03.02. CHAPTER II.THE PROPHETIC SEAL
PART I. THE VOLUME OF THE BOOK
CHAPTER II. THE PROPHETIC SEAL
Prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost, in 2 Peter 1:21.
What grounds are there for holding the Christian religion to be of divine origin and supreme obligation? This is the question, around which all else clusters. The Bible is but the great Book, and Christ, the great Person, of the Christian religion.
Christian Evidences have, for convenience, been divided into "External" and "Internal." The Internal include the character of Christ himself and of the doctrine and morality taught by Christianity, its adaptation to human wants, the unity and consistency of the Bible, and the marks of truth, purity and sincerity in its various writers. The External, or historical proofs, are such as are found in man’s need of a revelation from God, and the corresponding presumption in its favor as a fact; the authenticity and credibility of scripture history, the argument from prophecy and miracle as sealing and sanctioning such revelation; the historical argument from the spread of the gospel in the face of opposition, and from the positive blessings it has conferred upon the individual and upon society. From these we shall select a few of the more prominent forms of proof, which best suit our present purpose, and the narrow space we have at disposal in a small volume. Our examination naturally and properly starts with the External proofs, for Internal evidence largely concerns one’s own experience, and cannot be appreciated, or in fact apprehended, without experiment. But, in order that one may be disposed to "taste and see," he must approach the subject from without. If the Gospel of Christ is God’s golden milestone, let me from outside by some rational road find my way to it; then I can stand at the milestone itself and from that, as an inside point, take my survey.
If it can be shown that, starting from any proper point, "All roads lead to Rome," that the external evidences all converge in the gospel; that, for certain great facts and effects, no adequate cause can be found, except that God has authoritatively spoken to man in the Bible and through Christ Jesus; then how can we honestly evade or avoid the conclusion that Christianity is the divine religion and entitled to our homage and obedience?
Among these external evidences two are especially prominent: prophecy and miracle. Prophecy is a miracle of utterance. It prepares the way for coming events or persons, and attests them, in advance, as forming part of a divine plan, reaching through the ages. Prophecy and Providence are, therefore, twin sisters. There is no grander thought in this Bible than that, back of all these apparently capricious, conflicting and accidental changes of human history, there is an infinite God, whose omniscience and omnipresence forbid that anything should escape his knowledge or evade his power, and whose goodness assures a benevolent design, even behind seeming disaster. How often do we look at human history and behold only one awful tragedy!
"Right forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the throne! Yet that scaffold sways the future, and behind the dim unknown, Standeth God amid the shadows, keeping watch above his own."
Prophecy, unmistakably outlining events beforehand, shows that God is behind the curtain, and that his hand controls and shapes the history and destiny of men. The caprice is resolved into a consistent purpose; the conflict is only the apparent discord and disorder which are owing to our partial point of view; the accident becomes an incident in one grand, harmonious plan, where no chance can occur. We have a Providence, with its prevision and provision and precedence, directing and arranging, permitting and decreeing. But prophecy does more than assure us of a Providence. It serves to outline the future, so that we have glimpses of coming glory and triumph for God and godliness. It brings the past and future into inseparable union with the present and spreads the grand scene before us in its unity. We are thus permitted to foretaste the future: the ancient Hebrew, by the glass of Messianic prophecy, beheld the Lamb of God taking away the sin of the world, and so the cross of Christ was borne backward through the ages, and the atonement was a present and accomplished fact to Abraham and David; and to us, today, the prophecies of the New Testament are the perspective glasses that bring nigh the Delectable Mountains of a completed redemption, and make visible the towers of the celestial city!
Nothing therefore can be of more importance to a Bible student than a mastery of the prophetic Scriptures. Prophecies, already fulfilled, put the clear broad seal of God upon the Bible; prophecies unfulfilled, serve to inform our faith as to coming developments, and project us forward in to the consummate wonders of the final day of victory.
