Pastor Pastorum Part 4

They interpret to him his own confused and dreamy thoughts. This was what drew men so mightily to Him. It was not so much the novelty of what He told them that attracted them, as that they recognised in His teaching old familiar puzzles, which had come and gone through their minds, times without number, only in such shadowy guise that they could not fix and scrutinize them. Christ spake and then men said "This is what has been always troubling us." Here is what we have always been wanting to say, and could not put into plain words-and now these floating impressions of ours are found not to have come by chance but to belong to truths set in our being. G.o.d has "sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts crying Abba, Father."(21) But He would not have done so if we had not had the capacity for being sons, to begin with.

We shall see too, when we think of it, that a revelation to men can only come by man, or in a voice or words like those of a man. Man's understanding is fas.h.i.+oned in a certain way; his language is the creature of his understanding; ideas could not be conveyed to him unless they were clothed in language which he could understand; Revelation therefore must express itself in terms of human notions because they alone can be made intelligible in human speech. If G.o.d speaks, He must speak after the fas.h.i.+on of men, or His words will be an unknown tongue.

To take an ill.u.s.tration: If a man, owing to something abnormal in his vision, became aware of a new colour, something which had nothing to do with red or yellow or blue; he could not communicate his new sensation because he could find no pigment which would in any degree represent it, and he could not describe it in words, by likeness to anything in the world. So G.o.d can only reveal to man about spiritual existence what man can conceive, that is to say only that to which he finds something a.n.a.logous in his own being; for all must be put into that form with which man's understanding can deal; and the only spiritual creature he can conceive is _man_; the only ideas he can conceive are human ideas; his mind must work on the lines along which men's minds move; the only creature with whom he can sympathise, and whom he can believe to sympathise with him is _man_, and so-since there can be no real teaching without mutual understanding-by _man_ he must be taught. Christ's revelation meets this need. It was as the Son of Man that Christ declared Himself, and in this character He conveyed to men the germs of all the spiritual enlightenment they can receive. Does not this throw light on the words, "No one knoweth who the Father is save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son willeth to reveal Him,"(22) and again, "No man cometh to the Father but by me?"(23)

CHAPTER IV. OUR LORD'S USE OF SIGNS.

It has been already observed that there is one feature of our Lord's way of revealing truths to men which distinguishes Him from all teachers before or since. This is the use of Signs.

Miracles may have been attributed to those who have promulgated creeds at various times, but these miracles did not form a const.i.tuent part of the teaching; they were not blended with it as those of our Lord were. They are introduced only to serve for credentials, so that an appeal to them may silence incredulity; they convey no lesson, they only serve for proof.

I hope to shew that it was otherwise with the signs wrought by Christ.

My especial concern in this chapter is not with the nature or the credibility of miracles in general, but only with the purposes for which Christ introduced them; and with the questions of how far they were performed with a view to draw men to listen and to set forth G.o.d's kingdom, and how far for the purpose of working conviction. In the first chapter I have stated certain Laws, which our Lord observed in working Signs. These I shall presently discuss; but what I am concerned with now is the general question "Why did our Lord work Signs?"

I use the word "Signs" instead of miracles because it is our Lord's own word. The latter expression fastens attention on the wonderment which these deeds raised in men. But our Lord uses the word "Sign," which implies that these acts were tokens of some underlying power which, in these instances, pa.s.sed into operation in an exceptional way. To our Lord, they of course were not _wonders_, and He never dwells on their wondrousness.

In the accounts of St Matthew, St Mark and St Luke, the word "Signs" is that most commonly employed by our Lord when speaking of His own working of miracles; while in the Gospel of St John, the term "works" is generally found in the like case, though "powers" sometimes takes its place. The expression "Signs and wonders" means, not two separate sorts of works, but signs that make men wonder: it means prodigies, worked to shew a divine commission, taken on the side of the _awe_ they inspire. Our Lord only uses this expression twice-once when He says that false prophets shall come and "shew great signs and wonders,"(24) and again in His answers to the n.o.bleman whose son was sick at Capernaum, "Unless ye see signs and wonders ye will not believe."(25) On these occasions the term refers to the popular conception of the form which Divine interposition would take.

The expression "signs and wonders" occurs very frequently in the Acts of the Apostles.

When, as here, we are in search of the purposes which our Lord had in view, in something that He did, it is of service to ask, "What purpose or purposes did it actually fulfil?" What He did would not be likely to fail in producing the effect intended, or to bring about a result not contemplated by Him. So we must try to unravel the complex effects of these signs, and to discriminate the several ways in which they worked.

