even if a miracle were wrought, it would be impossible to prove
it. In this he only echoes Hume, Miracles, 112—“The ultimate
standard by which we determine all disputes that may arise is
always derived from experience and observation.” But here our own
personal experience is made the standard by which to judge all
human experience. Whately, Historic Doubts relative to Napoleon
Buonaparte, shows that the same rule would require us to deny the
existence of the great Frenchman, since Napoleon’s conquests were
contrary to all experience, and civilized nations had never before
been so subdued. The London Times for June 18, 1888, for the first
time in at least a hundred years or in 31,200 issues, was
misdated, and certain pages read June 17, although June 17 was
Sunday. Yet the paper would have been admitted in a court of
justice as evidence of a marriage. The real wonder is, not the
break in experience, but the continuity without the break.
(_b_) Lyman Abbott: “If the Old Testament told the story of a
naval engagement between the Jewish people and a pagan people, in
which all the ships of the pagan people were absolutely destroyed
and not a single man was killed among the Jews, all the sceptics
would have scorned the narrative. Every one now believes it,
except those who live in Spain.” There are people who in a similar
way refuse to investigate the phenomena of hypnotism, second
sight, clairvoyance, and telepathy, declaring _a priori_ that all
these things are impossible. Prophecy, in the sense of prediction,
is discredited. Upon the same principle wireless telegraphy might
be denounced as an imposture. The son of Erin charged with murder
defended himself by saying: “Your honor, I can bring fifty people
who did not see me do it.” Our faith in testimony cannot be due to
experience.
(_c_) On this point, see Chalmers, Christian Revelation, 3:70;
Starkie on Evidence, 739; De Quincey, Theological Essays,
1:162-188; Thornton, Old-fashioned Ethics, 143-153; Campbell on
Miracles. South’s sermon on The Certainty of our Savior’s
Resurrection had stated and answered this objection long before
Hume propounded it.
5. Evidential force of Miracles.
(_a_) Miracles are the natural accompaniments and attestations of new
communications from God. The great epochs of miracles—represented by
Moses, the prophets, the first and second comings of Christ—are coincident
with the great epochs of revelation. Miracles serve to draw attention to
new truth, and cease when this truth has gained currency and foothold.
Miracles are not scattered evenly over the whole course of
history. Few miracles are recorded during the 2500 years from Adam
to Moses. When the N. T. Canon is completed and the internal
evidence of Scripture has attained its greatest strength, the
external attestations by miracle are either wholly withdrawn or
begin to disappear. The spiritual wonders of regeneration remain,
and for these the way has been prepared by the long progress from
the miracles of power wrought by Moses to the miracles of grace
wrought by Christ. Miracles disappeared because newer and higher
proofs rendered them unnecessary. Better things than these are now
in evidence. Thomas Fuller: “Miracles are the swaddling-clothes of
the infant church.” John Foster: “Miracles are the great bell of
the universe, which draws men to God’s sermon.” Henry Ward
Beecher: “Miracles are the midwives of great moral truths; candles
lit before the dawn but put out after the sun has risen.”
Illingworth, in Lux Mundi, 210—“When we are told that miracles
contradict experience, we point to the daily occurrence of the
spiritual miracle of regeneration and ask: ‘Which is easier to
say, Thy sins are forgiven; or to say, Arise and walk?’_ (Mat.
9:5)_.”
Miracles and inspiration go together; if the former remain in the
church, the latter should remain also; see Marsh, in Bap. Quar.
Rev., 1887:225-242. On the cessation of miracles in the early
church, see Henderson, Inspiration, 443-490; Bückmann, in Zeitsch.
f. luth. Theol. u. Kirche, 1878:216. On miracles in the second
century, see Barnard, Literature of the Second Century, 139-180.
A. J. Gordon, Ministry of the Spirit, 167—“The apostles were
commissioned to speak for Christ till the N. T. Scriptures, his
authoritative voice, were completed. In the apostolate we have a
provisional inspiration; in the N. T. a stereotyped inspiration;
the first being endowed with authority _ad interim_ to forgive
sins, and the second having this authority _in perpetuo_.” Dr.
Gordon draws an analogy between coal, which is fossil sunlight,
and the New Testament, which is fossil inspiration. Sabatier,
Philos. Religion, 74—“The Bible is very free from the senseless
prodigies of oriental mythology. The great prophets, Isaiah, Amos,
Micah, Jeremiah, John the Baptist, work no miracles. Jesus’
temptation in the wilderness is a victory of the moral
consciousness over the religion of mere physical prodigy.” Trench
says that miracles cluster about the _foundation_ of the
theocratic kingdom under Moses and Joshua, and about the
_restoration_ of that kingdom under Elijah and Elisha. In the O.
T., miracles confute the gods of Egypt under Moses, the Phœnician
Baal under Elijah and Elisha, and the gods of Babylon under
Daniel. See Diman, Theistic Argument, 376, and art.: Miracle, by
Bernard, in Hastings’ Bible Dictionary.
(_b_) Miracles generally certify to the truth of doctrine, not directly,
but indirectly; otherwise a new miracle must needs accompany each new
doctrine taught. Miracles primarily and directly certify to the divine
commission and authority of a religious teacher, and therefore warrant
acceptance of his doctrines and obedience to his commands as the doctrines
and commands of God, whether these be communicated at intervals or all
together, orally or in written documents.
The exceptions to the above statement are very few, and are found
only in cases where the whole commission and authority of Christ,
and not some fragmentary doctrine, are involved. Jesus appeals to
his miracles as proof of the truth of his teaching in _Mat. 9:5,
6—_“Which is easier to say, Thy sins are forgiven; or to say,
Arise and walk? But that ye may know that the Son of man hath
authority on earth to forgive sins (then saith he to the sick of
the palsy), Arise, and take up thy bed, and go unto thy house”;
_12:28—_“if I by the spirit of God cast out demons, then is the
kingdom of God come upon you.” So Paul in _Rom. 1:4_, says that
Jesus “was declared to be the Son of God with power, ... by the
resurrection from the dead.” Mair, Christian Evidences, 223,
quotes from Natural Religion, 181—“It is said that the
theo-philanthropist Larévellière-Lépeaux once confided to
Talleyrand his disappointment at the ill success of his attempt to
bring into vogue a sort of improved Christianity, a sort of
benevolent rationalism which he had invented to meet the wants of
a benevolent age. ‘His propaganda made no way,’ he said. ‘What was
he to do?’ he asked. The ex-bishop Talleyrand politely condoled
with him, feared it was a difficult task to found a new religion,
more difficult than he had imagined, so difficult that he hardly
knew what to advise. ‘Still,’—so he went on after a moment’s
reflection,—‘there is one plan which you might at least try: I
should recommend you to be crucified, and to rise again the third
day.’ ” See also Murphy, Scientific Bases of Faith, 147-167;
Farrar, Life of Christ, 1:168-172.
(_c_) Miracles, therefore, do not stand alone as evidences. Power alone
cannot prove a divine commission. Purity of life and doctrine must go with
the miracles to assure us that a religious teacher has come from God. The
miracles and the doctrine in this manner mutually support each other, and
form parts of one whole. The internal evidence for the Christian system
may have greater power over certain minds and over certain ages than the
external evidence.
Pascal’s aphorism that “doctrines must be judged by miracles,
miracles by doctrine,” needs to be supplemented by Mozley’s
statement that “a supernatural fact is the proper proof of a
supernatural doctrine, while a supernatural doctrine is not the
proper proof of a supernatural fact.” E. G. Robinson, Christian
Theology, 107, would “defend miracles, but would not buttress up
Christianity by them.... No amount of miracles could convince a
good man of the divine commission of a known bad man; nor, on the
other hand, could any degree of miraculous power suffice to
silence the doubts of an evil-minded man.... The miracle is a
certification only to him who can perceive its significance....
The Christian church has the resurrection written all over it. Its
very existence is proof of the resurrection. Twelve men could
never have founded the church, if Christ had remained in the tomb.
The living church is the burning bush that is not consumed.” Gore,
Incarnation, 57—“Jesus did not appear after his resurrection to
unbelievers, but to believers only,—which means that this crowning
miracle was meant to confirm an existing faith, not to create one
where it did not exist.”
