To take an illustration: If a man, owing to something abnormal in his vision, became aware of a new colour, something which had nothing to do with red or yellow or blue; he could not communicate his new sensation because he could find no pigment which would in any degree represent it, and he could not describe it in words, by likeness to anything in the world. So God can only reveal to man about spiritual existence what man can conceive, that is to say only that to which he finds something analogous in his own being; for all must be put into that form with which man's understanding can deal; and the [pg 073] only spiritual creature he can conceive is man; the only ideas he can conceive are human ideas; his mind must work on the lines along which men's minds move; the only creature with whom he can sympathise, and whom he can believe to sympathise with him is man, and so—since there can be no real teaching without mutual understanding—by man he must be taught. Christ's revelation meets this need. It was as the Son of Man that Christ declared Himself, and in this character He conveyed to men the germs of all the spiritual enlightenment they can receive. Does not this throw light on the words, “No one knoweth who the Father is save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son willeth to reveal Him,”[22] and again, “No man cometh to the Father but by me?”[23]
Chapter IV. Our Lord's Use Of Signs.
It has been already observed that there is one feature of our Lord's way of revealing truths to men which distinguishes Him from all teachers before or since. This is the use of Signs.
Miracles may have been attributed to those who have promulgated creeds at various times, but these miracles did not form a constituent part of the teaching; they were not blended with it as those of our Lord were. They are introduced only to serve for credentials, so that an appeal to them may silence incredulity; they convey no lesson, they only serve for proof. I hope to shew that it was otherwise with the signs wrought by Christ.
My especial concern in this chapter is not with the nature or the credibility of miracles in general, but only with the purposes for which Christ introduced them; and with the questions of how far they were performed with a view to draw men to listen and to set forth God's kingdom, and how far for the purpose of working conviction. In the first [pg 075] chapter I have stated certain Laws, which our Lord observed in working Signs. These I shall presently discuss; but what I am concerned with now is the general question “Why did our Lord work Signs?”
I use the word “Signs” instead of miracles because it is our Lord's own word. The latter expression fastens attention on the wonderment which these deeds raised in men. But our Lord uses the word “Sign,” which implies that these acts were tokens of some underlying power which, in these instances, passed into operation in an exceptional way. To our Lord, they of course were not wonders, and He never dwells on their wondrousness.
In the accounts of St Matthew, St Mark and St Luke, the word “Signs” is that most commonly employed by our Lord when speaking of His own working of miracles; while in the Gospel of St John, the term “works” is generally found in the like case, though “powers” sometimes takes its place. The expression “Signs and wonders” means, not two separate sorts of works, but signs that make men wonder: it means prodigies, worked to shew a divine commission, taken on the side of the awe they inspire. Our Lord only uses this expression twice—once when He says that false prophets shall come and “shew great signs and wonders,”[24] and again in His answers to the nobleman [pg 076] whose son was sick at Capernaum, “Unless ye see signs and wonders ye will not believe.”[25] On these occasions the term refers to the popular conception of the form which Divine interposition would take. The expression “signs and wonders” occurs very frequently in the Acts of the Apostles.
When, as here, we are in search of the purposes which our Lord had in view, in something that He did, it is of service to ask, “What purpose or purposes did it actually fulfil?” What He did would not be likely to fail in producing the effect intended, or to bring about a result not contemplated by Him. So we must try to unravel the complex effects of these signs, and to discriminate the several ways in which they worked.