Why does so much weight attach to the argument from prophecy? Christian evidence is like the holy city, which John saw; four sided, with gates opening toward every quarter: why then go in by one gate rather than others? We reply, there are indeed a score of paths by which the advocates of the inspiration of Scripture approach the heart of the theme; but the Scripture itself makes this the grand highway of proof. Hear the apostle Peter: "We have also a more sure word of prophecy, whereunto ye do well that ye take heed as unto a light that shined in a dark place, until the day-dawn and the day star arise in your hearts; knowing this first, that no prophecy of the Scripture is of any private interpretation (invention or suggestion); for the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man, but holy men of God spake, moved by the Holy Ghost." The Scriptures affirm that "the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned.” There are some sources of proof, whose force can be felt only by a converted man. But here is an evidence which needs for its examination only the reason of the natural man. He is in the darkness of doubt; he has not yet found, by faith, the personal and inward knowledge of God. Here is the very light which God gives him, to lead him to the rational conclusion that the Bible is the Word of God, and so prepare him for the higher guidance of faith. Accepting the will of God and the way of salvation, as here revealed, he is led up to those blessed mountain tops where the day star shines and the day dawn breaks in a flood of glory. The Bible presents as foremost the proof from prophecy. Other arguments imply that we have examined this other proofs branch out from this or fork from it; here is the foundation on which other arguments rest. If the Scriptures issue from the hand or mind of God, the seeker after truth asks for his royal signature and seal. And prophecy claims to be exactly this: the solemn seal of God’s own hand upon the sacred scroll.*
* The appeal of God to fulfilled prophecy is found all through the Bible. Deuteronomy 18:21-22; Isaiah 41:21; Jeremiah 28:9; 2 Peter 1:19-21.
This, then, is the mode chosen by God to make plain to man the fact that He has spoken. He says to loyal subjects in His great empire, "By this unfailing sign shall you know that a proclamation of my will is from my hand: through my chosen messengers, I will shew you things to come." And this may well be the gateway and highway to conviction, since it is so broad and straight and plain that none need err. Men have an instinctive conviction that when a future event is clearly and closely foretold, so that no guess, however shrewd, can account for it, and the event corresponds in every respect to the prophetic out line, it is a proof of the working of some power above nature. How natural that God should select this intuitive sense as the basis of his appeal! That he should say to men, "when I speak through a fellow-man, he shall speak words, or do works, plainly beyond the unaided natural power of man.” Hence came both prophecy and miracle as the double witness to our holy religion. These two are closely akin. Prophecy is a miracle of utterance. Miracle is prophecy in action. Both imply supernatural power: one in words, the other in works; and hence both carry the sanction of God. To establish one prophecy is to carry the whole fortress of the enemy by storm, for it settles the inspiration of the Word of God. To establish one prophecy of Christ is to settle not only his authority as a teacher, but his divinity, for it puts God’s seal and sanction on Christ’s witness concerning himself. Mark his own appeal to his prophecies: John 14:29, "And now I have told you before it come to pass that when it is come to pass ye might believe." The argument from prophecy must be a formidable one, since the foes of our faith have directed their biggest guns against it. Porphyry found such very startling correspondences between Daniel’s predictions and historic events that he saw no escape from conviction but in denying the authenticity of the prophecy, arguing that it was never written till events supplied the material. Paine did not venture to deny the authenticity of the prophecy, but simply denied that in any proper sense it was fulfilled. Between these two scoffers, however, we have both the authenticity and the fulfillment of prophecy admitted. The death of the Lord Jesus Christ was so distinctly foretold in the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah, that Bolingbroke, in order to break the force of the argument from this prophecy, was forced to assert that Jesus brought on his own crucifixion by a series of pre-concerted measures, merely to give the disciples who came after him the triumph of an appeal to the old prophecies! You see how grand must be the power of an argument, which compels infidels to invent such impossible theories to evade the force of its mighty appeal!
