The Gospels record at least 36 miracles performed by Jesus throughout his roughly three[1] years of ministry. But John indicates that there were “many” more that were not recorded:
“Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book.” (John 20:30)
Indeed, the Gospels make oblique references to some of these “many” other miracles:
“Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people.” (Matthew 4:23)
“A large crowd followed him, and he healed all who were ill.” (Matthew 12:15)
Whether one believes that Jesus’ miracles were performed using his own power or the power of the Father is, in one sense, largely irrelevant at this point. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit comprise the one God, indivisible yet existing eternally and mysteriously as three distinct entities. And it is the power of this one God that is clearly evident in the miracles of Jesus.
The miracles of Jesus served two overarching purposes. Firstly, at their simplest level, they were works of compassion. When the Son of God entered our broken world and encountered the suffering of lost and wounded people, he had compassion on them and healed them. He was deeply moved by their suffering and wanted to help them. Indeed, on seven occasions the Gospel writers preface their narration of a specific miracle by stating that “Jesus had compassion on him/her/them” (Matthew 9:36; 14:14; 15:32; 20:34; Mark 6:34; 8:2; Luke 15:20). Compassion was Jesus’ primary motivation.
This is an important point, because it shows that God loves us and cares very deeply about our human suffering. If God were unmoved and unconcerned about the suffering in our world as many sceptics claim, then he would not have bothered to heal and help people when he came among us. In fact, he would not have bothered to come among us at all but would have remained aloof and distant in Heaven.
On one occasion, Jesus was relaxing over dinner at the home of Simon Peter after a busy day of ministry. He had preached at the local synagogue earlier in the day and had then ministered to a large crowd, healing those who were sick and demon possessed. Jesus would have been understandably tired and looking forward to a quiet evening, but it was not to be. Mark records:
“That evening after sunset the people brought to Jesus all the sick and demon-possessed. The whole town gathered at the door, and Jesus healed many who had various diseases. He also drove out many demons, but he would not let the demons speak because they knew who he was.” (Mark 1:29-34)
Sometime after sunset, when Jesus had expected to enjoy some rest, “the whole town” came knocking and asked Jesus to continue to heal all who were sick or incapacitated. And so he did. We aren’t told how long this evening session of healing lasted nor how many were healed, but if “the whole town” were indeed there, along with “all the sick and demon-possessed”, it would have involved hours rather than minutes. This incident is a wonderful example of the compassion of Jesus, as he put aside his own tiredness and ministered to the needs of sick and broken people. There was no ulterior motive at play here. There were no religious leaders present for Jesus to impress. He was simply moved to respond in compassion and alleviate the suffering of these people. Indeed, the final statement by Mark that “he would not let the demons speak because they knew who he was” (Mark 1:34) indicates that Jesus’ primary motivation in healing these people was not to promote himself in any way but simply to care for the wounded and broken.
So, the first purpose of Jesus’ miracles, at their simplest level, was compassion. But they also fulfilled a second, deeper purpose. The miracles of Jesus also served as signs which demonstrated his divinity and his role as Messiah or Saviour of the world. The Gospels refer to Jesus’ miracles as “signs” twenty-two times, with John’s Gospel using this term the most (on seventeen occasions).
The extraordinary acts that Jesus performed served as signs that could not be ignored. They announced to the world that he was who he claimed to be; God come among us in human form. Indeed, one must ask what else we might expect of God if he were to manifestly visit our planet? Surely the kind of mind-boggling authority over the natural world that Jesus’ miracles demonstrated is precisely what we would expect if the Creator of our world were to come among us.
The miracles of Jesus can be divided Into five different categories, each of which fulfil a slightly different and nuanced purpose.
