It has been already observed that there is one feature of our Lord’s way
of revealing truths to men which distinguishes Him from all teachers
before or since. This is the use of Signs.
Miracles may have been attributed to those who have promulgated creeds at
various times, but these miracles did not form a constituent part of the
teaching; they were not blended with it as those of our Lord were. They
are introduced only to serve for credentials, so that an appeal to them
may silence incredulity; they convey no lesson, they only serve for proof.
I hope to shew that it was otherwise with the signs wrought by Christ.
My especial concern in this chapter is not with the nature or the
credibility of miracles in general, but only with the purposes for which
Christ introduced them; and with the questions of how far they were
performed with a view to draw men to listen and to set forth God’s
kingdom, and how far for the purpose of working conviction. In the first
chapter I have stated certain Laws, which our Lord observed in working
Signs. These I shall presently discuss; but what I am concerned with now
is the general question “Why did our Lord work Signs?”
I use the word “Signs” instead of miracles because it is our Lord’s own
word. The latter expression fastens attention on the wonderment which
these deeds raised in men. But our Lord uses the word “Sign,” which
implies that these acts were tokens of some underlying power which, in
these instances, passed into operation in an exceptional way. To our Lord,
they of course were not _wonders_, and He never dwells on their
wondrousness.
In the accounts of St Matthew, St Mark and St Luke, the word “Signs” is
that most commonly employed by our Lord when speaking of His own working
of miracles; while in the Gospel of St John, the term “works” is generally
found in the like case, though “powers” sometimes takes its place. The
expression “Signs and wonders” means, not two separate sorts of works, but
signs that make men wonder: it means prodigies, worked to shew a divine
commission, taken on the side of the _awe_ they inspire. Our Lord only
uses this expression twice—once when He says that false prophets shall
come and “shew great signs and wonders,”(24) and again in His answers to
the nobleman whose son was sick at Capernaum, “Unless ye see signs and
wonders ye will not believe.”(25) On these occasions the term refers to
the popular conception of the form which Divine interposition would take.
The expression “signs and wonders” occurs very frequently in the Acts of
the Apostles.
When, as here, we are in search of the purposes which our Lord had in
view, in something that He did, it is of service to ask, “What purpose or
purposes did it actually fulfil?” What He did would not be likely to fail
in producing the effect intended, or to bring about a result not
contemplated by Him. So we must try to unravel the complex effects of
these signs, and to discriminate the several ways in which they worked.
Some were witnessed both by the people and by the disciples, and some by
the disciples and apostles only. The function of the miracles may have
been different in the different cases. But, besides their effect on the
actual witnesses, the record of these mighty doings has had a prodigious
effect on generation after generation, from the time when our Lord walked
in Galilee to the present day; and we may suppose that this posthumous
effect was included in the Divine design.
The character of our Lord’s miracles we shall find to be determined by the
nature of the work He came to do. The work and miracles were adapted each
to the other, and, owing to this, the study of the miracles throws a light
on His purpose, and the more insight we get into His purpose the more
reason we see for the miracles being of the kind they were.
We will consider, under different heads, the various functions which Our
Lord’s miracles fulfilled. That which comes naturally first in order is
(1) The attraction of hearers.
One effect of signs on the beholders lay on the surface. They awoke
attention; they caused men’s eyes to be turned to the Son of Man. Jesus
won a mastery over men’s souls both by what He did and what He said; but
the doing had to come first, because without this He would not so soon
have gained a hearing. From a district of small towns and scattered
hamlets a crowd was not drawn together without some cogent influence. It
was the rumour of the things “done in Capernaum”(26) and of other mighty
works that caused the crowd to gather, and attracted the multitudes who
listened, both in the synagogue and on the Mount.
The works of healing would be attractive enough to draw within the reach
of our Lord’s influence all who were likely to profit, as well as some who
were not: while His words and the influence of His presence would _attach_
to Him as true disciples those, and those only, who had “ears to hear:” in
this way the crowd would be sifted.
One of the characteristics of our Lord, which puzzled His followers, and
which also strikes us, was His seeming indifference about the number, or
the worldly position of His adherents. He does not aim at gaining
converts; when His popularity seems at its height He withdraws from the
people. A warrior Messiah, or a prophet seeking to convince the world,
would have displayed signs suited to attract the blind devotion of the
multitude: he would have wanted to prove his pretensions by the striking
character of his signs and wonders. Such was the Messiah whom the Jews
were led to expect; in general they imagined no other, and for no other
did they care: so we find that it surprised the disciples and the brethren
of Jesus, that He should content himself with healing poor sick people in
hamlets of Galilee, instead of confounding Herod in Tiberias, or the
scribes in Jerusalem.
And if we regard our Lord as a leader looking to an immediate purpose and
depending for success on His influence with those of His own day, his
conduct is indeed inexplicable; but the whole tenour of it falls in well
with the view which regards Him as setting afoot a movement which was to
go on working to the end of the world. Hurry belongs to the mortal who
wants to see the outcome of his work, while eternity is lavish of
time.(27)
We shall see later on that it is foreign to our Lord’s ways to inflame the
feelings and blind the eyes of men by kindling speech.