What is a prophecy? The primary idea of a prophet is not one who foretells, but one who "brings to light" or "makes manifest." A man might be a prophet, while yet not foretelling any future event. Elisha was simply an inspired teacher, unfolding the hidden things of God. The idea of foretelling is secondary: first, insight; second, foresight. Very naturally God, in giving to a man insight into His secret mysteries, might grant insight into that future which has to do with these mysteries; and such insight is fore sight. Oftentimes a true insight into the present, implies a foresight of the future as the key to present problems.
Foresight was frequently granted to prophets, in order to furnish additional evidence of their divine mission and commission. But the prime element in the prophet is capacity to teach spiritual truth. This discrimination is important, for first, it leads us to look for evidence of the prophetic office and authority in the very nature of the truths he proclaims and teaches. In the character of his message is often higher proof of his divine calling than in miracle or prediction. This was preeminently true of Christ, the greatest of prophets. Secondly, this conception of the true criterion of a prophet will lead to rejection of any whose teachings are plainly unsound and unscriptural, even though he might work apparent wonders or predict future events. The Bible teaches us to find prophetic credentials, first of all, in this conformity of his moral and spiritual teaching to a divine pattern. There must be correspondence between his utterances and the Word of God and the moral sense of mankind. (Deuteronomy 13:3) In this law which demands, for prophetic character and utterance, consonance with the claim to inspiration, we find a grand factor in our argument. God asks that His word be held to be inspired, not only because prophetic writers have wrought miracles or spoken predictions, but because they spake as men would speak who were moved by the Holy Ghost. Their teachings present such conceptions of God and man and their mutual relations as accord with the intuitive convictions of man’s moral being; the seal of God is upon the very quality of their utterances.
We are prepared to follow the logic of this position, and affirm that the prophetic office is essentially perpetual. It may not be needful that miracles be wrought or predictions spoken; but he is a true successor in the prophetic office who speaks according to the revealed word, and whose utterance God seals and sanctions by the power of the Holy Ghost. For brevity’s sake we confine our argument to that aspect of prophecy which concerns the future, and shall show how grand a confirmation of the claims of the word of God is found in the obvious foretelling of events. But first let us clearly understand that it is not commonly the object of prophetic prediction to inform us as to the de tails of the future; but rather, after an event is fulfilled, to shew that it all lay in the mind of God, and was part of his eternal plan.* *John 2:20-22, John 13:6, John 14:29, John 16:4, John 20:31; Luke 24:6-8, Luke 18:34. This may explain the necessary obscurity of prophecy. It presents a lock, for which only subsequent history can supply the key. If prophetic details were clearly announced, wicked men would be prompted, like Julian, to conspire to defeat the prediction; or disciples might be supposed to combine to bring about a seeming fulfillment, in order to authenticate the prophecy. When prophecy is fulfilled, it must be by no design of men better still, if against their design, that it may be the more apparent that the fulfillment is wholly of God. For obviously, if fulfilled by intent of man, it might be resolved into a sort of mere collusion between prophet and those who, jealous for the reputation of the divine oracles, sought to bring about a correspondence with events. The general purpose of prophecy, then, concerns not the times in which it is spoken, since it is yet unverified; but, when fulfilled, it proves the God of prophecy and of Providence to be one. It shews us Deus in Historia, a divine administration in the world; and seals, as inspired and infallible, the teaching so attested. A prophecy is not confirmed as a proof of revelation until fulfilled; and then it evidences God’s hand, in proportion to the extent and accuracy of its predictions. A prophecy thus unlocked by events, opens a door that no man can shut, introducing us by a miracle of utterance to the very presence of Him to whom all the future is as the present, and compelling us to bow reverently to hear what He will speak.
What now are the canons by which a true prophecy is to be tested?
First, it must be such an unveiling of the future that no mere human foresight or wisdom or sagacity could have guessed it. Human beings sometimes exhibit remarkable foresight and forecast, where no supernatural element exists. A statesman might detect elements of corruption which lead him to predict the overthrow of some nation within a given time. Comparison of the records of a series of years enables a weather prophet to foretell storms, and even the comparative healthfulness of seasons. But back of this there lies simply an induction from facts and principles.
