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Doubt

John 20:24–31

Listen or read the following transcript as D. A. Carson speaks on the topic of Doubt in this address from The Gospel Coalition Sermon Library


It’s an enormous privilege for me to be with you this weekend at Michigan State (not the other Michigan) on this weekend of weekends. May the best team win.

My brief tonight is to talk a bit about doubt. Doubt can be caused by a lot of quite different things. Sometimes we are skeptical about something simply because we don’t have enough information. When I was quite a young man and serving in a church on the west coast of Canada, we had in our church at the time probably 150 college-age young people, and one of them was a young woman who we’ll call Peggy.

If you stuck Peggy at one end of the room and the other 149 at the other end, about 80 percent of the energy was on Peggy’s end. She was a student at the University of British Columbia, and it was a good thing she wasn’t in engineering. She didn’t think linearly. Logic was not her strong suit, but in terms of energy, creativity, and thinking associatively and tangentially she had it.

She was a pretty keen Christian, and she became interested in (and reciprocally) a football hunk who was about as linear and dour as she was associative and tangential. He wasn’t a Christian at all. He had no idea about anything Christian and was pretty suspicious of anything too religious. She eventually brought him along to meet me.

I was single. I was working in my study one Saturday evening about 10:30, and there’s a knock at the door. In bounces Peggy. “This is Fred. He wants to talk to you.” Now I just looked at his face, and I knew for sure she was telling porkies. I mean, there was no way he wanted to see me. He just viewed me as one of the barriers between him and Peggy.

Anyway, in any case, we went out to an IHOP (International House of Pancakes) and had some food from then until about 2:00 in the morning, and I tried to get him to unwind a bit and not be too uptight. Eventually he asked a few tentative questions.

The next Saturday night there’s a knock at the door again. It was 10:30; they’d been to a movie or something. We went out to IHOP again. This time he had a list of questions. The conversation for another two and a half hours was a lot more serious, and I gave him some things that he should read, lists of things, some articles, and so on. Next Saturday night, he knocked again. Out to IHOP … more questions. He’d read everything I’d asked him to read, and gradually you could see him being drawn in to questions, answers, discussion, and so forth.

After 13 weeks, he looked at me in his dour, linear way, and he said, “All right, I’ll become a Christian.” Now I have to tell you, that’s not the way things normally work, but in his case, his hesitations were grounded (in the first instance) just on lack of information. He didn’t know anything. He’d never read any part of the Bible; he didn’t really know anything about Jesus except a few words that are not normally spoken in polite company. You see, that was about it. Sometimes, doubt, on the other hand, is caused by chosen philosophical stance. Here, for example, is Aldous Huxley, one of the most learned and influential atheists of the twentieth century, in his book Ends and Means. He writes:

“For myself, the philosophy of meaninglessness …” Which he espoused. “… was essentially an instrument of liberation. The liberation we desired was simultaneously liberation from a certain political and economic system and liberation from a certain system of morality. We objected to the morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom. We objected to the political and economic system because it was unjust.

The supporters of these systems claimed that in some way they embodied the meaning (the Christian meaning, they insisted) of the world. There was an admirably simple method of confronting these people and, at the same time, justifying ourselves in our political and erotic revolt. We would deny that the world had any meaning whatsoever.”

Well, I commend him for his honesty. I have stumbled across very similar passages, for instance, in Michel Foucault more recently. In other words, sometimes a stance of skepticism toward religious matters (in this case, Christian matters) can be caused, can be generated, can be based in an entire philosophical system thoughtfully chosen.

Sometimes doubt is fostered by 10,000 atomistic decisions. Picture somebody reared in a conservative home, brought up in a sort of churchified atmosphere, making all the sorts of commitments that he or she is expected to make, eventually going through the system and being perceived to be a nice Christian, married with 2.5 children … the whole bit.

Then somewhere along the line, the pressure of middle age, time constraints of middle management pushing toward senior management, the problem of looking after teenagers on the one hand and aging parents on the other hand, paying off a mortgage, and all of that.… It just makes this religious bit seem really strange, odd, alien, artificial, not real, and inauthentic. So the youthful zeal gradually gets tempered, and religion is for the wife to look after and the kids.

You keep away from this whole thing pretty much on your own, and five years down the road, you wake up one morning and you’re sleeping with somebody probably you shouldn’t be sleeping with. You get up, go to the loo, look in the mirror, and you say, “I don’t believe all that rubbish anyway.” How did you get there? It wasn’t out of some huge philosophical decision, some careful evaluation of evidence. It wasn’t out of a lot of reading. It was out of 10,000 atomistic decisions. Do you see?

