Thomas
Nails It!
As is usually done at Easter, in the
following we’ll be looking at the resurrection of Jesus.
Everyone knows about Thomas. We call him “Doubting
Thomas”.
“Now Thomas,
called the Twin, one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. The
other disciples therefore said to him, “We have seen the Lord.” So he said to
them, “Unless I see in His hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into
the print of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe.” And
after eight days His disciples were again inside, and Thomas with them. Jesus
came, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, “Peace to you!” Then
He said to Thomas, “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.”
And Thomas answered and said to Him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Thomas,
because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not
seen and yet have believed.” John 20:24-29.
The
Resurrection is the big, nay, the major, thing in Christianity. Without the
Resurrection we Christians are just a bunch of fools. We’re just a bunch of “nutters”
and nutcases. A lot of my friends think that I’m a nutcase believing in all
this stuff. But, if this Man, Jesus Christ, who claimed to be God, really,
really did rise from the dead, then I’m listening! He has got my ear. God has
got my ear! So, Jesus is proving to His disciples that it is Him. That He is
truly risen.
We’ve
looked at already, why Jesus was hanging on that cross. It was because of our
sins, i.e., our transgressions of God’s Law, the Ten Commandments, in thought,
and word, and deed, in all their applications. Those Ten Commandments,
honouring your father and your mother, and not committing adultery, not
stealing, not telling lies, not coveting, worshipping other gods, and all the
rest of it, even ignoring God, making false images of God, a God who wouldn’t
send anyone into Hell type of god, breaking His Sabbath Commandment, murdering
and so forth. But that is why Jesus is on the cross. It’s because God’s Law,
God’s Ten Commandments prove every last one of us to be a sinner. Jesus is the
Saviour of sinners. For those who are trusting in Him, He is taking away our
sins.
And
we’ve looked at the wheelie bin, taking it out to the kerb, and God taking our
sins and applying them to Jesus, imputing them to Jesus, accrediting our sins
to Jesus, and then incinerating all of our sins. That’s it! It’s as if we’ve
never sinned. God has given us a new nature, a new record, and a new heart.[1] And then He has imputed,
accredited Christ’s righteousness, Christ’s perfect law-keeping as our
Representative to us, i.e., each one of us who believe.[2]
And
then we asked the question, What Was Jesus Doing While in the Tomb? What was He
doing between the cross and the Resurrection? What was He doing on the Saturday
Sabbath, i.e., the Old Testament Sabbath, which is now the New Testament
Christian Sabbath, the Sunday on account of the Resurrection?[3] What was He doing? We remembered
that verse where Jesus said to the repentant thief on the cross, “Today, you
shall be with Me in Paradise.”[4] So Jesus and the thief on
the cross both went to Paradise on that day when they died.
Jesus
is going to return again. He is going to return bodily.[5] How do we know that?
Because He was resurrected bodily. He went to great lengths to show that He was
not a spirit.[6]
You can read in Luke’s Gospel, where Jesus said to His disciples, “Have you any
food here?”[7]
So they give Him a bit of fish, and the New King James Version says, “and some
honeycomb”.[8]
And he ate it in front of them, just to prove that He is as solid as He was
proving to Thomas. “Thomas, touch Me. Here’s where the nails went through. Here’s
where they stuck a spear in My side.
You
can believe the “swoon theory” if you like, where Jesus was only pretending to
be dead on the cross. But these efficient Romans new, really, really knew how
to kill people, and torture them. It was a torturous death that Christ went
through there. And even more torturous than the pain He felt physically, was
that spiritual pain where he cried out, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken
Me?”[9]
Now,
one of the things that comes from Jesus’s resurrection, is our resurrection. What
will we be like? If you talk to Christians nowadays, yes, even Christians! Ask
them about Heaven. What’s it like? “Oh, we sit on a cloud or something with a
halo and we strum harps. We’re just wispy pieces of smoke or something. Who
knows?” Well, because Jesus was resurrected, it means that we are going to be
resurrected, physically, bodily. You will be able to touch us. Like Jesus, we
shall be solid.
Remember
the termites in the fence, the white ants that ate it from the inside out? And
then there is nothing left but an empty shell? Well, we are going to be solid,
when we are in Glory, i.e., the new Heavens and on the New Earth[10] with our renewed bodies.
It
is these bodies, (i.e., our present bodies) that will be renewed. Jesus went to
great lengths to show that it was self-same body that was nailed to the cross,
put in the tomb, that was resurrected again on the third day, just as he had
promised. And it is going to be the same for us – these self-same bodies.
Look
after your body. Yes, you will get a renewed body, but it is your body, the
self-same body you’ve got, only without the deformities and all the rest of it.
I don’t know if my hair will be as long as it was during the isolation from the
coronavirus. The barber’s shop is only a hundred metres away from where I live.
Not that I would, but I could throw a stone from my place and hit the barber!
We
are going to get physical bodies. Why? Because Jesus had a physical body. And
we are going to live on this physical planet. Why? Because it is this physical
planet, this earth (albeit renewed) that Jesus is returning to.[11] And He will physically resurrect
us from our grave.
What
is the conclusion of the whole matter? What did Thomas say to Jesus? This is
what we all should be saying to Jesus: “My Lord and my God!”
Don’t
be an unbeliever. Be a believer. Believe in the Resurrection because it is the
truth.[12]
[1]
Ezekiel 11:19-20; 2 Corinthians 5:17.
[2]
Romans 4:22-25.
[3]
Revelation 1:10.
[4]
Luke 23:43.
[5]
Acts 1:11.
[6]
Luke 24:39.
[7]
Luke 24:41b.
[8]
Luke 24:42.
[9]
Psalm 22:1a; Matthew 27:46; Mark 15:34.
[10]
Revelation 21:1.
[11]
Revelation 21:2.
[12] 1
John 1:1-4.
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