Last week, we looked at several passages in the gospel of John that deal with the evidential nature of biblical faith. Let’s look at a couple more instances today, along with a potential objection. The 4th chapter of John’s gospel tells the stories of Jesus meeting first a Samaritan woman at their local water well,[1] and then a Jewish nobleman on His return to Galilee.[2] Although the Samaritans were normally despised by the Jews, and it was frowned upon to talk to a woman (Samaritan or otherwise) in public in that culture (see v. 27), Jesus had a lengthy conversation with the Samaritan woman, and we see several interesting statements made. The woman left her water pot at the well and went back into the city and told the people there, “Come, see a man who told me all the things that I have done; this is not the Christ (i.e. the Messiah), is it?” She invited them to come see for themselves whether this man might be the promised Savior. Rather than simply dismissing her, they went out of the city to where Jesus was to investigate for themselves. Later in the passage, John says that “from that city many of the Samaritans believed in Him because of the word of the woman who testified, ‘He told me all the things that I have done.'” They then asked Jesus to stay with them 2 more days, and John notes that “many more believed because of His word; and they were saying to the woman, ‘It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves and know that this One is indeed the Savior of the world.'” This was not like a cursory glance or half-hearted listening. The Samaritans invested enough of their time in listening to Jesus for many of them to weigh His words and become convinced that Jesus was who He said He was.

After this encounter, Jesus left Samaria, and, coming to the region of Galilee, he went to Cana, where He had performed His first public miracle. Here, He met the desperate father of a deathly sick child. The man had traveled roughly 25 miles from Capernaum to ask Jesus to come to his home and cure his boy. Jesus seems to reprimand the people here for wanting evidence when He says, “Unless you people see signs and wonders, you simply will not believe.” And yet, John records Jesus later telling the Jews in Jerusalem, “If I do not the works of My Father, believe Me not.”[3]

How do we reconcile these 2 different responses regarding belief based on evidence provided? It’s important to note at the beginning of this account (v. 46), that this was in Cana, where He had already demonstrated His power. It seems that His scolding here is due to their desire for continual demonstrations – for proof beyond proof. As John Gill says in his commentary on this passage, “they required signs and miracles to be wrought, in confirmation of Christ’s being the Messiah, and which indeed was but right; and Christ did perform them for that purpose: but their sin of unbelief lay in this, that they wanted still more and more signs; they could not be contented with what they had seen, but required more….”[4] Like a jury in court, at some point we have to recognize that we’ve seen and heard enough evidence to reach a reasonable decision even if we didn’t get every question answered exhaustively. Despite that rebuke, though, the man pleaded again for Jesus to come and heal his son. Jesus, not needing to travel to heal the son, told the father, “Go; your son lives.” It used to be said that “a man’s word is his bond”, and the father took Jesus at His word, trusting that the deed was done, though he might not understand how. Then he acted on that trust and left for his day-long journey home. When he was partway home, his servants met him to say the son had recovered. John then tells us that the father asked them for the time of the recovery, and they told him the fever left the boy “at the 7th hour”. John continues, “So the father knew that it was at that hour in which Jesus said to him, ‘Your son lives’; and he himself believed and his whole household.”  As Matthew Henry commented on this verse, “The diligent comparison of the works of Christ with His word will be of great use to us for the confirming of our faith…. He had before believed the word of Christ; but now he believed in Christ.”[5]

In John 4, we see two different cases of people deciding to believe in the deity of Jesus. The Samaritans were convinced by His words, while the Jewish nobleman was convinced by His miraculous actions, but neither accepted Jesus’s claims blindly. The Samaritans came  to hear and decide for themselves based on what Jesus said and what they knew of the promised Christ, while the nobleman verified the boy’s recovery wasn’t natural by comparing the time of recovery with the time of Jesus’s pronouncement. As Paul later wrote to the church at Thessalonica, “examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good.”[6] But you must examine what you’re presented with before you can hold on to the good and discard the bad. Don’t bypass that critical step and throw out the evidence Jesus confronts you with before examining it and “seeing for yourself” the truth of it.

[1] John 4:39,41-42, in particular, NASB.
[2] John 4:45-53, NASB.
[3] John 10:37, NASB.
[4] John Gill D.D., Exposition of the Old and New Testaments – OSNOVA Kindle Edition, 2012 (1763 original), Location 276230 (John 4:48).
[5] Matthew Henry’s Commentary in One Volume, (Zondervan, 1961) pp. 1528-9.
[6] 1 Thessalonians 5:21, NASB.

