Commentary on the Gospel of John

                                  Chapter Twenty

                                                                                                                                              Verses 24-29

The human race has always had persons in it who simply cannot comprehend spiritual matters. An invisible and immaterial world they cannot understand. To them, everything must have some form of material substance. Most of these types of people become atheists because they cannot believe in any kind of spiritual dimension. Thomas was one of these types.

But Christ suffered and died to save every human. God will not exclude the materialist from His salvation by His grace. God knows how to save materialists and atheists.

The Apostle Thomas was not with the disciples when Jesus first appeared to them. When he came back, the other disciples told him that they had seen their risen Savior. But Thomas could not believe. Thomas said that he not only had to see his Lord, but he had to feel His wounded hands and side before he could believe. In other words, Thomas could only believe in a physical, risen Lord.

After eight days, Jesus appeared to His disciples with Thomas being present. The scriptures relate that the doors were shut. Clearly, the scriptures relate that Jesus did not come through the doors. Jesus was invisible at one moment and visible in the next moment. This event clearly indicates that Jesus rose from the dead with a spiritual body. He could be an invisible Spirit, or He could be a visible, physical body as He willed.

At that time, Jesus appeared to His disciples specifically to raise Thomas to the level of faith in His resurrection. When Jesus told His disciples that they already knew where He was going and the way to get there, Thomas answered that he did not know the place or how to get there. Clearly, Thomas had in mind a physical place with a physical road to get there. Jesus gave Thomas a spiritual answer. His Father was the place, and Jesus was the only way to get there. John 14:1-6. When Jesus appeared to Thomas, he was not a lost sinner. Jesus had already saved him by His grace even though he was a materialist. Jesus had saved Thomas because he expressed great devotion to Jesus, and he believed that Jesus had come from God. John 11:16; John 16:28-29. Jesus meant to raise Thomas' consciousness to faith in His physical resurrection because He knew that that would cause Thomas to realize that Jesus was his God and Savior. It mattered not that Thomas had great trouble believing in the spiritual body of Jesus. If Jesus could get him to believe in His physical resurrection, then that would be enough to raise his consciousness to the level of faith that Jesus was his God and Savior.

The Catholic church teaches that in the Eucharist, a priest has the power to change wine into the physical blood of Jesus. Now God has given no man the power to change wine into Jesus' blood, but if a person, even if he is a materialist, truly believes that he receives the physical blood of Jesus to wash away his sins, then God will save that person by His grace because of his faith. God does not deceive that believer because Jesus actually shed His physical blood on the cross to save sinners. The materialist may believe that he receives the physical blood of Jesus for his salvation, but he actually receives Jesus' spiritual blood administered to him by the Holy Spirit. John 6:53-58; John 6:63; I Corinthians 6:9-11. The Evangelical churches are correct when they preach that when a person repents and believes in Christ, they will be saved because the Holy Spirit will cleanse them of all their sins by an application of the spiritual blood of Jesus. They will immediately become "born again" by the power of the Holy Spirit. John 3:3-5; I Corinthians 6:11. But most materialists will not be able to believe in this type of preaching. God is gracious and merciful. As in the case with Thomas, God desires that a person have faith in the resurrection of Jesus which will prove to that person that He is their God and Savior whether they believe in Jesus' physical or spiritual blood. To God, Jesus' physical and spiritual blood is the same blood anyway.

In a similar manner, Jesus caused Thomas to believe He was Thomas' God and Savior by compelling him to believe in His physical resurrection. Thomas had to see his physical Lord and feel His wounded body so that he could believe and confess, "My Lord and my God."

Jesus commended Thomas for his increased faith, but then He commended all who would believe in the future who would not see His physical resurrection. All believers saved by grace must believe in both the physical and the spiritual resurrection of Christ. But if a believer in his earthly life believes in only the physical resurrection of Jesus for his salvation, God will later cause him to believe in His spiritual resurrection as well. Christ is a Spirit who also has a physical body. "So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God." Romans 10:17. The Holy Spirit happens to be perfectly capable of bringing conviction of the need to repent of sins when a person hears the gospel, and He can save that believer by God's grace even though that believer has never seen the physical resurrection of Jesus. John 16:7-11. When Jesus Raptures His Church, He will unite the souls and spirits of every believer with a new, physical body that He has created for them, and they all will also have a spiritual body just like Jesus has. Philippians 3:20-21; I John 3:1-2. In His Rapture of His Church, Christ will sanctify and thoroughly cleanse His Church, and He will perfect the faith of every believer and complete whatever is missing in every believer's faith. Ephesians 5:25-27; John 17:23.