Over the years I have continually heard preachers and teachers in the Lord’s church explain that ours is not a “blind faith” but a “reasonable faith”. They go on to explain all the evidence that exists to confirm our testimony concerning Jesus Christ and the logical reasons our gospel should be believed. They insist, that gospel can and should be received for it’s reasonableness as if the issue at hand is a matter or practicality or intellectual reasoning instead of the supernatural work of God that it actual is…

Respectfully, I have never understood this opinion from Bible teachers and here’s why. The Scriptures literally give us the definition of what faith is in Hebrews 11:1

“1Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. 2For by it the people of old received their commendation. 3By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.” – Hebrews 11:1-2

Faith is literally the conviction of something we do NOT see. Like a blind person. What’s it called when you can’t see? BLINDNESS. So if faith IS the conviction of things we do NOT SEE. Then faith as a matter of fact is BLIND.

And that is because faith does not come by sight, but through HEARING.

“17So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.” – Romans 10:17

“Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”” – John 20:29

Jesus says it is those who have NOT SEEN (ie blind folks) and yet believed (have faith) that are blessed.

And there’s a reason for this. The eyes, more than anything else are a facilitator of man’s pride before God.

What I believe the Lord has revealed to me over the years is that faith comes through hearing and not by sight because pride works strongly through sight.

“The lust of the eyes and the pride of life…”

Faith however must be received, a gift, something initiated by another that we then receive… like hearing. With hearing, another must initiate speech for our ears to hear and receive the good word spoken. And this is what God does for us. He initiates reconciliation.

“Salvation belongs to the Lord.”

Our eyes on the other hand allow us to boast in ourselves. We open them and assume that we take survey of what’s before us. We sit in the evaluation or judgement seat with sight. And our hubris let’s us delude ourselves into thinking sight is something we initiate of our own volition.

But here’s the truth, even our sight is something received. All that is seen is seen only because of the Light that we RECEIVE in our eyes. Without light penetrating the eye, no man can see anything, it’s just darkness. So even sight, that in which man may try and boast, is a gift of God. Nevertheless to the prideful and deluded soul, the eyes convince him that it is HE who measures the line and determines is length, it is man that inspects God to decide for himself whether he is or isn’t…

If you have studied occultist at all, you will find they are enamored with owls as symbolism. Why? Because owls can SEE at night. The WISE owl, need not the Light to have knowledge. He can open his eyes and judge for himself.

Do you see how sight is connected straight to the Garden and the fall?

God “said” not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. So Adam and Eve “heard” God’s voice and rather than believe (exhibit faith) what he had “said” (something received) they “saw” (something they believe they initiated) the Tree of Knowledge and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life in them led them to think knew better than God, and therefore not to “believe” what God has “said” but to make judgement themselves with their own two eyes as to what they would think about this tree.

And as soon as they ate of the forbidden fruit their “eyes were opened”. Now these were clearly different eyes than their natural eyes because we know from the text that before they even ate of it, they “saw” that the tree was “good” for food and that it was useful to “make one wise” (you see the lust of wisdom there!) then her pride led Eve to disobey God and eat of the tree and likewise with Adam. Then the eyes of their hearts were opened to know both good and evil and they they saw plainly, for the first time, “we’re naked”.

So faith comes by hearing friends.

“16But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?” 17So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.

18But I ask, have they not heard? Indeed they have, for

“Their voice has gone out to all the earth,
and their words to the ends of the world.” – Romans 10

That “word” of Christ is the “rhema”, that is, that which has been uttered by a living voice, this is the Holy Spirit.

Consider this friends. Reason is wholly a function of the human mind. A human mind that is stained by sin and hopelessly broken.

Listen to what Paul said in Ephesians about the ability of our minds help us know God:

“17Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds.” – Ephesians 4:17

He says that our minds are utterly FUTILE! Our reasoning is worthless. It is of no accord, in fact he goes further explaining that the Gentiles are alienated from the life of God (remember that “it is the Spirit that is life”) and for this explicit reason, they pursue him through their minds, through their reasoning, that they are separated from the life of God.

“18They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. 19They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity.” – Ephesians 4:18-19

And then he says this:

“20But that is not the way you learned Christ!— 21assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus,” – Ephesians 4:20-21

That’s not how we learned about Jesus friends! No we HEARD about him, that is in our spirit from the Holy Spirit through human vessels. And we were taught in him, as the “Spirit IS life” and Jesus IS the “truth”. And he manifests himself to us BY THE SPIRIT, through our spiritual ears in our HEARING.

Paul continues…

“22to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, 23and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, 24and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.” – Ephesians 4:22-24

And it is finally in the SPIRIT of our minds that we may finally have “the mind of Christ”, this is the new birth. This is being born again, of the Holy Spirit.

This is what Paul says explicitly to the church at Corinth.

We received these things in our spirit through hearing. And it is impossible to otherwise received them. This is how we have the mind of Christ. We hear his voice in our inner man and we believe the good word heard.

“6Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. 7But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. 8None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 9But, as it is written,

“What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,
nor the heart of man imagined,
what God has prepared for those who love him”—

10these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. 11For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. 12Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. 13And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.

14The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. 15The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. 16“For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.” – 1 Corinthians 2

One last thought.

Christ was crucified on a “tree” on a hill called Golgotha. Golgotha meaning “skull”.

Jesus Christ crucified on a new tree that produces life on a hill called “skull”.

This is a picture of the crucified mind.

It is our MINDS that must be slain friends. It is our intellect, our reasoning and our pride that caused us to first eat from that forbidden tree. But now there’s a new and living way. A new tree that speaks life to us from the Spirit to our spirit. And all may freely eat and drink by grace through faith in HEARING and BELIEVING the good word it speaks.