1. Are miracles possible? Hume, Spinosa, and others say, “No: reason pronounces them impossible.” But whose reason? Theirs? Then that contradicts the all but universal reason, which affirms that with God all things are possible.
2. Are miracles improbable and incredible? Yes, say the same authorities. But did they live when they are alleged to have been performed? One ground of disbelief is, that it is impossible to believe what contradicts experience. But what remains to be proved is, Did miracles contradict the experience of the professed witnesses? The denizens of the equator never saw ice. Their experience contradicts that of the Greenlanders. But which shall we accept? Another ground is that it is unlikely that the Creator would disturb the beneficent order of events. Granted, except for the best and wisest purposes, and in such a way as not to derange the order of the universe. This is what is claimed for Christ; and, indeed, on behalf of the freedom and beneficence of the Creator. The anti-miraculous position is the dethronement of God in favour of natural law.
3. Have we satisfactory ground to believe that Christ performed miracles? There is the same evidence for them as that Caesar entered Gaul and
Britain. Upon this evidence the Christian Church is built; the witnesses died to support their testimony. The fabrication of this testimony would be more miraculous than what it records.
II. SHOULD WE BE INDUCED BY THEM TO ADMIT CHRIST’S DIVINE CLAIMS? Yes, for
1. They are the acts of a Creator. We recognize the same Voice saying, “Let there be light!” that said, “Lazarus, come forth!” We believe Him “for the works’ sake.”
2. Christ is the efficient Agent in all miracles. He promised, and gave to, the apostles their supernatural power; and they referred the effects of it back to Him, and exerted it to produce faith in Him.
3. Christ performed miracles by His own power and in His own name, which the apostles never did.
Conclusion:
1. The blessedness of belief in Christ.
2. The peril of disbelief. (E. N. Kirk, D. D.)
The reasonableness of the evidence of miracles, and its impotence alone
It is quite consistent with God’s wisdom to reveal Himself to the senses,as well as to the soul; and if the gospel were utterly deficient in this latter kind of proof, one great evidence that it is from God would be wanted--an evidence that we are fortified in expecting from the analogies of nature. God has written His glory--e.g., in the heart--at the same time, He has so constructed the visible universe, that “the heavens declare the glory of God.” And when the eternal Word is manifested into the world, we naturally expect that Divine power shall be shown, as well as Divine beneficence. Miracles, therefore, are exactly what we should expect; and I acknowledge a great corroboration and verification of His claims to Sonship. Besides, they startled and aroused many to His claims who otherwise would never have attended to them. Still the great truth remains untouched, that they, appealing only to the natural man, cannot convey the spiritual certainty of truth which the spiritual man alone apprehends. However, as the natural and spiritual in us are both from God, why should God not have spoken to both, and why should not Christ appeal to natural works, subordinate always to the spiritual self-evidence of Truth itself? (F. W. Robertson, M. A.)