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 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 mult.i.tudes 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 mult.i.tude: 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.

This function is that they should serve to select from the mult.i.tude those fitted to follow our Lord.

(2) Selection.

I have said in a previous chapter that education and selection are inseparable. Any process that unfolds the powers which lie within men, emphasizes, so to say, the differences between them.

The witnessing of wonders, declared to be wrought by the finger of G.o.d, must have stirred men's minds, and so brought about in them a species of education, well calculated to winnow out the chaff from the grain.

But the quality, which this kind of education seizes upon and develops, is not intellectual ability, but the capacity for "savouring the things of G.o.d." The miracles served as a touchstone for detecting this. Many would look, and wonder, and go their way-they had seen a strange sight, _that_ they would allow, but it did not touch their souls: while to a few others it would seem as if they had lighted on what they had been watching for all their lives. They had always seen dimly that there must be in the world a living power; not a dead G.o.d in the keeping of the scribes, but a living G.o.d who should speak _in_ their hearts and _to_ their hearts, and they had found Him now. The minds of those who were worth rousing were put on the alert, and the sense of G.o.d's kingdom being near them, the sense that this every day world was His and worked by Him, was expanded within them.

(3) Preparation.

We have a distinct instance of the use of "Signs" to produce _preparation_. The seventy were sent working these Signs, "in every city unto which He Himself would come." This preparation would consist, partly, in the drawing out from the ma.s.s those who were likely to profit. When our Lord Himself came, these latter would be eager to hear Him, and the great announcements He made would not strike them as altogether strange. The district over which these messengers were sent probably lay outside the country where our Lord's ministry had been chiefly carried on, and was only visited by Him on this one occasion. This made it the more important that the right men, rightly prepared, should form His audience. His truths were not to fail of taking root, from want of the soil having been loosened beforehand. We shall see, over and over again, how careful our Lord is to prevent the opportunities He gives being lost. He never neglects or underrates the need of properly preparing men for receiving new truths: He employs the ordinary means for effecting this, and He would have the Children of Light be as wise in their generation, and as judicious in the use of such means, as the children of this world.

Again, the display of the miracles roused some, the Scribes and Pharisees in particular, into active hostility-they watched the Signs to find ground for charges of blasphemy and Sabbath-breaking. Priesthoods, occupied with the externals of their function are aghast at the a.s.sertion of a living and working G.o.d. The worldly are terrified also and with the terror that awakens fury. These cla.s.ses answer to those servants in the parable who said, "We will not have this man to reign over us." Whenever a vital religion has been proclaimed it has found opponents of both characters.

History witnesses to this, from the stoning of the prophets to the a.s.saults on religionists in modern times. The miracles divided men into three great sections: there were those who were for Christ, and those who were against Him, and between these came a body who were not wholly indifferent or unaffected, but who quieted themselves with saying that such weighty matters were no business of theirs.

This breaking up of men into friends and foes was a kind of preparation for the Apostles' work. When men begin to take sides their minds cannot lie torpid: evil pa.s.sion and selfishness mix with their doings, no doubt; but in the storm and stress men get to the bottom of their own hearts and find out their true selves; and men's truest selves were wanted by Christ.

So far we have spoken of miracles as means of rousing attention and drawing out from the ma.s.s those who had ears to hear. We will now consider them as practical ill.u.s.trations accompanying the preaching, and

(4) Setting forth the Kingdom of G.o.d.

They shew not only how close this Kingdom is to us but they also convey visible lessons, to help men to conceive it aright.

We learn from our Lord's own lips that one purpose for which He wrought Signs was to make men sure that the Kingdom of Heaven was come upon them.

When He was charged with casting out devils through Beelzebub, He says, after disposing of the accusation,

"But if I by the finger of G.o.d cast out devils, then is the _kingdom of G.o.d come upon you_."(28)

Whether Our Lord preached in the villages Himself, or the Apostles or the Seventy, going two by two, did so in His name the burden of their preaching was always the same. They call on men to change to a better mind, and declare that the Kingdom of G.o.d is come nigh. The seventy are bid to say to those who rejected them, "Howbeit know this that the Kingdom of G.o.d _is_ come nigh."(29) Whether men chose to own it or not, G.o.d's Kingdom _was_ near them even at their doors. St Mark, at the outset of his history of our Lord's Ministry, tells us(30)

"Now after that John was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of G.o.d,

"And saying, the time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of G.o.d is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel."