Miracles
II. BASIS
The basis of miracles rests in God:
His freedom, His love, His power. To believe in the God of the Bible, the God of Christian faith, is to believe that miracles are possible.11 He is God, and not man! Against the background of His freedom, love, and power, miracles may be better understood.
First, let us consider the freedom of God. God is the sovereignly free Lord.
Although He has created the world and daily sustains it, He is not bound by it.
He is not subject to its structures and laws; they are subject to Him. He may act supernaturally because He is not a God of nature only. He is a God who is beyond, and therefore He can bring to bear other ways of producing results.
Ordinarily God works through the laws of nature, but He is free to go beyond them. In a real sense, to believe in
miracles is to affirm the freedom of God.‘*
Opposition to the reality of miracles may be rooted in inadequate views of God.13 For example, this opposition may stem from pantheism, which does not really view God as free. God is understood as being identical with the world. All things in nature, including its laws and operations, are aspects of His own being and action.14 Since the God of pantheism in no way transcends the universe, nature, or man, He is not free to act in relation to it, for it is His own being. His action is identical with natu- ral causality; hence God and ordinary means are inseparable. Miracles, as actions of a free God, therefore do not, indeed cannot, occur.15
Over against such a view it is impor- tant to recognize that while God is in the world, He is not (as pantheism holds) identical with it in whole or in part. God, as Scripture maintains, is the world’s creator; His being is utterly distinct from that of His creation, hence He is free to move in relation to it. The laws of the universe are not binding on Him (though He made them and ordi- narily operates through them), since they do not belong to His essence. Thus
I I “One who believes in God will believe in the possibility of miracles” (S. V. McCasland,
“Miracle,” IDB, 395.)
‘*Emil Brunner puts it well in saying: “To deny the reality of miracle would be to deny the freedom of God, of the God who is the Lord of the whole world. To see this God at work, who is the free Lord of the world which he has created, means encountering miracle, whether this miracle of the divine action works through the laws of nature or outside them”
(The Christian Doctrine of’ Creation und Redemption, 160).
‘IWe have previously noted that opposition to miracles may be due to an inadequate view of a closed universe: rigid natural law, pancausalism, etc. Here we are concerned with inadequate views of God.
14Spinoza in the sevcntecnth century developed an impressive pantheistic system. For Spinoza, God and nature are two names for the same reality. See, e.g., his Short Treatise on (;ocl. Mtrn. rrnd I/ix Wclf~lrc~.
15Some pintheists, incl’uding Spinoza. have spoken of miracle in the sense that everything i4 miracle. that is. the whole order of nature ((iod) is amazing, awe-inspiring, etc. However,
;I\ M;rcquarrie has well s a i d . “If c,\vc,rythinq can be called ‘miracle. the word has been gcnerali~ed to the point where it has been virtually devoided of content”(Principles of
C’Irri.tIitrrr ‘~‘l~c~~~lo,~~. 226).
at any time He may freely and voluntar- ily work in miraculous fashion without suspending any natural law.16
God is sovereignly free. As the Lord of Creation, He will in no way arbitrar- ily act against what He has made-its forms and structures, its dynamic oper- ations. Indeed without a basic continu- ity and regularity, all would be chaos.
(Imagine what would happen in a very brief time if the earth ceased to orbit the sun.) Yet in His sovereignty and free- dom God may move in ways other than the normal and expected-and with nothing in any way out of control. A free and sovereign Lord will be, when He desires, a miracle-working God.
Second, let us reflect on the love of God in relation to miracles. For God is not only sovereignly free, He is also a God of love and compassion. He does not perform miracles as arbitrary ac- tions, i.e., to show that He is free to do so, but as demonstrations of His love.
In the Old Testament the miracle of the Red Sea occurred through love for His people. Moses, reflecting on what had happened, said to Israel: “The LORD set his love upon you and chose you . . . the LORD has brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt” (Deut. 7:7-8).