Secondly, the prediction must deal in details, sufficiently to exclude shrewd guesswork. General statements may be made with often a remarkable forecast of events; but every definite, specific detail or description adds to the improbability of its being an uninspired utterance, until the improbability becomes impossibility.
Thirdly, there must be such lapse of time, between prophecy and fulfillment, as precludes the agency of the prophet himself in effecting or affecting the result. Otherwise the author of the prediction might by secret, subtle means, bring about apparent accomplishment. When prophecy is by such marks attested as genuine, its value as evidence is beyond words; and the argument it furnishes is one of growing force. The Christian faith supports its claim by a vast number of prophecies pertaining to different periods and persons. The argument from these prophecies began to be of use when the first prediction was fulfilled; and every successive event, which added a new feature to the profile, added strength and weight to the argument. Prophecy is thus at first a rill, receiving constantly tributary streams, till it grows to a river whose grand flood of evidence sweeps everything before it.
All through Old Testament times, the thousand hints of prophecy were fulfilling. Then Christ was born, and the most numerous and striking of all predictions met and mingled in Him, so that the apostles could boldly say, in support of the august claims of the gospel whose central figure he was: "To Him give all the prophets witness." No miracle, which he wrought, so unmistakably set on him the seal of God, as the convergence of the thousand lines of prophecy in him, as in one burning focal point of dazzling glory. Every sacrifice lit, from Abel’s altar until the last Passover of the Passion Week, pointed as with flaming fingers to Calvary’s cross! Nay all the centuries moved as in solemn procession to lay their tributes upon Golgotha. But that age of grand fulfillments was also the age of grander prophecies. And so the evidence goes on accumulating; the fulfillment of words, long since spoken, confronts us today. The histories of Assyrian lion, Medo-Persian bear, Greek leopard, and Roman complex "beast;" the existing facts of Tyre, Babylon, Egypt, Nineveh; the remarkable dispersion of the Jews, the most clannish of peoples, most attached to their own land, rich enough to buy every acre of Palestine with pearls, yet providentially kept out of it till the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled all these, and a hundred fold more, furnish a colossal argument for the divine origin of the prophetic scriptures; and yet the power and weight of this argument are growing still. Miracles impressed the people who lived in the age of miracles, with a power which is comparatively lost on us by the distance of time. However conclusive the argument from miracles, it cannot impress us as it did those who witnessed the works. But the prophecies, fulfilled and fulfilling before our eyes, become a new miracle, more conclusive and impressive every year, and adapted to prove omniscience as unmistakably as the miracles of two thousand years ago proved omnipotence. Scripture is seen by us as a colossal wheel, compassing all history with its gigantic and awful rim, and full of the eyes that tell of one who sees all things! You see the falsehood of the cavil which sneers at Christian faith, as resting on no better basis than the myths and marvels of eighteen hundred years ago. We have before our very eyes some of the most awe-inspiring proofs of our holy religion. Disciples, who saw his miracles and had evidence of the senses, left us their witness to Christ. But, of many prophecies, they had only the record, while we have the evidence of our very senses to their fulfillment. Some unbelievers say, "could we see a miracle we would believe." But he who can see prophecy fulfilled and not believe, is not to be persuaded by any other miracle. "If they hear not Moses and the prophets neither would they be persuaded though one rose from the dead." The Christian religion is the only religion that has ever dared to rest its claim upon either miracle or prophecy. The appeal to such super natural signs is so bold, that its audacity is one proof of its genuineness. The Old Testament, which even the most captious historical criticism concedes to have been in the hands of Jews at least 200 years B. C., draws a clear, minute and striking picture of future events, and calmly stakes, upon the result, all its claims to a divine origin. It challenges history, archaeology, science, and all the forms of human knowledge, to show one instance in which prediction has failed. This is divine boldness of appeal. There are false faiths, like Mohammedanism and Buddhism, that have tried to prop up their claims on pre tended miracles, but even these have never ventured to frame prophecies.
