Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of John 20:29

Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed [are] they that have not seen, and [yet] have believed.

29. Thomas, because, &c.] ‘Thomas’ must be omitted on overwhelming evidence, although the addition of the name seems natural here as in Joh 14:9. ‘Thou hast believed’ is half exclamation, half question (comp. Joh 16:31).

blessed are they that have not seen ] Rather, Blessed are they that saw not. There must have been some disciples who believed in the Resurrection merely on the evidence of others. Jesus had not appeared to every one of His followers.

This last great declaration of blessedness is a Beatitude which is the special property of the countless number of believers who have never seen Christ in the flesh. Just as it is possible for every Christian to become equal in blessedness to Christ’s Mother and brethren by obedience (Mat 12:49-50), so it is possible for them to transcend the blessedness of Apostles by faith. All the Apostles, like S. Thomas, had seen before they believed: even S. John’s faith did not shew itself until he had had evidence ( Joh 20:8). S. Thomas had the opportunity of believing without seeing, but rejected it. The same opportunity is granted to all believers now.

Thus this wonderful Gospel begins and ends with the same article of faith. ‘The Word was God,’ ‘the Word became flesh,’ is the Evangelist’s solemn confession of a belief which had been proved and deepened by the experience of more than half a century. From this he starts, and patiently traces out for us the main points in the evidence out of which that belief had grown. This done, he shews us the power of the evidence over one needlessly wary of being influenced by insufficient testimony. The result is the instantaneous confession, at once the result of questioning and the victory over it, ‘My Lord and my God.’

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

Because thou hast seen me – Because you have looked upon my body, and seen the proofs that I am the same Saviour that was crucified. Jesus here approves the faith of Thomas, but more highly commends the faith of those who should believe without having seen.

Blessed – Happy, or worthy of the divine approbation. The word has here the force of the comparative degree, signifying that they would be in some respects more blessed than Thomas. They would evince higher faith.

That have not seen … – Those who should be convinced by the testimony of the apostles, and by the influences of the Spirit. They would evince stronger faith. All faith is of things not seen; and God blesses those most who most implicitly rely on his word.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Joh 20:29

Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen Me thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen yet have believed

Who is blessed?

Thomass conduct was strange but honest. How much better to be doubting Thomas than the believing priests! They believed the resurrection, or they would never have given to the soldiers the price of a lie. They believed, but they would not believe. Thomas doubted, but would gladly have believed. In the matter of faith and unbelief men may be divided into four classes.

I. THOSE WHO WILL NOT BELIEVE EVEN WHAT THEY SEE. Such were the men who apprehended our Lord. Not one of them in his past life had fallen, or seen another fall, at a word. But now they all fall. Yet they apprehend the mysterious Man, just as if nothing special had occurred. Such was Pharaoh. What evidence will ever convince him that he had better let Israel go? But nothing less than ruin will convince him. Such was Ahaziah (2Ki 1:1-18). More sad and shocking still, perhaps, is the case of Stephens judges. Whether the accused be like an angel or a fiend, matters little or nothing to the Sanhedrim. Yes; there is a class of men like Solomons fools, whose folly will not leave them, though they be brayed in a mortar; men who can hear nothing softer than thunder, who can feel nothing lighter than vengeance.

II. THOSE WHO BELIEVE ONLY WHEN THEY SEE. To this class Thomas for a time belongs, and Abraham and the apostles Our Lord, in the plainest words, and more than once, had said that He should rise OH the third day. Who believed it? To this class, of course, belong the men of the world. One can hardly draw a line between saint and worldling so strong and so clear as this. The worldling trusts in himself, or his friends, or his wealth, or his stars; the saint trusts in God.

III. THOSE WHO HAVE NOT SEEN, AND YET HAVE BELIEVED. Without this faith it is impossible to please God. Without faith a man may be a logician, a mathematician, a general, a man of business; but by what possibility can he be a child of God? Take faith from the earth; let everything be done by sight; let the consequence of every action be immediate and irresistibly evident; and what is left but calculation and business, time-tables and statistics? Life has become a counting-house, in which all we want is a sharp eye and a strong hand. With faith has gone every high and holy feeling–all patience, courage, largeness of heart. The believer is every way blessed.

1. He has the best moral education which even the All-wise can give him. What better exercise than to rise from the seen to the unseen? Who can be more noble than he who, in the very sunshine of prosperity, refuses to trust flattering appearances, or even flattering facts? And of all brave men is not he the bravest who, in the darkest and saddest hours, maintains an unflinching trust in the God who hides Himself?

2. He wins an infinite prize. Eternal life is the goal of faith. Do we want an example of steady faith? See it in Noah, who for one hundred and twenty years built the ark. How the faith shines through the long, slow years!

IV. THOSE WHO BELIEVE NOT ONLY WITHOUT BUT AGAINST APPEARANCES–as Abraham when commanded to offer Isaac, and Job when he said,Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him, and the three Hebrew children. (W. J. Frankland.)

The blessedness of faith

I. RELIGIOUS PRIVILEGE NOW UNDER THE COMMON GRACE OF THE GOSPEL IS GREATER THAN THAT POSSESSED BY THOSE WHO COMPANIED WITH CHRIST IN THE FLESH. This is the case as regards

1. The evidences of Christs Godhead and Divine Apostlate. At first sight it would seem impossible that any evidences should transcend that accorded to Christs contemporaries. Yet against this was the constant presence of the Lords manhood, which must have been fruitful in misgivings. But this wellspring of incredulity is now sealed. We know not Christ after the flesh. When we connect this with the moral effects of Christianity, the testimony of millions to Christs power to bless and save, it is clear that a return to the Apostles position would be a loss.

2. The substance of Christian truth. The multitudes to whom Christ spake in parables had no pre-eminence over ourselves; for they were left in ignorance of much that Christ taught His disciples. But these disciples were left in ignorance of many things they were net able to hear until the descent of the Spirit, and all the fruits of their subsequent inspiration we enjoy.

3. The prime grace of the gospel, the knowledge of salvation by the remission of sins. Here, perhaps, more than anywhere, we are apt to draw unfavourable contrasts. Could we but bring our spiritual pollution to where the leper knelt! The music of that word forgiven, uttered by Christs own lips–did that but fall upon our ears! But are we sure that if Christ were upon earth we should be inclined to seek Him? That the same hindrances of shame, worldliness, &c., would not still operate? And then why should the utterance of Christs own lips be more satisfactory than the inward witness of the Holy Spirit? But in two respects one privilege is immeasurably higher.

(1) We understand better than they did the way of salvation by Christ.

(2) Christ is accessible to us, as He was not to the bulk of mankind then.

4. The comparative means for obtaining a perfect preparation for eternal life.

(1) The aids incentive to holiness with which Christs attendants were privileged were transcendently great. Think of His teaching on the character of God, the evil of sin, the excellence of religion; His miracles; the moral force of His example.

(2) Yet we may easily over-estimate this privilege. It was not of itself, and as a matter of course, an instrument Of salvation, as the case of Judas makes only too clear.

(3) Besides, the disciples had no such opportunity of securing holiness as we have, for the Holy Spirit was not given till Jesus was glorified.

II. IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE GENERAL PRINCIPLES UPON WHICH GOD GOVERNS HIS CREATURES, IT IS BETTER THAT WE ARE CALLED TO LIVE FOR A WHILE BY FAITH AND NOT BY SIGHT.

1. Inward satisfaction in the service of God is in proportion to the difficulties of the service. Were it not for the renunciation of the world, the crucifixion of self, the wrestling with evil, which go hand in hand with the return of a sinful spirit to God, there would be little of that joy which come so often with the first revelation of Christ. If evangelical truth in its sublimer mysteries were accessible to every vagrant aspiration, how poor a harvest of Divine delight would they furnish compared with that now yielded to the toilsome husbandry of thought and devotion! And when we pray, and labour, find peace, thereby we owe it to the spiritual hindrances which block our approach to God and to outward pressure and trial.

2. A life of faith is fitted to produce a symmetry and perfection of Christian character such as could scarcely come by a less trying process. Those Christians are the wisest, and meekest, and most spiritual to whom the largest share of providential trouble has fallen, and the perfecting of the Church for the duties of time and for the felicity and services of heaven is only to be secured under the operation of faith in the unseen Saviour. Were the presence which faith imposes lifted off the Church, pride would take the place of humility, and self-worship consecration to Christ, and hardness charity.

3. The ultimate rewards of creatures like ourselves are determined by the severity of the ordeal which constitutes moral probation. If there be creatures whose final estate is determined apart from probation, we can hardly imagine them possessors of a blessedness comparable to those who have suffered and so are perfected. There is not a good, even of this world, the fruits of pains and trouble, which is not the sweeter from the price we pay for it.

III. THE TEXT HAS OTHER SIGNIFICANT ASPECTS.

1. Towards Christian belief. It shows a strong shadow on millinarianism. Whatever advantage such a state of things might be supposed to confer on the Church, on the principle of the text it would be a diminution, not a heightening, of its present privilege.

2. Towards Christian sentiment and observance. It distinctly frowns upon all interposition of the material and human between God in Christ and our souls. The entire genius of Christianity is hostile to religious symbolism, and the history of the Church utters a strong caution against the use of sense as a helpmate to faith. Faith needs it not. It is impious to set up Moses candlestick again now that the Sun has risen.

3. Towards Christian character and life.

(1) It rebukes the spirit of religious discontent and envy.

(2) It suggests the greatness of our religious obligation as

Christians.

(3) It opens a glorious prospect of blessing from God as the recompense of faith. (J. D. Geden, D. D.)

A simple faith:

A peasant of singular piety, being on a particular occasion admitted to the presence of the King of Sweden, was asked by him what he considered to be the nature of true faith. The peasant entered fully into the subject much to the Kings comfort and satisfaction. When the king was on his death-bed he had a return of Ms fears as to the safety of his soul, and still the same question was perpetually put to those around him, What is real faith? The Archbishop of Upsal, who had been sent for, commenced in a learned and logical manner a scholastic definition of faith, which lasted an hour. When he had finished, the king said, with much energy, All this is ingenious, but it is not comfortable; it is not what I want. Nothing but the farmers faith will do for me. (J. Everett.)

Faith and sight

I. SIGHT WITHOUT FAITH–sin.

1. Ancient–the sin of the Jewish people.

2. Common–the sin of many now.

3. Great–since that which in Christ is presented to the eye of faith and reason ought to lead to heart acceptance of Christ.

II. FAITH AFTER SIGHT–salvation. Exemplified

1. In the disciples (except perhaps John) (Joh 20:8), who believed in Christ risen after they had seen Him.

2. In those who to-day believe in Christ only after their intellectual difficulties as to Christ have been solved.

III. FAITH WITHOUT SIGHT–blessedness.

1. It implies a larger measure of Divine grace.

2. It exhibits a higher degree of Christian virtue.

3. It secures a richer experience of inward felicity.

4. It wins a readier commendation from the lips of Christ. (T. Whitelaw, D. D.)

The Bible a help to the sight of faith:

You may have stood on the sea coast while a friend has been looking out to sea through a telescope, perhaps it was when you were at Douglas waiting the arrival of a steamer from Liverpool, on which you were expecting a beloved relative. While you are standing on the rock, your friend is looking through the glass, and saying, Yes; I see him! You reply, Let me have the glass! I cannot believe it, unless I see too. You lift the glass, and in a little while, you say, Ah, I see him; now, he sees us, and is waving his handkerchief to us! Here is a telescope which God has provided for every man. We can see, through it, that the record of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, are facts, as plainly as if we had seen Him with our eyes and touched Him with our hands. We also see that He is our Saviour, who died in our room and stead; and that we are saved from the penalty of eternal death, because our iniquities were laid on Him instead of on us. We see through this Divine telescope, that when Jesus was nailed to the cross, He died, not for His own sins, but for ours! Through this glass we see the water of life, and notice to our joy that any thirsty soul may drink thereof, without money and without price. Through this blessed glass, we see the hand of the Lord directing our paths, and holding us up in slippery ways. It is the most wonderful telescope in the world. It shows us our departed friends and children in a beautiful land, where they wear white robes and have neither any sorrow nor sin; and it shows that we have a mansion in paradise on which our names are written; but, best of all, it reveals that we–we!–shall actually enjoy the blessedness of heaven! (W. Birch.)

Meditation a help to the sight of faith:

Meditation and contemplation are often like windows of agate, and gates of carbuncle, through which we see the Redeemer. Meditation puts the telescope to the eye, and enables us to see Jesus after a better sort than we could have seen Him if we had lived in the days of His flesh; for now we see not only Jesus in the flesh, but the spiritual Jesus; we see the spirit of Jesus, the core and essence of Jesus, the very soul of the Saviour. O happy you, that spend much time in contemplations! I wish that we had less to do, that we might do more of this heavenly work. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Sight and faith:

Walking by sight is just this–I believe in myself; whereas walking by faith is–I believe in God. If I walk by sight I walk by myself; if I walk by faith, then there are two of us, and the second one–ah! how great, how glorious, how mighty is He–the Great All-in-all–God-all-sufficient! Sight goes a warfare at its own charges, andbecomes a bankrupt, and is defeated. Faith goes a warfare at the charges of the Kings Exchequer, and there is no fear that Faiths bank shall ever be broken. Sight builds the house from its own quarry, and on its own foundation but it begins to build and is never able to finish, and what it does build rests on the sand and falls. But faith builds on the foundation laid in eternity, in the fair colours of the Saviours blood, in the covenant of grace. It goes to God for every stone to be used in the building, and brings forth the top-stone with shoutings of Grace, grace unto it! (C. H.Spurgeon.)

Sight of faith:

Sight is the noblest sense; it is quick; we can look from earth to heaven in a moment: it is large; we can see the hemisphere of the heavens at one view: it is sure and certain; in hearing we may be deceived; and, lastly, it is the most affecting sense. Even so, faith is the quickest, the largest, the most certain, the most affecting grace: like an eagle in the clouds, at one view, it sees Christ in heaven, and looks down upon the world; it looks backwards and forwards; it sees things past, present, and to come. (R. Sibbes, D. D.)

