John 20:24-31--Jesus and Thomas and the Purpose of The Gospel of John

John 20:24-29
English Standard Version

Jesus and Thomas
24 Now Thomas, one of the twelve, called the Twin, was not with them when Jesus came. 25 So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.”

26 Eight days later, his disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” 27 Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.” 28 Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” 29 Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

The Purpose of This Book​
30 Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; 31 but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

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We just saw in the last section how Jesus appeared to the disciples to give them peace and comfort and to give them the Holy Spirit after His resurrection, but John now tells us that Thomas was not there with the others when Jesus appeared to them on Sunday evening.  No matter how much the disciples told Thomas that they had seen the risen Christ, he would not believe them.  He said that He needed to see the and examine the evidence for himself--the nailprints in His hands and the spear wound in His side.

Jesus shows up eight days later (Monday evening the week following the Resurrection) and He specifically shows Thomas the evidence that he has asked for.  He gives Thomas the same greeting of "Peace be with you," and He challenges Thomas with His Thomas's own words telling him to put his finger into the nailprints and to thrust his hand into His side.  There is no indication that Thomas took Jesus up on His offer, but He instead simply replies with, "My Lord and my God."

Jesus blesses Thomas for believing because he has seen, but says that those, like us, who believe without seeing will be more blessed.  For many, "Seeing is believing," but we are told in Hebrews 11:1, "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." and we are told in Hebrews 11:6, "And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him."  We all must come to God through Jesus by faith now because we do not see these things and cannot evaluate them empirically.  That is not to say that our faith is blind faith, for we have the eyewitness testimony of those that wrote the gospels and other books of the New Testament.  John says that he wrote these things so that we may know just some of what Jesus did in the presence of His disciples and can know by these signs that Jesus is who He says He is--the very Son of God, and that by believing on Him we may know that we have eternal life.  What a powerful statement!

We're not done yet though as Jesus still has some unfinished business with Peter and the others before He ascends to heaven.  We'll talk about that over the next few days as we finish up the Gospel of John.