Miracles of Healing
The healing of sickness and disease is the most common type of miracle that Jesus performed, involving twenty-one recorded instances:
- Healing of a leper (Matthew 8:1-4, Mark 1:40-45, Luke 5:12-16)
- Healing of the centurion’s servant (Matthew 8:5-13, Luke 7:1-10)
- Healing of Peter’s mother-in-law (Matthew 8:14-15, Mark 1:29-31, Luke 4:38-39)
- Healing of the paralytic (Matthew 9:1-8, Mark 2:1-12, Luke 5:17-26)
- Healing of the woman with an issue of blood (Matthew 9:20-22, Mark 5:25-34, Luke 8:43-48)
- Healing of two blind men (Matthew 9:27-31)
- Healing of the mute demoniac (Matthew 9:32-33)
- Healing of the man with a withered hand (Matthew 12:9-14, Mark 3:1-6, Luke 6:6-11)
- Healing of the blind and mute demoniac (Matthew 12:22)
- Healing of the Canaanite woman’s daughter (Matthew 15:21-28, Mark 7:24-30)
- Healing of a deaf and mute man (Mark 7:31-37)
- Healing of a blind man at Bethsaida (Mark 8:22-26)
- Healing of a boy with an unclean spirit (Matthew 17:14-21, Mark 9:14-29, Luke 9:37-43)
- Healing of a blind man named Bartimaeus (Matthew 20:29-34, Mark 10:46-52, Luke 18:35-43)
- Healing of a crippled woman (Luke 13:10-17)
- Healing of a man with leprosy (Luke 14:1-6)
- Healing of ten lepers (Luke 17:11-19)
- Healing of Malchus’ ear (Luke 22:49-51)
- Healing of the royal official’s son (John 4:46-54)
- Healing of the invalid at Bethesda (John 5:1-15)
- Healing of the man born blind (John 9:1-12)
As well as indicating Jesus’ compassionate nature, these healings also reveal that sickness and suffering are unwelcome intruders into God’s once-perfect world. If sickness and suffering were the way God intended the world to be from the beginning, then Jesus would not have gone around healing people on so many occasions! The prophetic book of Revelation points to the eventual restoration of creation to its original perfect state, where “there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away”(Revelation 21:4). The many and varied healings of Jesus are, therefore, prophetic “signs” which point to this eventual removal of all suffering and creation’s restoration to its original perfection.
Miracles of Provision
- Turning water into wine at Cana (John 2:1-11)
- Feeding of the 5,000 (Matthew 14:13-21, Mark 6:30-44, Luke 9:10-17, John 6:1-14)
- Feeding of the 4,000 (Matthew 15:32-39, Mark 8:1-9)
- Miraculous catch of fish (Luke 5:1-11, John 21:1-14)
What is notable about the miracles of provision is that they were not entirely necessary. The issues that Jesus was rectifying were not urgent or serious in the way that sickness was. The crowds could have walked home and been fed. The wedding couple could have quietly purchased more wine. The fledgling disciples would not have perished for want of a catch of fish that day – unsuccessful fishing trips are a disappointing but non-catastrophic fact of life!
Yet in each of these cases Jesus chose to intervene, using divine power to miraculously provide for the ordinary, non-urgent needs of people. And he provided in excess. Two boats were filled to overflowing with fish. Twelve baskets of leftovers were collected. And the wine was the best wine the master of the banquet had tasted. Jesus didn’t just provide adequately, he provided excessively, to the point of over-abundance.
These miracles were signs not only of God’s promise to provide for our needs, but also his desire to bless us abundantly. Just as Jesus is our Creator, he is also our sustainer who promises to meet our daily needs (Matthew 6:25-34) and give us “life in all its fullness” (John 10:10). This is a reflection of Old Testament promises which speak of God filling our cup to overflowing (Psalm 23:5) and the provision of manna (food) from heaven (Exodus 16). The incarnate Jesus embodied the caring, generous heart of God – the God who loves to abundantly bless those who trust and love him.
Miracles of Exorcism
- Casting out an unclean spirit in Capernaum (Mark 1:21-28, Luke 4:31-37)
- Casting out demons in the region of the Gerasenes (Matthew 8:28-34, Mark 5:1-20, Luke 8:26-39)
- Exorcising a mute man possessed by a demon (Matthew 9:32-33, Luke 11:14)
- Casting out a demon from a Syrophoenician woman’s daughter (Matthew 15:21-28, Mark 7:24-30)
These are miracles of a primarily spiritual nature that involve Jesus confronting and defeating Satanic forces of evil. In each case, not only is Jesus freeing someone from spiritual bondage and torment, but he is also powerfully engaging with God’s evil enemy and revealing his complete supremacy. These encounters are deeply symbolic, depicting the clash of two kingdoms. In coming to Earth, Jesus has entered enemy occupied territory with the sole intention of defeating the enemy and setting the captives free. Indeed this is a major theme of Jesus’ mission, which he enunciated at the beginning of his public ministry:
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free.” (Luke 4:18)
Ultimately, of course, Jesus would deliver his final crushing blow to the enemy by means of his death and resurrection. By dying in our place, he set us free from condemnation and by rising from the dead he broke Satan’s death-grip over us. These recorded exorcisms in the Gospels are the tectonic rumblings that foreshadow the cataclysmic earthquake of Christ’s death and resurrection which shattered the enemy’s stranglehold over humanity and broke open the tombs of our captivity.
