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Thursday, December 3, 2015

The reality of miracles and their relevance to Christmas


Hebrews 2:3-4 "how will we escape if we neglect so great asalvation? After it was at the first spoken through the Lord, it was confirmed to us by those who heard, 4 God also testifying with them, both by signs and wonders and by various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit according to His own will."

Introduction:
How do we define the word "miracle"? This will be the aim of today's blog as we explore some of the major scriptures that speak on the subject of the miraculous. The subject of miracles is relevant to holidays such as Christmas and Easter. Why? Both Christmas and Easter celebrate two of the three most important miracles recorded in the Bible: the incarnation of the Son of God in Jesus and His resurrection from the dead (the other most important miracle being creation). Below I will put forth some of the key scriptures that mention the miraculous and then propose headings that will aid in arriving at answering the question: What is a miracle? 

Miracles are irregular events
In the opening verse of today's post, we find that the message of salvation testified to by the writer of Hebrews is a message that had built-in evidence of confirmation by what is described by three kinds of miracles: miracles or working, signs and wonders. Clearly the writer finds the miracles that accompanied the preaching of the Gospel to be compelling enough to provide confirmation of the message and the messenger. But before we go any further, what does the Bible have to teach us about the meaning of the word "miracle"?

When we search the Old Testament's teaching on miracles, we find the main Hebrew word translated "miracle" in some 70 places. Further word study describe the Old Testament word for "miracle" as referring to something that is difficult to do, beyond one's ability or treated as a distinguished and separate activity. We could summarize this idea of "miracle" by noting that it is an extremely irregular event. 

In like manner, whenever we survey the remainder of scripture, we find that miraculous events cluster around strategic points in history. In the Old Testament we see many of the miraculous events situated around the ministries of Moses/Joshua (1445-1375b.c); Samuel (1100 b.c); and Elijah/Elisha (roughly 900b.c). 

In the New Testament we find Jesus and the Apostles being the main instruments through which miracles occur. The writer of Hebrews uses the three main Greek words associated with miracles in the New Testament: workings of God (miracles proper); "signs" or visible miracles and "wonders" or miracles associated with changes in the physical environment. 

These observations serve to show that in approaching a definition of the miraculous, one needs to think first of the event being "extremely irregular" in terms of infrequency of occurance or the event being unusual in comparison to regular events. Apologist Dr. Norman Geisler notes in his "Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics", page 472: "a true miracle also produces results; always bring glory to God, bring good to the natural world" and "true miracles never fail." 

An example of how the reality of the miraculous can demonstrate God's existence
Another Christian apologist, Dr. William Lane Craig, refers to miracles as "naturally impossible events", meaning that no natural processes can bring about what is otherwise a miracle. As we just mentioned, a miracle is an extremely irregular event. Dr. Craig's definition specifies the source of miracles - namely an event that cannot be explained by naturalistic methods and thus can only be of supernatural origin.  

In using Dr. William Lane Craig's discussions on miracles and their place in the course of naturally occuring events, we can propose a sample argument for God's existence. 

Take for example Jesus' resurrection from the dead. Known physical laws and processes describe for us a physical reality in which we should not expect dead men to rise from the dead. Yet Jesus' resurrection from the dead is among the most established events in all of human history. Thus in noting the historical reality of Jesus' resurrection, we can only conclude that it is a miracle, and that in being a miracle, a non-natural, albeit a "Supernatural" cause is behind Jesus' resurrection- namely God Himself. The logic for this line of thinking may go something like this:

#1 Miracles are non-natural events that are naturally impossible or extremely irregular events.

#2 History's task is to recount all events that occur, including naturally possible & naturally impossible events

#3 The Gospel records document Jesus' physical resurrection and have been shown under close scrutiny to be reliable documents

#4 Jesus resurrection was a miraculous event that could be classified as occuring as a result of non-natural causes

#5 Jesus resurrection from the dead is a miracle that did occur in history

If we were to apply the same argument to Jesus' incarnation/virgin birth, it could possibly look like the following argument:

#1 Miracles are non-natural events that are naturally impossible or extremely irregular events.

#2 History's task is to recount all events that occur, including naturally possible & naturally impossible events

#3 The Gospel records reliably document Jesus' incarnation/virgin birth and remarkable life

#4 Jesus' incarnation/virgin birth was a miraculous event that could be classified as occuring as a result of non-natural causes


#5 Jesus' incarnation/virgin birth is a miracle that did occur in history

Both arguments' main premises would require evidences from historical studies, any archaelogical evidence and philosophical considerations to show that the arguments are not only valid (in regards to their form) but moreso their soundness (that is, do they correspond to truth and facts). We won't take the time and space to spell out those details, since the main point of this post is to show the relevance of miracles to Christmas. Nevertheless, knowing that their are good reasons for believing in miracles such as Christ's incarnation and the virgin birth will hopefully equip the Christian in the event of potential evangelistic encounters that can occur during this time of year.