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Miracles are extraordinary displays of God’s power (Greek dynamis, typically translated “miracle”) intended to evoke astonishment (teras, “wonder”) and to deliver a message (sēmeion, “sign”) about God’s majesty and mercy. In the Bible, God often enacts miracles through His human spokesmen to authenticate their mediation of His message. But God also marks major milestones in redemptive history by stepping in “immediately”—without human means—and interrupting the ordinary providential order by which He sustains His universe (Ps. 104; Col. 1:17; Heb. 1:2).
Consider five major moments or motifs in the history of redemption and the miracles of God that cluster around them.
the plagues and israel’s exodus
After the world-cleansing cataclysm in Noah’s day, miracles almost “went quiet” in the period of the patriarchs (except for occasional theophanies, astonishing conceptions, and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah). In the generations after Joseph, God’s people increased in number while declining in status from honored guests to exploited slaves in Egypt. Reduced to helplessness, they cried out to the Lord for rescue.
Ever faithful to His covenant, the Lord heard His people’s cry, remembered His promises, and flexed His almighty arm in the people’s defense, working signs and wonders to devastate their Egyptian oppressors. Although Moses had a minor, supportive role, it was the Lord Himself who bloodied the Nile’s waters; afflicted the land with frogs, gnats, and flies; slew livestock; tormented Egyptians with boils; destroyed man, beast, and crops with hail and locusts; darkened the sun; and killed the firstborn, including Egypt’s royal heir (Ex. 7–12). His plagues—cudgel blows that shattered His enemies—displayed His supremacy over Egypt’s hollow gods (deities of river and sun, and a quasi-divine king).
Then God’s mighty winds parted the sea, opening a path to freedom. When the waters closed to drown Pharaoh’s pursuing army, Moses led Israel’s song of celebration to the Lord, who “triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea” (Ex. 15:1). The “signs and wonders, great and grievous, against Egypt and against Pharaoh” (Deut. 6:22) exerted God’s holy might against His enemies and extended His liberating mercy to His people. Israel’s exodus foreshadowed the greater exodus that Jesus would achieve through the apparent weakness of His cross (Luke 9:31; Col. 1:13; 2:13–15).
the tabernacle and temple
Although God appeared sporadically to the patriarchs—for example, assuring Jacob, “I am with you and . . . will not leave you” (Gen. 28:15)—it was only when He liberated His people and constituted them as a holy community that He authorized a sanctuary where He would dwell among them and receive their worship. Because the Lord redeemed His people to worship in His presence (Ex. 3:12; 3:18; 4:23; 7:16; 8:1; 8:20; 9:1; 9:13; 10:3; 10:26), the climactic miracle of the exodus was the visible display of God’s glory in the radiant “cloud of the Lord” that covered and filled the tabernacle (40:34–38). That tent of meeting was pitched at the center of Israel’s camp, and the divine glory cloud over it directed their movements throughout their wilderness pilgrimage (Num. 9:15–23). The cloud towered over the tent by day and the light beamed from it by night. To people surrounded by a desert’s dangers and deprivations and prone to doubt and despair, the cloud and fiery light visibly conveyed the Lord’s assurance, “I am with you.”
Using tabernacle-related terminology and echoing Moses’ glimpse of divine glory, John declares, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14; see Ex. 34:6–7). It was in the context of the Feast of Booths, Israel’s annual remembrance of the wilderness, that Jesus announced, “I am the light of the world” (John 7:1–52; 8:12). Out of the dark days of the judges and Saul’s ruinous reign, Israel emerged into the light of David and his dynasty—although neither David nor his royal offspring actually fit his own portrait of the righteous ruler who “dawns on” his subjects “like the morning light . . . on a cloudless morning” (2 Sam. 23:3–4). Despite the flaws and falls of human rulers, Israel’s divine King persisted in His resolve to dwell among His people, so He celebrated the dedication of the temple built by Solomon by repeating the miraculous manifestation of His presence: “A cloud filled the house of the Lord, so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled the house of the Lord” (1 Kings 8:10–11). Solomon’s temple and its postexilic replacement would eventually lie in ruins. But the true temple to which they pointed—the temple of Jesus’ body, risen from the dead (John 2:19–21)—eternally radiates God’s glory, transforming those who, by faith, behold His light “into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Cor. 3:18; see 4:6–7).
