Of Scars And Skeptics

When Skepticism Is Healthy and When It Becomes a Defense Mechanism 0:26

Skepticism can be very helpful. Let's say you go home. Let's say you turn on the computer, pull up the email, and behold, there's an email for you from a Nigerian prince. And the Nigerian prince says, oh, good kind sir, kind sir, if you would just send me your social security number, I will send you a million dollars.

You know, something like that. Skepticism is a healthy, helpful thing when applied properly — when applied especially to those truth claims of which there is no support. Skepticism can save you from con men, from bad choices, and from situations that would otherwise harm you. With that said, skepticism is not a fruit of the Spirit.

Skepticism is not a fruit of the Spirit. More often, you know what it is? It's a defense mechanism. We're skeptical of things and claims and statements because the alternative is to put our trust in a lie or to put ourselves in a position where others might think us a fool, to think us as rubes because we believe something that their higher reason has not yet deduced.

So sometimes we're skeptics or we present skeptical arguments in order to avoid buying into lies or in order to not look like a fool. Both things are bad in our eyes.

Thomas Loved Christ: The Man Willing to Die With Jesus 1:35

Well, in today's text, the man we know as Doubting Thomas, which is kind of unfair. When you get to heaven, I don't think you're going to walk up to him and go, hey, Doubting Thomas, nice to meet you. I think it's very unfair. With that said, the man we know as Doubting Thomas, in today's text, he didn't want anyone to think that he was a fool or he was a rube.

Now, it's not because he didn't love Jesus. Thomas loved Jesus. He loved Jesus dearly. Make no mistake.

You go back, if you go to John chapter 11. John chapter 11 is the story of Lazarus' resurrection. Lazarus is going to be resurrected, right? And Jesus says, I'm going to go to Bethany.

And all His disciples say, oh, you don't want to do that. Bethany is right over by Jerusalem. You know who's there? The people want to kill you.

Let's not do that. Let's not go to the place where people want to kill you. But Jesus says, nope, I'm going to go. And what did Thomas say at that time?

Thomas stood up and he says, all right, guys, let's go and die with him. You know, no one refers to him as, let's go and die with him, Thomas. Everyone refers to him as Doubting Thomas, which is why I said that's kind of unfair. With that said, he loved Jesus.

He was willing to give up his life for Jesus. He had every incentive in the world to want to see Jesus again. He had every incentive and motivation in the world to want to believe what the people were saying, what his friends were saying, and yet, the prospect of resurrection just seemed too far-fetched.

And so he was skeptical, skeptical, that it had happened.

Wanting Proof as a Predicate to Belief 2:58

Thomas knew the stakes. He may even have wanted to believe, wanted to believe these things, and yet he wanted to be convinced first. He wanted to be convinced as a predicate to that belief. Let me ask you, is that you this morning?

Do you want to believe, but you're just having troubles and doubts and anxieties? If it is you, then my hope, my prayer is that our time in this text will be of some support as you process Christ's claims.

Christ Appears to the Disciples: Peace and Proof 3:28

“Peace be with you. As the Father has sent Me, I also send you.”

— John 20:21 (NKJV)

All right, let's return now. Let's look at verses 19 through 23, and as we usually do, we'll look at these verses and we'll just work our way through the text as time allows. So verses 19 through 23. Now then, the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, which is a side note, is why we have church on Sundays, first day of the week.

When the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst. And He said to them, Shalom. He said to them, Peace be with you. Now when He had said this, He showed them His hands.

He showed them His side. Then the disciples were glad. I'm sure this is an understatement. They were rejoicing when they saw the Lord.

So Jesus said to them again, Peace to you. As the Father has sent me, now also I send you. Now, when He had said this, He breathed on them and said to them, receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they're forgiven them.

If you retain the sins of any, they are retained. All right, where are we at this point on Resurrection Sunday? Well, at this point on Resurrection Sunday, several of the disciples had already seen Jesus. And yet their joy, such as it was, was tinged with confusion.

Confusion, because again, we have categories of things. And one of the categories that's fairly safe is this. If someone dies, they stay dead. With that said, it was true in their time as well.

Only on very rare occasion, Lazarus, Jesus, and so forth, was there anything to disrupt that order. So with that said, they have reason to rejoice, but their rejoicing is tinged with, did we see this? What is going on? They're also fearful because the same people who killed Jesus, what was to stop them from killing them again?

What was to stop them from killing them? So they're back huddled again in the upper room. Jesus has got them victory, and they're still living in defeat. So that's what they're doing.

