Note II: Miracles

Tux subject of miracles, and of ‘‘ evidences” in general, is too large to treat of here; but yet the reference I have made to them compels me to add a few remarks.

1st. The mere fact of miracles is no proof of Divine intervention, A miracle is such an interference with the course of nature, as is beyond our own power. Any creature, therefore, entirely superior to us can perform what we deem a miracle. The miracles worked by Satan in the temptation of our Lord (Luke iv. 5) are far more wonderful (1 do not say ‘‘ oreater”) than all the miracles of all the apostles combined; and Scripture testifies that the devil will again exert miraculous power on earth.

2d. Miracles are never appealed to in Scripture as “an evidence,” save in connection with a preceding revelation to which they are referred. The gospel of Christ was not like the word to Abraham, ‘‘ the beginning of the oracles of God;” it was another chapter in a long-continued revelation. But it had a twofold aspect. He came toa people whose every hope for earth and heaven centred in a Messiah promised to their fathers, and He came, moreover, to a world that was ruined and lost. His mission, therefore, had a twofold character and purpose. He was the Messiah to the Jew; He was the bread of God to give life to the world. It was with the former that the miracles had specially to do. The knowledge of His higher mission and character was not an inference from miracles. It was the subject of a special revelation to John the Baptist, and through him to those who afterwards became the first disciples of the Lord (John i. 33-37). These all belonged to the little company spoken of in Luke ii. 38 as waiting for the redemption of Israel. They followed Him because they were already God’s people, and yet even these needed a word from God to enable them to know Him.

3d. If this be so, we shall expect to find that it was to Jews that the testimony was based on miracles, and that when the kingdom gospel, or special national testimony, ceased, miracles became of secondary importance. Both these points are plain upon the face of Scripture. As soon as the Sanhedrim decreed the destruction of Christ, He sought to keep His miracles secret (Matt. xii. 14-16). He could not be face to face with need and refuse to meet it, but He no longer wished the fame of His power to go forth. And when, after His final rejection, the gospel became a purely spiritual testimony, miracles were never appealed to in confirmation of it. The national testimony which the apostles had been sent forth to render at the first was based on miracles (Matt. x. 7, 8). The gospel of Pentecost was a living power, independent of all extrinsic proof; it was itself the means of the conversion of 3000 souls (Acts ii. 41).

“To the Jew first,” is characteristic of the Acts, and of the transitional period the book embraces. After the conversion of Cornelius, the public testimony was no longer confined to the Jew, but the Jew retained the right to priority in the offer of grace (Acts xiii. 46, e. g.). The miracles therefore continued, though without their former prominence. And when Paul went forth preaching to Gentiles, miracles seem to have been divorced from his testimony altogether. His miracle at Lystra was in response to the faith of the man who was the subject of it (Acts xiv. 9); and it had upon those who witnessed it its natural effect with heathens — they owned the apostles as gods, and prepared to sacrifice to them. So was it also at Melita (Acts xxviii. 6).

That miraculous power existed in Gentile Churches the 12th of 1st Corinthians establishes; but the question is, Did the gospel which produced those Churches appeal to miracles to confirm it? Can any one read the first four chapters of that very Epistle, and retain a doubt as to the answer?

The great question here involved resolves itself, sooner or later, into this: When God speaks to man’s heart through the gospel, docs He speak in such wise that the word carries with it the certainty that it is from Him? To say that God cannot do this is to deny that He is supreme; and to deny a Supreme Being is sheer Atheism. To say that He does not is to remove the truth of revelation out of the region of certainty altogether. For the genuineness of miracles must, of course, depend on evidence; and if, as Paley declares, the reality of a revelation must be proved by miracles, it is only by weighing evidences that we can determine what is revealed; and that form of proof can never, in such matters, reach higher than probability. Indeed, no accurate or astute thinker has ever claimed more for it. The degree of conviction thus attainable is, doubtless, an overwhelming condemnation of the infidel, but it is a poor substitute for the faith of the Christian.

According to Paley, the value of the Christian revelation is determined by the miracles, According to Scripture, the value of the miracles was determined by the revelation. It was not that miracles were wrought, but that the miracles of Jesus were precisely what Isaiah prophesied the Messiah would accomplish.

The whole system is false, and must drive simple souls to Rome; for the many are quite incapable of reasoning out Christianity from evidences, and, if that be our only foundation, they must trust the Church to do it for them. With what a sense of relief one turns from it to a word like this: ‘‘ I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.”