Faith and Practice. Frank E. Wilson
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Some of His cures may have been merely a foreshortening of similar cures which can be wrought by our clumsier methods today. Possibly when we know enough we may be able to explain many others of His miracles which are still incomprehensible to us now. Life is full of unaccountable happenings. Some people are possessed of capacities far more sensitive than the average. Often they astonish themselves by exhibiting abilities which they themselves are unable to explain. Our Lord’s human life is unique in the annals of history. Such a life might well have been responsive to spiritual impulses beyond our broadest imagination.
Our Lord never performed any miracles in order to show off. At the beginning of His ministry He refused to dazzle the public with a spectacular exhibition, saying, “Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.”1 He declined to perform wonders where faith was lacking and people were merely curious.2 He never used His extraordinary powers for His own benefit—not even on the cross when the scoffers challenged Him to save Himself from death.3 His miracles were signs and symbols called forth to authenticate His teaching for a people who expected unusual things from God. In the early years of the Church’s life extraordinary events continued to occur, and instances have not failed to appear now and then down through the ages. Rationalize all you please and there still remain many happenings, too well attested for doubting, which are far beyond the range of human comprehension.
Why should there have to be miracles anyhow? Would it not have been much simpler if the Christian faith could have been held within the bounds of that which was quite understandable and thus avoid all these difficult questionings? It might have been simpler—and it would have been deadly. Would anyone be willing that human progress should have come to a blank halt at the beginning of the Christian era? If Christ were to proclaim a Gospel which would be valid for an indefinite future, it was plainly necessary that He should incorporate into it elements which were above the reach of the people of His own day. Otherwise His Gospel would have been a temporary flash of human progress or would have come to a standstill rather than leave Him far behind. We might suggest three practical reasons for the presence of miracles in the Christian faith:
1. In order to illustrate the unique character of our Lord. From a Person who claimed spiritual authority in His own right, it would be expected that some unusual evidences of that authority would be forthcoming.
2. To encourage expectation of greater things to come. We need something to anticipate. We can’t keep grubbing along at the same old level and expect to rise to any heights. We need a lift, something to reach for, something to stretch our spiritual muscles.
3. To jar our complacency. We easily settle into the routine of ordinary living and allow our sensibilities to be dulled by commonplaces. We forget that there may be anything beyond the daily round of eating, sleeping and doing the regular chores of life. A wise God knows it is good for us if He occasionally breaks through to disturb our lazy equanimity. Now and then we need to be startled. In material matters, what would become of inventive genius if we lived on the stupid assumption that the pattern of life was complete and all that remained for us to do was to manicure it diligently and keep it in proper order? The same might be said of spiritual life. We would be dead on our feet if we were not spurred on by some extraordinary spiritual manifestations once in a while.
Surely there is no good reason for believing that the natural order as we know it in this world is the ultimate ceiling of all existence. Conscious as we are of the limitations under which we must struggle, we can scarcely escape the conclusion that there ought to be and must be a higher order of life unshackled by human handicaps. Indeed the logic of the situation demands it. We contemplate the ascending levels of vegetable life, animal life, and human life, and in simple reason we cannot stop there. We could not convince ourselves that human life is the top of everything. We are too well acquainted with its inevitable restrictions. There simply must be a higher order. We know that animal life runs the gamut of vegetable life—and more. We know that human life can reach down into animal life but also reaches much further in many other directions. Why, then, should it not be quite reasonable that there should be a still higher order which can penetrate human life without being confined within it? That means something above the natural—and that means supernatural. There is no sense in shrinking from the term. The separation between the two may not be nearly as impregnable as we often think it to be. God is a God of law and order, but we believe that the law of creation itself provides for a breaking-through of the supernatural into the natural order when circumstances may require it. God does not act capriciously—neither is He constrained within the narrow limits of human wisdom.
In the very nature of things miracles are possible. Well-attested events have occurred and do occur which cannot be adequately described by any other term. A personal God implies the probability of miraculous happenings. The Christian religion bears witness to the actual experience of such happenings. It is not afraid to face the supernatural because it believes that God has a right to speak to us in any way that will best suit His purposes.
REVELATION
A small child is a very helpless creature. If he is to survive the hazards of infancy he must be fed, clothed, protected, and generally cared for by his parents out of their mature experience. Later all of this early care must be supplemented by the instruction and training of his teachers who pass on to him the accumulated store of knowledge that belongs to the race. No child can be left to find his own way without some degree of help. Because his parents and teachers love him and feel a sense of responsibility for his welfare, they are morally bound to give him more than his natural inheritance would automatically provide.
Two considerations enter into the rearing of a child. In the first place, his parents cannot expect him to be an exact replica of themselves. He must develop his own individuality, discover and exercise his own talents, acquire his own experience, and construct his own character. On the other hand, he must receive guidance in doing all this. Now and then his parents and teachers must interfere with the course of his natural instincts—not by blocking them but by directing them with suggestions, restraints, encouragements, warnings and corrections. A proper balance in these two factors produces an educated person.
That, in a word, is the story of revelation. God has created human life for a purpose. He has equipped men and women with reason, emotion, will-power, and a sense of moral responsibility in order that they may work out a complete human life in response to His divine will. If He is to be true to the principle of His own creation, He must allow them to develop their own resources and work out their own destiny. But because He is the Father of all mankind, He cannot leave them to do it alone. Obviously if they are to accomplish His will, they must be taught what His will is. The whole history of the human race tells of Man’s persistent striving to find God and his untiring efforts to know Him. It is absurd to think that He could have invested mankind with this capacity and this yearning without being prepared to meet them at least half way by revealing Himself to them. Not to do so would be plainly unfair—it would be expecting the impossible. Certainly a Heavenly Father must be as considerate of His children as a human father is of his. The human father knows he must offer a helping hand. The Heavenly Father can do no less.
God educates His children upward by revealing Himself to them. This He may do in many different ways. So far as the individual is concerned, any life that is attuned to God may hear Him frequently. Perhaps it may be through the channel of conscience or perhaps some other way. There are people who are peculiarly sensitive to spiritual impulses. For them the veil between the seen and the unseen, between the natural and the supernatural, is extremely thin. We call them mystics. We don’t know why they are as they are any more than we know why some people are better mathematicians than others. Their spiritual perception is keener than the average just as some people have sharper eyesight or more acute hearing. They respond with unusual readiness to anything that comes from God.
On the other hand are those of coarser fiber whose souls may be tough and calloused. Year after year they may go their irreligious way utterly indifferent to any spiritual impressions. Then something happens and this man who has habitually ignored God suddenly does an about-face and becomes a different creature. Thereafter God’s guidance is the most real thing in his life. We say that he has been converted which simply means that he has “turned around.”