Thomas, called Didymus, one of the Twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. 25 So the other disciples said to him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger into the nailmarks and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.” 26 Now a week later his disciples were again inside and Thomas was with them. Jesus came, although the doors were locked, and stood in their midst and said, “Peace be with you.” 27 Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands, and bring your hand and put it into my side, and do not be unbelieving, but believe.” 28 Thomas answered and said to him, “My Lord and my God!” 29 Jesus said to him, “Have you come to believe because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.”
Thomas was not with the other disciples when the risen Jesus first came to them. When they told him, “We have seen the Lord,” Thomas did not accept their testimony. He wanted visible and physical proof. He said he would not believe unless he saw the marks of the nails and placed his hand into Jesus’ side (v. 25).
A week later, Jesus came again. The doors were locked, yet He stood in their midst and greeted them with peace (v. 26). His risen body is real, but His glorified body is no longer bound by ordinary physical barriers. Jesus does not rebuke Thomas harshly. Instead, He responds directly to Thomas’s unbelief and invites him to see and touch the wounds he had demanded to examine.
The wounds matter. They show that the risen Lord is the same Jesus who was crucified. The Resurrection does not erase the Cross, as though the suffering of Christ had belonged to someone else. The one who stands before Thomas in glory is the same eternal Son of God made man who truly suffered and died for us.
Jesus then says, “Do not be unbelieving, but believe” (v. 27). The Gospel does not say that Thomas actually touched Him. Once Thomas encounters the risen Lord, his demanded proof gives way to faith. His answer is the highest confession in this passage: “My Lord and my God!” (v. 28).
Those words bring the reader back to the opening of John’s Gospel: “and the Word was God” (John 1:1). What the Gospel proclaimed at the beginning is now confessed by Thomas before the risen Christ. Jesus is not only risen from the dead. He is Lord and God. Thomas’s faith moves from refusal to worship.
The question Jesus asks Thomas also reaches every believer: “Have you come to believe because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed” (v. 29). This blessing reaches beyond the first disciples. Most believers will not see the risen Jesus in the way Thomas saw Him. They will come to faith through the apostolic witness handed on in the Church, through the written Gospel, and through the continuing presence of the risen Lord.
Faith without physical sight is not weaker faith. Jesus calls it blessed. The believer who has not seen Christ’s wounds with bodily eyes can still truly believe in the crucified and risen Lord and, through Him, receive the hope of eternal life. The testimony of those who saw Him is not a poor substitute for faith; it is part of the way God brings later generations to faith.
Thomas’s doubt is not presented so that unbelief may be excused, but so that our wounded faith may be healed. Jesus does not leave Thomas in refusal. He draws him to belief and gives future disciples a clear confession to make their own: Jesus Christ is “my Lord and my God.”
Lord Jesus Christ, strengthen our faith when we struggle to believe. Help us to trust the witness of Your Gospel, to recognize You as our Lord and God, and to live as those who are blessed because they have believed. Amen.
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Sources and References
- The New American Bible, Revised Edition. Washington, DC: Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, 2011. John 20:24–29 and notes on John 20:28–29.
- Hahn, Scott, and Curtis Mitch. The Ignatius Catholic Study Bible: New Testament. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2010. Page 200, notes on John 20:26, 20:28, and 20:30–31.
- Casciaro, José María, gen. ed. The Navarre Bible: New Testament, Expanded Edition. Dublin: Four Courts Press; New York: Scepter Publishers, 2008. Pages 443–444, note on John 20:24–31.
- Brown, Raymond E., Joseph A. Fitzmyer, and Roland E. Murphy, eds. The New Jerome Biblical Commentary. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1990. Page 984, paragraph 235.
- Aguilar Chiu, José Enrique, Richard J. Clifford, Carol J. Dempsey, Eileen M. Schuller, Thomas D. Stegman, and Ronald D. Witherup, eds. The Paulist Biblical Commentary. New York: Paulist Press, 2018. Page 1179.
- Collins, John J., Gina Hens-Piazza, Barbara Reid OP, and Donald Senior CP, eds. The Jerome Biblical Commentary for the Twenty-First Century. Third Fully Revised Edition, with a Foreword by Pope Francis. London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2022. Pages 1439–1440.
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