Christian Union, July 11, 1891—“If the anticipated resurrection of
Joseph Smith were to take place, it would add nothing whatever to
the authority of the Mormon religion.” Schurman, Agnosticism and
Religion, 57—“Miracles are merely the bells to call primitive
peoples to church. Sweet as the music they once made, modern ears
find them jangling and out of tune, and their dissonant notes
scare away pious souls who would fain enter the temple of
worship.” A new definition of miracle which recognizes their
possible classification as extraordinary occurrences in nature,
yet sees in all nature the working of the living God, may do much
to remove this prejudice. Bishop of Southampton, Place of Miracle,
53—“Miracles alone could not produce conviction. The Pharisees
ascribed them to Beelzebub. Though Jesus had done so many signs,
yet they believed not.... Though miracles were frequently wrought,
they were rarely appealed to as evidence of the truth of the
gospel. They are simply signs of God’s presence in his world. By
itself a miracle had no evidential force. The only test for
distinguishing divine from Satanic miracles is that of the moral
character and purpose of the worker; and therefore miracles depend
for all their force upon a previous appreciation of the character
and personality of Christ (79). The earliest apologists make no
use of miracles. They are of no value except in connection with
prophecy. Miracles _are_ the revelation of God, not the _proof_ of
revelation.” _Versus_ Supernatural Religion, 1:23, and Stearns, in
New Englander, Jan. 1882:80. See Mozley, Miracles, 15; Nicoll,
Life of Jesus Christ, 133; Mill, Logic, 374-382; H. B. Smith, Int.
to Christ. Theology, 167-169; Fisher, in Journ. Christ. Philos.,
April, 1883:270-283.
(_d_) Yet the Christian miracles do not lose their value as evidence in
the process of ages. The loftier the structure of Christian life and
doctrine the greater need that its foundation be secure. The authority of
Christ as a teacher of supernatural truth rests upon his miracles, and
especially upon the miracle of his resurrection. That one miracle to which
the church looks back as the source of her life carries with it
irresistibly all the other miracles of the Scripture record; upon it alone
we may safely rest the proof that the Scriptures are an authoritative
revelation from God.
The miracles of Christ are simple correlates of the
Incarnation—proper insignia of his royalty and divinity. By mere
external evidence however we can more easily prove the
resurrection than the incarnation. In our arguments with sceptics,
we should not begin with the ass that spoke to Balaam, or the fish
that swallowed Jonah, but with the resurrection of Christ; that
conceded, all other Biblical miracles will seem only natural
preparations, accompaniments, or consequences. G. F. Wright, in
Bib. Sac., 1889:707—“The difficulties created by the miraculous
character of Christianity may be compared to those assumed by a
builder when great permanence is desired in the structure erected.
It is easier to lay the foundation of a temporary structure than
of one which is to endure for the ages.” Pressensé: “The empty
tomb of Christ has been the cradle of the church, and if in this
foundation of her faith the church has been mistaken, she must
needs lay herself down by the side of the mortal remains, I say,
not of a man, but of a religion.”
President Schurman believes the resurrection of Christ to be “an
obsolete picture of an eternal truth—the fact of a continued life
with God.” Harnack, Wesen des Christenthums, 102, thinks no
consistent union of the gospel accounts of Christ’s resurrection
can be attained; apparently doubts a literal and bodily rising;
yet traces Christianity back to an invincible faith in Christ’s
conquering of death and his continued life. But why believe the
gospels when they speak of the sympathy of Christ, yet disbelieve
them when they speak of his miraculous power? We have no right to
trust the narrative when it gives us Christ’s words “Weep not” to
the widow of Nain, (_Luke 7:13_), and then to distrust it when it
tells us of his raising the widow’s son. The words “Jesus wept”
belong inseparably to a story of which “Lazarus, come forth!”
forms a part (_John 11:35, 43_). It is improbable that the
disciples should have believed so stupendous a miracle as Christ’s
resurrection, if they had not previously seen other manifestations
of miraculous power on the part of Christ. Christ himself is the
great miracle. The conception of him as the risen and glorified
Savior can be explained only by the fact that he did so rise. E.
G. Robinson, Christ. Theology, 109—“The Church attests the fact of
the resurrection quite as much as the resurrection attests the
divine origin of the church. Resurrection, as an evidence, depends
on the existence of the church which proclaims it.”
(_e_) The resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ—by which we mean his
coming forth from the sepulchre in body as well as in spirit—is
demonstrated by evidence as varied and as conclusive as that which proves
to us any single fact of ancient history. Without it Christianity itself
is inexplicable, as is shown by the failure of all modern rationalistic
theories to account for its rise and progress.
In discussing the evidence of Jesus’ resurrection, we are
confronted with three main rationalistic theories:
I. The _Swoon-theory_ of Strauss. This holds that Jesus did not
really die. The cold and the spices of the sepulchre revived him.
We reply that the blood and water, and the testimony of the
centurion (_Mark 15:45_), proved actual death (see Bib. Sac.,
April, 1889:228; Forrest, Christ of History and Experience,
137-170). The rolling away of the stone, and Jesus’ power
immediately after, are inconsistent with immediately preceding
swoon and suspended animation. How was his life preserved? where
did he go? when did he die? His not dying implies deceit on his
own part or on that of his disciples.
II. The _Spirit-theory_ of Keim. Jesus really died, but only his
spirit appeared. The spirit of Jesus gave the disciples a sign of
his continued life, a telegram from heaven. But we reply that the
telegram was untrue, for it asserted that his body had risen from
the tomb. The tomb was empty and the linen cloths showed an
orderly departure. Jesus himself denied that he was a bodiless
spirit: “a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me having”_
(Luke 24:39)_. Did “his flesh see corruption”_ (Acts 2:31)_? Was
the penitent thief raised from the dead as much as he? Godet,
Lectures in Defence of the Christian Faith, lect. i: A dilemma for
those who deny the fact of Christ’s resurrection: Either his body
remained in the hands of his disciples, or it was given up to the
Jews. If the disciples retained it, they were impostors: but this
is not maintained by modern rationalists. If the Jews retained it,
why did they not produce it as conclusive evidence against the
disciples?
III. The _Vision-theory_ of Renan. Jesus died, and there was no
objective appearance even of his spirit. Mary Magdalene was the
victim of subjective hallucination, and her hallucination became
contagious. This was natural because the Jews expected that the
Messiah would work miracles and would rise from the dead. We reply
that the disciples did not expect Jesus’ resurrection. The women
went to the sepulchre, not to see a risen Redeemer, but to embalm
a dead body. Thomas and those at Emmaus had given up all hope.
Four hundred years had passed since the days of miracles; John the
Baptist “did no miracle”_ (John 10:41)_; the Sadducees said “there
is no resurrection”_ (Mat. 22:23)_. There were thirteen different
appearances, to: 1. the Magdalen; 2. other women; 3. Peter; 4.
Emmaus; 5. the Twelve; 6. the Twelve after eight days; 7. Galilee
seashore; 8. Galilee mountain; 9. Galilee five hundred; 10. James;
11. ascension at Bethany; 12. Stephen; 13. Paul on way to
Damascus. Paul describes Christ’s appearance to him as something
objective, and he implies that Christ’s previous appearances to
others were objective also: “last of all [these bodily
appearances], ... he appeared to me also”_ (1 Cor. 15:8)_. Bruce,
Apologetics, 396—“Paul’s interest and intention in classing the
two together was to level his own vision [of Christ] up to the
objectivity of the early Christophanies. He believed that the
eleven, that Peter in particular, had seen the risen Christ with
the eye of the body, and he meant to claim for himself a vision of
the same kind.” Paul’s was a sane, strong nature. Subjective
visions do not transform human lives; the resurrection moulded the
apostles; they did not create the resurrection (see Gore,
Incarnation, 76). These appearances soon ceased, unlike the law of
hallucinations, which increase in frequency and intensity. It is
impossible to explain the ordinances, the Lord’s day, or
Christianity itself, if Jesus did not rise from the dead.
The resurrection of our Lord teaches three important lessons: (1)
It showed that his work of atonement was completed and was stamped
with the divine approval; (2) It showed him to be Lord of all and
gave the one sufficient external proof of Christianity; (3) It
furnished the ground and pledge of our own resurrection, and thus
“brought life and immortality to light”_ (2 Tim. 1:10)_. It must
be remembered that the resurrection was the one sign upon which
Jesus himself staked his claims—“the sign of Jonah”_ (Luke
11:29)_; and that the resurrection is proof, not simply of God’s
power, but of Christ’s own power: _John 10:18—_“I have power to
lay it down, and I have power to take it again”; _2:19—_“Destroy
this temple, and in three days I will raise it up”.... _21—_“he
spake of the temple of his body.” See Alexander, Christ and
Christianity, 9, 158-224, 302; Mill, Theism, 216; Auberlen, Div.
