Mark Strauss says Jesus’ miracles were not “showy demonstrations of power or even proof of his identity. They are manifestations of the in-breaking of the Kingdom of God, a foretaste and preview of the restoration of creation promised by God” (Four Portraits, 466). I agree Jesus did not do miracles simply to draw a crowd or entertain people. While Strauss is correct the miracles are indications the Kingdom of God is present in the ministry of Jesus, in most cases Jesus did a miracle in order to reveal something about himself as the Messiah. This is slightly different than “proof of identity” since none are strictly speaking proof Jesus is the Messiah or his ministry is an in-breaking of the Kingdom of God. They are hints toward the truth for those who “have eyes to see” (Matt 13:14-15).
The healing in Mark 2 is an example of a miracle as self-revelation. Jesus heals a crippled man, but the reason he does so is to reveal something about who he is to both the outsiders (Pharisees and scribes) but also to the insiders (his disciples who already believe) and the larger crowd who are in-between these two extremes. The challenge of this miracle is: “Who is this man, Jesus?”
Jesus returns to Capernaum and attracts a very large crowd at Peter’s home. A paralytic is brought to Jesus by some friends to be healed. Since they cannot enter the home because of the crowd, the men go onto the roof and break a hole large enough to lower the man on a pallet into room where Jesus was. The roof of a typical home at the time of Jesus was a sun dried mud thatch, so the very “to dig” is quite appropriate.
There was a relationship between sins and birth defects in the minds of the Scribes and Pharisees. Jesus may be attacking this misconception of sin by forgiving the sin without healing the man. In the ancient world, an extreme illness or birth defects was considered to be the result of sin, either on the part of the sick person or on the part of the person’s parents or grandparents. (The disciples ask about a blind man in John 9:1-2.) Not only do all the people observing this believe this to be true, but the man himself probably believed that his sickness was the result of sin.
Forgiveness of sin and healing typically go together in the Hebrew Bible and Second Temple Period Judaism. In 2 Chron 7:14, God forgives the sins of Israel and “heals their land.” Similarly, Psalm 103:3 connects forgiveness with the healing of disease, and in Isaiah 19:22 the Lord responds to Israel, hears their pleas and heals the nation.
It is most startling to notice that Jesus claims to forgive sin by his own authority. This is the action of Jesus that elicits the strong reaction from the religious leaders that are observing Jesus’ actions. He did not say, for example, “in the name of God your sins are forgiven,” but rather simply, “your sins are forgiven.” Jesus himself is forgiving the sins as if he were the one offended by them.
Jesus says to the teachers of the law: Which is easier, to say ‘your sins are forgiven’ or ‘rise and walk’?” It is just as easy to say one as the other. Jesus point is that saying is the easy part, doing is the difficult part. Jesus says that he will not only forgive the man’s sins, but he will heal him, so that the teachers of the Law might know that he has the authority to do those things. There is a significant bit of theology packed into this statement. Authority is power, ability, and permission to do something.
Jesus healed in order to signal the beginning of the messianic age and to prove to the Jewish leadership that he was the Messiah. That Jesus calls himself the Son of Man in this section important since it is likely an allusion to Daniel 7, where “someone like a son of man” is given authority to rule. In a sense, Jesus is drawing together three lines of evidence for his divinity. He forgives sin, he is about to heal a lame man, and he claims to be the Messianic Son of Man.
If we were to examine all of the healing miracles in the Gospels, we might find they all are some sort of self-revelation by Jesus. Other than general statements that Jesus healed many people, are there any healing stories that do not reveal something about Jesus’ nature and/or the nature of the Kingdom of God?
What other healing-miracles in the Gospels reveal something about who Jesus is?
“It is most startling to notice that Jesus claims to forge sin by his own authority.” (6th paragraph)
Startling, indeed. This makes Jesus the author of sin. 🙂
Thanks for your posts!
Egads…..thanks for pointing that out. I am my own worst enemy sometimes! (I fixed the error, but tweeted it to the world!)
I thought you might enjoy that! 🙂 It’s probably the best thing you could do to draw traffic, so good to hear you were smart enough to build on that.
This post reminded me a lot of our class reading this week in Strauss’ Book, Four Portraits. Several of Jesus’ healing miracles pointed out that He was the initiation of the kingdom. The kingdom of God is the proclamation of all things new (Revelation 21:5). When Jesus healed the sick, the lame, and the dead, He is not tainted by their ailments; rather, He restores them and makes them new (Mark 1:41; 5:41; 5:27, and Luke 7:14). “In each case, Jesus was not rendered unclean; rather he ‘cleansed’ or healed the person. The kingdom of God is not defiled by the world but brings transformation to it” (Strauss, 463). Jesus’ healing miracles reveal the fact that Jesus was the initiation of the kingdom and that He makes all things new (2 Corinthians 5:17)!