They're processing things together in the upper room and the like. Well, verse 19 says that the same evening when they're meeting here in secret, Jesus came to them, and He stood in their midst. Now, we don't know how He got there. There's guys that spend the entire sermon speculating on exactly how Jesus got in the room.

I'm not going to do that, but I will do this. I will tell you what he said. He arrives in the room, and He looks at the disciples, and He says, Shalom. Peace to you.

Now, with what it's worth, out in the foyer there, when we encounter everyone, you know, there's greetings that are very normal. Hello, good to see you. How are you doing, right? This is sort of the Jewish equivalent of that.

It was a very standard form of greeting. Peace be with you. But then He did something that was not normal in that society. He says, all right, guys, peace to you.

And now come check this out. Come check this out. You see these hands? You see my side?

It's me. You know what happened three days ago. And I am here to tell you, I'm the same one. The same one who was crucified has now been resurrected.

You see, any claim for resurrection from the dead should include evidence that the death had actually occurred. And so that's what He shows them. That's what He displays. He says, I truly died, and you know it.

Check this out. People don't survive that. I truly died, and yet here I am. Peace, peace to you.

Into Their Fear He Brought Peace, Into Their Doubt He Brought Proof 6:30

Into their fear and their anxieties, Jesus brought peace. But into their doubts, Jesus had brought proof. Into their fear, He brought peace. He wanted to calm them down, quiet their hearts.

Into their fear, he brought peace. Then into their confusion and their doubts and anxieties, He brought proof. He does the same thing for us, too. With that said, look at what He does next in verses 21 through 23.

So why is He going to the apostles at all? Why is He arriving? Why is He there? Well, on the one hand, it's to demonstrate that I'm here.

It's me. Remember me? It's me. I am risen.

I am risen indeed.

The Commissioning of the Apostles and the Breath of the Spirit 7:02

So on the one hand, that's what He's doing. but beyond that, verses 21 through 23, He is there for a commissioning service. He says, I was sent for this. I was sent to die. I didn't stay dead.

Now I've been sent to you to testify to my resurrection, and in due time, shortly thereafter, I will send my father. And when I'm at my father's side, I'm going to continue to be your advocate and your friend. I'm going to intercede for you from the right hand of the Father. That was His objective.

He says, I've and said, for this purpose, and this is what I'm going to do next, but before I go there, I've got something to do for you. I'm going to commission you to be my apostles. I'm going to commission you to be my ambassadors. Now, in a sense, He had already commissioned them in times past, and yet, in some substantive way, His commissioning here takes on a greater sense of authority.

He breathes on them. Now, this is not pre-Pentecost. He breathes on them in anticipation of Pentecost, but the idea here is that He's sending them out with His full authority to be His ambassadors there on the globe. They're sent, verses 21 through 23, to go and proclaim the gospel of forgiveness that's been secured by Christ's resurrection.

He sends them out into the world, all but one, because one guy is missing.

Thomas Refuses to Believe the Testimony of the Ten 8:17

Let's see who that guy is there. Let's look at verses 24 and 25. Verse 24: Now Thomas, called the Twin, one of the 12, was not with him when Jesus came. The other disciples therefore said to him, We have seen the Lord.

And so he said to them, Unless I see in his hands a print of his nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, put my hand on his side, I will not believe. All right, so Thomas, called the Twin, one of the 12, was not with him when he came.

As a side note, he was called the Twin. That's better than Doubting Thomas, I think. He liked that one better. But he was called the Twin.

He was not with them when Jesus came. The other disciples say, hey, Thomas — you know, they had to be dying for this moment. Imagine after they saw Jesus, right? They were like, this is wonderful, but Thomas missed him.

We got to tell him. As soon as they saw him, you can just imagine, they were dying to tell him this great, wonderful news, this great, wonderful news. So they say, we've seen him. We've seen the Lord.

We have seen the Lord. And this is 10 men, 10 of his best friends on planet Earth who give him the greatest news he's ever heard. We have seen the Lord. But his reaction, well, frankly, it's odd.

Given the evidences and proofs and things like that, his reaction is to say this: well, all right, all right, I hear what you're saying. I hear you, and you know I love you. I believe you in most things, but in this particular case, I think I'm going to need some additional evidence. Unless I experience what you experienced, unless I see what you see, unless I touch what you touched, I will not believe.

I can't believe. I'm just not wired that way, guys. I just can't do what you do. I have a higher standard for that which I trust.

Now, again, this is odd. This is odd. And the reason that it's odd is not because it's a bad thing to want evidence for outrageous claims. That's just fine.

