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May 15, 1913 Thomas, ‘‘ Reach hither thy finger and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand and thrust it into my side; and be not faithless, but believing.’’ Again, he said, ‘‘A spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.’’ The disciples did not see, evidently, the spirit being. They saw merely a materialization—actual flesh and bones. St. Thomas did as the Lord had requested. Then he said, ‘‘My Lord and my God!’ He acknowledged that Jesus was the Lord. It was not an apparition. The brethren had not been deceived. He was the one who had come very near being deceived by his own lack of faith, We cannot doubt that in this incident the Lord has given to all of his followers a very helpful lesson. Had none of the apostles even seemed to doubt the Lord’s resurrection, they might have failed to bring out convincing proof of the fact. They might afterward have thought to themselves, ‘*Why did we not make further investigation?’’ But here we have evidence of the investigation. There are some people who are naturally very cautious. St. Thomas seems to have been one of these. We cannot think that the Lord is displeased with such characters. From our standpoint, indeed, the person who is inclined to be somewhat critical is rather to be approved. We would naturally incline to disapprove those who are too easily credulous, too easily persuaded. We are even to think highly of those who are of the mental attitude of St. Thomas. We are glad that there was one such hard thinker as this Apostle. The Lord said in this connection, ‘‘ Because thou hast seen, thou hast believed. Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet have believed.’’ There might be a question as to what the Lord meant by these words. He may have meant, Do not congratulate yourself that you were not easy to convince; or he may have meant, There is a special blessing for those who have faith—who believe without seeing. There were above five hundred brethren amongst the disciples at the time of our Lord’s crucifixion. The Apostle says that he was seen of these at one time. (1 Corinthians 15:6) But afterwards the brethren were obliged to believe without seeing, merely on the testimony of others. We are in this category ourselves. All the Christian church throughout the Gospel age have believed without seeing the outward demonstration. Whether on this account the Lord would be specially pleased with us, we know not. But we think not. Whether we believe on slight evidence or on greater evidence ig dependent upon the structure of the brain. God seems to have made provision that all those called of him may have a sufficiency of evidence. And he gives us the additional evidence from the days of the apostles to help to sustain our faith. We have the benefit of the doubts of St. Thomas and of our Lord’s demonstration of his change of nature. FAITH THE CENTER OF CHRISTIAN PROGRESS The question might be asked, Why did Jesus lay stress upon the importance of faith? Why did he imply that St. Thomas could not be his disciple at all without believing? There are many who tell us that they cannot see that faith has any province, that they see no reason why God should bless faith, that in their opinion God should reward us for the doing. They say, ‘‘We are doing all the good works that we can.’’?’ The Bible always sustains the thought that any one who does not do to the best of his ability shall receive stripes. But the Bible also holds out the other thought— that God purposes to reward his people according to their faith; that whoever cannot exercise perfect faith cannot be his disciple; that if one has not faith, it is impossible for him to get into the kingdom. In God’s arrangement, faith has been made the very center of Christian progress—faith in the things he has done, faith in the things he has promised to do. Faith is the thing which, by God’s grace, enables us to avail ourselves of the wonderful opportunities of this present time. ‘‘ Without faith it is impossible to please God.’’? But this does not mean that conditions will always be as now, or that God will forever reject those who, on account of their mental make-up, cannot now exercise faith, but it means that at the present time He will save no others than the faithful. The Scriptures very clearly indicate, however, that after the selection of the church, and the reward of their faith, the Lord will then deal with the world through the class which exercise faith now-—-through Christ and the church—for the blessing of all mankind. In the next age less faith will be required than now. Messiah’s kingdom established, will be openly manifested. Then mankind will not be obliged to walk by faith. They will walk by sight, whereas now we must walk by faith and not by sight. From the natural standpoint it looks as though God were not ruling the world at all, but that the world were being THE WATCH TOWER (147-148) ruled by chance or by Satan himself—so different are conditions from what we would expect if God were recognized as the great King. Consequently we must exercise faith, if we are to receive the blessing at this time. By and by, during the Messianie rule, when everything contrary to righteousness will be punished, and everything in harmony with righteousness will be rewarded, then all opposers of righteousness will be east down, and all lovers of righteousness will be prosperous. That will be the time of walking by sight. In the present time we must walk by faith because ours is a special salvation. The ‘‘high ealling’’ is a peculiar privilege, for a special class. In the next age, however, mankind’s unbalance of mind through the fall will be compensated for. Those who need much demonstration will have much; those who need less will have less. The matter will be made so clear that there will be no exeuse for any one not to attain to full obedience of works, and these works will gradually lead them up to full human perfection. God has made nothing unreasonable in his laws and requirements, his every demand is reasonable and essential. OUR LORD'S CHANGE OF NATURE Putting ourselves into the position of the diseiples during the forty days after Jesus had arisen from the dead, we can readily imagine that they were considerably confused. One and another of them had been witnesses of strange things— they could not explain what, but they had seen what purported to be Jesus—on one occasion the appearance was as the gardener, on another occasion as a stranger, etc. They saw no mark of identity, and did not really know whether they had seen him at all. On another occasion, looking very much like his former self, he appeared in their midst, the doors being shut. They could not imagine how a human being could have come in while the doors were shut. Therefore there was considerable perplexity. The Scriptures give us to understand that the reason why our Lord thus manifested himself in various forms was that God raised Jesus from the dead to a different plane of existence—as a spirit being. The Seriptures declare, ‘‘Now the Lord is that Spirit.’’ (2 Corinthians 3:17) The second Adam is the heavenly Lord. He is not the earthly man Jesus. This explanation we can appreciate because we are living since Pentecost. We can see and understand that Jesus had become a spirit being, and that like the angels he could, where it was necessary, appear like a human being. We would not question at all that if Jesus had any reason for showing the identical body that had been crucified he could have appeared in it, could have opened the door and the apostles could have been blinded, so that they could not see the door opening and shutting, as he entered. But the account contradicts such supposition and is very explicit in the statement that ‘‘the dcors were shut,’’ not that the apostles did not see them open, but that they did not open at all. In the second statement—-when St. Thomas was present—our Lord appeared in the same manner, ‘‘The doors being shut.’’—John 20:19, 26. While Jesus could have brought the body, and could have maintained himself inside of it as a spirit being, he did not do so. If he had done this they would have been deceived, supposing that he had arisen in his body of flesh in which he had been erueified. Therefore he appeared in different bodies of flesh, but under conditions that left no doubt as to his identity. He knew that after the disciples had received the holy Spirit all would be plain to them. So he made no attempt to explain to them at that time, but merely kept them in touch with himself until after the Pentecostal blessings had come, when they were able to understand from the true viewyoint. } Our thought, therefore, would be that the body in which our Lord appeared was materialized. This was not a deception. It was intended, on the contrary, to keep the disciples from being deceived. Being natural men, they could not appreciate a change from human nature to spirit nature. Therefore this appearance was to help them over a difficulty—to keep them from saying ‘‘He is not risen.’’ RESURRECTION MUCH MISUNDERSTOOD The disciples could see that our Lord had a different power altogether from what he had before he died. Thus he appeared time and again during the forty days—a few minutes at a time. This very evidently was to accomplish the purpose of demonstrating to them that he was a spirit being, that he had power to come and go like the wind, that he could appear in the flesh when necessary, and then vanish at will, and that he could come in one form and another form, This was the great lesson by which he purposed to keep them from being in any way deceived. We cannot imagine how Jesus could have substantiated his resurrection and confirmed the faith of his disciples ir any better way. If he had remained with them as a man, [5237]