In the same way it could be proven by the bible that Jesus worked miracles of every description to inspire faith in his mission, and from the same book it could just as positively be shown that Jesus not only worked no miracles whatever, but that he gave his word of honor he would under no circumstances give a sign to prove his claims:
Jesus Refuses to Perform Miracles. Jesus Recites His Many Miracles.
And the Pharisees came Jesus answered and said
forth, and began to question unto them, Go and shew John
with him, seeking of him a again those things which ye
sign from heaven. . . . do hear and see. The blind
And he sighed deeply in his receive their sight, and the
spirit, and saith . . . There lame walk, the lepers are
shall no sign be given unto cleansed, and the deaf hear,
this generation. And he left the dead are raised up. **
them. . . .*
It is difficult to suppose that the Pharisees, after seeing all these miracles performed in their midst daily, desired "a sign" from, him, or that Jesus, instead of pointing to his many miracles, should declare, positively: "There shall no sign be given unto this generation." The miracle of Jonah, who was in the belly of a fish for three days, was enough, Jesus said to the Jews, to prove his own divinity.
Again, it is as clear as anything can be, for instance, that the words, "Go, ye, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost," *** were interpolated into the text of the Gospels after the Trinitarian party had come into power. If Jesus really delivered the words to his disciples just before they began their missionary labors, how is it that not one of the baptisms by the Apostles recorded in the New Testament were in the name of the Trinity? Paul was not baptized according to the formula given in the Gospels; Peter did not baptize in the name of a triune God; Philip, who baptized the Ethiopian, does not seem to have known of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost form of baptism.
* Mark viii, 11-13.
** Matthew xi, 4,5.
*** Matthew xxiii, 19.
Again, if Jesus really commanded his Apostles to go into all the world, and teach all nations, is it likely that only a short time thereafter, Peter, one of the pillars, who had seen the risen Lord, and was now confirmed in his faith, would have refused to preach the Gospel to Cornelius because the latter was not a Jew? And if Jesus really sent them unto all the nations of the world, how are we to explain the bitter controversy over the admission of Gentiles into the church—a controversy that led Paul to denounce Peter as a dissimulator? It is not a lack of moral courage, but courtesy, which, in view of these revelations, restrains us from calling the above text in the Gospels a partisan forgery. Is it reasonable to suppose that the same Jesus who forbade his disciples to go to the Gentiles, telling them to confine themselves exclusively to the Jews, also commissioned them to make no distinction of race, country or religion?
Below we present one of the most important commandments of Jesus, and the prompt cancellation of the same, in parallel columns:
Go not into the way of the Go ye into all the world
Gentiles, and into any city of and preach the Gospel to
the Samaritans enter ye not: every creature. **
But go rather to the lost
sheep of the house of Israel. *
Again, Jesus said: