That Kind Of Testimony Is Always Reliable

Apologist Bob L. Ross said “according to a common custom we will refuse that part of their testimony that is in their favor, and take only that that was against themselves, for that kind of testimony is always reliable; the other generally unreliable.” Mr. Ross was not applying this principle to the miracles of Jesus but I think it is very apropos to do so.

When miracles were done by Jesus or the apostles, their opposition never denied such miracles really occurred. We see this clearly from Acts 4:13-18. The Jewish leaders couldn’t deny Peter had actually healed a man lame from birth (chapter 3), so instead they just threatened the apostles to attempt to keep the implication of the miracle from spreading.

That’s clearly different from today when any feat performed by so called miracle workers can easily be denied. There is never anything to what people “perform” today; it is easy to see they are frauds.

Another good example of a New Testament miracle that could not be denied is found in Matt 12:22-32. Jesus “healed … insomuch that the blind and dumb both spake and saw.” You better believe Jesus’ enemies the Pharisees would have denied Jesus’ miracles if they could, but there was no denying they really occurred. So they chose to deflect the accomplishment by claiming Jesus performed his miracles through the power of the devil.

And this is very important to us today because of Mr. Ross’ point above. If the only people who claimed Jesus did miracles were his friends, we might wonder today if they really happened – not having witnessed them for ourselves. But since even Jesus’ enemies admitted the miracles occurred, we can have confidence they were legit. And since a miracle could not be performed without God’s power and God would never perform a miracle through a person He didn’t approve of (John 3:2), then we can be sure Jesus was from God – He was who He said He was, and what He taught was God’s truth. This leads to a confident faith based upon credible evidence (Heb 11:1). Jesus was really the Son of the living God (Matt 16:16)!

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