As we continue to delve into the earthly ministry of Jesus, in this episode, we look at some of the miracles Jesus performed. What constitutes a real miracle? Are there specific times when God uses miracles? How do the miracles of the Old Testament compare to the miracles of Jesus? Is God still performing miracles today? What do Jesus' miracles tell us about Him? Tune in for answers to these questions and so many more!
Thanks for tuning in! Be sure to check out everything Proverbs 9:10 on our website, www.proverbs910ministries.com! You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Rumble, YouTube, Twitter, Truth Social, and Gettr!
As we continue to delve into the earthly ministry of Jesus, in this episode, we look at some of the miracles Jesus performed. What constitutes a real miracle? Are there specific times when God uses miracles? How do the miracles of the Old Testament compare to the miracles of Jesus? Is God still performing miracles today? What do Jesus' miracles tell us about Him? Tune in for answers to these questions and so many more!
Thanks for tuning in! Be sure to check out everything Proverbs 9:10 on our website, www.proverbs910ministries.com! You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Rumble, YouTube, Twitter, Truth Social, and Gettr!
Episode 116 – Light and Life to All He Brings
Welcome back! As we explore the life of incarnate Jesus while He was here on earth, we’d be remiss if we didn’t do an episode on the miracles He did while He was here. So that’s exactly what we’re going to do today. To start, we need to define what constitutes a true miracle because the word miracle is used so often today to describe things that really aren’t miracles at all. For instance, like the birth of a baby. We may call it a miracle, but in reality, giving birth to children is actually one of the most normal, natural events that there is.
Exactly. A miracle is an event that involves direct and powerful activity of God in the world, that transcends the ordinary laws of nature. Miracles are extraordinary occurrences that can only be attributed to the supernatural work of God. Sometimes they’re done by God Himself, and sometimes God does them through people – like Moses, Elijah and Elisha or the Apostles. But they’re always unexplainable by ordinary laws of nature.
Before we get to the miracles that Jesus did, we should take a look at miracles in the Bible big picture, because there are some things about them that may be surprising. When we think about how God works, we tend to think of Him working in the miraculous instead of the everyday, ordinary events of history. It’s common to have the idea that God worked in miraculous ways the whole way through the Bible. But that’s just not the case.
Miracles are not the way God works in most of history. Looking at the whole bible there aren’t many passages about miracles. Quoting Dr. Joel Arnold from Bob Jones Memorial College in the Philippines there are only “around 265 specific passages (though a number of these record the same miracles several times such as in the gospels or in the OT historical books). But it’s not as much as you think—not in the context of the entire Bible. By word count, only about 5% of the biblical accounts record miracles.[1]”
And it’s important to note that these miracles happened in clearly discernable clusters throughout the Bible. Dr. Arnold actually plotted them on a graph that shows which books of the Bible we see them in. For those of us who are visual learners, you can find that at proclaimanddefend.org. The places these large clusters are found after Creation surround three times: the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt, the ministries of Elijah and Elisha, and the ministry of Jesus and His disciples.
In both the Old Testament and the New Testament, miracles tend to be clustered right around something major happening. They point to God doing something new. They should get peoples’ attention. Miracles were accompanied by the proclamation of the Word of God and they authenticate the person proclaiming it – it showed God sent them. If we look at the first cluster centered around the exodus from Egypt we see these things are true. Moses didn’t think the Israelites would believe that God had sent him, so the Lord empowered Moses to perform miracles to authenticate him. And, at that point, something new is about to happen: God is about to move his people out of slavery in Egypt and into the Promised Land. And this miraculous time is accompanied by the Word of God – Moses is given the Law and he, in turn, gives the Law of God to the people and calls them to worship the One true God.
The same things are true about the prophets Elijah and Elisha, which is where the next big cluster of miracles occurs. Elijah and Elisha were arguably the most powerful prophets of God. They proclaimed God’s message to His people, accompanied by miracles, authenticating them as God’s true prophets. They called the people to revival during one of the darkest times in Israel’s history, when idolatry was rampant, and Baal worship (one of the worst forms of pagan worship) was very prominent. And something new was about to happen. Only 75 years after Elisha’s death, the northern kingdom (Israel) is taken into exile because the people don’t heed the Word of God and instead, continue in their sin.