Faith, not sight:

By constant sight, the effect of objects seen grows less; by constant faith, the effect of objects believed in grows greater. The probable reason of this is, that personal observation does not admit of the influence of the imagination in impressing the fact; while unseen objects, realized by faith, have the auxiliary aid of the imagination, not to exaggerate them, but to clothe them with living colours, and impress them upon the heart. Whether this be the reason or not, the fact is true, that, the more frequently we see, the less we feel, the power of an object; while, the more frequently we dwell upon an object by faith, the more we feel its power. (J. B. Walker, M. D.)

Faith without sight

1. Those who saw and believed not were far from being blessed.

2. Those who saw him, and believed, were undoubtedly blessed.

3. Those who have not seen, and yet have believed, are emphatically blessed.

4. There remains the superlative degree of blessedness in seeing Jesus face to face without need of believing in the same sense as now.

5. But for the present this is our blessedness, this is our place in the gospel history–we have not seen, and yet have believed. What a comfort that so high a degree of blessedness is open to us!

I. DO NOT LET US DIMINISH THIS BLESSEDNESS

1. By wishing to see.

(1) By pining for some imaginary voice, or vision, or revelation.

(2) By craving marvellous providences, and singular dispensations.

(3) By hungering for despairs or transports.

(4) By perpetually demanding arguments and logical demonstrations.

(5) By clamouring for conspicuous success in connection with the preaching of the Word, and the missionary operations of the Church.

(6) By being anxious to believe with the majority. Truth has usually been with the minority.

2. By failing to believe. Believe

(1) Practically, so as to act upon our faith.

(2) Intensely, so as to laugh at contradictions.

(3) Livingly, so as to be simple as a child.

(4) Continually, so as to be evenly confident.

(5) Personally, so as to be assured alone, even if all others give the lie to the doctrines of the Lord.

(6) Thoroughly, so as to find the rest of faith.

II. DO NOT LET US THINK THIS BLESSEDNESS UNATTAINABLE.

1. This blessedness is linked for ever with the faith which our Lord accepts: in fact, it is the appointed reward of it.

2. God deserves such faith of us. He is so true that His unsupported word is quite enough for faith to build upon. Can we only believe Him as far as we can see Him?

3. Thousands of saints have rendered, and are rendering, such faith, and are enjoying such blessedness at this moment, We are bound to have fellowship with them in like precious faith.

4. Hitherto our own experience has warranted such faith. Has it not?

5. Those of us who are now enjoying the blessed peace of faith can speak with great confidence upon the matter. Why, then, are so many cast down? Why will they not believe?

III. DO NOT LET ANY OF US MISS IT. The faith which our Lord described is exceedingly precious, and we ought to seek after it, for

1. It is the only true and saving faith. Faith which demands sight is not faith at all, and cannot save the soul.

2. It is in itself most acceptable with God. Nothing is acceptable without it Heb 11:6). It is the evidence of the acceptance of the man and his works.

3. It is a proof of grace within: of a spiritual mind, a renewed nature, a reconciled heart, a new-born spirit.

4. It is the root-principle of a glorious character.

5. It is exceedingly useful to others: in comforting the despondent, in impressing unbelievers, in cheering seekers, &c.

6. It enriches its possessor to the utmost, giving power in prayer, strength of mind, decision of character, firmness under temptation, boldness in enterprise, joy of soul, realization of heaven, &c.

Conclusion:

1. Know you this faith?

2. Blessedness lies that way. Seek it! (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Faith with and without sight

I. WHAT WERE SOME OF THE ADVANTAGES ENJOYED BY THOSE WHO LIVED AND SERVED GOD IN THE TIMES OF MIRACLE?

1. To a considerable extent the pious Jews and the first Christians believed because they saw. Not that they walked wholly by sight. Noah was warned of God of things not seen as yet. Abraham went out of his old home, not knowing whither he went. And those worthies mentioned in Heb 11:1-40. acted without assistance from the objects of time and sense, in the instances that are specified. But taking into the account the whole course of their lives, they were much more aided by sight than we are.

(1) For it was a dispensation of supernaturalism. Who could be an atheist as he stood under Mount Sinai. Who could query the possibility of miracles, when he saw the waters of the Red Sea rising up; when he saw the shadow go back upon the sun-dial: when he heard Christ call up Lazarus from the tomb.

(2) Now there was something in this, unquestionably, that rendered faith in Gods power comparatively easy. Jacob, e.g., must have found it no difficult thing to trust in a Being who was directing him, watching over him, and delivering him.

2. How differently the modern believer is situated! Generation after generation has come and gone, but no celestial sign has been given. Christians have believed that God is, but they have never seen His shape nor heard His voice. They have had faith in immortality, but no soul has ever returned to make their assurance doubly sure. In some instances, this reticence has produced an almost painful uncertainty, and wakened the craving for some palpable evidence of unseen realities. And all the attempts of Spiritualism are another testimony to the craving natural to man for miraculous signs. Sceptics contend that the miracle is irrational. But, certainly, nothing is irrational for which there is a steady and constant demand upon the part of human nature.

II. SOME OF THE ADVANTAGES WHICH THE CHURCH OF GOD EXPERIENCES IN THESE LATTER DAYS, WHEN THERE IS NO MIRACLE TO ASSIST FAITH. Believing without seeing

1. Is a stronger faith; and the stronger the faith, the greater the blessedness.

(1) If Thomas had put credit in the affirmation of the other disciples, it is evident that his faith in Christ would have been greater. For Christ had foretold that He was to be crucified and to rise. Thomas had witnessed the crucifixion, and knew that this part of his Lords prophecy was fulfilled. If, now, he had believed the remainder, he would have believed the disciples report. But his demand evinced that his faith needed to be helped out by sight.

(2) If we examine the Scriptures, we shall find that that faith is of the best quality which leans least upon the creature and most upon the Creator. Take the case of Abraham. He was the subject of miraculous impressions; but there were some critical points in which His experience resembled more that of the modern believers, and it is with references to them that he is styled the father of the faithful. Consider the trial of his faith when commanded to sacrifice Isaac.

(3) It is to this high degree of faith that the modern believer is invited. We have never seen a miracle. We have only read the record of what God did, in this way, thousands of years ago. Our faith must therefore rest more upon the simple authority of God, and be more spiritual. The inward powers of the soul are nobler than the five senses; and their acts have more worth and dignity than the operations of the senses. There is no very great merit in following the notices of the five senses. An animal does this continually. But when I believe that God is great and good, when phenomena seemingly teach the contrary; when my faith runs back to the nature and attributes of God Himself, and is not staggered by anything that I see, then I give God great honour. All that this kind of faith requires is, to be certain that the Divine promise has been given; and then it leaves all to Him.

2. Honours God more. We cannot show greater respect for any one than to take his bare word. There are comparatively few men of this first class and standing. And just as far as we withhold our confidence in God until we can see the wisdom of His ways, we dishonour Him. Suppose a sudden and inexplicable sorrow–a missionary is cut down in the midst of great usefulness; a wise and kind father is taken away from a family that leans entirely upon him: if in these instances no doubts are felt, what an honour do they render to God by such absolute confidence. For the faith in such cases terminates upon the very personality and nature of God. It passes by all secondary causes and reposes upon the First Cause. Oftentimes our faith is of such a mixed character, that it honours the creature as much as the Creator. For example, if we expect that the whole world will be Christianized, partly because of the Divine promises and partly because the wealth and civilization and military power of the earth are in the possession of Christian nations, we honour the creature in conjunction with the Creator; and this is to dishonour Him, for He says, My glory will I not give to another. The faith of the Church is of the purest, highest kind only when she trusts solely and simply in God, and looks upon all favouring circumstances as results, not as supports, of His promise. Take away the promises and agency of God, and where would be the wealth, &c., of Protestant Europe and America? Sufficient is Thine arm alone, and our defence is sure. The early Church, with the civilization of the Greek and Roman world arrayed against them, could not lean upon it in conjunction with God, if they would. They were shut up to the mere power and promise of the Most High. And what honour did they give Him in this: and how did He honour them in return? Conclusion: From this subject it is evident

1. That God is the sole object of faith. There is a difference between belief and faith. We may believe a man; but we may believe in and on God alone. Faith is the resting of the mind; and the mind can find no rest in a creature.

2. If God is the sole object of faith, then we must beware of a mixed or partial faith. We must not trust partly in God, and partly in His creatures. He will receive no divided honours. As in our justification we cannot trust partly in the blood of Christ, and partly in our own good works, so in our more general relation to God, our confidence must not rest upon any combination or union between Him and the works of His hands.

3. We know these things, happy are we if we do them. (Prof. Shedd.)

Faith of Thomas:

Faith, resting upon the word of promise, upon a Divine testimony, is more noble, spiritual, and ingenuous; displays more candour and humility, and brings more glory to God, than that which is the result of sensible manifestation. In illustrating these words, let us

I. EXAMINE THE NATURE OF THAT FAITH WHICH IS HERE COMMENDED BY OUR SAVIOUR. Faith, in its most general sense, is the strong persuasion of any truth, the firm assent of the mind to it. This persuasion may be founded on the evidence of our senses: thus Thomas believed that Jesus was risen, because he saw, felt, and heard Him; thus I believe there is a sun, because I behold it, and am warmed by its beams. Sometimes this persuasion is founded on the deductions of reason: thus, because I discover in the universe so many effects, to produce which there must have been an intelligent First Cause, I believe there is a God (Joh 10:37.) Butthough the word faith is thus used, both in common language and in the Scriptures, to signify that persuasion which is founded on the evidence of the senses or the deductions of reason, yet, in its more strict and proper reason, it denotes that assent of the mind which is founded on testimony. It is in this manner we believe, although we do not see. Thus I am told that there is such a city as Rome, such a river as the Nile; and though I have never seen them, I am persuaded of their existence, because it is confirmed to me by witnesses who had opportunities of knowing, and who had no interest in deceiving me. Their testimony fully supplies the place of the evidence of the senses or the deductions of reason. If the testimony be that of man, there results from it human faith; if the testimony be that of God, there results from it Divine faith; if it be of God through Jesus Christ and His apostles, there results Christian faith. But that we may more fully understand the nature of this faith, let us consider a few of its properties

1. It is enlightened. To believe without seeing is very different from believing without evidence or proof. The believer is not a weak being, receiving every thing without examination; nor any enthusiast, assenting without motive or light.

2. This faith is humble. A thousand objects connected with the being, attributes, and purposes of God, with the schemes of providence, or the plan of redemption, necessarily present to him abysses which no finite mind can fathom; but, filled with veneration and wonder before the Infinite, the incomprehensible, he submits his understanding; he strives not to break through those barriers which the Eternal has placed around His throne

3. This faith is firm. The foundation of his belief is more stable than the heavens and the earth. It is not a mere probability, a wavering hope, an uncertain guess; but the declaration of God, on which he rests his assured belief and his everlasting interests.

4. This faith is universal in its object: receiving as true the whole of the sacred volume, its histories, its predictions, its doctrines, its precepts, its threatenings, its promises.

5. Finally, this faith is active, efficacious, purifying. It is not confined to a barren admiration of the truths and facts that are revealed; it descends into the heart, and sanctifies all its powers; it receives the precepts and commands of God as well as His promises; it requires the sacrifice of corrupt passions as well as the submission of our reason. Let us not deceive ourselves; the conviction of the understanding must pass to the heart, and then be manifested in all the actions of a holy life.

II. Inquire WHY THOSE WHO THUS BELIEVE, ALTHOUGH THEY DO NOT SEE, ARE BLESSED.

1. They are so because they display true wisdom, both in the choice of objects to occupy their mind, and in the rules they follow in giving their assent to them. They select for their belief, and contemplation, the most important truths. Place by their side the most sublime human sciences; and in comparison these sciences, to Him who judges without prejudice, and with a reference to the eternal duration of man, will appear only a vain and pompous ignorance. How trifling in reality are the pursuits of the greatest earthly philosopher, if he is ignorant of the science of salvation! More happy and more wise are they who are contented to behold with the eyes of God what they cannot behold with their own; who submit to be directed by the infallible Father of lights; who, though they see not, yet believe.

2. Happy also because they act not only in the wisest, but also in the most advantageous manner, since they thus avoid misery and secure felicity. Without this faith, what overwhelming doubts, what cruel uncertainties, what multiplied fears surround us! Without it, what hope has the penitent? Can God forgive the rebel, in consistence with His holiness? In what mode can the remission of our sins be secured? These and a thousand other questions are unanswerable. Without it, what adequate consolation is there to the persecuted and oppressed? What relief to the bereaved? What comfort to the dying? (H. Kollock, D. D.)

Faith in an unseen Christ:

Here is another beatitude in addition to what Matthew gives. Christ was Himself the Blessed One; and well knew who were blessed, and what made them so. But how and why are believers so specially blessed?

I. THEY THROW THEMSELVES UPON THE BARE WORD OF GOD. So that their faith rests on no divided evidence; and the foundation they build on is not partly strong and partly weak, partly iron and partly clay, partly rock and partly sand, but wholly rock, iron, strong. Sight may change; to-day bright, tomorrow dim; but Gods testimony changes not.

II. THEY COME DIRECTLY INTO CONTACT WITH GOD HIMSELF. No medium comes between them and God. The soul touches Him who is a Spirit, needing no interpreter nor introducer.

III. THEY GET MORE INTO THE HEART AND REALITY OF THE THINGS OF GOD. Sight often crusts over spiritual things, or builds a wall. Simple faith goes in at once to the heart and core of things. Instead of cruising along the rocky sea-board, it strikes inland, and pitches its tent amid the gardens and by the streams of a richer and more glorious country. It is in itself simpler, purer, and more direct; and hence it finds its way into regions into which faith of a grosser kind could never penetrate: it rises up, with a buoyancy all its own, into a higher atmosphere, disentangled from the things of earth. Like a being without a body to clog it, it moves more at will, and rejoices in a liberty to which faith of a more material kind is a stranger.

