A miracle is the suspension of natural and physical law with the insertion of the supernatural that affects the natural world.
GOD being the Creator finds no difficulty in inserting the supernatural into the natural. GOD at times uses His providential power (that directly affects the natural world by GOD using natural means) to accomplish His will. He used natural means to bring about the Flood. But His parting of the Red Sea was indeed miraculous. His feeding of Israel with manna and quail was providential. The LORD Jesus feeding the 5,000 with a few loaves of bread and some fish was miraculous.
“… the ancient rabbis separated miracles into two categories. First, miracles performed by anyone that… was empowered by the Spirit of God. The second category were called ‘messianic miracles’, miracles only the Messiah would perform. Yeshua did miracles in both categories. When He performed a messianic miracle it created a different reaction than when He performed other types of miracles.” Arnold Fructenbaum
The LORD proved His Deity in JOHN 14:
JOHN 14:11
Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me: or else believe me for the very works' sake.
JOHN 5:36
But I have a greater witness than John's [the Baptist]; for the works which the Father has given Me to finish--the very works that I do--bear witness of Me [the Messiah], that the Father has sent Me.
Apostle Peter was given divine revelation in understanding that the Messiah would also be “the Son of the Living GOD” (MATT 16:16) which is just another way of declaring His Deity.
Let’s not forget the very first miracle: His virgin birth – ISAIAH 7:14. GOD created Adam from the dust of the Earth; it shouldn’t surprise us that He created a body for His Son from the unfertilized egg of Mary, the betrothed of Joseph.
In JOHN’s Gospel, it states the following regarding the works Christ did:
JOHN 21:25
And there are also many other things that Jesus did, which if they were written one by one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that would be written. Amen.
Here is a brief list of some of these miracles:
He heals Peter’s mother-in-law of a fever and made her a believer (MARK 1:30-31).
He heals a leper in MARK 1:45 and he truly came alive.
He heals the centurion’s servant because his prayer was fervent (MATT 8:5-13).
He raises the widow’s son from the dead, and he rose up from his death bed (LUKE 7:11-18).
He calms the storm because He was able to perform (MATT 8:23-27).
The LORD heals two demoniacs and they were restored as they were before (MATT 8:28-34).
He cures the paralytic in MATT 9:8: his healing was top-rate.
He raises Jairus’ daughter from the dead, it happened because JESUS said (MATT 9:18-26)!
He heals two blind men in MATT 9:31, just one word and it was done.
He cures a mute man and a woman with an issue of blood and praise flowed like a flood (MATT 9:32-33; LUKE 8:43-48).
Another paralyzed man at the Bethesda pool (JOHN 5:1-9), then he was good as new!
He heals the withered hand of a desperate man (MATT 12:10-13).
He feeds two huge hungry crowds with a meager lunch, people glorified GOD as they began to munch (MATT 14:15-21; 15:32-39).
He heals ten men of leprosy all at the same time, then they were better than at their prime (LUKE 17:11-19).
He raises Lazarus up who had been dead for four days, and the people there were totally amazed! (JOHN 11:1-46) …and so many more miracles besides!
Of course the most significant miracle of all is that of His resurrection, without which we have no hope and our faith is pointless!
Many of the miracles that the LORD Jesus did parallels acts of GOD that we read about from the OLD TESTAMENT! Here are a few examples:
JESUS walking on the water – connects to:
JOB 9:4,8
4 God is wise in heart and mighty in strength. Who has hardened himself against Him and prospered?
8 He alone spreads out the heavens, and treads on the waves of the sea…
JESUS calming the storm –
PSALM 65:7a
You who still the noise of the seas, The noise of their waves… (also PSA 89:9).
JESUS multiplying the loaves, feeding the thousands after He commands them to sit down on the grass –
PSALM 23:1-2
The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want [not even a much needed meal]. 2 He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters [Lake Galilee].
EXODUS 16:15
So when the children of Israel saw it, they said to one another, "What is it?" For they did not know what it was. And Moses said to them, "This is the bread which the LORD has given you to eat.
JESUS raised the widow of Nain's son (LUKE 7:11–18) and Lazarus from the dead (JOHN 11:33-44).
