The Gospel for Doubters, Good News Through the Eyes of ThomasPrimjer

Thomas, the seeker, the inquirer, the analyzer, asked, “Lord, we don’t know where you’re going. How can we know the way?” (John 14:5). This is a good question. Thomas, you remember, was the one willing to “go and die” with Jesus. Thomas is willing to obey Jesus at all costs, but he just needs to know where to go. 

Jesus is going to prepare a place for them and for us, and He had to go alone. The place He’s preparing is both a future in the kingdom of heaven and also a place of rest in peace with the Father. This is why only Jesus could go. Only Jesus could separate the wall that divides sinful humans from their Creator. Thomas couldn’t go and atone for his own sins. And neither can we. Jesus went alone to the cross so we could go with Him.

This is a sincere and good question Thomas is asking. And in a sense, it is the cry of every human soul, the soundtrack of our music and our movies and our activism and our religion. Where is the way? Only unlike Thomas, we are often unwilling to receive the answer.

But Jesus’ response to Thomas—the question-asker, the seeker, the one who hears things and rolls them around his mind until he can process them—is a stunning declaration, perhaps the most important and most controversial words ever uttered in human history:

“I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6)

This is the meaning of Easter. There is not a path or a principle. There is only a Person. Jesus is the way. Jesus is the truth. Jesus is the life. He didn’t merely point to the truth. He didn’t merely show them the way. He didn’t merely tell them how to improve their lives. He’s the end of the journey, the object of our obsessions, what our hearts truly long for. 

Discussion question: Thomas’ question draws out an important statement from Jesus. How can earnest doubt lead to profound truth?