Blessed Are Those Who Have Not Seen
Thomas Believes When He Sees Jesus' Wounds
John 20:19–31It is the evening of the first day of the week — the very day Jesus rose from the grave. The disciples are huddled together behind locked doors. They are frightened. The religious leaders who handed Jesus over to be crucified are still out there, and the disciples do not know what will happen next.
Then something astonishing happens. Jesus simply appears, standing right in the middle of the room. No knock. No open door. He is just there. 'Peace be with you,' He says. The disciples stare, their hearts hammering. Is this real? Is this a ghost?
Jesus shows them His hands and His side — the very wounds from the nails and the spear. When the disciples see this, joy floods through them like sunlight breaking through storm clouds. This is truly Jesus, alive! This is the resurrection — God raising His Son from death, just as the ancient promises said He would.
But one disciple is missing that evening. His name is Thomas. When the others tell him, 'We have seen the Lord!' Thomas shakes his head. 'Unless I see the nail marks in His hands, and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into His side, I will never believe.' Thomas is not a bad man — he is a grieving man who wants the truth.
Eight days pass. The disciples are gathered again, and this time Thomas is with them. The doors are locked, just as before. And just as before, Jesus appears in the middle of the room. He looks straight at Thomas and says, 'Put your finger here and look at My hands. Reach out your hand and put it into My side. Stop doubting and believe.'
Thomas does not need to touch the wounds. Seeing Jesus is enough. He falls to his knees and cries out, 'My Lord and my God!' It is one of the greatest confessions in all of Scripture. Thomas now understands — Jesus is not just a teacher or a prophet. He is Lord. He is God.
Jesus gently says, 'Because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.'
John tells us he wrote these things down so that we — people who were not there in that room — might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. Through that faith, God gives us life in His name. This is the covenant promise: all who trust in the risen Jesus belong to God forever. Thomas saw and believed. We believe through the Word, and Jesus calls that a blessing.
Christ in This Story
Jesus rising bodily from the dead is the centerpiece of the New Covenant — He has conquered sin and death as the promised Redeemer. The wounds Thomas sees are proof that the same Jesus who died is now alive, fulfilling every covenant promise God made about a Savior. When Thomas confesses 'My Lord and my God,' he recognizes what the whole Bible has been pointing to: the Son of God in human flesh. John writes his Gospel so that all who read it, in every age, can share in this resurrection faith without needing to see Jesus with their own eyes.
Historical Context
First-century Jewish culture placed enormous weight on eyewitness testimony, particularly in legal and religious matters. John's careful emphasis that the disciples saw Jesus' actual wounds — and that Thomas was specifically invited to touch them — is a direct response to any claim that the resurrection was a vision or a hallucination. Roman crucifixion left unmistakable marks: square iron nails driven through the wrists or hands and through the feet, and the spear wound in Jesus' side (John 19:34) was a standard Roman practice to confirm death. John, an eyewitness himself, records these details with the precision of someone who knows exactly what skeptics will ask.
The phrase 'My Lord and my God' (Greek: ho kyrios mou kai ho theos mou) would have been immediately recognizable to readers in the Roman world as a divine title. Roman emperors sometimes demanded to be called 'Lord and God.' Thomas, a Jewish man steeped in monotheism, uses these words not as an emotional exclamation but as a precise theological statement — he is declaring Jesus to be the covenant God of Israel, Yahweh Himself, standing before him in a risen human body. John places this confession at the climax of his Gospel deliberately, as the fullest statement of who Jesus truly is.
✦ This story also appears in the Quran
For parents: This biblical account has a parallel in the Quran (Islam's holy book), but the two versions differ in important ways. The Quran retells many Old and New Testament stories — sometimes similarly, sometimes with significant changes in detail, meaning, or theology.
This is a great opportunity to help your children know the biblical account well, so they can recognize differences if they ever encounter them. The Bible is our authoritative source; where the Quran diverges, we hold to what God's Word says.
Let's Pray
Lord Jesus, thank You for rising from the dead and keeping every promise You ever made. We have not seen Your wounds with our eyes, but Your Word shows us who You are. Give us faith to believe and joy to say with Thomas, 'My Lord and my God.' Amen.