If I took the word Revelation in its widest sense I should not attempt to
treat of it here, for it would comprise nothing less than God’s education
of the human race. We talk of Natural Religion and Revealed Religion, but
all Religion has in it an element of revelation from God. If God had not
provided man with a mind’s eye suited to see Him by, and also something
that shadowed Him forth which that eye could behold, we could have no
religion at all. Of the processes by which belief has come about in men
not the least notable is this. Men have recognised in some new tidings
what they seemed to have been looking for, without being aware of it. Some
new teacher has become the spokesman of thoughts which were lying in them
in a state too vague for utterance. Thus “thoughts out of many hearts may
be revealed.”(10) Now it is God who has planted these thoughts in men, and
He brings about the occasions which reveal them.
There are for man two worlds, that which is without him and that which is
within. Some races from temperament or circumstances have been most taken
up with the former, with the workings of nature and with active social
life; while others have looked within rather than without;—their minds
have found most congenial play in the contemplation of their own natures,
and in brooding over the mystery of how they came to be what they were.
Corresponding to these two leading diversities of the human mind, there
are two modes by which men are brought to recognise a great spiritual
agency in the world.
The man of Aryan race, the type of the first variety, caught sight of an
infinite force underlying all the workings of nature, and so conceived
Deities, with a personal will like his own, animating the physical world.
For the people of the Semitic race on the other hand, the surpassing
wonder was their own selves—their minds turned to contemplating their own
nature. In so doing they noted this; they found something within them
which caused them to be happy when they acted in one way—when they had
done a kindness for example—and made them unhappy when they had behaved
differently. This was so, even when no one knew of the act, and when they
looked to no consequences from it. They called such actions right and
wrong; but they asked, Where can this notion of right and wrong come from?
This conscience too which witnessed of it—which strove with them just as a
friend might, and seemed to be something outside them—Where did that come
from? They were led by this to conceive a spiritual personal Being in the
world who had left some trace of himself in men’s hearts, and kept up some
communion with them through this voice of conscience. Thus men of
different stamps of mind were led along different roads, to the notion of
something Divine in the world; and we may say that God revealed himself to
man in these two ways. Now for knowledge to be sure and solid two elements
must go to the making of it. One from outside the learner, and the other
supplied by him. This outside element is in physical science provided by
observed fact, and what answers to it in theology is authoritative
revelation. Men can never feel fully assured about what is wholly spun out
of their own brains, and has no external sign or testimony to lend it
support.
Revelation, in the sense in which I have to do with it just now, means an
authoritative communication from the Almighty, vouched by some outward
sign, or manifestation. It is with this outward sign, and with the
difficulties attending the ways of bringing it about, that I am now
chiefly concerned.
For the present we will suppose that among the elements of human knowledge
are _truths revealed by God_. How is this element of absolutely certain
knowledge to be made to fit in with that which is only matter of opinion
or provisionally true? Here we come on the great problem of Revelation.
How can the infinite be brought into the same account with the finite? We
know that if we give one term in an algebraical expression an infinite
value, all the rest go for nothing; so likewise do probable judgments
vanish in the face of absolute authority. But if Revelation is delivered
_in such a mode_ that its declarations admit of no question whatever, then
its statements possess _absolute certainty_. Compared with such certainty
all our judgments would be doubtful and dim, like candles in the presence
of electric light. Would not this sharp contrast discourage man from using
his own powers? But is it not by regarding this world as an exercise
ground for these same powers that we come most near to understanding it?
Is it consistent with God’s ways, such as we make them out to be, that
after giving us faculties which would find their amplest field in the
consideration of spiritual problems he should preclude the investigation
of them by solving them all Himself.
