So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!” But he replied, “Unless I see the nail marks in His hands, and put my finger where the nails have been, and put my hand into His side, I will never believe.” Eight days later, His disciples were once again inside with the doors locked, and Thomas was with them. Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” Then Jesus said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and look at My hands. Reach out your hand and put it into My side. Stop doubting and believe.”
Then I will pour out on the house of David and on the people of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and prayer, and they will look on Me, the One they have pierced. They will mourn for Him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for Him as one grieves for a firstborn son.
Significance
Thomas refuses to believe "unless I see the nail marks in His hands ... and put my hand into His side" (20:25), and the risen Jesus invites exactly that — "Put your finger here and look at My hands. Reach out your hand and put it into My side" (20:27). John's resurrection narrative deliberately keeps before us the same wounds his crucifixion account framed by Zechariah 12:10: the pierced side of John 19:34-37 persists into the resurrection body, so that the One who is now to be looked upon is identically the One who was pierced. Thomas's looking-and-believing is the personal, ecclesial firstfruits of Zechariah 12:10's eschatological looking-on-the-pierced-one — the same Spirit-enabled gaze that Zechariah promised for the house of David is here granted to a doubting disciple, and it issues not in mere recognition but in worship: "My Lord and my God!" (20:28). The pierced marks endure because they are not an embarrassment to be erased but the abiding credentials of the Savior; the glorified Christ remains the crucified Christ. This is the heart of the gospel's appeal — the wounds that prove His death are the very wounds that invite our faith, so that beholding the pierced-and-risen Lord turns unbelief into adoration and makes Him supremely desirable as the God who bears in His body the cost of our redemption.
