For most of 2011, I was an atheist.
I rejected the idea of God and still held some pretty bad ideas about the church.
Throughout that year, I started to encounter Jesus.
I met Him in the gospels and learned who He was and how He loved.
I met Him in the church and was disarmed by the tangible presence of God.
Nearing the summer, my father-in-law, Trevor, asked me a very important question:
What are you going to do about Jesus?
In November 2011, I confessed my sins and trusted in Jesus as my Lord and my God.
What if I told you that, in my Christian life since that day, I have never experienced doubts or uncertainty?
When it comes to my faith, I’ve stood unwavering over the years in my trust in Jesus and His promises.
Would you believe me?
Of course, you wouldn’t – and you’d be wise not to.
I wonder if you can say that for yourself?
During your entire Christian life, you’ve never once had uncertainty or doubts creep into your mind.
The reality is doubt is something that everybody faces at some point.
And we’re in good company. One of Jesus’ closest friends, Thomas, had a famous crisis of faith.
Have you ever heard the phrase “doubting Thomas”?
“Oh so and so is a bit of a doubting Thomas”.
Well, that phrase comes from the bible passage I’d like to build this article around – John 20:24-29.
I think Thomas gets bad press based on this passage.
It’s very easy, I think, to read about these characters in the Bible and their mistakes and judge them from a place of superiority.
Not me, Jesus – I’d never be like that.
And so that’s why I posed the question: have you ever doubted?
So here’s what I want to do with the passage.
We’re going to look at three things:
- What is doubt?
- What type of doubt is Thomas experiencing here?
- How do we deal with doubt?
What is doubt?
The answer might seem obvious and straightforward, but when you think about it, doubt has all kinds of causes. It can look very different depending on the circumstances.
I want to borrow 5 headings for doubt I read about in an article from the Gospel Coalition.
1. Doubt caused by physical issues.
How we feel physically has such a big impact on our day today, doesn’t it?
Without boring you with my life story, I’ve had a tough time. It’s easy to feel the intensity of the tough times more when you’ve not slept much and are caffeine-starved.
But when I’ve had a good night’s sleep, a good cup of coffee, prayed, and spent time in the Bible in the morning, my whole outlook for the day lifts.
That’s just as true in the darkest times as it is on the plain and simple “off days.”
The Theologian Don Carson puts it best when he wrote:
Doubt may [simply] be fostered by sleep deprivation. . . . Sometimes the godliest thing you can do in the universe is get a good night’s sleep—not pray all night, but sleep.”
~Don Carson
2. Doubt can be intellectual
The main reason I rejected God when I was an atheist is because I thought belief in God was stupid.
I was convinced by clever-sounding arguments that God didn’t exist.
Sometimes, we can have difficulty believing in certain things because we simply can’t rationalise that thing.
Sometimes, as Christians, we’re in danger of meeting someone with intellectual doubt and thinking; more faith is needed.
I’d encourage you to consider the place for using reason and logic with someone experiencing intellectual doubt.
In Acts chapter 17:1-4, the apostle Paul does just that. He reasons with the Jews in the synagogues.
In one of his New Testament letters, Peter encourages us to defend our faith by always being prepared to have an answer or a reason for the hope within (1 Peter 3:15).
3. Emotional
Sometimes, doubt can come from deeply emotional experiences.
In these situations, compassion and a supporting community are the best remedy.
We’re all probably familiar with the fact that some struggle, for example, to reconcile the reality that God is a loving father with their pain and suffering at the hands of their earthly father.
Their doubt here needs gentle counselling, love and support from Christians around them.
4. Moral doubt
In the years after I became a Christian, I worked in a restaurant.
The restaurant owner was both close to and far away from the Christian faith.
It was sometimes painful to watch.
I remember having a frank conversation with him one day in which I challenged him to settle and decide whether he was going to follow Jesus or abandon Jesus.
In a moment of brutal honesty, he said, “The thing is, Joe, I love some of the sins in my life too much to give them up. As long as Jesus calls me to give these things up, I can’t follow him.”
This man was caught up in a range of sexual sins that eventually tore his family apart.
Sometimes, our doubt comes from a moral issue.
5. Spiritual doubt
I wonder if this situation is familiar to you…
You’ve sinned – You’ve thought, said or done something obviously and deeply sinful and feel a huge weight of guilt and shame.
I find these moments are when the enemy likes to attack the most.
We become convinced of our need to flee from God. To hide in our shame.
We doubt the spiritual reality that there is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus.
A working definition
So you see, there are all kinds of sources for doubt. But what is doubt exactly? That’s the question we’re trying to answer.
Well, I think we can arrive at a working definition.
Famous late 19th and early 20th Century Princeton Theologian B.B Warfield describes doubt as:
the Nemesis of faith that is pursued by anxious questionings
I think that’s a good starting point. Doubt is pretty much the exact opposite of faith.
Jesus says as much when he curses the fig tree in Matthew 21:21 – he places faith and doubt in direct opposition.
Doubt is also a double-mindedness.
In the book of James chapter 16:6, we read this:
But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.
It’s like trying to hold something as both true and false in your mind at the same time. That’s why James likens it to a wave in the sea that has no control over which direction it travels and is blown about in all kinds of directions.
The bible clarifies that doubt is also sinful (Romans 14:23, for example).
