"The Crucified Life"
There are those who won't believe until they see a crucified and resurrected body, the very witness provided by true believers in the course of this life.
Download or email this sermon Doubting Thomas
But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymas, was not with them when Jesus came. The other disciples were therefore saying to him, "We have seen the Lord!" But he said to them, "Unless I see in His hands the imprint of the nails, and put my finger into the place of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe." And after eight days again His disciples were inside, and Thomas with them. Jesus came, the doors having been shut, and stood in their midst, and said, "Peace be with you."
Then He said to Thomas, "Reach here your finger, and see My hands; and reach here your hand, and put it into My side; and be not unbelieving, but believing." Thomas answered and said to Him, "My Lord and my God!"
Jesus said to him, "Because you have seen Me, have you believed? Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed'" (Jn. 20:24-29).
Thomas is a picture of all human doubt. Jesus was manifest to them in the breaking of bread – the bread of His Word. When Jesus rose, He wanted to show them that He was not a spirit, so He physically ate something.
After Jesus raised Lazarus from the tomb, He was seen eating with Lazarus (Jn.12:1-2). When He raised the little girl from the dead, He said that something should be given to her to eat (Mk.5:43). Spiritual bodies do not need to eat, so the Bible uses the idea of somebody eating after being resurrected to show that it is physical resurrection. Jesus was identifiable: not at first, but He was recognized in the breaking of bread. He was able to do things like walk through walls. That teaches something about our future. What happened to Him, will happen to us.
But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruit of those who are asleep (1 Co.15:20).
When the high priest was out in the Kidron Valley at sunrise on the first day of the week after Passover, he had to bring the first of the grain offering up through the East Gate into the temple. All four gospels tell us that Jesus rose at sunrise, at the very time when the high priest was bringing in the first fruit. Jesus was the first fruit of the resurrection. Our resurrection and His are the same event, only He is the first, so His resurrection teaches about ours. Moses, Jesus and Elijah were transfigured together. Elijah – a man who never died (he was raptured), Moses – somebody who did die, and Jesus.
That is what overthrew Pagan Rome. It is a terrible tragedy of history that Papal Rome became no better than Pagan Rome afterwards but, nonetheless, the early Christians overthrew the power of Pagan Rome. Tertullian said, "the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church." These people loved not their lives unto death. Paul wrote to the Romans quoting from Psalm 44, "For Thy sake, O Lord, we are being put to death all day long."
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Scripture taken from the New American Standard Bible Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation.