Believing Without Seeing • John 20

Teaching begins 19:52

Notes

In John 20 we are shown what happened after the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ. With virtually every other person the biography ends there with the person’s death. You will be shown sometimes what’s happened after that person’s death, but that person who died is done.

But death is not the end of Jesus. The rest of the message is that He rose from the dead. His disciples are commissioned to proclaim that death and that resurrection so that people may believe the message. When they believe the message and receive Jesus, they may have forgiveness of their sins and eternal life.

All that is well and good, but you must believe without seeing Jesus. This stops people. How come I don’t get to see for myself?

The answer is, you are able and responsible to believe the truth. You can know what is true, and you are responsible to acknowledge that it is true.

Jesus expects you to believe that He is true without seeing Him.

Let’s read in John 20.

1. Mary Magdalene comes to the tomb and jumps to the wrong conclusion.

A. We know from the other gospels that she was not alone.

1. There were other women with her. They came before daybreak to anoint Jesus’ body for burial. Apparently they didn’t know that Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus had already done this when they put Jesus in Joseph’s new tomb.

2. John focuses on Mary and what happened to her.

B. She sees the tomb already open. She assumes that someone or some group has taken the body of Jesus. She runs to Peter and John to say they’ve taken the Lord from the tomb and we don’t know where they have laid Him!

2. Peter and John are perplexed.

A. They both run to the tomb. John gets there first, but doesn’t go in. Peter arrives and goes in, and then John follows.

B. John sees and believes.

1. He sees the grave cloths still wrapped up, but no body. He sees the headcloth folded in a different place. Somebody folded it. Grave robbers couldn’t have done this. The person who was buried here did this.

2. He says, he believed. He believed something, that here was something unexplainable, and Jesus was behind it. What was going on he still didn’t know.

3. The very next verse says, for as yet they did not know the Scripture, that He must rise from the dead. So we learn an important fact. In order to believe on Jesus you need to know some Scripture. Jesus did what Scripture says He would do. That way you know that Jesus is true.

4. So John still isn’t sure what’s going on. He’s not saying to Peter and Mary, “Don’t you see guys? Jesus is risen from the dead! Stop crying, Mary, it’s all right!” Mary is still crying, Peter goes home marveling, but not believing, that’s Luke 24:10.

3. Mary sees Jesus and He makes her a witness to the disciples.

A. She is totally distraught, agitated with mental conflict. She is way upset.

B. Usually when a person sees angels they get upset. Mary is already upset. She’s having a conversation with angels and they barely make an impression on her. All she can think of is where did they take Him?

C. Then she turns around, sees Jesus, doesn’t recognise Him, assumes He’s the gardener. Where did you put Him? I’ll take Him away, and she turns away again. She is completely overwhelmed.

D. Jesus says, “Mary.” Mary turns again, “Teacher!” Imagine the mood swing here to total surprise, wonder, shock! You wonder, how much can she handle?

E. Jesus makes her a witness for Him.

1. He says, stop clinging to Me, for I have not yet ascended to My Father. So Jesus is about to ascend bodily into heaven.

2. Go to My brethren and tell them, I am ascending to My Father and your Father, and to My God and your God.

F. So Mary comes to the disciples and tells them that she had seen the Lord alive, and that He had said these things to her.

1. Look at the difference in her. When Peter and John left her at the tomb she was distraught with grief and shock. Now she is beside herself with joy!

2. Listen to the message she brings. She says Jesus told her to say this to them. Could she have made that up? God is your Father now, as much as He is your God. No man spoke like Jesus.

G. The other gospels say that the disciples did not believe Mary or the other women who had seen Jesus. Jesus gave them an opportunity to believe that He had risen from the dead by eyewitness testimony, by the change in the women’s lives, without the disciples themselves seeing, and they didn’t believe the women.

4. Jesus appears to the Ten and makes them witnesses.

A. Here is the time and the setting.

1. Evening that same day, the first day of the week. The day after Sabbath.

2. Where the disciples were staying in Jerusalem.

3. The doors were shut for fear of the Jews. The disciples were afraid that the Jewish religious leaders might follow up on their success in getting rid of Jesus and get rid of them as well. They are frightened.

B. Jesus comes into their midst. He probably didn’t use the doors, just walked in somehow. And He greets them.

C. He shows them His hands and His side. The disciples rejoice after that. They were terrified before. They thought they were seeing a ghost.

D. Jesus commissions the disciples to be His witnesses.

1. As the Father has sent Me, I also send you. Jesus witnessed to the truth. They are to witness to Jesus, His death and resurrection, because Jesus is the truth.

