Jesus does not give Himself to those who have faith because they see miracles.

“After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken. Now while he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Festival, many people saw the signs he was performing and believed in his name. But Jesus would not entrust himself to them, for he knew all people. He did not need any testimony about mankind, for he knew what was in each person. (John 2:22-25)”

“Seeing is believing.” This is what you say to someone whose words you don’t trust. Your teenager says, ‘From today I’m gonna keep my room tidy!’, but because you’ve heard this before and after each resolution his room goes back to looking like the combined aftermath of a hurricane that swept through a clothes factory and an explosion at Ikea, you wisely say, ‘seeing is believing.’ You can’t take him at his word – yet.

Did the disciples feel the same way? Jesus told them He was going to rise from the dead and they were probably thinking, ‘Yeah right. Seeing is believing.’ The first line of the verse seems to confirm this because after Jesus rose from the dead, the disciples did believe – wouldn’t you also believe if you saw someone risen from the dead! So, seeing is believing!

But that’s not what these verses teach. It wasn’t Jesus’ rising from the dead that persuaded the disciples to believe. It was Jesus’ words. We are told three times that they believed Jesus’ words: ‘recalled what he said’; ‘believed the scripture’; and ‘the words Jesus had spoken.’ The disciples’ faith was in Jesus words and in God’s words in the Old Testament.

Many others also believed but these others believed because of what they saw: miracles. “Many saw the signs Jesus was performing and believed in his name.” Amazingly, Jesus would not entrust himself to those who believed Him because they saw stuff. Why? Because the kind of believing that comes from seeing is not the kind of believing that Jesus approves of.

The ‘believing’ that comes from seeing does not change a person inwardly. As it says above, Jesus was not going to give himself to people because he knew what was ‘in each person.’ The power to change inwardly comes from believing Jesus without seeing – believing just because of His words. Why? Because when we trust Jesus because of what we see, we are really trusting our eyes. When we take Jesus at His word, we are trusting Him – as a Person.

The seeing kind of faith relies on ‘results’. The second kind of faith trusts the Person irrespective of what He does or doesn’t do. This is real faith. Faith in a Person leads to a real relationship. True faith takes Jesus at His word.

Believing that comes from seeing is pride: we are the ‘true’ ones and Jesus must ‘prove’ Himself to us. If we simply take Him at His word, it shows humility: we are the ‘unreliable’ ones and God is the True One. No matter what we ‘see’ we don’t trust ourselves and we simply keep trusting Him.