Her brother had been dead for four days. So Martha pointed out the obvious when her friend told the men to open up the tomb. “‘Lord, by now the smell will be terrible…’ Jesus responded, ‘Didn’t I tell you that you will see God’s glory if you believe?’” (John 11:39-40).
Is the implication here that if Martha believed hard enough her brother, Lazarus, would be raised from the dead? Does believing have that kind of power? Not at all. There is no power in the act of believing in and of itself. The power of our faith resides in the object of what is believed. Unless Jesus was truly the Son of God all the believing in the world could not have raised Lazarus from the dead, and no amount of faith in Christ will save us if Jesus isn’t truly the God-man. We cannot be redeemed and justified before God, given the gift of eternal life, unless Jesus is who he claimed to be—the Son of God, the acceptable sacrifice before God. It is important therefore to our confidence in salvation that we know with certainty that Jesus is indeed God in the flesh.
Jesus clearly intended his miracles to be understood as a validation of his identity as God’s Son.
We have already discussed two reasons why we can have such a confident faith that Jesus is the Christ: He was virgin born, and he fulfilled all the messianic prophecies. But there is yet another piece of evidence to buttress our assurance. Jesus himself pointed out that his actions, like his miracle to raise Lazarus from the dead, were evidences that he is God’s Son.
The following verses give us examples of how Jesus himself asserted that his miracles provided proof of his identity as the Son of God:
I have a greater witness than John [the Baptist]—my teachings and my miracles. They have been assigned to me by the Father, and they testify that the Father has sent me (John 5:36).
The miracles I do in my Father’s name speak for me (John 10:25 NIV).
Even though you do not believe me, believe the miracles, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father (John 10:38 NIV).
Jesus clearly intended his miracles to be understood as a validation of his identity as God’s Son. After his ascension his followers also pointed to his miracles as proofs of his identity. As the apostle Peter said on the Day of Pentecost, “God publically endorsed Jesus of Nazareth by doing wonderful miracles, wonders, and signs through him, as you well know” (Acts 2:22). The apostle John, pointing to Christ’s identity as God, reports that Jesus did many other “miraculous signs” that weren’t even recorded for us (John 20:30).
The most important miracle Jesus performed was rising from the dead. For if he had not conquered death, “your faith is useless, and you are still under condemnation for your sins” (1 Corinthians 15:17). We will devote two full chapters to his resurrection later in this book.
Imagine Walking with Jesus
Imagine being one of Jesus’ disciples walking along beside him on a sunny Sabbath afternoon. You have just exited the temple, where religious leaders have accused Jesus of being possessed by a demon. They were so angry that they had come close to stoning him before you made your escape.
Walking briskly, you pass a blind beggar sitting cross-legged on the street. You proceed some distance before you realize that Jesus has not kept pace with you and his other disciples. You look back and see the Master gazing at the man, who is somewhat of a fixture in the area because he frequently begs at this spot. Though few know the beggar’s name, most know his circumstances; he has been blind since birth.
You turn with the disciples, and tentatively, you approach the pair—the beggar and the teacher—wondering why Jesus has stopped here. One of Jesus’ companions, always impetuous and eager to please, blurts out a question. “Teacher, why was this man born blind? Was it a result of his own sins or those of his parents?” (John 9:2)
Jesus, with characteristic kindness, plants his knees in the dirt beside the man and answers, more to him than to the questioner, “It was not because of his sins or his parents’ sins…He was born blind so the power of God could be seen in him” (John 9:3).
The strangeness of Jesus’ words echoes off the stone walls of the buildings that surround the scene. He explains that this man’s eyes—which have never seen his mother’s smile, never beheld the dazzling white marble of Herod’s Temple reflecting the rays of the sun, never watched waves of wind wafting through the golden grain of a wheat field, never gazed on the face of a blushing young girl in love—have been dark all these years so the power of God can be seen in them today!
You and the others watch, your attention riveted on the man who has lived in darkness and the man who has called himself the light of the world. Jesus spits in the dust, not once but several times. No one speaks as he forms a mud pack in his carpenter’s hands and patiently, tenderly, spreads the mud over the blind man’s eyes.
Jesus speaks, “Go and wash in the pool of Siloam” (John 9:7). What happens next defies natural explanation; it even exceeds the comprehension of twenty-first-century medical science. When the man obeys Jesus and washes the mud from his eyes, he can see!