Miracles of Control Over Nature
- Calming the storm (Matthew 8:23-27, Mark 4:35-41, Luke 8:22-25)
- Walking on water (Matthew 14:22-33, Mark 6:45-52, John 6:16-21)
- Withering the fig tree (Matthew 21:18-22, Mark 11:12-14, 20-25)
These few miracles, particularly calming the storm and walking on water, arguably rate as Jesus’ most visually spectacular. They demonstrate a mindboggling level of authority and control over the natural world. We will explore this more fully in the next chapter but, for now, there is a simple yet profound implication for us to consider. In each of these three instances, creation was misbehaving. The fig tree was not yielding fruit as Jesus wanted it to and violent storms threatened or frustrated the disciples on two occasions. But in each case the Creator himself turned up and chastised his wayward creation. Indeed, in the miracle of the calming of the storm, we are told that Jesus “rebuked [epitimao] the wind and the waves” (Matthew 8:26). This is the word for the scolding of a disobedient child. It infers complete authority and dominance of the one doing the scolding over the one being scolded.
These miracles provide us with further insights into the coexistence of the human and divine within the incarnate Son of God. In coming into our world as a human he became subject to the natural world as we all are. He got rained on. He experienced extremes of heat and cold. He got dust blown into his face and mud caked between his toes. He experienced hunger and thirst and tiredness. He was “in” creation and was subject to its arbitrary whims as we all are. But at the same time, he was also “over” creation. He came into our world as its Creator and Ruler. Before he ever walked the dusty hills of Galilee he had shaped them at the beginning of creation. Before he cursed and withered the fig tree, he had called forth all the plants of the ground (Genesis 1:11). Before he ever calmed the foaming sea, he had created all the Earth’s oceans. And before he ever stilled the roaring wind, he had called forth the wind to separate land from sea again after the flood (Genesis 8:1).
Although Jesus lived as a human in our natural world, he also, at the same time, continued to rule over it as its master. And when it misbehaved, he simply used the power of God to bring it back into line.
Miracles of Resurrection
- Raising of Jairus’ daughter (Matthew 9:18-26, Mark 5:21-43, Luke 8:40-56)
- Raising of the widow’s son at Nain (Luke 7:11-17)
- Raising of Lazarus (John 11:1-44)
- Jesus’ own resurrection (Matthew 28; Mark 16; Luke 24; John 20)
While Jesus’ miracles of control over nature were visually impressive, his miracles of resurrection were physically mind-boggling and spiritually profound. Physically, they involved the reversal of decay and rot that must surely have set in, particularly in the case of Lazarus whom we are told had been dead for four days. In raising people from the dead, Jesus had to not only restore the soul and spirit to the body after their separation at death (Ecclesiastes 12:7)[2], but he also had to take a rotting piece of flesh and recreate a fully functioning body, including the healing of whatever had caused the death in the first place. If this doesn’t impress you, you’ve been watching too many ridiculous super-hero movies!
The spiritual implications of these resurrection miracles, however, are even more profound than the physical restoration that took place. These miracles symbolise the victory over death that Jesus’ own death and resurrection eventually secured for us. This is a victory that will ultimately result in everyone rising again beyond the grave – either to experience the joy of eternal life or the torment of eternal separation from God. In this sense, these resurrection miracles are a foretaste of our eternal future, as God had long foretold in the Old Testament:
“But your dead will live, LORD; their bodies will rise—let those who dwell in the dust wake up and shout for joy.” (Isaiah 26:19)
To those who prefer to believe, “When you’re dead, you’re dead, and there is nothing more”, Jesus authoritatively declares, “Think again!”
One final aspect of Jesus’ miracles is worth mentioning. Of his thirty-six recorded miracles, almost all of them were accomplished by the power of his voice alone. Only eight miracles involved Jesus touching the person being healed,[3] and even in those instances, his touch seemed to be merely a symbolic reinforcement of his words of power. The miracles of Jesus represent a mind-boggling level of power. Simply by speaking he calmed storms, manipulated physical matter and raised the dead.
We are meant to see a connection here. The Creator who spoke creation into existence in the beginning continued to control it by the power of his voice during his incarnation. This is why the Apostle John describes Jesus as the eternal “Word” of God (John 1:1-4). He was and is truly “the Word who became flesh and lived among us” (John 1:14).
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FOOTNOTES:
[1] Three years is the generally accepted duration based upon references to three separate Passover festivals during Jesus’ years of ministry.
[2] Ecclesiastes 12:7, “The body returns to the dust of the Earth and the spirit returns to the God who gave it.”
[3] Matthew 8:1-4; 14-15; 9:18-26; 9:20-22; 9:27-31; 20:29-34; Mark 7:31-37; 8:22-26.