IV. THEY TAKE FEWER FALSE STEPS, AND MAKE FEWER MISTAKES. Simple faith sees, as it were, everything with Gods eyes, and hears everything with Gods ears; and thus comes to no false conclusions, and is kept from the continual mistakes into which sense is falling. It not only sets the right estimate on the evidence of sense and feeling, but it puts the true interpretation upon all the facts and phenomena coming under the eye or sense. Exercising simple faith on the bare word of Him who has given me the record respecting His crucified, dead, buried, risen Son, I see myself crucified, dead, buried, risen with Him. Though seeing in myself the chief of sinners, I know and believe that there iS no condemnation for me. Thus I believe not only without, but against seeing; and put the right construction upon things seen and temporal, looking at everything with the eyes of God.

V. THEY ARE THUS SUBJECTED TO DISCIPLINE OF THE REST AND MOST EFFECTUAL KIND. This life of believing keeps the body under, while it lifts up the soul; it loosens us from the earthly, and fastens us to the heavenly. It calms us, too, in a stormy world. It awakes us and keeps us awake, amid scenes fitted to lull us asleep. It makes us more truly children too of the light and of the day, by transporting us beyond this world of night and darkness, into the kingdom of the unsetting sun. (H. Bonar, D. D.)

Dr. Arnolds death:

When Dr. Arnold was suddenly stricken with his mortal agony, he was seen, we are told, lying still, with his hands clasped, his lips moving, and his eyes raised upwards as if in prayer; when all at once he repeated, firmly and earnestly: And Jesus said unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen, &c. (Bp. Westcott.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 29. Thomas] This word is omitted by almost every MS., version, and ancient commentator of importance.

Blessed are they, c.] Thou hast seen, and therefore thou hast believed, and now thou art blessed thou art now happy – fully convinced of my resurrection; yet no less blessed shall all those be who believe in my resurrection, without the evidence thou hast had. From this we learn that to believe in Jesus, on the testimony of his apostles, will put a man into the possession of the very same blessedness which they themselves enjoyed. And so has God constituted the whole economy of grace that a believer, at eighteen hundred years’ distance from the time of the resurrection, suffers no loss because he has not seen Christ in the flesh. The importance and excellence of implicit faith in the testimony of God is thus stated by Rab. Tanchum: “Rab. Simeon ben Lachesh saith, The proselyte is more beloved by the holy blessed God than that whole crowd that stood before Mount Sinai; for unless they had heard the thundering, and seen the flames and lightning, the hills trembling, and the trumpets sounding, they had not received the law. But the proselyte hath seen nothing of all this, and yet he hath come in, devoting himself to the holy blessed God, and hath taken upon him (the yoke of) the kingdom of heaven.”

Reader! Christ died for thee!-believe, and thou shalt be saved, and become as blessed and as happy as an apostle.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

Thou believest that I am risen from the dead upon the testimony of thy senses; thou doest well in that: thou hast seen, thou hast felt me; but it is a more noble faith to believe without any such sensible evidence. Faith is properly an assent given to a proposition upon the testimony of revelation, which if it be but human it is no more than a human faith; as we give credit to what our neighbours tell us, though we have not seen it with our own eyes, nor heard it with our ears immediately, nor had it made evident to any of our senses. If the revelation to which the assent is given be from God, we call the assent that is given to it a Divine faith; so that to give credit to a thing upon the evidence of sense, is properly no believing, otherwise than as sense confirms what we have before received by a Divine revelation. This is a sure rule, that by how much our faith stands in less need of an external evidence of sense, the stronger it is.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

29. because thou hast seen me, thouhast believedwords of measured commendation, but of indirectand doubtless painfullyfelt rebuke: that is, ‘Thou hast indeedbelieved; it is well: it is only on the evidence of thy senses, andafter peremptorily refusing all evidence short of that.’

blessed they that have notseen, and yet have believed“Wonderful indeed and rich inblessing for us who have not seen Him, is this closing word of theGospel” [ALFORD].

Joh 20:30;Joh 20:31. FIRSTCLOSE OF THISGOSPEL.

The connection of these verseswith the last words of Joh 20:29is beautiful: that is, And indeed, as the Lord pronounced themblessed who not having seen Him have yet believed, so for that oneend have the whole contents of this Gospel been recorded, that allwho read it may believe on Him, and believing, have life in thatblessed name.

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

Jesus saith unto him, Thomas,…. The word Thomas is omitted in the Alexandrian copy, and in Beza’s ancient copy, and in some others, and in the Syriac, Arabic, and Ethiopic versions.

Because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed; which carries in it a tacit and gentle reproof for his unbelief, and suggests, that if he had not seen, he would not have believed; but is not so harsh as if that had been expressed; and which the Jews were wont to do in a severe manner y.

“One said to R. Jochanan, expound Rabbi; for it is beautiful for thee to expound: for as thou sayest, so I see: he replied to him, Raka, , “if thou seest not, thou wilt not believe”.”

Christ here allows that Thomas had believed, that he was risen from the dead, and that he was his Lord and God; and though his faith was late and slow, it was sure and certain, and was appropriating; it was a faith of interest, though upon sight, and not on hearing, or the report of the other disciples: now faith on sight may be in persons who have no true spiritual faith; as in some that saw both the person and miracles of Christ on earth, and in others who will see him come in the clouds of heaven; and it has been in others who have truly believed in Christ, as the apostles of the Lamb: but yet, though it may be, as in many it has been, right, yet not so commendable as that without it. From hence may be observed, that Christ allows of the epithets and titles given him by Thomas, and therefore must be Lord and God; and approves of Thomas’s faith, and therefore that must be right; though he prefers faith without personal sight of him to it, in the next clause.

Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed. The author of the apocryphal book of 2 Esdras 1:37 says of

“the people to come, whose little ones rejoice in gladness”,

in the person of the Almighty Lord, “though they have not seen me with bodily eyes, yet in spirit they believe the thing that I say”. It seems as if there were some at this time in the city of Jerusalem, who firmly believed that Christ was risen from the dead, upon the testimony of others, though they had not seen him themselves. Faith without sight, in other respects, may be considered as opposed to the beatific vision in heaven; and as destitute of sensible communion with God; and as giving credit to doctrines and things above carnal sense and reason; such as the doctrines of the Trinity, the sonship of Christ, his incarnation, and the union of the two natures in him, and the resurrection of the dead; and as believing whatever is said in the word of God, upon the credit of his testimony; and which has for its objects things past, as what were done in eternity, in the council and covenant of grace; the works of creation and providence in time, the birth, sufferings, death, and resurrection of Christ; and also things present, Christ, and the blessings of grace, and things to come, the invisible glories of the other world. Now such are happy that have true faith in these things, for they enjoy many blessings now, as a justifying righteousness, pardon of sin, adoption, freedom of access to God, and security from condemnation; they have spiritual peace, joy, and comfort in their souls, and shall at last be saved with an everlasting salvation.

y T. Bab. Bava Bathra, fol. 75. 1. & Sanhedrin, fol. 100. 1.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

Thou hast believed (). Perfect active indicative. Probably interrogative, but “it was sight, not touch that convinced Thomas” (Bernard).

And yet (). Clear use of in the adversative sense. Thomas made a noble confession, but he missed the highest form of faith without the evidence of the senses. Peter (1Pe 1:8) uses language that seems like a reminiscence of the words of Jesus to Thomas which Peter heard.

Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament

Thomas. Omit.

Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament

1) “Jesus saith unto him,” (legei auto ho lesous) “Jesus responded to him,” to his complete commitment of faith in Him as Savior and Lord, Pro 3:5-6.

2) “Thomas, because thou hast seen me,” (hoti heorakas me) “Because you have seen me,” visibly, as you required, in your own faithless, unregenerate mind, though an apostle and so long with me.

3) “Thou hast believed:” (pepisteukas) “You have believed, haven’t you?” You have now wholly committed yourself to my promise that after a little while you would see me again, after my resurrection, before I go back to my Father, Joh 16:17-20; Joh 14:1-3.

4) “Blessed are they that have not seen,” (makarioi hoi me idontes) “Blessed are those who have not seen,” as you have, the miracles during my ministry, and now my pierced and scarred resurrection body.

5) “And yet have believed.” (kai pisteusantes) “And they have still believed,” without seeing me as you have, because they received testimony of reputable people of integrity, Act 10:43; Rom 4:18-20; 2Co 5:7; 1Pe 1:8. These have an higher faith than that which comes from visual evidence.

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

29. Because thou hast seen me, Thomas. Christ blames nothing in Thomas, but that he was so slow to believe, that he needed to be violently drawn to faith by the experience of the senses; which is altogether at variance with the nature of faith. If it be objected, that nothing is more unsuitable than to say that faith is a conviction obtained from touching and seeing, the answer may be easily obtained from what I have already said; for it was not by mere touching or seeing that Thomas was brought to believe that Christ is God, but, being awakened from sleep, he recalled to remembrance the doctrine which formerly he had almost forgotten. Faith cannot flow from a merely experimental knowledge of events, but must draw its origin from the word of God. Christ, therefore, blames Thomas for rendering less honor to the word of God than he ought to have done, and for having regarded faith — which springs from hearing, and ought to be wholly fixed on the word — as bound to the other senses.

Blessed are they who have not seen, and have believed Here Christ commends faith on this ground, that it acquiesces in the bare word, and does not depend on carnal views or human reason (221) He therefore includes, in a short definition, the power and nature of faith; namely, that it does not rest satisfied with the immediate exercise of sight, but penetrates even to heaven, so as to believe those things which are hidden from the human senses. And, indeed, we ought to give to God this honor, that we should view His truth as ( αὐτόπιστος (222)) beyond all doubt without any other proof (223) Faith has, indeed, its own sight but one which does not confine its view to the world, and to earthly objects. For this reason it is called

a demonstration of things invisible or not seen, (Heb 11:1😉

and Paul contrasts it with sight, (2Co 5:7,) meaning, that it does not rest satisfied with looking at the condition of present object, and does not cast its eye in all directions to those things which are visible in the world, but depends on the mouth of God, and, relying on His word, rises above the whole world, so as to fix its anchor in heaven. It amounts to this, that faith is not of a right kind, unless it be founded on the word of God, and rise to the invisible kingdom of God, so as to go beyond all human capacity.

If it be objected, that this saying of Christ is inconsistent with another of his sayings, in which he declares that the eyes which behold him are blessed, (Mat 13:16,) I answer, Christ does not there speak merely of bodily sight, as he does in this passage, but of revelation, which is common to all believers, since he appeared to the world as a Redeemer. He draws a comparison between the Apostles and the holy kings and prophets, (Mat 13:17,) who had been kept under the dark shadows of the Mosaic Law. He says, that now the condition of believers is much more desirable, because a brighter light shines around them, or rather, because the substance and truth of the figures was made known to them. There were many unbelievers who, at that time, beheld Christ with the eyes of flesh, and yet were not more blessed on that account; but we, who have never beheld Christ with the eyes, enjoy that blessedness of which Christ speaks with commendation. Hence it follows, that he calls those eyes blessed which spiritually behold in him what is heavenly and divine; for we now behold Christ in the Gospel in the same manner as if he visibly stood before us. In this sense Paul says to the Galatians, (Gal 3:1,) that Christ was crucified before their eyes; and, therefore, if we desire to see in Christ what may render us happy and blessed, let us learn to believe, when we do not see. To these words of Christ corresponds what is stated in another passage, in which the Apostle commends believers, who

love Christ whom they have not seen, and rejoice with unspeakable joy, though they do not behold him. (1Pe 1:8.)

The manner in which the Papists torture these words, to prove their doctrine of transubstantiation, is exceedingly absurd. That we may be blessed, they bid us believe that Christ is present under the appearance of bread. But we know that nothing was farther from Christ’s intention than to subject faith to the inventions of men; and as soon as it passes, in the smallest degree, beyond the limits of the word, it ceases to be faith. If we must believe without reserve all that we do not see, then every monster which men may be pleased to form, every fable which they may contrive, will hold our faith in bondage. That this saying of Christ may apply to the case in hand, we must first prove from the word of God the very point in question. They bring forward the word of God, indeed, in support of their doctrine of transubstantiation; but when the word is properly expounded, it gives no countenance to their foolish notion.

(221) “ Du sens charnel, ne de la raison humaine.”

(222) αὐτόπιστος , that which is worthy of being believed on its account.

(223) “ Qua sa verite nous soit indubitable sans autre probation.”

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

(29) Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed.The name Thomas is omitted in all the better MSS., and the order of the other words suggests that they should be read interrogativelyJesus saith unto him, Because thou hast seen Me, hast thou believed? The tense of the word rendered hast thou believed is the perfect-presenthast thou become, and art thou a believer? The command of Joh. 20:27 had done its work, and the words are words of approval; but yet they are not wholly so. He had arrived at conviction by means of the senses, but the higher blessedness was that of those who see by the eye of the spirit and not by that of the body; who base their confidence on the conviction of the faith-faculty, and are independent of the changing phenomena of the senses.

Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.The truth is expressed in its general form. It is not to be understood in any special sense of the Ten, for the Greek is against it, and the other disciples also had seen and had believed; but it includes all who have become believers without having seen. This blessedness is thought of as existing from the moment of believing, and the act of faith is therefore spoken of in the past tense. The words look forward to the development of the Church which is to be founded upon Apostolic witness, and whose faith must ever be in the unseen. (Comp. Notes on Joh. 1:9 and 1Pe. 1:9.)

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

29. Hast seen The word seen here implies the evidence not only of sight but of either or all the senses.

Have not seen, and yet have believed The visible tangible Christ will soon depart from the earth, to be seen no more. The doctrine and the power of his life and death will come forth to the faith of the world. The hearts and souls that rightly will to accept it, must do it by a faith that is above sight and above sense. Many will say, like Thomas, that they can only believe upon sensible demonstration. They will not be convinced but upon the highest possible proof; proof which shall meet their utmost exaction and leave doubt impossible. Some will do this in a spirit of low sensuality; some in a spirit of scientific indifference or intellectual pride. But all who in a true sense deserve to be saved will be saved; and none but those who deserve to be damned will be damned.

Blessed In what sense blessed? In no single, but in every divine sense. As faith in its full power procures, so this blessedness includes the full fruition of all that the Gospel offers or the atonement brings to man. Very wise were the words of Pfenninger, quoted by Stier: “Is not Thomas a pledge of all who, like him, are slow to believe, that every severe word spoken to unbelief refers to those who will not believe? As to this not-able and not-willing, God will judge.” That is, God will judge whether the not-able is an honest inability to believe when there is the spirit of faith, or whether it be a not-willing, deceiving the obstinate unbeliever into the false opinion that he is not able to believe.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

‘Jesus says to him, “Because you have seen, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

Response in faith to the word of God is here seen as the supreme achievement. Many believe for many reasons, but full response to God in response to His word is seen as the ultimate in blessedness.