All of Jesus’ healing miracles portray his divinity in the flesh. In Mark 8:22, Jesus healed a blind man with his saliva. by using His saliva, Jesus was showing his power on earth. He performed miracles because people needed a reason to believe in Christianity since it was so new. Saliva has never been considered to be something off high significance, so by healing a man with his spit, Jesus presents his divinity. Also, in Mark 1:23-28, Jesus casts out a demon by simply demanding, “Come out of him!” The fact that Jesus performed miracles so easily, represents his sovereign power even when he was in the flesh. I don’t think that Jesus performed miracles just to have crowds watch, but I think that when there were spectators, they saw the power of God through Christ’s miracles because of the ease he had.
Reblogged this on Talmidimblogging.
In John 9 Jesus heals a blind man who had been blind for his whole life. In John 11 Jesus goes to the tomb of Lazarus, who had been dead over three days, and calls him to come alive. In Matthew 9, Jesus heals a crippled man, and he forgives the man’s sin. In Mark 7 Jesus heals a man who was deaf and mute. In Matthew 8 Jesus heals a man with leprosy. Jesus did all of these miracles out of himself, and he did them as a proclamation that he was the messiah. “They (the miracles) are hints toward the truth for those who “have eyes to see” (Matt 13:14-15)” (P. Long). Jesus affirms his claim as the messiah to John the baptist’s disciples. Luke 7:22 “So he replied to the messengers, “Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor.” Strauss explains on 462, “Jesus is here alluding to passage from Isaiah (35:5-6) which predict God’s final salvation-the messianic age…”. All of Jesus’ miracles can be pointed to a prophecy of the Old Testament. They are all a fulfillment of words God spoke to men years and years before Jesus was on earth. Jesus reveals that he is the fulfillment of all OT prophesies of the messiah.
Every miracle that Jesus has performed has been about bringing the kingdom of God back into order. Jesus can only do for us what we think He can do for us. For example, the bleeding woman. She had so much faith in Jesus that she knew that just one touch of His garment would heal her. Jesus told her, “Your faith has healed you.” Without faith and believing we live a narrow, limited life. “You become what you believe” that statement is so true. If we believe that Jesus can still today, heal disease, sickness, and broken hearts and restore then we can believe the impossible. Also, not only does Jesus have the power to do this, but so do we. The same power that conquered the grave lives inside of us, we have power over the grave through Jesus Christ. Since nothing is impossible for God, so nothing is impossible for us. Just as Jesus was unlimited, so are we unlimited. We are everything that God is. Just as He is in heaven, so are we upon this earth.
The healing miracles say a lot about Jesus. The very fact that Jesus was willing to heal people who he didn’t know, people who weren’t worthy, shows who he was. Jesus brought the message of loving your neighbors and praying for your enemies. To send this message fully, Jesus would have had to “live out” his message. He showed this love with how he lived, and his healing miracles were a significant part of showing that, as well as showing that he was in fact the Messiah. To look more specifically, the story in Luke 8 where the woman was healed just by touching Jesus shows that that is who Jesus was-someone who heals every wound, physically and spiritually. In many of these miracles, we notice that Jesus connects people’s healings to their faith. If you have faith, Jesus will set you free.
Jesus did indeed mean to declare the kingdom by His miracles. He also worked them to show people who He was. All things He did were in line with His purpose on earth (John 9:14). Nothing was unintentional or just because, as we so often do things. When he healed people it was not to promote Himself as others who practiced magic in that day may have tried to accomplish by working miracles. But it was to promote His message and prove that He was telling the truth (Strauss 459). When Jesus did deeds, people repented and glorified God (John 11:4). He proclaimed woes to those who did not believe even after seeing the works (Luke 10:13). The ultimate sign that Jesus was who He said He was is the miracle of Him rising from the dead. The Jews kept asking for a sign and this was the biggest one! Yet many of them missed it (Luke 11:29-30). Jesus also heals on the Sabbath, showing that He is Lord even on the Sabbath. He is outside of the rules, the fence, that the Pharisees put around the law. He points people back to the fact that God is merciful and desires for His children to be free, just as the owner of a donkey would have mercy and lead it to water on the Sabbath (Luke 12:17, Luke 14).
About what Kate said, I also do not think that Jesus performed miracles to draw crowds and be showy. In fact, when he did perform certain miracles, did he not tell the people in question to not speak of what He did? That seems to support that idea. It seems He mainly want to make the subjects of His miracles, and the key witnesses aware of what the power of God could do, and to show that He had that power.
“The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor” (Luke 7:22; Matt. 11:4-). “Jesus is here alluding to the passages from Isaiah which predict God’s final salvation” (Strauss, 462). I am honestly not sure if there are any stories when Jesus does not reveal anything about His nature or the kingdom of God. To me, it seems that with every miracle he performs brings something into light. Whether it is about Jesus Himself, or if it is the reaction or enlightenment of those that witnessed those miracles.