It's okay to want evidence for outrageous claims. If someone comes to you with a fantastic story — fill in the blanks, whatever anecdote you want — someone comes to you with a fantastic story that's happened to them. It's okay to ask for some proof or evidence or what have you. That's fairly normative.

It's not a bad thing per se to want evidence for that which is outrageously claimed.

Five Categories of Evidence Thomas Already Possessed 10:22

But here's the thing. Thomas already had all the evidence he needed. Thomas already had all the evidence he needed without ever once seeing the scars on Christ's hand. Let's talk about the evidence he already had.

Let's talk about what he already knew to be true in order to demonstrate that he had all the evidence he needed to believe apart from even seeing Christ. Five categories. The first is this. Number one, Jesus had told him and the other disciples exactly what was going to happen before it did.

What did Jesus say? Luke 9. He said, the Son of Man must suffer many things. He must be killed and after three days rise again.

Right? So Thomas had been there. He'd heard that. Jesus said to him.

He could have even been looking Thomas in the eyeball when he said it. We don't know. The Son of Man, me, me, the Son of Man, Son of Man must suffer many things. He had already suffered a lot of things.

He was going to suffer even more. But Jesus says, this suffering is going to involve my death. I'm going to be killed, but I'm not going to stay dead. Three days later, I'm going to rise.

So if you're Thomas, you know, if three days later, guess what? Your 10 best friends of the world say, hey, he's risen. We've seen him. You should have a flashback and go, wait a second.

That's just what he said was going to happen. Oh my goodness. So he had that going for him. Secondarily, he had the witness testimony of his ten best friends.

Also in Scripture, it says with two witnesses, something can be confirmed. Here, he's got ten guys. Ten guys who he knows their hearts. He's served with them in the trenches.

He would place his life in their hands. These ten guys tell him, it happened, it happened, it happened, we saw him. And you would think that would be sufficient, and yet, evidently, it's not. Now, what other evidence did he have?

You know, if you got this outrageous claim that someone has escaped the grave, what evidence did Thomas have that it could at least happen? Well, what did we talk about just a few moments ago in John chapter 11? In John chapter 11, who was raised from the dead? It starts with an L. Lazarus.

Thomas had been there. Thomas is the one who said, let's go die with him. Let's go to Bethany. Let's go see what's going to go on.

Thomas was there. He saw Lazarus. He saw Lazarus come out from a tomb days after he had been buried. He saw Lazarus.

And because he saw Lazarus, he should have known that defeat of the grave was well within the powers and claims of his rabbi, of this Christ. If Jesus could raise Lazarus from the dead, isn't it possible, isn't it conceivable that He could volitionally raise Himself? He had seen a dead man walk. Again, as evidences go that Christ's truth claims were legitimate, this is really high up on the list.

Beyond that, fourth category: the empty tomb, the women's report. It wasn't just these 10 guys. Mary Magdalene and others who had seen this risen Christ. And everyone was buzzing about it.

Luke chapter 24, people are talking about, aren't you the only one who knows what's happening these days? And now there's rumors that he's walking around. It's not like it was these 10 guys who decided to prank him, right? If your 10 best friends want to pull a prank, maybe they do something like that.

But it wasn't confined to 10 guys. The whole countryside is starting to talk and buzz about these things and empty tombs and stones rolled away and angelic sightings. And that brings us to the fifth category. What had happened at the moment Jesus died?

What had happened on Calvary? Well, we talked about this two weeks ago. What happened on Calvary was astonishing. No one had seen anything like it.

It grew supernaturally dark for three hours prior to Christ's death. Supernaturally dark. And beyond that, beyond that, what happened? What happened when Jesus gave up His spirit?

What happened when He said, It is finished? And the temple — the veil was rent in half from top to the bottom. The temple — the veil separating the people and the priests and the others from the Holy of Holies itself was ripped in half from the top to the bottom, demonstrating that it came from God and not from man.

The temple veil was ripped in half. Two people were being resurrected. Scripture says people are coming out of their tombs at this time. You have the supernatural darkness.

The temple was ripped in half. There's earthquakes. There's other people that were supposedly resurrected at that same time. All of this went down.

And with that said, you've got Thomas there, and he says, well, unless I touch his hands, or unless I see it with my own eyes — dear heavens, man, there's more evidence to support what your 10 best BFFs in the world — more evidence to support what they have said — than just about anything you've ever placed your trust in before.

Thomas wasn't being rational and requesting more evidence.

