The Gospel Sign Addressed to Faith

“Although Christ had wrought among them ‘works which no one else did’ (Jn 15:24), and one of their own company had confessed that no man could do miracles such as his ‘unless God is with him’ (Jn 3:2), the scribes and Pharisees persisted in asking for some decisive sign that would prove his divinity beyond all question. In his reply, our Lord denied and yet promised such a sign. He says, ‘An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign; but no sign shall be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah’ (Mt 12:39). In this sentence it is implied both that their wishes were not to be granted and that a great miracle was to be wrought.

Now what is remarkable in this passage is this, that our Lord promised a great sign parallel to those wrought by the prophets, yet instead of being public as theirs was, it was to be like Jonah’s, a secret sign. Few saw it. It was to be received by all, but on faith. It was addressed to the humble and lowly. When it took place, and St. Thomas refused to believe without sight, our Lord said to him, ‘You have believed because you have seen me. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe’ (Jn 20:29). The apostle, perhaps, might have been arguing, ‘If this be the Lord’s great sign, surely it is to be seen. What is meant by the resurrection but an evidence which is to be addressed to my senses? I have to believe, and this is to assure my belief.’ Yet St. Thomas would have been more blessed had he believed Christ’s miraculous presence without seeing it, and our Lord implied that such persons there would be.

There was another occasion on which the Jews asked for a sign, and on which our Lord answered by promising one, not to his apostles only, but to all his faithful followers. And it was a sign not more sensible or palpable, not less that object of faith than that sign of his resurrection. He had just before been feeding five thousand men with five barley loaves and two small fish, when, not contented with this, the Jews said, ‘what sign do you do, that we may see, and believe you? What work do you perform?’ (Jn 6:30). And they proceeded to refer to the sign from heaven which Moses had given them. ‘Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness: as it is written, “He gave them bread from heaven to eat”’ (Jn 6:31). It was a little thing, they seemed to say, to multiply bread, but it was a great thing to send down bread from heaven, a great thing, when the nature of the creature was changed, and men were made to live by the word of the Lord. Was the Son of Man able to give them bread such as this?

Yes, surely, he had a sign. It is a sign greater than manna, yet beyond dispute a sign not addressed to sight, but to faith. For our Lord says, ‘come to me’ (Jn 6:65) and ‘believe in me’ (Jn 14:1). And he says, ‘It is the spirit that gives life, the flesh is of no avail’ (Jn 6:63). And he warns us, ‘No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him’ (Jn 6:44). His coming up from the heart of the earth was a sign for faith, not for sight, and such is his coming down from heaven as bread.

What is true in these instances is true of all the parts of our Lord’s gracious economy. He was ‘manifested in the flesh, vindicated in the Spirit, seen by angles, preached among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory’ (1 Tim 3:16). Yet what was the nature of the manifestation? The annunciation was secret. The nativity was secret. The miraculous fasting in the wilderness was secret. The resurrection secret. The ascension not far from secret. The abiding presence secret. One thing alone was public and in the eyes of the world: his death. It was the only event which did not speak of his divinity, the only event in which he seemed a sign not of power but of weakness. He was crucified in weakness, but he was not crucified in secret. His humiliation was proclaimed and manifested all over the earth. When lifted up from the earth, he indeed displayed his power: he drew all men to him. But not from what was seen but from what was hidden—from what was not known, from what was matter of faith, from his atoning virtue. As far as he was seen, he was, in holy Simeon’s words, ‘a sign that is spoken against’ (Lk 2:34). It is not by reason or by sight that we accept and glory in the Sign of the Cross. It is by laying aside ‘all malice and all guile and insincerity and envy and all slander’ and like ‘newborn infants’ longing for ‘the pure spiritual milk’ that we may grow thereby (1 Pet 2:1-2).

Let us not seek then for signs and wonders or ask for sensible inward tokens of God’s favor. Faith only can introduce us to the unseen presence of God. Let us venture to believe, and the evidence which others demand before believing, we shall gain more abundantly by believing. Almighty God is hidden from us. The world does not discover him to us. We may go to the right hand and to the left, but we find him not. The utmost we can do in the way of nature is to feel after him, who, though we see him not, yet is not far from every one of us.

Once it was not so. Man was created upright, and then he saw his God. He fell and lost God’s presence. How must he regain his privilege but by becoming what he once was? He lost it by sinning; he must regain it by purity. And till this recovery, he must accept it on faith. He is allowed to apprehend and enjoy it by faith. He begins with faith, that he may end with holiness. Faith is the religion of sinners beginning to purify themselves for God, and in every age and under every dispensation the just have lived by faith. For we ‘walk by faith, not by sight’ (2 Cor 5:7), and we ‘look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen’ (2 Cor 4:18). We set him on our right hand, him whom ‘without having seen,’ we love, and in whom we believe and ‘rejoice with unutterable and exalted joy.’ And through this faith we obtain ‘the salvation of our souls’ (see 1 Pet 1:8-9).”

~St. John Henry Newman (from The Tears of Christ: Meditations for Lent)