Revelation, 56; Boston Lectures, 203-239; Christlieb, Modern Doubt
and Christian Belief, 448-503; Row, Bampton Lectures,
1887:358-423; Hutton, Essays, 1:119; Schaff, in Princeton Rev.,
May, 1880; 411-419; Fisher, Christian Evidences, 41-46, 82-85;
West, in Defence and Conf. of Faith, 80-129; also special works on
the Resurrection of our Lord, by Milligan, Morrison, Kennedy, J.
Baldwin Brown.
6. Counterfeit Miracles.
Since only an act directly wrought by God can properly be called a
miracle, it follows that surprising events brought about by evil spirits
or by men, through the use of natural agencies beyond our knowledge, are
not entitled to this appellation. The Scriptures recognize the existence
of such, but denominate them “lying wonders” (2 Thess. 2:9).
These counterfeit miracles in various ages argue that the belief in
miracles is natural to the race, and that somewhere there must exist the
true. They serve to show that not all supernatural occurrences are divine,
and to impress upon us the necessity of careful examination before we
accept them as divine.
False miracles may commonly be distinguished from the true by (_a_) their
accompaniments of immoral conduct or of doctrine contradictory to truth
already revealed—as in modern spiritualism; (_b_) their internal
characteristics of inanity and extravagance—as in the liquefaction of the
blood of St. Januarius, or the miracles of the Apocryphal New Testament;
(_c_) the insufficiency of the object which they are designed to
further—as in the case of Apollonius of Tyana, or of the miracles said to
accompany the publication of the doctrines of the immaculate conception
and of the papal infallibility; (_d_) their lack of substantiating
evidence—as in mediæval miracles, so seldom attested by contemporary and
disinterested witnesses; (_e_) their denial or undervaluing of God’s
previous revelation of himself in nature—as shown by the neglect of
ordinary means, in the cases of Faith-cure and of so-called Christian
Science.
Only what is valuable is counterfeited. False miracles presuppose
the true. Fisher, Nature and Method of Revelation, 283—“The
miracles of Jesus originated faith in him, while mediæval miracles
follow established faith. The testimony of the apostles was given
in the face of incredulous Sadducees. They were ridiculed and
maltreated on account of it. It was no time for devout dreams and
the invention of romances.” The blood of St. Januarius at Naples
is said to be contained in a vial, one side of which is of thick
glass, while the other side is of thin. A similar miracle was
wrought at Hales in Gloucestershire. St. Alban, the first martyr
of Britain, after his head is cut off, carries it about in his
hand. In Ireland the place is shown where St. Patrick in the fifth
century drove all the toads and snakes over a precipice into the
nether regions. The legend however did not become current until
some hundreds of years after the saint’s bones had crumbled to
dust at Saul, near Downpatrick (see Hemphill, Literature of the
Second Century, 180-182). Compare the story of the book of Tobit
(6-8), which relates the expulsion of a demon by smoke from the
burning heart and liver of a fish caught in the Tigris, and the
story of the Apocryphal New Testament (I, Infancy), which tells of
the expulsion of Satan in the form of a mad dog from Judas by the
child Jesus. On counterfeit miracles in general, see Mozley,
Miracles, 15, 161; F. W. Farrar, Witness of History to Christ, 72;
A. S. Farrar, Science and Theology, 208; Tholuck, Vermischte
Schriften, 1:27; Hodge, Syst. Theol., 1:630; Presb. Rev.,
1881:687-719.
Some modern writers have maintained that the gift of miracles
still remains in the church. Bengel: “The reason why _many_
miracles are not now wrought is not so much because _faith_ is
established, as because _unbelief_ reigns.” Christlieb: “It is the
want of faith in our age which is the greatest hindrance to the
stronger and more marked appearance of that miraculous power which
is working here and there in quiet concealment. Unbelief is the
final and most important reason for the retrogression of
miracles.” Edward Irving, Works, 5:464—“Sickness is sin apparent
in the body, the presentiment of death, the forerunner of
corruption. Now, as Christ came to destroy death, and will yet
redeem the body from the bondage of corruption, if the church is
to have a first fruits or earnest of this power, it must be by
receiving power over diseases that are the first fruits and
earnest of death.” Dr. A. J. Gordon, in his Ministry of Healing,
held to this view. See also Boys, Proofs of the Miraculous in the
Experience of the Church; Bushnell, Nature and the Supernatural,
446-492; Review of Gordon, by Vincent, in Presb. Rev.,
1883:473-502; Review of Vincent, in Presb. Rev., 1884:49-79.
In reply to the advocates of faith-cure in general, we would grant
that nature is plastic in God’s hand; that he can work miracle
when and where it pleases him; and that he has given promises
which, with certain Scriptural and rational limitations, encourage
believing prayer for healing in cases of sickness. But we incline
to the belief that in these later ages God answers such prayer,
not by miracle, but by special providence, and by gifts of
courage, faith and will, thus acting by his Spirit directly upon
the soul and only indirectly upon the body. The laws of nature are
generic volitions of God, and to ignore them and disuse means is
presumption and disrespect to God himself. The Scripture promise
to faith is always expressly or impliedly conditioned upon our use
of means: we are to work out our own salvation, for the very
reason that it is God who works in us; it is vain for the drowning
man to pray, so long as he refuses to lay hold of the rope that is
thrown to him. Medicines and physicians are the rope thrown to us
by God; we cannot expect miraculous help, while we neglect the
help God has already given us; to refuse this help is practically
to deny Christ’s revelation in nature. Why not live without
eating, as well as recover from sickness without medicine?
Faith-feeding is quite as rational as faith-healing. To except
cases of disease from this general rule as to the use of means has
no warrant either in reason or in Scripture. The atonement has
purchased complete salvation, and some day salvation shall be
ours. But death and depravity still remain, not as penalty, but as
chastisement. So disease remains also. Hospitals for Incurables,
and the deaths even of advocates of faith-cure, show that they too
are compelled to recognize some limit to the application of the
New Testament promise.
In view of the preceding discussion we must regard the so-called
Christian Science as neither Christian nor scientific. Mrs. Mary
Baker G. Eddy denies the authority of all that part of revelation
which God has made to man in nature, and holds that the laws of
nature may be disregarded with impunity by those who have proper
faith; see G. F. Wright, in Bib. Sac., April, 1899:375. Bishop
Lawrence of Massachusetts: “One of the errors of Christian Science
is its neglect of accumulated knowledge, of the fund of
information stored up for these Christian centuries. That
knowledge is just as much God’s gift as is the knowledge obtained
from direct revelation. In rejecting accumulated knowledge and
professional skill, Christian Science rejects the gift of God.”
Most of the professed cures of Christian Science are explicable by
the influence of the mind upon the body, through hypnosis or
suggestion; (see A. A. Bennett, in Watchman, Feb. 13, 1903).
Mental disturbance may make the mother’s milk a poison to the
child; mental excitement is a common cause of indigestion; mental
depression induces bowel disorders; depressed mental and moral
conditions render a person more susceptible to grippe, pneumonia,
typhoid fever. Reading the account of an accident in which the
body is torn or maimed, we ourselves feel pain in the same spot;
when the child’s hand is crushed, the mother’s hand, though at a
distance, becomes swollen; the mediæval _stigmata_ probably
resulted from continuous brooding upon the sufferings of Christ
(see Carpenter, Mental Physiology, 676-690).
But mental states may help as well as harm the body. Mental
expectancy facilitates cure in cases of sickness. The physician
helps the patient by inspiring hope and courage. Imagination works
wonders, especially in the case of nervous disorders. The diseases
said to be cured by Christian Science are commonly of this sort.
In every age fakirs, mesmerists, and quacks have availed
themselves of these underlying mental forces. By inducing
expectancy, imparting courage, rousing the paralyzed will, they
have indirectly caused bodily changes which have been mistaken for
miracle. Tacitus tells us of the healing of a blind man by the
Emperor Vespasian. Undoubted cures have been wrought by the royal
touch in England. Since such wonders have been performed by Indian
medicine-men, we cannot regard them as having any specific
Christian character, and when, as in the present case, we find
them used to aid in the spread of false doctrine with regard to
sin, Christ, atonement, and the church, we must class them with
the “lying wonders” of which we are warned in _2 Thess. 2:9_. See
Harris, Philosophical Basis of Theism, 381-386; Buckley,
Faith-Healing, and in Century Magazine, June, 1886:221-236; Bruce,
Miraculous Element in Gospels, lecture 8; Andover Review,
1887:249-264.
