Are the miracles in the Bible to be taken literally?

If we believe the entire Word of God to be inspired there is no doubt as to whether God has wrought this miracle or not. It is unbelief to think that the Creator and Sustainer of all things is not able to fulfil such a miracle. "Whatsoever the Lord pleased, that did he in heaven, and in earth, in the seas, and all deep places." (Psalm 135:6)

No sincere believer in the inspiration of scripture can have a doubt as to real miracles having been wrought by the power of God both in O.T. and N.T. times. It is philosophy so-called, or scepticism, that mystifies the subject. Much is said about 'the laws of nature;' and it is confidently affirmed that these are irrevocable and cannot be departed from. To which is added that laws of nature previously unknown are frequently being discovered, and if our forefathers could witness the application of some of the more recent discoveries, as the computer, mobile telephone, etc., they would judge that miracles were being performed. So, it is argued, the actions recorded in scripture as miracles, were merely the bringing into use some law of nature which had been hidden up to that time.

All this is based upon a fallacy. There are no laws of nature, as if nature made its own laws: there are laws in nature, which God in His wisdom as Creator was pleased to make; but He who made those laws has surely the same power to suspend them when He pleases. Though laws in nature hitherto unknown are being discovered from time to time, they in no way account for such things as dead persons being raised to life, the blind seeing, the deaf hearing, the lame walking, and demons being cast out of those who were possessed by them. Neither has natural philosophy discovered any law that will account for such a thing as an iron axe-head swimming in water. The simple truth is that God, for wise purposes, allowed some of the natural laws to be suspended, and at times He put forth His almighty power, as in supplying the Israelites with manna from heaven, and in feeding thousands from a few loaves and fishes, or by recalling life that had left the body.

In like manner the man of faith accepts all the marvellous events narrated in the scriptures. They are presented in the way of divine testimony, and however they may appear to be beyond all human power to execute they are nevertheless to be believed because there is always the power of God which can never be circumscribed and which therefore fully accounts for every one. That water should issue from the rock in the wilderness when smitten by Moses' rod is altogether beyond human imitation. Apart from the exercise of the power of Jehovah such a thing was impossible. But receive the fact on this ground, and see what an illustration you have of God's particular regard for the pressing needs of His people, and the effectual way in which He can provide for them.

The conclusion of our argument is that the miraculous events of the Passover period were absolutely true, and happened as stated. Why anyone should on principle disbelieve in miracles is incredible when everything around us is miraculous. That God, who could decree what we call fixed laws of nature, can certainly decree their suspension at His pleasure. When my hand lifts my pen it practically suspends the operation of the law of gravitation in that particular. Could not God suspend the operation of a law of His own making, when He cleft a path through the Red Sea for the deliverance of His oppressed people, when He sustained them miraculously in the desert for forty years, and gave them their entrance into the land of Canaan? Our four marks have proved it.

(c) And here occurs the notable miracle which has awakened so much discussion and provoked so much the scorn of unbelief. The language of Scripture being so purely phenomenal every where, — dealing with things as they appear to us, rather than with the scientific explanation, — I see no reason for any actual stoppage of the sun and moon, which must in that case be rather of the earth's own revolution, and so not literally according to the description after all. The economy of miracle which the Bible shows to one who attentively considers it, notwithstanding the large actual amount, would suggest that, for the purpose Joshua desires to have accomplished, the extreme supposition need hardly be the fact. For him and for all beholders the sun and moon did actually stop, and that is all that the words fairly taken imply; and the miracle is mighty enough, if it were accomplished by means of refraction or mirage or what not: it is not worth the labor to speculate upon how it might be done. Whatever the means that might be used, the day stands alone in the world's history, — surely miracle enough. And there is no tampering with the record involved in this, no trifling with revelation, no giving way in the least to the infidelity of the day. It is to us the sun rises or sets, as to them it stood still in the heavens: why should language be pressed in the one case in a way which would be admitted to be straining it in the other?*