Miracles of Jesus and the miracles done through the disciples at the start of the Church is the biggest cluster of miracles. Jesus’ miracles demonstrated that He was the Messiah, and that He was the Divine Son of God. The miracles worked through His disciples were evidence of God working through them to start the Church. Jesus’s miracles accompanied His preaching and teaching, calling people to repentance and giving them warnings about continuing in their sin. His disciples’ miracles were accompanied by the same things. And, Jesus was the advent of something new – the old ceremonial law was fulfilled, and He was the final sacrifice for sin – the Church era would begin at that time.
So let’s get started looking at the miracles that Jesus did. There are about 37 of them so we can’t cover them all. We’ll start with Jesus’ first miracle – turning water into wine at the wedding of Cana found in John 2:1-11. Jesus is at a wedding in Cana of Galilee with His mom and His disciples and they run out of wine. And, Mary says to Jesus, “They have no wine.”
I’ll read the rest. John 2:4-11 says, “And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does that have to do with us? My hour has not yet come.” 5His mother said to the servants, “Whatever He says to you, do it.” 6Now there were six stone waterpots set there for the Jewish custom of purification, containing twenty or thirty gallons each. 7Jesus said to them, “Fill the waterpots with water.” So they filled them up to the brim. 8And He said to them, “Draw some out now and take it to the headwaiter.” So they took it to him. 9When the headwaiter tasted the water which had become wine, and did not know where it came from (but the servants who had drawn the water knew), the headwaiter called the bridegroom, 10and said to him, “Every man serves the good wine first, and when the people have drunk freely, then he serves the poorer wine; but you have kept the good wine until now.” 11This beginning of His signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee, and manifested His glory, and His disciples believed in Him.”
Addressing a woman as “O woman” wasn’t unusual or a sign of disrespect. But it’s a little strange that Jesus would address His mother that way. However, just like Jesus sort of separated himself from Joseph, his earthly father, at the temple; this may be a way of stating a sort-of separation from His mother. We don’t know why they ran out of wine, but nothing happens without a reason. In the Old Testament wine (but never drunkenness) was seen as a sign of joy and God’s blessing, according to Psalm 104:15, Proverbs 3:10 and other places. So not having any more wine at this wedding is symbolic of the spiritual dryness of first century Judaism.
It’s fitting, then, that this was Jesus’ first miracle. He’s ushering in something new. In contrast to spiritual dryness, His people would be filled “to the brim” so to speak, with the Spirit. And the just like the wine Jesus provides at the end of the banquet was better than the first wine served, this new thing Jesus is ushering in is far superior that what was first! Hebrews 8:6 says, “But now Jesus, our High Priest, has been given a ministry that is far superior to the old priesthood, for he is the one who mediates for us a far better covenant with God, based on better promises.”
Amen to that! So, for the rest of the miracles we’ll cover today, let’s turn to the book of Mark and look at some miracles there. We’ll start in chapter 6 with the feeding of the 5,000 – something that’s found in all four gospels showing it must be pretty important. Just to give some background, John the Baptist is dead, Jesus has called all twelve of the Apostles and they’ve been with Him for a while. He’s been teaching them, they’ve seen Him do several miracles, and they’ve seen Jesus be rejected by some people, but not everyone – Jesus also has a pretty large following at this point, made up of mostly Jews. The Apostles were already been sent out by Jesus to proclaim that people should repent, according to Mark 6:12. They’ve just returned and are telling Jesus about all they’d been doing, but the huge group of followers just won’t leave any of them alone. Jesus can see they’re tired and hungry – as He must have been too – so he tries to take them away according to verse 32 “in the boat to a desolate place by themselves” for rest.
