Christ is seen the Creator through his miracles
By Dr. Rafat Amari
Jesus is known as Creator through the way he repeated those early touches recorded in Genesis, approaching a small sample in order to create something important
From the feet of Jesus, we can look across history at the many works of creation. Scripture shows us how things were created, and how the most glorious and most significant examples, like man, appeared.
God created many significant things from small items devoid of life and importance. One example of this is the way God approached a handful of dust and demonstrated His ability to produce something great and original from what is trivial and meaningless. From dust, He created the body of a man.
Not only did He do this in the original creation in the Garden of Eden, but Jesus repeated the steps of that work when He walked into a routine situation. A dead body had turned into a handful of dust – as was the body of Lazarus – but He resurrected it into a living body once again.
Just as God made a woman from the rib of a man by using a small specimen in order to create something of great value, Jesus demonstrated His power to create great things from small things which, based on appearances, one should not rely on in a crisis.
From the trivial, despised, simple and neglected things in our lives, Jesus provides a window through which He gives us a glimpse of great innovations. He reminds us of His power to make something original from anything that is common. Remember how He broke five loaves and two fish to make enough food for 5,000 people in the wilderness? There was so much food that what was left over was carried off to feed nearby villages.
Jesus behaved as the same manner the Creator did in the book of Genesis creating man and woman from insignificant raw materials. Furthermore, he behaved as Creator in his conscious ability to innovate in any situation he found himself in, to bring into being from whatever materials were to hand, like a stinking body which was changing into a handful of dust, something that was more important and more valuable than anything else on earth, the body of a living man. He also made do with food carried by a little boy into the wilderness in order to meet the need of thousands in the wilderness.
This shows that he is the independent Creator God, whose innovativeness does not need any great preparations. From the smallest of local raw materials he is able to raise up the most valuable and most important of his works. He is able to establish his will and create its living elements by touching the smallest of them, which he had put there in the past, and had previously planned to use as the raw materials for his innovation.
The miracles of Jesus, like raising Lazarus from the dead, did not happen in a place hidden from the eyes of observers, as is the case with claims of those who attribute to themselves works that nobody has seen.
The miracles of Jesus did not happen in an unsophisticated society, unable to make its voice heard. Often in primitive societies a lie claimed as a miracle is believed even though it did not really happen. Rather, Jesus’ miracles happened in an environment and in a society where any event and every idea was discussed.
No witness came forward from Jesus’ own generation to deny His miracles or make light of the greatness of those creative acts. Testimony to His miracles also comes from non-Christian sources. Historians from Jesus’ generation like Flavius Josephus, the Jewish historian, were contemporaries of Jesus and wrote about the high character and works, confirming Jesus’ miracles.
Nor did the miracles of Jesus happen in the midst of a generation that had become subject to him as the cities of some of those reformers were subjected to them by force in their generation. Many religions were professed by the cities and countries of the founders of these religions in their own generation, which meant that history was written in a manner that agreed with their lying claims, attributing to them things that probably did not really happen.
The histories were sponsored by the religious authority which continued to rule the city or the country where the propagandists spread their thoughts and claims. This type of religious authority conceals what is harmful to the reputation of the religion and its founder and introduces new lying accounts in favor of the religion’s founder.
By contrast, the miracles of Jesus happened at a time when the contemporary generation was not subject to Him. Rather, Judaism continued to rule in Jerusalem and obstinately refused to believe that Jesus was the Messiah. Yet all around them historians, like Flavius Josephus, observed His miracles and stated that they really happened.
One must acknowledge that the miracles of Jesus happened in the midst of a sophisticated society of great sensitivity, ready to criticize and analyze all that went on within it. These people didn’t doubt the moral perfection of Jesus’ character or the fact of His miracles.
We see Luke, a historian and doctor who followed Jesus' miracles and was a witness to the events that the apostles and Jesus’ contemporaries recorded. When Luke wrote to his friend, he said in the first four verses of the first chapter of his gospel, “ Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eye-witnesses and servants of the word. Therefore, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.”
Luke contacted the individuals involved in the miracles and confirmed the truth of the miracles according to historical and scientific standards.
Yes, the miracles of Jesus happened in a civilized and observant society, fully able to refute them if they have not happened, and the most important historians of the generation testified to them.
Even Herod, to whom Pilate sent Jesus for trial, had wanted for a long time to see Jesus, since Herod had heard about His many miracles. Jesus’ miracles were the talk of the society, both great and powerful. There was much astonishment among the various classes of society, including rulers, historians, and ordinary individuals.
The information presented in the Bible about the miracles of Jesus is trustworthy. I invite you to read the Gospels daily in order to know more about the Lord Jesus Christ and His miracles. When you read about Christ in the Bible with an open heart, you’ll experience something greater than knowledge alone. When you give yourself to Him, you will experience a spiritual change, and you will know the Lord personally in your soul, because the Holy Spirit will reveal Christ to your spirit.
Copyright 2006 by Dr. Rafat Amari. All rights reserved.