Questions on Chapter 13.
rational men still cleave to an impostor, knowing him to be such, and sacrifice their lives to sustain the posthumous honor of one who has done them the deepest injury!
But we ask, where, among all the considerations that can influence the rational mind, can we find the motive that could have induced the apostles to proclaim, as they did, the resurrection of Jesus, knowing it to be false? Was it for the sake of popularity, or ease, or pleasure, or riches? What prospect had they of any of these? Toil and reproach, persecution and tribulation, bonds and imprisonment, suffering and death, were all they received, and all for which they could hope on earth! Is this the reward that can stimulate the rational mind voluntarily to persist in asserting a known pernicious falsehood? No! The apostles were honest and sincere men. They proclaimed what they believed — they testified what they had seen! They knew their Master had arisen from the dead! Without titles, without wealth, without emolument, they challenged both Jews and Gentiles to the conflict, preached Jesus and the resurrection in the face of an opposing world, healed the sick and raised the dead in the name of the risen One, and sealed the truth of their doctrine by the sacrifice of their lives. QUESTIONS ON CHAPTER 13.
QUESTION 1. What are some of the principal of our Saviour’s miraculous works?
2. How may it be shown that they were real miracles, and were actually performed?
3. What is considered the greatest of the Saviour’s miracles?
4. What facts connected with it were admitted by unbelievers?
5. How should this question of fact be examined?
6. How did the Jews account for the absence of the dead body of Christ?
7. What considerations are specified showing the absurdity of this count?
8. Has infidelity ever accounted for the absence of Christ’s dead body in any other way?
9. What witnesses are enumerated as testifying to the resurrection of Christ?
10. What are the circumstances named, rendering their testimony so satisfactory and conclusive?
CHAPTER 14. — THE PROPHECIES OF SCRIPTURE IN
RELATION TO THE JEWS.
THE second great division of the external evidences of Christianity is that founded on PROPHECY. To this we now call attention. Prophecy, taken in connection with its fulfillment, is no less miraculous than are miracles technically so called. Miracles proper are miracles of power; but prophecies are miracles of knowledge. As the one implies an exercise of divine power, suspending or controlling the laws of nature beyond the ability of uncreated beings to exert, so the other implies an exhibition of divine knowledge, penetrating the distant future, and predicting events yet to come in a manner surpassing the skill of all created intelligences. The one can only be performed by Omnipotence; the other, by Omniscience. Hence, as these attributes belong to God alone, it necessarily follows that whatever is performed or sanctioned by them is stamped with the divine signature, and must be true. We, therefore, adopt the principle, that real miracle and real prophecy are both absolute and indubitable evidence of the truth of that which they are used to confirm.
That this kind of testimony is of the highest possible order, and should command our immediate and most unreserved confidence, results from the very constitution of our nature. Common sense teaches us to accredit the testimony of our own external senses when satisfied that they are under no deceptive illusion, and also to rely implicitly upon the evidence of our own experience when fully assured that there can be no mistake as to its teachings. And the knowledge we derive from these sources is as deeply stamped with certainty as any other kind of knowledge we can possibly acquire. Indeed, we cannot travel behind the record here furnished us either for the correction of the lessons of our own senses or personal experience, or with the hope of finding any thing more certain on which to rely. Common sense teaches us that if we are not certain that the lessons here taught us are true, we can be certain of nothing. It is not by argumentative disquisition that we become satisfied that none but God can perform a miracle either of power or of knowledge, but we are taught this lesson by the dictates of common sense itself. Our knowledge derived from this source can neither be rendered more nor less certain by discussion. In this department, the plain, unlettered peasant is on a level with the erudite philosopher. The one, independent of all investigation, is just as well satisfied as the other can be, that God only, and he to whom he imparts the power, can perform miracles. And as prophecy is nothing but a miracle of knowledge, every man knows by the simple exercise of his common sense that real prophecy must flow from the divine omniscience. Hence it is a sure testimony of the divine legation of him who utters it. In judging concerning the testimony of professed prophecy, there are two points to be particularly examined: First, the character of the prediction; secondly, the fact of the fulfillment. If the pretended prediction be a real prophecy — that is, a pre-announcement of a future event, either so distant or so improbable or complicated as obviously to be beyond the power of finite minds, by any exercise of skill or sagacity, to be able to acquire a knowledge of the things it announces — and if it be ascertained that the facts correspond fully with the prediction, then we may conclude that we have in the case the elements of real prophecy. But, on the other hand, should it appear that the pretended prediction is only what might have been foreseen by human sagacity as likely to occur, or what might be no more than a shrewd or fortunate guess — or if it be found that the facts in the case do not show the fulfillment of the pretended prediction, in either event — we fail to find the elements of a real prophecy.