The overmastering influence of a great leader will “take the prisoned
soul” of the people and make it follow his will. But Christ’s first care
is to leave each man master of his own will—the man who is no longer so,
ceases to count as a unit. Just as this is seen in our Lord’s teaching, so
is it also in the miracles which set that teaching forth—they are not
worked in the ways or the place that a Thaumaturge would have
chosen—people are not invited to a spectacle—nor are the wonders so
overwhelming as to cause a whole population to fall prostrate at our
Lord’s feet. The rumour of them is sufficient to make those who “have ears
to hear” enquire further and “come and see;” and a further function of
“Signs” is then called into play.
This function is that they should serve to select from the multitude those
fitted to follow our Lord.
(2) Selection.
I have said in a previous chapter that education and selection are
inseparable. Any process that unfolds the powers which lie within men,
emphasizes, so to say, the differences between them.
The witnessing of wonders, declared to be wrought by the finger of God,
must have stirred men’s minds, and so brought about in them a species of
education, well calculated to winnow out the chaff from the grain.
But the quality, which this kind of education seizes upon and develops, is
not intellectual ability, but the capacity for “savouring the things of
God.” The miracles served as a touchstone for detecting this. Many would
look, and wonder, and go their way—they had seen a strange sight, _that_
they would allow, but it did not touch their souls: while to a few others
it would seem as if they had lighted on what they had been watching for
all their lives. They had always seen dimly that there must be in the
world a living power; not a dead God in the keeping of the scribes, but a
living God who should speak _in_ their hearts and _to_ their hearts, and
they had found Him now. The minds of those who were worth rousing were put
on the alert, and the sense of God’s kingdom being near them, the sense
that this every day world was His and worked by Him, was expanded within
them.
(3) Preparation.
We have a distinct instance of the use of “Signs” to produce
_preparation_. The seventy were sent working these Signs, “in every city
unto which He Himself would come.” This preparation would consist, partly,
in the drawing out from the mass those who were likely to profit. When our
Lord Himself came, these latter would be eager to hear Him, and the great
announcements He made would not strike them as altogether strange. The
district over which these messengers were sent probably lay outside the
country where our Lord’s ministry had been chiefly carried on, and was
only visited by Him on this one occasion. This made it the more important
that the right men, rightly prepared, should form His audience. His truths
were not to fail of taking root, from want of the soil having been
loosened beforehand. We shall see, over and over again, how careful our
Lord is to prevent the opportunities He gives being lost. He never
neglects or underrates the need of properly preparing men for receiving
new truths: He employs the ordinary means for effecting this, and He would
have the Children of Light be as wise in their generation, and as
judicious in the use of such means, as the children of this world.
Again, the display of the miracles roused some, the Scribes and Pharisees
in particular, into active hostility—they watched the Signs to find ground
for charges of blasphemy and Sabbath-breaking. Priesthoods, occupied with
the externals of their function are aghast at the assertion of a living
and working God. The worldly are terrified also and with the terror that
awakens fury. These classes answer to those servants in the parable who
said, “We will not have this man to reign over us.” Whenever a vital
religion has been proclaimed it has found opponents of both characters.
History witnesses to this, from the stoning of the prophets to the
assaults on religionists in modern times. The miracles divided men into
three great sections: there were those who were for Christ, and those who
were against Him, and between these came a body who were not wholly
indifferent or unaffected, but who quieted themselves with saying that
such weighty matters were no business of theirs.
This breaking up of men into friends and foes was a kind of preparation
for the Apostles’ work. When men begin to take sides their minds cannot
lie torpid: evil passion and selfishness mix with their doings, no doubt;
but in the storm and stress men get to the bottom of their own hearts and
find out their true selves; and men’s truest selves were wanted by Christ.
So far we have spoken of miracles as means of rousing attention and
drawing out from the mass those who had ears to hear. We will now consider
them as practical illustrations accompanying the preaching, and
(4) Setting forth the Kingdom of God.
They shew not only how close this Kingdom is to us but they also convey
visible lessons, to help men to conceive it aright.
We learn from our Lord’s own lips that one purpose for which He wrought
Signs was to make men sure that the Kingdom of Heaven was come upon them.
When He was charged with casting out devils through Beelzebub, He says,
after disposing of the accusation,
“But if I by the finger of God cast out devils, then is the _kingdom of
God come upon you_.”(28)
Whether Our Lord preached in the villages Himself, or the Apostles or the
Seventy, going two by two, did so in His name the burden of their
preaching was always the same. They call on men to change to a better
mind, and declare that the Kingdom of God is come nigh. The seventy are
bid to say to those who rejected them, “Howbeit know this that the Kingdom
of God _is_ come nigh.”(29) Whether men chose to own it or not, God’s
Kingdom _was_ near them even at their doors. St Mark, at the outset of his
history of our Lord’s Ministry, tells us(30)
“Now after that John was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee,
preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God,
“And saying, the time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at
hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel.”
