02.03. IS MY BIBLE MARRED BY REPUTED MIRACLES?
IS MY BIBLE MARRED BY REPUTED MIRACLES?
John 3:1-36 opens with this statement—
“There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews:
“The same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him.” This statement contains a concession. It admits that miracles had been performed by the Man from Nazareth. This concession is not made by an ignoramus, but by a scholar instead —a scholar of noble station who had had opportunities of observation and time in which to carefully consider. Was he mistaken?
There are certain who say, “Yes; the Scriptures are marred by their reputed miracles.” There are others of equal competence who answer—“Nay; rather, the Scriptures are made of the miraculous.”
It should be the object of this study to determine which of these contending companies is correct. To the skeptics of the “Strauss” sort “to believe in a miracle is an indication of Imbecility;” but to the minds of Leibnitz, Pascal, Copernicus, Kepler, Bacon, Newton, Kay, Faraday, the miracle was as natural to God as the gesture of a man’s hand is natural to the orator.
However, the question of their having occurred is not settled by calling notable names, any more than the question of Evolution is settled by counting noses. Both subjects are open to argument. The intelligent man wishes to find for his feet firm standing ground, and gives himself to careful thought, seeking sound “reasons for the Faith that is in him.” That indeed is the Christian principle — “Prove all things”; “Hold fast only to that which is good” We propose for our consideration The Miracle Possibility, The Reputed Miracles, and, The Miracle of Miracles. THE MIRACLE POSSIBILITY First of all let us define the Miracle.
What is it? The New Standard Dictionary defines—“A miracle as an event in the natural world, possible only by intervention and exertion of Divine power.”
It is, then, the action of the supernatural in the natural realm. To believe in it, one must necessarily accept the existence of God. The Atheist cannot believe in a miracle; to him the supernatural does not exist. Such an intervention, therefore, as would change the course of nature becomes to him “a contradiction of the law of cause and effect.” But he thus ignores the circumstance that he himself, with his limited powers, never makes a motion without the violation of that same, supposedly, inviolable law. When he awakes in the morning and rises to dress himself, he has to overcome the law of “gravity” to get up. When he sits at the breakfast table and swallows his food, he has to break “the law of cohesion” in order to get it down. When he gets in his car to drive to his work he immediately enters upon a course of opposition to “the law of inertia.”
If his theory of Evolution is correct (and it isn’t) he had to break the primal law of nature that each seed should “bring forth after its kind” in order to become a man at all. And, since he claims to have risen above that most persistent of all known natural laws, how does he prove that there are not other beings of far greater heights, who could interfere with mundane affairs as affectively as man himself is constantly doing?
Lecky in his “History of Rationalism” says—
“There is no contradiction involved in the belief that spiritual beings, of power and wisdom immeasurably transcending our own, exist; or that existing, they might, by the normal exercise of their powers perform feats as far surpassing the understanding of the most gifted of mankind as the electric telegraph and the prediction of an eclipse, surpass the faculties of a savage.” Certainly! And as John Stuart Mill reasoned:
“A miracle is no contradiction to the law of cause and effect. It is a new effect supposed to be produced by the introduction of a new cause.”
Admit God, and “all things are possible.” In the next place Let us note the miracle claim.
“* * no man can do these miracles that thou doest.”