Sometimes a skeptical attitude (not to say a cynical attitude) can come out of too little sleep. It doesn’t have to be religious cynicism. You can just be sort of generally cynical, mean-spirited, cynical, and even condescending about anyone and everyone just because you’re tired. Of course that happens at any and every stage of life, not least among students who are at university who think that they can burn the candle not only at both ends but in the middle as well.

Sometimes the most important thing you can do in the entire universe is get eight hours of sleep. All that is to say that we are body, mental, spiritual beings that are quite complex. What we feel, what we think, how we perceive things, how much sleep we’ve got, whether we’ve got a lot of pain, or are worn out.… All of these things are tied together, aren’t they? They aren’t all logically tight and coherent.

Sometimes we’re skeptical because we’ve come out of a really abusive background. The abuse can take many, many forms of course. We’ve been so burned and so hurt that we have a certain kind of cynicism built in, nurtured carefully by resentments. Understandable, even if not finally justifiable. Now why have I gone on about different kinds of doubt? The reason is that although these and other kinds of doubt are addressed at one place or another in the Bible, the one that I’m going to address this evening is of a peculiar kind.

I don’t want you to think that I am claiming that the one text we’re going to look at, about a man in history who has come to be called Doubting Thomas, is an answer to all kinds of doubt. It just isn’t the case. Nevertheless, the kind of doubt you find in him is pretty interesting, and it does address some questions that we face today. I am far from wanting this to be seen as a universal panacea.

Now then, this is a text from the New Testament. The Bible is made up of two parts. The second part that we often call the New Testament begins with four short books; we know them as Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. They all roughly tell the story of who Jesus is and about his death and his resurrection.

This is from the fourth one, John, the twentieth chapter. The little numbers here are the verses, so that you can go home and look at it if you want to. It’s John, chapter 20. According to these accounts, Jesus actually did rise after having been crucified. He actually rose from the dead, but the first week, when he appeared to various people (including a lot of the disciples) Thomas wasn’t with them. We pick up the account.

“Now Thomas, one of the Twelve, called the Twin, was not with them when Jesus came. 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.’

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.’ 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.’ Thomas answered him, ‘My Lord and my God!’

Jesus said to him, ‘Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.’ Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; 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.”

We’re going to look first at verses 24 and 25. What you find here is a cry of a disappointed skeptic. What kind of skepticism is this? What kind of principled doubt is it? This isn’t the doubt of a philosophical naturalist; that is, a person who believes that all that is is matter, space, energy, and time.

He is, after all, a first-century devout Jew. He believes in the God of his Bible, what Christians call the Old Testament. He believes that God made the whole thing, that he’s Creator, that he’s sovereign, that he’s good, that he’s righteous. He believes all of that. He is pious. He goes to the temple. He’s devout.

This isn’t the doubt, either, of someone who’s deeply morally compromised and then justifies it because he has no other way of living with himself. No, this is the doubt of someone who has been religiously disappointed. That is to say, he really did believe that Jesus, whom he had followed for about three years.… He really did believe that this Jesus was the Promised One, the Messiah, and the expected anointed King; and when he came, he would clean up the nation.

In fact, in a lot of Jewish expectation, he would clean up the nations. There would be integrity, righteousness, and justice everywhere. For a while, it seemed as if he were going to succeed. There were rising numbers; a lot of people were following him. Of course, a lot of people didn’t like him too much, but on the other hand, the crowds were becoming huge.

Then he was crucified. In the ancient world, crucifixion was for scumbags, and now his followers were claiming that Jesus had come back to life. Thomas didn’t have any category for a crucified Messiah; that just sounded too odd, too strange. Messiahs win; they don’t lose. He had seen some of Jesus’ miracles. A chap who can do miracles like that isn’t going to have much difficulty handling Herod or one of Caesar’s minions, but now Jesus had gone and got bumped off, and the disciples were claiming he’d come back to life.

Thomas was not so sure. He didn’t want to be snookered by a kind of pietistic hope, talking yourself into believing something because you want it badly enough to be true. I mean, some people believe that Elvis came back to life too. What’s the difference? Believe something hard enough, long for it enough, want it badly enough.… You can talk yourself into believing almost anything, can’t you? Thomas wasn’t going to find himself in that crowd, thank you. The fact of the matter is there’s an awful lot of religious superstition around.