IV. Prophecy as Attesting a Divine Revelation.
We here consider prophecy in its narrow sense of mere prediction,
reserving to a subsequent chapter the consideration of prophecy as
interpretation of the divine will in general.
1. _Definition._ Prophecy is the foretelling of future events by virtue of
direct communication from God—a foretelling, therefore, which, though not
contravening any laws of the human mind, those laws, if fully known, would
not, without this agency of God, be sufficient to explain.
In discussing the subject of prophecy, we are met at the outset by
the contention that there is not, and never has been, any real
foretelling of future events beyond that which is possible to
natural prescience. This is the view of Kuenen, Prophets and
Prophecy in Israel. Pfleiderer, Philos. Relig., 2:42, denies any
direct prediction. Prophecy in Israel, he intimates, was simply
the consciousness of God’s righteousness, proclaiming its ideals
of the future, and declaring that the will of God is the moral
ideal of the good and the law of the world’s history, so that the
fates of nations are conditioned by their bearing toward this
moral purpose of God: “The fundamental error of the vulgar
apologetics is that it confounds prophecy with heathen
soothsaying—national salvation without character.” W. Robertson
Smith, in Encyc. Britannica, 19:821, tells us that “detailed
prediction occupies a very secondary place in the writings of the
prophets; or rather indeed what seem to be predictions in detail
are usually only free poetical illustrations of historical
principles, which neither received nor demanded exact fulfilment.”
As in the case of miracles, our faith in an immanent God, who is
none other than the Logos or larger Christ, gives us a point of
view from which we may reconcile the contentions of the
naturalists and supernaturalists. Prophecy is an immediate act of
God; but, since all natural genius is also due to God’s
energizing, we do not need to deny the employment of man’s natural
gifts in prophecy. The instances of telepathy, presentiment, and
second sight which the Society for Psychical Research has
demonstrated to be facts show that prediction, in the history of
divine revelation, may be only an intensification, under the
extraordinary impulse of the divine Spirit, of a power that is in
some degree latent in all men. The author of every great work of
creative imagination knows that a higher power than his own has
possessed him. In all human reason there is a natural activity of
the divine Reason or Logos, and he is “the light which lighteth
every man”_ (John 1:9)_. So there is a natural activity of the
Holy Spirit, and he who completes the circle of the divine
consciousness completes also the circle of human consciousness,
gives self-hood to every soul, makes available to man the natural
as well as the spiritual gifts of Christ; _cf.__ John 16:14—_“he
shall take of mine, and shall declare it unto you.” The same
Spirit who in the beginning “brooded over the face of the waters”_
(Gen. 1:2)_ also broods over humanity, and it is he who, according
to Christ’s promise, was to “declare unto you the things that are
to come”_ (John 16:13)_. The gift of prophecy may have its natural
side, like the gift of miracles, yet may be finally explicable
only as the result of an extraordinary working of that Spirit of
Christ who to some degree manifests himself in the reason and
conscience of every man; _cf.__ 1 Pet 1:11—_“searching what time
or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did
point unto, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ,
and the glories that should follow them.” See Myers, Human
Personality, 2:262-292.
A. B. Davidson, in his article on Prophecy and Prophets, in
Hastings’ Bible Dictionary, 4:120, 121, gives little weight to
this view that prophecy is based on a natural power of the human
mind: “The arguments by which Giesebrecht, Berufsgabung, 13 ff.,
supports the theory of a ‘faculty of presentiment’ have little
cogency. This faculty is supposed to reveal itself particularly on
the approach of death (_Gen. 28_ and _49_). The contemporaries of
most great religious personages have attributed to them a
prophetic gift. The answer of John Knox to those who credited him
with such a gift is worth reading: ‘My assurances are not marvels
of Merlin, nor yet the dark sentences of profane prophecy. But
_first_, the plain truth of God’s word; _second_, the invincible
justice of the everlasting God; and _third_, the ordinary course
of his punishments and plagues from the beginning, are my
assurances and grounds.’ ” While Davidson grants the fulfilment of
certain specific predictions of Scripture, to be hereafter
mentioned, he holds that “such presentiments as we can observe to
be authentic are chiefly products of the conscience or moral
reason. True prophecy is based on moral grounds. Everywhere the
menacing future is connected with the evil past by ‘therefore’_
(Micah 3:12; Is. 5:13; Amos 1:2)_.” We hold with Davidson to the
moral element in prophecy, but we also recognize a power in normal
humanity which he would minimize or deny. We claim that the human
mind even in its ordinary and secular working gives occasional
signs of transcending the limitations of the present. Believing in
the continual activity of the divine Reason in the reason of man,
we have no need to doubt the possibility of an extraordinary
insight into the future, and such insight is needed at the great
epochs of religious history. Expositor’s Gk. Test.,
2:34—“Savonarola foretold as early as 1496 the capture of Rome,
which happened in 1527, and he did this not only in general terms
but in detail; his words were realized to the letter when the
sacred churches of St. Peter and St. Paul became, as the prophet
foretold, stables for the conquerors’ horses.” On the general
subject, see Payne-Smith, Prophecy a Preparation for Christ;
Alexander, Christ and Christianity; Farrar, Science and Theology,
106; Newton on Prophecy; Fairbairn on Prophecy.
2. _Relation of Prophecy to Miracles._ Miracles are attestations of
revelation proceeding from divine power; prophecy is an attestation of
revelation proceeding from divine knowledge. Only God can know the
contingencies of the future. The possibility and probability of prophecy
may be argued upon the same grounds upon which we argue the possibility
and probability of miracles. As an evidence of divine revelation, however,
prophecy possesses two advantages over miracles, namely: (_a_) The proof,
in the case of prophecy, is not derived from ancient testimony, but is
under our eyes. (_b_) The evidence of miracles cannot become stronger,
whereas every new fulfilment adds to the argument from prophecy.
3. _Requirements in Prophecy, considered as an Evidence of Revelation._
(_a_) The utterance must be distant from the event. (_b_) Nothing must
exist to suggest the event to merely natural prescience. (_c_) The
utterance must be free from ambiguity. (_d_) Yet it must not be so precise
as to secure its own fulfilment. (_e_) It must be followed in due time by
the event predicted.
Hume: “All prophecies are real miracles, and only as such can be
admitted as proof of any revelation.” See Wardlaw, Syst. Theol.,
1:347. (_a_) Hundreds of years intervened between certain of the
O. T. predictions and their fulfilment. (_b_) Stanley instances
the natural sagacity of Burke, which enabled him to predict the
French Revolution. But Burke also predicted in 1793 that France
would be partitioned like Poland among a confederacy of hostile
powers. Canning predicted that South American colonies would grow
up as the United States had grown. D’Israeli predicted that our
Southern Confederacy would become an independent nation. Ingersoll
predicted that within ten years there would be two theatres for
one church. (_c_) Illustrate ambiguous prophecies by the Delphic
oracle to Crœsus: “Crossing the river, thou destroyest a great
nation”—whether his own or his enemy’s the oracle left
undetermined. “Ibis et redibis nunquam peribis in bello.” (_d_)
Strauss held that O. T. prophecy itself determined either the
events or the narratives of the gospels. See Greg, Creed of
Christendom, chap. 4. (_e_) Cardan, the Italian mathematician,
predicted the day and hour of his own death, and committed suicide
at the proper time to prove the prediction true. Jehovah makes the
fulfilment of his predictions the proof of his deity in the
controversy with false gods: _Is. 41:23—_“Declare the things that
are to come hereafter, that we may know that ye are gods”;
_42:9—_“Behold, the former things are come to pass and new things
do I declare: before they spring forth I tell you of them.”
4. _General Features of Prophecy in the Scriptures._ (_a_) Its large
amount—occupying a great portion of the Bible, and extending over many
hundred years. (_b_) Its ethical and religious nature—the events of the
future being regarded as outgrowths and results of men’s present attitude
toward God. (_c_) Its unity in diversity—finding its central point in
Christ the true servant of God and deliverer of his people. (_d_) Its
actual fulfilment as regards many of its predictions—while seeming
non-fulfilments are explicable from its figurative and conditional nature.
A. B. Davidson, in Hastings’ Bible Dictionary, 4:125, has
suggested reasons for the apparent non-fulfilment of certain
predictions. Prophecy is poetical and figurative; its details are
not to be pressed; they are only drapery, needed for the
expression of the idea. In _Isa. 13:16—_“Their infants shall be
dashed in pieces ... and their wives ravished”—the prophet gives
an ideal picture of the sack of a city; these things did not
actually happen, but Cyrus entered Babylon “in peace.” Yet the
essential truth remained that the city fell into the enemy’s
hands. The prediction of Ezekiel with regard to Tyre, _Ez.
