Chapter I: Preliminary Considerations (3)

A. B. Davidson, in his article on Prophecy and Prophets, in
Hastings’ Bible Dictionary, 4:120, 121, gives little weight to
this view that prophecy is based on a natural power of the human
mind: “The arguments by which Giesebrecht, Berufsgabung, 13 ff.,
supports the theory of a ‘faculty of presentiment’ have little
cogency. This faculty is supposed to reveal itself particularly on
the approach of death (_Gen. 28_ and _49_). The contemporaries of
most great religious personages have attributed to them a
prophetic gift. The answer of John Knox to those who credited him
with such a gift is worth reading: ‘My assurances are not marvels
of Merlin, nor yet the dark sentences of profane prophecy. But
_first_, the plain truth of God’s word; _second_, the invincible
justice of the everlasting God; and _third_, the ordinary course
of his punishments and plagues from the beginning, are my
assurances and grounds.’ ” While Davidson grants the fulfilment of
certain specific predictions of Scripture, to be hereafter
mentioned, he holds that “such presentiments as we can observe to
be authentic are chiefly products of the conscience or moral
reason. True prophecy is based on moral grounds. Everywhere the
menacing future is connected with the evil past by ‘therefore’_
(Micah 3:12; Is. 5:13; Amos 1:2)_.” We hold with Davidson to the
moral element in prophecy, but we also recognize a power in normal
humanity which he would minimize or deny. We claim that the human
mind even in its ordinary and secular working gives occasional
signs of transcending the limitations of the present. Believing in
the continual activity of the divine Reason in the reason of man,
we have no need to doubt the possibility of an extraordinary
insight into the future, and such insight is needed at the great
epochs of religious history. Expositor’s Gk. Test.,
2:34—“Savonarola foretold as early as 1496 the capture of Rome,
which happened in 1527, and he did this not only in general terms
but in detail; his words were realized to the letter when the
sacred churches of St. Peter and St. Paul became, as the prophet
foretold, stables for the conquerors’ horses.” On the general
subject, see Payne-Smith, Prophecy a Preparation for Christ;
Alexander, Christ and Christianity; Farrar, Science and Theology,
106; Newton on Prophecy; Fairbairn on Prophecy.

2. _Relation of Prophecy to Miracles._ Miracles are attestations of revelation proceeding from divine power; prophecy is an attestation of revelation proceeding from divine knowledge. Only God can know the contingencies of the future. The possibility and probability of prophecy may be argued upon the same grounds upon which we argue the possibility and probability of miracles. As an evidence of divine revelation, however, prophecy possesses two advantages over miracles, namely: (_a_) The proof, in the case of prophecy, is not derived from ancient testimony, but is under our eyes. (_b_) The evidence of miracles cannot become stronger, whereas every new fulfilment adds to the argument from prophecy.

3. _Requirements in Prophecy, considered as an Evidence of Revelation._ (_a_) The utterance must be distant from the event. (_b_) Nothing must exist to suggest the event to merely natural prescience. (_c_) The utterance must be free from ambiguity. (_d_) Yet it must not be so precise as to secure its own fulfilment. (_e_) It must be followed in due time by the event predicted.

Hume: “All prophecies are real miracles, and only as such can be
admitted as proof of any revelation.” See Wardlaw, Syst. Theol.,
1:347. (_a_) Hundreds of years intervened between certain of the
O. T. predictions and their fulfilment. (_b_) Stanley instances
the natural sagacity of Burke, which enabled him to predict the
French Revolution. But Burke also predicted in 1793 that France
would be partitioned like Poland among a confederacy of hostile
powers. Canning predicted that South American colonies would grow
up as the United States had grown. D’Israeli predicted that our
Southern Confederacy would become an independent nation. Ingersoll
predicted that within ten years there would be two theatres for
one church. (_c_) Illustrate ambiguous prophecies by the Delphic
oracle to Crœsus: “Crossing the river, thou destroyest a great
nation”—whether his own or his enemy’s the oracle left
undetermined. “Ibis et redibis nunquam peribis in bello.” (_d_)
Strauss held that O. T. prophecy itself determined either the
events or the narratives of the gospels. See Greg, Creed of
Christendom, chap. 4. (_e_) Cardan, the Italian mathematician,
predicted the day and hour of his own death, and committed suicide
at the proper time to prove the prediction true. Jehovah makes the
fulfilment of his predictions the proof of his deity in the
controversy with false gods: _Is. 41:23—_“Declare the things that
are to come hereafter, that we may know that ye are gods”;
_42:9—_“Behold, the former things are come to pass and new things
do I declare: before they spring forth I tell you of them.”

4. _General Features of Prophecy in the Scriptures._ (_a_) Its large amount—occupying a great portion of the Bible, and extending over many hundred years. (_b_) Its ethical and religious nature—the events of the future being regarded as outgrowths and results of men’s present attitude toward God. (_c_) Its unity in diversity—finding its central point in Christ the true servant of God and deliverer of his people. (_d_) Its actual fulfilment as regards many of its predictions—while seeming non-fulfilments are explicable from its figurative and conditional nature.

