Signs and Wonders

Introduction

‘Truly, truly I tell you, anyone who believes in me, the things that I do, he will do also, and he will do greater things than these because I am going to my Father’ (John 14:12). Jesus healed the sick, drove out demons, opened blind eyes, walked on the water, turned water into wine and raised the dead. Having done all those things and more he said plainly that others would do them too and go on to do greater things as well. Did his followers fulfil his words? They certainly healed the sick and drove out demons and raised the dead as well as performing other miracles, but did they actually do greater things than Jesus did?

What greater things could they have done? Is there anything greater than raising the dead? Some people say that Jesus in the flesh was just one person limited in time and space. His followers were many and spread out all over the Roman empire and eventually the world, and thus were able to do more than he did. That is of course true, but more is not the same as greater. What did the disciples do, and what can we do, that is greater than what Jesus did?

Did Jesus really mean what he said? It seems like blasphemy to suggest that we can do greater things than he did. The real blasphemy, however, is to deny his words and say that they were wrong. He plainly told his disciples that those who believed in him would do greater things than he had done. With his help we will search out the meaning of these difficult words, and learn valuable new spiritual lessons as we do so.

What Did Jesus Do?

Jesus began his public ministry by standing up in the synagogue at Nazareth and reading from the book of the prophet Isaiah. These were the words he read: ‘The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour’ (Luke 4:18,19).

Jesus went on to say to them, ‘Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing’ (Luke 4:21 ). This was a very big statement. The carpenter’s son, who had grown up among them, was suddenly making an enormous claim. He himself, he said, was the fulfilment of this 700 year old prophecy.

What would those words from chapter 61 of Isaiah have meant to the members of the Nazareth synagogue? Firstly they would have remembered, as they were reminded annually at the Passover, that their ancestors had been slaves in the land of Egypt. There they had suffered hardship and oppression till Moses came and delivered them with signs and wonders worked by the hand of God.

Secondly they would have remembered their year of Jubilee, the year of the Lord’s favour. This special 50th year came once in a lifetime for most people. When it came in ancient times, all slaves were set free and all lands returned to their original owners. But what could that mean under Roman occupation? How would Jesus fulfil these scriptures?

I need hardly write of what happened in the next three years. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John have all recorded it in detail. Jesus went about doing good. Everything that Isaiah had predicted was fulfilled. Jesus brought the good news of the kingdom to the poor of Galilee. No one knows how many sick people were healed and set free from the grip of deadly diseases. Those distressed and oppressed by the powers of darkness were released. Unbelievable miracles took place. Even those who had been born blind received their sight. Beyond even that he brought the dead back to life. Elijah and Elisha had done that in the distant past, but the miracles of the past aren’t things you quite expect to see in the present!

We can imagine the jubilation of those who were healed and set free. No doubt many among us have experienced some of these things. How excited the disciples must have felt as they not only watched these amazing happenings, but received power to do the same things themselves. They had read of such things in their scriptures, but they had never dreamt that they would happen before their very eyes, and through their own hands.

Where was this all going to lead? Was Jesus another Moses to set Israel free from the Romans as Moses had done from the Egyptians? Would he be another David to restore Israel’s military strength? Would Jesus’ miraculous powers bring in the promised kingdom of peace, health and prosperity to the world? Was this the end of disease, poverty and the many other troubles and sorrows that afflict mankind? The excitement and anticipation of the disciples and the crowds that followed Jesus must have known no bounds.

What did Jesus Think?

One person, I believe, was not so excited. That was Jesus himself.

When the crowds followed him to listen to his teaching and see or experience his healing power, he retreated to mountain tops to pray and be alone with God. When reports circulated in Judaea that he was making more disciples than John the Baptist, he left and went to Samaria.

Instead of concentrating his thoughts and efforts on his wonderful ministry of help and blessing to the multitudes, he often spent his time giving teaching that even his own disciples could not understand. While they were thinking about his miracles his mind was often on other things. In time he began to tell them he was going to die and rise again. They wanted his unique and wonderful ministry to continue for ever. He and his Father had a different and a better plan, which at that stage they were totally unable to understand.

On one occasion Jesus said, ‘I have a baptism to be baptised with, and how constrained (restricted, limited) I am until it is accomplished’ (Luke 12: 50). Jesus knew that his ministry, which so thrilled his followers, was limited. He longed to do things that to him now were impossible, but later he would do through his disciples. These were the greater things that could only take place after he had gone to the Father.

I am Going to the Father

Jesus spent the evening before his death preparing his disciples for what was to come. John recorded much more than Matthew, Mark and Luke of what Jesus said on that unforgettable night. Like Matthew, John was present himself, but he was closer to Jesus and understood more than the others of what Jesus had meant. Also he had had longer to reflect on it and had grown greatly in understanding before he eventually wrote it all down. It occupies chapters 14, 15 and 16 of his gospel.

On this occasion, as at previous times, the disciples found it difficult to understand what Jesus was saying. Why should this be? I don’t believe it was because they were simple. I expect they were as intelligent as most of us. It was certainly not because Jesus did not explain things clearly. I am sure he was a master of communication.

