18-Supernatural Religion
XVIII. SUPERNATURAL RELIGION.
John 4:48. “Then said Jesus unto him, Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe.” No one can fail to see that something of a reproach is intended in these words. Our Lord means to say that it would have been better if the Jews had been willing to believe without seeing signs and wonders. And this is a very important statement. The spirit of it, you will observe, is entirely in accordance with what is described to us as having been the general practice of the Lord Jesus. He never welcomed or desired the adhesion of those who believed in him because they saw the miracles which he did. He wrought mighty works, not to overpower disbelief, but to encourage and reward faith. In places where the people shewed no disposition to believe in him, he could not, we are told, do mighty works.
Now this way of regarding faith and miracles is in very definite opposition to a certain mode of describing Christianity, which has prevailed amongst its defenders, but which is found to suit the purposes of its assailants, and which they therefore gladly employ. I will endeavour to put it into a few words.
Christianity, it is assumed, is a supernatural Revelation, the contents of which are exceedingly strange, but which we are required to believe because those who brought this revelation performed miracles in attestation of its truth. It is taken for granted that we should pay no x attention to the professed Revelation, except for the miracles. It follows then, that in examining into our religion, our first business is with the miracles. These must be shewn to be so manifestly supernatural as to defy all attempts at explanation. But they are external occurrences, depending upon historical testimony. The evidence for things so extremely improbable in themselves, and which are to be the basis of a supernatural revelation still more extraordinary, ought in all reason to be irresistible.
You can scarcely imagine, indeed, any evidence which would be sufficient to enforce conviction. At all events, it ought to be more conclusive than the proofs you would require of an apparently miraculous occurrence at the present day. This being the position held by Christianity, let us see say the doubters and disbelievers what the evidence is by which the Christian miracles are proved.
It is very well, they observe, to allege that the miracles are astonishing enough to attest the Revelation; but first of all, what is the testimony which attests the miracles? And then they set to work, as lawyers would, to cross-examine the witnesses, and to strip and shake the evidence. But if you have been impressed at all by that language of Scripture to which I have referred, you will be little inclined to acquiesce in the primary account of Christianity from which this method starts. Christianity, it is said, is a supernatural Revelation, the contents of which could only be received on the strength of undeniable miracles.
I have admitted that this sort of account has been given by defenders of Christianity and may be found in Christian books. But I am appealing now to Scripture, to the habitual language of Christ and of his Apostles. What did Christ mean, I ask, when he said, “ Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe “? You cannot imagine him who so spoke describing his mission in any terms such as these, “I am going to tell you something which you would of course not receive on my word by itself, and therefore I shall first perform wonders among you which you will be compelled to regard as entirely beyond human power, and these will prove to you that what I tell you, however incredible, must be accepted as true.”
I am sure you will feel that our Lord’s method of approaching men was something quite different from this. i. The word “supernatural” is unknown in the New Testament. And not only so, but the attempted distinctiori between natural and supernatural is alien to the New Testament mind. You may fancy, perhaps, that the distinction is a broad and simple one; but you will find, if you try to explain it, that it is not so. Well, only those who make or use the distinction are bound to justify it. So far as I am able to judge, it introduces confusion into any subject to which it is applied. I do not go so far as to say that either word, natural or supernatural, may not be used reasonably. But I do contend that you cannot divide life or creation or history into two parts, distinguished from one another by the condition that the one is natural and the other supernatural. The Lord Jesus was accustomed to insist very strongly that he came from God, that he was sent by the Father; and if that is what is meant by calling Christianity a supernatural religion or revelation, every one must admit that he did make that claim, but we may prefer his own way of stating it. Most assuredly, the whole virtue of what he taught depended on its coming from God and being true. “ If any one desires to do the will of God,” said Jesus, “he will know of my teaching whether I speak from myself.” Not, “ if any one scrutinizes the miraculous character of my works, he will be forced to believe that I have Divine attestation to my teaching;” but, “if any wills or is minded to do God’s will, he will recognize my teaching as not coming out of my own head, but as proceeding from God.” Assuredly, I repeat, our Lord presented himself to his countrymen as having come from heaven, as being commissioned and sealed by the Father, as doing acts and speaking words which were not his but the Father’s. It is not his glory in the New Testament to have been the wisest of men, but to have spoken to men with authority from and concerning the heavenly Father. Rob Christianity of this its claim, and it becomes not somewhat less sacred and authoritative, but an imposture. Strike out from the New Testament all that implies this claim, and how much will be left?
