Those Who Have Not Seen

Wounds and thorns open Paul Baloche’s “Those Who Have Not Seen,” in lines that borrow from Isaac Watts’s hymn “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross”: “Sorrow and love / Flow, mingle down,” and the question of whether such love and sorrow ever met, or thorns composed “so rich a crown.”

From there the song turns to the singer’s own position. “I’ve never seen you / But I believe you” is the refrain, paired with an open admission, “I have my doubts / But you have my heart,” and a request that Jesus walk with them through the dark. The heavy wounds end in a plea, “Just say the word I’ll be healed,” which echoes the centurion’s faith in Matthew 8:8.

The refrain quotes Jesus’ blessing to Thomas in John 20:29, and the repeated “My Lord, my God” in the bridge borrows Thomas’s own confession from John 20:28. Belief without sight is the whole argument here, and the arrangement keeps returning to it until the final line.