After reading of the wonderful miracles that Jesus performed in Galilee, one begins to wonder what a miracle really is. One begins to wonder by what power a miracle is performed. The miracles of Jesus are in the main so unusual, so extraordinary, so apparently in violation of all known laws of nature, that one begins almost to wonder how Jesus could upset the laws of nature.
The explanation of the scribes.
Apparently, Jesus's marvelous miracle-working power puzzled the people of His own generation. They knew little of the laws of nature, of course. They had been taught to believe in the possibility of miracles. But they were loath to grant any degree of divine power to Jesus. Hence, on one occasion, "the scribes which came down from Jerusalem said, He hath Beelzebub, and by the prince of the devils casteth he out devils." Of course, such a suggestion was absurd. Jesus Himself said to His disciples, "How can Satan cast out Satan? And if a kingdom be divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand. And if Satan rise up against himself, and be divided, he cannot stand, but hath an end." To this argument, there is, of course, no answer. It proves conclusively, that Jesus did not perform miracles through the power of Beelzebub. What a miracle is, by what power it is performed and why miracles are permitted, are questions that we shall consider in this lesson.
{264} The universal presence of law.
Let us consider first, then, what a miracle really is. As a matter of fact, a miracle is never an act accomplished in violation of law. You must understand that the universe is ruled by law. Everything that happens, happens through the operation of law. If we live wisely—eat right and think right—then it follows by the law of nature that we shall have strong, wholesome bodies like the Christ's, and clear, active minds like His. But if we violate the rules of right living, then come certain laws of retribution, and we are made to pay the penalty of our wrongdoing And so it is throughout the universe The heavenly bodies are directed and governed by law; God's creatures everywhere are subject to law; the earth on which we dwell, with the strange and marvelous and mighty phenomena which we here daily observe, is a product of law. Would it not be inconsistent, then, to think that Jesus—who is Himself the God of law—should work in violation of law? His own words in refutation of the statement of the scribes that He was in league with Beelzebub, is a sufficient answer to such a supposition. "If a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand." We must conclude, therefore, that a miracle, no matter how unnatural it may seem, is accomplished through the operation of some law of the universe. Yet, how can this be true, when some miracles that are well authenticated seem to be so utterly in violation of the laws of nature known to us?
The miracle of the telephone.
There was a time—and that not so very long ago—when it was thought impossible that a man should ever be able to speak clearly and distinctly to a friend a {265} hundred miles away, and hear in return, as clearly and as distinctly, the voice of his friend. Certain men, however, who were prying into the secrets of nature discovered some things about sound. They learned that sound travels through some medium, like the air, by means of waves—waves of alternate condensation and rarefaction of the air, for example. Then these men studied the human ear, and they learned that as these sound waves struck the ear, the drum of the ear was made to vibrate back and forth as a condensed part of the air or a rarefied part of the air struck it. The men became interested; further study revealed the fact that almost any disk, like the drum of the ear, could be made to vibrate to sound waves. It was found that these sound waves could be transmitted through string, or wire. It was discovered that a small current of electricity flowing through a wire aided in the conducting of the sound wave. Little by little science progressed, until by and by there appeared a telephone. It was crude, and it reproduced the human voice with a terrible roar. But the men of science worked at it; they perfected first one part of it, then another, as they learned better to understand the laws governing the reproduction of sound. Finally came the perfect telephone. Today it is possible to telephone—not a hundred miles merely—but from New York to San Francisco, clear across a continent, a distance of several thousand miles. Such an achievement, if it had been shown suddenly, would have been considered a miracle. It would have been in violation of all the known laws of nature. But now we know that this {266} miracle has been accomplished through the harnessing of natural laws not known to our forefathers. The achievement is the result of neither violation of law, nor co-operation with Beelzebub.
Other miracles of science.
The story of the achievements of science is full of wonders like that of the telephone. Any one of them, if it had been revealed suddenly, would have seemed as unusual, as extraordinary, certainly in violation of natural law, as the turning of water into wine, o............