What Manner of Man Is This?
The day Jesus taught the parables by the sea was not over yet. Mark says that the same day, when the even was come, the disciples took him even as he was in the ship and set out for the other side (Mark 4:35–36). The boat was filling with water, and Jesus was asleep on a pillow. The disciples woke Him: Master, carest thou not that we perish? (Mark 4:38). He stood up, rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, Peace, be still (Mark 4:39). The wind stopped. And now they were afraid of something else.
“And they feared exceedingly, and said one to another, What manner of man is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”MARK 4:41 · KJV
That is the question every miracle asks. A man so tired He slept through a storm was truly a man. One who commands the sea is more. The miracles are not decorations on the story of Jesus. Take them away and you do not have a simpler Jesus. You have a different one, and one who cannot save you.
“And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book: 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.”JOHN 20:30–31 · KJV
A special act of God that goes beyond the ordinary processes of nature, done for His purposes, often as a sign confirming His Word. Scripture calls them miracles and wonders and signs (Acts 2:22): works of power, which astonish, and which point past themselves.
The Gospels record about thirty-five of His miracles, and they tell us that was only part (Matthew 4:23–24; John 21:25). Jesus did them as God the Son in human flesh, in the power of the Holy Spirit: God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power (Acts 10:38). And in them He manifested forth his glory (John 2:11). See The Two Natures of Christ.
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For Deeper Study
- The Miracles of Our LordAmazon Charles C. RyrieA dispensational theologian walks through the recorded miracles of Jesus with care and warmth.
- MiraclesAmazon C. S. LewisThe classic answer to the claim that miracles cannot happen. Lewis was an Anglican and held some views Baptists do not share.
- In Defense of MiraclesAmazon R. Douglas Geivett and Gary R. Habermas, eds.Evangelical philosophers and historians answer Hume and defend the miracles of Jesus and the resurrection. For serious students.
- Counterfeit MiraclesAmazon B. B. WarfieldReformed. A 1918 study of miracle claims through church history, arguing that the gifts belonged to the apostolic age.
- A Place of HealingAmazon Joni Eareckson TadaAn evangelical writer, paralyzed since 1967, wrestles honestly with healing and suffering. Reformed in her view of God's sovereignty.
- Foxe's Book of MartyrsAmazon John FoxeThe classic Protestant record of those who died for the faith, from the early church to the English Reformation.
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The Parables
A parable is a story from ordinary life laid beside a spiritual truth. Jesus used parables to teach those willing to hear and to answer those who had hardened themselves, and we read them by their setting and His own explanations, not as a secret code.
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