26:7-14_, is recognized in _Ez. 29:17-20_ as having been fulfilled
not in its details but in its essence—the actual event having been
the breaking of the power of Tyre by Nebuchadnezzar. _Is.
17:1—_“Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it
shall be a ruinous heap”—must be interpreted as predicting the
blotting out of its dominion, since Damascus has probably never
ceased to be a city. The conditional nature of prophecy explains
other seeming non-fulfilments. Predictions were often threats,
which might be revoked upon repentance. _Jer. 26:13—_“amend your
ways ... and the Lord will repent him of the evil which he hath
pronounced against you.” _Jonah 3:4—_“Yet forty days, and Nineveh
shall be overthrown ...” _10—God saw their works, that they turned
from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, which he said
he would do unto them; and he did it not_; _cf.__ Jer. 18:8_;
_26:19_.
Instances of actual fulfilment of prophecy are found, according to
Davidson, in Samuel’s prediction of some things that would happen
to Saul, which the history declares did happen (_1 Sam. 1_ and
_10_). Jeremiah predicted the death of Hananiah within the year,
which took place (_Jer. 28_). Micaiah predicted the defeat and
death of Ahab at Ramoth-Gilead (_1 Kings 22_). Isaiah predicted
the failure of the northern coalition to subdue Jerusalem (_Is.
7_); the overthrow in two or three years of Damascus and Northern
Israel before the Assyrians (_Is. 8 and 17_); the failure of
Sennacherib to capture Jerusalem, and the melting away of his army
(_Is. 37:34-37_). “And in general, apart from details, the main
predictions of the prophets regarding Israel and the nations were
verified in history, for example, _Amos 1_ and _2_. The chief
predictions of the prophets relate to the imminent downfall of the
kingdoms of Israel and Judah; to what lies beyond this, namely,
the restoration of the kingdom of God; and to the state of the
people in their condition of final felicity.” For predictions of
the exile and the return of Israel, see especially _Amos
9:9—_“For, lo, I will command, and I will sift the house of Israel
among all the nations, like as grain is sifted in a sieve, yet
shall not the least kernel fall upon the earth.... _14—_And I will
bring again the captivity of my people Israel, and they shall
build the waste cities and inhabit them.” Even if we accept the
theory of composite authorship of the book of Isaiah, we still
have a foretelling of the sending back of the Jews from Babylon,
and a designation of Cyrus as God’s agent, in _Is. 44:28—_“that
saith of Cyrus, He is my shepherd, and shall perform all my
pleasure: even saying of Jerusalem, She shall be built; and of the
temple, Thy foundation shall be laid”; see George Adam Smith, in
Hastings’ Bible Dictionary, 2:493. Frederick the Great said to his
chaplain: “Give me in one word a proof of the divine origin of the
Bible”; and the chaplain well replied: “The Jews, your Majesty.”
In the case of the Jews we have even now the unique phenomena of a
people without a land, and a land without a people,—yet both these
were predicted centuries before the event.
5. _Messianic Prophecy in general._ (_a_) Direct predictions of events—as
in Old Testament prophecies of Christ’s birth, suffering and subsequent
glory. (_b_) General prophecy of the Kingdom in the Old Testament, and of
its gradual triumph. (_c_) Historical types in a nation and in
individuals—as Jonah and David. (_d_) Prefigurations of the future in
rites and ordinances—as in sacrifice, circumcision, and the passover.
6. _Special Prophecies uttered by Christ._ (_a_) As to his own death and
resurrection. (_b_) As to events occurring between his death and the
destruction of Jerusalem (multitudes of impostors; wars and rumors of
wars; famine and pestilence). (_c_) As to the destruction of Jerusalem and
the Jewish polity (Jerusalem compassed with armies; abomination of
desolation in the holy place; flight of Christians; misery; massacre;
dispersion). (_d_) As to the world-wide diffusion of his gospel (the Bible
already the most widely circulated book in the world).
The most important feature in prophecy is its Messianic element;
see _Luke 24:27—_“beginning from Moses and from all the prophets,
he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning
himself”; _Acts 10:43—_“to him bear all the prophets witness”;
_Rev. 19:10—_“the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.”
Types are intended resemblances, designed prefigurations; for
example, Israel is a type of the Christian church; outside nations
are types of the hostile world; Jonah and David are types of
Christ. The typical nature of Israel rests upon the deeper fact of
the community of life. As the life of God the Logos lies at the
basis of universal humanity and interpenetrates it in every part,
so out of this universal humanity grows Israel in general; out of
Israel as a nation springs the spiritual Israel, and out of
spiritual Israel Christ according to the flesh,—the upward rising
pyramid finds its apex and culmination in him. Hence the
predictions with regard to “the servant of Jehovah”_ (Is.
42:1-7)_, and “the Messiah”_ (Is. 61:1; John 1:41)_, have partial
fulfilment in Israel, but perfect fulfilment only in Christ; so
Delitzsch, Oehler, and Cheyne on Isaiah, 2:253. Sabatier, Philos.
Religion, 59—“If humanity were not potentially and in some degree
Immanuel, God with us, there would never have issued from its
bosom he who bore and revealed this blessed name.” Gardiner, O. T.
and N. T. in their Mutual Relations, 170-194.
In the O. T., Jehovah is the Redeemer of his people. He works
through judges, prophets, kings, but he himself remains the
Savior; “it is only the Divine in them that saves”; “Salvation is
of Jehovah”_ (Jonah 2:9)_. Jehovah is manifested in the Davidic
King under the monarchy; in Israel, the Servant of the Lord,
during the exile; and in the Messiah, or Anointed One, in the
post-exilian period. Because of its conscious identification with
Jehovah, Israel is always a forward-looking people. Each new
judge, king, prophet is regarded as heralding the coming reign of
righteousness and peace. These earthly deliverers are saluted with
rapturous expectation; the prophets express this expectation in
terms that transcend the possibilities of the present; and, when
this expectation fails to be fully realized, the Messianic hope is
simply transferred to a larger future. Each separate prophecy has
its drapery furnished by the prophet’s immediate surroundings, and
finds its occasion in some event of contemporaneous history. But
by degrees it becomes evident that only an ideal and perfect King
and Savior can fill out the requirements of prophecy. Only when
Christ appears, does the real meaning of the various Old Testament
predictions become manifest. Only then are men able to combine the
seemingly inconsistent prophecies of a priest who is also a king
(_Psalm 110_), and of a royal but at the same time a suffering
Messiah (_Isaiah 53_). It is not enough for us to ask what the
prophet himself meant, or what his earliest hearers understood, by
his prophecy. This is to regard prophecy as having only a single,
and that a human, author. With the spirit of man coöperated the
Spirit of Christ, the Holy Spirit (_1 Pet. 1:11—_“the Spirit of
Christ which was in them”; _2 Pet. 1:21—_“no prophecy ever came by
the will of man; but men spake from God, being moved by the Holy
Spirit”). All prophecy has a twofold authorship, human and divine;
the same Christ who spoke through the prophets brought about the
fulfilment of their words.
It is no wonder that he who through the prophets uttered
predictions with regard to himself should, when he became
incarnate, be the prophet _par excellence_ (_Deut. 18:15_; _Acts
3:22—_“Moses indeed said, A prophet shall the Lord God raise up
from among your brethren, like unto me; to him shall ye hearken”).
In the predictions of Jesus we find the proper key to the
interpretation of prophecy in general, and the evidence that while
no one of the three theories—the preterist, the continuist, the
futurist—furnishes an exhaustive explanation, each one of these
has its element of truth. Our Lord made the fulfilment of the
prediction of his own resurrection a test of his divine
commission: it was “the sign of Jonah the prophet”_ (Mat. 12:39)_.
He promised that his disciples should have prophetic gifts: _John
15:15—_“No longer do I call you servants; for the servant knoweth
not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all
things that I heard from my Father I have made known unto you”;
_16:13—_“the Spirit of truth ... he shall declare unto you the
things that are to come.” Agabus predicted the famine and Paul’s
imprisonment (_Acts 11:28_; _21:10_); Paul predicted heresies
(_Acts 20:29, 30_), shipwreck (_Acts 27:10, 21-26_), “the man of
sin”_ (2 Thess. 2:3)_, Christ’s second coming, and the
resurrection of the saints (_1 Thess. 4:15-17_).
