How could an atheist ever come to faith in Jesus?

Last Tuesday I took part in a debate at the Atheist Society. And this was one big question that came up several times.

Mark’s Gospel actually asks that very question in an even more forceful way.

In Marks’ Gospel, the religious leaders — the very people who teach God’s Word — don’t have faith and actually oppose Jesus.

Many of the crowds don’t understand what Jesus says. And since chapter 4, even Jesus’ own disciples have been overcome with fear, so unable to have faith.

If you’re reading Mark’s Gospel from the beginning, then by the time you get to chapter 7, you’re not just asking: How could an atheist ever come to faith in Jesus?

You’re asking: How could ANYONE ever come to faith in Jesus?

This seems impossible.

Now in vv. 31-37, we meet a non-Jewish man who couldn’t hear or speak: A vivid picture of someone outside the church — just like so many atheists and secular people today — who is unable to hear what God is saying even if you tell him — just like every human being, including us, today.

So, through this encounter with this man, Jesus teaches us three things:

1) Nobody can hear God’s Word without a miracle (vv. 31-32)
2) That miracle only happens through the Word of the cross (vv. 33-35)
3) So, only speak about the cross of Jesus (vv. 36-37)

So, the first lesson: 1) Nobody can hear God’s Word without a miracle Please look at vv. 31-32:

³¹ Then he returned from the region of Tyre and went through Sidon to the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis. ³² And they brought to him a man who was deaf and had a speech impediment, and they begged him to lay his hand on him.

Here is the brutal truth the Bible tells you: naturally, without a miracle, you and I and everyone are deaf and dead to God’s Word.

We are not reasonable, balanced, rational beings. As much as we’d like to tell ourselves that is the case. We are not neutral observers.

Psalm 115:4-8 describes this poetically:

4 Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands. 5 They have mouths, but do not speak; eyes, but do not see. 6 They have ears, but do not hear; noses, but do not smell. 7 They have hands, but do not feel; feet, but do not walk; and they do not make a sound in their throat. 8 Those who make them become like them; so do all who trust in them.

We are dead to God’s Word, because we distrust God, and trust in the wrong things. That’s what an idol is.

As Luther so helpfully says in the Large Catechism: A god is a thing in which the heart entirely trusts.

And you can see this practically in your life, and the life of people around you:

Talk to the heroin addict — he can’t see past the next needle.
Talk to the alcoholic — everything he says is to justify his addiction.
Talk to the one obsessed with status — their reputation shapes everything they think and do.

We are a people defined by addictions: either by obvious, outward, addictions, or petty, hidden, addictions: greed, desire, lust, glory, money, security, friends, social standing, safety, progress, career, success.

These things trap you. These things enslave you. These things make you deaf to God’s Word:

Nobody can hear God’s Word without a miracle.

What is it that you can’t imagine living without?

What is it that your mind, like elastic, keeps springing back to day in day out?

What is the idea or secret obsession, through which you keep interpreting everything you think about?

Whatever it is: that is your god, your idol, and that is what makes you deaf to God’s Word, in need of a miracle, just like this man.

But, the story doesn’t end there — lesson 2: 2) That miracle only happens through the Word of the cross Please look at vv. 33-35:

 ³³ And taking him aside from the crowd privately, he put his fingers into his ears, and after spitting touched his tongue. ³⁴ And looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.” ³⁵ And his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly.

Jesus doesn’t reason with the man — he’s deaf.

Jesus doesn’t first clear away the man’s confusions — he’s deaf.

Jesus doesn’t begin by addressing his intellectual objections — he’s deaf.

No, what Jesus does is meet the man, and he meets the man in his humility, as the God-man: God himself who stepped down into the world, and become incarnate to suffer for you and me.

That’s why Mark shares all these details: to show us the human reality of Jesus, and the compassion He has:

Jesus takes Him aside privately — because He cares about each individual person.

Jesus puts His fingers into the man’s ears — because God’s kingdom comes to people through hearing the Word of Christ

Jesus spits — because God does not humiliate or overpower us, He has humbled himself as a man to meet us.

