Vere. 24.-29.-The unbelief of Thomas. I. THOMAS AND HIS FELLOW-AP:>STLEB. When they told '.I.'homas they had seen Jesus, and he refused to believe, they must he.ve been rather staggered at first. They would insist on how they had seen Jesus with their own eyes, and heard him with their own ears; not one of them, but all. They would point out how the sepulchre was empty, and bow Jesus had said that it behoved him to be raise.d from the dead. They might ask whether Thomas imagined that they were all in a conspiracy to piny an unseemly practical joke upon him. Yet there was really nothing to complain about in the incredulity of Thomas. Who of them had believed Jesus as he deserved to be believed? Their thoughts had never been really directed towards resurrection. They had been dreaming of individual glory and self- ad vancement, and all that tended in a different direction bad been unnoticed. We must do them the justice to say that no tone of complaint against Thomas appears. '.l.'hey would be too conscious that with the beam so recently taken out of their own eye, they had no right to declaim against the mote in their brother's eye. II. THOJIIAB AND JEsus. What is Jesus to do with Thomas? Is he to remain in this state of emphatic unbelief, with no mean~ taken to help him into faith? Will Jesus make a special appearance,·all for Tbomas's satisfaction? Surely that can hardly be, but time will tell. :A. week' elapses, and the disciples are gathered again, Thomas being with them. Jesus reappears, just after the former fashion. What, then, will Thomas do? Will he rush to Jesus, confessing and bewailing the wickedness of his unbelief? Jesus removes all difficulty by taking the first step himself. .All the apostles need to be taught a lesson. Jesus knows well that faith can never originate in things that can be seen and felt and handled. Such things may help faith, but cannot produce it. The confession of Thomas, prompt and ardent as it seems, counts for little with Jesus. He does not say, "Blessed art thou, Thomas; for flesh and blood bath not revealed this unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven." Thomas had to be both lovingly helped and delicately rebuked. III. PnonADLE AFTER-EXPERIENCES OF THOJIIAB. Thomas would meet many of an unbelieving spirit, who could not, just upon his word, accept the resnrrection of Jesus. And then Thomas would have to reply, "I once thought as you do; I insisted on seeing the,marks of the wounds; and my :Master, in his boundless condescension to the infirmities of his servants, let me see what I wanted to see. But, at the Faroe time, he taught me a lesson, in the strength of which I have gone ever since." .All the apostles had soon to believe in One whom they could not see. Where he had gone, they knew not; nnd how he was to communicate with them and they with him, they could not explain; but most assuredly a real and fruitful communication was established. Jesus was not speaking of an impossible blessedness, or dangling the attractions of a dream before the eyes of his disciples. The unseen, and not the seen, is what strengthens faith. What men see is the very thing that makes them unbelievers, confusing them, perplexing them, utterly disabling them from L'lying hold on anything solid and comforting. If the seen hides the unseen, so that Jesus himself becomes the merest of names, then there is dreadful misery.-Y. Vere. 80, 81.-The purpose of John's Gospel. This_ stat~ent comes in very fitly after the narrative of 'l'homns's doubt. Many more things llllght have been told, but a mere record of o.etions is nothing in itself; it is precious just as it reveals the nJ.ture, the character and the office of the actor. A record of Jesus more encumbered with details and l~naer spun out, might not have given so clear a view of him. I. J~HN's ru~POBE, Many books have been written to destroy faith; here is a book written to produce it. If a mo.n believes a lie, it is true kindness to destroy his faith in it; equally, if he does not yet beli<,ve the truth, it is a duty to do all one can to help THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. JOIIN. [oH, XXI. 1-26..
him into fAith. This was the bright work of John, not to pull down, but to build up, not to destroy faith, but to produoe it. Certainly in producing a new faith he destroyed an old ono; but the decaying and vanishing of the old was not feU in the joy of welcoming the new. To believe is to be strong, to doubt is to be weak. And now suppose one begins to read through John's Gospel, musing over the etrRnge things there recorded-miracles of healing, language about the life, the light, the brood, the vine the Fhcpherd, pondering the raising of LAz:ints, and still later the raising of JeeUB-h~ mkht be inclined to say," I cannot make anything of it; it looks utterly inexplicable." Then he comes to the words here, and how he ought to be helped. 'l'his work was not written to bewilder; if it does bewilder, such was not the writer's intent. John a belie'l'ing man himself, wAnted to lead others to believe. His attachment to Christ was not the blind attachment of a fanatic. It was not an ignorant trust. John was not a hired advocate, not a skilful arranger of facts, hiding away what miaht 0 be difficult to explain or awkward to reveal. Il. THE EVIDENT RESULT. Let us be true to ourselves, giving the book fair play and the end will be the receiving of eternal life. Out of Christ we are all made to feei that the excellency of our present life is indeed in earthen vessels. A sudden accident a few hours of disease, and all is gone. Without Jesus we know not where wo ar~ going, or what may happen to us. But, believing in Jesus, we are sure_ of a life hid away from all the perils of this present world. John does not put forward this book as furnishing the best arguments he can supply. It is rather Christ's own sufficient appeal to all who have an honest desire for salvation and eternal life. If there be not enough in this book to persuade us, neither would we be persuaded if Jesus him_eelf were to come in bodily form. They that love the New Testament will be fullest of eternal life, for they will be fullest of faith and freest from doubts. The words of Jesus will never be to them as common words. Looking round on the widely spread and deeply penetrating evil of the world, they will feel that only he holds in his hands the complete remedy for it. The claim of Jesus is one that can never pass away, seeing it is the claim of the Son of God-the claim not merely of hie appointment, hut of his nature.-Y.