Why not Appear, God?
Wouldn't everyone who saw Jesus believe immediately?
January, 2018
The recently-ended Christmas season focused on Jesus' arrival on earth, as a flesh-and-blood human being. That celebration also raises an interesting question, regarding an issue Christians often find frustrating. Scripture records many instances of Jesus fulfilling prophecy, performing miracles, and teaching profound truths. This makes us wonder: why didn't every one of the people who encountered Christ in person believe in Him? Along the same lines, why didn't God provide more evidence, or more overt miracles to those critics? The same question applies today: why doesn't God "appear" more tangibly to those who doubt Him?
As usual, the Bible does, in fact, explain why this is the case. In short, no evidence will ever convince those who are unwilling to believe. In other words, a person's intent is far more powerful than any content we can give them. This overrides evidence, reason, experience, miracles, and so forth. There are some people who will literally never believe in God, or in Christ. There are others who may admit that God exists, buy will never submit to Him the way they should. All of these concepts are explicitly explained in Scripture:
•John 7:17 says that a person's willingness to obey determines whether or not they will understand spiritual truths. The Pharisees didn't want to believe.
•Jesus made it clear that His critics had already heard from other people (John 5:32–33), seen His miracles (John 5:36), and had the evidence from their own Scripture pointing to Him (John 5:39). The problem was not a lack of knowledge, but a refusal to believe (John 5:40).
•When Jesus told the story of the Rich Man and Lazarus, He pointed out that those who reject the evidence of Scripture, like the Pharisees, would never believe, even if someone came back from the dead (Luke 16:30–31). That, quite literally, represents your suggestion: appear to those who doubted! But, according to the Bible, that wouldn't have mattered.
•Since miracles and signs, let alone arguments and evidence, are wasted on those who refuse to believe, there is no reason to offer them to the unwilling (Matthew 7:6). In fact, those who insist on seeing some miracle before they will believe are simply being obstinate, not honest (Matthew 16:1–4).
•The Bible makes a distinction between "belief," in the sense of something intellectual, and "faith," in the sense of submission and trust. Demons know God exists, but do not worship Him (James 2:19). Judas saw all there was to see of Jesus' divinity, but rejected Him (Matthew 26:24–25). Israel saw the power of God during the Exodus and still disobeyed (Numbers 14:20–23; Nehemiah 9:16–17; Psalm 78:11–12). Simply appearing in a miraculous way will not generate faith in those who are hardened against it.
What this means is that Jesus had already provided all the evidence these people needed to make the right choice. This is how God interacts with all of us, to some extent (Romans 1:18–20). The evidence is there; people will either willingly follow it where it leads, or stubbornly refuse to see the truth. When a person has their hands clamped over their eyes, there is no reason to offer more evidence. Jesus could have appeared to these men—and could still appear to the hardened skeptic of the modern era—and it would make no difference.
-- Editor