Was it because the disciples were spiritual beginners? Hardly - at least by today’s standards! From childhood they would have heard the scriptures read and expounded in the synagogue. In addition they had listened to the teaching and preaching of John the Baptist and then Jesus for over 3 years. They had even watched and performed miracles. You could hardly call people novices who had had years of the best teaching possible and seen more miracles than most of our church leaders put together!

The reason the disciples did not understand Jesus was that they had not yet received the Holy Spirit. Without the baptism and indwelling of the Holy Spirit, they could have no inward experience of the things about which he was talking.

The basic situation today is unchanged from what it was then. It is as impossible now as it was then for anyone to understand what Jesus said apart from the revelation of the Holy Spirit. The words that he spoke to his disciples on his last evening with them will be meaningful to us only to the extent that we have experienced the indwelling and illumination of the Spirit of God.

Let us then prayerfully and with divine assistance seek to understand something of what Jesus told his disciples on that eventful night.

Chapter 14 begins with the words: ‘Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust God; trust me too. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am’ (John 14: 1-3).

Many people don’t go much beyond the thought that ‘if you believe in Jesus you will go to heaven when you die’. Such people, with the help of the KJV translation of this verse, believe that Jesus was here comforting his disciples with the promise of a mansion in the sky, either when they died or when he came again. If we read the rest of the chapter it becomes obvious that this was not what he was talking about.

Jesus was not comforting his disciples with the hope of a beautiful new home somewhere far away above the sky when they had finished their years of trouble and suffering down on earth. He had something much better to give them. He was talking about a new spiritual place that they were to occupy here and now. He was speaking about the present rather than the future.

While Jesus was on earth, his disciples were with him physically, but not spiritually. Though together in the same physical place he was in a totally different spiritual place from them. As he said to the Pharisees, he was from above and they were from below. He was from God and they were from Adam. He was from heaven and they were from earth. He wanted his followers to be with him in the same spiritual place as he was. His death and resurrection and return to the Father were the only way for this to become possible.

In his last recorded prayer Jesus asked his Father, ’Glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began’ (John 17:5). In the beginning, before God created the heavens and the earth, Jesus shared his Father’s glory. The Hebrew word for glory - kavod - means weight or importance. The Greek word - doxa - had an original sense of high reputation, and went on to include meanings of splendour and brightness. No human words can ever describe the position of honour, majesty, power and importance that Jesus shared with his Father.

There came a time when he laid all this aside and took human flesh and blood and was born of Mary. He became subject to limitations and restrictions that are hard for us humans to imagine. Now on the eve of his departure, even though he must first face the suffering of death, he was looking forward with joy to his restoration to his Father’s glory. After his death and resurrection he was to be reinstated. Nothing in human history or imagination can compare with the wonder and glory of the triumphant homecoming that was about to take place.

Joseph had an important position in his youth as the son of a wealthy and respected tribesman. He was taken captive and became a servant to an officer in Egypt. He had gone down in the world. He went lower still when he was unjustly thrown into prison. Suddenly, in one day, he was promoted to the highest position in the land. The mighty Egyptian empire was totally under his control and waiting for his command. All power was given to him. The dramatic and wonderful story of Joseph is a little picture of the infinitely greater story of Jesus. His return to the Father was an exaltation from a far greater depth to a position of much higher power and glory than anything a mortal man could ever hold.

When Jesus returned to that position with his Father, his prayer could be fulfilled, ‘Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world’ (John 17:24 ). Not only did Jesus return to his place of glory at the Father’s right hand. Wonder of wonders, his disciples went to share that place with him. In spirit they went to be where he was. He received them to himself. He did not wait till they died before receiving them to himself. He did not revisit this earth in a physical second coming to receive them. He received them to himself by the Holy Spirit while they still walked this earth in their mortal bodies.

This was the secret of the greater things that they were going to do. They moved into that infinitely greater realm of the spirit. They entered a dimension that till now they had not seen - a dimension that no one sees till by the miracle of grace he is born of the spirit and begins to see the kingdom of God.

All this happened when the Holy Spirit came at Pentecost. The disciples entered a new place with God. They began to be where Jesus was. In the language of Paul writing to the Ephesians, ‘God raised them up with Christ and seated them with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus’ (Eph 2:6). They continued to do miracles in the natural realm, but there was now a big difference. They knew now that these miracles were only the visible things that drew man’s attention. Invisible to the human eye, but visible to God they began to do greater things. These greater things were in the hidden realm of the spirit. They were the spiritual counterparts of the physical signs that Jesus had performed.

Signs

Matthew, Mark and Luke generally use the Greek word δυναμις (dunamis) meaning an act of power to describe the miracles that Jesus did. John more often uses the word σημειον (seemeion) or sign.

A sign on its own is totally valueless. It must point to something. It must have a meaning. When on a journey, you don’t stop when you find a sign pointing to your destination. You press on, encouraged that you are on the right road. Signs that point to non-existent places are worse than useless!

John saw, more clearly than others, that the miracles or signs that Jesus performed pointed beyond themselves to spiritual realities. They pointed to the greater things that those who believed in Jesus would do.

We will now consider the signs that Jesus and his first followers performed, and seek to understand the spiritual realities to which they point.

Next Part Meanings of the Signs