John 7:34 “You will seek Me and not find Me, and where I am you cannot come.”

Jesus levels a startling charge to the ultra-religious who were listening to His Gospel but rejecting Him on every level as Lord and Savior. They will come to seek Him, but will not find Him.

Why wouldn’t they find the Him? Because they were seeking ways outside of God’s promises and word and using the invented tradition of man to do so. Mainly, religious rituals and pomp and circumstance. So here was Jesus looking them in the eyes, yet they COULD NOT SEE Him for He was! God in the flesh, His words were powerful, yet those with a fallen heart scoffed, mocked, rejected Him with distaste.

I call it agnostic theism which is prevalent in Roman Catholicism where I started out my own personal journey. A Roman Catholic will reject the Gospel, because they do not view Scripture, God’s promises contained in it as completely sufficient. Boil off their rhetoric and statement of faith, and you will find that unless there are ways OUTSIDE of His revealed word such as their magisterium and traditions and history, they will not believe Jesus is who He says He is.

A Roman Catholic, like every agnostic theist will need more proof from God. It will be an appeal to history, or traditions, or superstitious rituals needed in order for the Catholic to believe that God exists. They won’t settle for just God revealing Himself through His Son Jesus Christ, the goal post moves in this humanistic quest seeking Jesus outside of God’s revealed word.

In this humanistic quest seeking the Kingdom outside of God’s word, the Catholic will then invoke the terms to God such as Mary being queen of heaven and her obligatory Marian feast days, her titles such as Mediatrix, Advocate, Helper. God must not impute a full righteousness of His Son to anyone is another term from a Catholic. It eliminates their works. Purgatory must be a real place according to the Catholic to God, or He will be rejected as God. And last but NOT least, salvation must only come through the Roman Catholic Church, and Jesus must claim He established the Roman Catholic Church. Again, if these terms are not met by Scripture from God, the Catholic seeks ways OUTSIDE of this and will NOT find Jesus Christ.

The basic question if you are a Roman Catholic is what is MISSING in Scripture that you could not see it as your ultimate authority for God’s promises? If you do admit there is something missing, then you are in fact an agnostic theist. The sad fact is, you can ONLY believe God exists and Jesus is the Christ is if there are things MISSING from Scripture where the promises of God are actually contained. Unless God meets your terms of a world religion, you would reject Him.

This exchange between a father of a child and Jesus strikes accord to this.

Mark 9:23 Jesus said to him, “If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.” 24 Immediately the father of the child cried out and said with tears, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!”

The father believed that God existed, but humbly admitted he struggled to believe in Jesus Christ as the God standing right in front of Him. If you are seeking ways OUTSIDE of God’s word to find Jesus, you will NEVER find Him!