John H. Paterson
"When the fulness of the time came, God sent forth
His Son, born of a woman ..." Galatians 4:4
EVEN those of us who do not worship in the Church of England must be aware that, within it, there have recently been wide-ranging discussions about the content of the historic Christian faith. In particular, the question has arisen as to whether it is necessary to believe that the miraculous occurrences in the Gospel record really happened as they are described by the writers.
This debate, of course, is actually one of long standing: the only special feature of its 1985 version is the number of bishops involved in it! But it is an issue which confronts us all. How important are the stories of Jesus which involve miracles -- His birth; His own signs; His resurrection? Since, inevitably, they make belief more difficult for sceptical people to whom the Gospel message is presented, are we at liberty to discard them? Can we say, in effect, "Don't worry if you can't swallow all those miracles! They are not essential to belief."
Between those who can believe and those who, for whatever reason, cannot, there is another group who take the view it doesn't matter whether the things reported by the Gospel writers happened or not. No doubt they mean well -- they want to soften the stark either-or that otherwise confronts us. But they are in an impossible position. I remember a sermon in which the preacher announced as his theme Christ walking on the water. After explaining that some people believe that this really happened while others do not, the preacher said, "But it doesn't matter whether it happened or not: the message for us is that, if we are in trouble, Christ will come to us." But that is ridiculous! If it did happen, then indeed Christ may come to us, but if it did not, then how do I know whether there is a real Christ who will really come to me? Somebody just made it all up.
So this is something about which we must decide for ourselves. Part of the problem, I believe, is that the reasons usually suggested for the inclusion of the miraculous element in the Gospels by the Holy Spirit are not very compelling. Unless, obviously, that element serves some very important purposes then we are indeed better off without it, for it can only put off enquirers and raise doubts in believers' minds.
What 'important purposes' are there? I want to suggest three. Please note that I am not offering these as three reasons for believing that the miracles happened just as they are described -- although that is my personal belief -- but three grounds for holding that it is vitally important for each of us to resolve the question as to whether or not they did.
(1) The Argument from History
The first reason is that, as human beings, we live in time and history, and God does not: He is eternal. We cannot penetrate into that world where He is -- we can never reach Him. Consequently, if there is ever to be any contact between God and man, He must enter our world, a world of events. As soon as He does so, in whatever way, He enters our history; His coming becomes an event, at a specific place and time. To us, with our time-based lives, there is no other way of identifying or describing His presence.
Now this, of course, is exactly how the Gospel writers portray the coming of God in Christ: the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14). But because that coming, and all other comings of God, were from outside our world of place and time, they must by definition have been miraculous, for a miracle is simply an event for which there is no earthly explanation. You cannot have God intervening in the events of our history without it being a miracle! So the question is not: was the intervention of God in Christ done in a miraculous or non-miraculous way? It is: did it happen or not?
It is a little surprising that those who see God-in-Christ as a myth, or simply as a message or emphasis, have not recognised this. To have any "word from the Lord" is a miracle, however it is delivered, but to distinguish it from mere imagination, or hallucination, or dreamland, it must [41/42] be accompanied by event; otherwise, tomorrow's dream or vision may reverse or extinguish today's. In short, to speak of a message from God to man which has no miraculous element, and consequently no miraculous event, is a contradiction in terms.
Ordinary believers have, of course, been holding this event-centred view ever since the apostles first stated it: "That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you" (1 John 1:3). But we need, perhaps, to remind ourselves of it in the present context. The Gospel is more than message: it was history. The cross is more than symbol: it was event. It is surprisingly easy to be caught out over this! The late Dr. Francis Schaeffer was fond of pointing out that in Salvador Dali's famous crucifixion painting, which hangs in a Glasgow art gallery, and which many believers profess to admire, the cross of the Lord Jesus is depicted as standing not on the earth, but in space. That is the cross as symbol, not as event!
(2) The Argument from Expectation
My second reason for seeing the miracles in the life of the Lord Jesus as critically important to His coming is that they conform to our reasonable expectations. Let me explain that, by putting it the other way round. If somebody appeared among us today, claiming to have come from God, or to be the Son of God, what should we expect of him? What kinds of evidence should we look for in support of His claims?
I suggest that, as a minimum, we should expect that his birth would in some way be special, that he would exhibit unusual powers, that he would display a specially detailed knowledge of the God who -- as he claimed -- has sent him, and that he would give some evidence of having special means of contact with God, beyond what other men might claim. At least, anybody who could not convince us in those ways would be regarded as a suspicious character, if not a downright charlatan.