Beyond all question, the Bible will stand or fall according to whether this claim be proven true or false. If you took the miraculous out of the Bible you would completely eviscerate it. In truth, the Bible claims to be wholly a miracle —a Book of supernatural origin, Supernatural life and supernatural influence. It should be no surprise; therefore, to find its pages often given to the record of supernatural events; and such is the case. The Old Testament abounds in them. Beginning with Adam’s creation in the Garden of Eden it takes a straight course to Malachi’s last word, recording one miracle after another and concluding with the promise of a major in the return of Elijah, the forerunner of the Lord—the Christ to come. Events such as the creation of Eve, the confusion of tongues at Babel, the marvels of Moses’ rod, the drouth in answer to Elijah’s prayer, the healing of Hezekiah, the preservation of Jonah in the fish’s belly—these are all recited with the clarity and calmness that commonly characterizes those who speak with authority and record what they “do know.” In the New Testament, the changing of water to wine, the healing of the nobleman’s son, Peter’s wife’s mother and others, the dispossession of the demoniacs, the bringing to life of the widow’s son, the daughter of Jairus, and His friend Lazarus—these and scores additional are written into the record as blithely, and with the same assurance of fact, as are recorded His words to the woman at the well, or the notes of His Sermon on the Mount. In Henryk Sienkiewisz’s “Quo Vadis” you may remember he is talking of Yinicius, Lygia’s lover and the nephew of Petronius. Lygia was a Christian and, as one of the young tribunes, Vinicius’ political aspirations stood somewhat in the way of his full surrender to the Christ of Lygia’s Faith. But, at the end of an illness which gave him much time and opportunity of thought, he found himself both convalescent and increasingly “astonished at the superhuman power of that religion which changed the souls of men to their foundations. He understood that in it there was something uncommon, something which had not been on earth before, and he felt that could it embrace the whole world, could it ingraft on the world its love and charity, an epoch would come recalling that in which not Jupiter, but Saturn had ruled. He did not dare either to doubt the supernatural origin of Christ, or His resurrection, or the other miracles. The eye-witnesses who spoke of them were too trustworthy and despised falsehood too much to let him suppose that they were telling things that had not happened. * * Vicinius, therefore, stood before a kind of marvellous puzzle.” On the one side loyalty to Rome beckoned; on the other the lordship of Christ called. The author had previously reported the effect upon Vinicius of Peter’s sermon. It was made up, for the most part, of simple rehearsal of what the apostle had seen, and concluded with a recitation of Thomas’ doubts, and also of how Christ, by the exposure of His wounded side to Thomas’ hand, had so far convinced him that Thomas fell at His feet and cried: “My Lord, and my God!” The author tells us “Vicinius listened” and, while it seemed incredible enough, he felt he would need to renounce his own reason in order to believe that Peter was lying. “There was something in his movements, in his tears, in his whole figure, and in the details of the events which he narrated, which made every suspicion impossible.” That is the effect that the whole Bible makes upon those who give to it a sympathetic study. Its miraculous incidents never astonish, even, such students. They seem not only as logical, but as natural as was the opening sentence of the Book itself—“In the beginning God.” A Miracle, Then, is Conceivable! The only ones whose minds are closed against its possible occurrence are the atheistic critics —The Humes, the Yoltaires, the Ingersolls! To follow them is to find oneself lost in a morass of skepticism.
Concerning Hume, Lord Charlemont, his intimate associate, said:
“An unfortunate disposition to doubt everything seemed interwoven with his nature; and never was there, I am convinced, a more thorough and sincere skeptic. He seemed not to be certain even of his own present existence, and he could not therefore be expected to entertain any settled opinion respecting his future state.” And that the opinion of his friend was independent of any prejudice against him is made clear when Hume himself writes concerning his own doubts, in these words:
“They have so wrought upon me and heated my brain that I am ready to reject all belief and reasoning, and can look upon no opinion even as more probable or likely than another. Where am I, or what? I am confounded with all these questions, and begin to fancy myself in the most deplorable condition imaginable, environed with the deepest darkness, and utterly deprived of the use of every member and faculty.” Will the intelligent children of this generation accept instruction from, and adopt the opinions of, such darkened and darkening counsellors? If so, the future becomes an insoluble enigma and the present is a mere interrogation point.
Suppose we admit that the miracle does not yield itself to easy explanation. Is that a ground for its rejection? Our great friend and fundamentalist co-laborer, William Jennings Bryan, used to answer that question—“Hardly; we constantly accept as so, what we cannot explain. Take this illustration from nature, if you please. In the Spring time I plant a black seed in two inches of brown earth. Shortly, from that brown earth, I get a green plant. Time moves along and that green plant produces a yellow blossom. That blossom develops into a melon a foot to eighteen inches long and six to nine inches in diameter. When the curl at its stem is dead, I tear it loose from the vine, and with my knife split it open. I find the epidermus green, the endoderm white, the content red, the seeds—scattered through—black. Who can explain the why and how of these many colors, and the regularity of their place and appearance?”