Christ declared that God was working underneath the ordinary agencies,
which seemed to men to be working of themselves. God had been so working
all along from the very beginning, but now Christ had come to reveal
God—that is to say to make men sensible of the Divine presence and Divine
agency in all that went on both within them and without. This revelation
He would effect in the ways best adapted to make men understand it. And as
the unlearned are most readily taught by what is set before their eyes;
and as the teacher is much helped by having something to shew; so Christ
declares the Kingdom and its nature, not only in parables and discourses,
but by practical instances and illustrations as well; namely by the Signs
He wrought. It was as though He had said, “I have told you that God’s
power was lying close about you: Behold it operating here.” The
combination of the word and the Sign, as the two essential elements of the
teaching, is expressly put before us in one passage: we read,
“And they went forth, and preached every where, the Lord working
with them, and _confirming the word with signs following_.
Amen.”(31)
(5) Teaching wrought by signs.
The Signs shew us, not only that the Kingdom _is_ God’s, but something
also of the nature of that Kingdom as well.
Our Lord speaks of the power displayed in miracles as God’s power working
through Him. It is “by the finger of God” that He casts out devils and the
man who is healed is bidden to tell his friends what God has done for
him.(32)
Christ nowhere claims the power as His own. It rests in God’s hands; but
it is granted to His prayer, because His will and God’s are one.
Moreover the Signs set forth God’s love and goodness to men, and thereby
they tell us something of His nature. All the Signs worked by our Lord
before the people at large, and all the works which the Twelve and the
Seventy performed in their mission among the cities of Israel, were works
of healing; with the exception of the two instances of the feeding of the
multitudes, which also were works of Divine beneficence. There are other
miracles of a different character, as we shall see presently, but those
were witnessed either by the disciples only, or by a circle of private
friends as at Cana of Galilee.
The men of Galilee had hitherto known the Lord as the God of Israel, who
was especially concerned with the fortunes of their race and nation as a
whole; but now they were told that He was the Father of every person in
that nation, and was sent especially to the lost sheep among them. It was
this declaration—that of the individual relation of each man to God, and
of the preciousness of the very hairs of his head in God’s eyes—that
constituted, in great part, the comforting nature of the “good tidings of
God.” The miracles wrought in connection with the preaching could not
bring this point very prominently forward: but so far as the miracles bear
on the point they are in accord with the teaching. They were worked, not
upon masses of men at once, but on individuals, and our Lord addresses
Himself personally to each particular sufferer, as though his case was
considered by itself. I shall soon, for another purpose, notice two
miracles recorded by St Mark which afford good instances of our Lord’s
sympathetic insight into individual cases. He does not, on entering a
village, ordain that all the lepers in it shall be cleansed, or all the
palsied restored to the use of their limbs. He condescends to take each
case by itself.
There is hardly a case of healing narrated in St Mark, who, of all our
authorities, gives the most detailed account, which does not shew traces
of special attention on the part of our Lord to the spiritual and physical
features of the particular case. We will take for an instance the cure of
the sick of the palsy. The connection of what is spiritual with that which
is physical is here very strongly marked. Our Lord begins by saying to the
man “thy sins be forgiven thee.” It is possible that the man’s condition
may have been due to imprudence or something worse; the thought of this
may have rankled in his mind and the mental trouble may have aggravated
the physical infirmity: the great physician cures both together. His
restoration seems to come with the sense of pardon, but he does not shew
himself aware of his recovery, until our Lord bids him arise.
The shewing that the Divine power worked blessings on men one by one,
contained in itself a lesson as to God’s infinity; for a finite being
would have been incapable of concerning himself for every unit of the
world’s population. Any supply of energy, short of an infinite one, would
have been exhausted. Hence the notion of God’s personal care for each soul
is bound up with the conception of His infinity.
Christ does not begin with the abstract and say: “God is infinite and
therefore He can find room in His heart to love men, every one;” but He
begins with the concrete and says, “God does love you and every one else:”
and He leaves it to men to arrive at the truth at the other end of the
proposition: viz. that if God’s strength is not lessened by drawing upon
it, this can only be because there is no limit to it. From this infinity
of God it also follows that the distinction between what we call great
occasions and small ones—between occasions that we think would justify
Divine interposition and those which would not—may not exist in God’s
eyes. In the presence of His infinity, the difference between great and
small things may disappear; certainly His measure will be a very different
one from ours.