So why should it not have been so when Jesus of Nazareth came? His coming, as we know, raised all sorts of doubts in the minds of those who met Him. There were those who worried about His birth ("Is not this the carpenter's son?"). There were those for whom the evidence in support of His claims was quite good, but not quite good enough ("Art thou he that should come, or look we for another?") -- and in today's world their successors include many who hold to the Jewish faith. There were also those who, not being able to deny the things they had seen Him do, resorted to the explanation that it was the prince of devils who empowered Him.
But notice that, in every case, what was being complained of is the exact opposite of today's criticisms of the Gospel: not that there was too much of the "special" or miraculous about the life of the Lord Jesus, but too little. His contemporaries demanded more of the miraculous, not less -- a more exotic birth story (after all, they knew Joseph and Mary), and a larger supply of miracles. And before we dismiss them as ignorant rustics of the first century A.D. with a liking for conjuring tricks, we must recall that they were on the spot or behind the scenes; that it would have been difficult to hoodwink such close observers and that they were denied the luxury of scholars twenty centuries later who can say, "It can't have happened that way."
Let me emphasise, once again, that this is not an argument proving that the miracles actually happened. That remains a matter of belief for us all. It is simply to argue that we cannot have it both ways. We cannot complain that the miraculous element in the story of Jesus hinders us from believing the Gospel record and, in the same breath, complain that the evidence for His divinity is insufficient. One or the other, perhaps, but not both!
(3) The Argument from the Old Testament
The third direction from which we can approach this matter is to start from the Old Testament record and ask, in effect, "What unfinished business was there left for Jesus to complete? What had the final Adam to do which the first Adam had left undone?" This third approach is a variation of the second: it is to ask, "What should we expect?", and then to look for it in the life of Jesus.
Let us turn back in thought, then, to the start of the Bible story -- to a perfect creation of which God had placed man in control. Into this creation there came sin and breakdown. Man fell into sin, and the creation was lost to his control: nature turned hostile (Genesis 3:17-19). Death became [42/43] the fate of all men. God's great enemy had been successful in damaging the fabric of God's perfect world.
In this situation, there were two courses open to God: to extinguish that first, marred creation and begin again, or to repair it. But of these two, the first was unthinkable: it would leave Satan triumphant, and would offer no guarantee that, in some new or future creation, he would not succeed in doing the same thing all over again and spoiling that, too. The only acceptable -- may I use the word godlike? -- thing to be done was to repair the damage. But that would require a repair to the very seat of the trouble, which was in man himself. The breakdown had begun with Adam, so the search was on for a new -- a second or a final -- Adam. And what hehad to be able to do was to reverse all the earlier work of Satan -- on the one hand to resist temptation; on the other, to reassert authority over all that world on which the first Adam had lost his grip.
Well, we know what happened. Some very remarkable men came along, and women too, who stood for God, and resisted some temptations, and even performed a few miracles. But none of them came within hailing distance of being a new Adam to meet the requirements of the situation.
What were those requirements? Once again, we can draw up a specification -- a list of the "damaged" areas that this man must repair. They would include the whole world of nature -- earth, air, plants and animals -- and the whole world of life and death, including sickness, suffering and the spirit realm of Satan's authority. They would cover the whole area of the knowledge of God, good and evil -- the moral world of which men had become so woefully ignorant. Let any of these be untouched or unrepaired, and some part of the damage of Eden would remain.
With Paul, we may well ask, "Who is sufficient for these things?" Who indeed? The New Testament tells us: the Lord Jesus, the Man from God. With a precision which is awesome in the light of the Genesis story of the Fall, He dealt as a man with every one of the areas of damage. So man is morally ignorant? He spoke with authority of God and His law, and kept it. So Nature is out of control? He stilled the storm. So the earth has not yielded food for people? He fed five thousand of them. So sickness is taking its toll? He healed the sick. So Satan has possession of one of God's creatures? He cast out the devil. So Lazarus is dead? He brought Lazarus back to life. So He is dead? No, He is alive again!
It is a marvellous story. But let us for now keep in mind only the point with which we began. Do the miracles matter? Or are they superfluous baggage, which we do better to discard? Well, I cannot prove that they happened, although I believe that they did. But if they did not; if any one of them did not, then we are in trouble for there is liable to be a part of that disaster of the Fall unrepaired: then the work of recovery is incomplete, and Satan still has a foothold somewhere.
You and I, of course, cannot normally control storms, and most of us cannot heal the sick, and none of us can thwart death when it comes. But Jesus could and the Gospels say that He did. If He indeed did, then that is enough: as the writer to the Hebrews says, "We see not yet all things subject to him (man), but we see ... Jesus". One man has broken through and He can bring many sons to glory (Hebrews 2:8, 9, 10). But if He did not then there is no Gospel: no amount of message is any use unless it is linked to events .
The miracles don't matter? What do you think?
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