Jesus said to his disciples, "Compare me to someone and tell me whom I am like." Simon Peter said to him, "You are like a righteous angel." Matthew said to him, "You are like a wise philosopher." Thomas said to him, "Master, my mouth is wholly incapable of saying whom you are like." Jesus said, "I am not your master. Because you have drunk, you have become intoxicated from the bubbling spring which I have measured out." And he took him and withdrew and told him three things. When Thomas returned to his companions, they asked him, "What did Jesus say to you?" Thomas said to them, "If I tell you one of the things which he told me, you will pick up stones and throw them at me; a fire will come out of the stones and burn you up."
This is a crucial passage in Thomas as it is the only one that mentions Thomas at all. It is on this basis that the text was named after Thomas and was given the introductory statement it was given. Thomas answers Jesus’ question about who Jesus is by saying that what Jesus is cannot be described or explained by words.
Jesus’ response to Thomas that he (Jesus) is not his (Thomas’) master because Thomas has received from Jesus a transmission of Knowledge that Thomas completely understands indicates that Thomas has received all that Jesus can teach him and has integrated it and has become like the master himself, a master. Jesus and Thomas are no longer in a Master-Disciple relationship but masters. Both are Sons of the Living Father; fully realized Sons.
The responses of Simon Peter and Matthew are not wrong in that at their level of spiritual consciousness that is what they can understand. Both of their responses are of the mind, whereas Thomas’ response is of the spirit. Thomas was at a higher level of spiritual development. He is able to be of the same mind, and may I suggest, same person as Jesus, both realizing the Christ in their person. This is not to say that Peter and Matthew are not highly developed spiritually, just that Thomas was at a higher level, a level equal to the Master, the Messiah. He was experiencing the Messianic Consciousness like Jesus was. Their consciousness was twin.
Jesus took Thomas away to be alone with him to convey to him a further teaching. He tells Thomas three things. These are likely things only Thomas could understand as only Thomas was prepared to receive them. Perhaps what Jesus told Thomas pertained to Thomas’ own status in relationship to God, a relationship that was equal to Jesus’ relationship with God. Whatever it was, was intended to be kept secret and there would be consequences for doing so.
Were Thomas to reveal what Jesus said to him, the others would stone him, a punishment prescribed for blasphemy. Recall that in the New Testament gospels Jesus himself was accused and judged to be guilty of blasphemy. It’s what the Jewish leaders wanted Jesus executed for.
Recall, too, how in the Old Testament, the Hebrew people could not utter the name of God, nor create an image of God, and that they feared that if they came face to face with God that they would die. God was unapproachable and unmentionable, so powerful was God’s presence and God’s name. Thomas was seeing Jesus in his nature as God’s Son and God’s Word made flesh, as the pure light of God and Heaven fully ablaze and he was totally consumed by that presence he experienced in Jesus. No word can possibly suffice to describe this experience. Thomas was prepared to have this experience of God. He could handle the same power that Jesus did. But the other disciples couldn’t. What Thomas would tell them if he would, they couldn’t handle. It would overwhelm them, even destroy them.
The disciples could accept these claims about Jesus, although they didn’t understand them, like Thomas, but to accept them about Thomas, one of them, not THE Son of God, but a son or child of God.
Thomas is the model of one who has attained to the full likeness of Jesus who as attained in the flesh to the full likeness of God, and going back to the start of this scripture we see that one who comes to understand these sayings correctly will enter into eternal life, this same deathless consciousness that was in Christ Jesus. Thomas is the first of the disciples to enter into this Messianic Consciousness, perhaps other than Mary Magdalene (But that’s another story). And it is possible that others will as well. And it is possible that’s the whole reason for being Jesus’ disciple.
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