What does it mean that God is a God of miracles?

With these exceptions, all the miracles of the Lord were the expression of goodness present in power, that man might be won back to confidence in God. Every outward effect of sin, all the evil that was in the world, was removed and set aside when met by the power that wrought in goodness amongst men. This did not change man's heart, but it did reveal God's, and this was what man wanted. God came into the midst of sinful men shewing that love flowing from His own thoughts and nature was greater than the sin and evil that was in the world. For what we have in Christianity is what never was before: God come out in grace revealing Himself in goodness when man was a sinner; and man gone in, in righteousness, into the divine glory, so that God's love and God's righteousness should be revealed to sinners far from Him.

164 But, unless this new school deny all the truth of Christianity, their theory of general laws is wholly false. Is the resurrection by God's power or not? Does man rise of himself by some common law of his nature, or is the resurrection the fruit of the intervention of God in power? If so, the system of general laws adduced against miraculous Christianity is all nonsense. God does interfere by power, freely, to bring the great result of moral dealings to an issue. Besides, the theory of judging by general laws is false in principle. It takes man's experience of the physical course of things (for that this world is an adequate witness of God's moral government, though there is one, is a horrible lie) as the sole and absolute measure of what God is and can do. What proof is there of this? I am told it is complete. It is not; morally, it is no such thing: and your experience of what God is in the laws of the universe is no adequate measure of what God is. But, I repeat, miracles are a far more real revelation of God Himself than general laws, moral revelation. I am not personally in relationship with God by general laws; I am by free miracles, not done necessarily on me or for me, but in which God's free action shews what God personally is in His actings. I ask if Christ's miracles did not do this? — did not shew the intervention of God in goodness in a world of misery? There are instances of judgment when it was to deliver others, and that is part of the character of God, permitted displays of Satan's power, that we might know it. Why are any of them inherently incredible? Who is the judge — man's experience? Nonsense! He cannot have an experience of miracles. It is merely saying There can't be because there can't be; because I do not think God ought to do them. You do not. What is incredible? Was God not powerful enough to do them? You cannot say that. Was He not good enough? Ah! that is perhaps what is incredible to you. I thank God it is not for me.

165 But, if in a world of misery God was winning the confidence of men's hearts to His goodness, what more credible than miracles? i.e., extraordinary displays of power, sufficient to shew God's intervention, so that men might know not only that evil was not of Him, but that He had come to man's help as good. That may be incredible for the new school; they may study the movements of Jupiter, and speculate on the fall of empires, as based on general laws; but a personal God of goodness they do not like to know. It has inherent incredibility for them. But there is no personal relationship with God without it. I delight in the thought of seeing God manifested here below, spending Himself to win the confidence of hearts who as offenders were afraid, and using the very wretchedness they were in by sin to draw their hearts to God out of it. True, it was inherently incredible to Pharisees and Sadducees then. He could not be of God; He did not keep the Sabbath. They were grieved that the apostles taught the resurrection. But Jesus cared for the poor of the flock, and, in spite of the Pharisees, would win by speaking "as never man spake," and doing so that "it was never seen on that fashion." If power acting in goodness to win the hearts of the poor to God is inherently incredible, I know where the heart is to whom it is so. Such, then, is the place of miracles. The abiding thing is the truth of the being of that personal objective God who is revealed by their means. Miracles are a means of knowledge as evidence. The truth, and the Son, who is the truth, revealing the Father, revealing God, is that which is evidenced.

282 But while they may be confirming signs to the Word, and missions of God's servants, they are of the utmost importance as signs of a living, acting God who intervenes, and abidingly so; we profit by them, i.e., as revealing God's ways more by them now than when they were wrought. They might be convinced of them then - they may be now; but the intervention of God is more clearly seen in its character and purpose, when we have them collectively. They verify themselves a posteriori (from the latter) not merely historically, and richly inform the soul. Have the Lord's miracles no character? And note, He conferred power on others to work them - "healing all that were possessed of the devil, for God was with him."

Turning to the miracles of our Lord, wrought chiefly in the earlier stage of His ministry, they appear before us as the beneficent proofs of the presence of God in grace. They were assuredly designed to win that confidence in Him which, alas! had been destroyed by sin.

