Subject:
JESUS CHRIST'S MIRACLES ‑ Bertrand Comparet
Date:
Sun, 01 Apr 2001 13:44:55 ‑0400
From:
MinuteMan <[email protected]>
To:
JESUS CHRIST'S MIRACLES
by Bertrand L. Comparet
A little more than 1,900 years ago, the best and
kindest person who ever
walked
this earth in human form spent three years
intensively doing nothing but
good. On many occasions He displayed the power of God
to work miracles. In
an age when superstition was strong, and most people
expected a display of
miracles to convince them of great power, there would
naturally be a great
temptation to impress the multitude by a show of
supernatural power. The
Jews were constantly demanding that Jesus Christ
should work some miracle
as a "sign" that He was more than just a man. All
four Gospels record this:
Matthew 12:38‑40; Mark 18:11‑12; Luke 11:16, 29‑32;
and John 6:30. But He
always refused to do this: He had not come as a
mountebank, to amuse people
of that character with a spectacular show. Just as He
refused to perform
miracles for Satan, as is recorded in the 4th.
chapter of Matthew, He also
refused to perform them at the demand of the Jews.
First of all, He did only those miracles which the
prophets of the Old
Testament had prophesied the Messiah would do. This
was for a definite
purpose: those who knew and believed the Old
Testament (which was all of
the Bible which was in existence at that time) would
by this recognize Him
as the Messiah, the Christ. When John the Baptist
sent some of his
disciples to inquire if Jesus was the Christ, as we
read in Luke 7:19‑22,
Jesus reminded them of the miracles which 'He had
performed‑‑‑these being
the very miracles which Isaiah had prophesied; this
would be proof enough
for John. But those who could not or would not see
this, also could not
understand His true character when He told them that
He was the Christ, as
He told the Jews in John 10:24‑25.
What was the nature of these miracles? They were all
connected with the
great Gospel He preached: that of the Kingdom of God,
to be established on
this Earth. In the Kingdom of God, the defects of the
present age will not
exist; and Jesus had come to set men free from the
crushing burdens we
carry in this evil age.
The great majority of His miracles were the healing
of the sick, the
deformed the paralyzed and and the blind, and He also
freed them from
possession by demons. The Jews well knew that leprosy
was incurable, as far
as all human skill of that day could do; yet on
several occasions Jesus
Christ healed it with only a spoken word. Those who
otherwise were
condemned to the living death of a disease under
which their flesh rotted
away while yet they lived, and because of this they
were outcasts from all
human society‑these people He restored to full health
and useful, happy
life. Twice He restored strength and activity to
those who for years had
lain hopelessly paralyzed. One woman who had for 18
years of misery been
deformed as a hunchback, He restored to perfect form
with but the touch of
His hand. Many who lived in the hopeless despair of
blindness He blessed
with renewed vision, giving them not only the beauty
of the world about
them but also the usefulness which enabled them to
earn their living,
instead of being dependent upon charity. Those who
lay in pain and weakness
upon their beds, too sick to rise, more of these than
could be counted He
healed with only a spoken word. Many who were dumb
came to Him for help,
and to them He gave the power to speak.
God did not intend that we should be tormented by
sicknesses, which also
shorten our lives. He meant for us to live under the
glorious conditions of
His kingdom, free from crime and sin, free from
sickness and death. But
instead of this, men chose to live under the rule of
Satan, despite the
terrible price we have paid for this all during the
course of human
history. It was to set us free from this that Jesus
Christ came: as He said
in John 10:10, "1 am come that they might have life,
and that they might
have it more abundantly." Therefore, these miracles
of healing were a
demonstration to us of the perfection of His kingdom,
as well as the proof
of His identity.
Again, He fed multitudes‑4,000 at one time, and 5,000
at another‑‑out in
the desert where no food was to be found: for this
purpose, He made a few
fishes and loaves of bread sufficient to feed
thousands, and even the
scraps left over were more than the food they had in
the beginning. But
note that He did this, not for the benefit of the
merely lazy: He did it
for whose who had followed Him to listen to His
teachings, and who would
not leave Him even to go back to the towns where they
could eat. Only when
there was a hunger of the soul for His truth did He
also feed their bodies.
He calmed the storm at sea, to save the lives of His
disciples who were
threatened by it. He cast out devils from those whose
lives had been ruined
by them. Here was the power of God plainly displayed:
and yet the
unbelieving Jews only scoffed, and said that He could
only cast out devils
by the help of Beelzebub, the prince of devils. But
the Jews well knew
that, by the laws of God in the Old Testament to
which they gave insincere
lip‑service, their High Priests should have been able
to cast out
devils‑‑‑yet they could not; so Jesus reminded them,
"If I by Beelzebub
cast out devils, by whom do your children cast them
out? Therefore, they
shall be your judges. But if I cast out devils by the
Spirit of God, then
the Kingdom of God is come unto you." Matthew
12:22‑29
Finally, as the greatest miracle of all, He several
times restored the dead
to life. Surely here was the power of God beyond any
possibility of doubt;
but also, here was the demonstration of the goodness
of God, who does not
want us to suffer death, and has set us free from it
through Jesus Christ.
In the Kingdom of God, the reign of death is ended.
In all of these we see His consistent policy. When
Satan asked Him, to turn
stones Into bread, and to show that He could safely
jump from the topmost
pinnacle of the Temple, as demonstrations of His
supreme power over nature,
He refused; yet He produced food in plenty to feed
those who believed in
Him; and He calmed the storm to save the lives of His
disciples. In a world
where God's economic laws were mocked, at the cost of
ever‑widening poverty
among the people; where the moral laws of God were
mocked, at the cost of
general depravity; where the sick became more
numerous with each
generation, and they had lost the power to restore to
sanity the wretched
ones who raved and fought; in that world, with only a
word or the gentlest
touch of His hand, He stopped pain and sorrow,
restored the sick to
strength and usefulness, and reminded them that only
God is the source of
all good. As He said in John 5:12, "Verily, verily I
say unto you, the Son
can do nothing of Himself, but what He seeth the
Father do: for what things
soever He doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise."
These miracles were
not to display His power for the admiration of the
fickle mob: they were to
show the power of God, and what it would be like in
the Kingdom of God, for
which the faithful few waited.
How glaring was the contrast between the world as He
found it and the
Kingdom of God which He taught them! But let us not
forget‑ that our world
of today is little better than that which rejected
Him nineteen centuries
ago. We also have our sick, our cripples, our
paralyzed, many of whom we
know not how to heal; we also have our poor, but we
have not learned how to
feed them except at the cost of excessive taxes which
again create the very
evil they were supposed to remedy; we also have our
storms and natural
calamities bringing death and destruction, but we are
powerless before
them; and we also face the bitter sorrow of families
separated by death.
All our vaunted civilization, our education, our
science, has not relieved
us of these evils. How long will it take us to see
that man's materialism,
however good his intentions, can never furnish the
answer to our needs? It
is just as true today as it was then, that in Jesus
Christ alone is the
answer: His power, His mercy, His goodness and
generosity afford the only
possible way for us to secure the good things which
can come only in the
Kingdom of God.