A. B. Davidson, in Hastings’ Bible Dictionary, 4:125, has
suggested reasons for the apparent non-fulfilment of certain
predictions. Prophecy is poetical and figurative; its details are
not to be pressed; they are only drapery, needed for the
expression of the idea. In _Isa. 13:16—_“Their infants shall be
dashed in pieces ... and their wives ravished”—the prophet gives
an ideal picture of the sack of a city; these things did not
actually happen, but Cyrus entered Babylon “in peace.” Yet the
essential truth remained that the city fell into the enemy’s
hands. The prediction of Ezekiel with regard to Tyre, _Ez.
26:7-14_, is recognized in _Ez. 29:17-20_ as having been fulfilled
not in its details but in its essence—the actual event having been
the breaking of the power of Tyre by Nebuchadnezzar. _Is.
17:1—_“Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it
shall be a ruinous heap”—must be interpreted as predicting the
blotting out of its dominion, since Damascus has probably never
ceased to be a city. The conditional nature of prophecy explains
other seeming non-fulfilments. Predictions were often threats,
which might be revoked upon repentance. _Jer. 26:13—_“amend your
ways ... and the Lord will repent him of the evil which he hath
pronounced against you.” _Jonah 3:4—_“Yet forty days, and Nineveh
shall be overthrown ...” _10—God saw their works, that they turned
from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, which he said
he would do unto them; and he did it not_; _cf.__ Jer. 18:8_;
_26:19_.

Instances of actual fulfilment of prophecy are found, according to
Davidson, in Samuel’s prediction of some things that would happen
to Saul, which the history declares did happen (_1 Sam. 1_ and
_10_). Jeremiah predicted the death of Hananiah within the year,
which took place (_Jer. 28_). Micaiah predicted the defeat and
death of Ahab at Ramoth-Gilead (_1 Kings 22_). Isaiah predicted
the failure of the northern coalition to subdue Jerusalem (_Is.
7_); the overthrow in two or three years of Damascus and Northern
Israel before the Assyrians (_Is. 8 and 17_); the failure of
Sennacherib to capture Jerusalem, and the melting away of his army
(_Is. 37:34-37_). “And in general, apart from details, the main
predictions of the prophets regarding Israel and the nations were
verified in history, for example, _Amos 1_ and _2_. The chief
predictions of the prophets relate to the imminent downfall of the
kingdoms of Israel and Judah; to what lies beyond this, namely,
the restoration of the kingdom of God; and to the state of the
people in their condition of final felicity.” For predictions of
the exile and the return of Israel, see especially _Amos
9:9—_“For, lo, I will command, and I will sift the house of Israel
among all the nations, like as grain is sifted in a sieve, yet
shall not the least kernel fall upon the earth.... _14—_And I will
bring again the captivity of my people Israel, and they shall
build the waste cities and inhabit them.” Even if we accept the
theory of composite authorship of the book of Isaiah, we still
have a foretelling of the sending back of the Jews from Babylon,
and a designation of Cyrus as God’s agent, in _Is. 44:28—_“that
saith of Cyrus, He is my shepherd, and shall perform all my
pleasure: even saying of Jerusalem, She shall be built; and of the
temple, Thy foundation shall be laid”; see George Adam Smith, in
Hastings’ Bible Dictionary, 2:493. Frederick the Great said to his
chaplain: “Give me in one word a proof of the divine origin of the
Bible”; and the chaplain well replied: “The Jews, your Majesty.”
In the case of the Jews we have even now the unique phenomena of a
people without a land, and a land without a people,—yet both these
were predicted centuries before the event.

5. _Messianic Prophecy in general._ (_a_) Direct predictions of events—as in Old Testament prophecies of Christ’s birth, suffering and subsequent glory. (_b_) General prophecy of the Kingdom in the Old Testament, and of its gradual triumph. (_c_) Historical types in a nation and in individuals—as Jonah and David. (_d_) Prefigurations of the future in rites and ordinances—as in sacrifice, circumcision, and the passover.

6. _Special Prophecies uttered by Christ._ (_a_) As to his own death and resurrection. (_b_) As to events occurring between his death and the destruction of Jerusalem (multitudes of impostors; wars and rumors of wars; famine and pestilence). (_c_) As to the destruction of Jerusalem and the Jewish polity (Jerusalem compassed with armies; abomination of desolation in the holy place; flight of Christians; misery; massacre; dispersion). (_d_) As to the world-wide diffusion of his gospel (the Bible already the most widely circulated book in the world).