7. On the double sense of Prophecy.
(_a_) Certain prophecies apparently contain a fulness of meaning which is
not exhausted by the event to which they most obviously and literally
refer. A prophecy which had a partial fulfilment at a time not remote from
its utterance, may find its chief fulfilment in an event far distant.
Since the principles of God’s administration find ever recurring and ever
enlarging illustration in history, prophecies which have already had a
partial fulfilment may have whole cycles of fulfilment yet before them.
In prophecy there is an absence of perspective; as in Japanese
pictures the near and the far appear equally distant; as in
dissolving views, the immediate future melts into a future
immeasurably far away. The candle that shines through a narrow
aperture sends out its light through an ever-increasing area;
sections of the triangle correspond to each other, but the more
distant are far greater than the near. The châlet on the
mountain-side may turn out to be only a black cat on the woodpile,
or a speck upon the window pane. “A hill which appears to rise
close behind another is found on nearer approach to have receded a
great way from it.” The painter, by foreshortening, brings
together things or parts that are relatively distant from each
other. The prophet is a painter whose foreshortenings are
supernatural; he seems freed from the law of space and time, and,
rapt into the timelessness of God, he views the events of history
“sub specie eternitatis.” Prophecy was the sketching of an
outline-map. Even the prophet could not fill up the outline. The
absence of perspective in prophecy may account for Paul’s being
misunderstood by the Thessalonians, and for the necessity of his
explanations in _2 Thess. 2:1, 2_. In _Isaiah 10_ and _11_, the
fall of Lebanon (the Assyrian) is immediately connected with the
rise of the Branch (Christ); in _Jeremiah 51:41_, the first
capture and the complete destruction of Babylon are connected with
each other, without notice of the interval of a thousand years
between them.
Instances of the double sense of prophecy may be found in _Is.
7:14-16_; _9:6, 7—_“a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, ...
unto us a son is given”—compared with _Mat. 1:22, 23_, where the
prophecy is applied to Christ (see Meyer, _in loco_); _Hos.
11:1—_“I ... called my son out of Egypt”—referring originally to
the calling of the nation out of Egypt—is in _Mat. 2:15_ referred
to Christ, who embodied and consummated the mission of Israel;
_Psalm 118:22, 23—_“The stone which the builders rejected is
become the head of the corner”—which primarily referred to the
Jewish nation, conquered, carried away, and flung aside as of no
use, but divinely destined to a future of importance and grandeur,
is in _Mat. 21:42_ referred by Jesus to himself, as the true
embodiment of Israel. William Arnold Stevens, on The Man of Sin,
in Bap. Quar. Rev., July, 1889:328-360—As in _Daniel 11:36_, the
great enemy of the faith, who “shall exalt himself, and magnify
himself above every god,” is the Syrian King, Antiochus Epiphanes,
so “the man of lawlessness” described by Paul in _2 Thess. 2:3_ is
the corrupt and impious Judaism of the apostolic age. This had its
seat in the temple of God, but was doomed to destruction when the
Lord should come at the fall of Jerusalem. But even this second
fulfilment of the prophecy does not preclude a future and final
fulfilment. Broadus on Mat., page 480—In _Isaiah 41:8_ to _chapter
53_, the predictions with regard to “the servant of Jehovah” make
a gradual transition from Israel to the Messiah, the former alone
being seen in _41:8_, the Messiah also appearing in _42:1 __sq._,
and Israel quite sinking out of sight in _chapter 53_.
The most marked illustration of the double sense of prophecy
however is to be found in _Matthew 24_ and _25_, especially
_24:34_ and _25:31_, where Christ’s prophecy of the destruction of
Jerusalem passes into a prophecy of the end of the world. Adamson,
The Mind in Christ, 183—“To him history was the robe of God, and
therefore a constant repetition of positions really similar,
kaleidoscopic combining of a few truths, as the facts varied in
which they were to be embodied.” A. J. Gordon: “Prophecy has no
sooner become history, than history in turn becomes prophecy.”
Lord Bacon: “Divine prophecies have springing and germinant
accomplishment through many ages, though the height or fulness of
them may refer to some one age.” In a similar manner there is a
manifoldness of meaning in Dante’s Divine Comedy. C. E. Norton,
Inferno, xvi—“The narrative of the poet’s spiritual journey is so
vivid and consistent that it has all the reality of an account of
an actual experience; but within and beneath runs a stream of
allegory not less consistent and hardly less continuous than the
narrative itself.” A. H. Strong, The Great Poets and their
Theology, 116—“Dante himself has told us that there are four
separate senses which he intends his story to convey. There are
the literal, the allegorical, the moral, and the analogical. In
_Psalm 114:1_ we have the words, ‘When Israel went forth out of
Egypt.’ This, says the poet, may be taken literally, of the actual
deliverance of God’s ancient people; or allegorically, of the
redemption of the world through Christ; or morally, of the rescue
of the sinner from the bondage of his sin; or anagogically, of the
passage of both soul and body from the lower life of earth to the
higher life of heaven. So from Scripture Dante illustrates the
method of his poem.” See further, our treatment of Eschatology.
See also Dr. Arnold of Rugby, Sermons on the Interpretation of
Scripture, Appendix A, pages 441-454; Aids to Faith, 449-462;
Smith’s Bible Dict., 4:2727. _Per contra_, see Elliott, Horæ
Apocalypticæ, 4:662. Gardiner, O. T. and N. T., 262-274, denies
double sense, but affirms manifold applications of a single sense.
Broadus, on _Mat. 24:1_, denies double sense, but affirms the use
of types.
(_b_) The prophet was not always aware of the meaning of his own
prophecies (1 Pet. 1:11). It is enough to constitute his prophecies a
proof of divine revelation, if it can be shown that the correspondences
between them and the actual events are such as to indicate divine wisdom
and purpose in the giving of them—in other words, it is enough if the
inspiring Spirit knew their meaning, even though the inspired prophet did
not.
It is not inconsistent with this view, but rather confirms it,
that the near event, and not the distant fulfilment, was often
chiefly, if not exclusively, in the mind of the prophet when he
wrote. Scripture declares that the prophets did not always
understand their own predictions: _1 Pet. 1:11—_“searching what
time or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them
did point unto, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of
Christ, and the glories that should follow them.” Emerson:
“Himself from God he could not free; He builded better than he
knew.” Keble: “As little children lisp and tell of heaven, So
thoughts beyond their thoughts to those high bards were given.”
Westcott: Preface to Com. on Hebrews, vi—“No one would limit the
teaching of a poet’s words to that which was definitely present to
his mind. Still less can we suppose that he who is inspired to
give a message of God to all ages sees himself the completeness of
the truth which all life serves to illuminate.” Alexander McLaren:
“Peter teaches that Jewish prophets foretold the events of
Christ’s life and especially his sufferings; that they did so as
organs of God’s Spirit; that they were so completely organs of a
higher voice that they did not understand the significance of
their own words, but were wiser than they knew and had to search
what were the date and the characteristics of the strange things
which they foretold; and that by further revelation they learned
that ‘the vision is yet for many days’_ (Is. 24:22; Dan. 10:14)_.
If Peter was right in his conception of the nature of Messianic
prophecy, a good many learned men of to-day are wrong.” Matthew
Arnold, Literature and Dogma: “Might not the prophetic ideals be
poetic dreams, and the correspondence between them and the life of
Jesus, so far as real, only a curious historical phenomenon?”
Bruce, Apologetics, 359, replies: “Such scepticism is possible
only to those who have no faith in a living God who works out
purposes in history.” It is comparable only to the unbelief of the
materialist who regards the physical constitution of the universe
as explicable by the fortuitous concourse of atoms.
8. _Purpose of Prophecy—so far as it is yet unfulfilled._ (_a_) Not to
enable us to map out the details of the future; but rather (_b_) To give
general assurance of God’s power and foreseeing wisdom, and of the
certainty of his triumph; and (_c_) To furnish, after fulfilment, the
proof that God saw the end from the beginning.
_Dan. 12:8, 9—_“And I heard, but I understood not; then said I, O
my Lord, what shall be the issue of these things? And he said, Go
thy way, Daniel; for the words are shut up and sealed till the
time of the end”; _2 Pet. 1:19_—prophecy is “a lamp shining in a
dark place, until the day dawn”—not until day dawns can distant
objects be seen; _20—_“no prophecy of scripture is of private
interpretation”—only God, by the event, can interpret it. Sir
Isaac Newton: “God gave the prophecies, not to gratify men’s
curiosity by enabling them to foreknow things, but that after they
were fulfilled they might be interpreted by the event, and his own
providence, not the interpreter’s, be thereby manifested to the
world.” Alexander McLaren: “Great tracts of Scripture are dark to
us till life explains them, and then they come on us with the
force of a new revelation, like the messages which of old were
sent by a strip of parchment coiled upon a bâton and then written
upon, and which were unintelligible unless the receiver had a
corresponding bâton to wrap them round.” A. H. Strong, The Great
Poets and their Theology, 23—“Archilochus, a poet of about 700 B.
