John 20:19-31 contains a segment on the risen Lord gathering the disciples (19-29) and a segment that states the purpose of the writing of Gospel of John (30-31).
The theme of John 20:19-29 has the theme of the risen Lord with a gathering of disciples. The appearance tradition is consistent that Jesus comes to the followers of Jesus. They do not look for him.[1] Some scholars have noted that in John's text, one can count this resurrection appearance as the seventh, and of course the greatest, of the divine signs or miracles in Jesus' ministry. They would identify the first six as 2:1‑11; 4:46‑54; 5:1‑9; 6:1‑14; 9:1‑38 and 11:1‑45. The purpose of the segment is to deepen faith in Christ. This segment contains John’s version of Pentecost, his vision of apostolic authority, and Thomas. It expands on the astounding events of Easter Sunday.
Even if an overused turn of phrase for preaching this passage, “believing is seeing” aptly describes the message of John 20:19-31. This text demonstrates how the risen presence of Jesus overcomes his disciple’s failure of vision, which further challenges present readers to see more clearly with eyes of faith.
Until recently, there was no discussion of plot in major commentaries on the gospel of John, but New Testament scholar R. Alan Culpepper has now made significant contributions in this area. He has examined the relationship between the role of Jesus as the gospel’s central character and the fundamental conflicts that propel the narrative, and his chief insight is that the mission of Jesus is to “reveal the Father, take away the sin of the world, and authorize the status of those who believe as ‘the children of God.’” The prologue of John announces the coming of Jesus the Revealer, and episode after episode replays and develops the story of the Revealer who encounters various responses of belief and unbelief. In short, that which propels the plot of the gospel is conflict between belief and unbelief as responses to Jesus.
The events leading up to this text are clear examples of Jesus the Revealer encountering both belief and unbelief. At the tomb, Mary Magdalene does not comprehend what has happened, but the beloved disciple “saw and believed” (20:8). Later, Jesus appears to Mary Magdalene, and she recognizes him but then seeks to hold on to him, not understanding that he must return to his Father. Then the narrative reaches a climactic recognition of truth when Thomas confesses “My Lord and my God” (20:28). The narrator concludes this section by commenting that he wrote the gospel so that readers “may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God,” and that through believing they might have life in his name (20:30-31). Jesus is clearly the Revealer of God, always calling us to believe.[2]
In John 20:19-23, we have an appearance of the risen Lord to the disciples. 19 When it was evening on that day, a day beginning in darkness and ending in darkness, but also symbolic of the condition of the disciples, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples (at this point, we assume all of them) had met were locked for fear of the Jews, more properly, the chief priests, scribes, and pharisees. We can see John showing us the anxiety and dread the disciples still experienced. The horror of crucifixion fills their minds. The resurrection is only a rumor. For the purpose of safety, the disciples re-group behind locked doors. We cannot surmise that, although fearful for their lives, the knowledge that Jesus was alive encouraged them. They must have been a disheartened and fearful lot as they met in the evening on the same day as the resurrection events recounted earlier in this passage. Jesus came and stood among them, suggesting the risen Lord could move in and out of the natural world at will, and said, "Peace (shalom) be with you." His first word was that peace would be with them, the standard Jewish greeting, although in this context of a fearful band of disciples, the word would carry special meaning. 20 After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. In contrast to verse 19, this note of the action of the risen Lord focuses upon the physicality of the risen Lord. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. The focus shifts to how the appearance of the risen Lord affected the disciples. They move from fear to joy. The gospel writers chose this way of showing the disciples recognized the risen Lord because they shared in his life and work up to the days of his going to Jerusalem and his arrest. The appearance was not that of a ghost or that of coming back to earthly life. They interpret the appearance of the risen Lord against the background of the eschatological expectation of a resurrection from the dead. The same will be true in the appearance to Thomas.[3] 21 Jesus said to them again, "Peace be with you. Jesus has offered his disciples the gift of his "peace." The disciples move from their fear to peace. This time, peace serves as a portal to a new shalom‑age‑‑the Age of the Spirit. As the Father has sent me, so I send you." We have here the common calling of all Christians to continue the mission of Jesus in witness to the lordship of God. This saying is true for all disciples of Jesus.