The most important feature in prophecy is its Messianic element;
see _Luke 24:27—_“beginning from Moses and from all the prophets,
he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning
himself”; _Acts 10:43—_“to him bear all the prophets witness”;
_Rev. 19:10—_“the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.”
Types are intended resemblances, designed prefigurations; for
example, Israel is a type of the Christian church; outside nations
are types of the hostile world; Jonah and David are types of
Christ. The typical nature of Israel rests upon the deeper fact of
the community of life. As the life of God the Logos lies at the
basis of universal humanity and interpenetrates it in every part,
so out of this universal humanity grows Israel in general; out of
Israel as a nation springs the spiritual Israel, and out of
spiritual Israel Christ according to the flesh,—the upward rising
pyramid finds its apex and culmination in him. Hence the
predictions with regard to “the servant of Jehovah”_ (Is.
42:1-7)_, and “the Messiah”_ (Is. 61:1; John 1:41)_, have partial
fulfilment in Israel, but perfect fulfilment only in Christ; so
Delitzsch, Oehler, and Cheyne on Isaiah, 2:253. Sabatier, Philos.
Religion, 59—“If humanity were not potentially and in some degree
Immanuel, God with us, there would never have issued from its
bosom he who bore and revealed this blessed name.” Gardiner, O. T.
and N. T. in their Mutual Relations, 170-194.

In the O. T., Jehovah is the Redeemer of his people. He works
through judges, prophets, kings, but he himself remains the
Savior; “it is only the Divine in them that saves”; “Salvation is
of Jehovah”_ (Jonah 2:9)_. Jehovah is manifested in the Davidic
King under the monarchy; in Israel, the Servant of the Lord,
during the exile; and in the Messiah, or Anointed One, in the
post-exilian period. Because of its conscious identification with
Jehovah, Israel is always a forward-looking people. Each new
judge, king, prophet is regarded as heralding the coming reign of
righteousness and peace. These earthly deliverers are saluted with
rapturous expectation; the prophets express this expectation in
terms that transcend the possibilities of the present; and, when
this expectation fails to be fully realized, the Messianic hope is
simply transferred to a larger future. Each separate prophecy has
its drapery furnished by the prophet’s immediate surroundings, and
finds its occasion in some event of contemporaneous history. But
by degrees it becomes evident that only an ideal and perfect King
and Savior can fill out the requirements of prophecy. Only when
Christ appears, does the real meaning of the various Old Testament
predictions become manifest. Only then are men able to combine the
seemingly inconsistent prophecies of a priest who is also a king
(_Psalm 110_), and of a royal but at the same time a suffering
Messiah (_Isaiah 53_). It is not enough for us to ask what the
prophet himself meant, or what his earliest hearers understood, by
his prophecy. This is to regard prophecy as having only a single,
and that a human, author. With the spirit of man coöperated the
Spirit of Christ, the Holy Spirit (_1 Pet. 1:11—_“the Spirit of
Christ which was in them”; _2 Pet. 1:21—_“no prophecy ever came by
the will of man; but men spake from God, being moved by the Holy
Spirit”). All prophecy has a twofold authorship, human and divine;
the same Christ who spoke through the prophets brought about the
fulfilment of their words.

It is no wonder that he who through the prophets uttered
predictions with regard to himself should, when he became
incarnate, be the prophet _par excellence_ (_Deut. 18:15_; _Acts
3:22—_“Moses indeed said, A prophet shall the Lord God raise up
from among your brethren, like unto me; to him shall ye hearken”).
In the predictions of Jesus we find the proper key to the
interpretation of prophecy in general, and the evidence that while
no one of the three theories—the preterist, the continuist, the
futurist—furnishes an exhaustive explanation, each one of these
has its element of truth. Our Lord made the fulfilment of the
prediction of his own resurrection a test of his divine
commission: it was “the sign of Jonah the prophet”_ (Mat. 12:39)_.
He promised that his disciples should have prophetic gifts: _John
15:15—_“No longer do I call you servants; for the servant knoweth
not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all
things that I heard from my Father I have made known unto you”;
_16:13—_“the Spirit of truth ... he shall declare unto you the
things that are to come.” Agabus predicted the famine and Paul’s
imprisonment (_Acts 11:28_; _21:10_); Paul predicted heresies
(_Acts 20:29, 30_), shipwreck (_Acts 27:10, 21-26_), “the man of
sin”_ (2 Thess. 2:3)_, Christ’s second coming, and the
resurrection of the saints (_1 Thess. 4:15-17_).

7. On the double sense of Prophecy.

(_a_) Certain prophecies apparently contain a fulness of meaning which is not exhausted by the event to which they most obviously and literally refer. A prophecy which had a partial fulfilment at a time not remote from its utterance, may find its chief fulfilment in an event far distant. Since the principles of God’s administration find ever recurring and ever enlarging illustration in history, prophecies which have already had a partial fulfilment may have whole cycles of fulfilment yet before them.

