When Doubt Seeps In, Look to Thomas

Doubting Thomas?

Sometimes it is hard for us to believe in life after death. The true Bible story that shows this perhaps most clearly is the story of “Doubting Thomas,” as he is usually called. I prefer to think of him as Believing Thomas, but he did have his doubts.

Most of us would have shared the man’s skepticism. Thomas was not with the other disciples when they first encountered Jesus after his resurrection from the grave (John 20:24), which understandably made it hard for him to believe. We don’t know why he was absent, but God surely knew that his experience of doubt would help us believe.

The fact remains that Thomas had more than the fear of missing out; he did miss out! So, when the other disciples said, “We have seen the Lord” (John 20:25), frankly, he didn’t believe them. This is very relatable. The man’s associates were making the incredible, world-changing claim that a dead man had come back to life, never to die again. Evidently, they told him that this was a physical resurrection—that the risen Christ had appeared to them in an indestructible body. But Thomas wasn’t there, so how could he believe?

Unwilling simply to take his fellow disciples at their word, Thomas wanted Jesus to prove himself, as we sometimes do, especially in the face of death. Thomas said, “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” (John 20:25). Thomas wanted to see for himself. He also wanted to touch the Savior’s glorified wounds. He wanted what the philosopher Thomas Paine once enviously described as an “ocular and manual demonstration.”¹ Otherwise, the disciple declared, he would never believe.

Because of his famous nickname, Thomas has the reputation for being the only skeptic of the resurrection. His fatalistic comment after Lazarus died reinforces the popular view that he was an inveterate doubter: “Let us also go, that we may die with him” (John 11:16). We may get the mistaken impression from all this that none of the other disciples doubted, and maybe we think that good Christians never doubt. But, in fact, most of the disciples had trouble believing in the resurrection of the body—or at least the men did. Luke tells us in his Gospel that three days after Jesus was crucified, the eleven original disciples gathered in Jerusalem with other followers of Jesus. They were discussing the testimony of some that Jesus “had risen indeed” (Luke 24:34). Suddenly, Jesus was there, standing among them, giving them God’s peace. But according to Luke, “they were startled and frightened and thought they saw a spirit” (Luke 24:37). The disciples were scared out of their minds, as we would be if someone we knew to be dead suddenly showed up standing next to us.

What Jesus said to these frightened men exposes their spiritual skepticism. He said, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts?” (Luke 24:38). It wasn’t just Thomas: they all had their doubts.

Similarly, Matthew tells us that later on, when the disciples met Jesus in Galilee, “they worshiped him, but some doubted” (Matt. 28:17). Matthew’s use of the plural indicates that Thomas was not alone in his skepticism. The Greek word he chooses to describe their spiritual struggle is a form of distazō, a word that indicates hesitation, such as we sometimes experience when we feel caught between faith and disbelief.

Amazingly, the first disciples had this inner conflict at the very moment when Jesus commanded them to go into all the world and preach the gospel. The Great Commission was given to doubter-believers who worshiped Jesus but also struggled to have faith, even when they were in the physical presence of the risen Christ. Christian Wiman finds this encouraging in his personal struggle to believe the biblical gospel. He writes:

The Gospels vary quite a bit in their accounts of Jesus’ resurrection and the ensuing encounters he had with people, but they are quite consistent about one thing: many of his followers doubted him, sometimes even when he was staring them in the face. This ought to be heartening for those of us who seek belief. If the disciples of Christ could doubt not only firsthand accounts of his resurrection but the very fact of his face in front of them, then clearly, doubt has little to do with distance from events.²

Some interpreters are critical of Thomas’s demand for more evidence, but I think we should commend him for his quest to know the truth. When he had his doubts, Thomas did not stop struggling to believe. And at least he was willing to consider the evidence. The notorious atheist Richard Dawkins—who taught evolutionary biology at Oxford and advocated outspokenly for the elimination of the School of Theology—once defined faith as “the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence.” He continued, “Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence.”³

Thomas is a good counterexample to Dawkins’s dismissive claims. Thomas believed not in spite of the evidence; rather, he insisted on evaluating the evidence fairly for himself so that his belief would be well justified. To that end, he was willing to encounter Jesus, which some skeptics aren’t. Thomas was open to the evidence, and open to Jesus.

