Doubting Thomas — or Thomas, a man of faith?

Was Thomas really a doubter? Or, was he a man of faith?

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The dilemma of a sceptical mind

I often look on with envy when I see and hear my brethren talking together. They seem to have so much more faith than me, getting excited about the signs of the times, such as the pandemic we are currently in the middle of and voicing how certain they are that this is clearly the visible hand of God. I, unfortunately, have a much more doubting nature. My sister-wife would probably describe it more as a sceptical outlook with an unhealthy dose of cynicism thrown in. I look at the Covid-19 crisis and think that it may well be helping to line up the nations to bring about God’s plan and purpose but will reserve judgement until there is more concrete evidence of that.

I also often need to look again at the evidence for God’s existence, and support for the veracity of Scripture, in order to reassure myself that it is not just cleverly devised fables that I am following.

Does this mean that I don’t really have the faith needed to be a disciple of Christ?

Faith looms so large throughout Scripture as the key elements of true discipleship. Can we be acceptable to God if we have doubts and always needing additional evidence to try and strengthen our faith? Have you ever doubted that you have the sort of faith that God requires? Maybe it is just me, but I am sure many of you grapple with this question at some point in your life, if not constantly.

Was Thomas the man we’ve made him to be?

It was thoughts like these that drew me to look at the apostle Thomas—a man that history has dubbed ‘Doubting Thomas’. It seemed that here was a man with doubts like my own. Maybe I could find comfort in his experiences. But, having looked closely at the few brief mentions of this man over the last few weeks, I have discovered that he isn’t, in fact, a man like me, but rather, a man whom I need to strive to be like!

We do our brother Thomas a disservice by referring to him as doubting Thomas. I believe he actually had a faith to match any of the worthies of old. I am going to suggest that we ought to rename our brother “Elegchos Thomas”, or maybe “Thomas Elegchos” rolls off the tongue better. Before we look at what the Greek word elegchos means, and why I think Thomas was just as faithful as many other Bible characters, let’s first look at how he might have come to be known as doubting Thomas.

Biblical faith as opposed to blind faith

I think it comes from the fact that most people misunderstand what biblical faith is. Many people, unfortunately, think that it is blind and unquestioning faith. Even the dictionary defines faith as “a strong or unshakeable belief in something, especially without proof or evidence,” or “a conviction of the truth of certain doctrines of religion, especially when this is not based on reason.” Richard Dawkins in his book The God Delusion states, “The whole point of religious faith, its strength and chief glory, is that it does not depend on rational justification.” Obviously, if you think that to be a faithful disciple of Christ you need to have an unshakeable belief without any rational proof or evidence, you would turn to the record of Thomas in John 20 and think here is a man of little faith, a doubter indeed.

The marvellous thing is—well, marvellous for me as someone who likes facts and evidence—is that this is not the sort of faith we have been called to at all. Have a look at Hebrews 11:1, where we find the use of the word elegchos:

“Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence (elegchos) of things not seen.”

Here Scripture tells us that faith requires evidence. Thayer’s Greek Lexicon defines this word as, “a proof by which a thing is proved or tested.” Not only that, but the word substance in the verse also has the idea of a firm foundation or something concrete. Biblical faith is not an unquestioning, unreasoned faith. It is a faith supported and underpinned by evidence. God, Himself, has said that the evidence of His existence is so clearly and obviously seen in creation that we are without excuse if we deny it (Rom 1:20). It is possible to look at the weight of evidence in creation and come to the rational and well-reasoned conclusion that there must be a God.

Some people struggle with this idea because there seems to be no need for faith if that is the case. Hebrews 11 again provides us with the answer to this apparent conundrum, in verse 6:

“But without faith it is impossible to please him: for He that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.”

Biblical faith not only involves believing that God exists, but also that He will reward us in the way He has promised. The examples of old clearly show this. God appeared to Abraham. Abraham had the evidence of his eyes to prove beyond doubt that God existed, and yet he was a man of faith. Why? Because he still had to believe that God would do the things that He had promised. The things which he saw provided the evidence for the things which he couldn’t see, that is, the promises that God had made to him. Look at all the faithful of old in the Scriptures. They all had evidence that God existed, but they all had to believe, in faith, that God was going to reward them. God has never expected us to believe that He will reward us without first providing evidence of His ability to fulfil His promises. Just look at the lengths that He went to in Egypt to prove His existence and His power to the children of Israel. Look how patient He was with Gideon to provide just one more piece of evidence in order to convince him to take his walk of faith.

