In response to Thomas' doubts, Jesus said that those who believe in Christ as Savior without seeing him—that's us—are blessed. Actively scan device characteristics for identification. Use precise geolocation data. Select personalised content. Create a personalised content profile.
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Measure content performance. Develop and improve products. List of Partners vendors. Share Flipboard Email. Jack Zavada. Christianity Expert. He is the presence, power and anointing of God. When you receive Jesus as Lord, His Spirit comes to live inside of you—to cleanse you of your past and give you a new life. The world cannot accept him, because it does not see him or know him. But you know him, because he lives with you and he will be in you.
Acting on His instruction releases anointing over our lives and takes us to another dimension in our relationship with Him. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
Because God is a good Father, He invites us to share in His character. As followers of Jesus, we have been forgiven and made holy. When we receive Christ, His Holy Spirit comes to live inside of us. Many people in the world are searching. Now is the time to stand out and be different — to share the great news about Jesus!
He condescended to Thomas and his desire to know for himself. What amazes me about this is that Jesus came to Thomas on his level. He didn't rebuke him. He didn't humiliate him. He could see that deep down in Thomas's heart, he really wanted to know God. Jesus came to him and said, "Reach your finger here, and look at My hands, and reach your hand here, and put it into My side. Do not be unbelieving, but believing" John I like Thomas, because by nature I, too, am a skeptical person.
I have never been one to believe something just because someone says it is true. You might be someone who is a bit skeptical, a bit unsure of your faith. You may have a lot of questions. Deep down inside, you want to know God. You want to know for yourself. The risen Lord has something for you.
Therefore, the Thomas incident as it is reported in John , is worth investigating and discussing. This precisely will be our task in the present paper, a paper dedicated to the memory of Bishop Gerasimos of Abydos, the erudite and humble Hierarch, insightful thinker, researcher of the Scriptures, and indefatigable student of Christology. John is the only Evangelist who has preserved the story in which Thomas is depicted as moving from unbelief to belief after his encounter with the risen Lord Jn.
In the above mentioned appearance of Jesus to his disciples, he showed them his hands and his side edeixen autois tas cheiras kai ten pleuran autou , and the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord idontes ton Kyrion Jn.
The two main verbs at the center of the narrative are verbs of optical impression, of seeing: Jesus showed … The disciples saw edeixen … idontes. Thus, Thomas makes his own individual test, his personal direct seeing of the visible marks of the crucifixion and even the touching of these marks, the absolute condition and the non-negotiable term for believing.
Any other evidence is inadmissible. An unyielding attitude is described here, a situation where believing seems to be unthinkable without seeing, without direct physical evidence and verification.
The event occurred eight days after the appearance of Jesus to the other disciples. As they were gathered in the house, behind closed doors, the risen Christ came and stood among them Jn. This time Thomas was with them. Obviously, Jesus accepts the challenge, if not the provocation, of Thomas and invites him to proceed with the demanded test. The unbelieving disciple already sees Christ, but he is now asked to complete the test by adding the touching of the hands and of the side.
He does not, however, complete the test. Suddenly he is convinced that the one whom he sees, is the risen Lord, the very same Jesus whom he knew, after having been with him for three years.
This declaration of faith is unique. No other disciple in the Gospel narratives has used such an advanced creedal formula for expressing his faith in Christ who is now called Lord and God. Thus now Jesus is addressed in the way Yahweh has been addressed by Israel. With the confession of Thomas we have a supreme christological pronouncement, a tremendously advanced expression of faith which, despite its utter brevity, constitutes the ultimate statement in high Christology. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed Jn.
The first part of the statement, taken either as a question or as a recognition of a fact, [14] speaks of believing in the risen Lord as a result of seeing him. There is no doubt that Jesus clearly speaks here of an undeniable phenomenon of faith, a faith which is the consequence of a visual, a sight experience.
As several exegetes [15] have pointed out, there is no need to discern in this instance an implied diminished value of such a way of arriving at the state of believing. Probably a number of the larger circle of the disciples who have not seen the risen Lord with their own eyes but relied on the eyewitness of the other disciples.
But most certainly, they are the Christians living around the end of the first century AD for whom John the Evangelist writes his Gospel. The majority of these people were born years after the resurrection and the ascension of Christ, therefore they could not have seen him. They are proclaimed blessed because they have arrived at the state of believing in the risen Lord without the assistance or proof of immediate, direct and personal ocular experience.
There is no doubt that seeing the risen Christ as a basic way of believing in him, is not rejected or downgraded in the whole chapter 20 of John and more specifically in John Not only is it not rejected, it is, on the contrary, presupposed and considered indispensable as a way leading to faith. In John , for instance, in the case of Peter and John, the two disciples enter the empty tomb of Jesus and see his burial cloths and his face napkin neatly folded.
Here the connection between seeing and believing is not only direct but also etiologic. In this case believing is based on seeing or, to put it differently, seeing becomes a cause for believing.
There is an intriguing note attached by the Evangelist to the description of the above mentioned episode: For as yet they i. John and Peter did not know the Scripture that he i. Jesus must rise from the dead Jn. The note possibly suggests that the disciples, because of their ignorance or lack of understanding of the Scriptures, did not actually expect the resurrection of Jesus.
Under the circumstances, they obviously needed strong, unambiguous evidence in order to understand what really happened, namely, in order to believe that Jesus was truly risen. They needed visible, sense verifiable data. In the incident with Mary Magdalene Jn.
Hearing, not simply the voice, which happened before Jn. The verb to see is the core of the announcement, and this verb is indicative of a visual experience. It is also characteristic, as we explained before, that in the episode of the appearance of the risen Lord to the disciples inside the house Jn. The verbs to show and to see, that is verbs related to direct optical contact and visual experience, are key words and concepts in the new condition of post-resurrection faith engendered in the hearts of the disciples.
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