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It’s a miracle!” It’s not uncommon to hear these words when a chronically late friend shows up on time, when the package that we ordered is delivered early, or when the glasses that we lost long ago turn up in an unexpected place. We also use that phrase to talk about far more significant things, such as a family member’s unexpected cancer-free results, barely dodging a catastrophic car accident, or receiving an unanticipated windfall just when a large bill is due. In the Bible, however, miracles are something specific. They don’t appear simply for the sake of astonishing people; rather, they exist to point to something else—something that God is doing. And whenever God does something significant, He speaks. If you look carefully, you’ll notice that miracles proliferate at key moments when God gave new revelation and brought about epoch-shifting chapters in redemptive history: the exodus, the ministries of Elijah and Elisha, the ministry of Jesus, and the ministries of the Apostles.
Think of miracles like fireworks. We don’t shoot fireworks for just any reason; they typically appear to mark something special—New Year’s, the Fourth of July, a championship victory, and other such events. If we focus on the fireworks, we miss the point. But the fireworks are pretty spectacular, nonetheless. This doesn’t mean that God doesn’t still work in supernatural ways. He does: extraordinary answers to prayer, peculiar healings, and other unusual happenings that we can still experience today. Yet these are not the types of miracles that we see in the Bible. For one, God isn’t giving us new revelation today; the canon of Scripture is closed. Neither does anyone today have the special gift of healing or act in a mediatorial relationship with God as Moses, Elijah, or Jesus did. Jesus is the one, final, and perfect Mediator (1 Tim. 2:5). No one else can match that.
Today, we believe that God has the power to do the miraculous and that He acts in supernatural ways, but we need to be careful to distinguish between what God does today and what God does when He speaks or ushers in a new redemptive era. Only acts of the latter kind fit within the narrow theological definition of miracles. The miracles of the Bible are special, and they confirm that what God says is true. We can pray with confidence, knowing that God works all things together for good for those who love Him, for those who are called according to His purpose (Rom. 8:28), whether He chooses to do something supernatural in our lives or not. But we must remember to look back especially on what God has already done, on the finished work of Jesus Christ and the miracle of salvation that He has accomplished for us.