Looking at Thomas afresh

With these thoughts in mind, let’s come back to the story of Thomas and look at him anew, through the lens of scriptural faith instead of the faith of Christendom. Now, although Thomas is mentioned in all the Gospels, in all but John he is merely a name in the list of the apostles. In John, however, there are three occasions where he speaks, and we come to know a little about this man.

“Let us also go, that we may die with him”

John 11:16 is the first of these. On hearing of the death of Lazarus, Jesus declares that they are to go up to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, to which Thomas responds, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.” This is slightly confusing in the immediate context, as it appears Thomas is talking about dying with Lazarus. However, if we take a step back and look at the wider context, he is actually talking about dying with Jesus. If we turn back over to chapter 10, we read about the experience of Jesus the last time he was in Jerusalem. In verse 31 of this chapter, we read that, after Jesus proclaimed, “I and my Father are one” that “… the Jews took up stones … to stone him.” Again, in verse 39 we read, “Therefore they sought again to take him.” Due to these threats to his life, Jesus left Jerusalem and went away beyond Jordan. Now, to get the context of Thomas’s words we need to look on a map and see that Bethany, the home town of Lazarus, is only two miles from Jerusalem (about 15 furlongs as verse 18 of chapter 11 states in the King James version). Given the previous experience in Jerusalem, Thomas understood that, by travelling back to the home of Lazarus, Jesus was putting his life at risk. Despite this risk, Thomas was willing to step up and put his life on the line with his Lord and to encourage his fellow apostles to do likewise. Was he willing to lay down his life based on a blind and unreasoned faith in Jesus? No. During the preceding years, he had built his faith on the evidence and the facts that he had seen with his own eyes. The miracles he saw Christ perform. The words of truth he heard him speak. Thomas had amassed enough ‘elegchos’ to build a foundation of faith so sure that he was willing to lay down his life for it. He obviously still misunderstood exactly what Christ’s mission was, but he was no different to all the other apostles at this time.

Despite these misunderstandings, make no mistake, Scripture is telling us that here was a man of faith, a man willing to die for, and with, his Lord.

“We know not whither thou goest, and how can we know the way?”

The second occasion is in John 14:5, in the upper room. Christ states, “Whither I go ye know, and the way ye know,” to which Thomas replies, “Lord, we know not whither thou goest, and how can we know the way?” At this time, all the apostles were struggling with trying to comprehend what was about to happen, and what Christ was talking about. Thomas was the one that was willing to ask everyone else’s question out loud. Why? Because he wanted to make sure he knew and understood the facts and details correctly. He wanted his faith to be firmly ground on ‘elegchos’. If he was putting his life on the line for his Lord, he wanted to make sure he had the facts straight. Christ doesn’t reprimand him at all for asking this question, he just calmly responds with an answer.

This episode isn’t recorded to show lack of faith on Thomas’s part, it is recorded to show us what we all must do when we have questions, and that is, we need to ask those questions in order that our faith might be built on evidence and facts, and not on doubts and misunderstanding.

The other thing we find in this chapter is that Thomas is not only a man that asked questions, he also listened, and he learned. Look down to verse 8 and we see Philip ask “Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us,” to which Jesus responds, “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.” We will come back to this later because there is good evidence to show that Thomas was listening intently to these words and learning from them. It is so easy for us when we are involved in conversations like this to not really be listening at all, but rather just looking for another opportunity to speak. Not Thomas; he asked his question, and then, this man of faith was willing to be quiet and listen to the questions of others and the teaching of his Master that he might add more layers of elegchos to his foundation of faith.

“Except I see…I will not believe”

Let’s now come to the last and most famous episode involving this man, in John 20.

Here, of course, we do see a man struggling with his faith, and trying to make sense of the evidence of the preceding week. He was, after all, just a man like us. And, which of us wouldn’t have had our faith turned on its head by the events that had transpired? Before we get to Thomas though, it is important to note what Christ does in verse 20. He shewed them his hands and his side. He openly offered them, without prompting, the visible physical evidence that it truly was him that had been resurrected. There was no expectation on Christ’s part that they should blindly accept that he had been raised from the dead. He gave them indisputable evidence.