But what is the main purport of the wonder of that day? For there surely is no miracle without a divine or moral reason attached to it. I doubt that there is a mere display of power in the Bible. And here let me add a needed observation on the usual notion of a miracle. Men constantly lay it down that it means a suspension of the laws of nature. This is really defective and misleading. The laws of nature are never suspended as a rule; but God withdraws from the action of those laws either a thing or a person as to whom He wishes to show His special interest. For instance, to give an application of this by examples taken anywhere from the word of God, when Peter was sustained upon the water, or when the iron was caused to swim, the laws of nature were not really suspended; they went on all the same. Everywhere else iron sunk, and had any other ventured to follow Peter, he must have failed to walk on the water. Thus it was no question at all of suspending the laws of nature. But Peter, by the direct power of God, was sustained, spite of those general laws. That is, he was exempted from their application; but the laws themselves were not suspended. Just so in the case of one raised from the dead before the day of Jehovah. There is no change in the reign of death as a law; but unequivocally the power of God interferes for the particular person that is exempted from the operation of those laws — nothing more; so that it is all a mistake to speak of the suspension of the laws themselves. This observation will be found to be of some use in meeting not a little sophistry that prevails on the subject.

But we do not understand by a miracle, those ordinary manifestations of divine superintendence which are constantly going on about us. What differentiates a miracle from these is its exceptional character. The floating of a piece of iron is contrary to all observed facts regarding the properties of iron and of water. So also with every miracle. There is something about it which attracts attention because of its exceptional character. The healing of sickness may take place gradually, and, as is too often the case, God may be utterly ignored, and men fail to acknowledge Him in the cure. It is the suddenness of the cure in the miracle which attracts the attention and demands an explanation.

This brings us to what seems to be the essential character of every miracle — an occurrence contrary to the ordinary course of events, which can only be explained by reference to God's direct intervention. The manner of this intervention may not always be seen. Sometimes it is an intervention of knowledge, as perhaps in the miraculous draft of fishes. We need not suppose that our Lord created the fishes for this draft, but rather that He knew where they were, or by some influence gathered them thus together.

What is said, by some, of the suspension or reversal of known laws, in miracles, is a blunder; if it be suspension or reversal really, it must be of a law known or not known, and increase of knowledge cannot change it. That, I judge, is not the point, but exercise of divine will, so that, that takes place which, by the ordinary course of known laws, would not have happened, although the operation of known laws may be, by that will, set in activity. Thus, if a strong east wind dry a passage in the Red Sea for the Israelites, just at that moment natural causes are in operation - produce their natural effect, i.e., their effect according to known laws, only divine will sends the east wind.

No doubt it was not ordinary experience, any more than the resurrection of our Lord. It is a question of extraordinary facts proved by adequate testimony and even overwhelming evidence. To set induction from experience against such facts, or indeed any facts, is essentially illogical. "If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater" (1 John 5:9). A miracle has nothing to do with ordinary experience, less even than those primeval and permanent causes of which logic avows it can give no account; yet there they have been from the origin of all things as certainly as the actual sensible course of things which we call experience. They were miraculous, just like the deluge on the one hand, or our Lord's resurrection (as indeed His entire appearing here below) on the other. They are wholly beyond that experience, and above the ken of science; but they are the surest and most momentous of facts; and God has taken care to give His irrefragable witness to them all. The infidel argument begs the question and refutes itself to an honest mind. For it assumes that there is nothing beyond the general laws in ordinary experience; while it is compelled to own that, even for initiating that course of nature, there must have been primordial causes of which it knows nothing and can give no account. How much more was it for God, holy, righteous, and good, to judge iniquity and to reveal grace and truth, yea life eternal in His Son. For "this is the witness, that God gave us life eternal; and this life is in His Son" (1 John 5:11).

In this materialistic day it is considered childish to accredit miracles. An axe head fetched up from the bed of a river by the simple expedient of casting a stick into the water (2 Kings 6:1-7). Here indeed is food for the contempt of the proud. But the narrative presents no difficulty to faith. No reverent mind believes that the Lawgiver of the universe is limited by the natural laws which He has Himself established. While allowing those laws to have their full ordinary operation, He is quite able to act apart from, and in superiority to, them whenever it pleases Him to do so.