2. Revelation is a word which occurs in the New Testament; but it is never used in such a way that you could join the word “contents” with it. People who now speak about Christianity as a supernatural Revelation will generally go on to allude to its contents; as if it were something which might be compared to a box, or at least as if it were a book. But revelation, which means unveiling, is always used by New Testament writers in the sense of unveiling; and we should not speak of the contents of an unveiling. Do not suppose that this is a mere verbal or grammatical criticism. The Scriptural theory of revelation is not that a book or a document has been communicated to mankind, containing certain propositions which we are bound to believe because they are in the Divine communication; but that the Divine nature and will have been manifested, as if by the removal of veils or coverings which hid them from the knowledge of men. Jesus Christ came to reveal his Father; no one, he said, knows the Father, but the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him. Now mark the difference between one who says, “I am enabling you to see and know the Father, in his justice and his goodness and his glorious purposes for mankind,” and another who should say, “I have here in a document certain statements which I could not expect you to believe in themselves, but when you have seen the mighty works I can perform, you will feel that you have no alternative but to receive them.” The latter method is not what Scripture calls revelation. The glory of God, which Christ reveals, commends itself without the compulsion of miracles to open eyes and willing hearts.
3. So that our faith as Christians, if we take the New Testament view of it, cannot properly be described as an assent, grounded upon miracles, to certain supernatural doctrines. It would seem that the highest and best faith was that which was rendered to the Lord Jesus without the evidence of mighty works at all. Let us endeavour to see clearly how this was, in the hope that we may be the better able to understand the true ground of our own faith.
We frequently read in the Gospels of persons believing and not believing. What kind of belief is it that is meant? Or, in other words, how did the Lord Jesus present himself to his countrymen?
What was the teaching he offered them?
He proclaimed the kingdom of heaven as brought near to them; he spoke of the heavenly Father as offering them forgiveness, and calling them to repentance, through him. He spoke with authority not as an expositor or commentator, but as one who knew the truth of what he was announcing. His word was variously received; he himself has described, in the parable of the sower, its various fortunes as it fell on the ears of its many hearers. By some it was welcomed; these were they who received it into an honest and good heart. They were persons who fek the burden of sin and rejoiced to be set free from it through forgiveness; who were troubled by the miseries of their fellowcountrymen and the distractions of their country, and rejoiced to be assured that God was manifesting himself for deliverance. These believers did not ask for miracles to attest a supernatural revelation; their hearts leapt up in answer to the gracious words which proceeded out of the mouth of Jesus. This was the kind of faith which he approved. It is true that the Lord Jesus, whilst he proclaimed the kingdom of God, wrought mighty works; but he wrought them, one would say, rather as illustrations than as evidences. They were almost exclusively works of healing; acts of grace, accompanying and illustrating words of grace. To the sufferer whose mind was burdened by sin and whose body was fettered by disease, Jesus spoke with authority, “ Thy sins are forgiven thee; arise and walk!” No doubt the cures which Jesus wrought made a great impression both on individual minds and on the general opinion of the multitude. Those who had welcomed for its own sake the word of the kingdom and of reconciliation became more thoroughly convinced of the reality and authenticity of it when they saw the Prophet of Nazareth acting as the Son of the Father, and wielding the powers of the Kingdom. Many, without caring for the word, were quite willing to make much of Jesus as a Divinely sent prophet on account of his miracles. But from supporters like these Jesus was accustomed to withdraw himself. He counted himself successful, if one may say so, when his word touched the heart of a hearer, commending itself by its own heavenly quality and drawing out the faith to which it appealed.
After a very short time, it was no longer Jesus himself in the flesh who was preaching, but his Apostles or.envoys. It was their mission to proclaim through him the forgiveness of sins.