But they don’t end up by themselves because the people are so desperate, when they see Jesus and the Apostles leaving in the boat to cross the Sea of Galilee, they run for what could have amounted to four miles (5000 and got to the opposite side of the lake before the boat reached shore. Rose, there were 5000 men, plus women and children. So let’s say at least 10,000? For reference sake, about 20,000 run the Boston Marathon. When Jesus sees the desperate crowd, He has compassion on them because they were “like sheep without a shepherd” according to Mark 6:34. Jesus’ words harken back to Moses asking God to raise up a new spiritual leader for the people as they enter the Promised Land in Numbers 27:17 and to Ezekiel 34:45 where God promises to shepherd the people again directly, since Israel’s leaders had failed. That’s what’s happening here. So Jesus teaches the crowd until it grows late.
At that point, the Apostles come to Jesus and say, “Send them away to go into the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat.” (v36) and Jesus answers, “You give them something to eat.” (v37) Their comeback to Jesus shows that the Apostles aren’t understanding yet Who Jesus is, so Jesus gives them clues. A large group of people being in a desolate place with nowhere to get food should have reminded them of God feeding the people in the desert with manna and quail. The twelve basketfuls should have reminded them of the 12 tribes. Even the way Jesus divides them into groups of 50s and hundreds hinted at it! But they don’t get it. Jesus takes the only food available – 5 loaves and two fish – and creates food – enough to feed everyone till they were satisfied and still have some left over.
What can we take away from this miracle? First, Jesus saw the people were like sheep without a shepherd. They needed a spiritual shepherd. They needed teaching more than food. And the crowd seemed to be fine with that Jesus teaching for hours before they got fed! Jesus was taking care of their spiritual needs first because that was the most important. It doesn’t mean He didn’t have compassion for their physical needs, as we can see by the fact that He feeds them. We need to make sure when we’re doing “mission” work that we’re not just supplying physical needs but taking care of their spiritual need by proclaiming the Gospel too.
Also, we see that Jesus was trying to teach the Apostles two things: Depend on God, don’t try to be self-sufficient. Remember, they had returned from going out to proclaim the message of repentance and Jesus had sent them with nothing for their journey. We’re really quick to forget what God has done for us in the past. The disciples didn’t need to be self-sufficient, and neither do we. In fact, He’ll break us of it if we don’t learn to rely on Him. Second, Jesus was trying to get them to see that He was God. He created food. All those hints of manna in the desert, etc. attested to the fact that He was God.
Mark 6:45 tells us that when they were finished, “Immediately he made his disciples get into the boat and go before him to the other side, to Bethsaida, while he dismissed the crowd.” The disciples didn’t get it, but the crowd was starting to, according to John’s account of this miracle. John 6:14-15 gives us a hint why Jesus sent the disciples away quickly. It says, “When the people saw the sign that he had done, they said, “This is indeed the Prophet who is to come into the world!” Perceiving then that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself.”
The people were waking up that Jesus was the prophet foretold, but they were thinking of making Him a political leader. That wasn’t what Jesus was here for. Is it possible He sent the disciples away quickly so that they wouldn’t get caught up in trying to make Him a political leader along with the crowd? We’re not told that, but they’re sent away quickly for some reason. And Jesus goes up on the mountain to pray and when it was evening, Mark 6:48-50 tells us, “And he saw that they were making headway painfully, for the wind was against them. And about the fourth watch of the night he came to them, walking on the sea. He meant to pass by them, but when they saw him walking on the sea they thought it was a ghost, and cried out, for they all saw him and were terrified. But immediately he spoke to them and said, “take heart; it is I. Do not be afraid. And he got into the boat with them, and the wind ceased.”
These miracles – walking on water and stopping the wind– is Jesus showing He can control nature. It’s more proof that He is God. Job 9:8 talks about God “trampling the waves of the sea.” Even if the Apostles didn’t think of that verse, after what they’d just witnessed with the loaves and fish, you might think that at least they wouldn’t have been terrified. But this account in Mark tells us they hadn’t understood about the loaves and fishes, “but their hearts were hardened.” These were Jesus’ chosen Apostles. Jesus has been shining the spotlight on Himself to show them His Divinity. Yet, they’re lacking faith in Jesus’ power because they aren’t seeing what He’s been showing them.