God, through Elijah, raised the widow's son from the dead:
1 KINGS 17:22
22 Then the LORD heard the voice of Elijah; and the soul of the child came back to him, and he revived.
Now let’s turn to ISAIAH 35 that prophetically describes what we know as the Millennium* (that 1000 year period where Messiah will visibly reign over all the Earth from what will then become the world capital, Jerusalem):
*If you missed it, I did a teaching here at ELW about the Millennium that you can watch in their video. Here it is on TTUF: MILLENNIAL REIGN OF CHRIST In The Old Testament - A SUMMARY of the TTUF series
ISAIAH 35:1-10
1 The wilderness and the wasteland shall be glad for them, and the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose; 2 It shall blossom abundantly and rejoice, even with joy and singing. The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it, the excellence of Carmel and Sharon. They shall see the glory of the LORD, the excellency of our God. 3 Strengthen the weak hands and make firm the feeble knees. 4 Say to those who are fearful-hearted, "Be strong, do not fear! Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God; He will come and save you.
5 Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, And the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. 6 Then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the dumb sing [take note of this, because we’ll come back to this later]. For waters shall burst forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert. 7 The parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water; in the habitation of jackals, where each lay, there shall be grass with reeds and rushes. 8 A highway shall be there, and a road, and it shall be called the Highway of Holiness. The unclean shall not pass over it, but it shall be for others. Whoever walks the road, although a fool, shall not go astray. 9 No lion shall be there, Nor shall any ravenous beast go up on it; it shall not be found there. But the redeemed shall walk there, 10 and the ransomed of the LORD shall return, and come to Zion with singing, with everlasting joy on their heads. They shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.
Now there were some very specific miracles that the LORD did that pointed directly to the fact that He is the Messiah: the healing of a leper, the casting out of a dumb demon, and the healing of a man born blind.
Not only did these miracles prove He is the Messiah, but it indicated that the kingdom of heaven aka the kingdom of Israel aka the Millennial Reign of Christ could have started back then if only the Jewish nation received Him (which they didn’t – but the day is coming when they will!).
I have some awesome commentary from the Jewish Christian scholar, Arnold Fruchtenbaum. A very knowledgeable, scholarly saint whose work can be seen online at Ariel Ministries!
Regarding Lepers: “From the time the Mosaic Law was completed, there was no record of any Jew who had been healed of leprosy. Miriam was healed of leprosy, but this was before the completion of the Law. The General Naaman of the Syrian army – he was healed of leprosy, but he was a Syrian Gentile, not a Jew. From the time the Mosaic Law was completed, there was never a case of any Jew being healed of leprosy.”
“…LEVITICUS 13-14 gave the Levitical Priesthood detailed instructions as to what they were to do in case a leper was healed. On the day that a leper approached the priesthood and said, ‘I was a leper but now I have been healed,’ the priesthood was to give an initial offering of two birds. For the next seven days, they were to investigate intensively the situation to determine three things. First, was the person really a leper? Second, if he was a real leper, was he really cured of his leprosy? Third, if he was truly cured of his leprosy, what were the circumstances of the healing?
“Although the priesthood had all these detailed instructions as to how they were to respond in the case of a healed leper, they never had the opportunity to put these instructions into effect, because from the time the Mosaic Law was given, no Jew was ever healed of leprosy. As a result, it was taught by the rabbis that only the Messiah would be able to heal a Jewish leper.
THE FIRST MESSIANIC MIRACLE:
“According to LUKE 5:12 a man was full of leprosy. That means the leprosy was now fully developed, and it would not be very long before the leprosy would take this man's life. He came to Jesus and said, “Lord, if you will, you can make me clean”. The leper clearly recognized the authority of Jesus as the Messiah who had the power to heal a leper. At that point, we read in verse 13 that Yeshua touched the leper and straightway the leprosy departed from him.
“…according to LUKE 5:14: “…He charged him to tell no man: but go your way, and show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing, according as Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them”.
The word “them” refers to the leadership of Israel, the priesthood in Jerusalem in order to force them to follow through with the commands of Moses in LEVITICUS 13-14.” A.F.
Then what happened?
LUKE 5:15-17
15 However, the report went around concerning Him all the more; and great multitudes came together to hear, and to be healed by Him of their infirmities. 16 So He Himself often withdrew into the wilderness and prayed. 17 Now it happened on a certain day, as He was teaching, that there were Pharisees and teachers of the law sitting by, who had come out of every town of Galilee, Judea, and Jerusalem. And the power of the Lord was present to heal them.
It was about then that the LORD healed a man afflicted with paralysis, whose friends lowered him down to the LORD Jesus through the roof of a house, because the crowds were too big to get him through the doorway.
The LORD Jesus declared to the paralytic man, “Your sins are forgiven you”! The religious leadership was deeply offended – “Who can forgive sins but GOD?” they thought, and they were right but what they didn’t realize: it was GOD made flesh Who was standing in their midst.
But at that point, the Pharisees were stuck with just two options: either this Y’shua was a blasphemer, pretending to forgive sins that only GOD can OR He was indeed the Messiah Who alone can heal a leper!
THE SECOND MESSIANIC MIRACLE:
The Casting Out Of A Dumb Demon (that’s not referring to a stupid evil spirit) – it’s a demon that caused the victim to become mute, to be made “dumb”, that is, unable to speak. The circumstances of the second messianic miracle are recorded in two Gospels: MATT 12:22-37 and MARK 3:19-30.
The act of casting out demons was not all that unusual … for Pharisees, rabbis, and their followers. It required three stages.
> First, the exorcist established communication with the demon which uses the vocal cords of the person he indwells.
> Second, the exorcist would find out the demon's name.
> Third, after finding out the demon's name, the exorcist would use that name to cast out the demon. Yeshua used the Jewish methodology (MARK 5), when He cast out the demoniac named Legion.
However, this method would be useless against a dumb demon, because the possessed couldn’t speak, and so the demon’s name couldn’t be used in casting it out.
Remember ISAIAH 35? “…And the tongue of the dumb sing”?
The word used for “dumb” there according to Jewish sages and scholars intimates “to bind” from the Hebrew root word alam, and it can be interpreted, “to bind”; it can also mean “to be hidden”. Who’s doing the binding? It’s taught that his was an evil spirit of dumbness that only the Messiah would be able to cast out.
When the LORD Jesus casts out that dumb demon, the people raised the question, “Is this not the Son of David [the Messiah]?” because they recognized from the teachings of the rabbis that this was in fact a messianic miracle.
Now this exact same miracle happened once before in:
MATTHEW 9:32-34 and like here in MATTHEW 12, the people were amazed: "It was never seen like this in Israel!" And just like in MATTHEW 12, the Pharisees credited the Messiah’s miracle to the power of Satan. And what was the LORD Jesus’ response to their assertion in MATT 9? Absolute silence – not a word!
“They had two options. Either declare Him to be the Messiah in light of all the evidence or reject His messianic claims.
“In MATT 12:24 the Pharisees said,
“This man does not cast out demons, but by Beelzebub the prince of the demons”. So, the Pharisees rejected His messianic claims.” A.F.
Yet we know that the LORD Jesus didn’t cast out any demons by the spirit of Satan, but rather by the power of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit’s job was (and IS) to point to Jesus as the Messiah.
This was accomplished in part by these Messianic miracles that only the Messiah could do! So, in rejecting Jesus’ claims as the Messiah, the Jewish leadership was guilty of the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit.
It's the same kind of blasphemy anyone can be guilty of who rejects the prompting of the Holy Spirit to come to Jesus and they keep rejecting Him all the way up to their dying breath (MATT 12:31-32). There can be no salvation of any soul once they depart this world - the opportunity to accept salvation through Christ is by then lost forever.
The first time the LORD cast out a dumb demon, He didn’t respond to the Pharisee’s false accusation, but the second time, He does:
MATTHEW 12:25-28
25 …"Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and every city or house divided against itself will not stand. 26 "If Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then will his kingdom stand? 27 "And if I cast out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore they shall be your judges. 28 "But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, surely the kingdom of God has come upon you.”
Again, the kingdom of Israel could’ve been reestablished then, because the King of Israel was in their midst! But it wasn’t established, because they rejected their King – and that rejection opened the door for us Gentiles to receive Jesus as LORD and Savior (ROM 10:18-21; 11:7-11)!