John began his Gospel by declaring that ‘the Word was God’, so that ‘we beheld His glory, the glory of the only begotten son of the Father’ (Joh 1:1; Joh 1:14). Here he ends it (initially) with Thomas’ declaration “My Lord and my God”, the supreme declaration of faith that would in future determine who was a true believer (Rom 10:9).

Joh 20:29 is then addressed to the readers calling on them to show that supreme faith which, without seeing, accepts the fullness of the truth of Christ’s deity.

Final Summary.

The call to faith. John calls his readers to share the same faith as Thomas in the fact that Jesus is ‘my Lord and my God’ on the basis of what he has written.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Joh 20:29. Because thou hast seen me, &c. The word seen, according to the Hebrew idiom, is often applied to the other senses; and therefore may here signify that Thomas had the unitedtestimony of all his senses, that Christ had a real, that is to say, a material body. See 1Jn 1:1 and Act 10:41. The words, blessed are they, &c. may in their original application be understood as a commendation of those then present, who had believed that Christ was risen before they had seen him, or without requiring such proof as Thomas sought for. But as they are indefinite, and imply no certain time, they may be extended even to the case of those to whom the gospel was to be proposed, by the apostles then, and by their successors after them. Accordingly, as in these words our Saviour tacitly reproves Thomas for his incredulity, in not believing a matter of fact so well attested, unless he himself saw it; so he lays down an universal proposition for the encouragement of all mankind in future ages, to believe in him, though they had not seen him.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

29 Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.

Ver. 29. Blessed are they that have not seen ] We see Christ in the flesh by the eyes of the apostles; like as the Israelites saw Canaan by the eyes of the spies; and this is sufficient unto faith, as the evangelist showeth in the next verses.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

29. ] The . blames the slowness and required ground of the faith: the recognizes and commends the soundness of that faith just confessed.

Meyer remarks on the perf. , “ thou hast become believing and now believest ,” and the aorr. and , which are not usitative (an usage never occurring in the N.T.), but indicate the state of those described from the time of the predicated of them, “ who never saw, and yet became believers .” The aorists, as often in such sentences (see a remarkable coincidence Luk 1:45 ), indicate the present state of those spoken of, grounded in the past.

Wonderful indeed, and rich in blessing for us who have not seen Him, is this, the closing word of the Gospel. For these words cannot apply to the remaining Ten: they, like Thomas, had seen and believed . “All the appearances of the forty days,” says Stier (vii. 139, edn. 2), “were mere preparations for the believing without seeing.” On the record of them , we now believe: see 1Pe 1:8 .

Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

Thomas. All the texts omit.

that, &c. = who saw not and believed. See Joh 4:48. Mat 16:1. 1Co 1:22. Those who crave for miracles and signs to-day will have them, but they will be Satan’s miracles.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

29.] The . blames the slowness and required ground of the faith: the recognizes and commends the soundness of that faith just confessed.

Meyer remarks on the perf. , thou hast become believing and now believest, and the aorr. and , which are not usitative (an usage never occurring in the N.T.), but indicate the state of those described from the time of the predicated of them, who never saw, and yet became believers. The aorists, as often in such sentences (see a remarkable coincidence Luk 1:45), indicate the present state of those spoken of, grounded in the past.

Wonderful indeed, and rich in blessing for us who have not seen Him, is this, the closing word of the Gospel. For these words cannot apply to the remaining Ten: they, like Thomas, had seen and believed. All the appearances of the forty days, says Stier (vii. 139, edn. 2), were mere preparations for the believing without seeing. On the record of them, we now believe: see 1Pe 1:8.

Fuente: The Greek Testament

Joh 20:29. ) thou hast seen and hast touched Me.-, thou hast believed) Thou dost exercise faith.-, blessed) The blessedness of Thomas is not denied, but the rare and richly-favoured lot of those is specially declared, who believe without seeing. For even in the case of the rest of the apostles, it was when they had seen, and not until then that they believed. [There is hardly a doubt but that the apostles accounted the general multitude of believers who had not seen Jesus, as standing higher in that respect than themselves.-V. g.]

Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament

Joh 20:29

Joh 20:29

Jesus saith unto him, Because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.-While he presented these evidences to the senses of the apostles, he expected the world through all the ages to come to believe in him through the testimony of these apostles and other evidence that God would give to the world. So he reproved the lack of faith of Thomas by pronouncing a blessing on all who should believe without seeing him.

Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary

Believing Without Seeing

Jesus saith unto him, Because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.Joh 20:29.

1. These words of our Lord to Thomas add one more beatitude to those with which the Sermon on the Mount began. He had already taught to men the blessedness of humility, of meekness, of purity, of peace, not only in the beautiful phrases which we know so well, but chiefly by the example of His life. Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called sons of God. And now, when His earthly ministry is over, and when He is about to return to the majesty of His glory, He leaves as one parting benediction to those who love and follow Him, even to all who love and follow to the best of their powers the things that are good: Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed. The benediction of faith; it is one of the last messages of the Risen Lord to His Church, and it brings fresh consolation and strength from age to age in correspondence with the varying needs and perplexities of mankind.

2. What is blessedness? It is spiritual happiness. It is that deep calm of gladness which is spiritual in its origin and in its maintenance. This is the heritage of those who, not having seen, yet have believed. And it is the higher blessedness. It is contrastive. Thomas had insisted on sight as an aid to faith. The concession was granted to him. He saw the Risen One, and believing, cried in a passion of adoration, My Lord and my God! And he was blessed. Every one who believes is blessed. But his was not the supreme blessedness. Jesus saith unto him, Because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed. That is the crowning blessedness. They have the noblest beatitude who have not seen, and yet have believed.

When Dr. Arnold was suddenly stricken with his mortal agony, he was seen, we are told, lying still with his hands clasped, his lips moving, and his eyes raised upwards, as if engaged in prayer, when all at once he repeated, firmly and earnestly, Jesus saith unto him, Because thou hast seen thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed. 1 [Note: B. F. Westcott, The Revelation of the Lord, 102.]

I

The Seen and the Unseen

That sense perception is at the basis of all our knowledge is one of those axioms with which we are all familiar, even though we have never read a word of philosophy. In the common language of daily life we are accustomed to assertions of assured knowledge, by a reference to the experience of one or other of our five senses. Two of them, those of sight and touch, are indeed the criteria which we apply to knowledge of all kinds. It is evident, or, It is palpable, are the two chief phrases which, through many variations, are the signs we use for certitude. If we wish to describe the illusory or doubtful, we invariably deny in some form or another that they can be seen or felt. They are imperceptible or intangible, unseen by the eye or unfelt by the hand, and as such are viewed with suspicion or rejected with incredulity. Tennyson has expressed a common conviction when he says, Knowledge is of things we see, and contrasts it with faith. To many the difference between faith and knowledge is the difference between the unknown and the known, and much of the agnosticism of the present day is largely due to this conception that the senses are not a means, but the only means of obtaining assured knowledge.

To certain types of mind, however, the limitations of sense perception are as remarkable as the range of their operations, and the conception of limiting knowledge to the impressions of sense, and the minds working on those impressions, is one which presents insuperable difficulties. They are quite conscious of the inestimable debt the mind owes to the senses, but they refuse to believe that the mind cannot pass into regions which are for ever beyond the reach of the senses, or that it cannot arrive at truth except as the object is presented to it by means of the senses. They are conscious that there is a region which is essentially metaphysical, in which the mind moves, not as it is guided or impelled by the senses, but by the laws of its own being, and that the goal at which it arrives by strict obedience to those laws is knowledge in the highest and best sense, even though inaccessible to sense perception. In some cases the goal arrived at can be tested by the senses, but whether tested or untested, the reality is the same. The discovery of the planet Neptune by the mind before it was brought within the range of telescopic vision, affords an illustration of what is here meant. It was the operation of the mind, working according to its own laws, that established the existence of Neptune, before the telescope discovered it. The mind, in fact, in this case aided the senses, instead of being aided by them. It is true that the mind was here working only on the data presented to it by the senses, but its working was based upon the assumption that a previous intelligence had been at work in the constitution of the universe, and that the working of that Mind was in harmony with the laws of our own minds. This, in fact, is scientific faith as distinct from scientific knowledge. It has been arrived at by means of sense perception, but it is none the less faith, as distinct from knowledge.

Our great advance in knowledge is due to our walking by faith as well as by sight. Experience has shown us that what is conforms to reason, and we therefore conclude that whatever conforms to reason exists, whether it has come within the range of sense perception or not. If the senses have not yet discovered it, we search for it with the belief that sooner or later we shall find it. The atomic theory prophesies the existence of elements which have never come within the range of sense perception, and recent discoveries have simply filled up the places which were vacant, and revealed what faith had already perceived. Science has shown us that what is ought to be, and it cannot escape creating the suspicion that what ought to be actually is, whether we perceive it or not. The distinction between faith and knowledge, therefore, is imperfectly described as the difference between the unknown and the known; it is more accurately described as the difference between anticipated and realized knowledge. Knowledge is not only of things we see, but of things we foresee. The mind may anticipate the senses and believe even where the senses cannot see. If this is true in the sphere of the physical, the presumption is that it is equally true in the metaphysical sphere.

1. What is the value of the evidence of the senses?

(1) The best answer is to consider what must have been the impression left upon the mind of the Jew when for the first time he saw Jesus of Nazareth, with His attendant followers, passing through the streets of Jerusalem. To answer this we must try to place ourselves in his position. Let us, for example, suppose that we were to see passing through one of our streets an excited crowd of men, women and children of the middle and lower classes. Let us imagine ourselves listening to the discordant acclamations of a multitude, many of whom we might perhaps know to be ignorant, and some to have led immoral lives. Let us dismiss from our fancy all those picturesque surroundings of eastern buildings, of palms and of flowing coloured garments, with which the magic of Christian art has invested such a scene. These representations of the past, so far as they are real, have for us of the present day a certain charmjust because of their strange and foreign aspectwhich they could not have had for those whose lives were spent among such scenes. Let us eliminate from our conception of such an incident the majestic harmonies in which Christian musicians have rendered the Hosannas of the crowd. In other words, let us suppose ourselves looking at and listening to something unhallowed by those associations which of necessity give fascination to the far-off past, and let us consider ourselves face to face with the bare, unadorned, unsensational realities of the present. Let us go a step further. Let us imagine the central figure in such a scene to be one not distinguishable by his dress or, it may be, by any special form or comeliness from those about himone whose place of birth and station in life and opportunities for education are known to us, and are not in our opinion such as to warrant us in looking for any special refinement of manner or display of learning on his part. And, lastly, let us suppose that all we have ourselves heard of his teaching has led us to regard that teaching as, to say the least of it, an innovation on the divinely-given statutes of the past. Let us try then to put ourselves in the position of the Jew of our Lords time, and we must, in all fairness, confess that there was much in his special surroundings that was not favourable to a ready belief in the Divine mission of the Galilean peasant.

(2) And yet the evidence of the senses has its value, and it is no light one. The change that came over the Apostles after the Resurrection has an ever accumulating force, ceaselessly advancing. As we read the Epistles, does it not strike us that the writers are living in what the world may count a dream, but is to us the opening of a new view of human life, a realization of what prophecy had foretold? They who went about the world preaching the Gospel to every creature, having given up everything that the world counts dear, facing danger of every sort, tempests, cold and hunger, prisons and suffering, and death, did they not show an intense conviction, such a conviction as has never in the worlds history been surpassed, and a conviction lasting for long, long years, showing itself in their every act and deed? Now this conviction rests on what they had seen.

The evidence of things seen is always evidence. I was asked this question in the city a few days ago: There stands the Cross on the top of St. Pauls Cathedral. How did it get there? It is a question you had better ask your sceptical friend next time he argues with you. I would far rather have to uphold the position in a free debate that the reason why that Cross, the old gallowsand it was nothing more than the old gallowsis brandished in triumph over the biggest city in the world was because the Person who died on it rose again than have to defend any other explanation in the world, for, as a matter of fact, there is no other explanation. Why did a body of Jews, the most conservative race in the world, change their sacred day from Saturdaynot to Fridayoh no, not to Fridaybut to Sunday? There is no explanation, except that the Person who died on the Friday rose on the Sunday. Why did a body which called themselves The Christians celebrate for nearly two thousand years in their Eucharist, which is their thanksgiving service, the tokens of a shameful deathbody broken, blood shed? There never has been any explanation except that something happened so glorious, so transfiguring, that it changed the shameful death into a badge of glory.1 [Note: Bishop A. F. W. Ingram, Secrets of Strength, 57.]

(3) But the evidence of the seen goes only a certain way. For what is sense but the medium through which we converse with this visible and lower world, with its phenomena, its motions, its operations, and its changes? The sphere and ken of sense is scanty and limited; it reaches only to the outer surface, beyond which sense cannot penetrate. Sense needs the reason to be its interpreter and guide; for, with all its confidence, sense is blind. Without the higher light of reason, the laws, principles, causes, and conditions of all it sees, handles, and knows, are unknown. And yet the reason in its sphere is bounded too. A world of intellectual objects, the phenomena of a higher but not the highest sphere, are within its ken. The unseen and the Eternal are beyond its gaze: and of these, except by another faculty higher than sense or reason, supernatural in its substance and its acts, which comes in to perfect both, we know nothing. It is not by sense or by reason, but by faith, elevating both, that the truths of the Kingdom of God are known and believed.

There is no slight amount of peril in matters of religion in demanding more evidence than can actually be given. Men formerly used to say, Write the Gospelthe Divine messagein letters of fire along the sky, and I will believe. They say now, Give me mathematical demonstrationmake the whole thing as plain as a problem in geometryand then it will be impossible for me to withhold my assent. But this has to be considered, that we have hardly the right to require the Creator to give us the amount of evidence that we think fit to ask for. What He will do in this way, is surely for Him and not for us to settle. And if He should give, as He does, sufficient evidence to make unbelief inexcusablesufficient evidence to enable us to believe, if we are not determined to disbelieveI do not see what we have to complain of.2 [Note: G. Calthrop, In Christ, 213.]

