We believe that it will be profitable for us to look at the case of doubting Thomas in order to see the problems that are connected with this subject. The first of these problems is that the Bible does not refer to Thomas as doubting, but this description has been given to him by uninspired men. When the disciples told Thomas that they had seen the Lord, he knew that they were making the claim to have seen the Lord after he had been put into the new tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. Thomas declared, “unless I see in His hands the print of the nails, and put my fingers into the print of the nails, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.” So, Thomas declared that he would not believe in the resurrection of Christ until he had physical evidence, that is, until he had empirical evidence (evidences through one of his five senses) he simply would not believe that Jesus Christ had resurrected from the dead. It is upon the basis of the statement made by Thomas that he came to be called “doubting Thomas.” There is no evidence that Thomas had decided that he would never believe that Jesus would resurrect from the dead, but that he did not believe at that time, nor would he do so until he had the evidence that the Lord was alive.
“Doubting” is defined as “to be undecided and uncertain about a matter.” In this sense, Thomas doubted the resurrection of our Savior. He did not doubt in the sense that he distrusted or had apprehension toward the idea that the Christ would resurrect from the dead. When the risen Lord presented himself to Thomas a week later, Thomas declared him to be, “My Lord and my God.” And Jesus did not criticize Thomas for doubting as he criticized Peter for doubting when they were walking on the water (Matthew 14:22-33). As a matter of fact, Jesus told Thomas that he had believed because he had seen, but others would be blessed because they would accept his resurrection without seeing him in the flesh. Consequently, the kind of doubting that Thomas had done was not the type that put his soul in jeopardy. It may well be that the kind of doubting that Thomas did was really beneficial for generations future to him. Thomas said, in effect, “I will not believe that Christ has risen until I have the evidence before me.” There is nothing wrong with any person refusing to believe anything until the evidence is before him. And if a man were to say today that he did not believe in the resurrection of Christ, we could take him to a reliable historical document, the Bible, and show him from its pages a man who believed in the resurrection of Christ after he received reasonable evidence that the Lord had come out of the tomb. Based on the experience of Thomas, a man in our day who doubted as Thomas did, could accept the historical evidence gathered by Thomas himself and come to believe in the resurrected Christ.
One can see no problem with demanding evidence to prove what someone claims is a fact. But there is a great problem connected with continuing to doubt after all the facts are in, and especially, if one rejects reasonable evidence in order to persist in his doubting. As a matter of fact, at that point, he is not really doubting, he has allowed prejudice to set in where doubting once was. There is a great deal of difference between honestly doubting that something is the case and persisting in a prejudice regardless of what evidence is proffered to demonstrate a fact.
The second thing that we wish to point out is that Thomas did not do his doubting, and the record of that doubting is not given in Scripture in order to give us an excuse to doubt many things that are revealed in the Bible. Someone says, “I doubt that the universe was created in six days, and I have the right to do that since Thomas doubted the resurrection of Jesus.” That is shabby reasoning, if it is reasoning at all. For a person to go all his life disbelieving the biblical story of a six-day creation because Thomas doubted for one week that Jesus had resurrected from the dead is really pushing the matter to a point that one would have to wonder whether the “doubter” was really being disingenuous! We need to remember the words of our Lord’s half brother James, who said that a doubting man was “…like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind.” This means that a doubting man is very unstable. We recognize this in other realms, why not in religion? James went on to say that the doubting person “…is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.”As Christians, we strive to be stable people with our lives firmly based upon the Word of God and not unstable people like the atheists and infidels of this world. Let us firmly resolve to believe and not to doubt that which is written in the Holy Scriptures. Ask for the evidence, but once it is cited in the holy pages of the Bible, accept it with all your heart.