Again the truth delivered in any Divine Revelation of the problems of the
Universe would come into contact with views based on supposed facts drawn
from History or Geology, or with truths discovered by the human mind, and
difficulties would occur all along the line of demarcation between what
was infallible and what was not. For instance, if the history of one
nation were absolutely revealed, much of that of the nations contiguous
would be revealed too; more particularly the results of the wars between
them: and if isolated facts belonging to science, such as those relating
to the formation of our globe, were communicated on Divine Authority, then
systems of Natural Philosophy, starting from these facts as axioms, might
claim, upon religious grounds, acceptance for every one of their
conclusions. If an independent system essayed to rear its head, it would
be crushed by coming into collision with some statement that brooked no
question. Such scientific investigation as would be possible could only
proceed by deduction from truths authoritatively delivered. Observation
and induction, which have led up to the knowledge of nature we now
possess, would find no place. Man would be discouraged from using his own
endeavours to understand the problems of the universe, and instead of so
doing, he would only pray the Almighty to tell him all he wanted to know.
These ill effects do not follow in the case of Christ’s religion for two
reasons. First, because Christ does not reveal what man could find out for
himself; and therefore this revelation does not come, so to say, into
competition with human investigations. Secondly, because the genuineness
of the revelation is not vouched for by evidence which is _overwhelming_
and which finally settles the question; but is only supported by just
enough external testimony to command attentive consideration and respect.
The evidence that the Sign is of God is not so cogent that there is no
escape from it. If it were so, it would silence all discussion about the
fact of Revelation having been given, in the way in question, and would
narrow the area for the exercise of religious thought.
Reason may agree to bow to Revelation as being God’s declaration; but she
has a right to satisfy herself that it _is_ God’s declaration, and she
will call in learning and rules of criticism to help her in determining
the question. Even when Reason has satisfied herself as to the credentials
of this Revelation, there comes another question which gives play for
human intelligence. It is asked “What does this Revelation mean?” Language
is the outcome of the human mind, and all statements made in language,
this Revelation among the rest, must be subject to the laws of the human
understanding.
We see then, that both as to its credentials and its meaning Revelation
must always be open to question; and that a man is as much bound to
exercise his judgment upon these points as upon the other problems of
life. This would seem a very natural state of things, yet it causes dismay
to some persons when they first begin to look into these matters for
themselves. They had expected, moreover, to find such a balance of
evidence on their own side, that no one except from wilfulness and
perversity could decide the other way. Examination shews that, regarding
the question as one of historical evidence, and putting all prepossessions
apart, the two sides are more nearly in a state of equipoise than they had
been supposed to be; and it is remarkable that this kind of equipoise has
been maintained, as far as we can make out by history, from the time of
the Apostles till now. Arguments and testimony have, from time to time,
appeared on one side, and have been answered from the other; and now and
then some discovery has been made turning the balance on this side or
that; but soon some new idea has been started which has put another
complexion on the matter. So that positive evidence has never been so
complete and decisive on either side as to prevent a man’s habits or the
bent of his mind from swaying his verdict.
When young men first look into these matters for themselves, having
heretofore taken certain notions on trust, they are apt to be aghast at
the unsettlement, and at the call on them to use their own judgments and
make up their minds. Unhappily they have often been led to suppose that to
hold a particular set of opinions, _merely as opinions_, without any
effect being produced in their character thereby, gives them a claim to
some degree of favour in the eyes of the Almighty: while to question these
opinions, or to enquire too closely into the grounds on which they rest,
is dangerous, and calculated to bring them into disfavour with Him. I
cannot stop to combat this notion now. But whatever the reason may be, the
fact is certain, that when persons begin to investigate for themselves the
bases of their belief, they find that many statements which they had
regarded as true beyond all question are found to stand on less sure
ground than they had thought; and since they fancy that if the authority
of any word of the Bible is shaken they will soon have no standing ground
left, they become much disturbed.