In prophecy there is an absence of perspective; as in Japanese
pictures the near and the far appear equally distant; as in
dissolving views, the immediate future melts into a future
immeasurably far away. The candle that shines through a narrow
aperture sends out its light through an ever-increasing area;
sections of the triangle correspond to each other, but the more
distant are far greater than the near. The châlet on the
mountain-side may turn out to be only a black cat on the woodpile,
or a speck upon the window pane. “A hill which appears to rise
close behind another is found on nearer approach to have receded a
great way from it.” The painter, by foreshortening, brings
together things or parts that are relatively distant from each
other. The prophet is a painter whose foreshortenings are
supernatural; he seems freed from the law of space and time, and,
rapt into the timelessness of God, he views the events of history
“sub specie eternitatis.” Prophecy was the sketching of an
outline-map. Even the prophet could not fill up the outline. The
absence of perspective in prophecy may account for Paul’s being
misunderstood by the Thessalonians, and for the necessity of his
explanations in _2 Thess. 2:1, 2_. In _Isaiah 10_ and _11_, the
fall of Lebanon (the Assyrian) is immediately connected with the
rise of the Branch (Christ); in _Jeremiah 51:41_, the first
capture and the complete destruction of Babylon are connected with
each other, without notice of the interval of a thousand years
between them.

Instances of the double sense of prophecy may be found in _Is.
7:14-16_; _9:6, 7—_“a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, ...
unto us a son is given”—compared with _Mat. 1:22, 23_, where the
prophecy is applied to Christ (see Meyer, _in loco_); _Hos.
11:1—_“I ... called my son out of Egypt”—referring originally to
the calling of the nation out of Egypt—is in _Mat. 2:15_ referred
to Christ, who embodied and consummated the mission of Israel;
_Psalm 118:22, 23—_“The stone which the builders rejected is
become the head of the corner”—which primarily referred to the
Jewish nation, conquered, carried away, and flung aside as of no
use, but divinely destined to a future of importance and grandeur,
is in _Mat. 21:42_ referred by Jesus to himself, as the true
embodiment of Israel. William Arnold Stevens, on The Man of Sin,
in Bap. Quar. Rev., July, 1889:328-360—As in _Daniel 11:36_, the
great enemy of the faith, who “shall exalt himself, and magnify
himself above every god,” is the Syrian King, Antiochus Epiphanes,
so “the man of lawlessness” described by Paul in _2 Thess. 2:3_ is
the corrupt and impious Judaism of the apostolic age. This had its
seat in the temple of God, but was doomed to destruction when the
Lord should come at the fall of Jerusalem. But even this second
fulfilment of the prophecy does not preclude a future and final
fulfilment. Broadus on Mat., page 480—In _Isaiah 41:8_ to _chapter
53_, the predictions with regard to “the servant of Jehovah” make
a gradual transition from Israel to the Messiah, the former alone
being seen in _41:8_, the Messiah also appearing in _42:1 __sq._,
and Israel quite sinking out of sight in _chapter 53_.

The most marked illustration of the double sense of prophecy
however is to be found in _Matthew 24_ and _25_, especially
_24:34_ and _25:31_, where Christ’s prophecy of the destruction of
Jerusalem passes into a prophecy of the end of the world. Adamson,
The Mind in Christ, 183—“To him history was the robe of God, and
therefore a constant repetition of positions really similar,
kaleidoscopic combining of a few truths, as the facts varied in
which they were to be embodied.” A. J. Gordon: “Prophecy has no
sooner become history, than history in turn becomes prophecy.”
Lord Bacon: “Divine prophecies have springing and germinant
accomplishment through many ages, though the height or fulness of
them may refer to some one age.” In a similar manner there is a
manifoldness of meaning in Dante’s Divine Comedy. C. E. Norton,
Inferno, xvi—“The narrative of the poet’s spiritual journey is so
vivid and consistent that it has all the reality of an account of
an actual experience; but within and beneath runs a stream of
allegory not less consistent and hardly less continuous than the
narrative itself.” A. H. Strong, The Great Poets and their
Theology, 116—“Dante himself has told us that there are four
separate senses which he intends his story to convey. There are
the literal, the allegorical, the moral, and the analogical. In
_Psalm 114:1_ we have the words, ‘When Israel went forth out of
Egypt.’ This, says the poet, may be taken literally, of the actual
deliverance of God’s ancient people; or allegorically, of the
redemption of the world through Christ; or morally, of the rescue
of the sinner from the bondage of his sin; or anagogically, of the
passage of both soul and body from the lower life of earth to the
higher life of heaven. So from Scripture Dante illustrates the
method of his poem.” See further, our treatment of Eschatology.
See also Dr. Arnold of Rugby, Sermons on the Interpretation of
Scripture, Appendix A, pages 441-454; Aids to Faith, 449-462;
Smith’s Bible Dict., 4:2727. _Per contra_, see Elliott, Horæ
Apocalypticæ, 4:662. Gardiner, O. T. and N. T., 262-274, denies
double sense, but affirms manifold applications of a single sense.
Broadus, on _Mat. 24:1_, denies double sense, but affirms the use
of types.

(_b_) The prophet was not always aware of the meaning of his own prophecies (1 Pet. 1:11). It is enough to constitute his prophecies a proof of divine revelation, if it can be shown that the correspondences between them and the actual events are such as to indicate divine wisdom and purpose in the giving of them—in other words, it is enough if the inspiring Spirit knew their meaning, even though the inspired prophet did not.

