The Nature of Faith (Mk. 8)

2/17/25 Bible Thought

People oftentimes essentially demand that God prove Himself. I’ve heard many stories of people who, especially in childhood, pray something like this, “God if you’re real, then I need you to do (blank).” I even remember talking to someone one time who recounted how he came to ultimate faith in God. His family had been out fishing all day without a single catch (it almost sounds the biblical narrative!) and at the end of the day with one final cast he essentially prayed, “God if you’re real, then I need to catch a fish on this final cast.” I’m not sure if he cast his lure on the other side of the boat, but nevertheless a fish was reeled in and hence he is now a believer. However, I’d bet for the thousand people who have prayed that prayer very few have caught the fish.

I don’t want to condemn this guy, especially because he was a kid at the time, but I do think it’s interesting that this is a pretty common phenomenon. If God fails to uphold my will and my expectation and demand in my prayer, then He must not exist. The Apostle Paul says though, that the entirety of the created order testifies so certainly of God that those who deny Him are without excuse (see Rom. 1:20).

It’s interesting that this phenomenon occurs not only with modern Americans who are fishing, but also with ancient Pharisees testing the Messiah. In Mark 8, we see that the Pharisees come and demand from Jesus, “a sign from heaven” in order to test Him (Mk. 8:11). Truly, signs are miracles that are intended to point to something. They are to testify to the authenticity of the one performing the miracle, even though this isn’t a guarantee all on its own because false prophets at times could perform miracles too.

The Pharisees are unwilling to put their trust in Jesus. They’re unwilling to walk by faith. They needed proof. The divine commendation of Jesus as the Christ at His baptism apparently wasn’t enough, or they weren’t there, or they just didn’t believe the reports. They needed God to offer some heavenly authentication, again, that this is truly His Son, the Messiah who had come to save.

So, does Jesus indulge them? Not for a moment. The Scripture says, “And he sighed deeply in his spirit and said, ‘Why does this generation seek a sign? Truly, I say to you, no sign will be given to this generation” (Mk. 8:12). If you’re going to follow Jesus, there must be an element of faith. Jesus’ disciples believed as we see later in the chapter with Peter’s great confession of Jesus as the Christ (Mk. 8:29). Also, at the outset of John’s Gospel, Nathanael believes and declares that Jesus is the Son of God based upon His divine knowledge of him sitting under a fig tree (Jn. 1:48-49). But no matter how many miracles Jesus did in His ministry, the Pharisees needed more. They needed something explicitly from heaven because apparently every miracle thus far wasn’t enough.

The author of Hebrews defines faith by writing, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Heb. 11:1). Faith, by definition, is being assured of and convicted of something that isn’t fully tangible. Obviously, there has to be an element of trust when you can’t see the whole picture. If you always had all the proofs that you demand, there would be no need for faith! The Pharisees, despite being incredibly religious, weren’t willing to place their faith in Jesus as God’s anointed One. They might have believed in a God they couldn’t see, but for them to assent to faith in Christ, the One standing before them, they needed proof.

Even today, if we aren’t careful, we demand proofs from God. We expect that He’ll answer our every demand for a sign or evidence. Without realizing it, we can at times try to take faith out of the faith! We will never have all the answers. We will never see everything clearly or perfectly on this side of eternity. There will always be more we would want to know. But we’re called, not to walk by sight, but to walk by faith.

Are we demanding more from God than He owes us today? Truly, He doesn’t owe us anything and He’s given to us everything we need to know in His Word. Furthermore, He’s proven Himself through the Creation, He’s proven His love through the crucifixion, and He’s proven that Jesus is the Christ and the way to reconciliation with Him through the resurrection. If God has so clearly showed us these things, what more could we ask for?