This brings us to another point in the use of miracles to illustrate the
ways of God’s Kingdom: they exemplify the truth that God is no respecter
of persons. Neither the persons on whom they are wrought, or before whom
they are wrought, obtain this privilege by any merit or superiority. Men
are not healed because they deserve it. As God sends rain on the just and
unjust, so Christ cures the sick who come in His way, rich and poor
alike—the son of the nobleman, and the blind beggar; for our Lord, worldly
distinctions do not seem to exist. A man, _as man_, was of such
transcendent value in the eyes of the Son of Man that, compared to this,
little outer differences were but as the hills and dales of the earth,
which scarcely roughen the surface of the globe when seen as a whole. Men,
too, are not, except for very special purposes, picked out by Christ to
witness the miracles; any more than they are in God’s world to receive
special mercies, or the lessons, or the afflictions of life. Those who
were passing by saw the Signs, some profited and some did not: Herod and
other great men would gladly have witnessed a miracle, but it was not
granted them.
The Signs wrought by Christ harmonise with His teaching in another way:
they never have the air of ostentatiously overriding and superseding
Nature. His power, in its tranquil might, proceeded calmly along the
homely track of every-day life; just as if it had always been present
ruling quietly in its own domain, and might at any time have interposed
without effort, if the Spiritual Order had needed it. A man is healed and
an evil spirit is quelled by a word, and a multitude in the desert is
supplied with food they do not know how,—all proceeds in a calm continuous
way. Fresh energy is given to natural powers, and effects are produced of
vast magnitude and with astonishing rapidity; but these powers seem to
work through the organs and along the channels which nature provides: to
our Lord there is one primary source of all life and movement and light
and force, and that is God, from Whom all His power comes. He does not
call certain visible manifestations nature, and refer others to God, as
though nature and God were different powers. The Signs, accordingly, are
worked in such a way that it is hard to mark the particular point where
what is called the supernatural comes into play—to say, in fact, when
nature ends and God begins. The cures, so far as we can trace them, are
effected by the renewal of vitality in a disordered organ; this vitality
would seem to proceed from Christ; just as the power which set life going
on earth proceeded from God.
“For as the Father hath life in Himself, so hath He given to the
Son to have life in Himself.”(33)
Here, of course, we pass beyond the realm of the forces we can measure,
but this imparted force only restores the organs needed for the cure; the
optic nerve is reinvigorated or the absorbent vessels are stimulated to
abnormal action, and the eye becomes again efficient. The man is not
_enabled to see without an eye_, as was claimed to be done by some workers
of miracles in the middle ages; and there is no miracle in the Gospels
like that mentioned in Paley’s Evidences, where a man who had only one leg
becomes possessed of two. Christ _restores_ organs and withered limbs. He
does not dispense with the proper organ or create new ones.
St Mark gives us full particulars of two cures, of which we can in some
degree trace the process.
“And he took the blind man by the hand, and led him out of the
town; and when he had spit on his eyes, and put his hands upon
him, he asked him if he saw ought. And he looked up, and said, I
see men as trees, walking. After that he put his hands again upon
his eyes, and made him look up: and he was restored, and saw every
man clearly.”(34)
From this it appears that the eye was gradually restored, and our Lord’s
question shews that He did not expect an instantaneous cure. He speaks as
a surgeon might who had performed an operation. He does not take it for
granted that the man must have received his sight. He applies His hands, a
second time and then the ill-defined dark objects which the man spoke of,
become distinct.
The other case is that of one who was deaf and had an impediment in his
speech.
“And he took him aside from the multitude, and put his fingers
into his ears, and he spit, and touched his tongue; and looking up
to heaven, he sighed, and saith unto him, Ephphatha, that is, Be
opened. And straightway his ears were opened, and the string of
his tongue was loosed, and he spake plain.”(35)
The restoration of the disabled organs is clearly indicated here. I have
referred to these two cases a few pages back. We now come to—
(6) Miracles as a practical lesson to the disciples.
So far, we have spoken of miracles as performed for the sake of the
multitude; in order to draw them to listen and to sift from among them
those fit to become disciples: I have remarked too how the “Signs”
incidentally conveyed instruction, how they exhibited to the crowd the
goodness and the power of God. But there were some miracles, as I have
said in the first chapter, which were especially miracles of instruction,
and I would say a word or two about those, before I pass on to miracles as
means of assurance. These miracles of instruction were, in almost all
cases, performed when but few of the disciples were by; and they are
mostly wrought in the later period of our Lord’s Ministry.
Among the miracles of this class are, The miraculous draughts of fishes,
The walking on the sea, The stater in the fish’s mouth, The withering of
the fig tree, and the Transfiguration. The last named, is not usually
classed among miracles or considered in books which treat of them, but a
“Sign” it certainly was and it carries lessons with it which, bit by bit,
the world is learning still.
That miracles should be employed as a means of impressing truths on the
learner, we can well understand.
In no way could a great truth be presented so forcibly to the mind as by
being clothed in the garb of a miracle. The wondrous circumstances would
print themselves on the mind’s eye at once and for ever; and as they
recurred in lonely hours of thought, something more of their drift and
purport would peep out every time. It is characteristic of our Lord’s
ways, that His teaching yields its fruit gradually; much as a seed-vessel
driven by the wind, which scatters the contents, now of one cell, now of
another, as it whirls along.