It is not inconsistent with this view, but rather confirms it,
that the near event, and not the distant fulfilment, was often
chiefly, if not exclusively, in the mind of the prophet when he
wrote. Scripture declares that the prophets did not always
understand their own predictions: _1 Pet. 1:11—_“searching what
time or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them
did point unto, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of
Christ, and the glories that should follow them.” Emerson:
“Himself from God he could not free; He builded better than he
knew.” Keble: “As little children lisp and tell of heaven, So
thoughts beyond their thoughts to those high bards were given.”
Westcott: Preface to Com. on Hebrews, vi—“No one would limit the
teaching of a poet’s words to that which was definitely present to
his mind. Still less can we suppose that he who is inspired to
give a message of God to all ages sees himself the completeness of
the truth which all life serves to illuminate.” Alexander McLaren:
“Peter teaches that Jewish prophets foretold the events of
Christ’s life and especially his sufferings; that they did so as
organs of God’s Spirit; that they were so completely organs of a
higher voice that they did not understand the significance of
their own words, but were wiser than they knew and had to search
what were the date and the characteristics of the strange things
which they foretold; and that by further revelation they learned
that ‘the vision is yet for many days’_ (Is. 24:22; Dan. 10:14)_.
If Peter was right in his conception of the nature of Messianic
prophecy, a good many learned men of to-day are wrong.” Matthew
Arnold, Literature and Dogma: “Might not the prophetic ideals be
poetic dreams, and the correspondence between them and the life of
Jesus, so far as real, only a curious historical phenomenon?”
Bruce, Apologetics, 359, replies: “Such scepticism is possible
only to those who have no faith in a living God who works out
purposes in history.” It is comparable only to the unbelief of the
materialist who regards the physical constitution of the universe
as explicable by the fortuitous concourse of atoms.

8. _Purpose of Prophecy—so far as it is yet unfulfilled._ (_a_) Not to enable us to map out the details of the future; but rather (_b_) To give general assurance of God’s power and foreseeing wisdom, and of the certainty of his triumph; and (_c_) To furnish, after fulfilment, the proof that God saw the end from the beginning.

_Dan. 12:8, 9—_“And I heard, but I understood not; then said I, O
my Lord, what shall be the issue of these things? And he said, Go
thy way, Daniel; for the words are shut up and sealed till the
time of the end”; _2 Pet. 1:19_—prophecy is “a lamp shining in a
dark place, until the day dawn”—not until day dawns can distant
objects be seen; _20—_“no prophecy of scripture is of private
interpretation”—only God, by the event, can interpret it. Sir
Isaac Newton: “God gave the prophecies, not to gratify men’s
curiosity by enabling them to foreknow things, but that after they
were fulfilled they might be interpreted by the event, and his own
providence, not the interpreter’s, be thereby manifested to the
world.” Alexander McLaren: “Great tracts of Scripture are dark to
us till life explains them, and then they come on us with the
force of a new revelation, like the messages which of old were
sent by a strip of parchment coiled upon a bâton and then written
upon, and which were unintelligible unless the receiver had a
corresponding bâton to wrap them round.” A. H. Strong, The Great
Poets and their Theology, 23—“Archilochus, a poet of about 700 B.
C., speaks of ‘a grievous _scytale_’—the _scytale_ being the staff
on which a strip of leather for writing purposes was rolled
slantwise, so that the message inscribed upon the strip could not
be read until the leather was rolled again upon another staff of
the same size; since only the writer and the receiver possessed
staves of the proper size, the _scytale_ answered all the ends of
a message in cypher.”

Prophecy is like the German sentence,—it can be understood only
when we have read its last word. A. J. Gordon, Ministry of the
Spirit, 48—“God’s providence is like the Hebrew Bible; we must
begin at the end and read backward, in order to understand it.”
Yet Dr. Gordon seems to assert that such understanding is possible
even before fulfilment: “Christ did not know the day of the end
when here in his state of humiliation; but he does know now. He
has shown his knowledge in the Apocalypse, and we have received
‘The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show unto
his servants, even the things which must shortly come to pass’_
(Rev. 1:1)_.” A study however of the multitudinous and conflicting
views of the so-called interpreters of prophecy leads us to prefer
to Dr. Gordon’s view that of Briggs, Messianic Prophecies, 49—“The
first advent is the resolver of all Old Testament prophecy; ...
the second advent will give the key to New Testament prophecy. It
is ‘the Lamb that hath been slain’_ (Rev. 5:12)_ ... who alone
opens the sealed book, solves the riddles of time, and resolves
the symbols of prophecy.”

