On the first Easter, Jesus Christ rose from the dead!  The disciples saw him alive again on that first Easter day and evening and believed--except for Thomas.
    When the other disciples joyfully told Thomas that they had seen the Lord Jesus resurrected and alive again, Thomas says in John 20:25, "Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it."   “Doubting Thomas,” as we have come to call him, is emphatically demanding physical proof of the resurrection of Jesus, proof which he can see and touch, which makes sense to his mind.
    This is despite the repeated promises that Jesus had made to his disciples that he would be put to death and then come alive again.  Thomas rejected Christ’s promises and relied instead on material proof that would be acceptable to his human reason!  Thomas believed that seeing is believing.
    In reality, the attitude of seeing is believing is exactly wrong.  With the things of God, the invisible and the eternal, believing is seeing. 
    That’s the response of Jesus to Thomas.  A week after Easter, the resurrected Jesus again appears to his disciples, this time with Thomas present.  Jesus allows Thomas to see and touch him and then calls on Thomas to stop doubting and believe.  Jesus went along with Thomas’ mistaken idea that seeing is believing and allowed him to see for himself that Jesus was truly alive again.
    Then Jesus goes on to teach Thomas, the rest of the disciples and us that it is more blessed to believe without having first seen.  Jesus says, "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."  (John 20:29)
    Jesus is saying that faith is not arrived at by our reason or our seeing and touching.  That’s the mind set of the world.  An example of that is that despite three years of performing miracles, most people who had seen those miracles still did not believe in Jesus.
    In reality, faith is created by the Holy Spirit through the Bible.  1 Corinthians  12:3 says that no one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit! 1 Peter 1:23 tells us: “you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.”  The perishable seed are the things of this temporary and fragile world, what we can see and touch, what makes sense to our reason.  We cannot be born again, we cannot come to faith in Christ, through these worldly means but only through the power of the Holy Spirit working through the Word of God, the Bible.  
    So, seeing is not believing.  In reality, believing is seeing.  Only when you believe, can you see the reality of the Easter resurrection of Christ!   Only when you believe, can you see the truth of the forgiveness of sins which we have through our resurrected and living Lord!  As 2 Corinthians 5:7 says, “we live by faith, not by sight!”