The Miracles of Jesus
No one denies that Jesus had a human nature, and much of what he did, perhaps most of what he did, was through the exercise of his merely human abilities. Intellectually, he was gifted enough for his words to inspire wonder, even among his enemies.
Some of what he did, though, makes sense only in reference to his divine nature. Miracles are recorded in all four gospels. Interwoven with all that Jesus did and said, it is impossible to delete them without rendering what is left of the gospels all but incoherent. Nonetheless, people are always trying to explain them away because of the conceptual difficulties they raise.
Demons and Exorcism
Six of the thirty-three recorded miracles between Cana and Calvary were exorcisms -- miracles that seem to create more problems for the modern mind than the raising of Lazarus. If Jesus came across six cases of demonic possession in a three-year period, there is every reason to believe that demonic possession is a modern occurrence as well. It is difficult, though, to accept that demons are the cause of some of the physical and mental afflictions we now understand, or try to understand, in scientific terms.
Some suggest that Jesus himself did not believe in demonic possession, that he spoke as if to demons because of the beliefs of his audience. Nowhere else, though, does Jesus nurture ignorance in spiritual matters, and he doesn't sound like he's pandering. When a demon speaks, we get the impression that its superiors have put it up to ask a question: "We know by now that you are the Christ, but what does that mean exactly? What are your plans, and how will they impact the lord of hell?" The gospels portray Jesus contending "not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness."
Miracles and the Laws of Nature
Jesus healed the leper, the gospels tell us, out of compassion. It was a trait that was to characterize much of Jesus' ministry. Why not let nature take its course, though? Why have laws of nature in the first place, if God is going to repeal them out of compassion? After all, it is in large part because of the immutable laws of nature that people are always getting hurt -- falling from heights, drowning, even growing old.
Miracles seem to violate the laws of nature, but of course they do not. When a fielder catches a baseball that would otherwise fall to the ground, he is not violating the law of gravity. Gravity is there, acting on the ball; it is just that the fielder has introduced an opposing force. If God exists at all, we would expect him to be capable of exerting force. The force exerted may be invisible, but so is magnetism. The true miracle would be if God existed, omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent, and never did anything.
Jesus' Claim to Divinity
More difficult than the miracles themselves is Jesus' claim to divinity. It is this claim that makes it difficult for us to admire Jesus as merely a man. His contemporaries had the same difficulty. The charge of blasphemy comes early in Jesus' public life, when he forgives a paralytic for his sins.
Jesus answers the charge with a show of power, healing the man of his paralysis, but the answer is irrelevant to the charge. Prophets of old had healed the sick -- Elijah and Elisha had even raised the dead -- but none had claimed the authority to forgive sins. That authority belongs to God alone, so the only real defense Jesus could have raised is his own divinity. He does not raise it.
What he does is to display supernatural power, power clearly beyond that of his human nature. God is a possible source of such power, but why would God supply it to a blasphemer, a mere man claiming divine authority for himself? The obvious answer is that God would not. There is, of course, another source of supernatural power, and soon Jesus' enemies would be suggesting it.
His enemies do not challenge the miracles themselves; those evidently were beyond denying. "What are we to do?" they asked each other. "For this man performs many signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and destroy both our holy place and our nation."
The miracles in the gospels put the issue squarely before us. The source of Jesus' power was divine, or it was demonic. Jesus was good, or he was evil. The miracles leave us no third option.
Michael L. Monhollon, a licensed attorney, teaches business and employment law at Hardin-Simmons University. His novelization of the gospel story is being serialized at http://bookserial.com/
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