Thomas had refused to believe the other disciples' report of the resurrection without seeing the wounds himself. A week later, Jesus appears specifically for Thomas. He does not rebuke him for the condition. He offers his hands and his side. Thomas's response is the highest Christological confession in John's Gospel and one of the highest in all the New Testament: “My Lord and my God.” He addresses Jesus directly as ho theos mou — my God. The Gospel that opened with “the Word was God” (1:1) closes with the confession of “my God” from a man who had doubted it most recently.

From the writers we read together

William Lane Craig

philosopher and Christian apologist, author of Reasonable Faith

Craig has made Thomas a central figure in his historical argument for the resurrection. Thomas is a gift to the apologist: he is the ancient version of the modern demand for empirical evidence. He will not believe on testimony alone; he insists on physical verification. When Jesus provides it, Thomas does not merely conclude that the resurrection is historically plausible; he falls into worship. Craig's point is that the disciples who knew Jesus — who had seen him die, who had every reason to remain convinced he was dead — became immovable witnesses to his resurrection. That transformation requires an explanation, and the best explanation is the one they gave.

Jesus's final beatitude in the Gospel — “blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” — is addressed to us. We are the ones who did not put our fingers in the wound. Our faith is not secondhand in the pejorative sense; it is the faith that the Gospel was written to produce: a faith that reads the account of Thomas's seeing and makes his confession our own. “My Lord and my God” is not a first-century relic. It is the confession that John 20:29 pronounces blessed.