Nitzsch: “It is the essential condition of prophecy that it should
not disturb man’s relation to history.” In so far as this is
forgotten, and it is falsely assumed that the purpose of prophecy
is to enable us to map out the precise events of the future before
they occur, the study of prophecy ministers to a diseased
imagination and diverts attention from practical Christian duty.
Calvin: “Aut insanum inveniet aut faciet”; or, as Lord Brougham
translated it: “The study of prophecy either finds a man crazy, or
it leaves him so.” Second Adventists do not often seek
conversions. Dr. Cumming warned the women of his flock that they
must not study prophecy so much as to neglect their household
duties. Paul has such in mind in _2 Thess. 2:1, 2—_“touching the
coming of our Lord Jesus Christ ... that ye be not quickly shaken
from your mind ... as that the day of the Lord is just at hand”;
_3:11—_“For we hear of some that walk among you disorderly.”

9. _Evidential force of Prophecy—so far as it is fulfilled._ Prophecy, like miracles, does not stand alone as evidence of the divine commission of the Scripture writers and teachers. It is simply a corroborative attestation, which unites with miracles to prove that a religious teacher has come from God and speaks with divine authority. We cannot, however, dispense with this portion of the evidences,—for unless the death and resurrection of Christ are events foreknown and foretold by himself, as well as by the ancient prophets, we lose one main proof of his authority as a teacher sent from God.

Stearns, Evidence of Christian Experience, 338—“The Christian’s
own life is the progressive fulfilment of the prophecy that
whoever accepts Christ’s grace shall be born again, sanctified,
and saved. Hence the Christian can believe in God’s power to
predict, and in God’s actual predictions.” See Stanley Leathes, O.
T. Prophecy, xvii—“Unless we have access to the supernatural, we
have no access to God.” In our discussions of prophecy, we are to
remember that before making the truth of Christianity stand or
fall with any particular passage that has been regarded as
prediction, we must be certain that the passage is meant as
prediction, and not as merely figurative description. Gladden,
Seven Puzzling Bible Books, 195—“The book of Daniel is not a
prophecy,—it is an apocalypse.... The author [of such books] puts
his words into the mouth of some historical or traditional writer
of eminence. Such are the Book of Enoch, the Assumption of Moses,
Baruch, 1 and 2 Esdras, and the Sibylline Oracles. Enigmatic form
indicates persons without naming them, and historic events as
animal forms or as operations of nature.... The book of Daniel is
not intended to teach us history. It does not look forward from
the sixth century before Christ, but backward from the second
century before Christ. It is a kind of story which the Jews called
Haggada. It is aimed at Antiochus Epiphanes, who, from his
occasional fits of melancholy, was called Epimanes, or Antiochus
the Mad.”

Whatever may be our conclusion as to the authorship of the book of
Daniel, we must recognize in it an element of prediction which has
been actually fulfilled. The most radical interpreters do not
place its date later than 163 B. C. Our Lord sees in the book
clear reference to himself (_Mat. 26:64—_“the Son of man, sitting
at the right hand of Power, and coming on the clouds of heaven”;
_cf._ _Dan. 7:13_); and he repeats with emphasis certain
predictions of the prophet which were yet unfulfilled (_Mat.
24:15—_“When ye see the abomination of desolation, which was
spoken of through Daniel the prophet”; _cf._ _Dan. 9:27_; _11:31_;
_12:11_). The book of Daniel must therefore be counted profitable
not only for its moral and spiritual lessons, but also for its
actual predictions of Christ and of the universal triumph of his
kingdom (_Dan. 2:45—_“a stone cut out of the mountain without
hands”). See on Daniel, Hastings’ Bible Dictionary; Farrar, in
Expositor’s Bible. On the general subject see Annotated Paragraph
Bible, Introd. to Prophetical Books; Cairns, on Present State of
Christian Argument from Prophecy, in Present Day Tracts, 5: no.
27; Edersheim, Prophecy and History; Briggs, Messianic Prophecy;
Redford, Prophecy, its Nature and Evidence; Willis J. Beecher, the
Prophet and the Promise; Orr, Problem of the O. T., 455-465.

Having thus removed the presumption originally existing against miracles and prophecy, we may now consider the ordinary laws of evidence and determine the rules to be followed in estimating the weight of the Scripture testimony.

V. Principles of Historical Evidence applicable to the Proof of a Divine Revelation.

PRINCIPLES OF HISTORICAL EVIDENCE APPLICABLE TO THE PROOF OF A DIVINE REVELATION (mainly derived from Greenleaf, Testimony of the Evangelists, and from Starkie on Evidence).

1. As to documentary evidence.

(_a_) Documents apparently ancient, not bearing upon their face the marks of forgery, and found in proper custody, are presumed to be genuine until sufficient evidence is brought to the contrary. The New Testament documents, since they are found in the custody of the church, their natural and legitimate depository, must by this rule be presumed to be genuine.

