Tuesday, April 25, 2006
John 20:29 Jesus said to him, "Thomas, because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."
SEEING IS BELIEVING?
So is it true, is seeing believing? I know that many salesmen have asserted that this is true. They tell us that we just won't believe the prices and the quality of their products unless we come down and look at their inventory and see the prices for ourselves. Then we will most certainly see and believe and buy!
It seems that Thomas, called the twin, one of Jesus' disciples also bought into this kind of thinking, that 'seeing is believing', that faith requires sight for confirmation. He said (John 20:25): "Unless I see in His hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe."
Thomas refused to believe that Jesus was risen unless he saw it with his own eyes. He wanted visual confirmation. Simply being told that Jesus was risen wasn't enough for him.
We shouldn't be too hard on Thomas, because in moments of weakness we have probably thought in similar terms. Have you ever thought to yourself that if we could just find Noah's Ark (or some other Biblical artifact) that then people would see and believe? Have you ever thought that if only Jesus returned to earth and walked among us again, then people would certainly be coerced to believe at the very sight of him? Oops, I guess Thomas isn't the only doubter.
Is seeing believing? NO. If seeing were believing, then all of the Jews who saw Jesus would have believed on Him. Faith is not a human decision based upon human sight. If it were, then John would not have been given these terrible words to report: "He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him" (John 1:10-11).
Seeing and believing are not the same thing, nor is one dependent upon the other, as the Lord Jesus Himself said. Seeing is seeing. Believing is trusting despite having NOT seen. Do we need to see the Ark or the Lord Himself to believe? NO! We are blessed indeed that we have not seen and yet, by the work of the Spirit of God, we do trust in the risen and living Jesus. Thank God that the Word of God is enough for us.
Thank God that ". . . we walk by faith, not by sight" (2 Corinthians 5:7).