2. Jesus prepares them as the Father prepared Him. He breathes on them and says, receive the Holy Spirit. The word for breath in Greek is also the word for spirit. Just as Jesus was born of the Holy Spirit, these disciples are born of the Holy Spirit. They will be empowered by the Spirit on the day of Pentecost. That’s fifty days from now. But the point here is that the message of the truth is proclaimed to others in the Spirit of truth, with new life and with power, just like Jesus.

3. They are not to go around forgiving and retaining sins. But they do have authority to say to people, you have believed that Jesus died for your sins and rose from the dead; your sins are forgiven you. You have rejected Jesus, your sins remain on you.

5. Thomas now has a chance to believe without seeing!

A. Can you imagine that Thomas wasn’t there with the other disciples? Because he wasn’t there he missed seeing Jesus. He didn’t handle Jesus. He didn’t get breathed on.

B. What was he doing? There are only a couple of possibilities.

1. One is that he was emotionally devastated and he just gave up. He lost the will to keep going and he was somewhere staring at the wall.

2. Was he independent? Self-sufficient? Used to doing his own thing. Even though Jesus chose this group to be a fellowship, a team, a unity, a group of guys to be together with Him, Thomas seems to be regrouping on his own.

C. There is definitely some kind of stubborn streak in him because for a week the disciples tell him we saw Jesus and he won’t believe them. The women talk to him, the guys who went on that trip to Emmaus talk to him. What if they gave Thomas the whole Bible study Jesus gave them? Thomas keeps saying 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. So, we’re all crazy and you are right?

D. One week later they are all together again. That’s a good sign, that Thomas was there. There is a yielding there. I’m willing to come and be there. Maybe He will come again. There’s no word from Jesus to guarantee that, like, “Meet Me at the same place, same time, and we’ll work this out.” They are just there, waiting.

E. Then Jesus again walks into a room with shut doors. And He addresses Thomas’ issues directly. And He tells Thomas, stop being unbelieving. Be believing.

F. How do you think Thomas feels now?

1. It might have seemed like Thomas was the only hard-thinking person there. What? Are you guys all crazy? Since when do corpses rise from the dead? Well, when Jesus raises Lazarus, the little girl, the man from Dain. Okay, okay, but does Jesus raise Himself? Answer me that! And they can’t. They don’t know how it all works. But they did see Him. Did they just become liars? How long have you known us? I’m just imagining this kind of conversation. We don’t know what Thomas said, what the others said, but this went on for a week.

2. And now here’s Jesus, and suddenly all Thomas’ doubting the truth is shown to be stubbornness and pride. He wasn’t being more intellectual than the others. He was calling them liars. He was calling Jesus a liar. Thomas is humbled. He should have believed them without seeing.

G. Jesus is being gracious to Thomas now. He doesn’t owe Thomas a thing. If Thomas was going to reject His testimony and all the disciples’ testimony, Jesus could just fire him. Who needs this arrogant, unreasonable guy? But Jesus doesn’t fire him. He says, look, stop this. Stick together. Believe Me.

H. And in response to grace and mercy Thomas says, “My Lord and my God.”

I. Jesus says, well, have you believed now that you have seen. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed. Who are those guys? Everyone who listened to the disciples. You and me. We believed without seeing. Peter in his first epistle says, whom having not seen you love. Though you do not see Him, yet believing, you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, receiving the end of your faith — the salvation of your souls (1 Peter 1:8-9).

6. This gospel was written so that you may believe without seeing.

A. Jesus did many more miracles than are written.

B. But these are written so that you may believe that Jesus really is who He said He is, the Messiah, the Son of God, and that believing the truth about Jesus, you may have life in His name.

7. So what?

A. Here is the good news of Jesus dying for our sins and rising from the dead. Here is eternal life in His name. Forgiveness, restoration, and purpose.

B. Jesus expects everyone to believe Him.

1. There is enough evidence so that you may believe. You can read the gospel of John and see no man ever spoke like this. No man ever did the things that Jesus did. All the religions DON’T say the same thing. Jesus alone shows us who God is and what is the only way to be saved.

2. If you don’t believe Jesus you are not a sharp thinker who refuses to be taken in by a bunch of stupid people who believe any stupid thing they’re told.

3. Anyone who rejects Jesus is refusing to think, just as Thomas refused to think in the face of evidence. John says in his first epistle, 1 John 5:9-12 If we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater; for the testimony of God is this, that He has testified concerning His Son. The one who believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself; the one who does not believe God has made Him a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony that God has given concerning His Son. And the testimony is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life.

4. We are warning every person. Jesus expects you to stop being unbelieving, and be believing.

C. For the believers, today, have life in Jesus’ name. Remember that today your sins are forgiven you. Remember that He has great patience, great grace, great mercy for you. He loves you.

Let’s pray.