The Authenticity of Miracles

Introduction

Acts 26:8 “Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you, that God should raise the dead?”

Craig Keener in his two volume work on Miracles relates the following account:

“A young medical trainee in Northern Wales was dying of meningitis in the hospital, but those praying for her felt that she would recover, against medical opinion. X-ray films of her chest initially revealed extensive left sided pneumonia with collapse of the middle lobe. Two days later, however, new X-rays showed a normal chest. Because of scarring on her eye, the ophthalmologist assured her that she would have permanent blindness in that eye, despite her confidence that she would be healed. Clearly some patients who insist they will recover are in denial, but such was not the case here. Her eye recovered completely, for which the ophthalmologist could offer no explanation. The four consultants who saw her on admission to hospital remain confident of their initial diagnosis. She is shown at post-graduate medical meetings as “the one that got away.”

Now when you hear a story like that what is your first initial response? Do you as many of us do, take it with a grain of salt? Do you outright dismiss it as a possibility? Unfortunately, many of us have been highly influenced by our western culture which stands skeptical of anything out of the ordinary and to an extent such skepticism is not wrong. But often it can lead us to deny what God is doing. We exhibit a certain antisupernatural bias in the way we respond to such accounts. In our cessationist churches, we have often made the false assumption that because God no longer chooses to use the sign gifts as normative in the church today that that means we will never see God do miracles today. Such a belief is merely one step away from Liberalism.

Tonight, we come to the last of the five fundamentals: a belief in the supernatural or what we would today call miracles. The question we are going to ask tonight is does God do miracles? At the root behind all of Liberalism rejection of the fundamentals of the faith is a denial of the supernatural. Liberals like Spinoza did not believe that the supernatural could occur so they denied the inerrancy of scripture, they denied the virgin birth, they denied the penal substitutionary atonement, and they denied the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ. Their antisupernatual bias was the foundation of their rejection of biblical Christianity; so if we are going to defend any of these doctrines, we must be able to defend the supernatural elements of scripture.

What is a miracle?

Definition

There has been a lot of discussion about what makes up a miracle. The skeptic David Hume defined it as a violation of the laws of nature and for most instances this definition works. what are some of the laws of nature? Gravity- when you drop an apple it falls to the group instead of floating up into outer space. If a plant catches on fire eventually it will burn out. So when we we claim to observe something that doesn’t follow those laws of nature that would be a miracle right. If you saw an apple float up instead of down or a plant that never burns up, we would consider that something spectacular was happening.

There is a problem with this definition though. some of the biblical accounts of a miracle involve using the natural laws. Take for example Exodus 14:21 “And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the Lord caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night, and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided.” Scientists would have come up with some scientific explanation for the parting of the red sea because it was done by a strong east wind. Another example is Joshua 24:12 “And I sent the hornet before you, which drave them out from before you, even the two kings of the Amorites; but not with thy sword, nor with thy bow.” God used hornets to drive out armies before Israel. Both of these instances are miracles that were accomplished within the laws of nature.

So a biblical miracle is

miracle = an extraordinary manifestation of the authority, power and presence of God.

In all these circumstances, God showed his power, authority and presence though things that were impossible or through improbable natural phenomenon. This differs from God’s providence which is God’s working behind the scenes of natural events to accomplish his sovereign will. There are three biblical words used for what we would classify as miracles:

sign- points to something else

wonder- an event that causes people to be amazed

miracle or mighty work- an act displaying great power

2 Corinthians 12:12 “Truly the signs of an apostle were wrought among you in all patience, in signs, and wonders, and mighty deeds.”

Purpose

bear witness Hebrews 2:4 “God also bearing them witness, both with signs and wonders, and with divers miracles, and gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to his own will?”

Show that the Kingdom had come Matthew 12:28 “But if I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come unto you.”

Help those in need Matthew 14:14 “And Jesus went forth, and saw a great multitude, and was moved with compassion toward them, and he healed their sick.”

Bring glory to God Matthew 9:8 “But when the multitudes saw it, they marvelled, and glorified God, which had given such power unto men.”

Rarity

An essential part of what makes a miracle so important is the rarity of it. If miracles were an every day occurrence than they would no longer function as signs and manifestations of God’s power. The very fact that they are out of the ordinary is what makes them a miracle. If you look back through the biblical narrative, you will see that miracles were not normative at all times in biblical history.

If you look at the chart above, you will notice that there were periods of higher concentrations of miracles. We see them during the Exodus and arrival into Canaan; next there is a higher concentration during the time of Elijah and Elisha and then finally there is a spike during the time of Jesus and the Apostles.

