plies, *' Surely not : it was a privilege common to tlie whole Ape <tolate, and peculiar to them as Apostles. St. Paul was distant, while these things happened, both from apostleship and religion. Yet, when made an Apostle, he was at once adorned with this privilege." Some think that his case is like Eldad and Medad, who had their share of the Spirit, though absent, like the rest of the seventy elders. (Num. xi. 27.)
25. — [^The other disciples. ..said. ..seen the Lord.] We are not told when and where the disciples said this. I incline to believe that they said it the very evening that our Lord first appeared to them, and that Thomas came into the assembly very shortly after the Lord disappeared. To my eyes it reads as if the ten Apostles all exclaimed together, full of joy and delight at what they had seen and heard, " Thomas, we have just seen our Lord aud Master ! If you had been here a little sooner, you also would have seen Him." I think this for two reasons, {a) The words of the twenty-sixth verse, " after eight days," seem to indicate that there were eight days between our Lord's first ap- pearance and his second, and also eight days between Thomas's expression of unbelief and his being convinced. (&) It seems highly improbable that Thomas would allow a whole day and night to pass away, after the rumor of our Lord's body having been removed from the sepulchre had spread through Jerusa- lem, without seeking out the other Apostles and inquiring what it meant. Slow and dull in faith as he was, he would hardly sleep without finding out somethiDg about it. These consid- erations incline me to believe, that before the ten Apostles had time to separate, after our Lord's appearance to them, Thomas came in. Then they told him immediately, that they had just seen the Lord. And then came the remarkable declaration which the doubting Apostle made.
[But he said unto them. Except, etc.] The unbelief of Thomas, expressed in this famous sentence, was a sad fault in a good man, which cannot be explained away. He refused to believe the testimony of ten competent witnesses, who had seen Christ in the body with their own eyes. He refused to believe the testimony of ten true friends and brethren, who could have no object in deceiving him. He passionately declares that he will not believe, unless he himself sees and touches our Lord's body. He presumes to prescribe certain conditions, which must be fulfilled before he can credit the report of his brethren. He uses singularly emphatic language to express his scepticism : — " Others may believe if they like ; but I shall not and will not believe until I see and touch for myself." — All this was very sad and very sinful. Thomas might have remembered that at this rate nothing could ever be proved by witnesses ; and that he himself, as a teacher, could never expect men to believe him. His case shows us how foolishly and weakly a believer may speak sometimes, and how, under the influence of depression and doubt, he may say things of which afterwards he is heartily ashamed.