Church of the Holy City

Those Who Have not Seen and Yet Have Believed

Those Who Have Not Seen and Yet Have Believed
Rev. Dr. David J. Fekete
May 15, 2011

John 20:19-31 Revelation 1:4-8 Psalm 118

In our reading from Revelation, John exhorts us to take to heart the things that are written it that book, because the time is near. John says further that Jesus Christ has made us a kingdom of priests, as was said of the Israelites as far back as the book of Exodus (19:6). And in John’s Gospel we are told that we have true life in the name of Jesus Christ.
The time when we will confront Jesus Christ is always at hand–every moment of our lives. The potential for us to be a kingdom of priests and a holy people is always with us–every moment of our lives. And living in Christ’s name is a reality that we can experience always–in every aspect of our lives.
More is meant by living in the name of Christ than simply calling ourselves Christians. And more is meant than that horrible doctrine that says only those who worship Jesus are saved. You know I heard of a fundamentalist church who said that Gandhi was in hell, because he wasn’t a Christian. Yet I think that Gandhi embodied the Christian life more than many of those who call themselves by His name. Living in the name of Jesus Christ means living in the things that He taught. And foremost among those things are love for the whole human race, peacefulness, and humility. These are all virtues that Gandhi demonstrated in his life.
Also among the important things that go along with living in the name of Jesus Christ is the belief that He rose from the dead. This is important to believe because the resurrection is what makes Jesus one with God. Jesus Christ was the only human who rose body and soul. Ordinary humans leave behind their physical bodies and only our souls rise into the eternal life. But Jesus had made his body so divine that even His physical body rose into eternity. He proved this to His disciples by eating a fish when they thought they were seeing a ghost (Luke 24:42-43).
This concept was hard for Thomas to accept. In John’s Gospel, he says,
Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe (John 20:25).
Jesus appears a week later to Thomas and asks him to put his finger in Jesus’ hands and side. Thomas in humility says, “My Lord and my God!” Then Jesus says something that is of special relevance to us all. He tells Thomas,
Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed (20:29).
That is where we all are. Few of us, perhaps none of us have actually seen Jesus. And I would venture to say none of us have put our finger into his pierced hands, feet, and side. And yet we believe. We have not seen, and yet we choose to live in the name of Jesus Christ. And I would also venture to say that the more committed we are to life in Jesus’ name, the more we feel connected to Jesus, and the more we feel ourselves filled with Christ’s Holy Spirit.
Swedenborg calls this living in an affirmative principle. He describes two ways to approach spiritual realities. One is the affirmative way, the other the negative way. The affirmative way is to begin our faith journey with a belief in truths because they are in the Bible and because God has taught them. From there we develop more sophisticated belief systems. The negative way is to doubt everything spiritual until it is proven to us by means of reason or by means of scientific evidence. In other words, the negative principle doubts everything spiritual unless it is seen, heard, touched, or otherwise proven first.
There are two principles, therefore; one which leads to all folly and insanity, and another which leads to all intelligence and wisdom. The former principle is to deny all things, or to say in one’s heart that he cannot believe them before he is convinced by things which he can apprehend, or perceive by the senses: this is the principle that leads to all folly and insanity, and it is to be called the negative principle. The other principle is to affirm the things which are of doctrine from the Word, or to think and believe in one’s self that they are true because the Lord has said them: this is the principle that leads to all intelligence and wisdom, and it is to be called the affirmative principle (AC 2568).
For those in the affirmative principle, spiritual truth makes more and more sense as we live a spiritual life. Wherever we look, we find confirmations of what we believed early in our faith journey. Every bit a man of the Enlightenment, though, Swedenborg is all in favor of using science, knowledge, and rationality to support and to confirm spiritual truths.
But those who are in the affirmative, that is, who believe that things are true because the Lord has said so, are continually being confirmed, and their ideas enlightened and strengthened, by what is of reason and outward knowledge and even by what is of sense; for a person has light from no other source than through reason and knowledge . . . (AC 2588).
Swedenborg describes this way of seeing things in a beautifully poetic passage. He says that angels in the highest heaven do not see physical things, but when they see objects, the correspondence of what they stand for flows into their minds.