I trace in many miracles of instruction, a bearing on the great movement
in which St Peter was the chief actor; namely, the calling of the
Gentiles, and the taking from the Jews thereby their exclusive position,
as the one people who knew God. Our Lord quietly, and by slow degrees
familiarizes St Peter with this idea. He is not suddenly brought face to
face with a notion which would cause a violent shock to his mind. With men
like the Apostles new ideas want a little time to grow into shape: we know
how easily a man is startled into shutting his mind against novelty when
it is suddenly presented. St Peter could not have been instructed as to
God’s plans without a long course of explanation which it was not our
Lord’s way to give: so He lets the lesson lie in St Peter’s mind till the
circumstances shall come which shall be the key to it.
Of what I call miracles of instruction, I propose to consider two briefly,
with a view chiefly to illustrating the way in which the instruction was
conveyed.
There is this singularity about the Transfiguration, that our Lord
_foretells_ it, and in most remarkable words.
“And he said unto them, Verily I say unto you, That there be some
of them that stand here, which shall not taste of death, till they
have seen the kingdom of God come with power.”(36)
This promise I understand to mean that some of the Apostles should, even
while yet alive on the earth, be vouchsafed a glimpse of another world,
and behold Christ in the glorified state which belongs to Him. The
expression “in no wise taste of death,” which occurs in all three
accounts, must mean that they should not only have this experience after
passing from this life to another, but even while yet in mortal frame. For
six days these words are allowed to work in the minds of the disciples,
and then:
“Jesus taketh with him Peter, and James, and John, and bringeth
them up into an high mountain apart by themselves: and he was
transfigured before them.”(37)
During the six days and on the way up the mountain after they were taken
from the rest, Peter, James, and John must have wondered what the “coming
of the kingdom of God with power” would be. This prevented their being so
stupefied with astonishment as to miss the lesson of the appearance. Here
again we note our Lord’s mode of _preparation_ for the receiving of
truths.
I do not discuss the nature of the vision, because I have now only to deal
with the matter as to its educational effect. When the Apostles saw the
glorified Lord with Moses and Elijah—their impression was not fear but
joy.—“It is _good_ for us to be here” says St Peter. He thought they had
arrived in another world, and he proposes to build tents, as if he had
landed in a strange island. He expects to be always there.
But what, in the view I am taking is the cardinal point of all, is the
voice out of the cloud—“This is my beloved Son, _Hear ye Him_.”(38) In
these last words the old covenant is replaced by the new. Moses
representing the Law, and Elijah the Prophets—they who had been hitherto
the spiritual teachers of men,—stood there to hand over their office to
the Son. Their work in nursing the minds of a people set apart as the
depositary of the knowledge of God was now at an end; now Humanity had
succeeded to its heritage, and its teacher was to be the Son of Man. A
religion which is shaped by the history and the mind of a particular
people will be cast in a particular mould: its outward form must be
rendered plastic if it is to become Universal. So Moses and Elijah the
teachers of Israel lay down their functions in the presence of the chosen
three, who hear their Master owned as God’s own Son, to whom the world is
henceforth to listen.
And when, many years later, the truth broke upon St Peter so that he said:
“Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons: but in
every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is
acceptable to him,”(39)
then a new light might illumine these recollections, which had been laid
by in his mind, and they would draw a fuller meaning from the new idea by
which he was impelled; and he would see how God’s purposes, long
entertained, work to the surface by degrees.
There is one miracle in which I can see no other intent, than that of the
instruction of the disciples and, as it may not come before us again, I
will say a few words on it now. The withering of the fig tree was, as I
have said in the Introduction, an acted parable: the most circumstantial
account is that given by St Mark.
“And on the morrow, when they were come from Bethany, he was
hungry: and seeing a fig tree afar off having leaves, he came, if
haply he might find any thing thereon: and when he came to it, he
found nothing but leaves; for the time of figs was not yet. And
Jesus answered and said unto it, No man eat fruit of thee
hereafter for ever. And his disciples heard it.”(40)
Of the next day it is related:
“And in the morning, as they passed by, they saw the fig tree
dried up from the roots. And Peter calling to remembrance saith
unto him, Master, behold, the fig tree which thou cursedst is
withered away. And Jesus answering saith unto them, Have faith in
God.”(41)
When our Lord remarked from a distance one fig tree—probably one out of
several, for Bethphage was named from its figs—which alone was in full
leaf, He was drawn to it; whether this was because He saw occasion for
impressing a lesson which He had at heart to give, or because He really
expected to find refreshment, we cannot decide. The last motive is not
excluded, for though the time of figs was not yet, still we are told that
in Judæa the fruit of the fig is ripe by the time the leaves have reached
their full size; and this display of foliage therefore gave prospect of
fruit. We must not argue that our Lord would, of his superhuman
illumination, have known that the tree was barren, for our Lord never uses
this source of knowledge to find out what may be learned by ordinary
means.