A number of years ago, out in California there was a faith healer by the name of Popoff. I don’t know if you heard his story or not, but he had a peculiar shtick. When people came into these vast meetings, in the middle of his meeting he would say things like, “There is a woman up in row J, seat 46 … You have back pain. Come down; God commands you to come down and be healed.” Real televangelist stuff, except he was pointing out individuals in this crowd, you see.

Low and behold, there was a woman who came down; she was in J 46. She came down to be healed and so forth. Well, the media picked up on this and smelled a rat. They started spotting these people and tried to find someone who would admit to being a plant. You know, the whole thing gussied up to look like some revelation from the Lord, when in fact, the whole thing was rigged. They couldn’t find anyone who would admit to it. Absolutely nobody. From all perceptions, it seemed to be clean.

Except they did know that Popoff had a hearing aid. Now what a faith healer is doing with a hearing aid is not a question that I will delve into. In any case, they did notice it, and they had their suspicions, so ABC went in with a tiny, tiny camera and a radio scanner. For the technologically challenged, a radio scanner simply goes back and forth across the electromagnetic waves and locks on the strongest signal. What they suspected turned out to be true.

When people came into this hall, there were some attendants around passing out cards and saying, “You know, if you’ve got prayer concerns or needs, put out your name and address on here. Tell us what they are, and we’ll pray for you.” If somebody put down “vicious melanoma … six weeks to live,” they found out that went right in the garbage can. But if it was something that had a descent chance of being psychosomatic …

Well, one of the attendants was Mrs. Popoff, and she’d carefully see where the lady went and put on “woman.… J 46.” In the middle of the meeting, when he was saying, “The Lord is telling me.… The Lord is telling me there’s a woman in J 46 …” she was saying (into a microphone that went down into what was, in fact, a radio receiver, not a hearing aid at all), “Uh, dear, we got one. A woman in J 46 … She says she has back pain.”

This was played out on national TV. First it was shown the way it appeared in the meeting, and then it was shown with the sound dubbed in. I just can’t resist telling you that Popoff’s ministry popped off. Only for a short while, unfortunately. Four or five years later, I was back in California and was flipping channels, and there he was back on the set doing the same sort of thing again. People have such short memories.

Of course, sometimes you have to remember that the reason why there are counterfeits is because the thing being counterfeited is worthwhile. You don’t counterfeit stuff that is cheap or useless, but at this point, Thomas isn’t quite sure that this whole thing is real. He knows that he cared for Jesus a great deal; he just can’t quite bring himself to believe in the resurrection. It just is a bit much. So he asks for a test. Have you noticed what it is? “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 it.”

Now when they crucified you in the ancient world, they either tied you, or they nailed you to the cross members, and you pull with your arms, and you push with your legs to open up your chest cavity so that you could breathe. Then the muscle spasms would start, so you’d collapse and sag. Then you couldn’t breathe, so you pull with your arms, push with your legs, and open up the chest cavity. You’d gasp a few more lungfuls of air, and then you’d collapse. Crucifixion could go on for days, and the horrible, physical pain of it was bound up with muscle spasm.

If for some reason they wanted to kill you a little faster … in this case there was a Jewish holy day coming, and they wanted the bodies off and buried … what they used to do in the Roman world was to come along and smash your shin bones. Then you couldn’t push with your legs anymore, and you’d suffocate in a few minutes.

When they got to Jesus, they found out that he was already dead, so instead of smashing his shins, one of the troopers who had a short javelin just shoved it up under his ribcage, pierced the pericardium. Blood and water flowed out. As a result, Jesus not only had the wounds of a crucified man; he had the special wound of an extraordinarily crucified man. That’s why Thomas is making this particular demand.

“Who knows? Maybe this Jesus has a twin brother. Maybe I’m going to be talked into something. I don’t know, but the only thing that will convince me that Jesus is really risen from the dead is if I have unequivocal evidence that the Jesus who went into the tomb is the same one who came out. Show me the marks.” That’s what he’s saying. Here’s the cry of a disappointed skeptic. Then in this next section …

A week later we find the second step of the argument, the adoration of an astonished skeptic. Jesus appears again. In fact, we’re told the doors were locked. During the days of his flesh, before his death, Jesus had never sort of appeared in locked rooms before. He’d never done that sort of thing, but he comes, and he stands there, and he says, “Peace be with you.” That’s really shalom, salaam in Arabic.

