SEEING IS BELIEVING

Written by Justin Neil Gaynor

“Seeing is believing”, or so the old saying goes. Being able to see something for ourselves, without question, helps us to have confidence as opposed to simply taking someone’s word for it. When we see something that confirms what we have been told, it strengthens both our grasp of what is seen and our trust in the person that originally told us about the thing that we witnessed for ourselves. Of course, to believe something, at least to some extent, before seeing it, demonstrates some level of trust in the source of the testimony. This is why Jesus famously tells His disciple Thomas, “because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

Hearing and believing the testimony of Moses, the Patriarchs, and others in the Old Testament, speaking and writing about Jesus and the Resurrection, offers a blessing to the one who hasn’t actually seen God. However, in seeing before believing, a person demonstrates no trust in God or in those whom He sends, but when what He has said happens and it is seen, a hope is fulfilled, whereas, the one who heard and doubted or disbelieved has left himself without either faith or hope in the present. It is a tremendous loss to a person…walking through this life with neither faith nor hope.

One of the most mysterious sayings of Jesus in the New Testament is this, “After a little while, the world no longer is going to see Me, but you are going to see Me; because I live, you also will live.” In hearing this, Judas (and St. John intentionally points out that this is a different Judas than the one that betrays Jesus) asks the obvious question, “Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world?”

Perhaps this disciple was not present at the Sermon on the Mount, or had simply not put two and two together. When preaching the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus had said, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.” So then, it is the people who have this purity of heart that are able to see God manifest Himself whilst the world around, whose hearts are defiled, are blind to Him. The question then becomes, how does a man purify his heart?

Jesus mentions a few things regarding purifying the heart of a man and being able to see God and His Kingdom. The first is being born of water and Spirit. When a person repents of their sin and is baptized in water, by faith, an exodus type deliverance happens and God performs a spiritual surgery that human hands cannot do. The calloused heart is made sensitive and something like scales fall off the eyes. This works together in and with faith and the ministry of the Holy Spirit that immediately begins to heal, direct, teach, correct, and train. It is an anointing that comes from God. The person has become spiritual. They have been “born again” of water and Spirit. The Apostle Paul uses the term “pneumatikoi”, or “Spirit-driven people”. The person is no longer just a “living being” as described in Genesis when God makes the first human, but the one who is “born again” is a “life-giving spirit”. The Apostle John, after the crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus, talks of walking in the Light (or the Spirit) as Jesus is in the Light, and how the blood of Jesus cleanses us of all unrighteousness.

The work Jesus did on our behalf is sufficient as the propitiation for all of our sins: past, present, and future. In addition, the blood applied to our life in an ongoing basis as Jesus, our great high priest, continually prays for and intercedes for us, causes His blood to be effective in our lives to keep us free from guilt and in a state of purity of heart…why? So that we can be blessed in a relationship with God where we see Him and His Kingdom and find in that relationship joy and peace while the world around trudges on, lost and without hope in the world.

“Blessed are those who are pure in heart, for they will see God.”, Jesus of Nazareth