One thing that made Jesus famous was that he did miracles. The New Testament (NT) gospels frequently relate that he travelled about in his native land from town to town and village to village healing people. And they provide many detailed reports in which he did so. Multitudes of people, sometimes numbering in the thousands, gathered to hear Jesus utter his pearls of wisdom and perform his mighty feats of healing
Many traditionalist Christians—those who believe that Jesus is God—have thought that Jesus’ miracles testify that he was and is God. Robert M. Bowman Jr. and J. Ed Komoszewski assert, “The complete and total command that Christ exhibits over the natural realm in his miracles reveals his deity.” They add, “The gospel writers themselves interpret Jesus’ miracles as evidence that he is God.” But some of these traditionalists seem to have overlooked that the Old Testament (OT) prophets and Jesus’ apostles did miracles too. If Jesus was God merely because he performed miracles, those prophets and apostles must have been Gods as well, which is absurd.
Non-traditionalist and distinguished Jesus researcher E.P. Sanders explains, “A lot of Christians, and possibly even more non-Christians, think that central to Christianity is the view that Jesus could perform miracles because he was more than a mere human being…. Like other ancient people, Jews believed in miracles but did not think that the ability to perform them proved exalted status…. Historically, it is an error to think that Christians must believe that Jesus was superhuman, and also an error to think that in Jesus’ own day his miracles were taken as proving partial or full divinity.” Indeed, Jewish religious authorities never doubted that Jesus did miracles; rather, they accused him of doing them in the power of Satan (Matthew 12:22-24/Mark 3:22).
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Author: Kermit Zarley
Keywords: Triune, Trinity, Trinitarian, three persons in one god, god in three persons, Deity of Christ, Deity of Jesus, miracles, Jesus miracles, miracles of Christ, miracles of Jesus
Bible reference(s): Mat 8:3, Mat 8:13, Mat 8:15, Mat 8:26-27, Mat 8:32, Mat 9:6, Mat 9:22, Mat 9:25, Mat 9:29-30, Mat 9:33, Mat 14:14, Mat 14:19-21, Mat 14:25, Mat 14:29, Mat 15:28, Mat 15:36-38, Mat 17:18, Mat 17:27, Mat 20:34, Mat 21:19, Mar 1:25-26, Mar 1:31, Mar 1:41-42, Mar 2:11-12, Mar 4:39, Mar 4:41, Mar 5:8, Mar 5:13, Mar 5:29, Mar 5:41, Mar 6:41-44, Mar 6:48-49, Mar 7:29-30, Mar 8:6-9, Mar 8:23, Mar 9:25-26, Mar 10:52, Mar 11:21, Luk 4:35-36, Luk 4:39, Luk 5:4, Luk 5:6, Luk 5:9, Luk 5:13, Luk 5:24-24, Luk 7:10, Luk 7:14-15, Luk 8:24-25, Luk 8:29, Luk 8:32-33, Luk 8:44, Luk 8:54-55, Luk 9:16-17, Luk 9:42, Luk 13:12-13, Luk 14:4, Luk 17:14-15, Luk 18:42-43, Luk 22:51, Joh 2:7, Joh 2:9, Joh 2:11, Joh 4:50, Joh 4:53, Joh 5:8-9, Joh 6:11-14, Joh 6:19-21, Joh 9:6-7, Joh 11:43-44, Joh 21:6
Source: “Is Jesus God Because He Did Miracles?” The Restitution of Jesus Christ, 2008.
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