As noted in last week’s article, Jesus made it clear that the miracles, wonders, and signs that He did were for the purpose of affirming His identity as the Son of God (Matthew 11:4-5 & John 10:25).

It should not surprise us then, that on Pentecost, Luke tells us that the first thing that the apostle Peter said as he began preaching about Jesus was this:

Men of Israel, listen to these words” Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs which God performed through Him in your midst, just as you yourselves know…Acts 2:22

How was it that Peter said God Himself attested to Jesus’ identity as His Son?  The attestation, he says, was through the miracles, wonders and signs that God was doing through Him.

Perhaps we would do well to make the point here that none of the healings, cures, restorations, and resurrections Jesus “performed” were performances.  Jesus never called attention to the miracles that He did while He was doing them, and in fact in some cases He even had others to leave as He did these things (Matthew 9:23-26).

Not only were Jesus’ miracles not performances, they were not even for the sake of the good brought by them alone, as in the case with the man who was blind from birth:

“Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind?” Jesus answered, “It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents; but it was so that the works of God might be displayed in him.”           John 9:2-3

It is interesting to me that this man’s parents, when asked about the miracle Jesus did for their son, refused to answer because they knew that it had been agreed that if anyone confessed Jesus to be the Christ they would be put out of the synagogue.  Therefore, they would not confess that Jesus had done this miracle for their son because they knew that that confession was tantamount to proclaiming Him the Christ.

God not only did these things for His Son, but also for His Son’s apostles and others as well in order to confirm Jesus’ gospel.  Luke writes of the work of Paul and Barnabas:

Therefore they spent a long time there speaking boldly with reliance upon

the Lord, who was testifying to the word of His grace, granting that signs

and wonders be done by their hands.            Acts 14:3

Again, the miracles were not the point.  The word of truth was the point.  This is exactly what the apostle John said as he closed his gospel:

Therefore many other signs Jesus also performed in the presence of

the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these have been

written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God

and that believing you may have life in His name.           John 20:30-31

Marty Kessler