(4) " My Lord and my God." This is the fourth saying of Thomas that we know. Thomas the doubter has left his doubt behind. He has outstri^ed his fellow-disciples. He has out- stripped even the impetuous Peter, whose great confession, " Thou
368 MY LORD AND MY GOD
art the Christ, the Son of the living God," lacks the personal appropriation that marks the difference between insight and faith.
^ Men have generally passed on Thomas a very severe judg- ment. The Church, for ages, has branded infidel on his brow. But this judgment is one that is not justified by the facts, and cannot be entertained by us. At all times and even to this day people are quite ready to scatter such epithets about with an open hand. It is an easy and complacent way of disposing of men. But it is often a shallow enough device. We show thereby but little insight into the nature of men or of God. If we could look into the hearts of those whom we so fling away from us, we should often find deep enough sorrows there, struggles to which we ourselves are strangers, wrestlings for truth and light without receiving it, and yearnings pent up and hidden from the general eye.^
^ There is not one believer who is not assailed by moments of doubt, of doubt of the existence of God. These doubts are not harmful : on the contrary, they lead to the highest comprehension of God. That God whom I knew became familiar to me, and I no longer believed in Him. A man believes fully in God only when He is revealed anew to him, and He is revealed to man from a new side, when He is sought with a man's whole soul.^
They bade me cast the thing away, They pointed to my hands all bleeding, They listened not to all my pleading;
The thing I meant I could not say ;
I knew that I should rue the day
If once I cast that thing away. *
I grasped it firm, and bore the pain; The thorny husks I stripped and scattered; If I could reach its heart, what mattered
If other men saw not my gain,
Or even if I should be slain ?
I knew the risks; I chose the pain.
0, had I cast that thing away, I had not found what most I cherish, A faith without which I should perish, — • The faith which, like a kernel, lay Hid in the husks which on that day My instinct would not throw away ! *
1 A. B. Davidson, Th^ Called of God, 322.
* Tolsloy, Works, xvi. 418. » Helen Hunt Jackson.
ST. JOHN XX. 28 369
4. How did Thomas reach his great confession ? He reached it through the Death and the Kesurrection. These are the two events which have occurred between the time when Thomas with the rest of the disciples forsook Him and fled, and the time when he said, " My Lord and my God."
(1) He obtained " My Lord " first. The resurrection of Jesus gave him that directly. For Jesus had claimed the mastery, and to that claim God had now set His seal by raising Him from the dead. It was the simple confession of the Messiahship. His death seemed to show that He had made the claim unwarrantably, but the resurrection proved that He had made it with the appro- bation of God.
^ The title " Lord " as used at the time, had little more significance than the title " Sir," as we use it in addressing men to-day. But as it fell from the lips of this man, I think I am right in saying that it came with a full and rich and spacious meaning. I do not think for a moment you can differ from me when I say that when Thomas on that occasion said, " My Lord," in that word he recognized the sovereignty of Christ over his own life, and did by that word yield himself in willing submission to that sovereignty.^
(2) But " Lord " alone may be useless. " Ye call me Master and Lord," said Jesus, " but ye do not the things which I say." And again, He warned them that many would say to Him " Lord, Lord," to whom He would have to make the reply that He never knew them. To " My Lord " it is necessary to add " My God."
Thomas obtained " My Lord " from Jesus' resurrection. He found " My God " in His death and resurrection combined. We are apt to think that he must have found " My God " in the power which Jesus possessed or in the authority which He wielded ; in His miracles or in His teaching. But His life and work could do no more than show that Jesus might be God. What proved Him to be God indeed was His suffering and death followed by His resurrection. For now it was evident that He need not have suffered and need not have died. It was evident that He had suffered and died purely out of love. " Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." It needs the love of God to lay down one's life for one's enemies. " God ^ G. Campbell Morgan.