Other miracles in the wilderness wan- derings such as manna from heaven (Exod. 16:14-36), water from the rock (Exod. 17:1-6), and clothes and sandals not wearing out over forty years (Deut.
295) are also manifestations of the love and mercy of God. Many of the mira- cles that occur 1ater”in the account of
MlIiACLES
Elijah and Elisha are remarkable dem- onstrations of mercy and love: Elijah’s being fed by ravens (1 Kings 17: l-6), the raising of a widow’s son from death (vv. 17-24), the increase of the widow’s oil (2 Kings 4: l-7), the enemy struck blind through Elisha’s prayers (6:18- 19). We might mention among many others two of the stories in Daniel: the three Hebrew young men preserved in the midst of a fiery furnace (Dan. 3: 16- 27) and Daniel delivered from the mouth of lions (6:16-24). These are clearly miracles, and all are manifesta- tions of God’s mercy in time of great need.
Particularly in the New Testament do we behold the love and mercy of God manifested in miraculous ways. Jesus’
first miracle, the turning of water into wine (John 2: l- 1 l), blesses a wedding feast; the second brings healing to an official’s son (4:46-54). Often the word
“compassion”‘7 occurs in relation to Jesus’ miracles. “He had compassion on them, and healed their sick” (Matt.
14: 14). Before the miraculous feeding of a multitude Jesus said, “I have compas- sion on the crowd . . . and I am unwill- ing to send them away hungry, lest they faint on the way” (15:32). In regard to two blind men, “moved with compas- sion, Jesus touched their eyes; and immediately they received their sight”
(20:34 NASB). A leper cried out to Jesus, and Jesus, “moved with compassion
stretched out His hand and touched him. . . . And immediately the leprosy left him and he was cleansed” (Mark 1:41-42 NASB). Before Jesus raised to life a widow’s son, “he had compassion 16This means, incidentally, that He works from beyond the sphere open to scientific investigation but which (as earlier suggested) is pointed to by the increasing scientific sense of the openness of the universe. Walter M. Horton writes, “In such an open universe, miracles are not ‘suspensions’ of natural laws . . . but voluntary acts coming from a dimension beyond the objective dimension to which the sciences ure confined [italics his]”
(Christian Theology: An Ecumenicul Approuch, 132). “Voluntary acts” are free acts of the transcendent Creator.
“The verb splunchnizomai means to “have compassion. ” It is sometimes also translated as “have pity.”
145
,‘.! : I ‘<, j ! 1 ii_: 11 I ii, 1
OII h e r ” (I,uke 7:13-14). T h e s e i n - stances where the word “compassion”
appears are only illustrative of the fact that Jesus’ miracles again and again were done out of deep love and con- cern. In the Book of Acts the word
“grace” is used in relation to the mira- cles done by Stephen: “And Stephen, full of grace and power, did great won- ders and signs’s among the people”
(6:8). In the case of Paul and Barnabas,
“the Lord . . . bore witness to the word of his grace, granting signs and won- ders’ 9 to be done by their hands”
t 14:3). Hence love (compassion, grace, mercy) is the wellspring of one miracle after another.
A God of love and mercy is a God of miracles. At this juncture we should mention how different this is from any idea of God that sees Him as being aloof and dispassionate. Here 1 refer to an- other view’0 of God that opposes mira- cles, namely deism. According to deis- tic thinking, God is the creator who is other than the world.?’ He has made all things, including the laws by which they operate, but is uninvolved in and u n - concerned about the world’s ongoing life and activity. As a far-distant deity,
He is not a God of providence ( t h e world is self-sustaining by virtue of the way God originally made it)22 much less o f “extraordinary providence,” i.e., miracles. Miracles are simply unimagi- nable in a world made self-sufficient by God. Moreover, from the deistic point of view, miracles are also an affront to reason because they emphasize a mys- terious interaction between God and the world.23 God has left the world to its own devices; He is not a miraculously acting God.24 In sum, the God of deism is not understood as One who interacts with His creation in terms of love and compassion.