C., speaks of ‘a grievous _scytale_’—the _scytale_ being the staff
on which a strip of leather for writing purposes was rolled
slantwise, so that the message inscribed upon the strip could not
be read until the leather was rolled again upon another staff of
the same size; since only the writer and the receiver possessed
staves of the proper size, the _scytale_ answered all the ends of
a message in cypher.”
Prophecy is like the German sentence,—it can be understood only
when we have read its last word. A. J. Gordon, Ministry of the
Spirit, 48—“God’s providence is like the Hebrew Bible; we must
begin at the end and read backward, in order to understand it.”
Yet Dr. Gordon seems to assert that such understanding is possible
even before fulfilment: “Christ did not know the day of the end
when here in his state of humiliation; but he does know now. He
has shown his knowledge in the Apocalypse, and we have received
‘The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show unto
his servants, even the things which must shortly come to pass’_
(Rev. 1:1)_.” A study however of the multitudinous and conflicting
views of the so-called interpreters of prophecy leads us to prefer
to Dr. Gordon’s view that of Briggs, Messianic Prophecies, 49—“The
first advent is the resolver of all Old Testament prophecy; ...
the second advent will give the key to New Testament prophecy. It
is ‘the Lamb that hath been slain’_ (Rev. 5:12)_ ... who alone
opens the sealed book, solves the riddles of time, and resolves
the symbols of prophecy.”
Nitzsch: “It is the essential condition of prophecy that it should
not disturb man’s relation to history.” In so far as this is
forgotten, and it is falsely assumed that the purpose of prophecy
is to enable us to map out the precise events of the future before
they occur, the study of prophecy ministers to a diseased
imagination and diverts attention from practical Christian duty.
Calvin: “Aut insanum inveniet aut faciet”; or, as Lord Brougham
translated it: “The study of prophecy either finds a man crazy, or
it leaves him so.” Second Adventists do not often seek
conversions. Dr. Cumming warned the women of his flock that they
must not study prophecy so much as to neglect their household
duties. Paul has such in mind in _2 Thess. 2:1, 2—_“touching the
coming of our Lord Jesus Christ ... that ye be not quickly shaken
from your mind ... as that the day of the Lord is just at hand”;
_3:11—_“For we hear of some that walk among you disorderly.”
9. _Evidential force of Prophecy—so far as it is fulfilled._ Prophecy,
like miracles, does not stand alone as evidence of the divine commission
of the Scripture writers and teachers. It is simply a corroborative
attestation, which unites with miracles to prove that a religious teacher
has come from God and speaks with divine authority. We cannot, however,
dispense with this portion of the evidences,—for unless the death and
resurrection of Christ are events foreknown and foretold by himself, as
well as by the ancient prophets, we lose one main proof of his authority
as a teacher sent from God.
Stearns, Evidence of Christian Experience, 338—“The Christian’s
own life is the progressive fulfilment of the prophecy that
whoever accepts Christ’s grace shall be born again, sanctified,
and saved. Hence the Christian can believe in God’s power to
predict, and in God’s actual predictions.” See Stanley Leathes, O.
T. Prophecy, xvii—“Unless we have access to the supernatural, we
have no access to God.” In our discussions of prophecy, we are to
remember that before making the truth of Christianity stand or
fall with any particular passage that has been regarded as
prediction, we must be certain that the passage is meant as
prediction, and not as merely figurative description. Gladden,
Seven Puzzling Bible Books, 195—“The book of Daniel is not a
prophecy,—it is an apocalypse.... The author [of such books] puts
his words into the mouth of some historical or traditional writer
of eminence. Such are the Book of Enoch, the Assumption of Moses,
Baruch, 1 and 2 Esdras, and the Sibylline Oracles. Enigmatic form
indicates persons without naming them, and historic events as
animal forms or as operations of nature.... The book of Daniel is
not intended to teach us history. It does not look forward from
the sixth century before Christ, but backward from the second
century before Christ. It is a kind of story which the Jews called
Haggada. It is aimed at Antiochus Epiphanes, who, from his
occasional fits of melancholy, was called Epimanes, or Antiochus
the Mad.”
Whatever may be our conclusion as to the authorship of the book of
Daniel, we must recognize in it an element of prediction which has
been actually fulfilled. The most radical interpreters do not
place its date later than 163 B. C. Our Lord sees in the book
clear reference to himself (_Mat. 26:64—_“the Son of man, sitting
at the right hand of Power, and coming on the clouds of heaven”;
_cf._ _Dan. 7:13_); and he repeats with emphasis certain
predictions of the prophet which were yet unfulfilled (_Mat.
24:15—_“When ye see the abomination of desolation, which was
spoken of through Daniel the prophet”; _cf._ _Dan. 9:27_; _11:31_;
_12:11_). The book of Daniel must therefore be counted profitable
not only for its moral and spiritual lessons, but also for its
actual predictions of Christ and of the universal triumph of his
kingdom (_Dan. 2:45—_“a stone cut out of the mountain without
hands”). See on Daniel, Hastings’ Bible Dictionary; Farrar, in
Expositor’s Bible. On the general subject see Annotated Paragraph
Bible, Introd. to Prophetical Books; Cairns, on Present State of
Christian Argument from Prophecy, in Present Day Tracts, 5: no.
27; Edersheim, Prophecy and History; Briggs, Messianic Prophecy;
Redford, Prophecy, its Nature and Evidence; Willis J. Beecher, the
Prophet and the Promise; Orr, Problem of the O. T., 455-465.
Having thus removed the presumption originally existing against miracles
and prophecy, we may now consider the ordinary laws of evidence and
determine the rules to be followed in estimating the weight of the
Scripture testimony.
V. Principles of Historical Evidence applicable to the Proof of a Divine
Revelation.
PRINCIPLES OF HISTORICAL EVIDENCE APPLICABLE TO THE PROOF OF A DIVINE
REVELATION (mainly derived from Greenleaf, Testimony of the Evangelists,
and from Starkie on Evidence).
1. As to documentary evidence.
(_a_) Documents apparently ancient, not bearing upon their face the marks
of forgery, and found in proper custody, are presumed to be genuine until
sufficient evidence is brought to the contrary. The New Testament
documents, since they are found in the custody of the church, their
natural and legitimate depository, must by this rule be presumed to be
genuine.
The Christian documents were not found, like the Book of Mormon,
in a cave, or in the custody of angels. Martineau, Seat of
Authority, 322—“The Mormon prophet, who cannot tell God from devil
close at hand, is well up with the history of both worlds, and
commissioned to get ready the second promised land.” Washington
Gladden, Who wrote the Bible?—“An angel appeared to Smith and told
him where he would find this book; he went to the spot designated
and found in a stone box a volume six inches thick, composed of
thin gold plates, eight inches by seven, held together by three
gold rings; these plates were covered with writing, in the
‘Reformed Egyptian tongue’; with this book were the ‘Urim and
Thummim’, a pair of supernatural spectacles, by means of which he
was able to read and translate this ‘Reformed Egyptian’ language.”
Sagebeer, The Bible in Court, 113—“If the ledger of a business
firm has always been received and regarded as a ledger, its value
is not at all impeached if it is impossible to tell which
particular clerk kept this ledger.... The epistle to the Hebrews
would be no less valuable as evidence, if shown not to have been
written by Paul.” See Starkie on Evidence, 480 _sq._; Chalmers,
Christian Revelation, in Works, 3:147-171.
(_b_) Copies of ancient documents, made by those most interested in their
faithfulness, are presumed to correspond with the originals, even although
those originals no longer exist. Since it was the church’s interest to
have faithful copies, the burden of proof rests upon the objector to the
Christian documents.
