“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 and 31.

Here we see why the miracles of Christ are recorded in John’s Gospel. Note. John 10:30 to 33”—I and My Father are one. Then the Jews took up stones again to stone Him. Jesus answered them, Many good works have I shewed you from My Father; for which of those works do ye stone Me? The Jews answered Him, saying, For a good work we stone Thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that Thou, being a man, makest Thyself God.” Christ, being a man, made Himself God.

Now, note that Christ, being God, became a man. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God.” John 1:1 and 2.

“And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father), full of grace and truth,” John 1:14.

When Thomas beheld the resurrected Christ, he said, “My Lord, and my God.” John 20:27.

God wants every one to believe and know, concerning Christ, what Thomas believed and knew. Therefore, certain miracles which Christ performed before His death are recorded in this Divine Record; just seven miracles. We believe that “seven” is a Divine number.

Now note the miracles

1—Turning water into wine. John 2:1 to 10.

2—Healing the Nobleman’s Son. John 4:49 to 53.

3—Healing the Impotent Man. John 5:1 to 8.

4—Feeding the Five Thousand. John 6:9 to 13.

5—Jesus Walking on the Sea. John 6:19.

6—The Blind Man Healed in Siloam. John 9:11.

7—Raising Lazarus from the Dead. John 11:43.

Several of these miracles are not recorded in Matthew, Mark or Luke. Before we Consider these, we suggest a few other facts concerning the Gospel of John.

More than eighty per cent of the contents of John’s Gospel is not found in the other three Gospels which are called “The Synoptics.”

In this Divine Record we find a combination of the gospel of the kingdom and the gospel of grace. John is the only one of the four writers whom the Holy Spirit used to record the ministry of Jesus Christ with the woman at the well in Samaria. But she was not a Gentile. She said, “our father Jacob”. John 4:12. And true, we have the “whosoever” in John 3:16. But every scene, except Christ’s visit to Samaria, is set on a Jewish scene. There is no record in John’s Gospel that Christ spoke to even one Gentile while on earth. The word “Jew”, “Jews”, is found in this Record 70 times.

In the miracles, all who were healed and blessed were Jews. These miracles began with a Jewish wedding and ended with a Jewish funeral or grave. We also find an impotent Jew, in a Jewish religious city; a healed blind man in a Jewish religious meeting-place.

With special reference to these four miracles, “turning water into wine”, “healing the impotent man”, “healing the man born blind in Siloam” (which means Sent—John 9:7) and “raising the dead man”, let us note these messages in John:

1—“Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God,” “Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.” John 3:5 and 7.

2—“No man can come to Me, except the Father Which hath sent Me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.” John 6:44.

“John answered and said, A man can receive nothing, except it be given him from heaven.” John 3:27.

“Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on Him Whom He hath sent.” John 6:29.

3—“Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” John 3:3. “He went his way therefore, and washed, and came seeing:” John 9:7.

“And Jesus said, For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see; and they which see might be made blind.” John 9:39.

4—“Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth My Word, and believeth on Him that sent Me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life. Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live.” John 5:24 and 25.

“Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; And whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die. Believeth thou this?” John 11:25 and 26.

In John’s Gospel we learn that the sinner is unregenerated, impotent, blind from his mother’s womb, and spiritually dead.

“Turning water into wine” speaks of the new birth by the Spirit and water, and the joy that follows.

The impotent man was unable to do anything to bring about his own cure. He could not. That is the helpless predicament of the unregenerated, blind, dead sinner, in John’s Gospel. Note again John 6:28 and 29 and John 6:40.

“Then said they unto Him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God? Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on Him Whom God hath sent.”

“And this is the will of Him that sent Me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on Him, may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day.”

THE POOL SILOAM (SENT)

More than forty times, in John’s Gospel, Christ is called the “Sent One”. The pool of Siloam was the pool of Sent. This spoke of the blood of Jesus Christ, the Sent One. Apart from faith in the shed blood the most cultured, moral, religious individual will remain spiritually blind. “The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” I Corinthians 2:14.

“For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.” I Corinthians 1:21.

PASSING OUT OF DEATH INTO LIFE

In John 5:24 and 25, we learn that the sinner, in John’s Gospel, is a dead man. Lazarus was a dead man. It was near his grave that Jesus Christ spoke one of the greatest truths in the Bible

“Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life; he that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; And whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die. Believest thou this?”

Note with this, Ephesians 2:1 and 6, Romans 6:13 and 6:3 and 4.

“And You hath He quickened (made alive), who were dead in trespasses and sins.”

“And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.”

“Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.”

“Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into His death? Therefore we are buried with Him by baptism into death that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.”

Then note I Thessalonians 4:14 to 17.

“For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him. For this we say unto you by the Word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first; Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air; and so shall we ever be with the Lord.”

Here then we have the answer to both of Job’s questions; so far as the saint is concerned. “But man dieth, and wasteth away; yea, man giveth up the ghost, and where is he?” Job 14:10. “If a man die shall he live again?” Job 14:14.

Sinners are made alive spiritually the moment they believe in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and accept Him as their resurrection and life.

Then they will be made alive in resurrection bodies at His coming: “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at His coming.” I Corinthians 15:22 and 23.

JESUS APPROVED BY MIRACLES

The miracles of the Lord Jesus Christ were to prove to Israel that Jesus Christ was God’s Apostle. Miracles were the signs of an Apostle. II Corinthians 12:12. Christ was God’s Apostle to Israel. Hebrews 3:1. Note the words of Christ, in John 5:36: “The works which the Father hath given Me to finish the same works that I do, bear witness of Me, that the Father hath sent Me.”

Jesus of Nazareth was a man put on display by God in the presence of Israel by miracles and signs. Acts 2:22.

There are some Christians who still endeavor to prove the Deity and omnipotence of Christ by carrying on a healing program. They use the slogan, “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today and forever.” Hebrews 13:8. They generally have their bottles of oil to anoint the sick and the afflicted and claim that all Christians could perpetuate or duplicate the miracles of the Lord Jesus, if they had the same faith that the first century disciples had.

Timothy was a disciple of genuine faith and courage. Paul instructed Timothy to take a physical remedy for his physical disease. There are no miraculous healings recorded in the writings of Paul after God’s Divine judgment upon Israel recorded in Acts 28:25 to 28.

But if we are to prove that Jesus Christ is Divine by perpetuating His miracles let us be sure that we perform all seven miracles of John’s Gospel, feeding the 5000 with a few fish and loaves, walk on the water, raise the dead, turn water into wine.

For more articles by Pastor J. C. O'Hair, visit the J. C. O'Hair Online Library.