To a man who wrote to him saying that he was dying of an incurable disease, and could not accept the Christian faith, Bishop Creighton replied: There can be no convincing proof of anything that affects our inner character. What convincing proof have you that your wife loves you or your child? Yet you believe it, and that belief is more real to you than anything that you know or can prove. Religion must be a matter of belief, not of proof. It depends on a consciousness of the relation between our soul and God. Immortality depends on the knowledge of the meaning of our souls life which we obtain from looking at it in the light of God. The more we find our soul, the more readily do we see God in the person of Jesus Christ. Look back upon your own life, your growth, the traces of Providence, the presence of Gods love. Do you think that all this wonderful process can come to an abrupt end?1 [Note: Life and Letters of Mandell Creighton, ii. 253.]

(4) The evidence of sense is not always applicable. Religion is not a proposition to be proved like a problem in Euclid. As to mathematical demonstration, the subject, in the nature of things, is not capable of it. Were it a matter for the head alone it would be different; but the heart is concerned in the matter. You have the two factorsthe head and the heartto deal with; and in the case of religion, there is no possibility of so binding the heart down, by any conceivable process whatever, that it should not be capable of resistance if it should choose to resist.

The following is from the pen of a well-known London physician and scientist of the present day, one who for many years was a Catholic:What men of science want in order to believe in the Incarnation and Resurrection of Jesus Christ is this. In one word, it is proof, or evidencewhat we can prove by experiment, inductive reasoning, and verification that we know. As Bithell says, The man of science has learned to believe in justification, not by faith, but by verification, therefore he nurses no illusions, does not say he knows when he does not and cannot know and follow the evidence whithersoever it leads him. If I had been St. Thomas I should have wanted (1) the death-certificate of a medical man who had watched the case to the end; (2) proof that the doors were not only shut, but locked and bolted on the inside; and (3) I should have carefully examined the wound in the side to ascertain whether heart, lungs, liver, or any other vital organ had been perforated, and whether what I saw was an apparition, or a spirit, or a body with flesh and bones, and if the latter, I should have said, This was never a dead body. It is seriously doubted by some writers whether either Lazarus or Christ was really dead, and some believe that, in the case of Christ, restoratives were administered by the women in the sepulchre. There is no evidence that would satisfy a lawyer or scientist either (1) that Jesus Christ raised Lazarus from the dead, or (2) that Jesus Christ Himself rose from the dead, and that afterwards His crucified body, with its wounds, entered a room the doors of which were shut.1 [Note: M. Fuller, In Terr Pax, 94.]

2. After all that the senses can do there remains the unseen, and faith must make its venture. All the greatest works of man have been works of faith; and those who have had most insight, and have followed the guidance of that insight till it led them to great truths, are the men who have taken the leading part in the history of our race. It is faith that incites the soldier and sailor to noble acts, faith in their commander. Perhaps the grandest discovery made by man was the opening of a vast continent; and it was faith that led Columbus across the untried and unknown seas. This is the natural view of faith, and St. Paul, tracing the history of the saints of old, marks how the animating principle of life to them was faith. And what led God to choose the Israelites as the nation through which He would reveal Himself to the world was the readiness of their faith, their adherence to the promises and their continued trust, through all the ages of countless trialsthe long years of their waiting, ever filled with the great cloud of witnesses, who without seeing yet believed, into whose possessions we have entered, as the children of a higher faith, and disciples who have learnt at the feet of a greater Masterof the ever-growing host of which it may be truly said in the words of the text, Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.

From the soft south the constant bird comes back,

Faith-led, to find the welcome of the Spring

In the old boughs whereto she used to cling,

Before she sought the unknown southward track:

Above the Winter and the storm-clouds wrack

She hears the prophecy of days that bring

The Summers pride, and plumes her homeward wing

To seek again the joys that exiles lack.

Shall I of little faith, less brave than she,

Set forth unwillingly my goal to find,

Go home from exile with reluctant mind,

Distrust the steadfast stars I cannot see,

And doubt the heavens because my eyes are blind?

Nay! Give me faith, like wings, to soar to Thee!2 [Note: Louise Chandler Moulton.]

II

Faith in the Unseen

Faith in the unseen is not an abrupt experience, unconnected with the experience of the senses. It is true that morality and religion cannot be treated in the same way as the physical sciences. They have their own data, which are not material but spiritual. If they are realities, however, they must be intelligible; they must follow similar laws to those which reign in the material realm, or at any rate they must follow law, and not be the result of chance. In the sphere of morals the good must be the reasonable; actions must be justifiable. In the sphere of religion, beliefs must be reasonable; the data upon which they are founded must be consistent with the working of the Divine mind, as that is already known to us in other spheres.

1. Faith in the unseen is belief in more than we can see.It is quite true that faith cometh by hearing. Faith, that is to say, is the proper correlative of testimony. But the evidence of testimony is not sufficient to command assent, even in the affairs of this world, unless the mind brings something of its own to co-operate with it. In belief it is at least approximately true, that we receive but what we give. The element which the mind contributes to the formation of religious belief must be sought for in the depths of our moral being. Faith, then, may be described as the product of the outward evidence on which it rests, and the inward conditions which dispose us to admit it. It follows that if the product be constant, the two factors will vary in an inverse ratio; or, in other words, that the moral element requisite to produce religious conviction must be at least strong enough to supply the deficiencies in the external evidence.

Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed. So spake our Lord. What, then, did Thomas believe? He believed much more than he saw. Had he merely believed in the resurrection, there would have been no blessing attaching to such faith. Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed. It is the vision whereby faith contemplates the unseen that is the real source of blessing. When St. Thomas heard the words which showed how Jesus had all along been reading his heart, he at once accepted the fulness of the Divine truth. He exclaimed, My Lord and my God!

St. John illustrates this higher condition of mind that believes without seeing. When he came to the grave of Jesus, whither Mary Magdalene had summoned him and Peter, he saw and believed. Apparently all that he saw was the empty sepulchre, and the place where the dead body had lain. No vision of angels greeted him, nor did the Lord of death appear. A form rose up before him, as he looked, but it was the Lord of life with the light around Him of the days that had gone. The empty sepulchre could have told him little, but Jesus coming thither through the years told him much. Words that had bewildered found their explanation now. The enigma of the life and death found their solution at last. Not thus could he have seen, had not the habits of his mind prepared him. Candid, gracious, pure, truth-loving, sympathetic with the Divine purpose, free from prejudices and open-minded, the perceptive capacity was able to take the place of sight. And so thought, reflection, reasoning, imagination, all blended in a process at once mental and spiritual, by which, as by a higher vision, he saw what the eye could not see, yet not less clearly and distinctly.

His work [The Grammar of Assent] included an analysis of the mind of believer and unbeliever and of the differences between them. He drew attention to the subtle personal appreciation, on the part of the religious mind, which made it find so much more evidence for Christianity in the acknowledged facts of its history than the irreligious mind could see. The general outcome of this portion of the book was to show the important place held by antecedent conditions among the reasons convincing the believer. And among these conditions were the experiences and action of the individual mind. The religious mind instinctively and by degrees accumulated evidences of which the irreligious mindreasoning on different principlesremained wholly or partially unaware. The action of the will and of moral dispositions was gradual. Moral defect must in the long run lead the mind to miss the deepest grounds of belief. But this was something very different from insincerity. To quote a sentence written by Newman on the subject to the present writer, The religious mind sees much which is invisible to the irreligious mind. They have not the same evidence before them.

Newman did not deny that one reasoned rightly, the other wrongly. He did not deny that there might be responsibility for the false principles which led to unbelieffor the failure of the unbeliever to recognize the deeper principles which a Christian thinker adopts (as he phrased it a little later) under the happy guidance of the moral sense. But he did away with the old contrast to which Protestants as well as Catholics had long been accustomed, between believer and unbeliever as men looking at and apprehending precisely the same evidence, which was so obviously cogent that only a man whose will was here and now perverse could disbelieve. He substituted a far subtler analysis in which circumstances and education played their part in the power of mental vision on the particular subject: in which the appreciation of reasons was personal, and gradual; religious earnestness aud true principles being necessary not only to the acceptance of the reasoning for Christianity, but to its adequate apprehension.1 [Note: Wilfrid Ward, The Life of John Henry Cardinal Newman, ii. 247.]

One must have King-recognizing eyes

To recognize the King in mean disguise.2 [Note: Jalaluddin Rumi, in A Little Book of Eastern Wisdom , 19.]

My soul, do not pray for too little. Do not imagine that mere things will make thee blessed. No outward contact with any visible beauty would satisfy thee for an hour. The unseen alone will content thee. The things that belong unto thy peace are not worlds of space. They perish but thou remainest, they all wax old as a garment, and as a vesture shall they be folded up, but thou art the same. Ask that which is invisible, eternal, commensurate with thyselflove, sacrificial love, love even for the loveless. Ask the pain of beholding pain, the joy of seeing joy, the hope of bringing hope. That is to touch the print of the nails, for that is to bear in the spirit the marks of the Lord Jesus.3 [Note: G. Matheson, My Aspirations.]

2. Faith in the unseen is believing what we have never seen at all.Now faith is the substance (the assurance, R.V.) of things hoped for, the evidence (proving, R.V.) of things not seen. That is to say, it is the faculty which reaches to that which is beyond the sense, yet which apprehends it as certainas being as certain as the things which we see.

Men have never seen God. The astronomer said, I have swept the heavens with my telescope, and I have not found God. He looked for God as for a star, and could not find Him. A voice spoke from those heavens which the astronomer did not hear, and it said, Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed. And thousands upon thousands of trustful souls who would never look for God through a telescope have found Him with their hearts, and they face the fight of life every day bravely, knowing that He goes down to the battle with them; they lie down to rest at night feeling there is One who neither slumbers nor sleeps; if they are out in the raging tempest they sing, The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms; if they go through places of danger and terror they hear a voice say, When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and while the learned astronomer says he cannot find God, these simple souls say, Tis blessed to believe.

One of the most interesting and romantic discoveries of last century in the realm of astronomy was the detection of the planet Neptune, the outermost of those wanderers which circle round the sun. Until the year 1846 the furthest planet known was Uranus, discovered by Sir William Herschel some fifty years before this date. Study of the movements of Uranus showed variations from the path which, on the known data, it ought to follow; and these variations could not be accounted for by the attraction of any of the inner planets upon its mass. Two astronomers, one in England, and one in France, began almost simultaneously to investigate the problem presented by its perturbations. By long and arduous calculations involving profound mathematical research, they found that the facts presented by the variations of the known planet could be explained by the presence of an unseen neighbour beyond it, of a certain mass and following a particular path. They knew that nothing else could account for the phenomena with which they had to deal. Although they had not seen another planet in the telescope or demonstrated its existence beyond doubt until their researches were confirmed: yet they believed in its existence. They saw it as Columbus saw America from the shores of Spain. They felt its movements trembling along the far-reaching line of their analysis. And when they finished their calculations and indicated the spot in the heavens where the new member of the system would be found, the observers pointed their telescopes to the skies: and at the very place foretold the new planet swam into their ken.1 [Note: See Ball, The Story of the Heavens, ch. xv.]

We have none of us seen Christ in the flesh. At times we judge ourselves disadvantaged thereby. But no! Christ says we are supremely advantaged. We are blessed with a distinctive blessedness. We have really lost nothing by not being alive when Christ was incarnate here. Oh, how we should like to have seen Him! If we could have basked in His smile, or heard His voice, or even felt the rustle of His seamless robe as He flitted past us on the highway! Had we seen we would indeed have believed! Ah! so we reason. But it is a meaner faith which is so inspired. Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed. What is true of believing Christ is true concerning all the spiritual objects of faith. God. The heavenly home. Any spiritual truth. The quality which draws down beatitude is a faith which is independent of materialistic props.1 [Note: D. T. Young, The Crimson Book, 55.]

Faith isnot sight,

It boasts not of the sun at noonday bright,

While groping in the starlight haze of night.

Nor Dogma proud,

Fierce vaunting of all Truth in accents loud,

Beguiling with bold words th unthinking crowd.

Nor Science known,

Seated in queenly rubes upon her throne,

Meting the boundless with her clasped zone.

Nor Certainty,

The overweening claim that Truth must be

What we forecast from what we hear and see.

Faith does but muse

With heed upon the data she must use,

Nor Likelihoods fair claim durst she refuse.

Faith does but think

That walking on the Infinites dread brink,

She dare not mete its chain by one small link.

Faith does but feel

That what she deems all dimly, may be real,

On her blind guess she will not set Truths seal.

Faith doth but hope

She shall see clearwhereas she doth but grope

When earths dark vistas widen to heavens scope.

She doth but will

The healthful impulses she would instil

May, by heavens prospering, all good fulfil.

She can but trust

Her wistful craving for the True and Just,

Not only may be realized but must.1 [Note: John Owen.]

3. Faith may even be believing that which seems contrary to sense.For there is in the heart of every human being an eternal opposition between the merely sceptical understanding and the spiritual faculty, between that which demonstrates and that which believes, between the mind which we share with the animal and the spirit which we believe we specially derive from God. These two are opposed one to the other. And that in us which says, This must be so, this shall be so! is a higher faculty than that which says, How is this so? Why is this so? and the act of faith on which our morality, our religion, our higher forms of being and living rest, is that by which we assert the supremacy of the one of these above the other.

No help in all the stranger-land,

O fainting heart, O failing hand?

Theres a morning and a noon,

And evening cometh soon.

The way is endless, friendless? No;

God sitteth high to see below,

Theres a morning and a noon,

And the evening cometh soon.

Look yonder on the purpling west

Ere long the glory and the rest.

Theres a morning and a noon,

And the evening cometh soon.2 [Note: J. V. Cheney.]

