A Real Miracle
I remember well “The Miracle on Ice”. It occurred during the 1980 Winter Olympics. It was a hockey game between the USA and Russia in the semifinals of the Gold Medal division. The winner would go on to play in the gold medal game. The game was bigger than what was happening in that ice rink. This was a battle between two nations stuck in a state of détente’.
The Russians were the bullies of the block. They had professional players on their team. They were big and bad and carried a reputation that had already awarded them the gold medal even before the games began that year. The USA, on the other hand, was comprised of good college players. Only one of them had a good pro career later. You know the end of the story. The USA won the game! It has been heralded as the greatest sports story of the past century.
The purpose of this article is to explore briefly the use of the word—miracle. We use this word to describe events that are just so magnificent and fantastic that they rise to another level. There is the “miracle of birth”. When someone escapes a bad car accident unscathed, we say it was a miracle. We use it flippantly for anything that happens for which we want to ascribe it meritorious status. It then becomes a miracle.
However, we know that it these are not real miracles. A miracle is a supernatural act. It occurs because of the imposition of God into the event of the moment. The Bible says of Jesus that He healed “all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease…all sick people who were afflicted with various diseases and torments, and those who were demon-possessed, epileptics, and paralytics…” (Matthew 4:23-24).
Matthew 10:7-8 records that Jesus sent out the apostles with this command, “And as you go, preach, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons. Freely you have received, freely give.” These two passages give details of Bible miracles.
Nothing that we call a miracle today actually fits into this category. A miracle is a supernatural act that could not have occurred without divine intervention. There is nothing more natural than the birth of a child, even though it is an awe-inspiring event to be certain! In the same car accident that took the life of one person, another person might (and has) walked away unscathed. It was not a miracle.
The claims of miracle-workers today do not stand up to Biblical scrutiny. They might induce some temporary positive effects in the health of a believer that simply prove the power of the mind to control some things for a while. But, they do not heal in the same way that Jesus and the apostles did. No one today can duplicate Bible miracles. I am not limiting God with this statement. I am limiting mankind because God has limited them.
I want you to notice what Matthew recorded earlier in the previous text. “And when He had called His twelve disciples to Him, He gave them power over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease.” (Matthew 10:1). Jesus gave miraculous powers to the apostles. There are no apostles living today, so there are no Bible miracles being worked today.
