Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 62:245 (Jan 1905)
Article: Miracle—Testimony Of God
Author: Francis J. Lamb

BSac 62:245 (Jan 1905) p. 126

Miracle—Testimony Of God

Hon. F. J. Lamb

“The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple — Ps. 19:7.

“The testimonies of God are true; the testimonies of God are perfect; the testimonies of God are all-sufficient unto that end for which they were given.”

Hooker, Ecclesiastical Polity, 2:8.

The Bible begins with the miracle of creation, and ends with the miracle of “the revelation of Jesus Christ/’ and is pervaded throughout by miracle. Christianity, in its distinctive facts, is miraculous, and miracles authenticate its characteristic doctrines. Neither the Bible nor Christianity can be rationally apprehended, or even intelligently examined, without reckoning seriously with miracle,—its place and function in theology, the science of religion. Such reckoning would open a vast field of inquiry; and that is not now attempted. Nor will any attempt be made to meet objections to the possibility of miracles which may be made by any who openly or otherwise deny the existence of God, with what such denial implies.

It is here proposed to consider miracle in a limited but well-defined and important sphere; namely, the function of miracle as evidence in authenticating God’s revelations of himself and his will to men, and in attesting God’s agents in his service, applying in the examination the established rules and laws of evidence.

Evidence: Its Value And Importance

The importance of that function of miracle must be estimated by the importance and value placed upon evidence in the

BSac 62:245 (Jan 1905) p. 127

Christian dispensation. Is not that importance and value shown to be supremely transcendent in the gracious communing between the Son of God and the Father recorded in John xvii., which reveals so much of heaven and eternal things? That communing puts aside, so to speak, the veil between heaven and earth, and enacts openly, to the immediate apprehension of our human senses, a transaction involving the eternal destinies of men.

Dealing reverently but juridically with this episode in the Record, we see it is primarily a report made to God the Father by the Son, Emmanuel, God with us, of his execution of God’s mission of salvation to mankind. Jesus says: “I have finished the work thou gavest me to do “(details how); “I have manifested thy name” to men (manifesting is evidence, that which is “open, palpable, incontrovertible”1 ); “I have given them thy words Which thou gavest me, and they have received them”; and thereby “they have believed that thou ...