Companion to the Bible

by E. P. Barrows

AUTHENTICITY AND CREDIBILITY OF THE GOSPEL NARRATIVES.

1. The genuineness and uncorrupt preservation of our four canonical gospels having been established, the presumption in favor of their authenticity and credibility is exceedingly strong. In truth, few can be found who, admitting their apostolic origin in essentially their present form, will venture to deny that they contain an authentic and reliable record of facts. We may dismiss at once the modern theory which converts the gospels into myths—pure ideas embodied in allegorical narratives which have no historic foundation. Myths do not turn the world upside down, as did the preaching of Christ and his apostles. Myths do not inspire the souls of men and women by thousands and tens of thousands with heroic zeal and courage, enabling them steadfastly to endure persecution and death for the truth's sake. It was love towards a crucified and risen Saviour in deed and in truth, not towards the mythical idea of such a Saviour, that made the primitive Christians victorious alike over inward sinful affection and outward persecution. To every one who reads the gospel narratives in the exercise of his sober judgment, it is manifest that they are intended to be plain unvarnished statements of facts. The question is, Are these statements reliable? Here new arguments can hardly be expected; the old are abundantly sufficient. Reserving for another place those general arguments which apply to the gospel system as a whole, let us here briefly consider the character of the authors and their records; of the events which they record with the surrounding circumstances; and especially of Jesus, their great theme.

2. It is natural to ask, in the first place, Were these men sincere and truthful? Here we need not long delay. Their sincerity, with that of their contemporaries who received their narratives as true, shines forth like the sun in the firmament. With reference to them, the Saviour's argument applies in all its force: "How can Satan cast out Satan?" "If Satan rise up against himself, and be divided, he cannot stand, but hath an end." The life-long work of the evangelists and their associates was to cast out of the world all fraud and falsehood. If now they attempted to do this by the perpetration of a most astounding fraud, we have the case of Satan casting out Satan. But we need not argue the matter at length. By what they did and suffered in behalf of their doctrines, as well as by the artless simplicity of their narratives, they give full proof of their sincerity and truthfulness.

3. We next inquire: Were they competent as men? that is, were they men of sober judgment, able correctly to see and record the facts that came under their observation, and not visionary enthusiasts who mistook dreams for realities? This question admits of a short and satisfactory answer. No proof whatever exists that they were visionary men, but abundant proof to the contrary. Their narratives are calm, unimpassioned, and straightforward, without expatiation on the greatness of Christ's character and works and the wickedness of his enemies, as is the way of all excited enthusiasts. What Paul said to Festus applies in its full force to them and their writings: "I am not mad, most noble Festus, but speak forth the words of truth and soberness." If any one will condemn them as visionary, it must be on the sole ground that all belief in the supernatural is visionary—a position that will be noticed hereafter.

4. A further inquiry is, Were these men competent as witnesses? that is, had they the requisite means of knowing the facts which they record? With regard to the apostles Matthew and John, this matter need not be argued. With regard to the other two, Luke states very fairly the position which they occupied: "It seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things," ("having accurately traced out all things," as the original signifies,) "from the very beginning, to write to thee, in order," etc. Luke had in abundance the means of accurately tracing out all things relating to our Lord's life and works, for he was the companion of apostles and others who "from the beginning were eye-witnesses and ministers of the word;" and from them, according to his own statement, he drew his information. The same is true of Mark also.

5. We come now to consider the character of the works which they record, and the circumstances in which they were performed. Here it may be remarked in the outset that it is not necessary to examine in detail all the miracles recorded in the gospel history. Though they all proceeded alike from the direct agency of God, they are not all alike open to human inspection. If upon examination we find the supernatural origin of many of them raised above all possibility of doubt, it is a legitimate inference that the rest of them had the same divine origin. Not to insist then upon the miracles ascribed to our Lord within the sphere of inanimate nature, such as the conversion of water into wine, the feeding of many thousands with a few loaves and fishes, and walking upon the sea, all of which were done in such circumstances that there is no room for questioning their reality, let us examine some that were performed upon the persons of men. Palsy, dropsy, withered limbs, blindness, the want of hearing and speech, leprosy, confirmed lunacy—all these were as well known in their outward symptoms eighteen hundred years ago as they are to-day. Persons could not be afflicted with such maladies in a corner. The neighbors must have known then, as they do now, the particulars of such cases, and have been unexceptionable witnesses to their reality. Persons may feign blindness and other infirmities among strangers, but no man can pass himself off as palsied, deaf and dumb, blind, (especially blind from birth,) halt, withered, in his own community. The reality of the maladies then is beyond all question; and so is also the reality of their instantaneous removal by the immediate power of the Saviour. Here we must not fail to take into account the immense number of our Lord's miracles, their diversified character, and the fact that they were performed everywhere, as well without as with previous notice, and in the most open and public manner. Modern pretenders to miraculous power have a select circle of marvellous feats, the exhibition of which is restricted to particular places. No one of them would venture to undertake the cure of a man born blind, or that had a withered limb, or that had been a paralytic for thirty-eight years. But Jesus of Nazareth went about the cities and villages of Judea for the space of three years, healing all manner of disease. With him there was no distinction of easy and difficult, since to Divine power nothing is hard. With the same word he rebuked a raging fever, cleansed from leprosy, gave strength to the paralytic, healed the withered limb, gave sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, and speech to the dumb, and raised the dead to life. The same voice that said to the man at Bethesda, "Rise, take up thy bed, and walk," said also to Lazarus, who had lain four days in the grave, "Come forth."

6. It is with reason that we lay special stress upon the fact that Christ performed many of his greatest miracles in the presence of his enemies, who had both the means and the will to institute a searching investigation concerning them, and who would have denied their reality had it been in their power to do so. Sad indeed is the record of the perverse opposition and calumny which our Lord encountered on the part of the Jewish rulers. But even this has a bright side. It shows us that the Saviour's miracles could endure the severest scrutiny—that after every means which power and wealth and patronage and official influence could command had been used for their disparagement, their divine origin still shone forth like the unclouded sun at noon-day. If any one doubts this, let him read attentively the ninth chapter of John's gospel, which records the investigation instituted by the Jewish rulers respecting the miracle of healing a man blind from his birth. In no modern court of justice was a question of fact ever subjected to a severer scrutiny. And the result was that they could not deny the miracle, but said in their blind hatred of the Redeemer, "Give God the praise: we know that this man is a sinner." So when they could not deny that Jesus cast out devils, they alleged that he did it by the help of Satan; when it was manifest that he had by a word healed a man that had lain thirty-and-eight years a helpless paralytic, they blamed him for working on the Sabbath-day; when Lazarus had been called out of his grave in the presence of all the people, they said, "What do we? for this man doeth many miracles." And then they consulted not to disprove these miracles, but to put both him and Lazarus to death. Thus, in the good providence of God, we have for the reality of our Lord's miracles the testimony of his enemies and persecutors.

7. The resurrection of Jesus is the miracle of miracles, of which we may say with truth that it comprehends in itself all the other mighty works recorded in the gospel history. We cannot but notice the condescending care with which our Lord himself certified to his disciples its reality. When he had suddenly appeared in the midst of them, "they were terrified and affrighted, and supposed that they had seen a spirit." To convince them of the reality of his bodily presence, he said, "Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have. And when he had thus spoken, he showed them his hands and his feet," that they might see in them the prints of the nails. Finding them still incredulous, "believing not for joy and wondering," he added another conclusive proof that he was not a spirit, but a true man: he asked for meat; "and they gave him a piece of a broiled fish, and of an honeycomb; and he took it, and did eat before them." Luke 24:36-43. To the unbelieving Thomas he offered the further proof which he had demanded: "Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side; and be not faithless, but believing." The certainty of this great event the evangelist Luke sets forth in his introduction to the Acts of the Apostles: "To whom also," (to the apostles,) "he showed himself alive after his passion, by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God." The apostle Peter, in his address to Cornelius and his friends, says: "Him God raised up the third day, and showed him openly; not to all the people, but unto witnesses chosen before of God, even to us, who did eat and drink with him after he rose from the dead." Acts 10:40, 41. The apostle Paul, in his enumeration of our Lord's appearances to his disciples after his resurrection, 1 Cor. 5-8, mentions that on one occasion "he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; of whom," he says, "the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep."

It was not the greatness of the miracle, considered simply by itself, but its relation to the gospel, that made our Lord's resurrection from the dead the central fact of the apostles' testimony. It was, so to speak, the hinge on which the whole work of redemption turned. Our Lord's expiatory death for the sins of the world and his resurrection from the dead were both alike parts of one indivisible whole. It was not his claim to be the promised Messiah alone that was involved in the fact of his resurrection. His completion, as the Messiah, of the work of man's redemption was also dependent on that great event. "If Christ be not risen," says the apostle, "then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain;" and again, "If Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins." 1 Cor. 15:14, 17. We need not wonder then that the apostles, in their testimony to the people, insisted so earnestly on this one great fact in our Lord's history; for by it God sealed him as the Prince of life.