III

The Blessedness of Faith in the Unseen

Our Lord does not tell us why they are blessed who believe without seeing. He simply says they are blessed. This makes a marked difference between this blessing and those others which form the preface to the Sermon on the Mount. There in each case reasons are given; a specific reward is spoken of as bestowed upon each grace. The merciful are blessed, for they shall obtain mercy. The pure in heart are blessed, for theirs is the Vision of God, the All Holy and Pure. The peacemakers are blessed, for they shall be called the sons of God, who is the true Author of peace. The meek are blessed, for they shall inherit the earth; what has been called the harvest of a quiet eye is theirs; it is a reward that no man can take from them. And so on all through. But no special reward of faith is spoken of in the text. It is not said that the faithful and trusting soul is blessed, for it shall receive the consolations of hope and of assurance. We might, indeed, have expected that our Lord would have given us some such promise. The Psalmist had sung of the blessings of trust with no uncertain voice: Delight thyself also in the Lord; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart. Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass. More than one of the beatitudes take up the words of the Psalms, and fill them with a larger and a more gracious meaning; but there is no exact counterpart in the words of our Lord for the words of the Psalmist about faith. The blessing of faith in the New Testament is something higher than the temporal prosperity of which the pious Hebrew poet spoke as the lot of the faithful and the just; it is rather that abiding and deepening sense of Gods mercy and truth for which we daily pray. Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed. Faith is its own reward; and the law of faith is this: Whosoever hath, to him shall be given.

But it is possible to suggest certain advantages which belief without sight confers.

1. It gives us the assurance of a Risen Christ.

Forty years ago a poet of genius, a man to whom this story of St. Thomas must, I think, have been almost as dear as it was to his great master, Dr. Arnold, conceives of a sudden awakening to the new and authentic tidings, Christ is not risen. He speaks in lofty but kindly pity to the sad dupes of the now discredited faith; to the poor women who wept beside His tomb; to the daughters of Jerusalem who wept as they saw Him pass to His Cross; to the simple men of Galilee who had stood gazing up into heaven as they fancied He ascended, and are now bidden to return to their boats and their nets; to humble and holy men of heart in ages yet to be who have surrendered their souls to a gracious-seeming lie:

Eat, drink, and die, for we are souls bereaved:

Of all the creatures under heavens wide cope

We are most hopeless, who had once most hope,

And most beliefless, that had most believed.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,

As of the unjust, also of the just

Yea of that Just One too!

It is the one sad Gospel that is true,

Christ is not risen!

This vision of the poet, awful as it is to a serious Christian, may set us all thinking to some purpose. It may lead us to commune with our hearts in our chamber, and be still. Let us probe our hearts, even if it pain us, with the question, What is the difference to me and to my friends or my children whether the Creed of Christendom is true or baseless; whether the morning greeting of Easter Day is, as throughout the vast Russian Empire, Christ is Risen, or Christ is not risen; whether Jesus is or is not the Christ; whether the death on the Cross was the unjust execution of a good man or the sacrifice of the Incarnate God; whether the cry It is finished was His last, as it was certainly His dying word; whether, if He now speaks to us, He speaks, like any other of the departed, by His example and by His genius, or, with a claim which would be blasphemy if it were put forward by any other, speaks as a living King to the world, to the Church, and to each believing soul, I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore.1 [Note: H. M. Butler, University and Other Sermons, 51.]

2. It gives us the enjoyment of a living present Christ. For He has not, as some affect to think, left His people in this world of peril and trial, and taken His seat on the throne of His Father above, there enjoying a peerless but solitary gloryblessed in the full enjoyment of all heavens honours and glory, but little concerned as to the happiness of His followers on earth. Far from it. His parting words are Lo, I am with you alway, even to the end of the ages. So He is ever in the midst of His Church, and with His own in this world. He walks in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks and holds their ministry in His right hand. He is the light, power, and healing virtue of the gospel. He enters with His people into all their trials and tribulations. He so overrules the divergent affairs of their lot, that all things work together for their good. He has been lifted up on the cross and to the sky, that He might attract all men unto Him. He is the great moral and spiritual magnet drawing the world of mankind from the serving of sin to yield to the power of grace. And as the magnet converts those bodies on which it lays hold into magnets, which in turn draw others, so does Christ magnetize men that they in turn may transform others, imparting to them like power. So by a power extending beyond the range of His actual presence and visibility we receive blessing from Christ, though we see Him not.

Here, then, lies the central lesson of this revelation of the Risen Lord, the revelation of His spiritual presence, the revelation of mans spiritual sight. The truest, serenest, happiest faith is within our reach. We have not lost more than we have gained by the removal of the events of the Gospel history far from our own times. The last beatitude of the Gospel is the special endowment of the later Church. The testimony of sense given to the Apostles, like the testimony of word given to us, is but the starting-point of faith. The substance of faith is not a fact which we cannot explain away, or a conclusion which we cannot escape, but the personal apprehension of a living, loving Friend. And Christ still makes Himself known in His Church and in each believers heart by words of peace. He is still with us the same as eighteen hundred years ago, unchanged and unchangeable, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever.

A manifold enjoyment of Christ is a large component of this blessedness. The believer draws such pure delight from the Lord in whom he trusts. How grandly St. Peter states it: Whom having not seen ye love. The loving of Christ is such unalloyed pleasure. None can know the rapture save only they who experience it. In whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice And how splendid the quality of the joy; with joy unspeakable and full of glory. Joy in Christ! Joy that cannot be spoken! Joy shot through with glory! Is not this blessedness? The so-inclusive enjoyment of Christ is a rich element in the believers blessedness.1 [Note: D. T. Young, The Crimson Book, 63.]

3. It gives us the light and power of the Holy Spirit. We have not only an outward testimony; we have an inward witness beyond all that was ever bestowed on man before the day of Pentecostthe full illumination of the Kingdom of God. Before the ascension of our Divine Lord, we read that even Apostles knew not the Scriptures. Cleophas and his fellow hoped that it was he which should redeem Israel; and the eleven, at the hour of His ascension, asked, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel? They knew Christ after the flesh, and their faith was as yet obscure. Therefore our Lord said to them, It is expedient for you that I go away; for you the withdrawal of My visible presence is needful. For if I go not away, the Paraclete will not come unto you; but if I go, I will send him unto you; and when he is come, he will teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance. The spirit of truth shall be with you and in you for ever. And on the day of Pentecost the Holy Ghost fell upon them, and His illumination filled their inmost soul: their whole intelligence was enlightened, a fountain of light sprang up from within, and truths already known were unfolded with new and deeper meanings. They saw the full mystery of the Kingdom of God, of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; of the love of the Father in the gift of His Son, of the Son in giving Himself to be made man to suffer and to die; of the Holy Ghost, who was already upon them and within them. They perceived that their Divine Master had ascended to sit down upon His Fathers throne, crowned with power, to possess His Kingdom; and the whole earth to them was lightened with His glory.

Where is your God? they say;

Answer them, Lord most Holy!

Reveal Thy secret way

Of visiting the lowly:

Not wrapped in moving cloud,

Or nightly-resting fire;

But veiled within the shroud

Of silent high desire.

Come not in flashing storm,

Or bursting frown of thunder:

Come in the viewless form

Of wakening love and wonder;

Of duty grown divine,

The restless spirit, still;

Of sorrows taught to shine

As shadows of Thy will.

O God! the pure alone,

Een in their deep confessing,

Can see Thee as their own,

And find the perfect blessing:

Yet to each waiting soul

Speak in Thy still small voice,

Till broken loves made whole,

And saddened hearts rejoice.1 [Note: James Martineau.]

4. It transfigures our character. The sense of transfigured character goes far to constitute this blessedness. He who believes thereby gains the secret of holiness. Faith is evermore the root of noble character. The man who believes becomes. His nature, already regenerated, is eternally being changed from glory to glory. Is not this a large portion of Christian blessedness? Belief in manifested God secures Godlikeness.

All faith is incomplete that is the confession of our want of knowledge and our need for help, but the most complete faith is that which lifts the whole nature, vibrates the whole man, which is felt at heart, and shown in action. When faith begins with the easy acceptance of some statements, or from admitting certain arguments, there is danger that it ends there; but when one is guided upwards by a wish for higher life and help, when the spirit is crying out for a living God, and when the yearning is so strong that we are willing to dispense with proof, and to reach out our inward hand humbly to take a gift from God, there is very little danger that any part of our life shall escape from our religion. We cannot take the mind and leave the heart in sin, nor can we take these two and leave the conduct of our daily life; and that complete sacrifice is what has value before God.

Those Christians are blessed who need to leave their simple views of childhoods faith no more than the field-lark does her nestrising right over it to look at Gods morning sun, and His wide, beautiful world, singing a clear, happy song, and then sinking straight down again to their hearts home. But those are not less blessed who, like the dove, lose their ark for a while, and return to it, having found no rest for the sole of their foot save there. They have a deeper experience within, and carry a higher and wider message to the world. The olive leaf in the mouth, plucked from the passing flood, is more than the song at coming daylight. It is as Pauls Thanks be to God, who giveth us the victory, compared with the childrens Hosanna.1 [Note: John Ker, Thoughts for Heart and Life, 24.]

What, after all, is this faith which above all things we who have even a grain of it must desire to hold forth to others? This is the victory which overcometh the world, even our faith. It is a power, not a mere belief; and power can be shown only in action, only in overcoming resistance. Power that shall lift us one by one above temptations, above cares, above selfishness; power that shall make all things new, and subdue all things unto itself; power by which loss is transmuted into gain, tribulation into rejoicing, death itself into the gate of everlasting life;is not this the true meaning of faith?2 [Note: Caroline Emelia Stephen.]

Yes, Master, when Thou comest Thou shalt find

A little faith on earth, if I am here!

Thou knowst how oft I turn to Thee my mind,

How sad I wait until Thy face appear!

Hast Thou not ploughed my thorny ground full sore,

And from it gathered many stones and sherds?

Plough, plough and harrow till it needs no more

Then sow Thy mustard-seeds, and send Thy birds.

I love Thee, Lord; and if I yield to fears,

Nor trust with triumph that pale doubt defies,

Remember, Lord, tis nigh two thousand years,

And I have never seen Thee with mine eyes!

And when I lift them from the wondrous tale,

See, all about me hath so strange a show!

Is that Thy river running down the vale?

Is that Thy wind that through the pines doth blow?

Couldst Thou right verily appear again,

The same who walked the paths of Palestine,

And here in England teach Thy trusting men

In church and field and house, with word and sign?

Here are but lilies, sparrows, and the rest!

My hands on some dear proof would light and stay!

But my heart sees John leaning on Thy breast,

And sends them forth to do what Thou doth say.1 [Note: George MacDonald.]

Believing Without Seeing

Literature

Bernard (J. H.), Via Domini, 165.

Bramston (J. T.), Fratribus, 104.

Butler (H. M.), University Sermons, 43.

Calthrop (G.), In Christ, 205.

Carpenter (W. B.), The Son of Man among the Sont of Men, 117.

Carter (T. T.), The Spirit of Watchfulness, 111.

Gibbon (J. M.), Evangelical Heterodoxy, 106.

Hardy (E. J.), Doubt and Faith, 104.

Henson (H. H.), The Value of the Bible, 182.

Hoare (E.), Fruitful or Fruitless, 110.

Ingram (A. F. W.), Secrets of Strength, 52.

Jeffrey (J.), The Personal Ministry of the Son of Man, 276.

Jones (W. B.), The Peace of God, 138.

Little (J.), The Day-Spring, 146.

Macnutt (F. B.), The Inevitable Christ, 35.

Magee (W. C.), Growth in Grace, 107.

Manning (H. E.), Sermons on Ecclesiastical Subjects, i. 197.

Martyn (H. J.), For Christ and the Truth, 128.

Pearse (M. G.), The Gentleness of Jesus, 77.

Ryle (H. E.), On the Church of England, 125.

Stanford (C.), From Calvary to Olivet, 157.

Stone (D.), The Discipline of Faith, 131.

Vaughan (J.), Sermons (Brighton Pulpit), ii. (1862) No. 337; New Ser. xiii. (1876) No. 1001.

Williams (T. R.), Belief and Life, 99.

Wright (D.), Waiting for the Light, 34.

Young (D. T.),The Crimson Book, 53.

Christian World Pulpit, xxviii. 180 (Frankland); lii. 52 (Gore), 307 (Barton); lv. 230 (MacEwen); lix. 243 (Scott Holland); lxii. 428 (Henson); lxvi. 262 (MMurtrie); lxix. 102 (Mackintosh), 140 (Lyttelton).

Church of England Pulpit, lvii. 218 (Inge).

Church Pulpit Year Book, ix. (1912) 82.

Fuente: The Great Texts of the Bible

blessed: Joh 20:8, Joh 4:48, Luk 1:45, 2Co 5:7, Heb 11:1, Heb 11:27, Heb 11:39, 1Pe 1:8

Reciprocal: Psa 1:1 – Blessed Mat 5:3 – Blessed Mat 13:16 – General Joh 1:49 – thou Joh 1:50 – Because

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

THE BEATITUDE OF FAITH

Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.

Joh 20:29

Let us ask wherein lies the blessedness of faith, and what are the claims that it makes upon us, if we are to share in the promised benediction.

I. There is one marked difference between this blessing and those others which form the preface to the Sermon on the Mount.There in each case reasons are given; a specific reward is spoken of as bestowed upon each grace. But no special reward of faith is spoken of in the text. It is not said that the faithful and trusting soul is blessed, for it shall receive the consolations of hope and of assurance. We might, indeed, have expected that our Lord would have given us some such promise. Faith is its own reward; and the law of faith is this: Whosoever hath, to him shall be given. Now here is for us a consolation not unneeded at times. Faith may be very true and loyal, and yet may not always be attended by the confident joy and hopefulness of which the Psalmists speak, of which St. Paul speaks, with such assurance. That, indeed, must come in the end; but we dare not permit ourselves to be distressed or despairing because we have it not in such full measure as they.

II. What, then, after all, is this belief?It seems to be a different thing from open vision, from full assurance. How are we to be sure that we have it? how are we to gain it and make it our own? A mere speculative conviction as to the truth of this or that principle affects conduct but little. There is such a thing as faith without works; but it is dead. Faith in God, in our Blessed Lord Himself, means more than belief such as this; it means trust in a Person.

