Viewpoint Brief Bible Study #52 |
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The Christian religion is the worship and service of Jesus Christ. It’s not Mary we worship, but her Son. We worship neither saints, angels, a law code, nor even God’s Spirit. It’s JESUS who is to be honored. The Bible is our guide. |
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Curtis Dickinson, in The Witness,
Writes On Miracles -- Expect One?
A popular expression of some radio and TV evangelists is a slogan made famous by the late Norman Vincent Peale -- "Expect a MIRACLE - Make miracles happen!" Such expectation and attempts to make miracles happen is a source of much confusion and disappointment to some believers today. It often results in people resorting to occult and "New Age" practices in their search for the miraculous.There's no need to doubt that God can still perform miracles. No one is saying He can't. God hasn't lost his power. He's in full control of all things, and is ABLE to do whatever He chooses to do! God can perform a miracle whenever it suits His purposes. He's not apt to do it on order to suit OUR purposes!
God doesn't teach us to expect miracles to solve our problems. While we think about the subject, let's talk about what is meant by the word, "miracle." We need to be talking about the same thing by the words we're using.
When someone escapes death in a harrowing accident, we may hear them say, "It was a miracle! I was saved by a miracle." A child is born, even after great difficulty, and someone says, "It's a miracle." Trees bud. Flowers, after a winter of no blooming, when spring comes, bloom again. Someone dramatizes spring as a miracle.
But these are normal things -- not miracles at all. If the snow was deep and the valleys steep, we may be as glad as if relief WAS a miracle, but it wasn't in the Bible sense a miracle at all. Many things happen in response to natural laws set up by God when He made this world. That those things do happen is not really a miracle of the moment, even if they reflect miraculous power in their conception and execution. A miracle is an EXCEPTION to natural law.
Clem Thurman gives an example of an unusual event: A man loses control of his car, goes over a fifty-foot cliff, totals the car, but walks away unhurt. It would have been a miracle if the car had stopped two feet from the ground, waited while the driver stepped out, then finished falling to the ground. Otherwise, no miracle! If natural law (gravity) had been suspended, that would have been miraculous. If natural laws produced the result that the driver was spared, then it's NOT a miracle that he lived through it.
Childbirth is a marvelous thing. But it's simply God working through the laws He established at creation. Human births happen because God allows them, in natural ways to occur. Life is a miracle from God, but He has set up natural ways for life to recur. Man cannot create human life, even in a test tube, even if by cloning the DNA from another life.
But when Mary was impregnated with no human male present, that was a miracle, for life is the merging of male and female who are alive. Mary's conception of a human child was unique. The birth was normal. Jesus is the unique Son of God.
<<NOTE from Ray: All who are spiritually reborn are also said to have been begotten of the Spirit of God, making Jesus unique yet not the ONLY-begotten as many translations phrase it. When we are born again of water and spirit, we also become sons and daughters of God.>>
If events happen in keeping with natural law, even if they are rare and marvelous, they are not properly called MIRACLES in the sense that Jesus performed miracles while He was on earth.
Many seek healing at the hands of some today who claim power to heal according to the promise given to the apostles in Mark 16:18. But the promise there given is no valid ground for modern signs, miracles, and healings by "faith-healers." God does answer prayer. He may choose to heal even when our prayers are mixed with faith healers and other unnecessary practices.
Mark 16:18 is part of private instruction given to the apostles by Christ Jesus. In verse 13, we read of their unbelief. The next verse comments, "Afterwards he appeared to the eleven as they sat at meat, and upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they believed not them which had seen him after he was risen. (Mark 16:14)"
Then Jesus went on to say, "These signs shall follow them that believe" (Mark 16:17). In other words, there would be signs (such as casting out demons and healing), to authenticate the apostles' teaching if THEY believed. This promise was not in my opinion meant for all believers, which is why the signs do not follow believers today. The promised signs DID follow the apostles. Their purpose is clearly stated, "They went forth and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word by the signs that followed" (Mark 16:20).
The apostles and the early church did NOT have the written word (the New Testament scriptures) as we do today. To prove that their preaching was from God, "signs" (miracles) were given. "God also bearing witness with them, both by signs and wonders, and by manifold power, and by gifts of the Holy Spirit, according to his own will" (Hebrews 2:4). It's a bad mistake to assume that every (or ANY) promise made to the apostles applies to non-apostles!
For the primary purpose of proving the truth of their message, the apostles performed miracles. It was NOT to solve personal problems. It was NOT to fulfill the longings of those who might "expect a miracle." Many times folks have waited for a miracle when God expected them to apply elbow grease and work their problem out by natural means!
This expectation of a MIRACLE, so often enjoined today, actually belittles the miracles performed by Jesus and other special messengers sent from God.