To decide the question whether a given prophecy be real or surreptitious, we know of no safer or more reliable principle by which to be governed than the dictates of common sense. When possessed of the necessary information as to the facts in the case, the judgment of any impartial man of common sense will enable him with little difficulty to distinguish between a real and a spurious prophecy.
There are a few very simple rules which every reflecting mind will be led to observe in judging the force of prophetic testimony. First, testimony of this kind increases generally in convincing power in proportion as the fulfillment is remote in the future from the announcement of the prophecy; secondly, it also increases in proportion as the specifications in the prediction are increased in number; thirdly, this testimony increases in force in proportion as the events predicted are in themselves improbable. To examine the predictions of Scripture generally, would require volumes, instead of a brief, concise treatise. All we propose is, a presentation of a few of the more conspicuous and important from both the Old and the New Testaments. We begin with the Old Testament:
I. PROPHECIES RELATING TO THE JEWISH NATION.
We will first present some of the Scriptures, predicting calamities that were to befall the Jews:
“When ye are gathered together within your cities, I will send the pestilence among you, and ye shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy. And when I have broken the staff of your bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall deliver you your bread again by weight; and ye shall eat, and not be satisfied… And ye shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters… And I will bring the land into desolation, and your enemies which dwell therein shall be astonished at it. And I will scatter you among the heathen; … and your land shall be desolate, and your cities waste… And ye shall perish among the heathen… And they that are left of you shall pine away in their iniquity in your enemies’ lands… When they be in the land of their enemies, I will not cast them away, neither will I abhor them, to destroy them utterly.” Leviticus 26. “Thou shalt be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth… Thou shalt be only oppressed and spoiled evermore… Thou shalt become an astonishment, a proverb, and a by-word among all nations whither the Lord shall lead thee… The stranger that is within thee shall get up above thee very high; and thou shalt come down very low… He shall be the head, and thou shalt be the tail… The Lord shall bring a nation against thee from far, from the end of the earth, as swift as the eagle flieth; a nation whose tongue thou shalt not understand; a nation of fierce countenance, which shall not regard the person of the old, nor show favor to the young… And he shall besiege thee in all thy gates, until thy high and fenced walls come down…And thou shalt eat the fruit of thine own body, the flesh of thy sons and of thy daughters, which the Lord thy God hath given thee, in the siege and in the straitness wherewith thine enemies shall distress thee… The tender and delicate woman among you, which would not adventure to set the sole of her foot upon the ground for delicateness and tenderness, her eye shall be evil … toward her children which she shall bear; for she shall eat them for want of all things secretly in the siege and straitness, wherewith thine enemy shall distress thee in thy gates… And ye shall be left few in number… And ye shall be plucked from off the land whither thou goest to possess it. And the Lord shall scatter thee among all people, from the one end of the earth even unto the other… And among these nations shalt thou find no ease, neither shall the sole of thy foot have rest… And the Lord shall bring thee into Egypt again with ships; … and there ye shall be sold unto your enemies for bondmen and bondwomen, and no man shall buy you.” Deuteronomy 28.
In these prophecies there are no less than eighteen distinct, minute, and striking specifications. They descend, in description, to small and circumstantial incidents, and embrace items totally distinct from each other, having no mutual connection or dependence; such, for instance, as these: The language of their conquerors was “not to be understood” by the Jews; they were to be taken captive “to Egypt in ships;” women were to “eat the flesh of their offspring,” etc. Nor was the language dark and obscure, or shrouded in mysterious emblem. It was mostly simple narrative, recording events of an obvious and striking nature. The besieging of cities, the slaughter of vast multitudes, the dispersion of the nation, etc.; concerning such facts as these, there could be no misapprehension. They were obvious to the senses of all.
Observe the time and circumstances under which these predictions were uttered. The Israelites were yet amid their wilderness journeyings, they were yet strangers and pilgrims, they had not yet crossed the Jordan, or reached the promised land. The Canaanites were yet to be rooted out, the land distributed among the tribes, and the people organized and established as a nation. In this unsettled and precarious state of affairs, how could Moses, unless inspired from above, certainly and minutely foretell the fortunes of this people for centuries to come? And yet it has been demonstrated that all these wonderful prophecies had been delivered by Moses in the hearing of all Israel, and recorded in the book of the law to be laid up “by the side of the ark,” while as yet this people had but an embryo nationality.