III. There are two tests by which we may try our faiththe readiness of our obedience, the intensity of our prayers.

(a) Obedience. It is not only a test; it is a source of faith. It is in trying to do Gods will that we learn to hear His voice.

(b) A second test is the reality of our prayers. Prayer is the most rational of all habits; but no man will ever satisfy himself that it is so, unless he prays in his own person and for his own needs. Belief in the efficacy of prayer is best gained in prayer. And for him who believes in that there is nothing that can trouble him, though much that he may not fully understand in the teaching of Jesus Christ his Lord.

Dean J. H. Bernard.

Illustration

On the wall of York Minster there is fixed an ancient sundial: and underneath, a legend is written which is a parable of life: Lucem demonstrat umbra, Shadows point to the sun. Were it not for the sun, there would be no shadow; and the direction of the shadow indicates where the source of light may be seen in the heavens. And so with faith in God. Let us observe where it seems faintest, and why; and we shall learn from the shadow of doubt the direction from which the light comes.

Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary

9

Here is the plain statement of Jesus that Thomas believed because he had seen the wounds, which proves the comment above that he did not thrust his hand in the side of his Lord. This passage has the two words seen and believed in about the same connection they are used in verse 8. That is, Thomas saw the wounds which Jesus only could have exhibited at that time. This identified Him as the one who had been dead but now was alive, and that caused Thomas to believe that he was his Lord and God. Jesus did not condemn Thomas for arriving at his faith from the things he had seen. The point is that he had enjoyed an advantage that few others could have, for the world in general was to be left to believe on the strength of sound testimony. All such were to be blessed or be considered happy, because mankind could not all have the bodily presence of Christ for an evidence.

Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.

[Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.] “R. Simeon Ben Lachish saith, ‘The proselyte is more beloved by the holy blessed God than that whole crowd that stood before mount Sinai. For unless they had heard the thunderings, and seen the flames and lightnings, the hills trembling, and the trumpets sounding, they had not received the law. But the proselyte hath seen nothing of all this, and yet hath come in, devoting himself to the holy blessed God, and hath taken upon him the kingdom of heaven.”

Fuente: Lightfoot Commentary Gospels

Joh 20:29. Jesus saith unto him, Because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed; happy are they that have not seen and yet have believed. The words are intended for the Church now about to be called out of the world,for the Church of all ages, which by the very necessity of the case must believe without seeing. What then is the contrast which Jesus has in view? Can it be a contrast between faith which wishes to see the miraculous fact in order to accept it, and faith which accepts the fact on the ground of simple testimony? Such an explanation limits unduly the meaning of the word believe. It substitutes one kind of seeing for another (for what does testimony do but place us in the position of the original witnesses?); and, by failing to bring us into direct contact with the Person of Jesus, it lowers the state of mind to which the blessedness of the Gospel is attached. The contrast is of a deeper kind,between a faith resting entirely upon outward evidence of Divine claims, and a faith rising higher and resting upon that intuitive perception of the Divine in Jesus which is afforded by the consideration of what He is in Himself as the Crucified and Risen Lord. In the ages of the Church which were to follow the going away of Jesus, it was needful that faith should rest first upon testimony; but it was not to pause there. It was to rest upon the spiritual apprehension of that to which testimony is borne,of that which the Lord is in Himself as the embodiment of the Divine, and the unchanging spring of the heavenly power and grace which are manifested in His people. Thus to us, who are separated by many centuries from the time when the Lord was personally present in the world, is the blessed assurance given that, though we have not seen Him, we may love Him; and that, though now we see Him not, we may rejoice in Him with a joy unspeakable and glorified (1Pe 1:8). We need not envy Thomas or his fellow – apostles. They were blessed in their faith; we may be even more blessed in ours. The more we penetrate through the outward to the inward, through the flesh to the spirit, through communion with the earthly to communion with the heavenly Lord, the more do we learn to know the fulness that is in Him, in whom dwelled all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, and in whom we are complete (Col 2:9-10).

Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament

Here we have Christ’s reprehension of Thomas for not believing without such sensible evidence as he desired. He believed now that Christ was risen from the dead, but it was upon the testimony of his senses only. Therefore Christ tells him, that his faith would have been more excellent and more eminently rewardable, if he had believed without such demonstrative evidence: Faith is the evidence of things not seen. Therefore to give credit to a thing upon the evidence of a sense, is not properly believing.

Observe farther, how Christ pronounces them blessed, who should hereafter believe on him through the preaching of the gospel, though they did not see him as Thomas did, nor handle him as he might. this is a sure rule, that by how much our faith stands in less need of the external evidence of sense, the stronger our faith is, and the more acceptable it is, provided what we believe be revealed in the word of God: Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.

Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament

Ver. 29. In itself, this address of the disciple would not have a decisive value. It might be an exaggeration of feeling. But what gives it an absolute importance is the manner in which Jesus receives it. The Lord does not check this outbreak of feeling, like the angel of the Apocalypse, who says to John:

Worship God! He answers, on the contrary: Thou hast believed, and thus accepts the expression by which Thomas has proclaimed His divinity. In an article by Lien (May, 1869), it is objected that this approving answer of Jesus may refer not to the expression: My God, but to the belief of Thomas in the fact of the resurrection. But if Jesus had approved of the exclamation of the disciple only in part, He would have found the means of removing the alloy, while preserving the pure gold.

The perfect , thou hast believed, signifies: Thou art henceforth in possession of faith. This verb might also be taken in an interrogative sense. For Meyer observes, not without reason, that there is in the words: because thou hast seen, a shade of reproach which accords well with this sense.

In the last words Jesus points out the entirely new character of the era which is beginning, that of a faith which should be contented with testimony, without claiming to be founded on sight, as that of Thomas had done.

This saying closes the history of the development of faith in the apostles, and gives a glimpse of the new phase which is about to beginthat of the faith of the Church resting upon the apostolic testimony. Baur thinks that Jesus here opposes to faith in external facts that which has its contents only in itself, in the idea of which the believer is henceforth fully conscious. But Joh 20:30-31 express a thought directly opposite to this. So Baur has declared them to be interpolated, without the least proof. The contrast which Jesus points out is altogether different: it is that of a carnal faith, which in order to accept a miracle wishes absolutely to see it, and a faith of a moral nature, which accepts the divine fact on the foundation of a testimony which is worthy of confidence. It was granted to Thomas to be saved on the former path; but from this time forward it will be necessary to content oneself with the second. Otherwise faith would be no longer possible in the world except on condition of miracles renewed unceasingly and celestial appearances repeating themselves for every individual. This is not to be the course of the divine work on earth.

The aorist participle , properly: who shall have seen, indicates an anterior act with relation to faith, and the aorist participle , who have believed, is spoken from the standpoint of the development of the Church regarded as consummated.

This answer of Jesus to Thomas is the normal close of the fourth Gospel. It indicates the limit of development of the apostolic faith, and the starting-point of the new era which is to succeed it on the earth. The apostolic faith, as it has just risen to the full height of its object, will be able henceforth to re-echo throughout the world by means of the testimony of the chosen messengers, so as incessantly to reproduce itself.

On the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Strauss has said, in speaking of the resurrection of Jesus: Here is the decisive point, where the naturalistic view must retract all its previous assertions or succeed in explaining the belief in the resurrection without bringing in a miraculous fact. And Strauss is right. The question here is of a miracle sui generis, of the miracle properly so called. The usual expedients for explaining the miracles of Jesus, the hidden forces of spontaneity, the mysterious influence exerted upon the nerves by the contact of an exquisite personall this has no longer any application here; for no other human being co-operated in the resurrection of Jesus, if it took place. If Jesus really came forth alive from the tomb after His crucifixion, there is nothing left but to say with St. Peter: GOD has raised up Jesus.

It is said: Such a fact would overthrow the laws of nature. But what if it were, on the contrary, the law of nature, when thoroughly understood, which required this fact? Death is the wages of sin. If Jesus lived here below as innocent and pure, if He lived in God and of God, as He Himself says in Joh 6:57, life must be the crown of this unique conqueror. No doubt He may have given Himself up voluntarily to death to fulfil the law which condemns sinful humanity; but might not this stroke of death, affecting a nature perfectly sound, morally and physically, meet in it exceptional forces capable of reacting victoriously against all the powers of dissolution? As necessarily as a life of sin ends in death, so necessarily does perfect holiness end in life, and consequently, if there has been death, in the resurrection. Natural law, therefore, far from being contrary to this fact, is the thing which requires it.

But if this fact is rational, when once the perfect holiness of Jesus is admitted, is it possible? To deny that it is, would be to affirm an irreducible dualism between being and virtue. It would be to deny monotheism. The divine will is the basis of being, and the essence of this will is to move towards the good. In creating being it has therefore reserved to itself the means of realizing the good in all the forms of existence and of causing the absolute sovereignty of holiness to be triumphant in the being. This is all that we can determine a priori from the theistic standpoint. Every historian, says Strauss, should possess philosophy enough to be able to deny the miracle here as well as elsewhere. Every true historian, we will answer, should have philosophy enough, above all, to let the word yield to the facts, here as elsewhere.

Let us, in the first place, study the four, or rather the five, narratives of the appearances of the Risen One.

I. The Narratives.

John mentions three appearances of Jesus (to Mary Magdalene, the Twelve, Thomas), all three in Judea and in the week which followed the resurrection.

Is this to say that the author did not know of a larger number? The twenty-first chapter, which proceeds from him directly or indirectly, proves the contrary. For this chapter mentions a new one which took place in Galilee. That to Thomas closes the Gospel properly so called, for the reasons which belong to the plan and aim of the work (see on Joh 20:28-29).

Matthew relates two appearances: that to the women in Judea, which seems to be only a generalized double of the appearance to Mary Magdalene (in John), and that to the Eleven on the mountain where He had appointed for them a meeting-place. It was in the latter that Christ made known to the apostles His elevation to the Messianic royalty, to the sovereignty over all things. This is the reason why it closes the first Gospel, which is designed to demonstrate the Messianic dignity of Jesus, and in the view of the author serves to sum up all the others. This took place in Galilee, like that of the twenty-first chapter of John.

If we set aside the unauthentic end of Mark, we find in this Gospel only the promise of an appearance to the believers in Galilee. We are ignorant of what the true conclusion of this work must have contained. What we now possess, composed from John and Luke, mentions the appearance to Mary Magdalene (John) and those to the two from Emmaus and to the disciples on the evening of the day of the resurrection (Luke).

Luke mentions three appearances: that on the road to Emmaus, that to Peter, that to the disciples on the evening of the first day; all three in Judea and on the very day of the resurrection. It would be difficult to believe that he did not know of others, since he had labored for the evangelization of the Gentile world with St. Paul, who, as we are about to see, mentions several others. Luke himself, in Act 1:3, speaks of forty days during which Jesus showed Himself alive to the apostles. He simply desired, therefore, to report the first appearances which served to establish in the hearts of the apostles the belief in the fact of the resurrection.

As for Paul, he enumerates in 1Co 15:3 ff., as facts appertaining to the apostolic tradition which he has himself received, first the appearances to Peter and to the Twelve which immediately followed the resurrection; then a later appearance to more than five hundred brethren, some of whom he himself knew personally; moreover, two appearances, one to James, the other to all the apostles. Finally, to these five he adds that which was granted to himself on the road to Damascus.

We are already acquainted with the first two, one from Luke, the other from Luke and John. The third surprises us, since it is not related in any of the four gospels. But it is probably identical with that of which Matthew speaks, which took place on the mountain of Galilee, whither Jesus had summoned all His followers from before His death (Mat 26:32, Mar 14:28), though in Matthew He addresses only the Eleven in order to call them to their mission to the whole world. The fourth (James), mentioned by Paul alone, is confirmed by the conversion of the four brothers of Jesus (Act 1:14). The fifth (all the apostles) is evidently that of the ascension, the word all alluding not to James, as has been thought, but rather to Thomas, who had been absent at the time of the first appearance to the Eleven. If mention is not made of the first two appearances in John and Luke, those to Mary Magdalene and the two from Emmaus, it is because they have a private character, Mary and the two disciples not belonging to the circle of the official witnesses chosen by Jesus to declare publicly what concerned Him.

Notwithstanding the diversity of these accounts, it is not difficult to reconstruct by their means the whole course of things. There are ten appearances known:

1. That to Mary, in the morning, at the sepulchre (John and Matthew);

2. That to the two from Emmaus, in the afternoon of the first day (Luke and Mark);

3. That to Peter, a little later, but on the same day (Luke and Paul);

4. That to the Eleven (without Thomas), in the evening of this first day (John, Luke, Mark);

5. That to Thomas, eight days afterwards (John);

6. That to the seven disciples, on the shore of the sea of Galilee (John

7. That to the five hundred believers, on the mountain of Galilee (Matthew, Paul);

8. That to James (Paul);

9. That of the ascension (Luke, Paul). Finally, to complete the whole: 10. That to Paul, some years afterwards, on the road to Damascus.

Evidently no one had kept an exact protocol of what occurred in the days which followed the resurrection. Each evangelist has drawn from the treasure of the common recollections what was within his reach, and reproduced what best answered the purpose of his writing. They did not dream of the future critics; simplicity is the daughter of good faith. But what is striking in this apparent disorder is the remarkable moral gradation in the succession of these appearances. In the first ones, Jesus consoles; He is in the presence of broken hearts (Mary, the two from Emmaus, Peter). In the following ones (the Twelve, Thomas), He labors, above all, to establish faith in the great fact which has just been accomplished. In the last ones, He more particularly directs the eyes of His followers towards the future by preparing them for the great work of their mission. It is thus, indeed, that He must have spoken and acted, if He really acted and spoke as risen from the dead.

II. The Fact.

What really occurred, which gave occasion to the narratives which we have just studied?

According to the contemporary Jews, whose assertion was reproduced in the second century by Celsus and in the eighteenth by the author of the Wolfenbuttel Fragments, the answer is: nothing at all. This whole history of the resurrection of Jesus is only a fable, the fruit of a premeditated deception on the part of the apostles. They had themselves put the body of Jesus out of the way, and then proclaimed His resurrection.

