BECAUSE YOU HAVE SEEN ME, HAVE YOU BELIEVED?

Text: John 20:19-31

I. THE BILLION DOLLAR QUESTION: BECAUSE YOU HAVE SEEN ME, HAVE YOU BELIEVED? (John 20:29)

A. Christians sometimes think that healthy skepticism is wrong. This translates to billions of bilked dollars from religious scams. According to officials, between 1998 and 2001, at least 80,000 people lost $2 billion in religious scams.

B. Does Jesus mean “If something is too good to be true, believe it?” Is Jesus saying, “Thomas, you should be more naïve and less skeptical”?

C. Skepticism and investigation of extraordinary claims is not only healthy, but was deeply rooted in Jewish law (Exodus 4:1; Deuteronomy 13:1-11; 18:9-22).

D. Jesus’ point is that Thomas had sufficient evidence to believe without seeing and so do we. Thomas had:

1. Three years of training at the feet of Jesus.

2. The teaching of Moses and the prophets.

3. Thomas had witnessed the signs Jesus performed.

4. Thomas had the testimony of the other disciples.

This encounter certainly seems to suggest that something is wrong with demanding evidence for faith and something virtuous about believing without evidence. But does it really? The entire ministry of Jesus was ablaze with empirical evidence. He did miracles which were “signs” of His identity. Peter declared, “For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty” (2 Peter 1:16). John wrote, “We beheld his glory” (John 1:14, italics added). (Sproul, R. Lifeviews: Understanding the ideas that shape society today).

Is Jesus saying by this that believing is a blind leap of ungrounded faith? Quite the opposite! Because Thomas insisted on seeing and touching Jesus in His resurrected body, we have been given in the Gospels an even clearer evidence of the Resurrection than we would otherwise have had. But Jesus is saying that Thomas should have believed without this additional evidence, because the evidence available to Thomas before was in itself sufficient. In other words, before Thomas saw and heard Jesus in this way, he was in the same position as we are today. Both he at that time and we today have the same sufficient witness of those who have seen and heard and who have had the opportunity to touch the resurrected Christ. In fact, in the light of this sufficient and sure witness we, like Thomas, are disobedient if we do not bow. We are without excuse. (Francis Schaeffer, True Spirituality).

II. CHRISTIANS SHOULD NEVER MINIMIZE THE FACT THAT JESUS WAS A GREAT TEACHER

A. Jesus never taught in any of the great cities such as Rome, Athens or Alexandria, but spent much of His ministry in rural Jewish towns like Galilee.

B. Jesus only taught for three or perhaps four years and He never wrote any books.

C. The greatness of Jesus’ teaching is something that has been recognized throughout history by both believers and unbelievers (Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Baruch Spinoza, Thomas Jefferson, Gandhi, Albert Einstein, etc.).

The majesty of the Scriptures strikes me with astonishment, and the sanctity of the Gospel addresses itself to my heart. Look at the volumes of the philosophers with all their pomp, how contemptible do they appear in comparison to this!...What an affecting gracefulness in His instructions! What sublimity in His maxims! What profound wisdom in His discourses! What presence of mind, what sagacity and propriety in His answers!... (Rousseau).

Shall we say that the gospel story is the work of the imagination? My friend, such things are not imagined; and the doings of Socrates, which no one doubts, are less well attested than those of Jesus Christ. At best, you only put the difficulty from you; it would be still more incredible that several persons should have agreed together to invent such a book, than that there was one man who supplied its subject matter. The tone and morality of this story are not those of any Jewish authors, and the gospel indeed contains characters so great, so striking, so entirely inimitable, that their invention would be more astonishing than their hero….Jean-Jacques Rousseau [1712 – 1778] philosopher of the Enlightenment whose political ideas influenced the French Revolution in Emile: Or, On Education [1762]

1. The 1^st century enemies of Jesus, while they hated the teaching of Jesus, were unable to answer His wisdom (Matthew 22; cf. John 7:45-46).

2. Many of the world religions, including Islam, acknowledge that Jesus was a great Teacher.

a. Many Jews acknowledge Jesus as a great teacher (What Jews Have Said About Jesus).