The free and sovereign God, accord- ingly, is also the God of love. As such, He has performed the mightiest miracle of all, the miracle of the Incarnation:
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son” (John 3:16). Here truly is the incomprehensible mystery, the incomparable marvel of the eternal God through His Son taking on human flesh. It is the ultimate miracle from the great God of love and compassion- and to that love all other miracles bear witness.
A further word here: Because God is
lXA frequent Old Testament and New Testament expression for miracles.
lYA frequent Old Testament and New Testament expression for miracles.
?OIn addition to pantheism (above).
? I Thus deism is a quite different viewpoint from pantheism.
!?The figure of God as a Watchmaker was used as early as the fourteenth century by Nicolaus of Oresmes. God has made the world like a watch and has wound it up.
now runs on its own. The Watchmaker need concern Himself no further. The watch
!1 E.g., the book Christiunity nof Mysterious by early deist John Toland in 1696 expresses in its very title this deistic attitude. Deism came to flourish in England in the eighteenth century.
Jefferson.
It also had some outstanding adherents in early America, including Thomas His “Jefferson Bible” deletes all the miracles in the Gospels. Deistic thinking, while not ordinarily under that name, continues with any person who views God in a distant, unrelated fashion.
Z4 Deism should be carefully distinguished from theism. Theism, unlike deism, views God as involved in the world, hence miracles may occur. Historic Christianity is theistic therefore, not deistic. Theism is about midway between deism and pantheism. Theism, like tlcism, emphasizes the transcendence of God, and, like pantheism, it emphasizes the immanence of God-but without the extremes of either. Deism is absolute transcendence ((;od totally removed from the world); pantheism is absolute immanence (God wholly Identical with the world). Theism as expressed in Christian faith affirms both God’s otherness and His involvement: He is Creator und Sustainer, Maker crnd Redeemer.
both a free and a loving God, miracles are to be expected. In His sovereign freedom He acts in ways beyond the ordinary-the ongoing course of the world-and in His great love He is ever desirous of reaching out to human need.
Hence, whereas miracles are by no means God’s usual procedure (since He has established a world with regular laws and sequences), He may now and then act in an extraordinary manner. A sovereign, free, and loving God can but be a God of miracles.
Third, we now turn to the power o f God. Every miracle is in some way also a demonstration of divine power.25 When the psalmist reviewed the “won- derful works” of God done in Egypt, he declared that this was done that God
“might make known his mighty power”
(106:7-8). It is interesting that in de- scribing God’s deliverance of Israel from Egypt, the Bible often uses the vivid terminology of God’s “hand” or
“arm.” So Moses and the people of Israel, just after the miraculous crossing of the Red Sea, sang: “Thy right hand, 0 LO R D, glorious in power, thy right hand,26 0 LO R D, shatters the enemy”
(Exod. 15:6). Later Moses said to God,
“Thou didst bring them out by thy great power and by thy outstretched arm”
( D e u t . 9:29). So whether by “right hand” or “outstretched arm,” it is a matter of God’s great power that wrought Israel’s miraculous deliver- ance.
Hence, in addition to the freedom of God and love of God that are basic for divine miracles, there is also this impor-
M I R A C L E S
tant matter of power. Thus in relation to the deliverance from Egypt, God in His freedom might have decided to follow a different course than the ordinary and in His love He might have felt a strong compulsion to redeem His people, but without power to execute His plan, no miracle could have occurred. We have spoken before of God’s sovereign free- dom and love, and it is the word sovereign that points to His mighty power. God is Lord-the Lord God Almighty!
Let us focus for a moment on the remarkable demonstration of God’s power in the miracle of the virgin birth of Christ. The angel said to Mary, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will over- shadow you” (Luke 1:35). The finite procreative power of man will be tran- scended by the infinite creative power of the Most High God, and the great and awesome miracle will occur, name- ly, the birth of the Son of God in a virgin’s womb. “For,” as the angel added in verse 37, “with God nothing will be impossible.“*’
In this stupendous miracle we behold again the concomitance of freedom, love, and power. God in His untram- meled freedom chose to transcend the usual biological process that includes both female and male; in His abundant love He decided to take on human flesh to redeem mankind; and in His vast power He enabled the womb of a virgin to bear the eternal Son of God. What marvel’ and wonder it all is!
