The Life Of Jesus Christ In Its Historical Connexion

Christ next appeared to more than five hundred disciples, assembled in one place; and then to his brother James. [815] And on Sunday, eight days after his first appearance among the living, he again showed himself to the Apostles unawares, while they were assembled with closed doors. Thomas was now among them; the same Thomas who on a former occasion had displayed his peculiar character in an expression of doubt. Christ's appearance, and the way in which he reproached the doubting Thomas, impressed the latter with so powerful and overwhelming a sense of the Divinity that beamed forth in the manifestation of the risen Saviour, that he addressed him by a title which had been ascribed to him, so far as we know, by none of the disciples: "My Lord and my God." We are not justified in ascribing to Thomas, whose immediate impressions impelled him to this exclamation, a fully-formed theory of doctrine; yet how mighty a cause must have been at work to induce a man trained in the common opinions of the Jews to use such a title! [816]

Christ then said to Thomas, "Because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed; blessed are they who have not seen, and yet have believed." We must endeavour to unfold the rich import of these words. Christ does not refuse the title given to him by Thomas. He acknowledges his exclamation as an expression of the true faith. The words "believed" and "believe" cannot be confined solely to Christ's resurrection; they refer to his person and work in general, and to the resurrection only as one necessary element thereof. But the words of Christ also reproved Thomas for needing a visible sign in order to believe. It was implied in them that the long personal intercourse of Thomas with Christ, and his faith in Jesus as the Son of God and as superior to death, should have been enough to overcome his doubts -- and, on this foundation, he should have found the statements of Christ's reappearance, given him by the others, any thing but incredible. [817] His faith should have arisen from within, not waited for a summons from without. And, on the other hand, Christ assigns a higher place to those who are led to faith, without such visible proofs, by his spiritual self-manifestation in the preaching of the Gospel -- a faith arising inwardly from impressions made upon a willing mind. [818] His words implied that, in all after time, faith would be impossible, if there were no other way of passing from unbelief to belief except by sensible signs of assurance. The passage is strikingly illustrative of the process by which faith is developed. It contains the ground and reason why the Gospel history had to be handed down precisely in a form which could not but give occasion for manifold doubts to the human understanding, when it conducts its inquiries apart from the religious consciousness and religious wants.