[4] The inauguration of the mission of the disciples is succinct. Yet, it must resonate with them in terms kof his prior teaching. Anyone who hears his word believes the one who sent him has eternal life (5:24). Jesus seeks to do the will of the one who sent him (5:30, 6:38-40). Jesus has come not on his own, but from the one who sent him, who is true, and whom he knows because he came from him and this one sent him (7:28-9). If he judges anyone, the judgment is true, for it will reflect the judgment of the Father who sent him (8:16). The Father who sent him testifies on his behalf (8:18). The one who sent Jesus is true and Jesus declares to the world what he heard from the one who sent him (8:26). The one who sent him is also with him and he seeks to please the one who sent him (8:29). He does the works of the one who sent him what it is day (9:4). The Father has sanctified him and sent him into the world (10:36). Whoever believes and sees Jesus also believes and sees the one who sent him (12:44-5). The Father who sent him has given him a command about what to say and speak (12:49). The word they hear is not from Jesus but from the Father who sent him (14:24). The disciples believe the Father has sent him (17:8). As the Father has sent Jesus into the world, so he sends his disciples into the world (17:18). The Father is in Jesus, Jesus is in the Father, and if they disciples are in the Father and the Son, the world will have the opportunity to believe the Father has sent the Son (17:21). The oneness of the disciples with each other and with the Son will give the world the opportunity to believe the Father has sent him (17:23). Jesus entrusts the disciples with the same mission the Father had given him. 22 When he had said this, he breathed, as God breathed into Adam in Genesis 2:7, on them and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit. In order to accomplish the mission the Son has given them, they will need energy from beyond their individual capacity. God gives the Spirit without measure (3:34b). The spirit gives life, and his words are spirit and life (6:63). The Spirit is a river of life flowing out of the heart of the believer, although the Spirit was not yet present for the risen Lord had not yet given the Spirit (7:38-9). The Father will send them another Advocate, the Spirit of truth, who will be with them and abide in them (14:16-17). The Father will send them the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, who will teach them and remind them of what Jesus said (14:26). The Son sends the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, to them from the Father, and he will testify on behalf of the Son (15:26). The Spirit of truth will come to them and lead them into all truth, since he will speak to them only what he hears (16:13). They need the Spirit, the Advocate, for it is the Spirit that gives life, teaches them all things, and enables them to discern what sins to forgive or not forgive. The risen Lord bestows upon the disciples the gift of the Holy Spirit. The imparting of the Spirit takes place through the risen Lord, justifying our calling the Spirit the Spirit of Christ. Yet, this does not alter the fact that the Spirit originates and proceeds from the Father.[5] Based on this passage, the imparting of the Spirit is in connection with an appearance of the risen Lord. This notion of relating the imparting of the Spirit to the Easter appearances seems to have more inner probability than the account of Luke, which separates Easter, ascension, appearances over 40 days, and Pentecost on the 50th day.[6] This verse was important in the Latin theology of the Middle Ages, where it spoke of the procession of both Son and Spirit. In that view, what distinguished these two processions was that the Son was a matter of begetting and the Spirit was that of breathing. These processions in the eternal divine substance resulted in the persons of the Son and Spirit, who they distinguished by describing relations, the Father actively begetting, the Son passively begotten, and the Spirit passively breathed. Such processions take place form all eternity in the divine essence.[7] 23 If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven[8] them. The already accomplished forgiveness of sin through the cross becomes a gift the disciples, after receiving the gifts of peace and the Spirit, may offer to others. If you retain the sins of any, they are retained." Jesus defines the primary characteristic of this age to be the giving and receiving of forgiveness. This is a variant of Matthew 16:19, 18:18. One can think of this as the handing over of the power of the keys to the disciples. Yet, we cannot speak of the instituting of a penitential rite by Jesus related to the pronouncing of the remission of sins as the sacrament of penance that the church would possess. In early Christianity, the forgiving of sins went with baptism and only later was a special supplementary rite developed for lapsed Christians. Nevertheless, pronouncing the remission of sins originated with Jesus, which we can see in Mark 2:9ff and Luke 7:47. As a result, the risen Lord imparted an authority and indeed an obligation to forgive to all his disciples.[9]
In an incomplete novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald called The Last Tycoon (1941), he wrote that “there are no second acts in American lives.” Of course, he was not so naïve as to think that people cannot make a dramatic turn in one’s life. Here is an example of the truth of this statement. Yes, Bill Clinton went on to continue to be president and have a roll in American politics. The “however” is that people will always think of him in connection with his sexual relationships with a variety of women, often in the context of the inequality of the power equation. His relationships with women, especially an intern, will forever define and mark the memory of him. His example is one of many. One moment may not end a life. In fact, after that moment, one may go on to be remarkably successful. Yet, that one moment can be a defining moment in terms of what people remember. In that sense, there are no second acts in American lives.