The Christian documents were not found, like the Book of Mormon,
in a cave, or in the custody of angels. Martineau, Seat of
Authority, 322—“The Mormon prophet, who cannot tell God from devil
close at hand, is well up with the history of both worlds, and
commissioned to get ready the second promised land.” Washington
Gladden, Who wrote the Bible?—“An angel appeared to Smith and told
him where he would find this book; he went to the spot designated
and found in a stone box a volume six inches thick, composed of
thin gold plates, eight inches by seven, held together by three
gold rings; these plates were covered with writing, in the
‘Reformed Egyptian tongue’; with this book were the ‘Urim and
Thummim’, a pair of supernatural spectacles, by means of which he
was able to read and translate this ‘Reformed Egyptian’ language.”
Sagebeer, The Bible in Court, 113—“If the ledger of a business
firm has always been received and regarded as a ledger, its value
is not at all impeached if it is impossible to tell which
particular clerk kept this ledger.... The epistle to the Hebrews
would be no less valuable as evidence, if shown not to have been
written by Paul.” See Starkie on Evidence, 480 _sq._; Chalmers,
Christian Revelation, in Works, 3:147-171.

(_b_) Copies of ancient documents, made by those most interested in their faithfulness, are presumed to correspond with the originals, even although those originals no longer exist. Since it was the church’s interest to have faithful copies, the burden of proof rests upon the objector to the Christian documents.

Upon the evidence of a copy of its own records, the originals
having been lost, the House of Lords decided a claim to the
peerage; see Starkie on Evidence, 51. There is no manuscript of
Sophocles earlier than the tenth century, while at least two
manuscripts of the N. T. go back to the fourth century. Frederick
George Kenyon, Handbook to Textual Criticism of N. T.: “We owe our
knowledge of most of the great works of Greek and Latin
literature—Æschylus, Sophocles, Thucydides, Horace, Lucretius,
Tacitus, and many more—to manuscripts written from 900 to 1500
years after their authors’ deaths; while of the N. T. we have two
excellent and approximately complete copies at an interval of only
250 years. Again, of the classical writers we have as a rule only
a few score of copies (often less), of which one or two stand out
as decisively superior to all the rest; but of the N. T. we have
more than 3000 copies (besides a very large number of versions),
and many of these have distinct and independent value.” The mother
of Tischendorf named him Lobgott, because her fear that her babe
would be born blind had not come true. No man ever had keener
sight than he. He spent his life in deciphering old manuscripts
which other eyes could not read. The Sinaitic manuscript which he
discovered takes us back within three centuries of the time of the
apostles.

(_c_) In determining matters of fact, after the lapse of considerable time, documentary evidence is to be allowed greater weight than oral testimony. Neither memory nor tradition can long be trusted to give absolutely correct accounts of particular facts. The New Testament documents, therefore, are of greater weight in evidence than tradition would be, even if only thirty years had elapsed since the death of the actors in the scenes they relate.

See Starkie on Evidence, 51, 730. The Roman Catholic Church, in
its legends of the saints, shows how quickly mere tradition can
become corrupt. Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in 1865, yet
sermons preached to-day on the anniversary of his birth make him
out to be Unitarian, Universalist, or Orthodox, according as the
preacher himself believes.

2. As to testimony in general.

(_a_) In questions as to matters of fact, the proper inquiry is not whether it is possible that the testimony may be false, but whether there is sufficient probability that it is true. It is unfair, therefore, to allow our examination of the Scripture witnesses to be prejudiced by suspicion, merely because their story is a sacred one.

There must be no prejudice against, there must be open-mindedness
to, truth; there must be a normal aspiration after the signs of
communication from God. Telepathy, forty days fasting,
parthenogenesis, all these might once have seemed antecedently
incredible. Now we see that it would have been more rational to
admit their existence on presentation of appropriate evidence.

(_b_) A proposition of fact is proved when its truth is established by competent and satisfactory evidence. By competent evidence is meant such evidence as the nature of the thing to be proved admits. By satisfactory evidence is meant that amount of proof which ordinarily satisfies an unprejudiced mind beyond a reasonable doubt. Scripture facts are therefore proved when they are established by that kind and degree of evidence which would in the affairs of ordinary life satisfy the mind and conscience of a common man. When we have this kind and degree of evidence it is unreasonable to require more.

In matters of morals and religion competent evidence need not be
mathematical or even logical. The majority of cases in criminal
courts are decided upon evidence that is circumstantial. We do not
determine our choice of friends or of partners in life by strict
processes of reasoning. The heart as well as the head must be
permitted a voice, and competent evidence includes considerations
arising from the moral needs of the soul. The evidence, moreover,
does not require to be demonstrative. Even a slight balance of
probability, when nothing more certain is attainable, may suffice
to constitute rational proof and to bind our moral action.

(_c_) In the absence of circumstances which generate suspicion, every witness is to be presumed credible, until the contrary is shown; the burden of impeaching his testimony lying upon the objector. The principle which leads men to give true witness to facts is stronger than that which leads them to give false witness. It is therefore unjust to compel the Christian to establish the credibility of his witnesses before proceeding to adduce their testimony, and it is equally unjust to allow the uncorroborated testimony of a profane writer to outweigh that of a Christian writer. Christian witnesses should not be considered interested, and therefore untrustworthy; for they became Christians against their worldly interests, and because they could not resist the force of testimony. Varying accounts among them should be estimated as we estimate the varying accounts of profane writers.