If one stands dumb before a full-grown watermelon because it contains enigmas for which he is insufficient, will he essay to explain God?
I grant you it may seem very unnatural to believe that by a word Christ could change water into wine, but it is not one whit more difficult nor even so marvelous as for Him, by the use of earth, sunshine and water, to change a blossom into a fifty-pound red-hearted watermelon. That poet, then, had occasion for her thought when she wrote:
“Oh! ye Christians, learn the lesson; Are you struggling all the way!
Cease your trying, change to trusting, Then you’ll triumph every day.
‘Whatsoever He bids you do it!’
Fill the water pots to brim, But remember, ‘tis His battle —
Leave the miracle to Him.” THE REPUTED MIRACLES Beyond dispute, the Bible records many miracles.
We have referred to a few from both the Old and the New Testaments, but, in presenting them, we have passed over a mighty number. The beginnings of Judaism, and those of Christianity, were especially fraught with miracle-working.
Under Moses, what a mighty number! Under Elijah and Elisha, how many! Still more under Christ and His apostles! Neither the true prophet nor the Son of God indulged the habit of comparing Divine performances. Moses wrought many miracles, but in each and every case the wonder-work was a portion of, and essential to, the performance of the task in hand. Christ wrought more, and yet, as one of our most brilliant writers says—“He never used them for publicity purposes.” Each supernatural deed became with Him immediately “a closed incident.” He never employed it in self-advertisement; on the contrary, He often sought to silence its subjects. “See thou tell no man” was with Him a common injunction. Had they been ambitious exhibits of His personal power, the record of each would have been written in detail and employed on occasion. As against this human and self-centered custom He took an opposite course and compassed a hundred, yea for aught we know, thousands and yet in nine short words they are summed up — “And Jesus went about * * * healing all manner of sickness * * *”. (Matthew 4:23).
Even His enemies in the council of the Pharisees were compelled to say—“* * * What do we? for this man doeth many miracles. If we let him thus alone, all men will believe on him.” (John 11:47). The same apostle further records:
“But though he had done so many miracles before them, yet they believed not on him.” (John 12:37). A Two-fold Purpose Seemed to Animate the Master in miracle-working.
First and foremost we believe—Compassion! Concerning the Gadarene He sent him home to tell how He had “had compassion upon him.” (Mark 5:19). At the foot of the mountain He found the epileptic child, and the parents besought Him saying: “* * but if thou canst do any thing, have compassion on us, and help us.” (Mark 9:22).
Meeting the widow of Nain as she followed the bier of her son to the burial place, the Lord “had compassion on her.” (Luke 7:13). When the hungry crowd had stayed by three days and their last lunch was exhausted, Jesus said: “I have compassion on the multitude,” and He blessed the loaves and fishes with which to feed them. (Matthew 15:32). When the blind cried:— “* * Have mercy on us, O Lord, thou son of David,” (Matthew 20:30) “Jesus had compassion on them, and touched their eyes: and immediately their eyes received sight.” (Matthew 20:34). But why multiply texts more? The second reason for His miracle-working was an attestation of His Deity. Here we could quote an equal number of passages in proof, but we let John sum up for us the essential reason for His “many signs” wrought in the presence of His disciples, and not written in the Book, by saying of those recorded—
“But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.” (John 20:31). The great difference between the miracles of Christ and the reputed miracles of mere men is not only in the character of the work wrought, but in the reason for the act.
Simon Magus was reputed to have made brass and stone dogs bark, or marble statues to talk; to have been able to transform himself sometimes into a serpent and at other times into a sheep or goat, and place his foot upon burning coals without blistering; but what is all that sort of foolishness worth except to make the performing individual appear “some great one”?