I completely agree with the opening statement that Jesus does in fact use his miracles to at least point towards his identity, not to tell directly who he is but to give hints to the fact that he is the messiah. These miracles are defiantly used to show things about himself and about the kingdom of God. I also think there is some truth to the fact that Jesus just did not walk around performing miracles to make a point, but he did them out of love and concern for his children. It says in the word that he had compassion on them (Matt. 9:36). I think about the man who lived in the tombs, when Jesus went to the land of the Gerasenes. Jesus healed that man because he loved him, he healed him also so this man could live out his God ordained purpose, to be a witness in his land. Yes Jesus was showing his disciples another glimpse of who he was as powerful and having authority even over a legion of demons, but also that Jesus was in the business of changing hearts and lives.
The healing miracles that Jesus did not only showed who he was and revealed the kingdom of God, but they arguably showed the world who the kingdom belongs to. Struass showed that Jesus was clear that the kingdom could belong to anyone as long as they were willing to “publicly acknowledge” Jesus; It says clearly in Matthew 10:40, “Whoever publicly acknowledges me I will also acknowledge before my Father in heaven. But whoever publicly disowns me I will disown before my Father in heaven” (Strauss, pg.389, )(Matthew 10:40). This was so different than what the people would have been expecting. There was so much separation between the pharisees and the gentiles and the clean and the unclean when Jesus came to the world. Certainly it seems like the people had made their own idea as to who was deserving of God’s coming kingdom and who was not, but when Jesus performed miracles he was touching the dead and the sick and the gentiles all of whom were deemed as “unclean” and here Jesus was healing them and forgiving them. His miracles showed that he came for anyone who would follow him, claim him, and have faith in him.
I completely agree that Jesus was great at miracles in the world. I believed that Jesus really wanted to how the world who he really was. I felt like Jesus did these miracles to show u that we can believe in him. It wanted us to be able to put all of our faith in genuinely.
One healing that revealed who Jesus is when he “healed” or casted out the demon from the man in the synagogue in Luke. Luke writes, “…in the synagogue there was a man who had the spirit of an unclean demon, and he cried out with a loud voice, “Ha! What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God.” But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent and come out of him!” And when the demon had thrown him down in their midst, he came out of him, having done him no harm” (Luke 4:33-34, ESV). The people listening to Jesus in the synagogue were amazed (Luke 4:36) and they said to each other “…what is this word? For with authority and power he commands the unclean spirits, and they come out!” And reports about him went out into every place in the surrounding region” (Luke 4:36-37, ESV). This healing of a demon was significant because it reinforced Jesus’ claim that the kingdom of God was coming and that (in turn) reinforced Jesus’ authority, which revealed himself more to the people of Israel that he was the Son of Man. In the textbook Four Portraits, One Jesus by Mark L. Strauss he says, “the healings were evidence that Isaiah’s signs of the new age were being fulfilled in Jesus’ ministry” (2007, p. 470). And when you read scripture, it is seen that the people of Israel were “amazed” (4:36) because of Jesus’ furthering reveal. So, I feel like the healing of the demon in Luke was one of the major significances of revealing Jesus and his mission for his ministry and the kingdom of God.
I got my answer,thanks.Stephen
Almost all of the miracles that Jesus performed were about bringing the Kingdom of God back. We as believers can only allow what Jesus allows to do for us, this comes through our faith In Him. One of the miracles that happens is the bleeding women in Mark 5:20-22. Her faith is Jesus is what saved her. She knew in her heart that through her faith, only a touch of his garment would save her. Jesus also points this out saying, “your faith has healed you” (v.22). By this miracle happening and people being able to witness it, this is proclaiming the Kingdom of God because it shows the true power that it has. By simply through faith of Jesus and the Kingdom, we as believers are able to feel the power. Jesus was always intentional with His miracles, and the bleeding women is no different from His intentions to show the power of the Kingdom.
Jesus reveals his character to us through action. This can be seen by how he interacts with people, through his teachings, and even through his miracles. In Mark 2, it is described that his healing of a blind man reveals him more to those who were around him – those who had faith in him, and those who did not. There was a relationship between sin and defects in the Bible, and this can be seen as to how we viewed illness within the Early ages after Christ as well. There was this idea that you or your family did something wrong and sinful to deserve the imperfections that your body goes through. However, Jesus demonstrates that that is not necessarily the case. Jesus healed the blind man not to show off his power, not to take away his sins, but to show the authority that he had. “Your sins are forgiven”. I think that it’s so cool that he showed that he was healing through himself, showing others that he, in fact, was the Son of God. He had the authority to heal within himself. I think that mentioning that it was him announcing his Messiac reign is accurate and truly a representation of how powerful he is.
The healing miracles of Jesus are the most interesting to me, as they are the ones that are the most astonishing, and the hardest to explain away, and for many of the people who saw them, it was what made people truly believe that He was the Messiah. I also never put together the connection of healing lands, on a spirtual level, but also a physical level.
I would say that all the miracles that Jesus does reveals His nature and/or the nature of the kingdom of God. The reason that I say this is because He does miracles to show He was the Messiah. This in turn is showing just a glimpse of power of the kingdom of Heaven. He even raises people from the dead, who are in turn able to talk about the kingdom of Heaven. They might all be directly trying to show this power, but I believe they always correlate.