There is a line in the movie Polar Express that caught my attention this Christmas: “Seeing isn’t believing, believing is seeing.” Of course, the movie is referring to all the things related to Santa, the North Pole, and the express train. However, the same might truthfully be said of faith in Jesus Christ, and it would not be perpetuating a myth. For those of us who have faith in the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, belief helps us to see and understand things that we likely wouldn’t otherwise. When Jesus was on earth, He spoke in symbolic parables. When His followers asked why, He told them,
“To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of God, but for others they are in parables, so that ‘seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand’” (Luke 8:10).
There were many people in His day who saw Him, watched Him heal people, and heard Him teach, and yet they never believed that He was the Messiah, the Savior who had been prophesied. At the end of His time on earth, Jesus said to “doubting” Thomas,
“Have you believed because you have seen Me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (John 20:29).
The Apostle Paul wrote,
“For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in Him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?” (Rom. 10:13-14).
He doesn’t link belief with seeing proof, but with hearing truth proclaimed. But even then, it’s not that every question has irrefutable answers. Few people can point to logic and documented evidence that convinced them of the truth of Christianity, although such people do exist (Lee Strobel is one). Faith in God can sound like folly to those who don’t have it.
“For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor. 1:21-24).
Faith itself is a gift from God— “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God” (Eph. 2:8). God’s action always precedes our response. He grants us faith, we come to believe, and we begin to see the truth of God’s revelation through creation, Scripture, and His people. Believing is seeing.
It may sound as though God predestines some people to never have faith in Him, but God will never turn away anyone who genuinely wants to know Him. He works in many varied ways to stir one’s curiosity and to bring them to the point of belief.
During the Christmas season, where Christianity and culture intersect, it’s quite possible that unbelievers may look at us and think we’re just as naive as little children who believe in Santa Claus. We can try to explain our faith to the best of our ability, but some people will never understand or believe, and that is to their own peril. There is coming a day when “every eye will see Him: (Rev. 1:7), and on that day it will be too late for those who insist that seeing is believing and who think they need concrete proof before they will accept Jesus as Savior and follow Him as Lord. I pray that many will turn to Him as that final day comes ever closer.
“I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6).
“And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).
© 2022 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture are ESV and all images copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.