At one level it’s just a greeting, but in the Old Testament it has such a pregnant expression of well-being. In fact, finally, well-being before God. Jesus is constantly giving these sorts of pregnant expressions that mean just a little bit more than what they seem to mean. He believes that on this side of the cross and the resurrection, people have access to a special peace with God. That’s a slightly different question I don’t have time to probe now.

He’s saying “hello,” but it’s more than “hello,” if you see what I mean. Then he said to Thomas, though there was no evidence that he was there.… He wasn’t there; he didn’t hear what Thomas had said explicitly. He now says, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.” or as many versions say, “Do not doubt, but believe.” “Thomas answered him: ‘My Lord and my God!’ ”

Now what shall we make of Thomas’ answer here? On first reading, doesn’t it seem a wee bit over the top? Why doesn’t he simply say, “Oh, you are alive after all!” or maybe “Oops!” Why so much, so powerful, so sweeping a confession? After all, this book of John reports somebody else who was brought back by Jesus from the grave.

A chap called Lazarus had been in the grave four days, had started to decompose. The onlookers were disgusted by Jesus’ command to open up the tomb. “By this time, Lord, he smells.” When Lazarus came out, nobody then said “My Lord and my God!” to Lazarus. So why did he say it to Jesus? Doesn’t it seem a wee bit over the top?

Well, for a start, one of the things you have to do is remember is a week has gone by. Eight days. What do you think is going through Thomas’ head at that time? “Oh it can’t be true. The guys are just talking themselves.… It can’t be true, but maybe it is true. Oh, it can’t be. But suppose it is … what follows from it?”

Inevitably then, he would start playing in his mind all the things Jesus had himself taught. The very night that he was betrayed, Jesus said.… Thomas was there to hear it himself, the very night he was betrayed. The night before he was crucified, he said, “Have I been with you such a long time, and yet you have not known me? He who has seen me has seen the Father.”

Well, Jesus was always saying these pregnant expressions, and half the time the disciples didn’t have a clue what he was talking about in any case. They only figured out some of this stuff later. I’m sure that they were saying things to themselves like, “Hmm … deep, deep. We’ll figure it out someday.” Now in the light of this week, they’re wondering what it means.

Just a few chapters earlier, in another debate that Jesus has, he actually comes up to the end of the debate and he says, “Before Abraham was, I am.” Now Abraham had been dead for 2,000 years, but he doesn’t even say, “Before Abraham was, I was.” He says, “Before Abraham was, I am,” which is the name that God discloses of himself (“I AM. I AM THAT I AM”) in what we call the Old Testament, the first part of the Bible.

There’s more than that. It’s not even just the accounts in John’s gospel; it’s elsewhere too. It’s sometimes in subtle ways. In a couple of the other gospels, at a time when Thomas was present, there’s a very interesting story. At this point, Jesus is at the height of his popularity, and he’s speaking in a packed-out house. Not with sort-of folded chairs, but they’re just sort of squashed into this house. He’s speaking in this house, and by this time, his reputation not only as a preacher but even as someone who really could heal was beginning to circulate.

Somebody who was paralyzed was brought to Jesus by four friends, dragged along on a little cot of some sort. They tried to get into the crowd to bring this chap to Jesus, but of course, the crowd wasn’t going to give way. “Just stand back; wait your turn. I mean, the Master’s speaking; shut your mouth. Wait up!” Well, they weren’t going to wait any longer, so they went up the outside stairs. A lot of the houses in those days in that part of the world had flat roofs and became a sort of place where you took the air in in the evening.

They went up the external stairs onto the flat roof, and they listened and found out where Jesus was talking and then started taking off the tiles. Then they lowered this chap down on the heads of those beneath. If they weren’t going to make way for them out of courtesy, they’d make way for them because a bed was coming on their heads. The crowd pushes back, and Jesus stands in front of this paralyzed man, and he says, “My son, your sins are forgiven.” The crowd says, “Who can forgive sins but God alone?”

Do you see what’s going on there? Supposing (God forbid) you go home tonight, and on the way you’re viciously, horribly, terribly mugged or worse, gang raped. Then I find out about it tomorrow, and somehow by some fluke I also find out who did it. I go and visit you in the hospital, where you’re all bandaged up, and I say to you, “Be of good cheer! I have found your attackers, and I have forgiven them.”

What would you say to me? Wouldn’t you be outraged? Wouldn’t you have the right to be outraged? “Who do you think you are forgiving my attackers? You weren’t gang raped. You’re not the one who was beaten up!” You see, it’s only the offended party that can forgive the offense. Who do you think you are?