Then it is that we hear the outcry: “Why cannot all be made clear? Or, if
we cannot be told every thing, why, at any rate, is not that which we
_are_ told put so plainly, that there can only be one way of looking at
it? Why were not things so written that one who runs may read? Why are we
not given quite positive assurance of the truth of what is revealed? Why
have we not a Sign in Heaven as the Jews demanded, or, what would suit our
times better, an incontestable demonstration of the truth of
Christianity?” “Why, in short,” to use the words of the objectors of the
last century, “If God desired to make a Revelation to man, did He not
write it in the skies?”
To none of these “Whys” can we supply its proper “Because.” We cannot give
the reasons of a man’s conduct unless we can enter into his mind; and as
we cannot enter into God’s mind, we cannot give His reasons for having
made the ways of the universe such as we find them. But though we cannot
give the enquirer what he asks, we can do something to help him all the
same.
We may be able to shew him that it is better for him only “to know in
part;” and we may also be able to explain to him that a certain fringe of
shadow must needs encompass those portions of truth which are revealed;
for if they had clear-cut edges and hard outlines, when we had to fit them
together, like pieces in a dissected map of knowledge, we should meet with
all those difficulties about a line of demarcation between truth absolute
and beliefs of opinion of which I spoke just now. The service of all
Revelation is to supply our craving after infinity; and if our demand to
have this infinity presented to us in a finite form—for that is really
what we are clamouring for—could be approximately gratified, then we
should find that, though a certain portion of the infinite field lying
outside human knowledge had been enclosed and added on to our intellectual
possessions, still we were as far as ever from having what we wanted: this
new possession would have become _finite_, and what we wanted was the
_infinite_. We should have got a new science in exchange for our old
religion, but the craving after infinitude would still remain. The very
definiteness introduced into these matters we should find destructive of
their fascination for us.
To take one point at a time, I will begin with a side of the question
which fits on to the subject of the last chapter. These cries after
certitude are, in fact, petitions to be relieved of free will and
responsibility in deciding religious matters for ourselves. What the
complaints come to is this: Why am not I and every one else compelled to
believe certain truths about God’s dealings with man _whether we like to
do so or not_?
The point of the matter lies in these last words. If we had no part of our
own to perform in accepting this belief, if it were no more a matter of
our own choice and feeling whether or not we admitted the revealed truths,
than whether we admitted some indisputable fact in history or some
proposition in science; then this belief would not be religion for us at
all, it would be a branch of science and nothing more. It would have no
more moral significance than a proposition in Euclid. To admit that a
certain system may be built up from premises that are undoubted, is merely
a matter of intellect. One man may have a head to follow the steps and
another not, but conscience has no part in the matter.
It was distinctive of the Son of Man that His Gospel was to be preached to
the poor; and a system which addressed only minds capable of clear
reasoning, could not be suited to all mankind; in fact, it would
necessarily set up a Hierarchy of intellectual culture. So our Lord did
not speak to the understandings but to the hearts of His hearers. He dealt
with His disciples on the supposition, that there was in them a germ which
would respond to the quickening influences of His teaching, and grow into
a capacity for eternal life. Just as the dormant seed germinates when
warmth and moisture reach it, so would what was dormant in their hearts
burst into life and growth, when the required vivifying influence was
brought to bear. Our spiritual life is made to depend not only on what is
delivered to us, but on our recognising the truth we want, and seizing on
it as what we are craving after: so that we say, “I have always felt that
there was something I was in want of; now I know what it is, and I have it
here.”
The Jews, who would not believe, wanted to be shewn a Sign from Heaven.
They said, “Give us a proof which is beyond contradiction, and we will
believe,” which comes to saying: If we cannot help believing, believe we
will. But they did not mean the same thing by the word “believe” as our
Lord did. Our Lord did not call on His disciples to accept notions _about_
Him, but to believe _in_ Him, to trust Him as a child does his parent, or
a soldier his commander. What the Jews meant was, that they would give
credence to a particular kind of evidence, as to the fact of His being
their Messiah.
The demand for additional proof is dealt with by our Lord in the parable
of Dives and Lazarus. The drift of a parable is usually pointed out in the
concluding words; and the verse “If they believe not Moses and the
prophets, neither will they believe though one rose from the dead,”(11)
spoken of the rich man’s brethren, is, I believe, the key to one intent of
this parable.(12) The state of mind here pointed at is a common one
enough. It is that of the man who is rather uneasy at his own want of
belief; but thinks the blame should be laid, not on any defect in himself,
but on the want of proper proofs and external light. He thinks that his
difficulty comes from the scanty evidence offered him; he has no idea that
what he really wants is a better moral eyesight to see it by. So he begs
for a little bit more of proof. If he could only be satisfied, he says, on
this point and that, he would believe. But what would his belief be worth?
Our Lord’s answer goes to this:—No amount of external testimony can supply
what you want, because the defect is within you. If a man _did_ come to
you from the dead, you might be terrified into acquiescence in everything
he told you—you would probably be stupefied into the most abject
submission—but instead of being elevated into trust in God, you would,
very likely, be so cowed and paralysed, as to be incapable of any feeling
of a noble or spiritual kind.
In the present day people do not ask for Signs from Heaven, or that men
should rise from the dead—but the same spirit shews itself in the same
way. The corresponding demand is, “Give us an undeniable philosophical
proof of the truth of Christianity.” “Shew us this,” say men, “and we will
believe.” Accept the demonstration of course they must, if it be
irrefragable; just as they must accept the truth that the three angles of
a triangle are equal to two right angles; but such acceptance is a mental
act of a wholly different order from adopting a religious belief—from
feeling for instance that “Christ is with us to the end of the world.”
Much confusion has arisen from this difference not being properly marked.
From what I said at first, as to the nature of a revelation it appears
that there are two elements in it, one within us and one without us. We
must have “ears to hear” when God speaks—a faculty that discerns His
voice—and also we must have some outward sign cognisable by human senses,
or by such judgments based on experience as we form about historical
evidence. I have just shewn that the first requisite is essential for any
religious belief, and that it is a quality different from the logical
understanding. But when we come to the attestation of the Sign which
vouches the revelation, then the understanding assumes its ordinary
jurisdiction. We are to judge by the common rules of evidence as to the
authenticity of this Sign and the genuineness of our information. Reason
and instructed judgment are to be used in these matters as in all others,
and external evidence is allowed its weight by our Lord. When the Baptist
sends his disciples to enquire, our Lord works cures before them, and bids
them report what they _saw_.
A man wants some testimony to which he may turn, which is independent of
himself. There are times when the surest believers mistrust themselves and
their intuitions and ask, “How am I to know that this persuasion of mine
is not a creature of my own brain, due to my temperament and mental
conformation.” “How can I call on other men to accept it?” Men are not
left, unaided, to the distress of this kind of doubt. The Apostles were
allowed to witness the Transfiguration and the presence of Jesus risen
from the dead that doubt might not overcome them in moments of physical
weakness or distress of mind. They could always turn to these
recollections and say “We know the glory of God; for we have seen it.”
We are not to expect that the Sign which attests a Revelation shall be
guaranteed by a standing miracle; because such a standing miracle would be
out of harmony with all God’s ways as revealed in the Universe. For a
standing miracle means that God is always, in one particular direction,
visibly displaying the power elsewhere concealed. If such a miracle
existed there would be one set of facts in the world not of a piece with
the rest. If instead of working the world as He does by self-acting
machinery, God were to reserve one department for His personal management,
He might as well interpose in all, and direct all the movements in the
world; in which case, as I said in the last chapter, the world would cease
to have any independent existence, and would become merely a portion of
the Divine existence.
So when it is demanded “That a revelation should be written in the skies”
we may ask, How would you have God’s autograph attested? The Jews, it will
be said, had the visible Shechinah, the light between the Cherubim; but if
this light existed now, there would be no proof of its being Divine: it
would only be another phenomenon, and science would take cognisance of it.