They do not see the objects, but the corresponding divine realities flow directly into their minds and fill them with a blessedness that affects all their sensory functions. As a result, everything they see seems to laugh and play and live (HH 489).
So it is for us, too, when we are in the affirmative principle.
The case is different for those who are in the negative principle. If a person starts out doubting God, or doubting Jesus’ resurrection and won’t believe without proof, the proof they want will never come. They will confirm themselves deeper and deeper in doubt, and rely more and more on scientific facts alone and unenlightened reason. They will always find a way out of spiritual truth no matter how many arguments are given them.
Those who are in a negative state in regard to a thing being true because it is in the Word, say in heart that they will believe when they are persuaded by reason and outward knowledge. But the fact is that they will never believe; and indeed they would not believe if they were to be convinced by their bodily senses, by sight, hearing and touch; for they would always be forming new reasonings against the things, and thus end by altogether extinguishing all faith . . . (AC 2588).
But we need to be clear about one important point. The affirmative principle that Swedenborg talks about is not blind faith. Swedenborg affirms healthy questioning. He wants people to question the truths they grew up with and to see whether one’s early doctrines are genuinely true or not. So while affirming early basic truths, Swedenborg challenges us to test them against sound reason and Scripture to see if they are, in fact, really honest to goodness truths.
First the doctrinals of the church are to be learned, and then exploration to be made as to whether they are true; for they are not true because heads of the church have said so and their followers confirm it, inasmuch as thus the doctrines of all churches and religions would have to be called true, merely according to country and birth. . . . From this it is plain that the Word is to be searched and it is to be seen there whether they are true (AC 6047).
Swedenborg himself rejected some of the doctrines he grew up with. One such doctrine was the doctrine of the trinity which teaches that God is three persons who have one essence. He abandoned that doctrine for the one he teaches in his theology that God is one person, namely the risen and glorified Jesus Christ. I, myself, have rejected some of the truths I grew up with in this very Swedenborgian church. And I imagine that some of you who have come here from other faiths have also done some searching into the doctrines you were brought up with. This kind of inquiry is not the negative principle Swedenborg talks about. Rather, it is a good way to discover what is genuinely true and what makes the most sense. So Swedenborg says in True Christian Religion that faith is nothing other than truth.
After we have sifted through the doctrines we believed early in life, then we can explore all the sciences and systems of knowing that the world has to offer.
Afterward when he or she is confirmed and thus in an affirmative mind from the Word that they are truths of faith, it is allowable for him or her to confirm them by all the knowedges that he or she possesses, of whatsoever name and nature; for then, because affirmation reigns universally, he or she accepts the knowledges which are in agreement, and rejects those which by reason of the fallacies that they contain are in disagreement. By means of knowledges faith is corroborated. Wherefore it is denied to no one to search the Scriptures from a desire for knowing whether the doctrines of the church in which he or she was born, are true, for otherwise he or she can in no way be enlightened. Neither is it to be denied to him or her afterward to strengthen himself by means of knowledges . . . (AC 6047).
This church is rather unique in its emphasis on reason and questioning. Many other churches preach that church doctrines are to be accepted on faith alone and without question. We, on the other hand, encourage questioning, searching, and testing the truth value of our teachings. When we find truths that make sense to us, we can strengthen them by other doctrines–even from other faith traditions from all over the world. We can strengthen our beliefs by philosophy, by science, and by common sense. This, in fact, makes our own belief system all the more strong, because we have been convinced by our own intellect.
But all of this depends on an affirmative attitude with regard to faith. We need to begin by affirming the basic truths of religion or spirituality. Then we can refine our belief system and search its doctrines for more and less true concepts. Finally, when we have searched our beliefs for genuine truths, then we can strengthen it with other truths and by reasons. Thomas required actual physical confirmation of Christ’s resurrection. We don’t have that possibility. We are those who believe without seeing. Yet for us, to see things any other way just doesn’t make sense. To see things any other way is blindness.