The miraculous and especially the sign gifts became more rare during those valleys; so that by the time of Augustine, he could claim:

These miracles were not permitted to last till our times, lest the soul should always seek visible things, and the human race should grow cold by becoming accustomed to things which stirred it when they were novel.” That is true. When hands are laid on in Baptism people do not receive the Holy Spirit in such a way that they speak with the tongues of all the nations. Nor are the sick now healed by the shadow of Christ’s preachers as they pass by. Clearly such things which happened then have later ceased. But I should not be understood to mean that to-day no miracles are to be believed to happen in the name of Christ.

Augustine was not claiming that all miracles had ceased but that those used as signs were not being observed even in his time. But what makes miracles so important is that they were not every day occurrences.

Argument against Miracles

The man who did the most to spur along a denial of miracles and laid the foundation for liberals like Spinoza was a man named David Hume. David Hume notably said:

“That no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact which it endeavours to establish.” When anyone tells me that he saw a dead man restored to life, I immediately consider with myself whether it be more probable, that this person should either deceive or be deceived, or that the fact, which he relates, should really have happened. I weigh the one miracle against the other; and according to the superiority, which I discover, I pronounce my decision, and always reject the greater miracle. If the falsehood of his testimony would be more miraculous than the event which he relates; then, and not till then, can he pretend to command my belief or opinion.

To Hume extraordinary events require extraordinary evidence to prove them; so you could never prove a miracle. His bias made it so that there would be no way to ever prove the existence of a miracle because no one’s testimony of having experienced one could be undeniable.

A modern liberal named John Loftus described it like this

“Well, what’s more likely that the laws of nature were suspended, or that you had a psychotic experience or a psychotic break?”

For the Christian, a belief in God makes it also possible to also believe in miracles because miracles are merely the manifestation of his power. We acknowledge the natural laws of the world as God told Noah in Genesis 8:22 “While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.” But we also acknowledge that God has a right to supercede those laws.

Hume commits a logical fallacy called begging the question by assuming his conclusion before proving it. He assumes that everyone has this firm and unalterable experience that there are no miracles. While most of us have never experienced a miracle like this, that doesn’t invalidate every one else’s experience. Basically, he has assumed no one has experienced a miracle as proof that no miracles exist and if someone were to say a miracle exists they would be crazy because no miracles exist. And if testimony is brought forth it is rejected.

He argues that those who believe in miracles are:

prone to emotional excess

from ignorant barbarous nations

of religious persuasions favorable to miracles

The problem with this argument is that the Jews and Romans were not backwater tribes with no sophisticated culture. They would have clearly understood that axe-heads don’t normally float and people don’t come back from the dead. Especially the Sadducees would have been naturally skeptical of a belief in the supernatural. Hume assumes a nontheistic view of history and assumes that there is no such thing as divine revelation to tell us these things.

Thomas Sherlock gave the following rebuttal

If testimony is admitted only when the matter is deemed possible according to our conceptions, then many natural matters of fact would be excluded. 

For example, a man living in a hot climate would never believe in that case testimony from others that water could exist in a solid state as ice.

Evidence for Miracles

Evidence of the eye witnesses-

1 Corinthians 15:4–8 “And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures: And that he was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve: After that, he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep. After that, he was seen of James; then of all the apostles. And last of all he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time.”

this was a public event

these men were willing to die for their belief

We have ancient records in the bible- in sciences like legal courts, historiography, journalism, anthropology and sociology, eyewitness testimony is accepted as evidence and the biblical evidence is closer to the source and much more varied than any other ancient text that we have.

2. Secular writers at the time

a. Josephus- About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man, [if indeed one ought to call him a man].

  For he was one who wrought surprising feats and was a teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly.

 He won over many Jews and many of the Greeks.

 [He was the Messiah.]

When Pilate, upon hearing him accused by men of the highest standing amongst us, had condemned him to be crucified, those who had in the first place come to love him did not give up their affection for him.

[On the third day he appeared to them restored to life,] for the prophets of God had prophesied these and countless other marvelous things about him.

And the tribe of Christians, so called after him, has still to this day not disappeared

b. None of the opponents of Jesus ever denied what he did

3. Secular witnesses of miracles today- A National poll of doctors concluded that 73% of doctors believe in miracles even today

Conclusion

Whatever you believe about miracles today, it is essential to Christianity that you believe miracles did exist atleast during bible times. The Virgin birth is itself a miracle that none of us have ever observed. The bodily resurrection from the dead if the accounts are to be believed was a miracle. The Roman soldier made sure the body was dead when they pierced his heart and water and blood flowed out. The inspiration of scripture would fall under the category of a miracle because otherwise the words would have been merely man’s words. Most of the NT would be eliminated if you removed all the miracles. The book of Mark is estimated to reference miracles atleast 33% of the time directly. If you remove miracles, you must remove the deity of Christ and you end up with a moral teacher; rather than the Son of God.