That’s kind of a trick question because the moment you see or hear the word miracles you think of, well, miracles! You know, the stuff Jesus did in the gospels and the Apostles in Acts, mostly having to do with physical healing. This post, however, is not about those kind of miracles. I have something much more profound in mind. Do I have your curiosity yet? Well, keep reading.
The reason for this post, and it’s been brewing for a while, is a conversation I had earlier this year with some family members. They asked me if I believed God still did miracles today, and so the discussion went down the physical healing rabbit hole. In one way it’s a silly question. If God is God, then of course he can and does heal, and he does things out of the ordinary from what would happen in the regular course of events. I don’t remember exactly the way the conversation went, but any talk of miracles of a physical kind must start with a biblical, redemptive-historical perspective.
The Nature and Purpose of Biblical Miracles
Biblical miracles are not magic. Their purpose is never to display raw power but to move forward God’s redemptive purposes in history. That’s why they are so rare in biblical history, which might surprise those who’ve never read the Bible. Miracles cluster around three significant redemptive periods, each affirming the message that God works in history to save His people. The first is the Exodus, and the events surrounding it. Another six or seven hundred years would pass before miracles occur again in Israel with the rise of the first prophets, Elijah and Elisha in the 9th century BC. One might think the prophets who follow performed miracles as well, but that was not the case. Even John the Baptist, the great forerunner of the Messiah who is compared to Elijah, did not perform miracles. It seems he would be the perfect person to utilize miracles to support his message, and an invented John the Baptist likely would have, but what we read in the gospels is real history of the real Baptist—no miracles. The third cluster of miracles would surround the greatest miracle worker in biblical history, Jesus of Nazareth, and his first followers.
There was nothing in Israel’s history close to the voluminous miracles performed by Jesus and the Apostles, so we are compelled to ask why. Remember that no Jew in the first century expected anything but a super-human Messiah, but human, nonetheless. They were looking for a king like David to overthrow their latest oppressors, the Romans. Their self-conception going back to the Exodus was that Jews are not slaves or servants of any earthly power, and the indignity of their Roman conquerors was unbearable. They had no choice but to suffer, until, that is, the long-awaited Messiah came to liberate them. They weren’t interested in some itinerant Jewish preacher healing people. As popular as that made Jesus in a time before the healing arts and knowledge of our day, it wasn’t enough to prove he who he said he was. Yet, ironically, it was the miracles that gave him credibility, and most importantly authority. The latter word is critical for a discussion of miracles. We’re not discussing whether God can perform miracles or not. That is not relevant to the discussion because we all know that that’s part of God’s job description. The question given miracles were so rare in redemptive history is, what were they for, what was their purpose, and do miracles today have the same purpose.
The ultimate miracle, Jesus coming back to life after being brutally tortured and killed on a Roman cross, was what earned him the ultimate authority in the universe. He himself tells us so in the Great Commission, that “all authority in heaven and earth” had been given to him. He ascended to sit at the right hand of God to exercise that authority, but he gave that authority in his name and power to the Apostles and prophets to build the foundation of the church. As Paul tells us in Ephesians 2:
19 Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. 21 In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. 22 And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.
The purpose of the miracles was to establish the foundation, and once it was established there was no need to continue the miracles. After the Apostles died there is no record of individuals performing such miracles in the church in the following centuries. That miracles were unique to the Apostles is also clear from reading through Acts and seeing specifically how God used Peter and Paul’s miracles to give authority to the messengers and the message. Once that authority was inscripturated there was no longer a need for specific individuals to display God’s healing power in such a way.
The purpose of this post, however, isn’t to fully argue this case but to explore miracles far greater than physical healing.
Love is the Drug I’m Thinking Of
I hope that title makes you laugh because you can hear the song in your mind as soon as you read it. That most definitely is not the love I’m thinking of. The greatest miracle, and to me one that proves without a doubt God exists, is when two sinners love one another. That is miraculous! One definition of a miracle is doing the impossible, and there is nothing more impossible than when a self-centered sinner loves another self-centered sinner. But what exactly makes this love so seemingly impossible? Well, that depends on what we mean by love.
