“Blessed are they that have not seen, yet have believed.” I’d like to put something to rest once and for all. I’m speaking of those saints who habitually speak of wishing they had lived in Jesus’ day. They constantly chide themselves for what they refer to as their, “little faith,” thinking themselves to be lesser saints. They feel they would’ve had greater faith had they lived when Jesus did. On the contrary, most of the people living then did not believe Him. So, seeing is not always believing.
The Apostles saw Him; John tells us that his hands handled Him; five hundred witnessed His Resurrection; and Paul met Him face to face. But none of these were as blessed as you and I. We may not have had the benefit of seeing His miracles, hearing Him teach, touching His garments, or beholding His resurrected body; yet Jesus tells us those saints living then, and in the future, who never saw Him, are more blessed than those who did. This, no doubt, looks backward and includes O.T. saints as well.
I did not set up these comparative decrees; Jesus did. He put His own stamp of praise-worthiness on those “Whom having not seen [Him], ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.” As Matthew Henry writes, “Not to see and yet to believe argues greater industry in searching after truth, and greater ingenuousness of mind in embracing it.”
Belonging to the band of believer’s known as “The Not-Seeners,” is not a bad thing.
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