However, Fitzgerald also wrote in an essay called "My Lost City," which is a beautiful testament to New York City, in which he wrote: “I once thought that there were no second acts in American lives, but there was certainly to be a second act to New York's boom days.” Yes, this is also true. History is full of second acts, careers, and mid-life crises. Sometimes, life gives us a second chance because we were not ready the first time. Sometimes, as the wind of change sweeps across our lives, we find our true direction. Sometimes, we will not know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory (Dr. Seuss).
Many of us can hope for or be grateful for the second act.
Every so often, you meet people who radiate joy — who seem to know why they were put on this earth, who glow with a kind of inner light. Life, for these people, has often followed what we might think of as a two-mountain shape. They get out of school, they start a career, and they begin climbing the mountain they thought they were meant to climb. Their goals on this first mountain are the ones our culture endorses: to be a success, to make your mark, to experience personal happiness. But when they get to the top of that mountain, something happens. They look around and find the view … unsatisfying. They realize: This wasn’t my mountain after all. There’s another, bigger mountain out there that is actually my mountain.
And so they embark on a new journey. On the second mountain, life moves from self-centered to other-centered. They want the things that are truly worth wanting, not the things other people tell them to want. They embrace a life of interdependence, not independence. They surrender to a life of commitment.[10]
In the plain, flat world of Euclidian geometry, the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. We must not confuse Euclidian world with real world. Often, the journey toward actualizing your life purpose is a long and winding road. You may start out in cosmetology and become a mortuary hairdresser and become a successful actor (Danny DeVito and Whoopi Goldberg). You may begin as a receptionist and become a successful country singer (Faith Hill). You may take acting classes to overcome shyness, become a carpenter in California for sixteen years, and finally land the acting role of a lifetime (Harrison Ford). You may franchise a failing business at the age of 65 and become the symbol of Kentucky Fried Chicken (Colonel Sanders). You might have a personally devastating loss of wife and mother on the same day, take some time away from being a successful politician in New York, go west, join the military, and eventually become open for the next thing in your life, even president of the United States (Teddy Roosevelt). Yes, the path to finding your joy and satisfaction in life, the path to fulfilling your personal mission in life, may well be a long, winding road.
The disciples understood so little of Jesus while they were with him. They misunderstood his teachings. They found it difficult to understand what following him might mean. They abandoned Jesus at the time of crucifixion. They gather secretly because of fear of their Jewish leaders. If any group of people needed a second act, the disciples did. They will have a second act of receiving energy derived from the Spirit of life and truth, their Advocate, empowering them and guiding them to continue the mission of Jesus as those sent into the world by the Father.