Now, obviously Thomas isn’t willing to accept the word of his fellow disciples. He wants to see the evidence for himself. He probably lets himself down at this point with his emphatic proclamation that unless he sees for himself, he will never ever believe, as the original Greek indicates. But again, remember, here was a man whose world had been turned upside down. His master had been brutally killed, and now his friends were asking him to accept their word that he was alive again. I struggled a little looking at these verses, trying to figure out if there was any justification at all for Thomas’s insistence on this point. By random chance, the CEO of the company I work for sent around a list of 68 pieces of advice that a 68-year-old man had posted. He had found it helpful and suggested that we should all take the time to read it. Many of the bits of advice were almost directly out of Proverbs, so it made for an interesting read. One of the 68 pieces of advice really stood out in relation to the things I had been thinking about with Thomas:

“Extraordinary claims should require extraordinary evidence to be believed.”

Now those that think that Christian faith is a blind unquestioning faith might baulk at this, and say, “No, in order to be faithful, we just need to believe even if there is a lack of evidence.” But, having looked at this chapter, and pondered these things, I think that Thomas is here to teach us that this statement is actually correct and acceptable in God’s eyes. “Extraordinary claims should require extraordinary evidence to be believed.” In understanding and accepting this, we find one of the keys to developing the sort of faith that pleases God; the faith with that solid foundation spoken of in Hebrews 11:1.

Why do I say that? Well, surely here was an extraordinary claim, a man that was crucified is alive and walking around again. Here also we have a man demanding extraordinary evidence of that claim. He not only wanted to see with his own eyes, he wanted to touch the wounds also.

What is Christ’s response? Well, interestingly, he doesn’t immediately answer Thomas’s request. He makes him wait for eight days. This is perhaps an indication that Thomas was not wholly correct in his attitude and his dismissal of his brethren. He had some things to learn, and Christ left him to wrestle with his thoughts for a full eight days. This must have seemed like an eternity to Thomas. A fitting number, of course, the number of circumcision and new beginnings. Certainly, Thomas was going to be a new man on this day. On this day he was going to have the evidence he needed to make the foundation of his faith so strong that he would go on to die for his Lord. What does Christ do when he appears to Thomas? Does he start by reprimanding him for his lack of faith? No, he calmly turns to him and provides the evidence he had asked for. Christ knew that this was an extraordinary thing that he was expecting his disciples to believe, and therefore he was willing to patiently provide that evidence for them. Just like his Father had been willing to provide extraordinary evidence to the likes of Israel and Gideon when He had called on them to believe extraordinary things. He does go on to say to Thomas, “… be not faithless, but believing” (v27). Thomas did have to learn that we can’t always demand proof and evidence for everything. We all have to grow in our faith to the extent that the foundation we have established with the visible evidence allows us to believe in the unseen things that God has promised. Christ gave Thomas what he needed in order to do that.

What is Thomas’s reaction? Presented with the evidence he sought, his faith is renewed. He then responds to Christ with, “My Lord and my God”. Trinitarians have no issue with this verse, but we like to look for some way of explaining this in a non-trinitarian way. There are some echoes back to Zechariah 12 & 13, with God manifestation intimated in the words of 12:10, where God says that in piercing Christ, they had pierced Him. While there is definitely a connection here, these verses are tied to an unfaithful Israel seeing and acknowledging Christ. In contrast, as a man of faith, Thomas’s mind was primarily elsewhere, in two different places, maybe. Firstly, the answer to Philip’s question in the upper room, which had probably gone through his mind more than once in the preceding eight days, suddenly came into crystal-clear focus: “He that hath seen Me, hath seen the Father.” With the evidence before him, the foundation of his faith is locked firmly in place, and the principles of God manifestation all made perfect sense to him now. In looking upon his risen Lord, he was seeing a perfect representation of God himself.

Fellow wrestlers

But perhaps, even higher in his thoughts were the words of a faithful man of old who had a similar epiphany. Scripture takes pains to direct us back to exactly where Thomas’s mind was at this time, and we find the clue in his name: “Thomas, also called Didymus”. Biblical names are always ripe with meaning. What does Thomas mean? It comes from a Hebrew word meaning “twin”. What does Didymus mean? It is just the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew word, so also means “twin”. It seems that Thomas was probably a twin, but why does Scripture take pains to point this out? Why are we not given any indication of who his twin might be? There are many suppositions about who his twin brother or sister might be, but if it was important for us to know that we would have been told. If, however, we see Thomas as the faithful man that he was, maybe God is prompting us to ask the question, “Is there some other reference to a twin in the Bible that a man like this might look to for inspiration?” There aren’t many twins mentioned in Scripture, so it isn’t too hard to find one that could have inspired Thomas’s words. Come back to Genesis 32, and I think we see where the mind of this faithful man might have been at this time.

