Then he says to Thomas, Bring thy finger here and see my hands; and bring thy hand and put it into my side; and be not unbelieving, but believing.
Thomas had said he would not believe until he could see and touch the wounds. Days later the risen Lord walks in and offers him exactly that, which raises two questions: how did Jesus know the demand, and why does He grant it?
Jesus repeats the exact terms Thomas had set — and no one had told Him about them.
Why such a pointed address to Thomas? No one had seen the Lord as visibly present when Thomas spoke his unbelief. No one of the rest had told the Lord about it. Of that we may be sure. But He knew it. He had heard the words of His disciple, and now made Thomas aware of it. Unseen by human eyes, He sees, He hears, He knows all that goes on... Thomas now needed nothing more. It seems he did not touch the Lord, or probe the wound the spear had made. What he saw was indeed the crucified One.
Jesus does not argue with the terms Thomas set. He adopts them.
Everyone present eight days before now rejoices in the full assurance of His glorious resurrection. That does not lessen His loving concern for the one who was absent, who has since fallen so sadly into the grievous sin of unbelief... We grieve at this evidence of sin abounding. Yet far more do we rejoice over the grace that abounded much more. Gently yet firmly, the Lord takes Thomas up on the very ground Thomas had chosen to stand on, and lovingly invites him to convince himself in the way his own mind had suggested.
Jesus points to the nail marks and the wound in His side. That settles a question: was the risen body the same body that died?
He bore our sins on the tree in that body, and that body was laid in the grave. It was the same precious body that was raised again, but quickened now by the Spirit. His blood had been poured out for our redemption. The marks Thomas saw convinced him. They declare plainly that it was the very same body: the temple raised from death to die no more.
The command also touches a faith that stops at the cross and never moves on.
Again, many doubts grow in the heart because there is no faith in a risen Saviour. Too many linger over the cross as if Jesus were still there — as if He were still a dying and not a living Redeemer. On the cross He finished the work. The blood He shed there made peace. But a living Jesus, a risen Jesus, is the object of faith. As He shows you His hands and His side, His words to you are: "Do not disbelieve, but believe."
Those wounds do more than end an argument. They warm a cold heart, so the words reach past Thomas to anyone who has drifted from the Lord.
It was as though He said, "Those wounds were for you. Come near to them, Thomas, see what My love has done for you. Do not doubt Me. Do not stand coldly by with a heart of stone. I want you near Me, to know what I have suffered for you. Do not disbelieve, but believe." ... If you have become cold, if divine things have lost their shine and reality to you, if a distance has come in between you and the Lord, what do you need? You need to come afresh into the realization of what Jesus suffered for you.
Commentators also see a picture here of a whole nation that will believe only when it sees.
Thomas represents the Jews in the last days, who will believe when they see. Blessed are those who have believed without seeing.
Grace met Thomas on his own terms. It will meet that nation the same way.
Grace will stoop to those who demanded signs and tokens before they would believe. When Messiah returns here below, they will stand overwhelmed and ashamed at the fullness of visible proof.
- He hears. Thomas set his terms when Jesus was not visibly present. The Lord answered them word for word. He sees and hears all that goes on.
- He stoops. He does not rebuke the demand. He takes Thomas up on the very ground Thomas had chosen — grace abounding over unbelief.
- He proves. The nail-prints and pierced side identify the risen body as the very body laid in the grave, raised to die no more.
- He warms. Those same wounds say "this was for you," which is the cure for a heart grown cold and distant.
- He will do it again. Commentators see in Thomas a picture of Israel, a nation that will believe when it sees. The blessing goes to those who believe without seeing.
Thomas answered and said to him, My Lord and my God.
The last of Jesus' twelve disciples to believe is the first to say out loud what John's whole book set out to prove. Thomas had refused every witness but his own eyes. Now he stands in front of the risen Jesus and calls Him by the titles a Jew kept for God.
John opened his book by declaring who the Word is. At the very end, a man finally says it out loud:
At last human lips confess who He is, the close of the Gospel answers to its beginning. And it was Thomas who saw and believed and confessed. Not eager Peter. Not John, who had leaned on His breast at the supper. It was Thomas — dull, calculating, materialistic Thomas. The last man of the twelve disciples we would have expected is the one who confesses at the end the truth that the whole Gospel was written to reveal.
Thomas found that Jesus knew the doubts he had spoken in private, and the marks of the cross did the rest.
It seems as though this visit was for Thomas alone, because his Lord addressed him by name twice. He discovered that the thoughts of his heart were not hidden from Him. The wounds he saw in that incorruptible flesh were silent witnesses to him. They said He was the One with power to lay down His life and take it again. The scales fell from his eyes, his heart lost its faithlessness, the glory of the Only Begotten was no longer veiled from him.
Some read the words as a burst of surprise aimed at nobody. The text blocks that reading, and so does what Jesus said next.
Those who deny our Lord's deity have tried to escape the force of this. They treat it as a mere exclamation, aimed at no one in particular. But the record plainly says that Thomas spoke the words to the Lord. In the original language the wording is very emphatic, because he used the definite article twice. The risen Jesus was the Lord and the God to him. What is more telling still, the Lord answered him, "Have you believed because you have seen me?" So He clearly treated Thomas' joyful cry as faith taking hold of FACT.
The silence of Jesus here carries weight. He let a man call Him God and said nothing to correct it.
Suppose the Lord Jesus were not what Thomas confessed Him to be, but only a good and true man. Then He would have rebuked him for speaking foolish words. It would be terrible wickedness for one man to accept from another the worship that belongs to God alone. But He did accept it, because it was His right.
The word "my" makes this personal. The wounds put Thomas under a claim he could never take back.
When Thomas saw the wounds — the wounds his Lord had suffered for him in love — he fell down before Him and cried, "My Lord and my God!" Could he ever claim himself for himself again? If we come to that point, can we claim ourselves for ourselves? … The One who was wounded to death because of His love to us is our Lord and our God. Here we see His twofold claim upon us, and we cannot deny Him.
Several writers read Thomas as more than an individual. He would not believe on testimony; he had to see — and that, they say, is a nation's story.
Thomas, then, stands for the slow mind of unbelieving Israel, who will see the Lord after the present age is over. This is all the more striking beside Mary Magdalene in the earlier verses. She pictures the Christian, taken out of Judaism. She is no longer allowed the old Jewish contact with the Messiah, but is a witness of Him now that He has gone up to heaven.
Another writer reads the very titles Thomas used as part of that picture, set against the names Jesus used in verse 17.
"Lord God" is how the Jew has addressed their covenant God in the past, and how the Jew will address Him in the future. "God and Father," as seen in verse 17, are the names Christians use, since they are linked with Christ in His own relationships.
Thomas is blessed. The next verse says others are more so.
Our Lord has settled it: believing has a value beyond sight. "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." That is just the difference between the Jews when their blessing comes, and the Christian, whose blessing now is greater in moral value.
- Sight — Thomas would believe nothing he could not see and touch. The wounds in the risen body convinced him.
- Speech — Thomas said the words to Jesus, in emphatic form, and Jesus answered by calling them faith.
- Silence — He did not correct the worship, and that silence is one of the strongest proofs of who He is.
- Surrender — the possessive "my" turns a confession of deity into a claim on the whole of a life.
- Still greater — Thomas believed because he saw; Jesus calls those who believe without seeing more blessed still.