The miracles of Jesus
(last updated: 26th November 2023)


Before we start here is a modern day miracle of Jesus:



Typical conversion by 'One For Israel'

Returning to the miracles of Jesus performed during His time of ministry on Earth 2000 plus years ago:

The question that needs answering is, 'Why did Jesus perform miracles, what was the point?'

His miracles were at the heart of who He was so there can be few more important questions to answer than this!
Possible answers:
-> To impress his followers as a stage artist enjoying the limelight would, and to attract more followers eager to see Him perform yet more miracles.
-> For financial or other gain.
-> People in those days were not as wise and sensible as we are today so were easily duped, and He derived pleasure from this.

We contend that none of these explanations are plausible, in particular, rather than impressing the crowds, Jesus actually requested silence of those he healed, so what was it all about?

We suggest that it was to convince people, especially His disciples, that He possessed powers that were not of this World, therefore that He was who He said He was, the Son of God.

So why did He want to demonstrate to people that The Son of God could perform miracles with such alacrity?

Was it to help lend credence to all the unusual events that were recorded in detail in the Old Testament, particularly the Genesis account of Creation? Jesus knew how sceptical people could be about occurences that are not part of normal every day experience.

Did Jesus offer any explanation for why He performed miracles?
Jesus' answer in Matthew 11:4,5 to John the Baptist tells us a lot about the purpose of His miracles: They are a sign of the prophecies fulfilled, a sign that Jesus is the long-awaited Messiah. They are a sign of His authority, His power, and His glory. And they are a sign of God's love for us, a sign that we can trust Him.

So, it was to convince people of who He was, but it was also to convince people that He had unlimited powers at His disposal. Let us analyse those powers to see if they lend credence to the greatest miracle of all, 'The creation story in Genesis'.
Perhaps the most revealing in this context is turning water into wine during the wedding at Cana in Galilee (John chapter 2). This demonstrated His capacity to overrule the Laws of Nature just by issuing a command. To convert water (H2O) to wine (C2H5OH) cannot be done by any means in a laboratory today, and it never will be possible, and yet Jesus merely spoke into the situation and His command was obeyed, establishing that He has control over nature (all material things).

His ability to bring people back to life after death is clear evidence that He had control over the functioning of the body. It demonstrated that He understood the inner working of living organisms, and how was that possible unless He was involved in their design from the beginning? He didn't learn the ropes at University, did He! (University education wasn't available until late in the 11th century)

Further evidence of His Divine, unlimited, power:

'Feeding the 5000', in John 6:5-14.
He was able to create complex matter, in this case food, merely by issuing commands!

Jesus walking on water in John 6:16-24.
This again demonstrated his ability to overrule the Laws of Physics at a stroke!

Jesus appearing after His resurrection. See Mark 16 in particular verse 15: He said to them, "Go into all the World and preach the good news to all Creation":
So He was able to materialise out of the blue, defying the Laws of Nature whenever He needed to.

The fig tree account: Mark 11:14,20-23
14: Then he said to the tree, 'May no one ever eat fruit from you again.' And his disciples heard him say it.
20: In the morning, as they went along, they saw the fig tree withered from the roots. 21 Peter remembered and said to Jesus, 'Rabbi, look! The fig tree you cursed has withered!' 22 'Have faith in God,' Jesus answered. 23 'Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, 'Go, throw yourself into the sea,' and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them.
Another demonstration of his awesome power over the natural World. Clearly He could do whatever He needed to do just by issuing a command. All of nature responded appropriately to commands He issued, He had limitless power at His disposal.

These recorded events show that at a glance He could manipulate the Laws of Physics and Chemistry to achieve a required end result. This is clear evidence that He (God) has the extraordinary power required to be The Creator of all things great and small, as unambiguously stated in Genesis.

We should of course ask ourselves whether we can believe the accounts of the miracles of Jesus recorded in detail in the New Testament. Did any of His powerful enemies, the religious leaders of His day manage to undermine His authority by casting doubt on the accounts of the numerous miracles He performed? The answer is a resounding, NO!, and we can be absolutely certain that they would have raised proverbial Heaven and Hell (especially the latter as it is doubtful whether the former would offer assistance!) to achieve that end, in order to help absolve them for putting Him to Death on The Cross. So we can be confident that the miracles were performed just as claimed, providing all the Biblical evidence we need to establish that God had the means at His disposal to be our Creator, and the Creator of The Universe.

Finally, there will be those among us who claim the Bible accounts were distortions of the truth, that those who wrote the Gospel stories sort fame or fortune for their efforts. Again there is no evidence that this is true, in fact many of the individuals involved were themselves put to death for various different reasons connected with their determination to pass on the truth about Jesus to future generations. Many since then have sort to cast doubt on the veracity of the Bible accounts in both New and Old Testaments and all have failed. We suggest that God would not allow His Bible to contain incorrect or misleading information, so we can rely on what is written from beginning to end.

Convincing evidence for Design from Evolution News

The complexity of cells from Evolution News

 

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