Jacob was a twin, a man of great faith, but one who also wanted to see the clear evidence of God’s hand in his life. A man who God patiently worked with over many years to lay that foundation of evidence. We see in verse 30 Jacob’s own epiphany, where the concepts of God manifestation—the very essence of the Truth—come sharply into focus for him. His wrestling with the angel in some ways is just symbolic of the wrestling Jacob had been doing all his life, trying to construct and strengthen his evidence-based faith. In looking upon the angel and seeing the mercy he has shown him, Jacob finally sees and understands the mercy and patience that God has been showing him all these years.

Perhaps Thomas is our New Testament cameo of Jacob? The God that patiently worked with Jacob, and helped him build his unshakable faith, is the same God that was willing to work with Thomas. Christ, as His perfect representative, was willing to extend the same mercy and patience that was extended to Jacob. John 20: 28 is Thomas’s Penuel moment. He realised, like Jacob, that he had been wrestling with God, and he had also now seen God face to face, but his life was preserved. Obviously, whether Thomas was actually thinking of Jacob at this time is conjecture on my part, but I think it is still worth adding a link next to John 20:28 back to Genesis 32:30 as a reminder of another man of faith that needed to see the evidence of God working in his life.

A rewarder of them that seek Him

In conclusion, there is a wonderful exhortation for us when we see Thomas as a man of faith in John 20. We tend to confuse the way that Christ deals with the Scribes and Pharisees, and Israel and rebukes them for their lack of faith, and how he deals with his disciples. To the former he refused to give any further evidence when it was requested of him, for example, in Matthew 12:38-39 where he replies to their request for a sign with, “An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas”. From this, we can draw the erroneous conclusion that, if we likewise are in need of more evidence, he will rebuke us also on the day of judgement, and maybe we are just wasting our time trying to follow him now. That is why the example of Thomas is so incredibly powerful because it teaches us that Christ deals differently with those that have the right spirit, those that have ears to hear. It is critical that we see this distinction. There will be times in all of our lives when faith grows weak, and we need to know that we can come to our God without fear, and ask for His help in building that faith back up, just as the man asked of Christ in Mark 9:24 “help thou mine unbelief.”

When we stop viewing Thomas as a doubter, and a faithless man, when we instead see the similarities between this faithful man and other faithful brethren of old like Jacob, we get a much better understanding of the faith that we have been called to, the patience and mercy of our God towards us, and His patience and willingness to help us develop that same faith. We no longer have to question our faith if we need to keep looking for evidence of God’s existence, and of His hand at work in our lives, or if we need to be constantly questioning in order to try and get a better grasp on the things we have been called to believe. God wants us to believe beyond doubt that He exists, because if we can’t grasp hold of the evidence for this, which is clearly and abundantly seen all around us, how can we hope to have faith in the unseen things, the things that he has promised to do for us in the future. Our God hasn’t just provided us with one piece of evidence. He has provided layers of evidence in creation, Scripture, prophecy, and the nation of Israel. Brother Islip Collyer describes it as cumulative evidence in his book, Vox Dei, in which he goes to great lengths to show how small pieces of evidence all combine together to amass an extraordinary amount of evidence in support of the Bible’s claims.

Brethren, whenever our faith seems weak, rather than doubting our worthiness as disciples, we should instead turn to God and ask Him to strengthen our faith and take the time we need to remind ourselves of the abundant evidence that God is!

What amazing comfort we get from this faithful man Thomas. He strove to know and understand, and truly see his Lord, that his faith might be a sure foundation, and Christ patiently and mercifully dealt with him to help him in that journey. Like Thomas, we pray that as we progress through this journey, God will bring to reality the words of hymn 165 in our life, that we might slowly and surely live “more by faith” and “less by sight.”

As we look to the emblems on the table each week, we see perhaps the most extraordinary evidence provided to us by the Father, in order that we might believe an extraordinary claim. God has promised us eternal life—we who are sinners and worthy of nothing but death. As evidence of that extraordinary claim, He was willing to send His only begotten son, that we might believe. As we look to that evidence, surely, we are inspired to echo the words of Jacob, for in our Lord we too have seen God face to face, and are preserved!

 

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Feature image by Ben White on Unsplash