rule of conscience, which is born with him, which he did not make for himself, and to which he feels bound in duty to submit. And conscience immediately diverts his thoughts to some Being exterior to himself, who gave it, and who evidently is superior to him; for a law implies a lawgiver, and a command implies a superior. He looks forth into the world to seek Him who is not of the world, to find behind the shadows and deceits of this shifting scene of time and sense, Him whose word is eternal, and whose presence is spiritual. This is the course of a religious mind, even when it is not blessed with the news of divine truth; and how much more will it welcome and gladly commit itself to the hand of God, when allowed to discern it in the Gospel. Such is faith as it arises in the multitude of those who believe, arising from their sense of the presence of God, originally certified to them by the inward voice of conscience.

II. This blessed temper of mind, which influences religious men in the greater matter of choosing or rejecting the Gospel, extends itself also into their reception of it in all its parts. As faith is content with but a little light to begin its journey by, and makes it much by acting upon it, so also it reads, as it were by twilight, the message of truth in its various details. It keeps steadily in view that Christ speaksin Scripture, and receives His words as if it heardthem, as if some superior and friend spoke them, One whom it wished to please. Lastly, it rests contented with the revelation made to it; it has "found the Messias," and that is enough. The very principle of its former restlessness now keeps it from wandering when the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding to know the true God; wavering, fearfulness, superstitious trust in the creature, pursuit of novelties, are signs, not of faith, but of unbelief.

J. H. Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons,vol. ii., p. 13.

Not Seeing, yet Believing

I. It would be a vain and presumptuous thing to attempt to determine positively what was the cause of Thomas's unbelief, on the occasion to which these words refer. Some have endeavoured to excuse him altogether. But our Saviour's few emphatic words plainly show some failing in his mind, which was not to be justified. Otherwise He would not have said, "Be not faithless." However, it is quite according to what we all feel in our own hearts, to suppose that two feelings met in Thomas's mind. One entirely bad a proud feeling that having been absent on the previous Sunday, on the occasion of Christ's showing Himself to His other disciples, being vexed with himself, he did not like to receive from others what he would so much rather have witnessed himself. This supposition is confirmed by the resoluteness of the language he uses about it for we never use resolute language unless we are conscious of an inward vexation. And the other feeling which Thomas probably had in his mind was this, that he wished it it to be just as he said; but the very eagerness of his desire became its own stumbling block, the intensity of the light made the light invisible in other words, it was "too good to be true."

II. Now, take it either way, or take it both ways, and there are many Thomases. But wherein was Thomas's error? Does God expect us to believe on insufficient evidence? Thomas's error was this: Christ, before He died, had spoken the word He had spoken it more than once He had said "I will rise again." If the Lord had not said this, Thomas might have been excused; for then he would only have been disbelieving man; but now, when he was told that Christ had appeared, he ought to have recollected what he had heard Christ Himself say. He was responsible to do that; and against that word of Christ's, he ought not to have allowed any circumstances of sense or reason, however strong they might be, and however they might run counter to it, to weigh one single feather. The inference is clear, that whoever would be blessed must feel and show he feels the absolute claim, and the full certainty, and the entire supremacy of every word of Almighty God.

J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons,2nd series, p. 335.

I. Our Lord does not treat the doubt of Thomas as a sin. There is not the slightest trace of fault-finding in what He says to him. He only tells him that his is not the most blessed state. The most blessed state is that of those who can believe without such proof as this. There are such minds. There are minds to whom the inward proof is everything. They believe not on the evidence of their senses or of their mere reason, but on that of their consciences and hearts. Their spirits within them are so attuned to the truth that the moment it is presented to them they accept it at once. And this is certainly far the higher state the more blessed, the more heavenly. But still the doubt of St. Thomas was not a sinful doubt.

II. St. Thomas's doubt is a type and his character an example of what is common among Christians. There are many who are startled at times by strange perplexities. Doubts arise in their minds, or are suggested by others, about doctrines which they have always taken for granted, or about facts connected with those doctrines. What shall we do when we find these difficulties arise? (1) In the first place let us not permit them to shake our hold of God and of conscience. However far our doubts may go, they cannot root up from within us, without our own consent; the power which claims to guide our lives with supreme authority. They cannot obliterate from within us the sense of right and wrong, and of the everlasting difference between them. By this a man may yet live if he have nothing else to live by, and God will assuredly give him more in his own good time. (2) But again, let us not treat such doubts as sins, which they are not, but as perplexities, which they are. As we must not quit our hold on God, so do not let us fancy that God has quitted His hold on us. Doubts are in fact as much the messengers of God's providence as any other voices that reach us. They may distress us, but they cannot destroy us, for we are in the hands of God. (3) In all such cases remember St. Thomas, and feel sure that what is wanting Christ will give. You are not called on to believe till you are fully able to do so; but you are called on to trust.

Bishop Temple, Rugby Sermons,1st series, p. 90.

References: John 20:29. Spurgeon, My Sermon Notes: Gospels and Acts,p. 172; T. J. Crawford, The Preaching of the Cross,p. 174; C. Kingsley, Town and Country Sermons,p. 414; H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit,vol. i., p. 329; W. Frankland, Ibid.,vol. xxviii., p. 180; vol. ii., p. 340; Homiletic Quarterly,vol. vi., p. 1; J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons,2nd series, p. 335; F. W. Robertson, Sermons,2nd series, p. 268; G. Macdonald, Unspoken Sermons,p. 50; T. T. Lynch, Sermons for my Curates,p. 33.