But whether our Lord approached the fig tree with the lesson in His mind
or not, the aptness of the circumstance struck Him and the lesson it
furnished was given on the spot. It was unusual for a tree to have leaves
at that early season: by putting them forth, however, it held out hopes of
fruit which it disappointed. This presented in a parable the situation of
“the Jews’ religion.”(42) They made a show, and contrasted themselves with
other nations, they dwelt on the fact that they alone worshipped the true
God, and knew and observed His laws—they invited admiration on this
ground—but of all this nothing came. So the fig tree seemed to say: “See I
am green when other trees are leafless, you may look to me for fruit.” It
is said that this precocious putting forth of leaves shews that the tree
is diseased and should be cut down, in like manner it was time that the
Jewish Hierarchy should lose its office. It is to this Hierarchy that the
words “No man eat fruit of thee henceforth and for ever” are really
spoken. Mankind was no longer to draw its teaching from the scribes and
priesthood of the Jews.
Individual Israelites might of course enlighten the world, as indeed they
have done in a most remarkable degree; but the Jewish nation as a body was
no longer to be the one recognised channel of God’s communication with
mankind. The leading people among them had wrapped themselves up in
self-complacency and self-sufficiency; they had moreover enslaved
themselves to the letter of their canonical books and to rabbinical
traditions: they were therefore neither ready nor able to expand when
expansion was needed. In other words, they were no longer fitted for a
living world; which must, of its very nature, grow and change and discard
all that will not change along with it; and so like the pretentious tree
they were to wither away, and no man henceforth was to eat fruit of them
for ever.
It would have been long before an Israelite could have brought himself to
see this meaning in the words of our Lord; but St Peter must have thought
over this last miracle, all the more from the apparent harshness of our
Lord shewn in it—from its being the solitary instance of a final
condemnation from His lips—and he must have asked himself; What did it
mean?
There are many other miracles in which the instruction of the Apostles and
notably of St Peter seems to be the leading aim. The walking on the water
might have taught him how closely failure treads on the heels of impulse:
the prophecy, “Before the cock crow thou shalt deny me thrice,” again
conveyed this same lesson together with much beside: and the words “Then
are the children free,” which point the moral of the finding of the stater
in the fish’s mouth, must have recurred to St Peter when the Church at
Jerusalem was debating as to how far she could free her Gentile members
from the burdens of the Law. Of this I shall speak again. I have adduced
sufficient instances to shew what I mean by miracles of instruction and
the way in which they worked.
Lastly we come to the important subject of
(7) Miracles as a means of proof.
The signs, worked by our Lord, whatever other functions they fulfilled,
had one office which in the eyes of some apologists is so important as to
drive all other functions into the back-ground. They are regarded as the
main ground of conviction. The Apostles, it is true, make little appeal to
the Signs worked by Christ: this may have been because they worked similar
Signs themselves, and knew that their enemies ascribed them to magic.
Their favourite arguments were the fulfilment of prophecy and the
resurrection of the Lord. The earlier hearers were Jews, and the question
with them was, “Did Jesus of Nazareth answer to the prophetic notices of
the expected deliverer of their race?” The Jews we hear “were mightily
convinced” by Apollos, not because he declared Christ’s works but because
he “shewed by the Scriptures that Jesus was the Christ.”(43)
But in time the early preachers addressed themselves to the Gentiles. The
Jewish notion of the Messiah was strange to hearers, who had never heard
of the prophets; while the idea that God should love the world and reveal
Himself to it commended itself to them, and they would expect that such a
revelation would be accompanied by manifestations beyond human experience.
The consequence was that, after a century or two, less was made of
prophecy and more was made of miracles: and if the question “What makes
you believe that Jesus of Nazareth was the Son of God?” had then been put
to all Christendom, the answer of an overwhelming majority would have
been, “Because of the wondrous works which He performed.”
We shall see, however, that our Lord does not Himself put Signs in the
very forefront of His claims to the allegiance of men. He only appeals to
them as subsidiary proofs; on which He would rest His cause when, owing to
the situation or the disposition of the hearer, no higher kind of proof
was available.(44)
It will be asked, “If miracles were only a subsidiary ground on which our
Lord claimed belief; What was the primary one?” We shall see that our
Lord’s first appeal was Personal; He claimed men’s allegiance from what
they had seen of Him and from what they knew.
