How does doubt strip away God’s honor?
Mark 11:23
Throughout his ministry, Jesus celebrated faith and fought doubt in the hearts of his disciples. He celebrated the faith of the centurion (Matthew 8:10), the Syro-Phoenician mother (Matthew 15:28), and the woman with the bleeding malady (Mark 5:34). He told two blind men before healing them, “According to your faith, it will be done for you” (Matthew 9:29), and told blind Bartimaeus after healing him, “Your faith has healed you” (Mark 10:52). On the other hand, Jesus rebuked Peter for looking more at the wind and waves than at his power, saying, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” (Matthew 14:31). When his disciples were terrified at the storm on the Sea of Galilee, he pressed, “Where is your faith?” (Luke 8:25)
Especially after his death and resurrection Jesus came down hard on doubt. All his disciples struggled with unbelief after Jesus’ shocking crucifixion. None of them seemed spiritually prepared for the resurrection even though he had repeatedly told them ahead of time he would rise again. Matthew 28:16 informs us that of the crowd of disciples (perhaps the 500 eyewitnesses that Paul mentions in 1 Corinthians 15:6), “Many worshiped but some doubted.”
The two disciples on the road to Emmaus expressed obvious dejection after the crucifixion, saying, “We had hoped that he was the one who would redeem Israel” (Luke 24:21). They were also befuddled about the reports from the women’s testimony of an empty tomb guarded by angels saying Jesus had risen from the dead. Jesus rebuked them saying, “How foolish you are and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Christ have to suffer these things, and then enter his glory?” (Luke 24:25-26). Later in that same chapter, he directly challenged their doubts when they literally saw him standing before them:
“Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me, and see. A ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.” When he had said this, he showed them his hands and feet. And while they still did not believe it because of joy and amazement, he asked them, “Do you have anything here to eat?” They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate it in their presence (Luke 24:38-43).
In the same way, Mark’s gospel reports that Jesus reproved the apostles’ stubborn refusal to believe the compelling testimony of various eyewitnesses and all the evidence that Jesus had risen from the dead (Mark 16:11, 14). The most famous of all was “doubting Thomas.” Even after he heard the clear testimony of all the apostles and the entire community that Christ had risen, he still responded, “Unless I put my finger in the nail marks and my hand in his side, I will not believe it” (John 20:25). Jesus appeared personally to him a week later allowing him to do precisely that, if he still needed to, saying, “Stop doubting and believe!” (John 20:25, 27).
Doubt is a deadly disease that Christ must eradicate for us to be saved.
The New Testament makes it plain that sinners are justified (forgiven) by faith in Christ (Romans 3:26, 28, 30), and that those who do not believe in Christ will be condemned (Mark 16:16). So, doubt is a deadly disease that Christ must eradicate for us to be saved.
But what is doubt? How do we understand it? It is revealed to be a form of wavering and disputing within, as though an argument is going on within the mind and soul. Listen to James 1 on the need for faith in prayer and the clear depiction of the essential nature of doubt:
When he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does (James 1:6-8).
So, doubt is a form of double-minded instability. The Greek word dialogismos (Luke 24:38) implies a kind of inner debate—a poisonous “dialog,” like when the serpent in the garden asked Eve, “Did God really say…?” and “You will not surely die.” The word diakrino is also used for doubt (Matthew 21:21), implying a kind of divided mind, like when one makes distinctions between this and that. All of these describe the kind of instability that James exposes. In sharp contrast, Paul holds up Abraham as the quintessential man of faith who did not doubt God or his promise:
Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead—since he was about a hundred years old—and that Sarah’s womb was also dead. Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but he was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised (Romans 4:19-21).
Look carefully at Abraham’s faith: he squarely faced the obstacles to Isaac’s birth, but these did not make him waver through unbelief. Instead, he was strengthened in his faith—made stable, strong—and was fully persuaded God had power to fulfill his promise. This is in direct contrast to the wavering, tossing, and instability of doubt in James 1. Thus, doubt is a form of weakness, as though an idea has blown our minds or hearts back like a leaf in a windstorm. Doubt makes the heart flutter and waver and move and flicker. “What about this? What about that?” James says this fluttering unbelief is like having two minds, “a double-minded man, unstable” (James 1:8).
What is the remedy? Romans 10:17 says, “Faith comes from hearing the word of Christ.” The same way faith originates is how it is strengthened—by the word of God centered on the person and work of Christ. Feed your mind and your soul on God’s word, especially his infinite majesty, limitless power, soaring wisdom, and rock-solid commitment to his word. Buttress your heart with these meditations. Then present your requests to God, not doubting in your heart at all that God has power to do what he has promised. Remind yourself how much a strong faith glorifies God and how much doubt strips him of his honor. Believe strongly, not doubting what you have requested. Then watch God move mountains to fulfill his promises!