In fact, that is the precise logic behind a fair bit of the Holocaust literature. One of the most moving books I’ve read this side of the Holocaust is by a chap called Simon Wiesenthal. It’s called The Sunflower. It’s only 80 or 90 pages; it’s still worth reading to this day. Simon Wiesenthal’s entire family was wiped out at Auschwitz; he alone survived.

In the closing days of the war, he was in a work gang, and he was hauled out of the work gang and shoved into a small room where there was a young German soldier (maybe 19 or 20) dying of wounds, clearly not going to make it. This young German soldier had asked for a Jew. He wanted to talk to a Jew.

In a peculiar happenstance, Wiesenthal was the one pulled out and shoved into this room. This soldier begged Wiesenthal’s forgiveness, though he had never met him before. “Not only for what I personally have done that’s been evil, but for what my party has done to you. I’m about to die.”

Wiesenthal says, as he writes this out later.… He said, “I listened to this young soldier, and I thought to myself, ‘Who can forgive offenses except the offended parties? The most offended parties are all dead; therefore, there is no forgiveness for the Nazis!’ ” He listened to that dying German soldier, and without saying a single word, turned and walked out of the room.

Some years later, wrestling with his own conscience about what he had done, he wrote to quite a large number of world-class ethicists (Jewish, Christian, other faiths) and asked, “Did I do right, or did I do wrong?” It set off a huge discussion from that little book The Sunflower, still worth reading to this day. I would argue, from this passage to which I’ve just referred, that Wiesenthal almost got it right. You see, it’s only the offended party who can forgive, but in the Bible, the most offended party is always God. It’s remarkable.

Let me mention another biblical story, this one from the Old Testament. It concerns King David, a thousand years before Christ. King David was a good man, very effective leader in all kinds of ways, but at one point he seduced the young woman next door. Then when she got pregnant, and her husband was away at the front fighting David’s wars, he arranged eventually to have her husband bumped off. To do that, he had to corrupt the high command, but he did it. Eventually he’s found out by a prophet of the Lord and confronted.

After he’s confronted, and there is judgment and so forth, he writes Psalm 51. You can find it in the Bible. Read it for yourself.… Psalm 51. Amongst the things that he says in this psalm, as he’s addressing God, is “Against you only have I sinned and done this evil in your sight.” Now at one level, that was a load of codswallop. It was just unmitigated balderdash.

He certainly sinned against the young woman. He sinned against her husband. He sinned against the baby in Bathsheba’s womb, who died. He sinned against the military high command. He certainly sinned against his own family. In one sense, he sinned in his role as king before the whole people. In fact, it’s very difficult to think of anybody that he didn’t sin against.

Yet he has, what seems to be at first, the extraordinary cheek to say, “Against you only have I sinned and done this evil in your sight,” until you put it into the kind of biblical framework that you do find everywhere in the Christian Bible. That is, the party who is always most offended by all forms of human rebellion and antipathy is God. It’s what makes sin sin. In other words, sin is not merely social disaster. From the Bible’s point of view, it’s first and foremost offense against him, which is why, sooner or later, we must have his forgiveness or we’ve got nothing.

Now that’s all part of the matrix that is presupposed both by Jewish observers and by Jesus himself when this paralyzed man is dropped in front of him, and Jesus says, “Your sins are forgiven you.” “Who can forgive sins but God alone?” I mean, it’s not as if this guy has offended Jesus in some ways. He’s a paralytic; he hasn’t beaten Jesus up recently. No, no. Jesus seems to be taking on the prerogatives that belong to God alone.

Thomas has had all week to think these things through. There are a lot of examples I could give you in which Jesus really is an astonishingly holy man. Throughout the whole history of the church, when you get holy men and women, one of the things that characterizes them is that they’re most aware of their sin and their guilt. They’re most aware of their unworthiness. In other words, the closer they get to God, the less worthy they feel.

Jesus comes along and claims the most astonishing rights. Thomas reflects on all of these things, and he says “My Lord and my God!” Now there may be another element in his thinking. I can’t quite prove this one, though the themes run right through this Book, and certainly other Christians in the early church fall along exactly these lines.

Why then does Jesus go to the cross if he really is, in some strange way, both a human being and God? If God is powerful enough to bring him back from the dead, if he is powerful enough to do some pretty remarkable miracles, how did he get caught up in this death in the first place? Moreover, if he really is in some special sense the manifestation of God, the Son of God, or God displayed in human form, not only how did he get caught up in it but he didn’t deserve it. That doesn’t make any sense at all.

