AP

Matthew 27:54 When the centurion and those with him who were guarding Jesus saw the earthquake and all that had happened, they were terrified, and exclaimed, “Surely he was the Son of God!”

The basic claim of atheists and secular humanists to justify their belief system is ‘Seeing is believing’ – i.e., ‘If you can’t demonstrate to me that there IS a Supernatural Being (God) using my senses and the proven ‘laws’ of physics and chemistry, then there is no reason for me to believe in him, or to be held accountable for my unbelief.’

Over against this claim is God’s own declaration in his revealed truth throughout Scripture.  Obviously, this, not our views, will be the benchmark on the Day of Judgement.  The Holy Spirit declares through the Apostle Paul that “The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” (2 Corinthians 4:4).  This is consistent with Jesus’ comment when the Jewish leaders, faced with incontrovertible ‘scientific’ evidence that he had given sight to a man who had been born blind, chose to ‘shut’ their eyes by not allowing the healed man to ever appear in their Temple as a regular reminder of this proof!  Jesus said to them: “For judgement I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind” (John 9:39).

What Jesus was really saying is that what rendered them ‘blind’ was their ability to ‘see’ (in the atheistic/humanistic sense) the obvious facts.  Jesus drove this home in the interaction that followed: “Some Pharisees who were with him heard him say this and asked, ‘What? Are we blind too?’  Jesus said, ‘If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains’” (verses 40-41)!

Similarly, at the foot of the cross, the conclusion the Roman centurion and his soldiers drew from the evidence of the earthquake, along with the evidence of all the other circumstances surrounding Jesus’ trial and crucifixion, is exactly what any thinking person might expect – and it makes the ‘blindness’ of the Jewish leaders inexcusable!  So let us, along with the Psalmist, make our constant and earnest prayer to the Author of the Scriptures: “Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things in your law.” (Psalm 119:18).  God’s valid maxim is not, ‘Seeing is believing’, but, ‘Believing is seeing’.
– Bruce Christian