In addition to the LORD’s response this second time around, in MATTHEW 13, He starts speaking in parables – ever notice that? Why then? Why not at the start of His ministry? The disciples noticed this change in policy too and asked the LORD, “What gives? Why speak to them in parables?”
MATTHEW 13:11-17
11 "Because it has been given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. 12 "For whoever has, to him more will be given, and he will have abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him.
What was it that the disciples had that the religious leaders didn’t? A love for the truth! See parables are a useful tool to help people who love the truth to understand more truth. Parables are also a judgment on those who reject the truth, because what little truth they have will diminish, and no more truth will be given to them because of their lack of understanding!
13 "Therefore I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. 14 "And in them the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled, which says: 'Hearing you will hear and shall not understand and seeing you will see and not perceive; 15 For the hearts of this people have grown dull. Their ears are hard of hearing, And their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, so that I should heal them.' 16 "But blessed are your eyes for they see, and your ears for they hear; 17 "for assuredly, I say to you that many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.
THE THIRD MESSIANIC MIRACLE:
The Healing Of A Man Born Blind – Key words “born blind” – the LORD healed all kinds of people who had simply gone blind at some point in their life, but no one born blind had ever been healed – until the Messiah came!
JOHN 9:1, 6-7
1 Now as Jesus passed by, He saw a man who was blind from birth.
6 When He had said these things, He spat on the ground and made clay with the saliva; and He anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay. 7 And He said to him, "Go, wash in the pool of Siloam" (which is translated, Sent). So he went and washed and came back seeing.
TWO POINTS:
First, the LORD didn’t just smear mud over blind eyes. Bible expositors point out that the disease that caused this blindness actually destroyed the tissues of the eye, so all that was left were empty eye sockets. So the LORD actually made mud balls and placed them into this man’s eye sockets. Living tissue from the dust of the earth? Who else do we know that created life from mud?
This manner of healing was another hint of the LORD Jesus’ divinity!
Second, the LORD sent this blind man to the pool of Siloam, which was quite a distance from their present location, down a steep hill and through a massive crowd, quite the trial for a blind man, wouldn’t you say?
“This was the week of the Feast of Tabernacles. During this time there was a special ritual called "the outpouring of water" that occurred… the priests came down from the Temple Mount to the Pool of Siloam, filled jugs with the water from the Pool of Siloam, marched back up the Temple Mount, and poured out the water into the Laver within the Temple Compound. This was followed by great rejoicing. During the Feast of Tabernacles, the main pool, which was the center of Jewish attention, was the Pool of Siloam, the one pool that had the greatest number of Jewish people present who would observe this third messianic miracle.” A.F.
Imagine being able to see for the first time in your life! Once he was healed before this huge crowd, the religious leaders got involved and this once-blind man testified to the truth:
JOHN 9:32-33
32 "Since the world began it has been unheard of that anyone opened the eyes of one who was born blind. 33 "If this Man were not from God, He could do nothing."
This man’s own parents were called to testify, to be certain that this blind man was definitely their son. Yet the people were warned that if any testified that Jesus was the Messiah they would be disciplined to the greatest extreme:
The worst type of excommunication is called the cherem, which means to be "un-synagogued," to "be put out of the synagogue and to be separated from the Jewish community." The rest of the Jews considered someone under the cherem curse to be dead, and no communication or any kind of relationship whatsoever could be carried on with the person. This third type is found in I COR 5:1-7 and MATT 18:15-20.
Obviously this man’s parents were apprehensive about testifying to the truth, and they “passed the buck” back to their son, insisting that he answer for himself. Unlike his parents however, the man was bold in his proclamation of the LORD and His Messianic healing – which earned him the cherem (vs. 34). Again, consider ISAIAH 35:5 where it declares that a Messianic miracle would be the healing of the blind, and as we read here, most spectacularly he who were born blind!
So the religious establishment in the days of Jesus the Messiah were entirely guilty of ignoring these Messianic miracles performed by the Man from Galilee Who from the recording of Scripture is proven to be the Messiah of Israel.
You can use these verses, even this video and share them with your Jewish friends (even your non-Jewish friends) to prove that Y’shua Ha Mashiach, Jesus is indeed the Messiah of Israel!
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