They bore witness that the Father had raised him from the dead, and called on men to believe in him that they might have life. Mighty works were not wanting to the preaching of the Apostles; their word was confirmed by signs following. But there was no logical presentation of miracles as the ground for accepting a supernatural revelation. In this sense, on the contrary, miracles were slighted and refused. What can be plainer than St Paul’s account of the method of his work as a preacher of the Gospel? He was perfectly familiar with that craving for miracles of which our Lord speaks with disapproval. “The Jews,” he says, “ require signs, and the Greeks seek after wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified> to the Jews a stumblingblock, and to the Greeks foolishness, but unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.” And again, “ I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.” The power of God is not here wonder-working power; it is spiritual power. It is the power with which the proclamation of a Son of God, who gave himself up to die and was raised again, is carried home to simple unworldly hearts. I do not know whether this action of the Gospel upon the heart should be called natural or supernatural. It belongs to the higher world, the world of God and of the soul; it does not grow out of competition and survival of the fittest and social evolution. So it may be called supernatural. But on the other hand, it ought to be normal and universal; it appeals to the common human affections; it is of a piece with all the higher and more precious influences of human life; so that any one who was inclined to call it natural might find much justification for doing so.
If you carry your thoughts onwards along the course of the Church’s history, you will see this same method illustrated over and over again. Whenever the Gospel has won substantial victories, they have been due, not to the exhibition of signs and wonders, nor to the presentation of irresistible evidence of former signs and wonders, but to the power of the Gospel itself upon the souls of men.
Miracles and their evidence belong much more to the makers of systems than to the living growth of Christianity or of the Church of Christ. \Vherever Christianity spreads, or deepens, or revives, there you will be able to trace the operation of the Word and of the Spirit; of the Word of forgiveness and adoption commending itself to the needs and hopes and aspirations of sinful humanity; of the Spirit moving with its contagious warmth and vitality in the affections through which man is akin to God. From the day when John the Baptist stood forth, crying “Repent, for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand,” to the present moment, the real force of the kingdom of God has always been spiritual, never relying upon signs and wonders, always seeking to awaken, to win, to carry captive, the souls of men in demonstration of the Spirit and of power.
How will these considerations tell on us, brethren, when we are visited by doubts or are desiring to strengthen ourselves in reasonable faith? Clearly, they will not send us to signs and wonders, or to demonstrative historical evidence of signs and wonders. They will keep us in mind of that poor craving of the Jews for signs; of the sorrowful complaint of our Lord, “ Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe.’* Our chief concern is with Jesus Christ, and him crucified. Can we recognize in him a Divine wonder of love and goodness? When the soul is quickened by hope, and crushed into remorseful hatred of sin, and exalted by unselfish love, are we content to put all that aside as delusion and infectious fancy? Are we satisfied to turn a deaf ear to every voice that seems to speak to us from heaven, and to know nothing but that which grows and pushes from the earth? These are the sort of questions which real Christianity addresses to us. It does not, and it never did, profess to offer a system which argument cannot assail. The Christianity which has gloried for more than eighteen centuries in the demonstration of the Spirit, is not now going to change its nature, and to build itself upon signs and wonders. It is even idle to meet the appeals of the Gospel with a demand for signs or with a critical pursuit of wisdom. The Gospel will certainly not say, “Here then are the supernatural wonders which you ask for; here is the natural wisdom which will satisfy you” Its business is to proclaim Christ, the Divine power, the Divine wisdom, to all them that believe. If Christ fails, it is time for Christianity to fail too, and to disappear before the wisdom of this world. But Christ will not fail, dear brethren, in this age more than in any former. He may find our hearts dull, and blinded by the god of this world, and hard to the soft touches of the Spirit, and so there may be great condemnation and loss both for ourselves and for the world. But he will have the old prevailing arguments and influences for all that are susceptible to them. Let us hope and pray that we and our age may not be so immersed in the things of this visible world as to be dead to the things of heaven. Let us beware of dictating to God how he should speak to us and call us. The question for us is whether God is not calling us, whether that which professes to be his voice is not indeed worthy of the God of heaven and earth.
Let us ask in all humility and teachableness that our ears may be purged, and the vail may be taken from our hearts, and that we may know what the true heavenly glory is. It is a part of the mystery of that work which Christ is carrying on through the ages, that each Christian serves as evidence to his brethren. It is now as it was of old. Nothing is so practically convincing as the fruit of the Spirit in Christian lives. The princes of this world tried to crush out Christianity in its infancy by persecuting Christians; but their attempt was turned against themselves, because every sufferer whose patience and love were proved like gold in the fire, became a new argument of the Spirit to confirm the waverers and to win over the unbelieving. It is not necessarily a weak or a base thing to believe because others believe. It is so when the motive is simply to save trouble and avoid inconvenience by following the fashion of the world and doing as others do. But human lives visibly purified and raised and softened through spiritual loyalty to Christ are arguments which the Spirit uses, and by which men do right in allowing themselves to be persuaded.