To this explanation we cannot reply better than by saying, with Strauss: Without the faith of the apostles in the resurrection of Jesus, the Church would never have been born. After the death of their Master the apostles were too much disheartened to invent such a fiction, and it was from the conviction of His resurrection that they drew the triumphant faith which was the soul of their ministry. The existence of the Church which has religiously renewed the world is explained with yet greater difficulty by a falsehood than by a miracle.

Others, Strauss at their head, answer: Something occurred, but something purely internal and subjective. The apostles were, not impostors, but dupes of their own imagination. They sincerely believed that they saw the appearances which they have related. On the day of Jesus’ death, or the next day, they fled to Galilee; and, on finding themselves again in the places where they had lived with Him, they imagined that they saw and heard Him again; these hallucinations were continued during some weeks, and here is what gave rise to the narratives of the appearances.

But, 1. From this point of view, the first scenes of the appearances of Jesus must be placed in Galilee, not in Jerusalem, as is the case in all the narratives, even in that which may be called the most decidedly Galileanthat of Matthew (Mat 28:1-10).

2. According to all the accounts, and even according to the calumny against the disciples invented by the Jews, the body of Jesus, after the descent from the cross, was left in the hands of the Lord’s friends. Now, in the presence of the dead body, all the hallucinations must have vanished. We shall thus be brought back to the first explanation, which makes the disciples impostors an explanation which Strauss himself declares impossible. If it is said: The Jews got possession of the body and carried it off,they worked in this case against themselves and for the success of the falsehood which they ascribed to the apostles. And why not bring into broad daylight this point tending to prove criminality instead of confining themselves to accusing the disciples of having put Him out of the way?

3. The hallucinations which are supposed are incompatible with the state of mind of the disciples at this time. The believers so little expected the resurrection of Jesus that it was for the purpose of embalming His body that the women repaired to the sepulchre. If they still had a hope, by reason of the promises which the Lord had made to them before His death, it was that of His return from heaven, whither they believed that He had gone. Remember me when thou shalt come into thy kingdom, said the thief on the cross. And this, indeed, was undoubtedly what the disciples from Emmaus meant when they said, Luk 24:21 : Already it is the third day since these things came to pass. The restoration to life of His body broken on the cross was not dreamed of by any one. What those hoped for who hoped for anything was a Parousia, not a resurrection properly so called. And this also is what they think that they behold at the first moment, when Jesus appears to them; they take Him for a pure spirit returning from heaven. How in such a condition of mind could they have been themselves the creators of the appearances of the Risen One?

4. And what if these appearances consisted only in a luminous figure, an ethereal form floating in the distance, seen between heaven and earth, and soon vanishing in the sky? But it is a person who approaches, who asks them to touch him, who converses with them, who blames them for seeing in him only a spirit, who speaks in a definite way and joins acts with his words (He breathed on them, saying: Receive ye the Holy Spirit), who gives positive orders (to assemble on a mountain, to baptize the nations, to tarry in Jerusalem), who has friendly conversations with some of them (the two from Emmaus, Thomas, Peter); hallucination does not comport with such features. We must always come back to the supposition of fiction and falsehood. As to a legendary formation, it cannot be thought of here, since Paul, even during the lifetime of the witnesses, alludes to all these accounts.

5. That a nervous person has hallucinations is a fact often noticed; but that a second person shares these illusions is a thing unexampled. Now this phenomenon takes place simultaneously not in two, but in eleven, and soon even in five hundred persons (1Co 15:6). The hallucinated Camisards of Cevennes are cited, it is true. But the noises which they heard in the air, the rolling of drums, the singing of psalms, do not in any respect resemble the definite communications which the Lord had with those to whom He appeared and the distinct sight of His person and His features. And if all this were only visions beheld simultaneously by so large a number of persons, it would be necessary to imagine the whole company of the believers raised to such a strange and morbid degree of exaltation that it would become absolutely incompatible with the calm self-possession, the admirable clearness of mind, the practical energy of will, which every one is forced to admire in the founders of the Church.

6. But the most insoluble difficulty for the partisans of this hypothesis is that which Keim has better set forth than any one else

I mean the sudden ending of the appearances. At the end of a few weeks, after eight or nine visions so precise that Paul counts them, as it were, on his fingerson a certain marked day, that of the ascension, all is over. The visions cease as suddenly as they came; the five hundred who were exalted have returned, as if by enchantment, to cold blood. The Lord, ever living to their faith, has disappeared from their imagination. Although far inferior in intensity, the Montanist exaltation endured for a full half century. Here, at the end of six weeks, the cessation is complete, absolutely ended. In the presence of this fact, it becomes evident that an external cause presided over these extraordinary manifestations, and that, when the cause ceased to act, the phenomenon came to its end. We are thus brought to seek for the historical fact which forms the basis of the narratives that we are studying.

I. Some modern writers (Paulus, Schleiermacher, and others) think that the death of Jesus was only apparent, and that after a long swoon He came to Himself again under the influence of the aromatics and the cool air of the sepulchre. Some Essenic friends also perhaps aided Him with their care. He appeared again, accordingly, among His followers like one risen from the dead; such is the foundation of the accounts of the appearances which we read in our gospels. Strauss has refuted this hypothesis better than any one else. How, after so cruel a punishment as that of the cross, could Jesus, having been restored by purely natural means, move with perfect ease, go on foot to a distance of some leagues from Jerusalem, and also return to that city the same afternoon; how could He be present without any one seeing His entrance; and disappear without any one noticing His departure? How, above all, could a person who was half dead, who was with difficulty dragged out of his tomb, whose feeble vital breath could not, in any case, have been preserved except by means of care and considerate measures, have produced on the apostles the triumphant impression of a conqueror of death, of the prince of life, and by the sight of Himself have transformed their sadness into enthusiasm, their disheartenment into adoration? And then, finally, in the interval between these visits, what became of this moribund person? Where did He conceal Himself? And how did He bring to an end this strange kind of life in which He was obliged to conceal Himself even from His friends? The critics would persuade us that He died in a Phoenician inn, sparing His disciples the knowledge of this sad ending;…it must also be added: leaving them to believe in His triumph over death, and boldly to preach His resurrection! This is imposture transferred from the disciples to the Master Himself. Does it become thereby more admissible?

II. The opinion which, without denying the miracle, approaches most nearly to the preceding, is that of Reuss and de Pressense . There was in the case of Jesus a real return to life, but in exactly the same body which had previously served Him as an organ. In fact, this body still bears the prints of the nails and of the spear-thrust. De Pressense adds, in proof of this explanation, that Jesus, after the walk to Emmaus, did not reach Jerusalem till a certain time after His two travelling companions, since He did not go to the company of the disciples in the upper chamber until after the arrival of the latter. He will allow us to attach no great importance to this argument. Why could there not have been an interval between the time of His return and that of His appearance in the chamber where the disciples were assembled? Is it not clear that the Lord’s body, although identical in some respects with His previous body, underwent by means of the miraculous fact of the resurrection a profound transformation of nature, and that from that time it lived and acted in entirely new conditions? It appears and disappears in a sudden manner, it obeys the will so far as to become visible in an apartment the doors of which had not opened, it is not recognized by those in whose midst Jesus had passed His life. All this does not allow us to believe that the resurrection consisted for Jesus, as it did for the dead whom He had Himself raised to life, only in a return to the life in His former body. They had returned into their former sphere of infirmity and death; Jesus entered within the higher sphere of incorruptibility.

III. Weiss puts forth an entirely opposite opinion. According to him, the resurrection was the complete glorification of the Lord’s body, which from this time became the spiritual body of which St. Paul speaks, 1Co 15:44-49. But how are we to explain in that case the sensible appearances of Jesus? For there is no relation between such a body and our earthly senses. It only remains to hold, with Weiss, an act of condescension by which the Risen One appropriated to Himself, at certain moments, a sensible form, which He afterwards laid aside. But this material form was not an envelopment of some sort; it bore the traces of the wounds which had been inflicted upon it on the cross. Was there only an appearance here, a sort of disguise? This is impossible. Or, if these visible prints were real, how could they belong to the spiritual body? Moreover, if we take into account the words of the Lord to Mary: I am not yet ascended, but I ascend to my Father and your Father, it is impossible to mistake the difference between the resurrection and the complete glorification of the Lord. We see from this declaration that the resurrection is indeed the entrance into a higher state, but that this state is not yet perfect. There remains a place for a last divine act, the ascension, which will introduce Him into His state of final glory.

IV. There is only a shade of difference between the theory of Weiss and Sabatier (set forth in theChristianisme au XIX sie:cle, April, 1880). According to the latter there was no return to life for the body put to death on the cross; the real fact was the reappearance of the Lord with an entirely new body, the spiritual body of which St. Paul speaks. The material elements of the body in which Jesus had lived here on earth are returned to the earth.

At the foundation, what Sabatier thus teaches is nothing else than what the disciples expected, a Parousia, Jesus glorified returning from the other life, but not a resurrection. And yet it is a fact that the reality did not correspond to the expectation of the disciples, but that it went completely beyond it. They went to embalm; they tried to find where the body had been laid; and it was this body which was alive!

Then how can we explain otherwise than by a resurrection the tomb found empty? We have seen that the two suppositions of a removal by the disciples or by the Jews are equally impossible. The return of the material elements to the earth must have been effected by the hands of some agent. Could Jesus have been the digger of His own grave? Besides, how could Jesus, with a purely spiritual body, have said to the disciples: Touch me, show them His wounds, ask them for food, and this to the end of convincing them of the material reality of the body which He had?

Sabatier answers that these details are found only in Luke and John, who present to us the appearances under a form materialized by legend, while the normal tradition is still found in Matthew and Mark, and besides in Paul (1 Corinthians 15). In Matthew? But he relates that the women laid hold of the feet of Jesus; the feet of a spiritual body? In Mark? But we do not have the conclusion of Mark’s narrative. In Paul? But he enumerates five appearances, some of which are identical with those of Luke, and he thus confirms the accounts of the latter. Is it probable, moreover, that Luke, St Paul’s companion in preaching, had on this fundamental point of the resurrection of the Lord a different view from the apostle? And what does Paul himself desire to prove in the fifteenth chapter of First Corinthians? That we shall receive a new body without any organic relation to our present body? On the contrary, he emphasizes in every way the close bond of union between these two successive organs of our personality. It is this mortal which will put on immortality, this corruptible which will put on incorruption. Only the corruptible elements of flesh and blood will be excluded from this transformation, which, according to Php 3:21, will make of the body of our humiliation a body of glory like the present body of the Lord. For a resurrection Sabatier substitutes a creation. By breaking every bond between the present body and the future body, he does away with the victory of the Lord over death, and consequently over sin and condemnation, and thus, while thinking only to treat of a secondary point, does violence to the essence of the Christian redemption.

V. The strangest means of escaping from the notion of a corporeal resurrection and yet attributing some objectivity to the appearances of the Lord was imagined by Weisse, and then adopted and developed by Keim. The appearances of Jesus risen from the dead were spiritual manifestations of Jesus glorified to the minds of His disciples. Their reality belonged only to the inner world; they were nevertheless positive historical facts. But the disappearance of the body of Jesus remains still unexplained, as in most of the preceding hypotheses. And what a strange way of acting is that of a being, pure spirit, who, appearing to the mind of His followers, should take so much pains to prove to them that He is indeed flesh and bones, and not pure spirit! And how should the apostles, who were so little expecting a bodily resurrection, have come to substitute for purely spiritual revelations gross material facts?

After having exhausted all these so different explanations, we return to the thought which naturally comes forth from the words of the Lord: I am not yet ascended, but I ascend. The interval between the resurrection and the ascension of the Lord was a period of transition. He had indeed recovered His former body, but, through the change which was made in His personal position, this body was subjected to new conditions of existence. It was not yet the spiritual body, but the spirit disposed of it more freely; it was already the docile organ of the will. Thus are the opposite phenomena explained which characterize the manifestations of the Lord in this period of His existence; in particular, the sudden appearances and disappearances. Objection is made because of this fact: that the Lord ate. There would be reason in this objection if He ate for hunger, but this act was not the result of a need. He wished to show that He could eatthat is to say, that His body was real, that He was not a pure spirit or a phantom. The ascension consummated what the resurrection had begun.

There are three miracles in the development of nature: 1. The appearance of matter; 2. The appearance of life in matter; 3. The appearance of the conscious and free will in the domain of life. There are three decisive miracles in the history of the Lord: 1. His coming in the flesh, or His entrance into material existence; 2. The realization of life, of holy communion with God in this corporeal existence; 3. The elevation of this life to the liberty of the divine life by the resurrection and ascension.

Fuente: Godet Commentary (Luke, John, Romans and 1 Corinthians)

20:29 {8} Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed [are] they that have not seen, and [yet] have believed.

(8) True faith depends upon the mouth of God, and not upon the eyes of the flesh.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

We could translate Jesus’ first sentence as either a question or a statement. It confirmed the reality of Thomas’ belief in either case, and it prepared for the beatitude that followed (cf. Joh 13:17). "Blessed" (Gr. makarios) does more than just describe the person in view as happy. It also declares him or her acceptable to God (cf. Mat 5:3-12).

Most believers have believed on Jesus because of sufficient evidence without the physical confirmation that Thomas required (cf. Joh 20:8; 1Pe 1:8-9). Those were the people whom Jesus had in view when He made this statement. This beatitude does not make believers who live after Jesus’ ascension superior to those who saw Him in the flesh. Rather it guarantees their blessing by God.

"Thomas’s declaration is the last assertion of personal faith recorded in this Gospel. It marks the climax of the book because it presents Christ as the risen Lord, victorious over sin, sorrow, doubt, and death. It also presents the faith that accepts not only the truth of what Jesus said but also the actuality of what he was-the Son of God. In the experience of Thomas, the writer has shown how belief comes to maturity and how it changes the entire direction of an individual life." [Note: Tenney, "John," p. 195.]

"The growth of belief depicted in the Gospel of John thus moves from an initial acceptance on the testimony of another to a personal knowledge marked by loyalty, service, and worship; from assumption of the historicity and integrity of Jesus to a personal trust in Him; from an outward profession to an inward reality; from attending to His teachings to acknowledging His lordship over life. Full belief may not be attained instantly; yet the incipient and tentative belief is not to be despised." [Note: Idem, "Topics from . . .," p. 357.]

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)