What does it mean that God is a God of miracles?
The Bible presents miracles not as violations of nature, but as the direct, purposeful intervention of a living God among His creatures. To say that God is "a God of miracles" is to say that He is not distant or indifferent — He acts, He intervenes, and He reveals Himself through acts of power that carry meaning far beyond the visible event.
The Nature of a Miracle
Scripture uses three distinct words for miracles, and together they define their character. Morrish's Bible Dictionary explains:
Morrish's Bible DictionaryThese three divinely selected words explain the nature of miracles. They were 'wonders' that arrested the attention of the people; they were 'signs' that God had visited His people, and that the acts of the Lord Jesus identified Him with the promised Messiah; and they were 'powers,' for they were superhuman. These three words are applied to the miracles of the Lord Jesus in Acts 2:22; to those wrought by Paul, 2 Cor. 12:12.
A miracle, then, is never a mere spectacle. It is a wonder that arrests attention, a sign that points to God, and an act of power that demonstrates His sovereignty over all things.
J.N. Darby gives perhaps the clearest definition:
J.N. DarbyA miracle is the direct intervention of God, whatever means He uses, with a purpose to be attained.
And further:
True miracles must be to demonstrate God, and reveal Him in some way; if a miracle does not do that, it either produces no effect, or sets me against its author — a being who has power but is not God, in whom I confide, whose goodness I know — for a miracle is always a testimony of or to something.
A true miracle always has meaning. It is not a display of raw power; it is a revelation of who God is.
Miracles and the Incarnation
The miracles of the Lord Jesus occupy a special place. They were not incidental to His mission — they flowed naturally from who He was. J.T. Mawson writes:
Each discourse, each miracle, nay each word and act, is a fresh ray of glory streaming forth from the Person of the Word through the veil of His flesh. The Incarnation is the one great wonder; other miracles follow as a matter of course. The real marvel would be if the Incarnate Being should work no miracles; as it is they are the natural results of His presence among men, rather than its higher manifestation.
And:
A miracle is an act of superhuman power. All the miracles of the Lord Jesus were such, and were the attestation of His person and mission. He had come forth from the Father, and come into the world, and His miracles were the proof of this. They were His Father's works... "miracles, wonders and signs which God did by Him." They were works of power that amazed the people, and were signs to them that God had come down to them in mercy.
Mawson presses the point to its deepest conclusion — the Creator Himself had entered His own creation:
He who did these things was the One who had created all things... and amongst the "all things" were these laws of nature that bind the universe together for its good. They are His laws and must surely be subservient to Him, for He who made them controls them.
If miracles were a means to this end, which was God's great purpose, what power could prevent them? This reconciling men to God was the greatest of all miracles.
Miracles Reveal God's Heart
Miracles are not merely proofs of power; they reveal what God feels toward His creatures. James McBroom writes:
James McBroomGod is active; Father, Son and Spirit in love and goodness. There is Omnipotence, Omniscience and Omnipresence, but beyond all else there is LOVE. This is the moral nature of God and this it is that calls into action all the other great and glorious features of His Being. This it is that has brought God so near to man — a lowly Man, Jesus the Saviour who saves His people from their sins.
And in his fuller treatment:
The miracles of our Lord appeal to man's senses and produce both wonder and amazement, and in that way become a public witness to the greatness of the Worker... Since God is clearly seen in creation and has left not Himself without witness in the sphere of providence, surely the voice of Immanuel silencing the storm, removing disease, commanding demons and raising the dead — works which also appealed to reason — was a bringing of the blessed God near to men.
Mawson captures the tenderness of it beautifully:
We might rightly have challenged His claim to have come from the Father if He had moved with apparent indifference amid the miseries of men, if He had left the leper to his corruption, the blind to his darkness, and the cripple to his weakness; if He had not been moved to compassion by the widow's tears, if He had not wept with Mary, and smiled upon the children.
His miracles all declared what the feelings of God were towards His creatures in their miseries.
Miracles in the Old Testament: Mercy at Every Stage
Miracles are not confined to the Gospels; they appear throughout the whole history of God's dealings with His people — and always at the moment of deepest need. William Kelly shows that miracles cluster at precisely those moments when God's people are furthest from Him:
William KellyThis remarkable planting of prophecy on miracle is found, not in Judah, but in Israel. The reason is manifest. Judah maintained still, however guiltily, the word of the Lord. Israel had virtually cast it off. Accordingly, therefore, having sunk into the place of the faithless they would have signs offered to them, as the apostle Paul shows that miracles are for the unbelieving.
Darby adds the striking observation that the character of miracles changes with God's purpose at each stage of His dealings:
A miracle is not merely a wonder... but has its meaning and character in the ways of God, of God intervening amongst men — Moses did not do Christ's miracles, nor Christ those of Moses; the prophets in Judea did none — Elijah and Elisha did.
When God's covenant truth was among His people, miracles were not wrought as by the prophets in Judah — they were in setting up Judaism, in a measure in re-setting up in Samuel, and when away from covenant relationship by Elijah and Elisha, i.e., when they were the needed expression of mercy and power towards His people.
The Greatest Miracle of All
Morrish's Dictionary closes its treatment of miracles with a searching question:
Though not called a miracle, is not the conversion of a sinner a miracle? It seems impossible for one who has been turned from darkness to light, and has been created in Christ Jesus, with the fruits and effects following, to doubt the reality of other miracles recorded by God in His sacred writings.
There is no law of nature that can account for a soul dead in sins being raised to spiritual life. If the physical miracles display God's power over creation, the conversion of a sinner displays His power over death itself.
Synthesis
That God is "a God of miracles" means, at its heart, three things. First, He is a living God — not a distant architect who wound up the universe and walked away, but One who acts, intervenes, and makes His presence known. Second, every true miracle is a revelation of His character: His power, His mercy, His hatred of evil, and above all His love. The miracles of Moses revealed His government and judgment; those of Elijah and Elisha revealed His faithfulness to a wayward people; those of the Lord Jesus revealed the very heart of the Father come near to men in their misery. Third, God's miraculous power is not confined to the physical realm. The greatest miracle — the one that continues to this day — is the new birth, when a sinner dead in trespasses is made alive together with Christ. In that quiet, invisible work, the same almighty power that parted the Red Sea and raised Lazarus is at work still.