In John 20, we get an unusual story of our Lord after the resurrection. Many of the disciples had already seen Him. So had many of the women in Jesus’ life, including Mary Magdalene. Yet one disciple had not: Thomas. Thomas had been absent when Christ had appeared to the fearful disciples in the upper room. So when they spoke of the risen Lord, he did not believe. He said, “Unless I see in His hands the mark of the nails and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into His side, I will not believe” (John 20:25).
Not long after this statement, Jesus appeared to the disciples, and Thomas was there. He did in fact get to put hand hands into the holes in Jesus’ hands and side. In that moment Thomas called Jesus God. He believed everything that Jesus had claimed about Himself from the Old Testament prophecies. He knew that this indeed was the one who crushed the serpent’s head. This was the Christ, the Messiah.
But why would John record this episode for us? What insight do we have here? For one, and many have been right to point out, the fact that many would have to believe in Jesus without the privilege that Thomas was afforded. We do not get to put our hands in Jesus’ side the same way Thomas did, and yet Christ still calls on us to trust in Him for our full salvation. “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe” Christ said. But there is something else here that we must take note of.
In the early church, one of the earlies heresies went by the name of “Docetism.” It was married to Platonic thought, and espoused that Christ was indeed God, but not man. He may have appeared to be man to the disciples, but He was really only spirit, and fooled those around Him. Why is it important for us to reject this? Because while it is vitally important that we affirm Christ to be very God of very God as the Nicene Creed says, it is also important that we affirm what He gained for us by becoming truly man. Many early church fathers affirmed that “that which Christ does not assume, He does not redeem.” That is to say, Christ’s fulfilment of the law, His death and resurrection, are only redemptive works on our behalf if He is truly man, in as much as these things are non-redemptive if He had not been truly God. This is what we know to be the “hypostatic union.” Our standards say this on the subject:
Q. 39. Why was it requisite that the Mediator should be man? A. It was requisite that the Mediator should be man, that he might advance our nature, perform obedience to the law, suffer and make intercession for us in our nature, have a fellow-feeling of our infirmities; that we might receive the adoption of sons, and have comfort and access with boldness unto the throne of grace.
Our Lord is God. Our Lord is also man. He is the one descended from Adam, under the Covenant of Works that God made with Adam and keeping it fully. He sympathizes with our weakness. He was tempted in the ways that we are tempted. He intercedes for us to the Father, still being truly man, and yet truly God. He is our elder Brother, the first-born of all creation, yet the One by which all was created. This may be one of the great mysteries of our faith, something that we will never truly understand. But we see time and again Christians running into trouble when they begin to deny that Christ was fully God, or that He was fully man. We must hold both up in high regard and understand that this is what makes our faith unique. Without Christ, and His unique status as the God-Man, we are to be pitied above all others. It is in His being man that He paves the way for us. It is in His being God that He does so perfectly. It is in His being man that He sympathizes with our every temptation. It is in His being God that He earned for us the reward of the Covenant of Works, obeying the law perfectly. Both must be true, or Jesus is not the Christ.
So consider the great mystery. Consider the God-Man, the One Who even now sits at the right hand of the Father, interceding on our behalf. The One Who we have an example in, because He lived a life here on earth. He is your savior Christian, the One Who took onto Himself a true body and reasonable soul, humbled Himself, and yet because of such humility was exalted above every name, that at the sound of His name, every knee should bow, every tongue confess, that Jesus Christ, the King of kings, and Lord of lords, is God Almighty, and yet the Son of Man.
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