Albert Einstein was interviewed in the Saturday Evening Post, October 26, 1929:

Question: To what extent are you influenced by Christianity?

As a child I received instruction both in the Bible and in the Talmud. I am a Jew, but I am enthralled by the luminous figure of the Nazarene….

You accept the historical existence of Jesus?

Unquestionably! No one can read the Gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus. His personality pulsates in every word. No myth is filled with such life.

b. Islam acknowledges Jesus as a prophet.

c. Buddhists often acknowledge that Jesus was a great teacher.

D. One of the central elements of Jesus’ teaching was death and resurrection.

Ø If anyone would follow after Me He must take up his cross…

Ø You shall name Him Jesus for He will save His people from their sins

Ø Behold, the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world

Ø Parable of the Vineyard and the owner who sent his son

Ø The stone the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone

Ø Just as Jonah was in the fish, so too the Son of Man…

Ø Institution of the Lord’s Supper: this is My body which is broken for you. This is My blood of the New Covenant…

III. INTEGRAL TO THE TEACHING OF JESUS WERE HIS SIGNS AND MIRACLES

A. Most non-Christians are willing to admit that Jesus was a great teacher. But most of them draw the line with miracles.

B. Miracle workers seem to have been an occasional phenomenon in Jewish history. In fact, miracles were not a part of John the Baptist’s prophetic ministry, which is interesting because John the Baptist is called by Jesus and the early church – “the Elijah who was to come.”

C. Is belief in miracles the place where a person must make a blind leap of faith? No!

D. Historical evidence for the miracles of Jesus:

1. According to the Gospels, not even the enemies of Jesus could deny His miracles.

a. “Therefore the chief priests and the Pharisees convened a council, and were saying, “What are we doing? For this man is performing many signs” (John 11:47).

b. “He saved others; He cannot save Himself. He is the King of Israel; let Him now come down from the cross, and we will believe in Him” (Matthew 27:42).

2. The Babylonian Talmud gives testimony that Jesus “practiced sorcery” (Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 43a). The Talmud’s testimony about unbelieving Jews is the same as the Gospels:

a. The Pharisees were saying, “He casts out the demons by the ruler of the demons.”

b. “This man casts out demons only by Beelzebul the ruler of the demons” (Matthew 12:24; cf. Mark 3:22).

c. There was debate about the source of Jesus’ authority to heal and cast out demons. But no one denied His ability to do miracles.

3. There is strong evidence that the 1^st century Jewish historian Josephus wrote, “About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man. For he was one who performed surprising deeds and was a teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly” (Jewish Antiquities, 18.3.3 §63). The word Josephus uses for Jesus’ “startling deeds” is the same word he used for the miracles done by the prophet Elisha.

4. Celsus was a Roman who wrote in the second century against Christianity. Celsus’ goal was to convert Christians to paganism, “Because he [Jesus] was poor he hired himself out as a workman in Egypt, and there tried his hand at certain magical powers on which the Egyptians pride themselves; he returned full of conceit because of these powers, and on account of them gave himself the title of God” (Celsus in Contra Celsum 1.28; cf. 1.67-68; 2.49).

CONCLUSION: Jesus rose again from the dead just as He taught through Word and deed.

QUESTIONS FOR SABBATH DISCUSSION & MEDITATION

Pray that God would enable you and give you the desire to be conformed to His Word as read and preached today. Pray that God would give you opportunity in the weeks ahead to ask others, “How do you explain the empty tomb of Jesus?”

What was the question Jesus asked Thomas after he said, “My Lord and my God!”? What is the meaning of the question?

Why did Thomas have sufficient evidence to believe that Jesus rose again from the dead?

Why do Christians often minimize the fact that Jesus was a great teacher? Why shouldn’t we make light of this?

Can you think of unbelievers throughout history who have admitted that Jesus was a great teacher?

How does the fact of Jesus’ being a great teacher fit in with His resurrection?

How many miracle workers (not miracles but miracle workers) in the Bible can you name before Jesus?

Is belief in miracles the place where a person must make a blind leap of faith from the rational to the irrational? What historical evidence, besides the Bible, do we have that Jesus was a miracle worker?