Creation and Other Miracles

Christians must necessarily presuppose not only the existence of God, but also that miracles have happened. Creation itself was a miracle. Other miraculous events, such as the Genesis Flood, involve God using what already exists but still transcending the usual workings of nature. The power of God was shown when he bodily raised Jesus from the dead.

Credit: Freeimages / Robert Linder

Unfortunately, the word miracle is vastly overused and cheapened. "I rode my horse all the way into town and he didn't go lame, it's a miracle!" No, it's not. "The boss miraculously kept the meeting to the allotted time". No miracle there either, pal. Dr. John MacArthur is much more specific:

What is a miracle? Let me give you a simple definition. A miracle is an interference with nature by a supernatural power. A miracle is something outside our box invading our little box, something outside our world coming into our world and making waves and ripples. Miracles are events in the external world wrought by the power of God. A miracle is God stepping into the universe, setting aside the normal laws of nature to do a supernature act. The Bible describes miracles usually, especially in the New Testament, in three terms: signs, wonders and mighty works. And therein you have the definition of miracles, really. They were mighty works to create wonder, to act as a sign.  

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Miracles are designed by God to invade the natural world, to show the natural world that there's a supernatural world. And if you continually try to explain miracles away by natural reasoning, what you're doing is just acting like an atheist. You're disallowing God. Miracles are mighty works to create wonder that points to God.

"The Bible Verifiable by Miracles", which is well worth reading or hearing. Free, as usual.

Miracles in the biblical sense point to God, and those in the Bible were used to establish authority and credibility of God's representatives, as well as God the Son in the Gospels. Somewhere between the claim of the car starting "miraculously" and the raising of the dead 2,000 years ago are those other miracles.

I heard a debate between an atheist and a man who had written a large book documenting healings that could realistically be explained as miraculous. The atheist rejected them because of his materialistic presuppositions and despite the evidence. There are subjective experiences that we cannot document, cannot back up our views, but we are fully convinced of God's intervention and mercy. I believe God answered our prayers and had mercy on Basement Cat, but I can't prove it. Won't even try.

Does God work any miracles today? I reject the idea that all miracles went away, not only because that is not taught in Scripture, but also from my own experiences and those of others.

As scientific creationists we can, if we are not careful, become focused on our main issue of the historical and scientific accuracy of the Creation / Fall / Flood / Tower of Babel account of Genesis 1-11 to the point that we fail to remember that our greater mission is to uphold the authority of the entire Bible. But our underlying and greatest mission as believers in Jesus is to make disciples as we go into the world. That was the last of all the commands of our Lord Jesus that we are to obey. Our effort to uphold the truth of Genesis is only one important tool that helps Christians to effectively present the gospel as being a reasonable thing for the world to believe by faith. It can enable that world which has been completely cursed by sin and “reconfigured” by paganism, postmodernism, and all sorts of other “isms,” to see that the Bible is true and that it is relevant not only to modern life but ultimately to eternity.

To read the rest, click on "God of Creation - God of Miracles".