His language, as becomes the most thoughtful and philosophic of the Gospels, is deeply significant. He does not use the term Svi'ai.iic,/acultt/, at all, but has two words, one especially his own, namely, tpyov, a woik (yet used once by Matthew, xi, 2, who has so much in common with John) ; the other, the one proper term for miracle throughout the whole Bible, arjutlov, a sign.
Our Lord's miracles are called tpyn, rcorks, by John some fifteen or more times, besides places where they are spoken of as " the works of God" (ix, 3 ; v, 20, 36). Now this term stands in a very close relation to the pre- ceding word, dvvaj.uc, a. faculty. A faculty, when ex- erted, produces an tpyov, or work. Whatever powers or capacities we have, whenever we use them, bring forth a corresponding result. We have capacities of thought, of speech, of action, common to the species, though varj-ing in the individual ; and what is not at all remarkable in one man maj' be very much so in an- other, simply because it is beyond his usual range. But outside the species it may be not only remarkable but miraculous, because it lies altogether beyond the range of the capacities with which the agent is endowed. And so, on the contrary, what would be miraculous in one class of agents is simply natural in another class, because it is in accordance with their powers.
Now had our Lord been merely man, any and every work beyond the compass of man's powers would have been a miracle. It would have transcended the limits of his nature; but whether it would necessarily have violated the laws of that nature is a question of some difiiculty. Supposing that man is an imperfect being, but capable of progress, the limits of his powers may be indefinitely enlarged. Those who hold the theorj' of . evolution concede this, and therefore concede that there is nothing miraculous in a remarkable individual being prematurely endowed with capacities which finally and in due time will be the heritage of the whole species. It is the doctrine of the Bible that the spiritual man has a great future before him, and the prophets of old, and the apostles and early Christians, endowed with their great charismata, or gifts, may be but an anticipation of what the spiritual man may finallj' become. Still, among the " works" of our Lord and his apostles, there is one which seems distinctly divine, namely, the rais- ing of the dead. Gifts of healing, of exciting dormant powers, such as speech in the dumb, of reading the thoughts of others' hearts, may be so heightened in man as he develops under the operations of the Spirit that much may cease to be astonishing which now is highly so. But the raising of the dead travels into another sphere ; nor can we imagine any human progress evolv- ing such a power as this. "\^"e cannot imagine man possessed of any latent capacity which may in time be so developed as naturally to produce such a result. So, too, the multiplying of food seems to involve powers re- served to the Creator alone.
But the Gospel of John does not regard our Lord as a man prematurely endowed with gifts which finally will become the heritage of the whole species; it is penetrated everj'where with the conviction that a higher nature was united in him to his human nature. It shows itself not merely in formal statements like the opening words of the Gospel, but in the language usual with him everywhere. And so here. Our Lord's mir- acles to him are simply and absolutely ipya, works onh'. But, as we have seen before, they are also divine works, " works of God." Still in Christ, according to John's view, they were perfectly natural. They were the necessarj' and direct result of that divine nature which in him was indissolubly united with his human nature. The last thing which the apostle would have thought about them was that they were miraculous, wonderful. That GoA should give his only-begotten Son to save the world was wonderful. That such a be- ing should ordinarily do works entirely beyond the lim- its of man's powers did not seem to John wonderful, and hence the simple but deeply significant term by which he characterizes them.
Yet such works were not wrought without a purpose ; nor did such a being come without having a definite ob- ject to justify his manifestation. If wisdom has to be justified of all her children, of all that she produces, there must be some end or purpose effected by each of them, and especially in one like Christ, confessedly the very highest manifestation of human nature, and, as we Chris- tians believe, reaching high above its bounds. Now John points this out in calling our Lord's works aimtia, signs. It is devoutly to be hoped that in the revised translation of the New Testament this term will be re- stored to its place, instead of being mistranslated mira- cle, as in our present version. Eeally, in employing it, John was only following in the steps of the older Script- ures, and the unity of thought iu the Bible is destroyed when the same word is translated differently in one book from its rendering in another. However wonder- ful may be God's works, they are not wrought simply to till men with astonishment, and least of all are those so Avrought which lie outside the ordinary course of God's natural laws.