the incarnation and virgin birth
The presumably impossible conception of Isaac (Gen. 16:1; 17:15–19; 18:10–14) was a God-given preview of the most impossible conception of all history, “when the fullness of time had come” and “God sent forth his Son, born of woman” (Gal. 4:4)—and not simply a woman, but an unmarried virgin (Matt. 1:18–23; see Isa. 7:14). Mary knew how babies are made, so she could not imagine how the angel Gabriel’s announcement that the Lord had chosen her to become the Messiah’s mother could come true. Gabriel’s answer, instead of dispelling the mystery of the incarnation, evoked tabernacle imagery: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God” (Luke 1:26–35; see Ex. 40:35). Mary responded in faith and humble submission.
C.S. Lewis described the virgin birth as the climactic miracle of “the old creation” (that is, before Christ’s resurrection, which launched the new creation). Lewis observed that the conception of a child ultimately originates from God’s life-giving power. Ordinarily, God imparts life through means that we deem “natural.” But once, and for a special purpose, He dispensed with the ordinary means. There was, of course, a unique reason for it. This time the One to be born was not simply a man but the God-man. God was creating man anew; He was beginning the new creation of all things.
In contrast to miracles witnessed by vast crowds (the plagues, the sea, the cloud and fiery light over and in sanctuaries), Christ’s birth from a virgin was a “sign and wonder” at first revealed to only a few. Nonetheless, this unprecedented intervention of God to unite His divine Son with our human race is the miracle that launches the great transition in the whole history of redemption. Paul rightly affirms that “the fullness of time” is marked by God’s sending His Son into history, born of a woman, “born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons” (Gal. 4:4–5).
immanuel’s restoration of creation
In light of the divine Son’s incarnation, we should view every miracle performed by Jesus during His earthly ministry as a miracle of God Himself. The Gospels consistently connect Jesus’ signs of astonishing power with the Lord’s acts and promises in the Old Testament, reinforcing the point that God’s kingdom has broken into history not through the appearance of a merely human Messiah but rather by the arrival of the Lord Himself.
The first of Jesus’ seven “signs” in John 1–12 (sometimes called the “book of signs”) was His transformation of water into wine, fulfilling Isaiah’s prophecy that “the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples . . . a feast of well-aged wine” when He comes to swallow up death’s shadow and wipe tears from all faces (Isa. 25:6–8). When Jesus multiplied bread to feed thousands in a deserted region, He was replicating God’s gift of “bread from heaven” to satisfy Israel’s hunger in the wilderness (John 6; see Neh. 9:15; Pss. 78:24; 105:40). Moreover, that bread was a “sign” that directed hungry hearts to Jesus Himself, the Bread of Heaven. When the imprisoned John the Baptist sent his disciples to ask Jesus whether He was, indeed, the coming One for whom John had prepared God’s people—the One so much greater than John himself, who would baptize with the Holy Spirit—Jesus pointed to the miracles that He was performing: “The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, [and] the dead are raised up” (Luke 7:21–22). Such signs signaled the Lord’s coming in the last days (see Isa. 35:4–6). The “vengeance” that John expected (Luke 3:9, 17) would await Christ’s return at history’s consummation, but Jesus’ healing of the blind, the deaf, and the lame showed that Israel’s God had now come to save.