There’s a lesson for us here. Believers have the Word of God and the Holy Spirit living in us to help us understand it. We have fellow believers to worship with; we have communion as means of grace to strengthen our faith when we participate with our brothers and sisters. We have baptism – another means of grace that can strengthen us, not only in our own baptism (if we haven’t been already), but in witnessing others being baptized. If we’re not taking advantage of all of these things given to us to help us know God, understand Him, and learn to trust Him, we need to examine ourselves and ask God to point out to us why we’re not.
Even a believers’ heart can get hardened – not to the point of the Pharisees or Pharaoh that we lose salvation. We can’t lose our salvation. But we can become slow to perceive and understand; we can lack in faith and trust when hard times come because we don’t appreciate what we’ve been given that would help us if we only took advantage of it. So this is a wake-up call! Going on in the book of Mark, Mark 6:53-56 says, “When they had crossed over, they came to land at Gennesaret and moored to the shore. And when they got out of the boat, the people immediately recognized him and ran about the whole region and began to bring the sick people on their beds to wherever they heard he was.And wherever he came, in villages, cities, or countryside, they laid the sick in the marketplaces and implored him that they might touch even the fringe of his garment. And as many as touched it were made well.”
One of the most popular examples of this is the woman with the issue of blood who touches Jesus’ garment and is healed from chapter 5 of Mark. She was an outcast because of her disease, something that she couldn’t help. God is perfectly holy. Any defilement prevented you from being able to worship and draw near to God. She was considered “unclean” according to Jewish ceremonial laws of Leviticus and Numbers.
Anything or anyone she touched would have been considered “unclean” – in fact, when she was in public she would have had to declare herself “unclean” so no one would touch her by accident, and become defiled themselves. “Unclean” was intended to be a picture of sin and to show just how sinful our lives, by nature, are. It was almost impossible to go through a day and not be contaminated by something and become unclean.
It was. Just being a woman with her period (or even touching one). have a skin blemish, have mold or mildew in your house, have a semen discharge, eat something unclean – all kept you from being able to approach God in worship until certain rules were followed and the proper sacrifice was made. The woman with the discharge touched Jesus’ garment – something that would have made Him unclean (if that was possible)!
Ligon Duncan pictures the crowd thinking, “Don’t touch her, Jesus! You’ll be unclean!” But He’s doing something new. In front of the crowd, Jesus tells her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace and be healed of your disease.” The statement implies both physical and spiritual healing. Jesus makes it abundantly clear both here and other places that it’s faith in Him that makes them well.
Jesus expands on that teaching in Mark 7:14-22, followed by another miracle showing the faith of a Gentile woman in verses 24-30 which says, “And from there he arose and went away to the region of Tyre and Sidon. And he entered a house and did not want anyone to know, yet he could not be hidden. But immediately a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit heard of him and came and fell down at his feet. Now the woman was a Gentile, a Syrophoenician by birth. And she begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. And he said to her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs.” But she answered him, “Yes, Lord; yet even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs.” And he said to her, “For this statement you may go your way; the demon has left your daughter.” And she went home and found the child lying in bed and the demon gone.”
Jesus and the disciples are still tired. So to try and get away, they leave Israel and go to the region of Tyre and Sidon. But they’re like celebrities and they can’t get away – not even among the Gentiles. Jesus and the Apostles are in the same region where Elijah performed more than one miracle for a gentile widow named Zarephath, the story that’s found in 1 Kings 17. Here’s another gentile woman with a child who needs help.