When Moses lifted his rod and the Red Sea was parted, all present could know that GOD had done a mighty work in delivering His people from bondage. What happened couldn't have happened by natural means. Human power couldn't have done it. It wasn't by sleight of hand or trickery. It was real. All could see. It wasn't imagination. A miracle took place -- a mighty miracle.
The miracles of Jesus also were totally beyond the natural realm. They did not happen because people expected them and just THOUGHT they happened or had a vision and DREAMED they happened. Disciples were taken by complete surprise when Jesus, awakened from deep sleep, stilled the tempest. Also when He came to them walking on water. And when he created food to satisfy the hunger of 4,000 and 5,000 hungry men. Neither Mary nor Martha, nor any of the disciples, EXPECTED Jesus to raise Lazarus from the dead. He didn't tell them He was going to do it. He just did it.
And all present knew that a miracle had taken place.
While Christ's miracles filled a practical need, their primary purpose was to prove that He was the unique Son of God, the promised Messiah of the Jews, and that He came to them from the God of miracles. His miracles proved that the TEACHINGS of Jesus came from Jehovah God!
When John's disciples asked Jesus, "ARE you the one...?," Jesus pointed them to the physical miracles that had been performed, and to the fact that the Word of God had been proclaimed even to the often-neglected poor who were beloved of God. His miracles proved that He indeed was God's promised Messiah.
The miracles proved to Nicodemus that Jesus was from God (John 3:2). Peter, in preaching the very first gospel sermon, emphasized that Jesus had PROVED Himself "by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you..." (Acts 2:22).
Claims of Jesus concerning the kingdom of God were authenticated by miracles unaided men could not have performed. "If I by the (power) of God cast out demons, then the kingdom of God is come upon you." After detailing many of the miracles, the apostle John wrote, "These are written that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that you might have life in His name" (John 20:31).
God is NOT dead. He is still able to perform miracles with the same ease now as He did then. But the miracles were not then JUST to answer problems of individuals, families or nations. Their purpose was to convince unbelievers of God's power.
The miracles that WERE done surely are sufficient to convince any responsible person who learns of them. Miracles accompanied the new religion of Christ. They were recorded. The records are available to all. It is not NECESSARY that God duplicate those authenticating miracles in every generation, in every nation, for every doubter.
God continues to use His mighty power to uphold the universe and to enable life on this favored planet. His arm is not slack. When more proofs are needed, they will be seen! We pray when we have needs we can't handle alone. God hears our prayers. When our needs and His knowledge of what is best for us and for all are the same, He always gives an affirmative answer to our prayer. We pray in faith because God can and will answer prayer according to His own will.
God works through His natural law to accomplish His purpose, just as He may work outside of natural law (that is, by miracles). In answer to prayer, and often without prayer we may know of, God heals people today. He COULD heal everyone. He could eliminate all disease and the ills which afflict the flesh. But He doesn't do so. The apostles were men of great faith in later years, yet they suffered many setbacks. They often were rejected and persecuted. They suffered illness. They all finally died.
When Paul prayed that God would remove his "thorn in the flesh," God said no (2 Cor. 12:8-10). Yet Paul never wavered from faith in God's leading him on to the final and glorious victory. He kept his eyes on the day in which all those who have fully entrusted their lives to Christ will be raised from death, and will enjoy eternal life with God in a time when, as is obvious, no miracles will be needed since all will be well in that day.
We are to trust God, not to count on Him for a miracle, but to know that He will do what is best for us and for all. Saints can testify that sometimes His help comes, often unexpectedly and in the nick of time, but always we know that He cares and loves us.
It doesn't take exceptional faith for us to realize that God provides the sun and the rain, and gives life and breath each day. We see God at work in these daily wonders. But it's in affliction, in suffering, in losses, sorrow, pain and failure that we need to keep on believing.
God is working. All will be well. We can and MUST believe it. His eternal purpose is not simply to give US the physical and temporal things we may think we need. His purpose is to transform us to conform to HIS image. "For it's God who works in you both to will and to work, for his good pleasure...that you may become blameless and harmless, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you are seen as lights in the world" (Philippians 2:13-15).
We should have faith. Enduring faith. Lasting faith. God is in control. He will sustain us through all the difficulties of this world. No matter how corrupt the world becomes, God will never leave or forsake us. He will enable us to endure whatever privations come to us. In the last day, He will give us both eternal life and a great victory over every opposition which has sought to keep us from serving Him in joy and peace.
Brief Bible Study #52 from Ray Downen. To go back to Viewpoint's first page, click < here. Or here to go on to Viewpoint Study 53. For Ray's concluding remarks, click HERE.