But let us more particularly glance at some of these plain predictions, and their striking fulfillment.
Unless divinely inspired, how could Moses so graphically pre-announce the “famine and pestilence” that were to come upon this people? And yet how literally was it fulfilled! If it be supposed that he might merely have conjectured the facts, and that the fulfillment was accidental, we demand, How could he have foreseen the peculiar extremities in the case? In the siege of Samaria, “an ass’s head was sold for fourscore pieces of silver.” In the siege of Jerusalem, by Nebuchadnezzar, “the famine prevailed in the city, and there was no bread for the people of the land.” And who can read Josephus and not be overwhelmed with the view of the sufferings of the people from the raging famine during the siege by the Romans? But it was foretold that they should “eat the flesh of their sons and their daughters,” and that even “tender and delicate women” should eat the flesh of their own children. At three different times, according to authentic history, was this remarkable prediction fulfilled. Once at the siege of Samaria by the Syrians, six hundred years after the announcement of the prophecy, when “two women gave up their children to be eaten.” 2 Kings 6:28, 29, Again it was fulfilled, nine hundred years after the prediction, in the siege of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans, when it was declared, “The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own children.” Lamentations 4:10. Again, after the lapse of fifteen hundred years from the prediction, it was verified in the dreadful siege of Jerusalem by the Romans, when a noble woman, pressed to madness by the famine, killed and ate her own sucking child. (Josephus.)
How could mere human sagacity foresee that the Jews would become a numerous and prosperous people, and yet their land be reduced to “desolation;” and the people be “minished,” and become “few in number.” And yet it is declared: “How doth the city sit solitary that was full of people! … Judah is gone into captivity because of affliction, and because of great servitude; she dwelleth among the heathen, she findeth no rest.” Lamentations 1:1, 3. Josephus testifies that there fell, during the siege, by the hands of the Romans, and by their own faction, one million one hundred thousand Jews; and ninety-seven thousand Jews were carried into captivity by the Romans.
Moses had foretold, many centuries before, that the Lord would “root them out of their land in anger, and in wrath, and in great indignation” (Deuteronomy 29:28); and Josephus and the Roman historians have recorded the fulfillment.
But the Jews were to be borne “in ships,” and sold into Egypt as slaves till the market should be so glutted that “no man would buy them.” Josephus testifies that the captives taken by the Romans, “who were above seventeen years of age,” were sent to Egypt; and it cannot well be doubted that, as they were “in bonds,” they were conveyed “in ships” — for the Romans then had a fleet in the Mediterranean. And it is said, the market was so overstocked that they were sold for the merest trifle — so that the words of Moses were verified, “No man shall buy you.”
But it was farther predicted that the Jews should be dispersed among all nations — “plucked from off” their own land, and “scattered among all people, from one end of the earth even unto the other.” Look at the fulfillment. First, the ten tribes are carried captive by the Assyrians; next, the two other tribes by Nebuchadnezzar; finally, the Romans completed the dispersion by taking away “their place and nation.”
For a long time after this, the poor “wandering Jews” were not allowed to set foot in Jerusalem, and at one time they were forbidden to press with their feet the soil of Palestine. Still they survive — not “destroyed utterly,” but exiles from their own land, and disconsolate “strangers and sojourners” in all lands. “What a marvelous thing is this,” says Bishop Newton, “that after so many wars, battles, and sieges — after so many rebellions, massacres, and persecutions — after so many years of captivity, slavery, and misery — they are not destroyed utterly; and, though scattered among all people, yet subsist a distinct people by themselves. Where is any thing like this to be found in all the histories and in all the nations under the sun?”
They were to be restless — finding no ease; neither were “the soles of their feet” to “have rest.” And to what land or clime have they not wandered or been driven? They have trodden the burning deserts of the South, and waded the drifting snows of the North, but a permanent resting-place they have found nowhere.