If we had an oracle declaring future events, all human enterprise would
perish—for enterprise rests on hope and fear. The Delphic oracles would
have paralysed action, if they had been unerring, unambiguous, and easy of
access. A series of prophecies, it may be thought, fulfilled from time to
time, would serve to authenticate revelation: and this aid is, indeed,
admissible in attestation of the Sign we speak of; but it must be subject
to the same condition which must attach to all external testimony: it must
not be too clear or too strong. Men must always be able to reject it, if
they like: either by ascribing the coincidences to chance, by declaring
that the prophecy brought about its own fulfilment, or by some similar
argument. If we had a series of prophecies all of which, up to the present
time, had been fulfilled with due regularity, so that no one could doubt
but that the rest would punctually come to pass, human action would be
very much paralysed.
The miracles of our Lord’s life serve us for our “Signs;” and our
assurance that they occurred is to be based both on the external evidence,
which in this case is the testimony to the authenticity of the record, and
on the internal probability, which comes out of the conformity of the
miracles with the Laws of Christ’s action and the declared purpose of His
coming. The miracles could always be referred to Beelzebub in old days,
and they can always be disbelieved or explained away now.
Since the external evidence is not conclusive on this side or on that, the
judgment formed must depend partly on the degree in which the Scriptures
establish their own authority; and this degree depends on the mind and
heart which the investigator brings to his work. One critic will see
nothing but difficulties. Another will say, Our histories are photographs,
imperfect no doubt, but what they show must have been there when they were
taken: we see the main figures under different aspects, but we know them
for the same. Some will feel as much convinced, from the character of
thought and expression, that certain sayings came from our Lord, as a
connoisseur in art might be that a certain picture came from the easel of
a great master whose works had been the study of his life: he knows the
touch.
Christ’s great Revelation was not given in a book, not in a history or a
treatise, but in a Life and Death. He shewed the world a Man who knew not
Self, and He also shewed it the Force that came from God. Men will realize
this Revelation in different ways in different ages; part may come to
light at one time, part at another. Sayings which have long lain hardly
noticed are one day found to be keys to unlock a treasure, and give
insight beyond what we dreamt of. But besides this Revelation, personal to
individuals, broad Truths are conveyed which we should not otherwise
possess.
Some of the leading Truths are these. That Jesus came from the Father.
That the Father loved men who believed in Him, and owned them as sons, and
sent into their hearts(13) a filial spirit which should enable them to lay
hold more firmly of this Revelation. Christ tells them that He came to
manifest God to the world,(14) and that, whether they chose to believe it
or not, the kingdom of God was drawn nigh to them.(15) He tells them that
to know God is eternal life,(16) and that they who are counted worthy will
attain a resurrection to such a life.(17) Above all he tells them—and this
is the very charter of the Christian Church, without which her Doctrines
would be only a set of notions, destitute of real vital power—“Lo, I am
with you alway, even unto the end of the world.”(18)
There is no clashing with human knowledge here, nothing that can tie the
hands of the enquirer. The advance in spiritual knowledge is not brought
about, simply by the communication of a new truth from without, which had
never been dreamt of before: men feel rather as if they were reminded of
something they must once have known. There appears, if I may so say, a
tenderness of God in dealing with man, a carefulness so to reveal himself
as not to obliterate a man’s own personality, but to leave him to feel
that any resolution he has reached is his own, arrived at, no doubt, by
listening to God’s prompting; without such prompting superseding the
action of his proper self. No two men represent God to themselves quite in
the same way: He was not the same for Peter that He was for John.
I believe that a revelation of God is needed for the education of what is
highest in man, and for bringing him to the highest point he can reach;
and that God has been always revealing Himself in one way or another. But
the revelation of every age must be suited to the character of that age.