In an instant of time, one of the most complex organs in the human body is mended. Without a scalpel to gingerly remove the probable cause—a congenital cataract that had clouded the man’s lenses—without a tiny suction tube to clear the clouded, jellylike orbs of vitreous humor, the man’s eyes are healed. There was no laser surgery to reattach the retinas. There was no highly sophisticated serum applied to the complex layer of light-sensing cells at the back of the eyes that allowed 7 million cones and 125 million rods to once more send their coded messages of light to the brain via the millions of fibers that comprise the optic nerve. And there was no prescribed therapy for the permanent amblyopia inside the man’s eyes—the underdevelopment of the visual system resulting from decades of disuse.1
Twenty centuries later, such congenital blindness is still often irreparable, even if the surgery is performed by the most skilled surgeons in the most advanced operating room of the best hospital in the world. But Jesus, the Galilean carpenter, performed it in an instant, using mud and his own saliva as his only tools.
As fascinating as this healing is—and it’s just one among the many miracles Jesus performed—it should not be surprising. Though the task of removing cataracts, reattaching retinas, and reconstructing the ultrasensitive machinery of the human eye is a highly specialized and still-evolving field of modern medicine, it was no great feat for Jesus of Nazareth—because he is Creator God, the architect of the human eye.
The healing of the man who had been born blind was more than simply miraculous to those who first heard about it—to some, it was disturbing. When the news got to the Pharisees, it caused a stir: “Some of the Pharisees said, ‘This man Jesus is not from God, for he is working on the Sabbath.’ Others said, ‘But how could an ordinary sinner do such miraculous signs?’ So there was a deep division of opinion among them” (John 9:16).
The healing of the man born blind was mind-boggling to Jesus’ critics. Many of the Pharisees had already rejected him as the Messiah. He had not measured up to their political and religious expectations. The kingdom he was proclaiming called for humility, repentance, servanthood, and devotion to the person of God. They expected the Messiah to insist on devotion to a body of rabbinical rules and regulations in order to purify the people for their national destiny. So they wanted nothing to do with Jesus’ relational brand of religion. Yet his miracles presented them with a major dilemma. How could they accept a man who did not share their nationalistic ambitions; and yet how could they reject a man who exhibited such astounding powers?
First, the Pharisees decided to investigate. They called for the healed man to come before them to explain what had happened. Then they called for his parents to confirm that he in fact had been born blind. Finally, they brought the man back again for cross-examination, hoping to resolve the dilemma.
The truth is, their investigation was not really open and objective, because they could not bring themselves to believe what the miracle clearly indicated: that Jesus was more than a man. And yet, they could not explain how a mere man—a man they presumed to be a sinner like themselves—could perform such a miracle (see John 9:17-22). To their questions, the formerly blind man replied, “I don’t know whether he is a sinner…But I know this: I was blind, and now I can see!…Never since the world began has anyone been able to open the eyes of someone born blind. If this man were not from God, he couldn’t do it” (John 9:25, 32-33).
John’s account concludes the story:
When Jesus heard what had happened, he found the man and said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?”
The man answered, “Who is he, sir, because I would like to.” [Remember, this man had no idea what Jesus looked like; he had never seen him before.]
“You have seen him,” Jesus said, “and he is speaking to you!”
“Yes, Lord,” the man said, “I believe!” And he worshiped Jesus (John 9:35-38).
The man who had been born blind had no trouble seeing the truth because the Truth was standing before him. This man who could work miracles was more than merely human. “I was blind, and now I can see!” the healed man said, citing the evidence that would soon convince him. “If this man were not from God, he couldn’t do it.” But Jesus did do it; he had the power to perform this and other miraculous works because he was the Chosen One (see John 1:1). His power simply reflected his identity.
Who else but God has the mastery Jesus demonstrated over the human body, weather, gravity, and even death itself? Who else but God’s Son could do these things?2
• calm a storm (see Matthew 8)
• make a mute person speak (see Matthew 9)
• feed 5000 people with five loaves and two fish (see Matthew 14)
• cast out demons (see Mark 5)
• walk on water (see Mark 6)
• bring sight to the blind (see Mark 10)
• curse a fig tree (see Mark 11)
• foretell the future (see Mark 14)
• heal a paralyzed man (see Luke 5)
• raise a boy from the dead (see Luke 7)
• heal incurable hemorrhaging (see Luke 8)
• cleanse lepers (see Luke 17)
• turn water into wine (see John 2)
• make the lame walk (see John 5)
• forgive sin (see John 8)
• raise a man from the dead (see John 11)
The miracles of Jesus provide convincing evidences that Jesus was the perfect Lamb of God who sacrificed himself so you and I might be redeemed and justified before God. Jesus said, “Believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me. Or at least believe because of what you have seen me do” (John 14:11). When we place our faith in Jesus, we can be confident that he is the One who God accepts as a sacrifice on our behalf. Being declared righteous in spite of our sins means “there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus. For the power of the life-giving Spirit has freed you through Christ Jesus from the power of sin that leads to death” (Romans 8:1-2). Your death sentence has been commuted, and you are a child of God!