John’s account of Jesus differs from that of the synoptic gospels;
but in a very similar manner, and probably for a very similar
reason, Plato’s account of Socrates differs from that of Xenophon.
Each saw and described that side of his subject which he was by
nature best fitted to comprehend,—compare the Venice of Canaletto
with the Venice of Turner, the former the picture of an expert
draughtsman, the latter the vision of a poet who sees the palaces
of the Doges glorified by air and mist and distance. In Christ
there was a “hiding of his power”_ (Hab. 3:4)_; “how small a
whisper do we hear of him!”_ (Job 26:14)_; he, rather than
Shakespeare, is “the myriad-minded”; no one evangelist can be
expected to know or describe him except “in part”_ (1 Cor.
13:12)_. Frances Power Cobbe, Life, 2:402—“All of us human beings
resemble diamonds, in having several distinct facets to our
characters; and, as we always turn one of these to one person and
another to another, there is generally some fresh side to be seen
in a particularly brilliant gem.” E. P. Tenney, Coronation,
45—“The secret and powerful life he [the hero of the story] was
leading was like certain solitary streams, deep, wide, and swift,
which run unseen through vast and unfrequented forests. So wide
and varied was this man’s nature, that whole courses of life might
thrive in its secret places,—and his neighbors might touch him and
know him only on that side on which he was like them.”

(_d_) A slight amount of positive testimony, so long as it is uncontradicted, outweighs a very great amount of testimony that is merely negative. The silence of a second witness, or his testimony that he did not see a certain alleged occurrence, cannot counterbalance the positive testimony of a first witness that he did see it. We should therefore estimate the silence of profane writers with regard to facts narrated in Scripture precisely as we should estimate it if the facts about which they are silent were narrated by other profane writers, instead of being narrated by the writers of Scripture.

Egyptian monuments make no mention of the destruction of Pharaoh
and his army; but then, Napoleon’s dispatches also make no mention
of his defeat at Trafalgar. At the tomb of Napoleon in the
Invalides of Paris, the walls are inscribed with names of a
multitude of places where his battles were fought, but Waterloo,
the scene of his great defeat, is not recorded there. So
Sennacherib, in all his monuments, does not refer to the
destruction of his army in the time of Hezekiah. Napoleon gathered
450,000 men at Dresden to invade Russia. At Moscow the
soft-falling snow conquered him. In one night 20,000 horses
perished with cold. Not without reason at Moscow, on the
anniversary of the retreat of the French, the exultation of the
prophet over the fall of Sennacherib is read in the churches.
James Robertson, Early History of Israel, 395, note—“Whately, in
his Historic Doubts, draws attention to the fact that the
principal Parisian journal in 1814, on the very day on which the
allied armies entered Paris as conquerors, makes no mention of any
such event. The battle of Poictiers in 732, which effectually
checked the spread of Mohammedanism across Europe, is not once
referred to in the monastic annals of the period. Sir Thomas
Browne lived through the Civil Wars and the Commonwealth, yet
there is no syllable in his writings with regard to them. Sale
says that circumcision is regarded by Mohammedans as an ancient
divine institution, the rite having been in use many years before
Mohammed, yet it is not so much as once mentioned in the Koran.”

Even though we should grant that Josephus does not mention Jesus,
we should have a parallel in Thucydides, who never once mentions
Socrates, the most important character of the twenty years
embraced in his history. Wieseler, however, in Jahrbuch f. d.
Theologie, 23:98, maintains the essential genuineness of the
commonly rejected passage with regard to Jesus in Josephus,
Antiq., 18:3:3, omitting, however, as interpolations, the phrases:
“if it be right to call him man”; “this was the Christ”; “he
appeared alive the third day according to prophecy”; for these, if
genuine, would prove Josephus a Christian, which he, by all
ancient accounts, was not. Josephus lived from A. D. 34 to
possibly 114. He does elsewhere speak of Christ; for he records
(20:9:1) that Albinus “assembled the Sanhedrim of judges, and
brought before them the brother of Jesus who was called Christ,
whose name was James, and some others ... and delivered them to be
stoned.” See Niese’s new edition of Josephus; also a monograph on
the subject by Gustav Adolph Müller, published at Innsbruck, 1890.
Rush Rhees, Life of Jesus of Nazareth, 22—“To mention Jesus more
fully would have required some approval of his life and teaching.
This would have been a condemnation of his own people whom he
desired to commend to Gentile regard, and he seems to have taken
the cowardly course of silence concerning a matter more
noteworthy, for that generation, than much else of which he writes
very fully.”

(_e_) “The credit due to the testimony of witnesses depends upon: first, their ability; secondly, their honesty; thirdly, their number and the consistency of their testimony; fourthly, the conformity of their testimony with experience; and fifthly, the coincidence of their testimony with collateral circumstances.” We confidently submit the New Testament witnesses to each and all of these tests.

See Starkie on Evidence, 726.