Irrational in Light of the Evidence: Unbelief as a Condition of the Heart 14:43

He was being irrational in light of the evidence he already had. You understand the distinction? Sometimes we can, as skeptics, go, well, you know, I set a high bar for truth. The rubes of this world can believe things on their own, but I set a high bar.

I'm a rational man. I act on rational things, and data points have to assemble in order for me to believe them. Right, well, so here, if you have that mentality, you might look at Thomas and say, hey, I know what Thomas is doing here. He's just being rational and trying to process these things and looking for facts and evidence, as I would do and the like.

But again, I submit to you, Thomas was not being rational in his request for more evidence. He was being irrational in light of the evidence he already had, which was overwhelming. Sometimes this can be the case with the unbelievers in our own world, our own lives as well. If you're demanding more evidence prior to believing, if you're demanding more evidence from Jesus, you may believe yourself to simply be being shrewd or smart or whatever.

However, the possibility is that you're irrationally discounting the amount of evidence that's already been put before you.

Pharaoh and the Hardened Heart That Sees the Evidence 15:49

The Old Testament. You know one of the guys I love to beat up on in the Old Testament? Pharaoh. Pharaoh.

If you were a guy who's like, I'd like to see some evidence before I trust or believe anything, right? Pharaoh. Pharaoh had more evidence than just about any man ever had that there was a God in Israel. His name was Jehovah.

Pharaoh had more evidence than you could possibly ever see that this God was real and true and could fulfill everything that he pledged and promised. God sent him an ambassador. He sent him Moses — multiple times to Pharaoh — and then God brings about supernatural plagues the likes of which he had never seen before, the likes of which no one had ever seen, things that couldn't be explained or understood or processed whatsoever.

And yet, time and time and time and time and time again, Pharaoh did not trust, did not believe, did not put his confidence that this God was who Moses said He was. But just like Pharaoh, sometimes the problem that we have, it's not the lack of evidence. I truly believe it's not. It's the condition of the heart that sees the evidence.

Christ Confronts Thomas: Do Not Be Unbelieving, But Believing 16:45

“Reach your finger here, and look at My hands; and reach your hand here, and put it into My side. Do not be unbelieving, but believing.”

— John 20:27 (NKJV)

And that's a sermon for a different day. All right, let's look at our last verses. Let's look at verses 26 through 29. And after eight days, his disciples were again inside.

And this time, Thomas was with them. Now, Jesus came, the doors being shut, and He stood in their midst, and He said, Peace to you. Then He said to Thomas — so He greets everyone, Peace to you. Then He lasers in on Thomas, and He said this.

He said, Reach your finger here, look at my hands. Reach your hand here, place it in my side. Thomas, do not be unbelieving, but be believing. Be believing.

Verse 28: And Thomas answered and said to him, My Lord and my God. And Jesus said to him, Thomas, because you've seen me, you have believed, but blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed. All right, a little over a week after Christ's previous visits to the men, to His disciples, to the apostles, He returns again, and once again He enters their midst in a way that we don't fully understand, and He greets them with the same word He did before, shalom, peace to you.

However, this time the difference is that Thomas is there. Thomas is there, and Christ addresses him first, and addresses him right out of the gate here, and He invites Thomas to do that which Thomas had insisted that he do, which, as a side note, should have been a confirmation to Thomas that this guy knows everything.

He knew what I said about touching hands and sides and the like, because the first thing out of Christ's mouth when He walks in that room or appears in that room is to look at Thomas and say, Thomas, come here, touch my hands, touch my sides, see that it is me, me indeed.

Thomas, Thomas, don't be unbelieving. That's the mark of the secular world. That's the mark of Pharaoh. That's the mark of all those who rebelled and rejected me.

Don't be unbelieving like them. Be believing. Be believing.

The Grace and Patience of Christ Toward Doubters 18:39

You know this: on the one hand, we could be inclined to study Thomas throughout this, but this really tells us more about Jesus than it does Thomas. What patience that is, and grace and kindness. Remember when Gideon wanted proof that God would do what He said to do? And let's put the fleece, and let's do these different tests.

God doesn't have to honor our tests. And for what it's worth, don't do that to God. Don't tell him, God, I'll really believe you if you write your name in the sky or give me some divine sign. Really, you don't need that.

You know you don't need that. But, but, how wonderful and gracious and merciful it is when God honors a Gideon's request, or God honors Thomas's request. How patient and kind it is to go up to him and say, Thomas, I love you, I love you, I love you, and I want you to believe and not be in unbelief, even though you should believe, and you have a mountain of evidence for that belief.

You've had a request. I'll honor it. Here I am. Touch these.