Take the miracles that were wrought by the Egyptians in imitation of the wonders of Moses’ rod. What were they worth to mankind? When once Moses came to believe that God was with that rod, he opened with it the fountains of water that famished Israel might drink and live; he waved it over the sea and the liquid walls stood on either side for Israel’s safe passage. So of the miracles of Christ—they were meant to mark the path for the passage of God’s people ,and also to point to the fountain from which one could drink, never to thirst again. As Dr. Geo. C. Lorimer once said—“The miracles of Moses issued in a Jewish polity; those of the Lord in a Christian church,” which became the salt of the earth. The Bible miracles, therefore, instead of marring, make the Book.
If the critics’ view of the Bible be a correct one, then we face a series of facts that find no explanation.
First—Why doesn’t someone else write a ‘similar or a better canon and accomplish for it a kindred love and reverence?
Second—Why doesn’t somebody else produce a book that lives as long, passes through as many editions, and grows daily in public demand?
Third—Why doesn’t somebody else create a series of stories involving the wonderful, and make them to take a kindred hold upon the memory of readers?
Fourth—Why doesn’t somebody else produce a book that quickens mentality, improves morals, exerts salutary influence, elevates society, and saves the individual from sin, as the Holy Scriptures have done? The answer is at hand—Because that somebody doesn’t live, and has not lived. The man who can become a competitor of God has not yet appeared. “Of making human books there is no end.” The teeming presses pour them forth by the thousands, yea millions even; but one Divine BOOK suffices for all centuries and all peoples and all circumstances.
We conclude this treatise by a presentation of THE MIRACLE OF MIRACLES
It is little use to be fussing about the fall of Jericho as unlikely, the Divine destruction of Sodom as nonsense, when within our own days we have seen the stories duplicated.
San Pierre, with its 32,000, fell and was destroyed in a few seconds—and probably for the same reason that crumbled the walls of Jericho, THE SINFULNESS OF SIN. The heart of San Francisco was shaken down and burned up as surely as was Sodom and, in the judgment of man, because of its kindred condition.
These are little miracles, almost within the explanation of the materialist. The destruction of Nineveh is not a stumbling-stone. Other cities of equal extent have been wiped out of existence. The swallowing of Jonah by the great fish and his preservation for three days in the whale’s belly is a comparatively small appeal to credulity. The miracle of miracles is Christ and Christianity!
If there is no miracle, there was no Christ.
He came not into the world by nature’s wonted ways. He was either Virgin-born—the product of a biological miracle—or He was not Christ. He was either Virgin-born or John was a deceiver when he said: “ * * Jesus Christ * * * is the true God.” (1 John 5:20).
If He was not a miracle, His was not necessarily the Master mind; the report of His miracle-working not necessarily true; neither His deeds nor His words deserve the compliment—“We have never seen it on this wise!” The many who in Jerusalem on the Feast Day believed because “they saw the miracles which he did” were only deluded. (John 2:23). Christ Himself was only a faker, and faith in Him was but the acme of folly.
If no miraculous Christ, then no spiritual body—the Church.
Paul, the logician, puts that fact fully before us—
“But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen:
“And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain.
“Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ: whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not.
“For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised:
“And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins.
“Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished.
“If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.” (1 Corinthians 15:13-19). The advocates of the Social Gospel are beginning to admit its failure; leaders among them are deploring its fruitlessness, and they are warmly admonishing their brethren to greater diligence in the endeavor of putting over the so-called Social Program.