His example is especially important for anyone who is doubtful about the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus the Christ. Are we willing to weigh the evidence? Truthfully, it is the only intellectually responsible thing to do. There is too much at stake simply to walk away. What is at stake, specifically, is the infinitely valuable possibility of eternal life.

Jesus is always moving toward us, especially if we have our doubts.

I have tried to be honest about the doubts that most Christians have, and to grant the freedom to be honest about our doubts. It is not necessarily sinful to be skeptical. But it is wrong to shut the door on God, to have what Barnabas Piper calls “unbelieving doubt”—the perilous perspective of someone who is unwilling to believe.⁴ In his analysis of the story of Thomas, Keith Johnson explains the difference between doubts that honor God and doubts that don’t:

Doubt crosses into sin when a person stops trying to address it. Thomas doubted the resurrection, but he did not sin as he did so. His doubt arose because of his limited knowledge and his inability to make sense of what he heard. He had sincere questions that prevented him from affirming that Christ was alive, and he wanted more information to answer these questions. This is the key: Thomas sought to address the causes of his doubt. He was willing to learn, and he embraced the truth immediately after Jesus appeared to him.⁵

Believing Thomas

Yes, despite his doubts, Thomas did come to faith. When artists portray his famous encounter with Jesus, they often depict the disciple reaching out and touching his wounds. Caravaggio’s painting The Incredulity of Saint Thomas might be the most famous. Caravaggio’s Thomas takes his index finger and probes the fleshy folds of his Savior’s side, trying to comprehend what happened to the body of Jesus.

I am not sure Caravaggio’s rendering is totally accurate. Certainly, Thomas said that he wouldn’t believe unless he could put his fingers in the nail marks or place his hand in the Savior’s sword-wounded side. Maybe he said this because the other disciples told him that this is what they had done when they saw Jesus after he rose from the grave: they handled the evidence for themselves, touching his glorified body. It is also true that Jesus invited Thomas to touch him. “Put your finger here,” he said, “and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side” (John 20:27). His instructions are so specific that Thomas may well have obeyed them.

However, the Bible never says whether Thomas took Jesus up on his invitation and touched his wounds. All that John records is the answer he gave as soon as he was convinced: “My Lord and my God!” For Thomas, seeing was believing, maybe without any touching. This is one of the emotional high points of the Gospels. At the very moment when he became an eyewitness of the risen Lord Jesus Christ, everything within Thomas bowed down and worshiped.

What made this reverent response possible was our Savior’s sympathy for skeptics. Jesus did not blame Thomas for his lack of faith or condemn him for his disbelief. He did not hold himself back until the disciple showed him more trust. Instead, Jesus moved toward Thomas in love and said, “Peace be with you” (John 20:26). He held out his hands and invited his friend to step forward in faith. “Do not disbelieve,” he said, “but believe” (John 20:27).

Jesus is always moving toward us, especially if we have our doubts. In the face of everything fearful, he says, “Peace be with you.” He holds out his hands to welcome us—hands that were pierced with sharp nails for the payment of our sins. He tells us to stop doubting and start believing instead.

The best way to respond is the way Thomas did, not only by seeing and believing but also by worshiping and surrendering. Declare that Jesus of Nazareth is both Lord and God, and then start serving him, as Thomas did. By all accounts, Thomas is the apostle who carried the gospel all the way to India, founding the church that honors his memory there to this day. Keith Johnson rightly concludes: “John’s goal is not to portray Thomas as a sinful doubter whose example is to be avoided at all costs. Rather, John presents Thomas as a role model for Christians.”⁶

This article is adapted from I Have My Doubts: How God Can Use Your Uncertainty to Reawaken Your Faith by Phillip Graham Ryken.

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