The account of Jesus’ calming the raging storm on the sea juxtaposes His genuine humanity and His divine authority as the Lord of creation (Mark 4:35–41). One moment, sheer exhaustion had plunged Him into sleep so deep that neither roaring gales nor crashing waters could rouse Him. The next, awakened by His panicky companions, He stood to rebuke the wind and the waves: “Peace! Be still!” Instantly, nature’s unruly powers cowered before their Maker and Master, “and there was a great calm.” In even greater fear, the disciples then asked, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?” In fact, Psalm 107:23–31 had already answered their question: “Some went down to the sea in ships,” found themselves in the grip of stormy wind and looming waves, and in desperation “cried to the Lord in their trouble. . . . He made the storm be still, and the waves of the sea were hushed.” Jesus is the Lord who calms storms.
The seventh sign in John’s book of signs is Christ’s raising Lazarus from the dead—again, with an authoritative word of command: “Lazarus, come out” (John 11:38–44). In a famous vision, Ezekiel saw a valley of dry bones. As the prophet preached, the bones were reconstituted as skeletons, enfleshed, and finally revivified by God’s Spirit (Ezek. 37:1–10). The Lord explained: “Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I will open your graves and raise you from your graves, O my people. . . . And I will put my Spirit within you, and you shall live” (vv. 12–14). The miracle that restored Lazarus to earthly life was a sign pointing to Jesus Himself, “the resurrection and the life” (John 11:25). It also pointed ahead to the final sign at the end of John’s gospel, Jesus’ own resurrection.
the messiah’s resurrection
Christ’s resurrection from the dead is the preeminent miracle of God that completes the redemptive-historical transition from the “present evil age” to the “age to come”—the “last days” in which promise gives way to fulfillment and death gives way to life (Gal. 1:4; Luke 18:30; Heb. 1:2). Along with His sacrificial death, Jesus’ resurrection “on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures” stood central and “of first importance” in the good news that Paul preached among the nations (1 Cor. 15:3–4; see Rom 10:9).
God the Father is the divine Agent who raises His obedient and well-pleasing Son from death to abundant indestructible life, from humiliation to glory. By raising Jesus from the dead, God refuted sinners’ unjust condemnation of the Messiah and reversed their abuse of Him (see Acts 2:24; 3:14–15; 4:10; 10:39–40; 13:28–31). By raising Jesus, God not only vindicated Christ’s perfect righteousness (1 Tim. 3:16) but also assured everyone who trusts in Jesus that Christ’s righteousness secures our justification before God’s just throne. Because we are united to Christ by grace through faith, Christ was “raised for our justification” (Rom. 4:25). Moreover, Christ’s resurrection is the “firstfruits” that guarantees the ingathering of the whole harvest of His people, rescued from death into everlasting life when He returns from heaven (see 1 Cor. 15:20, 23).
The sin-stained creation is now in “bondage to corruption,” longing for “the freedom of the glory of the children of God,” the completion of our “adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies,” at Christ’s glorious return (Rom. 8:19–23). Jesus’ resurrection is the miracle that launches the new creation that will eventually embrace a new heaven and earth (Rev. 21:1–5).
conclusion
The living God remains sovereignly, intimately engaged with the universe that He created, sustaining its existence by His power and maintaining its order in His wisdom. The cause-and-effect order that makes the natural sciences possible and our everyday lives livable is not the product of an impersonal system. That order flows from the Creator’s personal reign over everything that He has created, from atoms to galaxies. This Sovereign Creator and Sustainer is free to engage His creation in unpredictable (to us) and surprising ways, especially since the universe is a grand theater in which He is enacting a drama of redeeming love. Because He overflows in astonishing grace, He is patiently working throughout history to achieve His plan to rescue His creation from the guilt and miseries caused by human sin. And to signal the milestones in that redemptive story—exodus; sanctuaries; the incarnation, mission, and resurrection of His Son—God injects clusters of miracles that grab our attention, evoke our awe, and elicit our trust. How should we respond? Simply by bowing in humble adoration before this “God who works wonders” (Ps. 77:14).