This passage is about the who gets presented with the message of the gospel first and who is second – the order is Jews then Gentiles. In Matthew 15:24, Jesus says, ““I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” He sends the Apostles only to the lost sheep of Israel in Matthew 10:5-7. But we know Gentiles were always going to be a part of God’s people – in fact, many already were throughout the Old Testament. And, the message goes out to the Gentile world (as we know). Paul tells us in Romans 1:16 “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.” But the message went to sinful, unrepentant Israel first. Jesus isn’t telling the woman that she didn’t have any right to His message and healing at all. He clearly leaves that door open in the passage. He’s telling her that she’s out of order and the Gentiles’ time hasn’t come yet.
Jesus calls the woman a dog, but it’s not the same term the Jews used for Gentiles, referring to them as “unclean wild scavengers.” The term Jesus used meant “little house dogs” or pets that some Jews had. Still, hearing Jesus say that had to be hard. She’s distraught about her daughter. But this woman has a faith that’s amazing. She’s heard Jesus was in town, so she goes to him immediately, and she’s prostrating herself before Jesus’ feet and calling him “Lord.” It’s the only time recorded that Jesus is addressed directly by a Gentile woman as “Lord.” She doesn’t balk at being called dog or being told she’s last, not first. She’s happy to be assigned a place with the dogs if it’s under Jesus’ banquet table! Despite the harsh words from Jesus, she doesn’t give up, she renews her request for healing. And, when Jesus said her daughter was healed, she leaves, believing him.
This Gentile woman’s faith a huge contrast to the Jewish leaders and the Apostles. If Jesus assigned us a place with the dogs, would we be offended? We aren’t owed anything, and we deserve judgement. Are we okay with that? Are we as persistent as this woman when we need help?
Good questions for us to ponder! After returning from Tyre and Sidon, some people brought their deaf friend with a speech impediment to Jesus and asked Him to lay hands on him. Then Mark 7:33-35 say , “And taking him aside from the crowd privately, he put his fingers into his ears, and after spitting touched his tongue. And looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened. “And his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly.”
There’s only one other time the word for speech impediment “mogilalos” is used and that’s in Isaiah 35:5-6, “Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then shall the lame man leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute sing for joy.” Those verses come on the heels of Isaiah describing the desolate wilderness sin had caused the nation of Israel to become, which is followed by a picture of restoration. And Jesus is fulfilling that prophecy here. But there are always questions about Jesus spitting and touching the man. Want to talk about that?
The question commentators can’t answer was did Jesus spit and touch the man’s tongue with his spit or just spit, and then touch the man’s tongue (not with spit). I don’t think that really matters. What seems to be going on is that Jesus put was trying to explain to the man what He was going to do – heal his deafness and his speech impediment. Remember, the man was deaf and other people brought him. Who knows if the man knew why they brought him or not. The friends asked Jesus to “lay hands on him.” Most commentators believe Jesus took the man aside by himself and is showed him what’s going to happen with signs because Jesus wanted the man to have faith that Jesus would do it. If Jesus had just walked up and laid hands on the man, healing him, it wouldn’t have proved the man’s faith. The order of healing goes along with the Gospel message. First, we hear it, and then we proclaim it to others. But the last verse in this account says, “And Jesus charged them to tell no one. But the more he charged them, the more zealously they proclaimed it.” Jesus does that over and over again with people and with demons (who know Him because He’s their Creator!). Jesus wanting people to keep quiet about Him is called “the Messianic Secret.” It wasn’t Jesus’ time yet, and the people didn’t understand Who He was or what He came for. So Jesus asked them not to tell. The people Jesus says this to have faith, but they are not obeying. Our faith should make us obedient.
It’s easy to glance over the times Jesus tells them to keep quiet because we think to ourselves that the people are actually doing something good by telling because they’re spreading the good news about Jesus. But instead, they should be obeying. 1 Samuel 15:22 says, “Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams.” Obeying is important for a believer. Rose, let’s talk about the feeding of the 4,000 found in Mark 8:1-10. I’ve heard people say this feeding is the same as the feeding of the 5,000 but that’s not the case.