John 20:24-29 have the theme of doubting Thomas. This story is not so much about doubt, but the uniqueness of the apostolic situation, in which Thomas, unlike us, had to be sure that the person he saw now, was Jesus of Nazareth. In fact, Thomas shows no more doubt than the other disciples did.[11] Thus, the story of "doubting Thomas" which follows the gift of the Holy Spirit has more to tell us than simply the doubt and distrust of Thomas. We now learn about the absence of 24 Thomas (who people referred to as the Twin). In fact, the synoptists do not record this encounter. The name by which people referred to him is a transliteration of a word from Hebrew and Aramaic that means "Twin." This is not, as some suggest, a psychological preparation for the doublemindedness or hesitant nature of his faith. His Greek nickname, Didymus, also means twin. Neither do we know to whom he was a twin. In some Syriac traditions he was known as "Judas the twin," as distinguished from Judas Iscariot, but still no indication as to the identity of the other twin. It also demonstrates just how faltering were the first attempts of the disciples at witnessing the miracle of the Resurrection. Thomas was one of the twelve but was not with them when Jesus came. I wonder about Thomas. Was he so distraught that he just needed to be alone? Was he bitter and hardened? Was he confused? 25 Therefore, the other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord." However, he said to them, "Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe (πιστεύσω)." Thomas is not simply doubting what the witness of the other disciples. He is doubting his friends. He does not trust them. Such distrust of friends threatens the Christian community of every age. Further, we see here that another attempt to witness fail. This is a second attempt, since the women attempted to witness to the disciples earlier. Thomas is a specific example of the distrust and doubt that prevailed among the disciples until they saw the risen Lord. In contrast, Acts 2 says the coming of the Spirit upon the first followers of Jesus in Jerusalem made their witness powerful and successful. 26 A week later, his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the disciples had shut the doors, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." 27 Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt (ἄπιστος) but believe (πιστός)." The demand by Thomas to put his hand in the marks of crucifixion points out how extreme the demands of doubters can become. Yet, it also is a mark of the appearance of the tradition that the disciples testify to the encounter with the risen Lord, while future followers will need to rely upon the word or message. Jesus confronts Thomas with his wounds. By inference, he also confronts the unbelief of Thomas. Yet, we must remember that Thomas missed the commissioning and the gift of the Holy Spirit. Jesus takes Thomas' doubts seriously. He deals with the doubt honestly and straightforwardly. Despite his earlier demand, Thomas felt no need to follow through and touch Jesus. 28 Thomas answered him, "My Lord (Κύριός) and my God (Θεός)!" The response of Thomas is a powerful affirmation of faith. This verse is part of the scriptural affirmation of the deity of the Son. The title “Lord” implies the full deity of the Son, and here John sets the title God and Lord beside each other.[12] 29 Jesus said to him, "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe."Thomas must see to believe. Jesus does not punish him for this doubt. Neither does he bless him. The final blessing of the risen Lord is for those who do not see and yet still believe. The point in the beatitude is that all the disciples required seeing the risen Lord first. They all doubted until they saw. The point here is that the resurrected Jesus is the same Jesus who lived with the disciples. Thomas represents pre-Easter disciples. There was hesitation and doubt in the inner circle. As a man not given to faddish and hysterical devotion to lost causes, Thomas insisted on reserving judgment until he could put his "finger in the mark of the nails." Thomas becomes a foil for John, who points out the doubtful spirit of the early church. Thomas' demands to see the wounds on Jesus' flesh simply mirrored the evidence Jesus himself had given to the other disciples at his first resurrection appearance. Yet, Thomas' refusal to believe without seeing for himself puts him into a new category. He is not merely a frightened, hiding disciple. He is faithless, "Do not doubt but believe." John's reference to nails here is the only such reference in the New Testament; Romans common lashed criminals to a cross and if they used nails, they placed them through the wrists and not the hands. Recent archaeological evidence has supported early patristic references to a single spike through the feet that were crossed and rest upon a footrest.
What do the Thomas-like persons of today tell us? You may be among them. Their prayers seem to bounce off the ceiling. They do not know how to relate to an invisible God. Life is hard so God hardly seems loving. They struggle with the Christian churches, in which church leaders often seem hypocritical and as open to scandal as any other institution in America is. They wonder about evil, pain, and suffering in the world, as well as how the churches respond to it. They wonder whether God is actively involved in this world.
