Faith Made Simple

“And he said, Lord, I believe. And he worshipped him.” (Joh 9:38 AV)

This portion of the account of Jesus healing the blind man can be confusing.  The blind man made whole testified before a hostile crowd of Pharisees that Jesus healed him and the Jesus was from God.  Back and forth they bantered; the blind man made whole getting the better of the Pharisees.  The blind man made whole used sound logic and theology.  The miracle of his sight was evidence enough that Jesus was from God.  He even does so far as to prove it from the Old Testament.  Yet one thing remained.  When Christ followed up, the blind man made whole was still missing a piece of the puzzle that would convince him that Jesus was more than a prophet.  The blind man made whole still needed some nugget of truth beyond the miracle of which he was the object to prove Jesus was indeed the Messiah.  This evidence was a simple statement.  The blind man made whole, who was accustomed to forming his belief not based on what he saw, but rather what he heard, needed a simple statement of truth.  All he needed was the testimony of the Son of God as to His identity.  The simple word.  That is all the blind man made whole needed.

There is an evolution or sorts which a saint experiences in the growth of their faith.  The first step is seeing life impossible without the exercising of it.  The blind man knew he could not be made whole unless he had faith Jesus could do it.  This is akin to saving faith.  Then there is the process of testing truths based on empirical evidence.  We want to see if what we perceive is true actually is, so we investigate truth worthy of faith by a cause and effect method.  We become pragmatists wherein our faith lies.  We test it.  We try it.  If the evidence bears up the truth, then the truth must have been true.  But the final stage is simply accepting truth based on the merits of its source and the fact is was stated.  This is where our faith must ultimately arrive.  There are things we do not understand.  There are things we will never understand.  The person and nature of God, for instance, is a truth that is revealed throughout the Bible.  Because of His infinite nature and our finite nature, we will never understand the deepest person of God.  We have to accept it because God revealed it regardless of our ability to understand Him!  Some might say this is childlike faith.  There may be merit to this.  But I also think this is mature faith.  Faith that can be reasoned to a point, but must ultimately accept what is stated as true.

We waste way too much time trying to reason out truth that cannot be reasoned out.  At some point, we will have to accept it because God said it.  If we were to back up a few verses, we would understand how it is this blind man made whole needed nothing more than the word of the LORD.  Christ asks him a question in verse thirty-five.  He asked if he believed on the Son of God.  Verse thirty-six is the key to this kind of faith.  The blind man made whole asks, “Who is he, Lord, that I might believe on him?”  In this question we see the right heart attitude of this mature faith.  That is, a willingness to believe.  Not a heart to debate and examine.  That kind of heart makes us the authority upon which our faith is based.  Rather, the blind man made whole shows the surrender of heart and mind to accept and believe when truth is revealed.  Surrendering our own abilities of observation and reasoning is the beginning of deeper faith.