MIRACLES. Three words are employed in the N. T. to denote, from different points of view, the supernatural works performed by Christ and his apostles — rgpara, properly translated miracles or wonders ; signs; and oupdAets, powers or mighty works. Sometimes all three are used in conjunction ; as by St. Peter in relation to Christ (Acts ii. 22), by St. Paul in describing the signs of an apostle (2 Con xii. 12), and again by St. Pau: in speaking of the revelation of the Man of Sin (2 Thes. ii. 9), where, however, the special cha racter of the works is marked by the addition of the epithet lying wonders' 0.65ous).* It may be observed, however, that none of these words necessarily implies either the supernatural origin or the religious purpose of the phenomena so called : these, when implied at all, are to be gathered from the context, or inferred from the nature of the acts themselves, but are not distinctly or exclusively expressed in the signification of the name. The word rOas is expressive of the aston ishment produced by an extraordinary phenomenon in the mind of the spectator, but does not neces sarily imply that the phenomenon itself is of a supernatural kind ; and it is used in the Septuagint, like the Hebrew nn;m, not only of miracles pro perly so called, but sometimes also of acts astonish ing, but not necessarily supernatural (Deut. xxviii. 46 ; Is. xx. 3 ; Ezek. xii. 6). The word even in its religious application, as denoting a sign of the presence and working of God, does not ne cessarily imply that the significant fact is itself supernatural, or even extraordinary ; on the con trary, many of the Scripture signs, as has been pointed out by Archbishop Trench, are in them selves natural and common events, though employed by God fora special purpose. And finally, the word SOnyhts, though applied in an especial sense to those mighty works by which the power of God is mani fested in a more striking and remarkable manner than in the ordinary course of nature, yet is in itself applicable to the divine power in its ordinary as well as in its extraordinary exercise, and to the powers of other agents, whether natural or supernatural.
On the other hand, the modern use of the word miracle implies, as an essential part of its significa tion, that the phenomenon so called is, if not con trary to nature, at least beyond and above nature.
The whole meaning of the controversy on the pos sibility of miracles rests on the assumption that a miracle necessarily implies something supernatural. A miracle,' says Hume, may be accurately de fined, a transgression of a law of nature by a parti cular volition of the Deity, or by the interposition of some invisible agent.' A miracle,' says Bishop Butler, in its very notion, is relative to a course of nature, and implies somewhat different from it, considered as being so.' A miracle,' says Bishop Douglas, ' is an event brought about in a way con trary to the course of nature.' And recently Arch bishop Trench, while justly objecting to the lan guage which describes the miracles as unnatural or against nature, at the same time distinctly admits that they are beyond and above nature, and that aught which is perfectly explicable from the course of nature and history, is assuredly no miracle in the most proper sense of the word.' Citations to the same effect might be added from many other writers, but the above are sufficient to show that, in the language of modern theology, the word miracle has acquired a distinct and precise implica tion or the supernatural—an implication which was not necessarily involved in the meaning of the names by which the same events are called in Scrip ture.
This diversity of language may be regarded as indicating, not indeed a different estimate of the miracles themselves, but a different state of the controversy concerning them. To doubt the pos sibility of supernatural powers in general, is a form of unbelief that did not enter into the minds of the earliest opponents of Christianity. To them it was a more plausible subterfuge to say, He casteth out devils through Beelzebub,' than to assert that a natural disease had been healed by natural means The supernatural character of our Lord's miracles was not called in question ; the doubt raised was only as to the interpretation to be put upon them, or the conclusion to be drawn from them. Hence, in the language of Scripture, the stress is laid, not on the supernatural, but on the sign cant cha racter of the miracles. They are not merely won derful or mighty works, but they are works of such a kind as to be signs and tokens of God's power, as distinguished from that of every other being—works such as no man can do except God be with him.