Other miracles of the Old and New
*sRecall our brief discussion of miracles on pages 72-73 under the heading of God’s
“Omnipotence.” It begins with the statement: “God the omnipotent One is the God of miracles. ’ ’
26Sometimes the expression is “mighty hand,” e.g., “with great power and a mighty hand” (Exod. 32: 11). “Right” and “mighty” are, of course, interchangeable, since the right hand is viewed as the hand of might and power.
*‘This applies to the accompanying miracle of the conception of John the Baptist in the barren womb of Elizabeth. The words just quoted above are preceded by these: “And behold, your kinswoman Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren” (1:36).
Testaments are also, of course, demon- strations of the power of God. We will note this in more detail later under the heading of miracles as “powers.” For now, let me close this section by refer- ring to one climactic, great miracle- the Resurrection. There were those in Jesus’ days who questioned a future resurrection, and to them Jesus replied,
“You know neither the scriptures nor the power of God” (Matt. 22:29). By the power of Almighty God, Jesus was saying, the miracle will happen that will cause even those whose bodies have long decayed to some day be raised from the dead. The assurance of this, we should add, lies in the fact of Jesus’
own resurrection, a mighty act of pow- er. It is “the working of his [God’s]
great might which he accomplished in Christ when he raised him from the dead” (Eph. 1: 19-20). Already God’s great power has been manifest in the miracle of Christ’s resurrection; it will be manifest finally throughout creation when all who have died will be raised at the end of history.
III. DESCRIPTION
in now coming to a description of miracles, we may begin by speaking of a miracle as a r~onder. The English word mirucle in its etymology suggests something that causes wonder.28 A hap- pening or an event that seems to have no adequate explanation is an object of wonder. So we may begin there in describing them, for wherever miracles
are said to occur in Scripture or else- where, they are matters of wonder- ment, astonishment, amazement, and even perplexity. 29 There seems to be no adequate explanation for the event that occurred.
Miracles, accordingly, are wonders.
In the Old Testament the miracles of the Exodus from Egypt are often called
“wonders’‘-God’s wonders. God said to Moses, “I will stretch out my hand and smite Egypt with all the wonders which I will do in it” (Exod. 3:20).
Thereafter, in reference to the plagues God sent, the Scripture reads: “Moses and Aaron did all these wonders before Pharaoh” (I 1: 10). After the miraculous crossing of the Red Sea, Moses and the people of Israel sang forth: “Who is like thee, 0 LO R D, among the gods? Who is like thee, majestic in holiness, terrible in glorious deeds, doing wonders?”
(15: 11). When Joshua forty years later was preparing to lead Israel across the Jordan, he said to the people: “Sanctify yourselves; for tomorrow the LORD will do wonders among you” (Josh. 35).
The next day the Jordan River parted, even as the Red Sea had done in the previous generation. The psalmist later sang, “I will call to mind the deeds of the LO R D; yea, I will remember thy wonders of old” (77: 11). But it is not just the wonders of the past, for the psalmist shortly thereafter added,
“Thou art the God who workest won- ders” (v. 14). God is a wonder-working God-a God of miracles.1”
ZX”Miracle” is derived from the I,atin verb mirari, “to wonder at.” The noun form is
mirt4c~ulrtm. “object of wonder.”
2’) E.g., see such New Testament Scriptures as Mark 5:42--“they were immediately overcome with amazement”
astonished beyond measure”
(at the raising of a dead girl); Mark 7:37-“they were (at a deaf and dumb man now hearing and speaking); Acts 2:12--“all were amazed and perplexed” (at people speaking in other tongues).