There is a passage in St John’s Gospel which brings this very clearly
before us. The naturalness of it and its fidelity to character and
situation are such, that I am as sure that these words passed between
Philip and our Lord, as if they were found in all four of the Gospels,
though they only occur in the last. They occur in the final discourse of
our Lord when He and the Apostles are on the way to the garden of
Gethsemane. Our Lord has said,
“And whither I go, ye know the way. Thomas saith unto him, Lord,
we know not whither thou goest; how know we the way? Jesus saith
unto him, I am the way, and the truth, and the life: no man cometh
unto the Father, but by me. If ye had known me, ye would have
known my Father also: from henceforth ye know him, and have seen
him. Philip saith unto him, _Lord, shew us the Father, and it
sufficeth us_. Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with
you, and dost thou not know me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath
seen the Father; how sayest thou, Shew us the Father? Believest
thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words
that I say unto you I speak not from myself: but the Father
abiding in me doeth his works. Believe me that I am in the Father,
and the Father in me: or else believe me for the very works’
sake.”(45)
In Philip’s words we perceive an assurance of the reasonableness of what
he asks, which is most true to the life. He never doubts but that God
_could_ be brought before his eyes;—he supposed that the clouds might be
rolled away, so as to reveal a form of awful majesty clothed with
resplendent light, and with one glimpse of this he would be content. He
thinks that he makes a most moderate request.
Our Lord shews a sort of surprise, that after having been so long with
them, going in and out among them, they should have missed seeing that God
was in Him. It was perhaps this constant companionship that stood in
Philip’s way; that what was Divine should have mingled with his daily life
was beyond his conception. God, he supposed, could only shew Himself in
some strange and appalling manner. That God’s presence is reflected, in
the least broken way, in that course of things which is most normal and
most ordinary, was an idea that did not belong to Philip’s race or time;
but Christ drops a germ from which it should arise.
It is the concluding verse of the passage with which I am most concerned—
“Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me: or
_else_ believe me for the very works’ sake.”(46)
The first appeal is to that belief, which ought to have grown up from
personal knowledge; that failing, He points to the works. This belief was
of the same order as that which we have in the rectitude of an honoured
friend. In knowing a man, we get to a deeper kind of knowledge than we do
in knowing an object: all we can tell about an object is what its
properties are, we know nothing about what it _is_; but we do get nearer
to knowing what a friend _is_, our souls interpenetrate, as it were, a
little. So that if Philip had known our Lord as Peter did, he would, like
him, have recognised the “Son of the living God.” Supposing, however, that
he was not sufficiently “finely touched” for such a knowledge, that he
judged mainly from his senses, and needed proofs of which they could take
cognisance; then—as an alternative course though a very inferior one—He
might believe for the _mere Signs’_ sake. Signs were provided to suit the
cases of those who could not believe without them.
But while many take it for granted that Christ rested His claims on
miracles and worked His Signs to provide Himself with credentials; others
have gone to the other extreme, and have urged that Christ disparaged the
belief that was engendered by the sight of wonders. No doubt the
principle—“Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed” runs
through all our Lord’s teaching, but it was better they should believe
from the sight of _such Signs as our Lord worked_—Signs which were not
coercive—than not believe at all. Signs, certainly, have led men to
believe, when, either from inward or outward causes, they would not have
believed without. This effect I regard as a good one, and all good that
has ensued from what our Lord did, I believe that He intended to do.
The chief texts adduced in disparagement of miracles are:
“Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will in no wise believe,”(47)
and
“An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign.”(48)
If signs and wonders were the appointed means of bringing men to believe,
“Why,” ask the objectors, “are those blamed who cannot believe without
seeing them?” “Our Lord,” they say, “here shews that He sets little value
on the belief that comes of seeing signs.” This is, no doubt, quite true
of the sort of belief that comes of the mere assent of a terrified man:
but our Lord did not terrify men, and the belief that sprung from seeing
_His_ signs involved a will and a disposition to recognize God’s hand.
I do not feel sure, however, that the first text really bears on the
matter. I think it quite possible that the stress should be laid on the
word _see_. The nobleman “besought him that he would _come down_, and heal
his son; for he was at the point of death.”(49) He thought that our Lord
must go down to Capernaum with him and work the cure there; he cannot
believe that it will be done unless it is wrought before his eyes. When he
began to speak he had not the faith of the Roman centurion; he could not
suppose that the power of healing could be exercised from afar; but he
soon caught this confidence from looking on our Lord. If the text have
this sense it does not touch the question before us.
The second text refers to a sign from Heaven. It is spoken of those who
wanted an overwhelming miracle to be wrought, which should settle the
question and compel assent in the unwilling. The generation is not called
“evil and adulterous” for seeking after such Signs as our Lord wrought,
for crowding to see the cures for instance, but, for challenging Him to
produce a Sign of a very different character, a magical one, which, for
reasons explained in the last chapter, He would not do.
