The Deity and Miracles of Christ

Rev. Joseph Sill

• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781640799929
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Studies

This book is intended to show Jesus's deity through the signs and dialogue in the book of John. John has recorded eight signs or miracles in his Gospel. He begins with the marriage at Cana and progresses through his Gospel to the resurrection, the greatest of all the signs. These miracles in the book of John, and all the Bible for that matter, are not arbitrary but were chosen by the Holy Spirit to show that Jesus is who he says he is. John himself tells us his purpose in writing his Gospel in John 20: 21: "But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name." This book is intended for you to look at the miracle and sayings of Jesus in John and show how they point to Jesus being the promised Messiah, the Son of God, deity incarnate.John showed who Jesus was when he said, "I am the bread of life, " and proceeded to feed the five thousand with the loaves and fish. John records that he said, "I am the light of the world, " and then Jesus proceeded to heal a man born blind from birth. He told Mary at the death of Lazarus, "I am the resurrection and the life, " and proceeded to raise the dead. Finally, he told his disciples, "I lay my life down, and I will take it up again." Then he went to the cross, died, and was buried to rise again on the third day. And just in case there is any doubt as to his resurrection, he appears to Thomas in the upper room and to the disciples by the sea of Tiberius.It is my prayer that this book may prove who Jesus is to the minds of all who read it. That they may come to believe that Jesus is who he said he is""the Messiah, the Son of God, who died for our sins""and is raised to make it just as if we never sinned (Romans 4: 25).

Chapter 1

The Marriage at Cana (John 2:1–11)

Jesus’s first miracle was water into wine

It occurred just in time

A step of faith in a marriage act

gave so much more joy to the pact

Celebration and joy came with the wine

Which Jesus can give at any time

He can make up for any lack

So go to him and don’t be slack

Seek his face and obey

It is the joyful way.

According to John, the turning of water into wine at Cana is the first of all Jesus’s miracles, but there are those who would dispute this based on the apocryphal writings and stories from pseudo-scripture that are not part of the canon. These are the books that were rejected by the early church as not meeting the criteria for Scripture and are not to be totally believed. It is recognized that there is some historic value to these books, but they were not considered to be Scripture by the Jews or the early church. Since the end of the apostolic age, the Canon has been closed, which means there are no new scriptures being written.

Every once in a while, there will be a book published and/or advertised with a title such as the lost books of the Bible. They are not lost books of the Bible. What they are are books that were rejected from being part of the Bible because they did not meet the criteria set forth to make them acceptable as Scripture. There are over fifty apocryphal Gospels known for the New Testament and at least thirteen apocryphal books that the Roman Church has in their Bible.27 Therefore, a more accurate title for these works would be the “Rejected Books of the Bible.”

There are no new or lost books to be found. The traditional church believes that the Canon was closed with the apostles and that the Bible we have is the inspired, inerrant, and infallible Word of God. Therefore, for the believer, any miracle claimed to be done by Jesus before the marriage in Cana is to be rejected as unnecessary and frivolous.

Another group that opposes this being the first miracle of Jesus are those oppose the supernatural. They say the stories of the Bible are myth and not based in historic reality. They believe the Scriptures are all allegory and picture stories to portray the intended truth.

One of the most noted scholars that believed this was Rudolph Bultmann, who set out to peel away all the miraculous and come up with what he called the cornel of truth. He believed the miracle was factitious and should be regarded as such. He believed the story had a truth to tell like a fable.

What he was concerned with was the truth that was hidden in or illustrated in the miracle myth that was written. Bultmann said this about this miracle at Cana:

There can be no doubt that the story has been taken over from heathen legend and ascribed to Jesus. In fact the motif of the story, the changing of water into wine, is a typical motif of the Dionysus legend. In the legend this miracle is the miracle of the epiphany of the God, and was therefore dated on the day of the Dionysus feast that is on the night of the 5th to the 6th of January.

Bultmann is saying that the early Christians borrowed this story from the pagan god, Bacchus or Dionysus, and applied it to Jesus. Bacchus or Dionysus was the god of wine (considered beneficial by the Romans), and he was thought to be the great promoter of civilization, a lawgiver, and a lover of peace. We know, of course, that alcohol is not the great promoter of civilization; it is rather a great hindrance to civilization, creating incivility, injustice, and discord when it is abused. Alcohol has been responsible for more crime, hurt, pain, and death than any other drug in the history of mankind.

Now as far as Jesus’s story being a myth, there is ample evidence that it could not be a myth. First of all, James Garrett asks this pertinent question:

Is there an exact parallel? Are the early Christians likely to have done such borrowing? The vile character of Greek and Roman mythology and the non-historical nature of the myths work against this theory.28

It is not likely that the early Christians would have desired to borrow from a pagan god who had drunken orgies as part of the festivals in and to his honor.

Secondly, the Gospels were written within a generation of Christ. This means there would have been eyewitnesses still alive to support or contradict the apostles’ writings. Some New Testament critics and others had assumed that synoptic studies (which is the study of the parallels in Matthew, Luke, and Mark) would lead to the conclusion that the earliest view of Jesus and his ministry were without miracles. These persons assumed that they could eradicate miracles from the Synoptic Gospels.29 This study is called source criticism and did not yield to their expected conclusions.

The Gospel of Mark (which most scholars consider to be the earliest Gospel) has some eighteen miracles in it, and that is not counting the transfiguration and resurrection of Christ.30 There was then an effort to give Mark a late date, but this did not work because of the discovery of what is known as the John Ryland papyrus,31 a small manuscript of John that was dated between 120–130 A.D. It is the oldest existing fragment of the New Testament.

This archeological find forced the scholars to redate the book of John (which is believed to be the last of the Gospels) from between 170 to 200 A.D. all the way back to about 90 A.D. In turn, this forced the scholars to redate Mark between 33 and 68 A.D. This places the writing of the Gospels within a generation of Christ, making it very difficult to have the mythologizing that some claim happened.32 This would be equivalent to trying to convince people today that Ronald Reagan performed miracles in the White House during his presidency. It just wouldn’t happen because there are people alive who would remember it. The combination of the character of pagan myths and the fact that the Gospels are dated within a generation of Christ make the mythologizing claim unlikely and highly improbable. Once again in light of honest history and archeology, the Bible proves to be the most truthful.

What are the details of the miracle that illustrate that Jesus is God? (John 2:1–11). Jesus has just started his ministry. He has just been announced by John the Baptist as the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world. He has just chosen his twelve disciples, and here they are at the wedding.

Many scholars think this wedding was for a close relation of Jesus, possibly one of his younger one-half brothers or maybe a cousin, we don’t know for sure, but we do know they were invited. Let’s look at the details from John 2:1–11.

On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there and both Jesus and His disciples were invited to the wedding. When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to Him, “They have no wine.” And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does that have to do with us? My hour has not yet come.” His mother said to the servants, “Whatever He says to you, do it.” Now...

Table of contents

• Introduction
• Chapter 1
• Chapter 2
• Chapter 3
• Chapter 4
• Chapter 5
• Chapter 6
• Chapter 7
• Chapter 8