3t”l’he word “wonders” in various other English translations of the Scriptures quoted above is sometimes translated “miracles.” Miracles are wonders-wonders of God and often producing wonder.
148
In the New Testament “wonders”3r is always used in connection with
“signs.“32 The conjunction of the two terms33 suggests that the wonders are signs that point to something else-in- deed, to supernatural activity. For ex- ample, “Barnabas and Paul . . . related what signs and wonders God had done through them” (Acts 15:12). The won- ders and signs, while done through men, were from God.
Let us look further at the designation of a miracle as a sign. While in the Scripture the word “sign” may refer to a distinguishing mark or token of a nonmiraculous kind,34 in many cases reference is made to an event that is other than the ordinary course of na- ture. We have already observed the close connection of “signs” with “won- ders”; however, frequently when
“signs” (or “sign”) is used alone,35 there is unmistakably a sense of the wondrous, the miraculous about it. The plagues in Egypt are referred to as signs (Exod. 4:8-9), as are the numerous miracles of the wilderness period (Num.
14:l I), the moving back of the shadow of the sun ten steps (2 Kings 20:8- 1 1), and many others. In the case of the sun’s shadow, this was a sign assuring King Hezekiah of a divine healing:
“This is the sign to you from the LORD,
MIRACLES that the LORD will do the thing that he has promised” (v. 9). Hence, all the Old Testament signs, like those men- tioned, point beyond themselves to God and His action.
In the Gospels the word “sign” is frequently used to signify miracles. The scribes and Pharisees came to Jesus saying, “Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you” (Matt. 12:38)-in other words a miracle of some kind that would presumably validate His author- ity. The Pharisees and Sadducees later similarly “asked him to show them a sign from heaven” (Matt. 16: 1). A “sign from heaven” would, of course, be a miracle. King Herod, when Jesus was brought on trial to him, was pleased
“because he had heard about him, and he was hoping to see some sign done by him” (Luke 23:8). In the Synoptics the only sign Jesus spoke of in regard to Himself was “the sign of the prophet Jonah,” for, as He said, “an evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign;
but no sign shall be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah” (Matt.
12:39). This one sign to be given to an unbelieving and sinful generation will parallel Jonah’s confinement in the bel- ly of the whale and his emergence from it: Jesus’ own burial in the earth and His subsequent resurrection. This was the great miracle of the Resurrection. In
“The Greek word is terata (terus in the singular). According to Leon Morris, “The word [wonder] denotes a portent, something beyond explanation, at which men can but marvel”
(The Gospel According to John, NICNT, 290).
32The Greek word is stmeiu (dmeion in the singular).
33This occurs sixteen times in the New Testament: Matthew 24:24; Mark 13:22; John 4:48; Acts 2: 19, 22,43; 4:30; 512; 6:8; 7:36; 14:3; 15: 12; Romans 15:19; 2 Corinthians 12: 12;
2 Thessalonians 2:9; Hebrews 2:4. The order may be either “signs and wonders” or
“wonders and signs.” In the Old Testament the expression “signs and wonders” or “sign and wonder” (whether singular or plural invariably in that order) is to be found in Exodus 7:3; Deuteronomy 4:34; 6:22; 7: 19; 13: 1-2; 26:8; 28%; 29:3; 34: 11; Nehemiah 9: IO; Psalm
105:27 (KJV); Isaiah 8:18 (KJV); 20:3 (KJV); Jeremiah 32:20-21; Daniel 4:2-3; 6:27. In the Old Testament, unlike the New Testament, “signs and wonders*’ are not always conjoined (note, e.g., in the quotations above re “wonders,” the word “sign” is not used).
34E.g., see Deuteronomy 6:8- “Bind them as a sign upon your hand”; Mark 14:44-
“Now the betrayer had given them a sign”; Romans 4: I I - “He received circumcision as a sign . . . of the righteousness which he had by faith.”
j5There are many such instances in both the Old and the New Testament.
149