Christ's Doctrine of Faith: A Study of "Believing" in John's Gospel (John 20:8)

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Well, we have made it, readers! We have reached the final chapter where “believe” and other forms of the word occur. So, we are nearing the end! Including this text, we have seven occurrences of “belief” left in this Gospel to go! So, let’s go! In John 20:8, where the ninety-fourth such occurrence in the Gospel is found, the text reads: “Then went in also that other disciple, which came first to the sepulchre, and he saw, and believed” (KJV). This time, we still start at the beginning of chapter 20 and work our way to verse 8 for the context section, before moving on to the “facts about faith” section. So, let’s do this!

First, the context. After Jesus’s burial, on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene came early to His tomb, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone blocking the entrance to the tomb was taken away. Mary Magdalene then ran and came to Peter and the other disciple, whom Jesus loved, and said to them that they had taken away the Lord out of the tomb and they do not know where they laid Jesus. Therefore, Peter went forward, along with the other disciple, and arrived at the tomb. So, they both ran together, with the other disciple outrunning Peter and being the first one to come to the tomb. Stooping down and looking in, he saw the linen clothes lying, but he did not go in. Following him, Peter arrived at and entered into the tomb, where he saw 1) the linen clothes lying and 2) the napkin that was wrapped around Jesus’s head not lying with the clothes but instead wrapped together in a place by itself. The other disciple then, although he was the first to arrive at the tomb, entered it after Peter did, and he saw this and believed. This is the context of John 20:8!

Second, a fact about faith. I say “fact” (singular) because, right now as I write this, only one comes to mind. And that is this: the extraordinary works of Jesus (in this case, His resurrection from the dead), when seen from the perspective of faith, grow and strengthen faith. Remember back in John 11:40, when Christ told Martha, right before He raised Lazarus from the dead, that, if she believed, she would see the glory of God? Also remember how, right after that miracle, while many of the people who saw it believed on Him, some instead went to the Pharisees and reported about Jesus’s works to them (John 11:45-46)? All this proves that, when Jesus’s extraordinary works are observed through believing eyes, they will engender and strengthen faith. However, when Jesus’s works are viewed through an unbelieving perspective, they will only harden people against the Lord Jesus Christ, and therefore also against the salvation that would be theirs’ if they repented and believed on Him. So, the other disciple, who was already a believer in Jesus, observed this miracle and believed. This is a fact about faith from John 20:8!