Alexander Beith
Let us tremble lest the hearts of any of us should be hardened after the same manner of unbelief [as those who said, “What sign showest Thou unto us, seeing that Thou doest these things?”] Have we not abundant evidence that Christ has come, and that He is in the midst of us? Could stronger evidence or more solid ground of assurance of that truth be given, were a sign from heaven granted? It may be the secret thought of some that, if great and notable works were done in our day, as in the time when Christ was on earth, we should be more deeply impressed than we are now; that we if were but permitted to see things such as we read were done in days that are past, we should earnestly and with all our heart become disciples.
But how does such a persuasion differ from the rich man, who in hell lifted up his eyes, being in torments, and who, singling out the only one of all the saints in heaven with whom he had been acquainted on earth, prayed that he might be sent to him across the great gulf as a messenger of comfort; who, when that petition failed, prayed again that the same messenger might be sent to his father’s house to warn them who were there of his fate, that they might repent and be saved? When that petition received the answer, “They have Moses and the prophets, let them hear them,” he replied, “Nay, father Abraham: but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent”. In these words, that lost soul virtually charged God with having withheld from him what would have convinced him, what would have turned him from his evil ways and have saved him from hell.
Of a character equally blasphemous are thoughts which suggest that “signs and wonders” would effectually put an end to the lack of faith on the earth. Let all who entertain such sentiments – all who seek for “signs and wonders” in confirmation of the truth of the glorious gospel and who predict that until these revisit the Church, its prosperous time will not arrive – ponder well the final reply to the appeal of which we are speaking: “If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead”. Such a sign, or any sign, could not make the message of everlasting life more certain than it is, as we have it written by God, and as He can seal it on the heart by the Spirit.
1Taken, with editing, from Christ Our Life, a series of “expository discourses” on John 1-3. Beith (1799-1891) was minister of the Free North church in Stirling. This piece, from a chapter on John 2:18-25, is a warning against some of the ideas of the Pentecostal and Charismatic movements and comes from a time when phenomena, such as “speaking in tongues” were scarcely heard of.