They do not at all comprehend the source or secret of their own weakness, having denied the Deity of Christ and having disputed the authority of the Book. In other words, having removed the supernatural from their philosophy —mistakenly called “theology”—they find themselves without standing-ground. When the foundations are removed, what can the righteous do? The supernatural gone, neither sanctity nor strength remain. The supernatural gone, worship is without occasion and good works are as futile as unaided human endeavor. The supernatural gone, the stars have lost their light, and even the sun has ceased to shine: at least that is what Romanes admitted, saying of his infidelity—
“I am not ashamed to confess that with this virtual negation of God, the universe to me has lost its soul of loveliness; and although from henceforth the precept to ‘work while it is day’ will doubtless but gain an intensified force from the terribly intensified meaning of the words that ‘the night cometh when no man can work,’ yet when at times I think, as think at times I must, of the appalling contrast between the hallowed glory of that creed which once was mine, and the lonely mystery of existence as now I find it—at such times I shall ever feel it impossible to avoid the sharpest pang of which my nature is susceptible.” The confessions of disappointment now being made by the prophets of The Social Gospel are destined to deepen into despair. The false prophets of yesterday are the pessimists of today and the proclaimers of “another Gospel” which is “no gospel,” will be the radical despoilers of society itself tomorrow. Already, having loosed their bark from the Divine Rock of Holy Scriptures, they are adrift; and those who ride gaily with them, if they will, may hear even now the roar of the Niagara toward which they draw nigh.
McCann wrote a book “God or Gorilla” and it mightily disturbed the ministers of modernism. But there is another question now—Is it God or Fixed Law? The supernatural expressed in a Miracle—Energy Divine and Eternal, or the Natural working itself out in the Helmholtz theory of dissipation or degradation?
Further and Finally—
If no Christ, then no soul-salvation.
Salvation itself is a supernatural work made possible by a supernatural Christ, and made effective by a supernatural Spirit, through a supernatural experience.
Begbie’s “Twice-Born Men” is a classic of illustrations. ‘The drunkard became sober; the lust-monger became a sacred lover; the thief, over night, was made a protector of other people’s property; the harlot-sister was meta-morphosed into a saint. In the New Testament we are told how Jesus of Nazareth touched the fevered form and the fever subsided; laid His fingers upon the eyes of the blind and instantly they saw; spoke a word to the demon-possessed and he came to his right mind; uttered a promise to the leper and he was cleansed; cried with a loud voice to the buried and they came forth fully alive!
Men say that these things sound unreasonable, but if we see them still occurring, then the miracle may gather to itself converts from among even modernists; and Begbie saw that, and reported them.
Some years ago “The Youth’s Companion” reported a conversation between one Mr. Hardy and Mr. Clark of the downtown Chicago Mission.
Hardy said “Of course, no one believes in miracles nowadays.”
Clark responded: “I do.”
“You mean you think miracles occurred in the time of Christ? That’s a superstition.” “Maybe so,” said Clark, “but I know they are occurring in my time.”
“Show me one,” said Hardy.
“Several,” replied Mr. Clark. “Come with me.” In the downtown they entered a hall between two saloons, and took seats with a crowd of men and women so dilapidated in appearance that Hardy whispered to Clark—
“What sort of a place is this you have brought me to? It looks like you had all the ‘downs and outs’ here.”
“We have,” said Clark. A hymn was given out, a prayer was made, a big fellow with a voice like thunder rose and spoke; and for half an hour he poured out a perfect torrent of appeal to a roomful of lost men and women. He begged, urged, and plead; and finally when he said: “Will you come?” a score of those ragged wretches shambled to the front and the big fellow got down and prayed with them, his arms about them. The meeting was over, and Hardy and Clark went out.
“Well,” said Clark, “you have seen a miracle, haven’t you?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Hardy. “It was a good Temperance talk, but where is your miracle?”
“The big man that addressed us! Nine months ago he was a professional gambler and a notable thief. Six times over he has been sent to state prisons. He spent fortunes in drink and vice, but one night in that same mission something happened to him. Instantly he abandoned all his old habits, forsook all of his godless friends, and from that moment till now he has been doing what you saw him do tonight. He is clean; he is wholesome; he is honest; he is a Christian of the highest type, and his earnestness of appeal is only a slight expression of his passion for souls.”
Hardy was silent a moment, and then he said:
“Clark, you are right; I have seen a miracle!”