Upon the evidence of a copy of its own records, the originals
having been lost, the House of Lords decided a claim to the
peerage; see Starkie on Evidence, 51. There is no manuscript of
Sophocles earlier than the tenth century, while at least two
manuscripts of the N. T. go back to the fourth century. Frederick
George Kenyon, Handbook to Textual Criticism of N. T.: “We owe our
knowledge of most of the great works of Greek and Latin
literature—Æschylus, Sophocles, Thucydides, Horace, Lucretius,
Tacitus, and many more—to manuscripts written from 900 to 1500
years after their authors’ deaths; while of the N. T. we have two
excellent and approximately complete copies at an interval of only
250 years. Again, of the classical writers we have as a rule only
a few score of copies (often less), of which one or two stand out
as decisively superior to all the rest; but of the N. T. we have
more than 3000 copies (besides a very large number of versions),
and many of these have distinct and independent value.” The mother
of Tischendorf named him Lobgott, because her fear that her babe
would be born blind had not come true. No man ever had keener
sight than he. He spent his life in deciphering old manuscripts
which other eyes could not read. The Sinaitic manuscript which he
discovered takes us back within three centuries of the time of the
apostles.
(_c_) In determining matters of fact, after the lapse of considerable
time, documentary evidence is to be allowed greater weight than oral
testimony. Neither memory nor tradition can long be trusted to give
absolutely correct accounts of particular facts. The New Testament
documents, therefore, are of greater weight in evidence than tradition
would be, even if only thirty years had elapsed since the death of the
actors in the scenes they relate.
See Starkie on Evidence, 51, 730. The Roman Catholic Church, in
its legends of the saints, shows how quickly mere tradition can
become corrupt. Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in 1865, yet
sermons preached to-day on the anniversary of his birth make him
out to be Unitarian, Universalist, or Orthodox, according as the
preacher himself believes.
2. As to testimony in general.
(_a_) In questions as to matters of fact, the proper inquiry is not
whether it is possible that the testimony may be false, but whether there
is sufficient probability that it is true. It is unfair, therefore, to
allow our examination of the Scripture witnesses to be prejudiced by
suspicion, merely because their story is a sacred one.
There must be no prejudice against, there must be open-mindedness
to, truth; there must be a normal aspiration after the signs of
communication from God. Telepathy, forty days fasting,
parthenogenesis, all these might once have seemed antecedently
incredible. Now we see that it would have been more rational to
admit their existence on presentation of appropriate evidence.
(_b_) A proposition of fact is proved when its truth is established by
competent and satisfactory evidence. By competent evidence is meant such
evidence as the nature of the thing to be proved admits. By satisfactory
evidence is meant that amount of proof which ordinarily satisfies an
unprejudiced mind beyond a reasonable doubt. Scripture facts are therefore
proved when they are established by that kind and degree of evidence which
would in the affairs of ordinary life satisfy the mind and conscience of a
common man. When we have this kind and degree of evidence it is
unreasonable to require more.
In matters of morals and religion competent evidence need not be
mathematical or even logical. The majority of cases in criminal
courts are decided upon evidence that is circumstantial. We do not
determine our choice of friends or of partners in life by strict
processes of reasoning. The heart as well as the head must be
permitted a voice, and competent evidence includes considerations
arising from the moral needs of the soul. The evidence, moreover,
does not require to be demonstrative. Even a slight balance of
probability, when nothing more certain is attainable, may suffice
to constitute rational proof and to bind our moral action.
(_c_) In the absence of circumstances which generate suspicion, every
witness is to be presumed credible, until the contrary is shown; the
burden of impeaching his testimony lying upon the objector. The principle
which leads men to give true witness to facts is stronger than that which
leads them to give false witness. It is therefore unjust to compel the
Christian to establish the credibility of his witnesses before proceeding
to adduce their testimony, and it is equally unjust to allow the
uncorroborated testimony of a profane writer to outweigh that of a
Christian writer. Christian witnesses should not be considered interested,
and therefore untrustworthy; for they became Christians against their
worldly interests, and because they could not resist the force of
testimony. Varying accounts among them should be estimated as we estimate
the varying accounts of profane writers.
John’s account of Jesus differs from that of the synoptic gospels;
but in a very similar manner, and probably for a very similar
reason, Plato’s account of Socrates differs from that of Xenophon.
Each saw and described that side of his subject which he was by
nature best fitted to comprehend,—compare the Venice of Canaletto
with the Venice of Turner, the former the picture of an expert
draughtsman, the latter the vision of a poet who sees the palaces
of the Doges glorified by air and mist and distance. In Christ
there was a “hiding of his power”_ (Hab. 3:4)_; “how small a
whisper do we hear of him!”_ (Job 26:14)_; he, rather than
Shakespeare, is “the myriad-minded”; no one evangelist can be
expected to know or describe him except “in part”_ (1 Cor.
13:12)_. Frances Power Cobbe, Life, 2:402—“All of us human beings
resemble diamonds, in having several distinct facets to our
characters; and, as we always turn one of these to one person and
another to another, there is generally some fresh side to be seen
in a particularly brilliant gem.” E. P. Tenney, Coronation,
45—“The secret and powerful life he [the hero of the story] was
leading was like certain solitary streams, deep, wide, and swift,
which run unseen through vast and unfrequented forests. So wide
and varied was this man’s nature, that whole courses of life might
thrive in its secret places,—and his neighbors might touch him and
know him only on that side on which he was like them.”
(_d_) A slight amount of positive testimony, so long as it is
uncontradicted, outweighs a very great amount of testimony that is merely
negative. The silence of a second witness, or his testimony that he did
not see a certain alleged occurrence, cannot counterbalance the positive
testimony of a first witness that he did see it. We should therefore
estimate the silence of profane writers with regard to facts narrated in
Scripture precisely as we should estimate it if the facts about which they
are silent were narrated by other profane writers, instead of being
narrated by the writers of Scripture.
Egyptian monuments make no mention of the destruction of Pharaoh
and his army; but then, Napoleon’s dispatches also make no mention
of his defeat at Trafalgar. At the tomb of Napoleon in the
Invalides of Paris, the walls are inscribed with names of a
multitude of places where his battles were fought, but Waterloo,
the scene of his great defeat, is not recorded there. So
Sennacherib, in all his monuments, does not refer to the
destruction of his army in the time of Hezekiah. Napoleon gathered
450,000 men at Dresden to invade Russia. At Moscow the
soft-falling snow conquered him. In one night 20,000 horses
perished with cold. Not without reason at Moscow, on the
anniversary of the retreat of the French, the exultation of the
prophet over the fall of Sennacherib is read in the churches.
James Robertson, Early History of Israel, 395, note—“Whately, in
his Historic Doubts, draws attention to the fact that the
principal Parisian journal in 1814, on the very day on which the
allied armies entered Paris as conquerors, makes no mention of any
such event. The battle of Poictiers in 732, which effectually
checked the spread of Mohammedanism across Europe, is not once
referred to in the monastic annals of the period. Sir Thomas
Browne lived through the Civil Wars and the Commonwealth, yet
there is no syllable in his writings with regard to them. Sale
says that circumcision is regarded by Mohammedans as an ancient
divine institution, the rite having been in use many years before
Mohammed, yet it is not so much as once mentioned in the Koran.”
Even though we should grant that Josephus does not mention Jesus,
we should have a parallel in Thucydides, who never once mentions
Socrates, the most important character of the twenty years
embraced in his history. Wieseler, however, in Jahrbuch f. d.
Theologie, 23:98, maintains the essential genuineness of the
commonly rejected passage with regard to Jesus in Josephus,
Antiq., 18:3:3, omitting, however, as interpolations, the phrases:
“if it be right to call him man”; “this was the Christ”; “he
appeared alive the third day according to prophecy”; for these, if
genuine, would prove Josephus a Christian, which he, by all
ancient accounts, was not. Josephus lived from A. D. 34 to
possibly 114. He does elsewhere speak of Christ; for he records
(20:9:1) that Albinus “assembled the Sanhedrim of judges, and
brought before them the brother of Jesus who was called Christ,
whose name was James, and some others ... and delivered them to be
stoned.” See Niese’s new edition of Josephus; also a monograph on
the subject by Gustav Adolph Müller, published at Innsbruck, 1890.
Rush Rhees, Life of Jesus of Nazareth, 22—“To mention Jesus more
fully would have required some approval of his life and teaching.
This would have been a condemnation of his own people whom he
desired to commend to Gentile regard, and he seems to have taken
the cowardly course of silence concerning a matter more
noteworthy, for that generation, than much else of which he writes
very fully.”
(_e_) “The credit due to the testimony of witnesses depends upon: first,
their ability; secondly, their honesty; thirdly, their number and the
consistency of their testimony; fourthly, the conformity of their
testimony with experience; and fifthly, the coincidence of their testimony
with collateral circumstances.” We confidently submit the New Testament
witnesses to each and all of these tests.
See Starkie on Evidence, 726.