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.
Jesus says to him, Because thou hast seen me thou hast believed blessed they who have not seen and have believed.
Thomas has touched the proofs he demanded and confessed his risen Master. The Lord answers with a blessing that reaches past that room to everyone who would believe later. His words weigh two kinds of faith: one that waits for evidence, and one that rests on a word.
The Lord does not scold Thomas, yet neither does He hold him up as the model. Commentators note that sight produced this confession, true as it was, and that this marks its limit:
Some have thought that the faith of Thomas here rises far above that of all the other disciples, and that nothing higher in testimony ever came from apostolic lips. This opinion, though common, cannot be founded on the general context. Christ, in reply to Thomas, pronounces those more blessed who did not see, and yet believed. It can hardly be called even Christian faith, as our Lord hints. Christian faith is believing in Him whom we have not seen — walking by faith, not by sight.
If sight is not the ground, what is? One writer separates faith built on evidence from faith built on Scripture. He warns how little the first can do:
To "see and believe" therefore falls wholly short of what the work of God gives; just as traditional faith or evidence answers to it now in Christendom. It is human. It leaves the conscience uncleansed and the heart without communion... Faith, to be of value and have power, rests not on sight or inference, but on Scripture... The faith that is founded on evidences may strengthen a person against Deism, Pantheism or Atheism. But it never gave remission of sins, never led one to cry, "Abba, Father," never filled the heart with His grace and glory.
Believing without proof is no poorer arrangement. It honours God:
We can render to God no tribute that is more welcome to Him than taking Him fully and simply at His word without asking for any confirmation by sight or by feeling.
He speaks the blessing over people not yet born. Writers tie them to believers of today, while the Lord is away:
The Lord does own the faith of Thomas. But He adds, "Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." This is the blessed portion of those who form Christ's assembly during the time of His absence, as the apostle Peter can say, "Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory" (1 Peter 1:8).
One writer reads the whole scene as a sketch of God's dealings, with Thomas standing for Israel in the last days:
Thomas's doubts disappear. It is the expression, in this remarkable summary of God's dealings, of the position of the Jewish remnant in the last days. They will believe when they see Him, and Jesus makes the difference between believers who have not seen Him — our position — and those who will believe when they see Him. The blessing rests upon us. Thomas's confession, true and right as it was, shows, it seems to me, the Jewish position... The testimony of the others will not have convinced them. They will see and look on Him whom they have pierced.
Both groups are real believers, and both are happy; the difference is where the Lord places His special approval:
The latter order or character is that of today, for we "walk by faith, not by sight." The former order is that of the future — the day of the coming of the Lord, when every eye will see Him... Both classes are happy and privileged, but the Lord, by His words to Thomas, has placed a special mark of approval and favour on those who believe on Him during the time of His absence.
This blessing is not vague believing. It has a content — who the wounded Man in that room really is:
Happy Thomas, yet happier are those who have not seen and yet have believed. Believed what? That the One who bears in His body the wounds He received on the cross of Golgotha is none other than the Eternal Word, by whom all things were made. He is our Lord Jesus Christ.
We may wish we had stood in that room. One writer answers that wish:
We can easily imagine what a wonderful thing it was to have looked on Him and to have heard Him. But no thinking believer need hesitate to say this: we have far more of Himself in and by the word than if we had seen and heard Him all through His life and ministry on earth without that word.
- Sight — Thomas believed because he saw. His confession was true, yet the Lord does not call him blessed for it.
- Word — the faith Christ calls blessed rests on Scripture, not on evidence. Taking God at His word is a tribute He welcomes.
- Blessing — He speaks that blessing over believers of today, who love and rejoice in a Lord they have never seen.
- Reach — Thomas pictures those who believe only when they look on the pierced One. The blessing rests on those who believe while He is unseen.
- Result — believing without seeing is no second best. Through the word we have more of Christ than eyes alone could give.