A miracle is an act of super-human power. The miracles of the Lord Jesus were such, and were the attestation of His person and mission. They were His Father's works, as His arresting and challenging words to the Jews declared, “If I do not the works of My Father, believe Me not. But if I do, though ye believe not Me, believe the works; that ye may know and believe, that the Father is in Me, and I in Him” (John 10:37-38). The Holy Ghost speaking through Simon Peter on the day of Pentecost, described these works as “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; Modernism refuses to accept the miraculous. It holds that there are “laws of nature” that are unvarying and irrevocable, that they cannot be overruled or suspended, and that what appeared to be miracles in former days were simply the operations of certain of these laws which were unknown at the time. They would instance the fact that the King was able to speak to the whole Empire on Christmas Day and was heard 12,000 miles away as clearly as in the room in which he spoke. One hundred years ago such an idea would have been laughed at as the conception of a madman. Yes, but the works of the Lord were not on such a plane as that; they were wrought in another realm; they were addressed to the needs and miseries of men, which were the result of sin. He raised the dead to life: He fed hungry multitudes: He healed the severed ear of an enemy, and by word and touch delivered those who were oppressed by long-standing and incurable maladies. He who did these things was the One who had created all things, and amongst the all things were the laws of nature that bind the universe together for its good. They are His laws and most surely subservient to Him. In them is declared the wisdom of the Creator, and when they have been discovered and made use of, they ought to have had the effect of turning men into worshippers of the One who created them, and making them ashamed of themselves that they had not discovered them before. Instead of which, men are puffed up with pride as though they had made them themselves.

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, as His arresting and challenging words to the Jews declared, "If I do not the works of My Father, believe Me not. But if I do, though ye believe not Me, believe the works; that ye may know and believe that the Father is in Me, and I in Him" (John 10:37-38). The Holy Ghost speaking through Simon Peter on the day of Pentecost described these works as "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.

The miracles of Scripture have a twofold character. They were, first of all, tokens of God's power.

By means of them it was sought to bring home to the consciences of rebellious men the fact that GOD IS. For this reason many marvelous works were shown in idolatrous Egypt; and for the same reason, in the days of Israel, many mighty deeds were performed in the Kingdom of the ten tribes, and but few in the Kingdom of the two tribes. The latter continued to acknowledge God after Jeroboam led the bulk of their brethren astray in the matter of the golden calves. Scripture miracles were also the expression of God's mercy. The two greatest miracle-workers were Elisha in the Old Testament and the Lord Jesus Christ in the New. The deeds of the son of Shaphat were all of a kindly nature, with one solemn exception; while the works of the Saviour were all, without a single exception, gracious and merciful in their character. By means of these extraordinary interpositions God was seeking to reach the hearts and consciences of men.

But, further, while miracles were a confirmation of the word, which was the proper and express revelation of God's mind, they were also a testimony in and of themselves; for they told, not simply of power but of goodness, of God working in goodness in the midst of sorrow and misery, and that in the most definite and distinct way. "He had compassion on the multitude." Still there was distinctly and definitely a testimony to the person and truth, or, to speak again as scripture speaks, the grace and truth which came by Jesus Christ, and word and works were a like testimony to it. Hence, too, both belonged specially to the Person of the Lord and His immediate followers, whose part after His death I will speak of just now.

The gospel preached by our Lord had "signs" accompanying it. This is one of the common Scripture words (though not used in this place,) for what we call "miracles." Such a word is used in Scripture also, but it emphasizes the "wonder" element only, and is of infrequent occurrence in the gospels. Important was even the power to produce wonder, as a bell to gather an audience, but the words chosen rather for these divine works speak of that in them which was to make its impress on the conscience and the heart. As "signs" they evidenced. themselves as "powers" ― acts of power ― which in their character revealed God. The Kingdom of heaven which the Old Testament prepared men to expect was, in fact, an interference of divine power on behalf of men which would free the earth from the burdens sin had imposed and the curse brought in by it. Miracles, therefore, formed an essential part in the "Kingdom and glory," and are thus called by the writer of the epistle to the Hebrews "the powers of the world to come" (Heb. 6:5). Most suitably, therefore, did they accompany the message that the Kingdom of heaven was at hand.

The sun stands still (Joshua 10:12). The earth quakes (1 Sam. 14. ; Matt. 27). The waters are turned into blood (Ex. 7:20), or stand "on heap" (Joshua 3:13). The violence of fire is quenched (Dan. 3:25), and even man himself becomes as a beast (Dan. 4), or is swallowed by a fish (Jonah 1) at His decree. Scripture testifies to the working of miracles in all ages. Sometimes directly by the divine hand alone, and sometimes by the instrumentality of chosen servants. Both the Old and the New Testaments furnish us with their marvellous records.

In Egypt, in the Wilderness, in the Land, in Captivity, the O.T. records the working of God by His power, for or with His people; whilst in the N.T. we read of signs being wrought by the Lord Jesus and the apostles, as well as by those who believed their testimony (Mark 16:17). Early church history also bears witness to their having been wrought while as yet Christianity was combating the forces of pagan emperors, and the powers of darkness. The purpose of God in using miracles may be gathered from the words used in scripture to express them, namely, signs, wonders, and powers. As "signs" they witnessed that God had visited His people; as "wonders," arresting the attention of a godless world to His rights in it; and as "powers," as being superhuman and accomplished only according to His permission, and the working of His sovereign will. We find all three words used in reference to the miracles wrought by the Lord Jesus Himself (Acts 2:22); by those wrought by the apostle Paul (2 Cor. 12:12); and to those which will be by the antichrist in the near future (2 Thess. 2:9).