Here’s my working definition of doubt:
Doubt is the sin of disbelief where we forget the truth and put aside our faith. It can be caused by many factors and can be both fleeting and enduring. As sin, it needs dealing with but, we must also remember to treat others who doubt with mercy.
~ PreachingPal’s definition
Ok, so we’ve talked about what it is.
Let’s see if we can use that to understand Thomas’s doubt in our passage from John’s gospel.
What type of doubt is Thomas experiencing?
I think it’s important to point out that Thomas’ doubt isn’t unique.
In fact, the other disciples experienced similar doubts when they first saw the risen Jesus.
In Luke 24:37, the Bible says that when Jesus appeared to the disciples, they were ” startled and frightened, thinking they had seen a Ghost.”
They, too, weren’t immediately convinced Jesus had risen.
But Thomas does doubt all the same.
His doubt is specific, though. Remember, Thomas is a God-fearing Jew. He’s believed in the promises of God, he believes in God, those things aren’t what he’s doubting.
Thomas is doubting what he’s done by thinking Jesus is the Messiah.
The Messiah was supposed to come and overthrow the occupying Romans, establish an eternal throne of God on earth, and rule and reign from it forever.
Put yourself in Thomas’ shoes here for a moment.
If all of that were supposed to be true and you’d been following Jesus thinking he’s the messiah and then watched him be executed, thus ending any certainty you had that he was the Messiah.
You’d be doubting, too.
The disciples tell him, “We’ve seen Jesus.” You, too, might think, ” Yeah, yeah, are you sure about that? Are you sure it wasn’t a hallucination?”
To really believe Jesus is alive i’d need to touch his wounds.
His emotional state of grief fuels the kind of doubt Thomas is experiencing. Add to that his intellectual knowledge that dead people don’t walk around much, his physical exhaustion, his moral doubt in forgetting all he’d witnessed Jesus do, and his spiritual doubt that he had misplaced his faith.
Have you ever been so convinced God was going to do something a certain way, and then it didn’t pan out that way?
Have you ever trusted God for healing and never experienced healing? Have you ever believed God would walk you through a difficult circumstance into a blessing and then have to endure more and more hardship with no end in sight?
Have you ever found yourself in Thomas’ shoes, your worldview imploded by fear, exhaustion, sin, sadness and a lack of reasons to hope?
Well, then, we need to look at the final question I posed at the start:
How do we deal with doubt?
One of my favourite things about this “doubting Thomas” passage is how Jesus handles the whole situation.
I really love Jesus in this moment. He takes such a different approach to what we’d expect.
First, he just appears in the locked room.
The laws of physics have gone out of the window.
Thomas is in the throws of painful, grief-stricken doubt as his mad friends have been making extraordinary claims about Jesus for the last week.
Ping – Jesus just teleports into the room.
There’s something fiercely god-like about that. Jesus is just there, appearing in a moment.
It’s awesome.
Remember – when Thomas had said he wanted to see proof, Jesus wasn’t there.
But a week later, after literally teleporting into the room, Jesus takes Thomas by the hand and shows him the exact proof he was looking for.
Thomas’ doubt was sinful. We’re not letting Thomas off the hook here—it really was. He should have had faith.
Jesus knows that. And yet, he meets him right where he is in that doubt. He speaks directly to it and graciously takes him by the hand.
He gives him a fresh opportunity to be filled with faith when he says to Thomas, “Stop doubting and believe”. He doesn’t abandon or rake him through the coals for his doubt.
He perfectly and graciously meets Thomas in the doubt. He settles the doubt, forgives Thomas, and instantly gives him another opportunity to believe.
And Thomas’ response is noteworthy here.
The penny drops. He suddenly gets it and says, “My Lord and my God”.
Application
I used to marvel at Israel as they embarked on their exodus from Egypt.
They followed God who was manifestly present as a literal column of smoke in the day and fire in the night.
I used to judge them so hard for abandoning their faith in the next moment.
How could they when God had so evidently been there for them?
But I’m quick to do exactly the same.
While God has done MORE than enough to prove to me that he loves me, cares for me and will meet my every need, he continues to find ways to confirm to me that he’s here.
I’ve witnessed amazing miracles as God has blessed me and my family.
But sometimes, doubt creeps back in.
And maybe you’re going through something right now, too.
Something where God’s purpose and plan don’t seem apparent to you.
Maybe you’re experiencing financial hardship, and you just can’t see a way out.
Maybe you’re thinking church isn’t what it used to be.
Maybe you disagree with your leadership, how they lead, and the things they prioritise, and you’re wondering if God has just given up on your church because it doesn’t look how you’d hoped it would.
If you have or are experiencing doubt reading this then I’ve got both good news and a challenge for you.
It’s for me as well, though; let’s be clear about that.
The good news is this:
Jesus is ready to meet you exactly where you are in that doubt.
Jesus isn’t here to condemn you or make you dwell on any guilt you’re feeling.
Jesus doesn’t want you to hang your head in shame.
Jesus is here, and He’s willing to increase your faith with his presence as you read. There’s an opportunity for you to receive that in prayer right now.
But, there is also a challenge.
Jesus said to Thomas, “Stop doubting and believe”.
Jesus would say the same thing to you, too.
Stop doubting. It’s killing your faith. It’s destroying your mind and soul, and it’s driving you away from your God.
Stop doubting.
And believe.