What would happen if we rehabilitated the reputation of Thomas as one who had the courage to admit his lack of understanding? What would happen if we celebrated the willingness of Thomas to express his honest doubts? Doubt is often the beginning of exciting learning. The questions we have about the meaning of life, about character, about personality development, about political life, about career, about marriage, are questions that can stimulate us toward greater knowledge, insight, and a better life. We ought not to be afraid of such questions. Our doubts can lead us to deeper faith, stronger faith, and mature faith.
Doubt may well be the greatest blessing we have ever had and even a sign of the Spirit of God working in us. It may be how our calling or purpose in life becomes increasingly real.[13] We may well slow our growth as human beings if we begin with too many certainties. In fact, if we begin with much certainty, our journey will be toward much doubt. If we have the humility to begin with doubt, we may slowly grow toward that upon which we can rely.[14]
Why has the Christian community developed such a negative attitude toward doubt? Frankly, honest doubt may contain more living faith than does believing in half the creeds.[15] Most religious and church environments teach us that doubt is the antithesis of faith. People often use this story of Thomas to reinforce that lesson. However, is it possible that the "doubt vs. faith" dichotomy is a false issue? Is not the real enemy of faith unbelief rather than doubt? I think so. Even here, however, I wonder. The person who hates or denies God at least takes God seriously. The passionate unbeliever may be wrong, but at least, such a person takes God seriously. Such a person is anti-believer who struggles with God.[16]What is more, I think that doubt has a constructive and positive role to play in the exercise of faith. It may well be that true believers are deeply skeptical. True, the person outside the church will think those within the church will believe anything. Yet, if one takes the journey of faith deeper, one discovers that the journey encompasses more doubt.[17]
The church has too often made doubting people uncomfortable to be in it. Too often, Christians forget the doubts with which they have struggled in their lives. We project to others unrealistic certainty about everything. We forget how weak and feeble our grasp of Christian truth often is. We forget that Christian belief and faith are precisely that – faith.
Unfortunately, we Christians often eat our own when it comes to doubts. When people question God, we act more like friends of Job than we do friends of Jesus. We produce easy answers. We celebrate people who give the impression that they have everything put together, rather than people who struggle with matters of faith. We see in this passage, however, that God reaches out to those of little faith. We can forget how difficult it can be to believe. Faith is the hope that in the end, everything will be all right. With all the darkness, sin, and suffering, will it be all right with my friends, with me, and with the world? The question is a cosmic one. It reaches beyond the safety of this home that may well have its light, love, and warmth. Within the church, we come to the babe in the manger and ask, “Is everything really all right?” Every Easter, we come to the tomb and ask, “Is everything really all right?”[18]
As we encounter those who doubt, we remember that God knows their needs more than we do. God may be testing and strengthening them through their exploration. They may need to lay down their idol god or their ideal god in favor of the Real God. In any case, God knows best what they need, and God is working their doubt, like all things, for their good (Romans 8:28). Therefore, there is no better way to collaborate with people in their doubt than to pray that the kindness of God would address their deepest needs and make known the ways God is shaping them through their questioning.
You might remember the story in Matthew 8:23-27, where a storm comes up quickly on the lake while the little boat of the disciples starts flooding. Jesus is sleeping. The disciples are not. They awaken Jesus, and he says, “You of little faith, why are you so afraid?” Notice what Jesus did not say. He did not say, “You of little faith, come back to me sometime when your faith is strong, when you really believe, and then I might try to help you out.” I suppose then, Jesus could have grabbed his pillow and gone back to sleep. He did not say that. Instead, after reminding them that they had room to grow in their faith journey, he immediately came to their rescue. He “rebuked the winds.” Jesus rebukes the winds; we do not. We cannot make having faith an excellent work we do. Thomas does not “achieve” a coming to faith. Faith is something the risen Christ brings to Thomas. Jesus gave Thomas the help he needed even when he was skeptical and full of doubt.