Jesus touched the man’s tongue — because the opened ears of faith will always lead to confessing Christ is Lord.

Jesus looks up to heaven and sighs — because He will bear the sighs and failure of the world on His shoulders before heaven on the cross.

Until finally Jesus says “Ephphatha” — be opened. 7 times in Mark’s Gospel he records the exact Aramaic words Jesus used… …to show us that the way Jesus exercises His power is always through the means of His Word.

Nobody can hear God’s Word without a miracle. And that miracle only happens through the Word of the cross.

When talking to our friends and family, whether they be secular, atheist, Muslim, Hindu… …it is hugely tempting to get sucked into what seems like a rational debate.

As though our words and persuasiveness will give people ears to hear.

And Christians often describe this in ways that are, frankly, insulting to God’s Word: “We have to till the ground before sowing the Word.” “We have to clear the rubble before the house of faith can be built.” “We have to deal with the objections before people are ready to listen.”

All of that is to claim that God’s Word doesn’t have power: YOU have power — And God’s Word needs you!

But you and I are nothing! God doesn’t need us! Jesus needed nobody! He took the man aside privately!

The idea that you and I have to do something to make God’s Word work is to miss the point completely:

God doesn’t rely on you to be His defender, He raises you to be His witness.

Yes, the Word of the cross appears weak:                   but in it is the power of God.

And so, the third lesson: 3) So, only speak about the cross of Jesus Please look at vv. 36-37:

³⁶ And Jesus charged them to tell no one. But the more he charged them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. ³⁷ And they were astonished beyond measure, saying, “He has done all things well. He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.”

Not all speaking about Jesus is good speaking about Jesus. It is not the case that any publicity is good publicity.

Jesus has come with the work and word of the cross: a man of sorrows, to suffer for the sins of the world.

But, again and again, people don’t want a Theology of the Cross, they want a Theology of Glory.

In the very next chapter in Mark’s Gospel, Peter will confess that Jesus is the Christ, but he will struggle with Jesus’ message that this means He will suffer and sacrifice for the sins of the world.

Peter wants glory.

And so despite seeing some of the truth of Jesus, He thinks Jesus needs to be defended, explained, shown to be reasonable… …and how will Jesus respond to him?

“Get behind me, Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”

And that is the problem with the people here in vv. 36-37. They want to glory in Jesus’ visible success:

“He has done all things well.”

— they say, proudly.

But, Jesus doesn’t need their defence of Him. Jesus doesn’t want their defence of Him. Even if we struggle to believe that the foolish Word of the cross is wise, Even if we struggle to believe that the weak Word of the cross is power… …Jesus doesn’t struggle!

Think how committed Jesus was to this Word… …how convinced Jesus was that this, and only this, Gospel would transform people’s hearts and give them ears to hear.

In Gethsemane He prayed, He begged, He stressed, He sweat blood. He knew the cross was serious. He knew the cross was awful.

Have you ever prayed about something: “Please, I feel can’t take this, I can’t face this… …please take this trial from me!” Then Jesus knows exactly how you feel — Mark 14:35:

going a little farther, he fell on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him.

Jesus was desperate: if there is any other possible way, please, please. But, this is how convinced Jesus is of the power of the cross, this is how utterly sure Jesus is that the Word of folly saves:“Yet not what I will, but what you will” he says.

So, How could an atheist ever come to faith in Jesus?

Well, how could ANYBODY ever come to faith in Jesus? Because…

1) Nobody can hear God’s Word without a miracle

We are deaf, dead to God’s Word, because of the false things trust in life.

2) That miracle only happens through the Word of the cross

This Word looks foolish, this Word sounds weak… …so we naturally feel and think that we need to prepare for it somehow that we need to help it somehow. But we don’t. As Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 1:18:

For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

You don’t need to be really persuasive, you don’t need to cut through people objections, you don’t need to back up God’s Word with logic.

3) So, only speak about the cross of Jesus

Here is how Paul so helpfully described His ministry in Corinth:

^{1Corinthians 2:1} And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. ² For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. ³ And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, ⁴ and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, ⁵ so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.

This message: God has forgiven you in Jesus has such power: Let’s speak this message this week.