We know that it’s not because Mark and Matthew’s gospels contain both accounts, and why would they do that if it were the same feeding? Some other proofs are that this account says, “again a great crowd gathered.” The words for basket are different. In the account of 5,000 there were small basketfuls left over. In the feeding of the 4,000, the word for basket means a large basket. This time, they’re in the Decapolis, a mostly Gentile area; before they were in a mostly Jewish area. Having both miracles in the Scriptures shows us that Jesus has compassion on both Jew and Gentile. That He offers healing to both. And that He meets the needs of both. They give us a picture of the Church.
One more miracle we’re going to look at is the healing of a blind man. It’s also from Mark 8:23-26. It says, “And he took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village, and when he had spit on his eyes and laid his hands on him, he asked him, “Do you see anything?” And he looked up and said, “I see people, but they look like trees, walking. ”Then Jesus laid his hands on his eyes again; and he opened his eyes, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly. And he sent him to his home, saying, “Do not even enter the village.”
Obviously, Jesus could have healed the man instantly, but he doesn’t. This is a picture of the spiritual eyes of the Apostles. They’re slowly awakening to the reality of Who Jesus is and what’s to come. Even after seeing Jesus feed thousands of people with virtually no food – twice! After seeing Jesus control nature, heal sick people, restore limbs, restore LIFE, the people closest to Him still don’t fully get it. The takeaway for us is that we have these (and other) miracles of Jesus recorded in Scripture for us. We need to believe them (and everything else Scripture says) and trust in faith that He is the Messiah and that He died to save us.
We do! We need to have faith without miracles. In John 20:29 after Thomas asked Jesus to prove Who He was, Jesus said, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” Going back to what we said at the beginning – that miracles happened through the Bible mostly in clusters shows us a few things: first, God mostly works providentially in the ordinary, everyday events of life – not in miracles, even in Biblical times. Think about it … Joseph didn’t have miracles happening in his life before or after Egypt. Ruth didn’t have miracles happening in her life. King David didn’t have miracles happening in his life. Neither did Solomon, Esther, or most of the other people from the Bible. Yet God was always working. So we should not be looking for signs and wonders as we go through our lives.
No, we shouldn’t. The way of salvation has been shown clearly in Scripture. Hebrews 2:3-4 tells us that. It says, “how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? It was declared at first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard, while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.” Once Jesus was revealed and the Church age got rolling, there’s been no need for miracles in the sense of God grabbing peoples’ attention to listen to His message. To quote one pastor, “Miracles are like the siren that goes off as a submarine is emerging from the depths of the sea: it is letting everyone know to “watch out”! But once the submarine is above the water, the sound of the siren is no longer needed. In fact, for it to continue to blare would actually prove to be a distraction for what is right in front of us.”
This doesn’t mean that God can’t or doesn’t work in extraordinary ways today in response to our prayers. He may provide healing of a disease (with or without medical intervention) or similar things. But they don’t qualify as “miracles” in the more narrow (and arguably biblical) sense of the term, as God getting our attention to hear the message. And, although Christians disagree on whether or not miracles still happen today, we should never look to them as a foundation for our faith. It’s our faith and trust in Jesus’ death on the cross as payment for our sin and His resurrection that saves us. We can’t stake our belief or unbelief on whether we’ve seen miracles or not.
Seeing miracles doesn’t make people come to God in repentance. Lots of people saw Jesus do miraculous things and never believed. The clusters of miracles we just talked about were accompanied by the Word of God. It’s Scripture that people with hearts that have been regenerated by the Holy Spirit respond to – not miracles.
One more thing to say is that since we know the canon of Scripture is closed and Jesus had the final Word – his Revelation to John – there won’t be any apostolic messengers authenticated by miracles. There are no new apostolic messengers.
Amen to that! We hope you’re enjoying our Advent series about Jesus. If so, leave a review on whatever podcast platform you listen on, and tell your friends and family. Or share the episodes on social media! Have a blessed day!
[1] https://www.proclaimanddefend.org/2021/02/04/is-there-a-pattern-to-the-bibles-miracles/