Pagan religions claimed support from oracular responses, but what a vast gulf divides them from the oracles of God! They were trivial in import and purport, not worthy to be the responses of a divine being. The ends they served were often personal and selfish. The influence which secured them was unfit to move a god; it was sometimes greed of gain, or even servile fear, to which the appeal was made. They spoke because the voice of authority compelled, or the offer of gold persuaded. No poor or obscure man could arouse the sluggish divinity. The utterances of heathen oracles were never spontaneous, as though inspired by a divine fullness of matter, but were always reluctant, difficult to secure, rare and costly. When demanded, delay was required for preparation; and when the response was not verified, a thousand apologies were framed for the failure; there was on the part of the inquirer some omission or blunder; there was some mistake in the amanuensis who took down the response; or perhaps the Gods were not disposed to answer. And when the best responses were obtained they were ambiguous and equivocal. The most famous oracles were so disgraced by love of money that they became venal. The rich or powerful seldom found difficulty in obtaining favorable responses. Philip of Macedon by royal influence and gold thus bribed the oracle; and Demosthenes said, the Pythian goddess "Philip-ised." A few examples may be given of the adroit ambiguity of the heathen oracles which justified Milton’s famous line:
"Ambiguous, and with double sense deluding."
Before Maxentius left Rome to meet Constantine in that famous battle on the banks of the Tiber, he consulted the sibylline books. "The guardians of these ancient oracles were as well versed in the arts of this world as they were ignorant of the secrets of fate; and they returned him a very prudent answer, which might adapt itself to the event, and secure their reputation, whatever should be the chance of arms:"
"Illo die, hostem Romanorum esse periturum."
"On that day the enemy of Rome will perish."
Whoever proved the vanquished prince became of course the enemy of Rome. The defeat of Maxentius was overwhelming; he himself, attempting to escape back into the city over the Milvian Bridge, was forced by the crowd into the river and drowned by the weight of his own armor. The general characteristics of oracles were ambiguity, obscurity and convertibility, so that one answer would agree with several various and sometimes directly opposite events. To Pyrrhus:
"Ato, te. Aiacido, Romanes vincere posse."
"I declare thee, O Pyrrhus, the Romans to be able to conquer."
Herodotus tells us that Croesus, the sovereign of Lydia, consulted the Delphic oracle as to whether he should proceed against the Persians; and this was the reply, as Cicero renders it:
"Croesus, Halym penetrans, magnam pervertet opum vim."
"By crossing Halys, Croesus will destroy a mighty power."
He thought of course the kingdom would be that of Cyrus; it proved to be his own. A third time he consulted the oracle anxious to be informed whether his power would ever suffer diminution. The Pythian answered:
"When o er the Medes a mule shall sit on high, O er pebbly Hermus then soft Lydian fly!
Fly with all haste: for safety scorn thy fame, Nor scruple to deserve a coward’s name." The catch was here: this "mule" was Cyrus, whose mixed parentage had caused this opprobrious epithet to be applied to him.
Compare Shakespeare the witch’s prophecy:
"The duke yet lives that Henry shall depose."
These were mere tricks like the veritable sign, unpunctuated, over a barber’s shop in London:
"What do you think I’ll shave for a penny and give you a drink"
Read as an exclamation, it encouraged applicants for a service that would cost nothing and pay them with a dram beside. But when such gratuitous service was applied for, the shrewd barber only repeated the words as a question.