One thing I love about Christianity is the evidential nature of our faith. That may surprise some people to hear those terms used together, but Jesus didn’t ask people to believe on “blind faith” as some would like to assume. I’ve written before on how the very word translated from the Greek as “faith” in our Bibles speaks of being persuaded by evidence or proof. You can find that article here. Today, I want to look at a few more Scripture passages that deal with that evidential nature of faith for some of the first people to follow Jesus.

In the 1st and 2nd chapters of John’s gospel account, we see several instances of people deciding to believe that Jesus was the Messiah (or Anointed One). When Philip had decided to follow Jesus, he told his friend Nathanael that he had found the One foretold by Moses and the prophets, and that it was Jesus of Nazareth. When Nathanael asked skeptically (and maybe a bit sarcastically) if any good thing could come from the poor village of Nazareth, Philip’s  reply was “come and see.” When Jesus greeted Nathanael with “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit!”, this surprised him – “How do you know me?” Jesus answered that “before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.” Maybe this reference to the fig tree held some special significance to Nathanael to warrant the following response, for he replied with “Rabbi, You are the Son of God, You are the King of Israel.” Interestingly, Jesus doesn’t congratulate him for this quick assessment, but rather seemed to question his sudden jump: “Because I said to you that I saw you under the fig tree, do you believe? You shall see greater things than these. Truly, truly, I say to you, you shall see the heavens opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”[1] It seems that Jesus wasn’t looking for disciples who would follow just anybody that came along.

After that, Jesus performed His first miracle when He turned water into wine at a wedding feast in Cana. Immediately after that account, John writes that “This beginning of His signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee, and manifested His glory, and His disciples believed in Him.”[2] Their belief followed a sign. John tells about Jesus being in Jerusalem at the Passover, and says that “many believed in His name, beholding His signs which He was doing.”[3] For those people also, belief followed a reason to believe. And again, in the same chapter, John talks about Jesus prophesying that He would die and rise from the dead, although they didn’t understand what He was saying at the time. But then John writes that “When therefore He was raised from the dead, His disciples remembered that He said this; and they believed the Scripture, and the word which Jesus had spoken.”[4] This was the ultimate proof.

After the resurrection, Jesus appeared to His disciples, but one of them wasn’t there – Thomas. Although the others told him that Jesus was alive and appeared to them, he was skeptical. His famous response that he wouldn’t believe until he could put his fingers in the nail holes in Jesus’s hands, and put his hand into the gaping spear wound in Jesus’s side, has earned him the nickname “Doubting Thomas”. But what was Jesus’s response when He came back and Thomas was present? Did He strike Thomas dead for his skepticism? Or for his wanting proof? On the contrary, He told Thomas “Reach here your finger, and see My hands; and reach here your hand, and put it into My side; and be not unbelieving, but believing.”[5] And what are the words used for believing and unbelieving? They are the words πιστός (pistos) and ἄπιστος (apistos), respectively. Pistos is the Greek word typically translated as “faith” and comes from the root πείθω (peitho), meaning “to be persuaded”. Apistos is the negation of that, and means one who is unconvinced. Jesus offered Thomas the chance to verify for himself that it really was Jesus, and then told him to let the evidence persuade him and not remain unpersuaded in spite of the evidence.

So did it persuade him? Yes! What was Thomas’s immediate response? He cried out, “My Lord and my God!” Though the rest of his story isn’t recorded in the Bible, church tradition records that “Doubting Thomas” took the gospel to Nineveh (near the modern day city of Mosul, Iraq), and then went on to India, where he was eventually run through with a stake after a confrontation with local Brahmin (Hindu priest caste) who were angry about his preaching and refusal to worship Kali.[6] And yet there are still Christians in India today that trace there spiritual heritage back to Thomas, just as there were in Mosul until ISIS ravaged the city 2014. From skeptic to martyr, Thomas’s journey speaks of a life-transforming persuasion just as strongly as Paul’s change from zealous persecutor of Christians to the “Apostle to the Gentiles” (i.e. non-Jews). But such a transformed life is the natural result of fully understanding how firmly grounded your trust in Christ really is. Borrowing from Philip and Jesus, “Come and see” the evidence for yourself, but then don’t stop there. Believe.

[1] John 1:45-51, NASB.
[2] John 2:11, NASB.
[3] John 2:23, NASB.
[4] John 2:22, NASB.
[5] John 20:24-28, NASB.
[6] Riley K Smith, Restricted Nations: India, Tales of Glory, (Bartlesville, OK: Living Sacrifice Book Co, 2009), pp. 14-15.