Our Lord Himself on several occasions points to another result of His
working of Signs. It rendered the rejection of Him a sin; this was because
the will was called into operation to explain these Signs away. The
leaders among those adverse to Him invented loopholes, such as referring
the works to Beelzebub, and those who wanted to escape being convinced
availed themselves of them. In this way, the acceptance or non-acceptance
of Signs formed a touchstone for discriminating those who virtually said
“We will not have this man to reign over us”—a section of people to whom I
alluded in the earlier part of the chapter. Men were pardoned the unbelief
of blindness and dulness, but not the wilful hatred which went out of its
way to find grounds for rejection, and which would refer works of pure
beneficence to the chief of the devils; this shewed innate aversion. The
following are passages in point:
“Woe unto thee, Chorazin! woe unto thee, Bethsaida! for if the
mighty works had been done in Tyre and Sidon which were done in
you, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and
ashes.”(50)
“He that hateth me hateth my Father also. If I had not done among
them the works which none other did, they had not had sin: but now
have they both seen and hated both me and my Father.”(51)
Again, it is easier to convey to another by description an external fact
than a personal impression: and thus the evidence from Signs is easier to
transmit from man to man than that which arises from realising a
Personality. Those who followed our Lord were subjugated by His influence;
some of us too may extract from His memoirs a conception of His
Personality: but it is only those possessing the gift of seeing the
reality in the outline, who can lay hold of this source of belief; while
in a miracle, all can perceive credentials given by God.
Our Lord’s course of proceeding in a very important instance, the occasion
on which John the Baptist sends his disciples to Him, is a most
instructive instance of His use of Signs. These Signs furnished the kind
of evidence most available in that particular case.
When the Baptist is in prison he sends two of his disciples to our Lord
with the question, “Art Thou He that cometh, or look we for another?”(52)
Many months had passed since the baptism of our Lord, and it seemed that
nothing had been done. He was himself in prison, removed from the
presence, and personal influence of our Lord. His recollections of Him
were perhaps fading, and his faith growing low. He was then in the
position for which the argument from signs is especially suitable—nothing
would help him like facts. He was in the situation in which tens of
thousands of Christians are still—believing, and yet having misgivings now
and then whether what they call their Faith may not be fancy,—longing for
something positive to cling to, some support outside themselves. Such
support our Lord affords the Baptist; He puts him as nearly as possible in
the position of a witness of the miracles.
We read:
“In that hour he cured many of diseases and plagues and evil
spirits; and on many that were blind he bestowed sight. And he
answered and said unto them, Go your way, and tell John what
things ye have seen and heard; the blind receive their sight, the
lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead
are raised up, the poor have good tidings preached to them. And
blessed is he, whosoever shall find none occasion of stumbling in
me.”(53)
We have no other instance in which miracles are wrought in order to assist
one who is in doubt. Our Lord does not give a direct answer to the words
“Art thou He that cometh?” If He had said “I am He”—and yet had not
restored the kingdom to Israel as the Baptist expected, He would only have
led him into further bewilderment. So his disciples take back for sole
reply, an account of “what they hear and see.” The works are such as our
Lord continually performed; but John’s disciples are given a special
opportunity of witnessing them for their Master’s sake. The Baptist is
however certified of this; a great work of God was being carried on in the
world, through Him on whom he had seen the Spirit descend when He rose
from Jordan.(54)
Of the two grounds, then, on which our Lord claimed men’s allegiance—His
personal influence and the signs He worked—our Lord rests preferably on
the first, but the second has its place and it is an important one.
Our Lord is the great physician who deals with all according as the case
and the constitution require. In different ages men’s minds require
different kinds of proof. I believe that such different kinds are
provided—that there is lying ready for each generation and each type of
mind the degree of evidence which is good for it and of the kind which it
is fitted to assimilate. Miracles are not the sort of evidence most wanted
now; but it was the sort which for many centuries was looked on as the
most incontrovertible. It spoke to those who could understand nothing
else. It was for many ages what men especially wanted, and there it was to
their hand. A future generation may find their main ground of belief in
Christ in a realization of His Personality; and they may in this way
arrive at that kind of knowledge of Him which our Lord had hoped that
Philip might have gained. This we can scarcely obtain without a careful
study of our Lord’s ways of influencing men.
I have not yet spoken of our Lord’s miraculous knowledge of events or of
His insight into men’s hearts. There have been a few persons in the course
of the world’s history who have, in a wondrous way, discerned the ends
towards which events were working; and others who have divined the
thoughts of other men. These gifts in the fullest degree our Lord
possessed; and when He needed stronger illumination for the purpose of His
work these faculties were exalted beyond human range. The superhuman
supervened, proceeding along the lines of human action; and this, like the
powers whereby His other works were wrought, came from the Father in
answer to prayer. By displaying this divining power He converts Nathanael,
and He forcibly impresses the woman of Samaria. But effective as the
display of this superhuman penetration was for bringing about conviction,
it was much more than an evidence of Divine power. The knowledge of this
insight of their Master into their hearts played a large part in the
Apostles’ Schooling. They were habituated by means of it to feel that
their hearts were known, and this habit became so much a part of
themselves that when Christ had left the world they could realize to
themselves that they were under His eye still. This condition of mind was
required for their special work, and Christ’s training was directed to
develop it within them as I hope to show.
In the next Chapter I pass to the discussion of the Laws which our Lord
appears to follow in His working of Signs.