According To Jesus, I Don’t Believe

Scriptural problems with frictionless faith

Photo by Joshua Earle on Unsplash

As Christians, we’re urged to tell people, “Just believe, and you’ll have eternal life.” We organize events with the goal of getting people to utter a transactional prayer in which they adopt a particular opinion (referred to as belief) in exchange for immortality. Adopt opinion, get immortality. The equation is simple enough, but no one knows if it really works until he dies.

Few of us would be content to have fake money in our savings account. The reason, of course, is that fake money doesn’t work very well when you try to spend it. How, then, can we be content to have our belief in a similarly unexamined state — unsure of whether it will be effective when we need it?

Thankfully, God has not left us to wonder: John 3:16 is not the only instance of a promise that depends on one’s belief. There are other places in Scripture where Jesus says, “If you believe, such-and-such will be the case with you.” In these instances the promised outcome precedes death. This means that we can know, with perfect clarity, whether our belief is the kind Jesus is after.

Before moving on, let me state clearly that I have no interest in developing a formula to distinguish between true and false believers, to say who’s saved and who’s not. My aim is to move us toward honesty and consistency in the hope that we might experience the fullness of life that Jesus came to offer.

Mark 11:23 and John 14:12 report two of the more striking belief-promises made by Jesus:

“Truly, truly, I tell you, whoever believes in Me will also do the works that I am doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.”

“Truly I tell you that if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Be lifted up and thrown into the sea,’ and has no doubt in his heart but believes that it will happen, it will be done for him.”

An incurious silence surrounds these promises in large swaths of Christendom. We labor to convince people of one belief-promise while virtually ignoring many other belief-promises. We emphasize the unknowable while sidestepping the undeniable. Why do we do this?

Are the more conclusive promises undesirable? Are they outdated? Hyperbolic? Poorly translated? All fair concerns.

After pondering these questions, it seems to me that either Jesus’ promises (or the record of His promises) are false, OR they’re true but we don’t really believe them — otherwise our experiences would confirm what He promised.

On this point, we are in danger of finding ourselves in the position of the religious experts whom Jesus questioned about the source of John’s baptism (Mark 11:29–33).

If we say that Jesus is false, then we strip Him of his authority. If we say that the Scriptures misrepresent what He said, then we question the credibility of the biblical record. But if we say, then, that it must be the quality of our belief, we don’t like what that implies about our ticket into heaven.

We cannot have it both ways. Even if we decide to ignore the issue, in the end, no one gets to have their cake and eat it, too.

Personally, the only thing that has kept me from confusion and despair in this matter is that some people are getting the results Jesus promised. But, if it’s still possible to walk in miraculous power and divine authority, then why are more of us not experiencing it?

For some of us, the problem is that we have been too easily satisfied: we have settled for the religious status quo. We have respectfully been careful not to expect too much from the lover of our souls and the Savior of the world.

Instead of bringing our deep dissatisfaction to God, we distract ourselves with entertainment, status, and other ash in the wind. In doing so, we may be making the greatest sacrifice of our lives.

Not believing in a God who can and will meet our needs and satisfy our hearts, we cannot believe in a God who would use us to move mountains and raise the dead.

In John 5:44, Jesus makes a piercing statement about the unbelief of the Jews: “No wonder you can’t believe! For you gladly receive honor from each other, but you don’t care about the honor that comes from the one who alone is God.”

Someone recently asked me, “Are you a believer?” I had to pause before responding, “Not according to Jesus.”

The plain truth is, if we don’t see the results Jesus correlated with belief, claiming to believe is merely mincing words. ​

If we’re not partaking of His earthly belief-promises, on what grounds should we expect different results with the heavenly ones? The criterion is the same for both.