Moral Evidence of Christianity Superior to Miracles
J. Harris, D. D. Luke 7:19-22 And John calling to him two of his disciples sent them to Jesus, saying, Are you he that should come? or look we for another?… 1. It is evident John did not clearly apprehend the spirituality of the kingdom Christ was to introduce. Like the apostles, he expected the kingdom of God would come with observation, instead of its being of a slow, quiet, spiritual growth. He looked for something more visible. There were the remains of the old dispensation mixed up with his ideas of its nature; too much of the Old Testament theocracy. 2. The remarkable manner in which the idea of the coming of Christ had taken possession of the minds of men at the time John sent his disciples to inquire respecting it. The familiar designation of the Messiah was "the Comer." "Him that is to come" is but the common version of the world's designation of the Messiah. The Comer, as if with Him came everything else desirable. The coming of all future good depended upon His coming. 3. I might notice the world's slowness in recognizing Christ as the Messiah, and the circumstances which occasioned that slowness to admit His claim. 4. He proceeded to enforce His claim by evidence corresponding with His character, and their necessities, and by evidence alone, the result of which He is prepared to wait (Luke 7:21-23). As if He had said, "Go and tell John My kingdom is a spiritual kingdom, and the employment of other than spiritual means would be uncongenial and obstructive." 5. That our Lord not only employed evidence in contradistinction from worldly display and physical force, but that He presented to these inquirers and the multitude moral evidence as superior to miraculous. I. CHRIST'S PREACHING CONSISTED, IN A REMARKABLE DEGREE, OF DEEDS. 1. Thus on this occasion, the God-like reply to the inquiry, "Art Thou He that should come?" His deeds spoke. He entered into no argumentative defence of His claims — "Actions speak louder than words." "In the same hour He cured many of their infirmities and plagues, and of evil spirits; and unto many that were blind He gave sight." He left the stupendous miracles He had performed to speak for themselves (Psalm 19.l-3). The heavens had done much, and now He is in the world to develop what the heavens could not declare. It was not to be expected that His more full manifestation would be verbal merely, or chiefly, for how can speech, which is but the symbol of thought, convey ideas of what thought cannot grasp respecting "God, who is a spirit," immaterial, infinite, invisible, incomprehensible. Speech fails to do justice to the finite, the visible, the material, and comprehensible; to convey the greatest and best conceptions of our own minds. 2. Christ's verbal teaching related especially to Himself. Each portion of it was either the vindication of acts He had performed, or an intimation of some purpose he was about to accomplish, or a development of the kingdom He was then establishing — relating to its nature, origin, character, or growth. 3. This distinctive and important fact supplies a reply to the following objections. (1) The first objection we refer to, more frequently felt than expressed, relates to the greater fulness of evangelical doctrines in the Epistles than in the Gospels. Although the latter comprise the discourses and teaching of Christ Himself, we reply to this by saying, "Christ came not so much to preach the gospel as to procure it, to establish and confirm it, to perform the deeds, the record of which constitutes the gospel."(2) The second objection urged from the time of Celsus downwards is, that parallels to some of our Lord's sayings are to be found in the writings of Plato, Isocrates, and others. Hence it has been inferred, absurdly enough, that the gospel had been anticipated — that Christianity was not original. To which we reply, admitting the supposed resemblances, the wonder is that they are so extremely few — two or three mere maxims of morality, and these but the distant reverberations of Sinai's echoes of the ancient and moral law. What is Christianity? Nothing but a few maxims of morality? We triumphantly point inquirers for Christianity to her spirit and her works — her resemblance to her Lord. II. His WORKS WERE WONDERFUL. It is a frequent description given of God in the Old Testament, "He only doeth wonderful things." To achieve wonders is the prerogative of God. "He alone doeth wonders"; and this called forth the grateful praises of His people. Not only is God the wonder-worker, but strictly speaking, all that God does are wonders, only wonders. The atom is as an atom not less wonderful than a world. Both owe their origin to His creative power, and are impressed with the Divine signature. Was it strange then that when "God was manifested in the flesh," that when He appeared amongst us, who was predicted as "the wonderful," His works and deeds should be "mighty signs and wonders." There was a sense in which He could do nothing which was not wonderful; His constitution made it impossible that anything ordinary could emanate from Him. III. HIS WONDERS WERE MERCIES. 1. All His miracles were miracles of mercy. Nor was it necessary to alter His laws, imposed at the first on nature, they suffered no violence from His mercy; on the contrary, they harmonized with it. In giving sight to the blind, He was but restoring the eye to the use and exercise of its proper function. His power He used as a trust to be administered for man's good alone. 2. Besides the present happiness, His mercies conveyed in the physical and mental benefits, miraculously bestowed, they had a higher value, a symbolical meaning, pointing to spiritual necessities and supplies, to the things relating to our redemption. 3. His miracles demonstrated His power, and our interest in turning the elements of earth to account of spiritual uses, relating them to heaven. In opening the blind eye He denoted that He came to be the Light of the world, and that we need that the eye of the understanding should be open to receive that light. The greatest wonder was that of His incarnation. In comparison with this wonder, all mere acts of His power were less splendid. This was the long desired and promised wonder. The ancient tabernacle foreshadowed His tabernacling among men. The temple with its indwelling Shekinah symbolically predicted this. Every instance of union between God and man, and the union of soul and body, prefigured this infinitely more mysterious union of the Divine and human natures in His person. IV. HIS MERCIES, like His acts, by which He replied to John's disciples, WERE ANSWERS TO MAN'S NECESSITIES. This is only another mode of saying that the blessings of His redemption are fully adapted to man's exigencies. It might have been otherwise. His words might have been works; His works might have been wonders; His wonders might have been mercies; and yet, after all, there might have been a want of strict suitableness between our necessities and the mode of meeting them, but the text reminds us that His mercies and deeds are exactly suitable and fully answerable to the exigencies. 1. This correspondence admits of universal application. He comprehended the entire scheme of nature and Providence. No legitimate question on any natural subject can ever arise in the mind of man, which his Creator and Redeemer has not foreseen; to which He has not inserted an answer in the things which He has made. Ten thousand answers are silently awaiting the future questions which shall call them forth. At this moment, while we are assembled here, the Creator may be elsewhere exhibiting similar demonstrations of His perfections in reply to inquirers. In the amplitude of space, hosts of intelligent beings may be collected around the chaos of a world, wondering whether it will ever be restored to harmony and order; whether all creative acts are at an end, and while they are inquiring the fiat may go forth from the Creator again, as "in the beginning," "Let there be light," and the light of Divine power may kindle around them. 2. The lessons of the Old Testament are represented as replies. God was graciously pleased to allow Himself to be inquired of. His replies were called responses or oracles. 3. But now Christ had come as the living oracle; from Him the questions which human guilt and misery had never ceased to agitate, were to receive a full practical satisfactory reply. V. A PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY ALONE, A CHRISTIANITY EMBODIED IN DEEDS OF MERCY, ADEQUATELY ILLUSTRATES THE WORKS OF REDEMPTION BY CHRIST. "Blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in Me." Our Lord meant not that His wondrous works should end with Himself. All power was given to Him as Mediator and Head of the Church, as a centre of an ever-enlarging circle. From Him as the Head of all things to the Church all emanates. (J. Harris, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: And John calling unto him two of his disciples sent them to Jesus, saying, Art thou he that should come? or look we for another? WEB: John, calling to himself two of his disciples, sent them to Jesus, saying, "Are you the one who is coming, or should we look for another?"