You want to touch them, touch them. Nothing says here that he did, for what it's worth. Nothing says that Thomas, you know, went out and touched it just to be doubly sure, right? Nothing says that.

What happened instead? Well, it's almost like Thomas's heart just melts within him.

My Lord and My God: The Greatest Confession of Faith in Scripture 19:41

It's almost like it just melted within him. And what does he say? Well, Thomas makes the strongest affirmation, the strongest statement of faith that is recorded anywhere in 66 books of the Bible. No one has an affirmation, a profession of faith like this.

Jesus comes, speaks to him, and Thomas' response is to say, my Lord and my God. You understand the difference there at the time? Mary, Mary in the garden. We talked about this last week.

Mary in the garden. She's going around. She talks to angels. She's looking for Jesus.

She asks where my Lord is. Now, that's an affirmation of a relationship between her and him. She calls him my Lord. But here, Thomas doesn't stop there.

He says, my Lord and my God. This was an affirmation, not simply in Christ's resurrection, not simply that He was raised. That would have been easy enough to go, it is you. I love you.

Oh, my goodness. Jesus, you're back. It's all true. Oh, I'm so relieved.

My Lord, good to see you. He could have stopped at that, but he doesn't. He looks Jesus in the eyeball, and he has the profession of faith that you and I are called to have 2,000 some odd years later. He looks Jesus in the eye, and he says this, My Lord and my God, he made a claim, a statement affirming The divinity of the man standing in front of him, my Lord and my God.

Believing Without Seeing: Faith and the Witness of the Apostles 20:56

You know, as a side note, I wrote this in my margins because I didn't want us to forget this. You know, Thomas did not have to see Jesus to believe. He didn't. That's what Jesus tells him.

You didn't have to see me to believe. Blessed are those who didn't see me and still believe. Thomas did not have to see Jesus to believe. But you know what?

Thomas did have to see a resurrected Jesus to be an apostle. You understand the difference? He did not have to see Jesus in order to believe. But he did have to see the resurrected Jesus in order to be an apostle.

And you want proof of that? Later on in Acts chapter 1. In Acts chapter 1, we see that apostles were defined as those who had seen the resurrected Jesus. He did not have to see Jesus to believe in Jesus' resurrection, to believe in Him, to say, My Lord, my God.

He didn't have to see him do that. But in order to be counted among the apostles, as those ambassadors sent out into the world, he needed to have seen, seen the resurrected Jesus. See, you and I, I don't have to see the resurrected Jesus in order to believe in Him, but someone had to.

Someone had to see Him, and that was the apostles. The apostles were the witnesses to that which they had seen, which is why John wrapped up chapter 20 by saying there's all sorts of stuff we saw, more than we can record, and I record it now for you for this purpose, that you would believe in what the witnesses have seen.

The Rest of the Story: Thomas's Faith Made Perfect in Action 22:14

All right, in closing up this morning — you ever remember Paul Harvey, The Rest of the Story? I know you have gray hair if you know what I'm saying. Paul Harvey, The Rest of the Story, right? Well, let me share the rest of the story, at least to the degree we know.

Whatever happened to Thomas? Whatever happened to this doubting Thomas? Whatever happened to Thomas? Did he remain in his doubts a day later, a week later?

Was it like, oh gosh, maybe I was confused or in a fog? Did he decline in his faith? Well, no, not at all. He says, My Lord, my God.

He trusted, he believed, and then he spent the rest of his life acting accordingly. You see, the rest of the story, such as we know it — and it's subject to traditions that may be inaccurate in some regards — but the rest of the story, to the degree we know it, is this.

That Thomas, in the time after, Thomas, in the time after, did what the other apostles did. He went out with the gospel to share it with people who had never heard it before. He went out with the gospel. And if church tradition is accurate, he went further than any of the apostles ever went in order to spread the gospel.

We read that Thomas — in the traditions, again, traditions are subject to error — but we read that Thomas took the gospel to India. Thomas took the gospel further, further, history records, than any of the other apostles ever did. Furthermore, as a side note, you know how Thomas is supposed to have died?

A spear to his side. Actually, four spears. That's how he's supposed to have died. Now, we can't be sure of any of that, but we do know this.

Thomas's belief, Thomas's faith resulted in his action. He believed, he trusted — My Lord, my God — and then he lived the rest of his days accordingly. Thomas's faith was a predicate to Thomas's actions. So the question for you this morning is this.

If you believe, if you said the Apostles' Creed this morning and meant it, if you believe the word you spoke, what's your action? Let's pray for the grace now to respond well.