Again, how could Moses know centuries beforehand that the nation by whom they should be conquered, and subjugated, and dispersed from their own land, throughout all the earth, should come “from far, from the end of the earth, swift as the eagle flieth, whose tongue” they should “not understand,” and should be “a nation of fierce countenance”? The remoteness of the Romans from the land of Judea, the warlike character of their nation, the rapidity of their conquests, the fact that their military ensign was the “eagle,” and that the Jews knew nothing of their “language;” these notorious facts most exactly and specifically verify the fulfillment of the prophecy.
Once more, they were to become “an astonishment, a proverb, and a by-word among all nations.” How literally has this been fulfilled! Pagans, Mohammedans, and Christians, however much they may differ from each other, have all agreed in meting out to that people, who had “despised and rejected” the Holy One, the same kind of treatment which the wicked Jews had awarded to their Messiah. In all lands, this cast-off, and down-trodden people have been despised, persecuted, and abused. In all the ages of their banishment, and in all countries, they have ever been under the ban — like the unclean spirit, “seeking rest, and finding none.” If in a few places temporary respite has been allowed them, this has been the exception; the general conduct of the nations of the earth toward the Jews has been a virtual fulfillment of the prophetic imprecation of that deluded people, who, eighteen centuries ago, exclaimed: “His blood be upon us and upon our children!” Yet for all this, like “the burning bush” seen by Moses, they are “not consumed.” The hand of God is still over them; and, though dispersed among all nations, they are kept from being identified with or absorbed by any. They have everywhere remained a distinct and peculiar people, awaiting the fulfillment of another prophecy by their conversion and restoration. “What nation hath subsisted,” says Bishop Newton, “as a distinct people in their own country so long as these have done in their dispersion into all countries? And what a standing miracle is this exhibited to the view and observation of the whole world! Here are instances of prophecies delivered above three thousand years ago, and yet, as we see, fulfilling in the world at this very time; and what stronger proof can we desire of the divine legation of Moses? How these instances may affect others, I know not; but, for myself, I must acknowledge they not only convince but amaze and astonish me beyond expression.” Could human sagacity have uttered these prophecies? If not, then were they given by inspiration of Heaven; and if so, as Keith has observed, then “the Bible is true — infidelity is confounded forever, and we may address its patrons in the language of St. Paul: ‘Behold, ye despisers, and wonder, and perish!’” Before we close our notice of the fulfillment of prophecy in relation to the Jews, we call attention to that remarkable prediction concerning their restoration from the Babylonian captivity, effected through the instrumentality of Cyrus, the Persian king.
In the forty-fourth and forty-fifth chapters of Isaiah, that prophet utters on this subject the following prediction:
“Thus saith the Lord, thy Redeemer… that saith to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be inhabited; and to the cities of Judah, Ye shall be built, and I will raise up the decayed places thereof; that saith to the deep, Be dry, and I will dry up thy rivers; that saith of Cyrus, He is my shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure; even saying to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be built; and to the temple, Thy foundation shall be laid. Thus saith the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right-hand I have holden to subdue nations before him; and I will loose the loins of kings to open before him the two-leaved gates, and the gates shall not be shut… I will break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron. And I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places.” The first thing to be noted in relation to this astonishing prediction is, that it was uttered by Isaiah, according to all chronology, more than a century before Cyrus was born, and more than two centuries before its fulfillment in the taking of Babylon.
Josephus records that Cyrus, after he had entered Babylon, was shown a copy of the prophecy of Isaiah, in which the name of the Persian monarch was mentioned as the instrument through whom the Jewish people should be restored to their own land. He adds, also, that this restoration under Cyrus occurred just seventy years after the Jews had been carried into captivity; thereby fulfilling the prediction of Jeremiah, uttered before the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, that after they had served the King of Babylon and his posterity seventy years they should be restored to the land of their fathers. Josephus also testifies that the prediction of Isaiah concerning Cyrus had been given “one hundred and forty years before the temple was demolished.” So that there can be no doubt that this prediction, in which the Persian king is named and his taking of the city of Babylon so graphically described, had been published among the Jews, and that its inspired author was dead long before the event took place. Were there no other specification in the prophecy, but simply the naming of Cyrus as the instrument through whom the Jews should be delivered from their captivity, this would be one of the most remarkable, and, to my mind, one of the most convincing, prophecies of the Bible. But look at the number and striking character of the specifications; and then the wonderful exactitude of the fulfillment.
Cyrus is not only God’s “shepherd” and his “anointed” to “perform his pleasure” in the deliverance of his people, but through his instrumentality Jerusalem is to be inhabited, the rivers are to be dried up, the cities to be