Skepticism and Salvation

In our culture, we have been trained to respond to skepticism in one of two ways. The first way is suppression. Churches tell curious teenagers to quell all their doubts and simply submit to the mysteries of faith. Even engaging with doubt can lead one down the road to apostasy. One has to wonder whether underneath all this bluster lies a heart of fear—fear that the evidence for faith is rather flimsy, that we believe what we believe not because it's true, but because it gets us to heaven and keeps us out of hell. This atmosphere does more harm than good for the questioning heart, because nagging questions can only be suppressed temporarily. And when they return, they return with a vengeance.

The second way our culture responds to skepticism is praise. We question all claims to authority, and praise anyone else who does the same. We have witnessed the terrifying consequences of blind credulity (think Jim Jones, terrorist cells, and snake handlers), and we are consequently wary of any claims to absolute reality. More basically, though, any claim to absolute reality grates against our modern sensibility of pluralism. The idea that a singular worldview is true, to the exclusion of the others, does not sit well with us. Therefore, we encourage the distrust of any ultimate worldview (except for the one that asserts that there is no ultimate worldview).

In Luke 7, Jesus responds to skepticism in a way that breaks these categories. John the Baptist is the skeptic of Luke 7, and Jesus responds to him in a powerful, caring, and gracious way. John the Baptist had begun his ministry by baptizing Jesus and seeing the Spirit descending on him, confirming for him that Jesus was the Christ (Matthew 3:13-17, John 1:32-34). Throughout his ministry, John had been a powerful bearer of God's message, and he had been unafraid of speaking truth to power (Luke 3:7-14). His faithful preaching of God's word had inevitably gotten him into trouble: he was thrown into prison by Herod because he had reproved him for "Herodias, his brother's wife, and for all the evil things that Herod had done" (Luke 3:19). John was a paragon of Christian virtue. He had stayed faithful to God's word even when it led to his own imprisonment. He was tenacious, and he loved God more than he loved anything else.

But by the time we get to Luke 7, John has been wasting away in prison. His painful and oppressive surroundings have led him to question everything he thought he knew. Although God had clearly revealed to him that Jesus was the Christ, he is now in the straits of doubt. When he hears about Jesus' actions in Galilee and Judea, his doubts appear to intensify. So he asks two of his disciples to go to Jesus and ask him to confirm for him that he really is the Christ.

Many of us know what this is like. We toss and we turn and we cry out for a definitive word from God. We wrestle with doubts about what we thought we once knew. We wonder if the One we have come to know is truly powerful, is truly compassionate, is truly there. What makes our doubts even more painful is the sense that God probably disowns us for our doubts. Unless we can discern the answers to our questions, God will not accept us.

John's disciples faithfully come to Jesus and present him with John's urgent question: "Are you the one who is to come, or should we look for another?"

Jesus does not blanch at their question. He does not become frustrated. Rather, He tells the messengers to return to John with this answer: "Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have good news preached to them. And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.”

Jesus does not call John to remember a powerful spiritual experience (which he could have done; see John 1:32, Matthew 3:14). He does not call him to remember how he felt outside of prison when he was with Jesus. Nor does he tell him to stop asking such questions and to simply "believe." He quotes from Isaiah 29:18, 35:5-6, and Isaiah 61:1-2, the Jewish Scriptures.

In these passages, God promises to come to his people to restore them. And when he comes, the "eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then the lame man shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute sing for joy" (Isaiah 35:5-6). The one anointed by the Spirit of God will bring good news to the poor (Isaiah 61:1-2). These are the rock-solid promises of the LORD given through Isaiah, and Jesus is telling John that he is fulfilling them. He does not simply say, "If I have the power to do miracles, that should be enough proof for you that I really am the One to come." Instead, he calls him to place his faith in him because of a much higher, more solid reality than miracles: the word of God.

After showing John that he is the One to come, Jesus offers a word of guidance: "Blessed is the one who is not offended by me." He has just demonstrated that he truly is the Coming One of the Old Testament, and he now warns him not to be offended by Him; that is, to not allow his personal expectations of an immediately-triumphant Messiah to eclipse the testimony of the Scriptures and Him. He really is the Christ, and all John has to do now is believe it. Jesus is not calling John to a blind faith, but to a trust in what He and the Scriptures have definitively revealed. Even when John cannot feel or see these realities, he can trust them.

This is the ultimate response to skepticism, earnest questions, and doubt. It is the response embodied in Jesus the Lord. When we deal with questions about the trustworthiness of Scripture, we don't need someone yelling at us to stop doubting and just believe. We need a voice from the One who, knowingly, tells us that it is true. We don't need someone who will reaffirm us in our doubts and tell us that disbelieving the word is "okay." We need Someone who tells us to trust it. And we definitely don't need anyone to make us feel ashamed for our doubts and to terrify us with proclamations that God will disown us if we don't get our house in order. We need the One who acknowledges our doubts, answers our questions (sometimes), and then goes on to reaffirm that we are still precious in His sight (Luke 7:28). For those who wrestle with skepticism, turn to Jesus, the One who will neither disown you for your honest questions nor affirm you in leaving Him and His word.