05.01.04 - Miracle and Religious Element

(4) Miracle and the Religious Element

It is this moral, religious and spiritual purpose of miracle that is a main ground of defence and of justification of miracle as an intervention in the uniformity of the order of nature, and which becomes an important evidence of the Divine origin and character and mission of the Christian religion. It is not only the action of a Divine Workman completing His work but it is also the intervention of that Worker to recover His work from the invasion and havoc of the Destroyer, and to restore the work of His hands to its original and perfect state.

“ Where God had planned normal development, growing freedom and life,” says Godet, “ man, by sin, brought in disease, slavery and death.” When, then, God intervenes with miracle, Pie does so not as a human workman who corrects himself, and who improves upon his imperfect action, but rather as One who restores His work which another has spoiled for Him. The purpose of God is to redeem mankind from sin, and this purpose sufficiently vindicates the Divine intervention by historic miracle to accomplish His purpose.