What would happen if we came along side people inside and outside the church who have doubts, whether those doubts concern God or the risen Christ? If we do so, we will strengthen the blessed that Jesus spoke of, “Those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”
What sort of faith is an unexamined faith? Many of the great thinkers of the church wrestled with doubts.
Mother Teresa: “Darkness is such that I really do not see — neither with my mind nor with my reason — the place of God in my soul is blank — There is no God in me — when the pain of longing is so great — I just long and long for God … The torture and pain I can’t explain.”
Martin Luther, whose willingness to reexamine what he had believed for most of his life led to the Protestant Reformation, once wrote about a crisis of faith: “For more than a week I was close to the gates of death and hell. I trembled in all my members. Christ was wholly lost. I was shaken by desperation and blasphemy of God.”
Charles Spurgeon, in his sermon “Desire of the Soul in Spiritual Darkness,” bluntly claimed: “I think, when a man says, ‘I never doubt,’ it is quite time for us to doubt him, it is quite time for us to begin to say, ‘Ah, poor soul, I am afraid you are not on the road at all’ ...”
Pope Francis: “If one has the answers to all the questions — that is the proof that God is not with him. It means that he is a false prophet using religion for himself. The great leaders of the people of God, like Moses, have always left room for doubt. You must leave room for the Lord, not for our certainties; we must be humble.”
The 2006 movie Superman Returns has a scene that communicates something of my concern here. Superman returns after an absence of five years to search for his home planet Krypton. At one point, his father comments that the people of the earth want to be better. He says that is why he is sending them his only son. However, now that Superman has disappeared for a considerable time, nations have moved on without him. Lois Lane has moved on with her life, having a son, a fiancé, and, significantly, a Pulitzer for authoring the article, “Why the World doesn’t Need Superman.” Later in the movie, around 1:10:44 to 1:16:03, a scene refers to the article. Superman wonders why she wrote it. “How could you leave us like that? I moved on, and so did the world. The world does not need a Savior, and neither do I.” Superman pauses for a moment. “Lois, will you come with me?” “Why?” “There is something I want to show you.” She hesitates. “Please.” “We can’t be long.” “We won’t be.” He takes her quietly and softly into the sky. “Listen. What do you hear?” “Nothing.” He brings her to a global view, and then says, “I hear everything. You say the world does not need a Savior. Every day I hear the world crying for one.” He apologizes for leaving her. “I will take you back now.” Even though the one he loves in a unique way doubts the need for him, Superman extends his hand and his love to her.
Of course, as positive an experience as doubt can be, doubt is not a place to live. With humility, we can move forward with the knowledge and experience we have while being open to new learnings life may bring our way.
Christian witness invites persons to live in the truth of God revealed in Jesus. It does so because of the first witnesses to whom Jesus appeared after his crucifixion. Given the painful realities of our world, such a witness is a surprise. We cannot look to analogies in nature or human life to support this belief. It needs to remain a genuine, surprising act of God. We have no right to expect it. The resurrection of Jesus is gift, first to Jesus of Nazareth and through him to us. If we can cross that threshold, and I do not minimize its difficulty, it opens a new world for us. Considering its truth, we can see everything in a unique way. We can look through this event to clarify the ambiguities of our lives and experiences. Through it, we can see human history and even the universe differently. We see much death, evil, greed, and ugliness in the world. In their midst, we can remain people of hope that God has determined our destiny to be life, righteousness, and peace.