The love of God in Christ has nothing to do with what our secular world means by love because that love is driven by feelings, and biblical love is not. Worldly love is easy because it is oriented to the fulfillment of self, while biblical love is self-sacrificial. And to add biblical insult to injury, biblical love is a command and we love others in obedience to God like it or not. As Christians we don’t have a choice. In Romans 13 , Paul says it is a debt we owe, and that to God. We can see the difference in the Greek word most often used for love in the New Testament, agape-ἀγάπη, or love which centers in moral preference. That simply means right action for the good of the other. Because it is fundamentally a choice, biblical love is a verb, a word that expresses an action, an occurrence, or a state of being. The feeling is ultimately irrelevant. In fact, true love happens when we don’t feel like it and don’t want to do it. I have a couple stories from my past about how I learned that the hard way.
When I was in college I was involved in a Christian campus ministry. One Saturday we went to a swap meet to try to sell stuff and share the gospel. When I was ready to go back to school at the end of the day, the head of the ministry, an older guy probably in his thirties at the time, said he wanted to go back with me. I didn’t realize he had an ulterior motive—my sanctification. Mike was a guy who could be blunt and had eyes that looked right through you. He could be intimidating. Pulling no punches he comes right out and says, “You’re not a very nice person to be around. You always want people to think like you, and you make them feel bad if they don’t.” And words so related. I was devastated. That night back in the dorm I experienced what is called a dark night of the soul. I told God not only can I not love people; I also don’t want to! At that moment this Christianity thing felt impossible, and I didn’t think I could do it. Thankfully, that was a Saturday, and the next morning I went to church. Whether it was in the sermon or a verse I read, God said something along the lines of, Of course, you can’t do it, but I can do it through you! I remember an instant change from despair to hope.
The next lesson came after I’d graduated from seminary and was working at a small Christian liberal arts college in their communications department. I was 28 at the time, and worked with a young lady who was terribly annoying. At some point I started complaining to God, well, it was more like whining. I’d had several jobs previously where I worked with women who were annoying, and I asked God why yet again I have to work with another person who is so annoying. As the saying goes, if you don’t want to know, don’t ask. And I could swear I heard a voice say out loud, “To teach you how to love her, ya moron!” Well, maybe not the last part, but it would have been fitting. Of course that is what love is for. It doesn’t have much value when we love people who are easy to love. I’m not sure those people exist, but you get the idea.
I’ve used this story many times over the years telling friends and family what they don’t want to hear. Not one ever said, thank you for sharing that. I can’t wait to love! One especially precious moment happened when I told this to a young family member as he was dealing with another difficult relative. He was lying on the floor on his back, and he started shaking his head saying over and over, no, no, no! Basically just like me, I don’t want to! Well, I told him, if you’re a follower of Christ you don’t have a choice. It is important to understand, though, that this kind of divine love is not demeaning; we don’t become doormats, but it allows us to have relationships that flourish in a way they never could when self is the central focus of our lives. It is impossible love made possible, and it transforms lives wherever it goes.
The Radical Death-Life in Christ
The main reason I wrote this post now was because of recently reading Romans 8. Paul explains how there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life has set us free from the law of sin and death. He goes on to explain what it means to share in Christ’s death to sin because we no longer live according to the flesh but to the Spirit. Here is how this works:
5 Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. 6 The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace.
In the past I related passages like this to morality, but never connected it to love. If you think about it, though, what our flesh desires, the sin principle that lives in us, desires our self-fulfillment. It’s all about me! That is why it always leads to death, and not life and peace. When Jesus commanded us to love our enemies, he showed us what that meant by dying for we who were his enemies. He also said following him in his example would be equally as difficult:
23 And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. 24 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.
I want to suggest for your consideration that this has far more to do with loving other sinners than it has to do with being a good moral person, as important as that is. Sin is ultimately relational, first with God, then us, then others. In Romans 12:1 Paul tells us because of God’s mercy to us, we are to offer our bodies as a living sacrifice, which is holy and pleasing to God. And he adds something amazing. Doing this is our reasonable, rational, logical service or worship of God. It makes total sense logically in light of everything He has done for us in Christ. We are then compelled to love others. And when you read verse 2 you will see he will tell us how we are to do it, even if much of the time we’re not quite sure. Paul tells us, though, we can “test and approve” what that is.
So, when we interact with someone who absolutely drives us up the wall, that is when the loving rubber meets the road. It applies to the mildly annoying people as well. That’s when we must take up our cross die to our flesh and ask ourselves, or better the Lord, how in the world do I love this person! And also repent that we just don’t want to. Then get on with it. Just remember it will not be easy. That is how you know it is true love.
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