Daily Verse Daily Verse by Faithlife | John 20:29
- Thread starter SCAdmin
- Start date
20:29 have not seen and have believed Refers to people—like John’s audience, and believers today—who have not seen the resurrected Jesus with their own eyes (see note on 2:11; note on 14:11; compare 9:38).
Barry, J. D., Mangum, D., Brown, D. R., Heiser, M. S., Custis, M., Ritzema, E., … Bomar, D. (2012, 2016). Faithlife Study Bible (Jn 20:29). Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.
20:29 Though they have not seen the risen Christ, readers of the Gospel of John may yet believe because John, by aid of the Holy Spirit, has written the truth about God’s Son.
Stetzer, E. (2017). The Missional Church. In E. A. Blum & T. Wax (Eds.), CSB Study Bible: Notes (p. 1710). Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers.
29. because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed—words of measured commendation, but of indirect and doubtless painfully—felt rebuke: that is, ‘Thou hast indeed believed; it is well: it is only on the evidence of thy senses, and after peremptorily refusing all evidence short of that.’
blessed they that have not seen, and yet have believed—“Wonderful indeed and rich in blessing for us who have not seen Him, is this closing word of the Gospel” [Alford].
Jamieson, R., Fausset, A. R., & Brown, D. (1997). Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (Vol. 2, p. 170). Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.
And of course it baffled Thomas just as it baffles us. What sort of a person—what sort of an object—are we dealing with here? The whole point of the story is that it’s the same Jesus. The marks of the nails in his hands. The wound in his side, big enough to get your hand into. This isn’t a ghost. Nor is it someone else pretending to be Jesus. This is him. This is the body that the grave-cloths couldn’t contain any longer.
But he has not only escaped death, the grave, the cloths and the spices. He comes and goes as though he belongs both in our world and in a different world, one which intersects with ours at various points but doesn’t use the same geography. If this is fiction, it is the oddest fiction ever written. And John certainly doesn’t intend it as fiction.
Thomas, bless him, acts as we would expect. (It is in this gospel that the rather flat characters in the other accounts come up in more three-dimensional reality.) The dour, dogged disciple who suggested they might as well go with Jesus, if only to die with him (11:16), who complained that Jesus hadn’t made things anything like clear enough (14:5), just happened to be the one who was somewhere else on the first Easter day. He sees the others excited, elated, unable to contain their joy. He’s not going to be taken in.
Fair enough. At the end, Jesus issues a gentle rebuke to Thomas for needing to see before he would believe; but we notice that the beloved disciple describes his own arrival at faith in the same way. ‘He saw, and believed’ (verse 8). This isn’t, then, so much a rebuke to Thomas; it’s more an encouragement to those who come later, to people of subsequent generations. We are all ‘blessed’ when, without having seen the risen Lord for ourselves, we nevertheless believe in him.
Wright, T. (2004). John for Everyone, Part 2: Chapters 11-21 (pp. 153–154). London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.
Barry, J. D., Mangum, D., Brown, D. R., Heiser, M. S., Custis, M., Ritzema, E., … Bomar, D. (2012, 2016). Faithlife Study Bible (Jn 20:29). Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.
20:29 Though they have not seen the risen Christ, readers of the Gospel of John may yet believe because John, by aid of the Holy Spirit, has written the truth about God’s Son.
Stetzer, E. (2017). The Missional Church. In E. A. Blum & T. Wax (Eds.), CSB Study Bible: Notes (p. 1710). Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers.
29. because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed—words of measured commendation, but of indirect and doubtless painfully—felt rebuke: that is, ‘Thou hast indeed believed; it is well: it is only on the evidence of thy senses, and after peremptorily refusing all evidence short of that.’
blessed they that have not seen, and yet have believed—“Wonderful indeed and rich in blessing for us who have not seen Him, is this closing word of the Gospel” [Alford].
Jamieson, R., Fausset, A. R., & Brown, D. (1997). Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (Vol. 2, p. 170). Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.
And of course it baffled Thomas just as it baffles us. What sort of a person—what sort of an object—are we dealing with here? The whole point of the story is that it’s the same Jesus. The marks of the nails in his hands. The wound in his side, big enough to get your hand into. This isn’t a ghost. Nor is it someone else pretending to be Jesus. This is him. This is the body that the grave-cloths couldn’t contain any longer.
But he has not only escaped death, the grave, the cloths and the spices. He comes and goes as though he belongs both in our world and in a different world, one which intersects with ours at various points but doesn’t use the same geography. If this is fiction, it is the oddest fiction ever written. And John certainly doesn’t intend it as fiction.
Thomas, bless him, acts as we would expect. (It is in this gospel that the rather flat characters in the other accounts come up in more three-dimensional reality.) The dour, dogged disciple who suggested they might as well go with Jesus, if only to die with him (11:16), who complained that Jesus hadn’t made things anything like clear enough (14:5), just happened to be the one who was somewhere else on the first Easter day. He sees the others excited, elated, unable to contain their joy. He’s not going to be taken in.
Fair enough. At the end, Jesus issues a gentle rebuke to Thomas for needing to see before he would believe; but we notice that the beloved disciple describes his own arrival at faith in the same way. ‘He saw, and believed’ (verse 8). This isn’t, then, so much a rebuke to Thomas; it’s more an encouragement to those who come later, to people of subsequent generations. We are all ‘blessed’ when, without having seen the risen Lord for ourselves, we nevertheless believe in him.
Wright, T. (2004). John for Everyone, Part 2: Chapters 11-21 (pp. 153–154). London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.
Passage Guide | John 20:29 › Cross References
Page . Exported from Logos Bible Software, 1:17 PM December 23, 2020.
| The Lexham English Bible | |
| Matthew 13:16 | But your eyes are blessed because they see, and your ears because they hear. |
| Luke 1:45 | And blessed is she who believed that there will be a fulfillment to what was spoken to her from the Lord!” |
| John 1:50 | Jesus answered and said to him, “Because I said to you that I saw you under the fig tree, do you believe? You will see greater things than these!” |
| John 3:15 | so that everyone who believes in him will have eternal life.” |
| John 4:48 | So Jesus said to him, “Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will never believe!” |
| 2 Corinthians 5:7 | for we live by faith, not by sight— |
| 1 Peter 1:8 | whom, although you have not seen, you love; in whom now you believe, although you do not see him, and you rejoice greatly with joy inexpressible and full of glory, |
Page . Exported from Logos Bible Software, 1:17 PM December 23, 2020.