The Romans had three patterns of execution. Crucifixion was the worst; it was reserved for scumbags. It was for non-citizens. No Roman citizen could be crucified except by explicit sanction of the emperor. It was for slaves, it was for foreigners, it was for traitors, and here Jesus was crucified. On the Roman side, he was being written off.

From the Jewish side, the Jewish biblical text said, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree.” The idea was that this is kind of public exposure of shame. It wasn’t just death; it was shameful. You didn’t hang there in the noonday sun writhing in agony with a convenient loincloth. You were stark naked on a public square, and people went by and laughed at you and spat at you. You were meant to be despised. You were a laughingstock, a joke. This is the God-man? Does this make any sense at all?

If his death wasn’t an accident, and if he himself did not deserve to die, why was he dying at all? Was God asleep at the switch? This gospel says things like “He’s the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” That is, he’s a substitute who bears the curse, the affliction of others. That’s what Christians came to believe, that he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities. That’s why he died, and his resurrection indicated that his sacrifice was acceptable before his own Heavenly Father. That theme runs right through the whole New Testament.

Let me bring you to the last bit here too. Verse 29: “Jesus said to him, ‘Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.’ ” Now what does this mean? Does this mean that Jesus is saying, “Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s all right if you believe because of the evidence, but it’s a lot better belief if you believe without the evidence”?

Doesn’t that fit much more of a kind of postmodern frame? You know, belief has nothing to do with truth, and faith has nothing to do with evidence; it’s a personal, subjective, religious commitment. For most students on this campus, isn’t that what faith is … a personal, subjective, religious commitment? You don’t want faith to play around with notions of truth. That just turns you into the Taliban, or that just turns you into fundamentalists. That just turns you into right-wing sorts that are completely unbending and unyielding. Isn’t that the case?

The last thing I want to do is start preaching some sort of genuine intolerance; that’s for sure. Yet in the Bible, faith has a much tighter connection with truth than that. For much of our culture, faith, as I’ve said, is presupposed to mean something like personal, subjective, religious choice. If that’s your presupposition about what faith is, you come to a verse like 29 and it sounds as if Jesus is saying, “Look … forget about the evidence. That doesn’t really matter a scrap; just believe. It’s much more honorable if there’s no evidence.”

In fact, there was an Anglican archbishop a year and a half ago, at Easter, in Perth, Australia, who was asked by the press, “You know, supposing now we stumbled across Jesus’ tomb, and we really could be sure that it was his tomb. Lo and behold, the body’s still there with all the marks and the wounds, and by some strange method, we managed to prove that he never really did rise from the dead; it was all a big mistake. What would that do to your Christian faith?” The archbishop replied, “It wouldn’t do anything to it. Christ is risen in my heart.”

That’s not the way the New Testament writers feel about this. In fact, there’s a remarkable passage written by Paul just over 20 years after the events in question. He’s writing to believers in the city of Corinth. You can find it in 1 Corinthians 15. In this passage, he starts raising the question. “Let’s suppose for a moment,” he says, “that Christ is not risen from the dead. What would follow from that?”

“First,” he says, “the apostles are a bunch of liars, as are the other witnesses, up to 500 of them.” For in fact, Jesus, over the next 40 days, appeared one-on-one to Peter, one-on-one to Mary, groups of two on the road to Emmaus, seven guys as they’re out fishing up in Galilee, and up to 500 at at time. Several different appearances in different contexts at different times of the day. Eating in some cases, being touched. Not just in private, religious, heated-up circumstances. Quite a wide diversity of circumstances.

Paul says, “You can go talk to these people. They’re still there (most of them) except for the ones that have died. Go check. Find out for yourself. But they’re all deluded or they’re all lying if, in fact, Jesus hasn’t risen from the dead.” In other words, for Paul it’s a truth issue that is bound up with witness, witnesses who are testifying to what they’ve seen.

“Second,” he says, “it would also follow that you’re still dead in your trespasses and sins.” Now Paul’s presupposition when he says that is that the other things the Bible says are true; it’s just Jesus’ resurrection that isn’t true. So what the Bible says about us being guilty before God, all the things we do to each other also being offenses before God, God holding us to account, we don’t pay for our sins, and if Christ hasn’t paid for our sins they’re not paid for and we’re still under the wrath of God. That remains in place. You’re still in the face of condemnation before God.

“Then in the third place,” he says, “your faith is futile.” Do you hear that? He says your faith is futile because you’d be believing something that isn’t true. In other words, for Paul, the value of faith turns, at least in part, on the trustworthiness of faith’s object, such that if you believe something that isn’t true, then he says your faith is useless.

“Then in the fourth place,” he says, “in fact, of all people, you’re the most to be pitied.” In other words, if you believe something that isn’t true, but it helps you, this doesn’t make you nobler or more spiritual; it makes you (in Paul’s view) a bit of a joke. It’s a bit sad; you’re to be pitied. Not always today in the church (it has to be admitted), but in the New Testament, this is why people are never, ever told, “Oh, just believe, believe, believe, believe!” Rather, biblical faith is built up by the articulation and defense of truth.

Now faith is more than just believing that certain things are true, and in fact, they are. There is also a component of trust. If Christ really has risen from the dead then there is something here objectively to believe. Either it did happen, or it didn’t. If it didn’t happen, you shouldn’t believe it. If it did happen, you jolly well ought to, but just believing the fact is not enough.

In genuine biblical faith there is also a component of trust, of submission to him, of rejoicing that he is alive and bowing before him because he’s the Lord. Still, all of that turns on whether or not he did rise from the dead, and if he didn’t rise from the dead then first-century Christians are the first ones to say, “Then don’t believe it, for goodness’ sake! There’s no value in believing something that isn’t true.”

Now if that’s the whole air in which the New Testament writers breathe, there’s no way verse 29 means: “Well, Thomas’ faith isn’t bad, but those that come along and believe without any evidence, that’s really hot faith. That’s really very commendable. That’s really very praiseworthy.”

No, what he means is something different. “Jesus said to him, ‘Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.’ ” Read right on into verse 30 and 31, because when this was first written down, there were no chapter and verse distinctions. So sometimes where we put our break sort of trips you up. There were no breaks when the text was first written. Connect 29 with 30 and 31.

“ ‘Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.’ Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples …” That is, apart from the resurrection itself. “… which are not written in this book; 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.”

Do you see the point? Jesus is fully aware that there are going to be lots of other people who will come to believe Jesus did rise from the dead. They’re not going to be in Thomas’ place to see the actual stigmata, the marks, the wounds. They’re not going to be there. The whole New Testament says that after 40 days Jesus went away and isn’t coming back until the end of the age. So how will they come to believe?

They’re going to come to believe by the historical witness that people like Thomas and others, whose accounts are put down in these very books, a book like this one … “These are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Listen, the last thing that thoughtful Christians want you to do … the last thing … is to make a kind of existential leap into Christianity because you’re just trying it. Next week you’ll try Buddhism, or the next week you’ll try Islam or whatever it is you want to try.

If this is very alien to some of you, and I hope it is, what I invite you to do is to start some disciplined reading, start thinking about these things, read chunks of the Bible itself, talk to Christians, find out, explore. If you find it to be true, sooner or later you must bend the knee and say, “My Lord and my God!” As long as you do not think it is the truth, I beg of you not to do that. For what … religious sham? To please your parents? To keep up a tradition of being churchified? No, no. Truth is far, far, far too important a commodity to respond that way.

According to the Bible, we will have to come to grips with this Jesus sometime. But what this sort of text does is address one kind of doubt, the doubt that does not want to be snookered by mere religious pretention but wants it to be anchored in things that really did take place in space-time history, when God became a human being, died, and rose on our behalf.

We’ve got a few minutes left, so if you want to ask questions, feel free. Yell them out, and I’ll do my best to respond. Now, in a crowd like this, I’ve long since learned that there are several reasons for not asking questions.

First, everything was so meticulously clear that there are no questions to be asked, secondly, everything was so miserably opaque that nobody can figure out what to say, or lastly, you don’t want to embarrass yourself in front of your friends. But the chance is pretty good that if you’ve got a question somebody else has the same question. The only question is which one is going to be bold enough to ask it first.

Male: Was Jesus rebuking Thomas?

Don Carson: Well, insofar as he was saying, “Stop doubting and believe,” yes. On the other hand, his was not the doubt of moral skepticism. I mean, if it had been an ideal universe he would have seen, he would have understood, and he would have believed. There’s not an ideal universe. Whether you see it as constructive apologetics or rebuke, it doesn’t really matter too much. The focus is not on the psychology of Thomas so much as on the identity of Christ.

Male: [Inaudible]

Don: “Do I believe that this issue is related in some way to the Pope’s now-infamous utterance that has now gone around the world and which has been perceived to be stirring up trouble and not much more?”

