Some were witnessed both by the people and by the disciples, and some by the disciples and apostles only. The function of the miracles may have been different in the different cases. But, besides their effect on the actual witnesses, the record of these mighty doings has had a prodigious effect on generation after generation, from the time when our Lord walked in Galilee to the present day; and we may suppose that this posthumous effect was included in the Divine design.
The character of our Lord's miracles we shall find to be determined by the nature of the work He came to do. The work and miracles were adapted each to the other, and, owing to this, the study of [pg 077] the miracles throws a light on His purpose, and the more insight we get into His purpose the more reason we see for the miracles being of the kind they were.
We will consider, under different heads, the various functions which Our Lord's miracles fulfilled. That which comes naturally first in order is
(1) The attraction of hearers.
One effect of signs on the beholders lay on the surface. They awoke attention; they caused men's eyes to be turned to the Son of Man. Jesus won a mastery over men's souls both by what He did and what He said; but the doing had to come first, because without this He would not so soon have gained a hearing. From a district of small towns and scattered hamlets a crowd was not drawn together without some cogent influence. It was the rumour of the things “done in Capernaum”[26] and of other mighty works that caused the crowd to gather, and attracted the multitudes who listened, both in the synagogue and on the Mount.
The works of healing would be attractive enough to draw within the reach of our Lord's influence all who were likely to profit, as well as some who were not: while His words and the influence of His presence would attach to Him as true disciples those, and those only, who had “ears to hear:” in this way the crowd would be sifted.
One of the characteristics of our Lord, which puzzled His followers, and which also strikes us, was His seeming indifference about the number, or the worldly position of His adherents. He does not aim at gaining converts; when His popularity seems at its height He withdraws from the people. A warrior Messiah, or a prophet seeking to convince the world, would have displayed signs suited to attract the blind devotion of the multitude: he would have wanted to prove his pretensions by the striking character of his signs and wonders. Such was the Messiah whom the Jews were led to expect; in general they imagined no other, and for no other did they care: so we find that it surprised the disciples and the brethren of Jesus, that He should content himself with healing poor sick people in hamlets of Galilee, instead of confounding Herod in Tiberias, or the scribes in Jerusalem.
And if we regard our Lord as a leader looking to an immediate purpose and depending for success on His influence with those of His own day, his conduct is indeed inexplicable; but the whole tenour of it falls in well with the view which regards Him as setting afoot a movement which was to go on working to the end of the world. Hurry belongs to the mortal who wants to see the outcome of his work, while eternity is lavish of time.[27]
We shall see later on that it is foreign to our Lord's ways to inflame the feelings and blind the eyes of men by kindling speech.
The overmastering influence of a great leader will “take the prisoned soul” of the people and make it follow his will. But Christ's first care is to leave each man master of his own will—the man who is no longer so, ceases to count as a unit. Just as this is seen in our Lord's teaching, so is it also in the miracles which set that teaching forth—they are not worked in the ways or the place that a Thaumaturge would have chosen—people are not invited to a spectacle—nor are the wonders so overwhelming as to cause a whole population to fall prostrate at our Lord's feet. The rumour of them is sufficient to make those who “have ears to hear” enquire further and “come and see;” and a further function of “Signs” is then called into play.