What would be thought of the oracles of God if they descended to the puerilities of an ambiguous riddle that might be read both ways, and so could not fail of accomplishment! The extreme difficulty of framing a prophecy which shall prove accurate, may be seen in that familiar but crude rhyme known as "Mother Shipton’s Prophecy." Some years ago it appeared as a pretended relic of a remote day, and claimed to have predicted the invention of steam as a motive power, diving suits, balloons, a threefold revolution in France; the rise of Israeli, the Jew, as a figure in English politics, the erect ion of a crystal palace, etc. After its first appearance it was almost forgotten. Years later it reappeared, with a few very slight changes in the rhyme, such as to be scarcely noticed, and yet so including recent events as to make this "prophecy" seem more startling. At times in arguing with skeptics I was met by the statement that here was an old ignorant woman who lived four hundred years ago, and who had written an "uninspired prophecy which was of undoubted antiquity, and however rude in shape, containing several remarkable predictions." So for years I have been trying to unearth and expose what seemed to me a huge imposture, and having succeeded, here record the result. My first clue to the forgery was the discovery that at least three separate and different versions had been put before the people. The changes or variations were slight and sly, adroitly accommodating the pretended prophecy to the new developments of current history: till at last the whole thing has been traced to Charles Hindly, who acknowledges himself the author of this prophetic hoax, which was written in 1862 instead of 1448, and palmed off on a credulous public! It is one of the startling proofs of human perversity that the very people who will try to cast suspicion on prophecies two thousand years old, will, without straining, swallow a forgery that was first published twenty years ago, and not even look into its claims to antiquity! The Christian religion challenges the severest test fulfilled prediction. It is easier to counterfeit a miracle than a prophecy; and yet this method of confirmation, so certain to bring exposure to fraud, falsehood or impudent presumption, is the standard by which the Bible stands or falls; on this golden strand of prophecy all these divine precepts and promises are strung. Marvelous is their variety, extent and number, yet no prediction has ever failed; and if those whose set time has come have not failed, with what assurance may we look forward to the sure accomplishment of those prophetic words whose full time is not yet!
There was a certain sublimity about that act of the German astronomers who, at Aiken, S. C., left the stone, on which their meridian circle rested in observing the recent transit of Venus, to stand for the use of those who, in June, 2004, shall need to watch another transit. Think of it the faith of science in the inflexible order of nature! One hundred and twenty years hence three times, at least within that space a generation will have perished; thrones will have been emptied of occupant after occupant; empires will have passed away; changes, whose number and gravity are too great now to be conceived, will have taken place; nay, human history may have come to its great last crisis and the millennial march may have begun: but punctual to a second, without delay or failure, Venus will make her transit across the sun’s disc. So, while scoffers sneer and doubters question, while empires vanish and nations perish, prophecy moves steadily onward, and nears its grand fulfillment. To a second of time and to the last minute jot or tittle of detail, the prophetic word shall be fulfilled. The wise man will prepare for the sure future, get ready and keep ready for the coming crisis. Mr. Wiggins, in Canada, from study of the science of storms and storm centers, winds, their circuits, waves and tides, ventured to predict a great storm on this planet beginning March 9th, 1883. He made his prediction in September, 1882. He declared that it would start in the northern Pacific on the morning of March 9th, strike this continent from the south, sweep along the Atlantic coast on the afternoon of the 10th, traveling westward south of the 45th parallel, and returning from the Rocky Mountain range, cross the . meridian of Ottawa, over the great Canadian lakes, at noon of the 11th. It was at best a shrewd guess on the basis of probabilities. Meteorology and kindred sciences are not sufficiently reduced to a system, to enable such predictions to be made with confidence. And yet notwithstanding the doubt that overhung the prophecy, wise men made prudent provisions against possible disaster the plans of thousands were modified to meet the possible emergency and avoid damage; ships put off their day of sailing; excursions were deferred; exposed buildings were sheltered and strengthened, that if the storm should strike, it might find the people prepared. Such are the measures which human foresight and forecast suggest simply in order to be on the safe side! What shall be said of the folly, presumption, recklessness, that pay no heed to the prophetic warnings of the Word of God. That sure word of prophecy in clear terms foretells, beyond the certain day of death, a day when time shall be no longer; when earth shall be wrapped in a winding sheet of dissolving flames; when earth and sea shall give up their dead, and the great white throne shall flash upon the gaze of countless hosts of our humanity when the books shall be opened, and the dead judged! Have you made ready for that day? In that storm whose thunders rend the earth and shake the sky whose floods sweep away the last refuge of lies and sin will your house stand, or fall forever!