Well, the first thing I’d say is if you’re going to evaluate what the Pope actually said you just have to read the original text. It’s all over the Internet; you can download it. So before you jump all over him, my dad used to tell me, “A text without a context becomes a pretext for a proof text.”

The burden of what the Pope says is that the great hiatus between faith and reason has got to be broken down. It’s a mistake. That’s the burden of his whole lecture. Within that framework, then, he surveys some debates in the past, both within Catholicism and also (in one instance) between a sultan and a pope. That’s where this infamous clip came out.

Within the whole frame of reference, I would have thought that his point was justified. That is to say, the best of historic Christian faith.… Let’s be quite frank. Christians have often made a mash of things both personally and intellectually in all kinds of ways. There’s no way I’m going to start justifying everything that Christians have ever done, starting with me.

The best of Christian faith.… Christian faith that is really grounded in the New Testament is never, ever trying to encourage you to believe something that isn’t true. It’s never, ever trying to encourage you to believe something that merely may be true. It wants you to see what the truth is, as God has disclosed it, and come to trust this God and the Christ whom he has sent. That’s what faith is about.

The best has also insisted that this is so life-transforming that if this God is the God of love who has cared enough for us to send his own Son to die for us, to think that this God’s will is to kill indiscriminately in the name of defending God seems a bit self-contradictory. That’s really the direction in which the Pope goes, whether it’s in the Crusades in the one hand or the taking of Jerusalem, Turkey, and so on by Muslims on the other hand.

That is not the way genuine religion must advance. It just isn’t in any generation. Insofar as the Pope was trying to tie faith to truth and reason questions and not merely to emotion or party loyalty then it is part of the same conversation, yes.

Male: [Inaudible]

Don: The question was, “Somewhere in the talk I mentioned something about reading more about Christianity. Where would a person go to find out more?”

Now I think the chap who’s chairing this thing is supposed to be mentioning the possibility of courses and the like afterwards. An awful lot would depend upon who you are. If a person has never read anything about anything about anything about the Bible, then I’d strongly want them to start reading the Bible itself, and preferably in a discussion group that’s courteous and so forth.

There’s a little book by Vaughan Roberts that’s very helpful in this regard. There’s a little course written by Rico Tice called Christianity Explored that’s very helpful as well. It is discussion-based and works through some various things. If you have had some exposure, and you need to start wrestling with other kinds of things such as, “Is the Bible worth reading?” or “How is it put together?” then I’d have other bibliography for you.

So in some ways, that’s a sort of thing that you’re best off asking of local leaders who will get to know you and find.… There’s no way I’m going to interview 500 of you and find out exactly where you’re from, what level your reading is, and so on, but I’m more than happy to try to suggest particular books for people with particular backgrounds. Some of you are engineers and computer scientists, and you think linearly. Some of you would rather read C.S. Lewis and read the literary side of things, so.… Nowadays there’s a lot of stuff out there that can be very helpful.

Male: [Inaudible]

Don: The question was, “Is it a tenet of historic Christianity that a person really does need to accept the real resurrection, the substantive resurrection, of Jesus Christ from the grave before having a personal relationship with God.”

I say “yes” dogmatically, but I know that there are some footnotes to put in. I’m not denying that there are all kinds of people before Christ who really had a genuine personal knowledge of God before the resurrection, which took place in space-time history, actually occurred. I’m not denying any of that, for example.

Then I’d simply want to put in the storyline itself and start saying that as God discloses more of himself then we are obligated to come to grips with what he genuinely has disclosed and not say, “Yeah, you know, I’ll take this bit, but I don’t want that bit, thank you.” In fact, from a Christian point of view, those earlier bits, rightly understood, do point forward to this Christ and his resurrection.

Yeah, there are some non-negotiables. That does not mean, under any circumstance, that I then want people to be treated as less than people or less respectfully. One fundamental Christian doctrine taught likewise in the Old Testament is that we’re all made in the image of God, so it really is important when arguing these things out to deal with truth claims and not pretend that we’re all saying the same thing.

I’ve had many conversations with devout Muslims. Most Muslims believe that Jesus didn’t die on the cross. Some do think that he did. No Muslim believes that Jesus rose from the dead. Now obviously we’re not saying the same thing. One of us is right, one of us is wrong, or we’re both wrong; but we can’t both be right. Those are truth claims that have to do with things which putatively took place in the open arena and need to be discussed, argued over, thought through, and worked out without throwing bombs.