John 20:30-31 is a statement of the purpose of the author. They form the original conclusion to the Gospel of John. 30 Now, Jesus did many other signs (σημεῖα, properly understood[19]) in the presence of his disciples, which the author did not write in this book. 31 However, the author has written these things so that you may come to believe (πιστεύητε)that Jesus is the Messiah (Χριστὸς), the Son of God (ὁ Υἱὸς τοῦ Θεοῦ), John spells out clearly a confession of faith and the Christological intent of this gospel, and that through believing (πιστεύοντες) you may have life in his name. Belief is a reference to a deepening of faith in the exalted titles of Jesus. John now ends his book by providing the reader with a statement of his rhetorical purpose. What John has written, however, has been to help those who have not seen to believe, and thereby avoid the error both of Thomas and of all of the disciples whose faith depended upon their sensory faculties and not upon proclamation or testimony. John has showed how the doubt of the hesitant plays itself out in Thomas. He now wants to contrast that doubt with the confession of faith.
[1] Barth Church Dogmatics IV.2 [64.2] 144.
[2] (R. Alan Culpepper, “The plot of John’s story of Jesus,” Interpretation, October 1995, 347-57).
[3] Pannenberg Systematic Theology Volume 2, 349.
[4] Pannenberg Systematic Theology Volume 3, 372.
[5] Pannenberg Systematic Theology, Volume 1, 318, Volume 3, 4.
[6] Pannenberg Systematic Theology Volume 3, 14.
[7] Pannenberg Systematic Theology Volume 1, 305.
[8] The verb here, “they are forgiven,” is proclaimed in the Greek perfect tense — a grammatical structure that expresses a past action which results in a present state (Barclay M. Newman and Eugene A. Nida, A Translator’s Handbook on the Gospel of John [New York: United Bible Societies, 1980], 615).
[9] Pannenberg Systematic Theology Volume 3, 365-6.
[10] —Blurb for David Brooks, The Second Mountain (New York: Random House, 2019).
[11] Barth Church Dogmatics III.2 [46.1] 330.
[12] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 1, 266, 302.
[13] Frederick D. Maurice (1805-1872). "Doubt itself may be the greatest blessing you ever had, may be the greatest striving of God's Spirit within you that you have ever known, may be the means of making every duty more real to you."
[14] Francis Bacon, Advancement of Learning (1605). "If a man will begin in certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties."
[15] Alfred, Lord Tennyson, In Memoriam, (1850). "There lives more faith in honest doubt, believe me, than in half the creeds."
[16] Martin Luther, Luther's Works 5:120, lines 25-26. "Nobody in this life is nearer to God than those who hate and deny him, and he has no more pleasing, no more dear children than these." The point seems to be, God matters infinitely, or God does not matter at all. There is something absolute about faith. The passionate unbeliever who hates and denies God may well be wrong, but at least he takes God seriously. He does not take God for granted. He is an anti-believer who struggles with God.
[17] Malcom Muggeridge, The End of Christendom (1980), 4-5. True believers are deeply skeptical. Yet, the non-church goer often assumes that church people will believe in almost anything, and that you have to be a materialist or humanist to have a skeptical mind. The truth is that the farther our faith reaches, the more doubt it encompasses, as from the highest hills there are fullest vistas.
[18] Madelene L' Engle, The Summer of the Great Grandmother, a children's story. The child asks, "Is everything all right?" Oh, of course. Then the child said more seriously, "Is everything really all right? I mean really?" That is the cosmic question, the question that is out beyond the safety of this home full of light and love and warmth. Every Christmas we come to the child in the manger and ask, "Is everything really all right?" Every Easter we come to the tomb and ask that same question: "is everything really all right?"
[19] Church Dogmatics IV.2 [64.3] 238.
[20] Marianne Sawicki, Seeing the Lord: Resurrection and Early Christian Practices (Fortress, 1994, p. 285). “Our ancestors in faith chose the technology of text as the delivery system for the body of Jesus. The text was not the only option from which they had to choose. People in the ancient world knew very well how to preserve bodies in their material sameness. There are scores of mummified corpses still with us from Egypt, and most of them are far older than Jesus ... But the body of Jesus is not with us like some crumbling souvenir, like a faded flower pressed nostalgically between the pages of a venerable old book. He is as alive as the screaming foundling in the AIDS ward. He is as fresh as challah on Friday night.”
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