Man must be educated up to it, or he cannot receive it. Our Lord tells his
disciples “I have yet many things to say unto you but ye cannot bear them
now.”(19) Later generations are taught in this same way. The events
related in the Acts, and the labours which came upon the Apostles fitted
them by degrees for fresh revelations. If our Lord had declared to St
Peter when he first joined him in Galilee that the Gentiles should have as
full a share in Him and in the Kingdom as he would have; might not he too
have turned away? Or if, as is likely, he had been personally drawn to
Christ too powerfully to quit Him, yet such a sudden shock to all his
notions might have closed his mind spasmodically against new ideas? For
when a man recoils from a view which unsettles him and turns him giddy, he
clutches at his supports with iron grip. Many have been made bigots in
this way. Our Lord is careful to avoid for the disciples all turmoil of
mind; the new seed must be left undisturbed that it may take firm root; so
that for our Lord to have disordered all St Peter’s convictions by a
premature disclosure, would have been contrary to His ways of acting.
An age must be ripe for the truth, and the truth must be ripe for the age
for the last to profit by the first. If the theory of gravitation had
appeared ten centuries ago, it would have passed unregarded away, for
then, nobody thought the outer world worth scrutiny. On the other hand the
neo-Platonic philosophy which once moved masses of men has now become so
many words. How then is Christ’s revelation to last for all time? It is
enabled to do so, because there is _life_ in it and _growth_ along with
life; because Christ does not deliver propositions about God which men are
passively to receive once for all, but his sayings fall upon the human
heart, and are quickened there, some in one generation and some in
another: each generation seizes on its proper nutriment, and brings out of
His sayings the special lesson it requires.
St Paul, to recur to the quotation which is, in fact, the burden of this
chapter, speaking of the effect produced by the preaching of the word on
the hearers says—
“The secrets of his heart are made manifest.”(20)
Christ’s words reveal for a man the secrets of his own heart to himself.
They interpret to him his own confused and dreamy thoughts. This was what
drew men so mightily to Him. It was not so much the novelty of what He
told them that attracted them, as that they recognised in His teaching old
familiar puzzles, which had come and gone through their minds, times
without number, only in such shadowy guise that they could not fix and
scrutinize them. Christ spake and then men said “This is what has been
always troubling us.” Here is what we have always been wanting to say, and
could not put into plain words—and now these floating impressions of ours
are found not to have come by chance but to belong to truths set in our
being. God has “sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts crying
Abba, Father.”(21) But He would not have done so if we had not had the
capacity for being sons, to begin with.
We shall see too, when we think of it, that a revelation to men can only
come by man, or in a voice or words like those of a man. Man’s
understanding is fashioned in a certain way; his language is the creature
of his understanding; ideas could not be conveyed to him unless they were
clothed in language which he could understand; Revelation therefore must
express itself in terms of human notions because they alone can be made
intelligible in human speech. If God speaks, He must speak after the
fashion of men, or His words will be an unknown tongue.
To take an illustration: If a man, owing to something abnormal in his
vision, became aware of a new colour, something which had nothing to do
with red or yellow or blue; he could not communicate his new sensation
because he could find no pigment which would in any degree represent it,
and he could not describe it in words, by likeness to anything in the
world. So God can only reveal to man about spiritual existence what man
can conceive, that is to say only that to which he finds something
analogous in his own being; for all must be put into that form with which
man’s understanding can deal; and the only spiritual creature he can
conceive is _man_; the only ideas he can conceive are human ideas; his
mind must work on the lines along which men’s minds move; the only
creature with whom he can sympathise, and whom he can believe to
sympathise with him is _man_, and so—since there can be no real teaching
without mutual understanding—by _man_ he must be taught. Christ’s
revelation meets this need. It was as the Son of Man that Christ declared
Himself, and in this character He conveyed to men the germs of all the
spiritual enlightenment they can receive. Does not this throw light on the
words, “No one knoweth who the Father is save the Son, and he to
whomsoever the Son willeth to reveal Him,”(22) and again, “No man cometh
to the Father but by me?”(23)