Did Jesus Work Miracles Because He Was God or Because He Depended on God?

The New Testament teaches both!

Dec 06, 2024

It is a popular teaching that Jesus functioned in His earthly ministry entirely as a Man who used His faith in God to work miracles, and therefore we should do the same thing. In other words, Jesus set us an example of how to walk by faith and we can do exactly what He did.

While this kind of teaching at first sounds exciting and inspiring, it raises a significant question: Did Jesus work miracles because He was God and the miracles revealed His deity or because He was a Man who had faith in God?

The answer is that the New Testament teaches both.

Jesus’ Miracles Revealed His Deity

First, let’s look at how Jesus’ miracles revealed His glory as God and pointed to His deity.

Jesus’ first great miracle was at the wedding feast in Cana when He turned water into wine. Notice how John speaks about the meaning of this miracle:

This, the first of His signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested His glory. And His disciples believed in Him. (John 2:11)

Clearly, this passage shows that the miracles of Jesus were not performed as an example for all believers to follow in doing the same thing. Jesus’ miracle pointed to the reality that He was the Son of God, and its purpose was that we should believe in Him and find salvation. John repeats this idea at the end of his gospel:

Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His Name. (John 20:30-31)

Because Jesus was fully Man, we are certainly called to follow Him, imitating His example and walking in His footsteps. Yet Jesus is also fully God, and many of the things He did are not the pattern for us to follow. His signs and wonders were done to point to His deity. The miracles of Jesus were not a lesson for us in how to operate faith as some sort of mechanical power, as some teach today. On the contrary, the miracles of Jesus were unique and extraordinary, demonstrating His divine glory.

We are called to be like Jesus, yet Jesus is the God of Creation, and we can never expect to share in that aspect of His Being.

Jesus’ miracles were not performed so that His disciples could imitate Him in doing exactly the same thing in their own daily lives. On the contrary, Jesus worked miracles to set Himself apart as the God of Glory so that we would fall before Him and worship Him. The miracles of Jesus regularly elicited this response.

And when they got into the boat, the wind ceased. And those in the boat worshipped Him, saying, “Truly You are the Son of God.” (Matthew 14:32-33)
So they gathered them up and filled twelve baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves left by those who had eaten. When the people saw the sign that He had done, they said, “This is indeed the Prophet who is to come into the world!” (John 6:13-14; see also Luke 5:1-8; John 9:1-38)

In both miracles the response of the people was to recognize that Jesus was the Son of God — the Messiah who was sent into the world to save men.

To think that Jesus did miracles to show us what to do is to completely miss the point of the uniqueness of Jesus as the glorious Son of God.

Certainly, God will do miracles through us today. We should expect Him to do so.

“And these signs will accompany those who believe: in My Name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up serpents with their hands; and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.” (Mark 16:17-18)

But we should not bring ourselves under the pressure that we ought to be healing everyone just as Jesus did (Matthew 8:16). Jesus is God and His miracles had the unique purpose of pointing to His deity.

Jesus routinely worked incredible miracles — He stilled the storms, raised the dead, fed the multitudes, turned water into wine, withered the fig tree, walked on water, created money in the mouth of a fish, restored a severed ear, cleansed lepers, opened blind eyes and deaf ears, healed and delivered everyone who was sick. We thank God for the miracles that He does give us today but there is no one who has lived on the earth who has ever seen anything even close to what Jesus did. He was God and we are not.

Greater Works?

Some will point to Jesus’ words in John 14:12 as evidence that we are to do exactly what Jesus did:

“Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in Me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father.” (John 14:12)

Certainly, we are to follow in Jesus’ footsteps in His acts of compassion, in His teaching and in His miracles. We are to be like Christ and continue His work, doing what He did, and the Church has in fact been doing that ever since Jesus’ Ascension.

Moreover, the Church has done “greater works” in terms of size and scope. Hundreds of millions of people have come to Christ and there have been countless miracles of healing, deliverance and changed lives in nations around the world — the Church’s work has been “greater” in that sense. This is possible because of the coming of the Holy Spirit and the work being done through the entire Church as we obey Jesus’ command to take the Gospel to every people group.

Thus, the “greater” works are not more miraculous but are greater in extent. The simple reality is that no individual has ever surpassed Jesus in miraculous works.

Jesus was always “fully filled” with the Holy Spirit – the manifestation of the Spirit was always “without measure” in His life and ministry (John 3:34). However, our lives and ministries reveal only a “measure” of the Holy Spirit’s Presence and work (Romans 12:3; Ephesians 4:7).

There were certainly many wonderful miracles in the Early Church1 but no individual matched Jesus’ level of the miraculous let alone exceeded it. Jesus is God; we cannot surpass Him.

Jesus’ miracles uniquely pointed to His deity. He said that everything He did was done “in My Father’s Name” (John 10:25), yet He did not specifically invoke His Father’s Name when He worked miracles. Jesus did miracles to point to Himself and His authority as the Son of God.

The apostles, on the other hand, always healed and delivered people in Jesus’ Name:

The seventy-two returned with joy, saying, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in Your Name!” (Luke 10:17)
But Peter said, “I have no silver and gold, but what I do have I give to you. In the Name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk!” (Acts 3:6)

Because He was God, Jesus simply worked the miracles. He had the power to heal and deliver:

And all the crowd sought to touch Him, for power came out from Him and healed them all. (Luke 6:19)
And Jesus, perceiving in Himself that power had gone out from Him, immediately turned about in the crowd and said, “Who touched My garments?” (Mark 5:30)

Thus, Jesus’ miracles revealed His glory as God and pointed to His deity.

Jesus’ Dependence on His Father

At the same time, in His humanity Jesus was entirely dependent on the Father for everything:

So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of His own accord, but only what He sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise.” (John 5:19)
“I can do nothing on My own. As I hear, I judge, and My judgment is just, because I seek not My own will but the will of Him who sent Me.” (John 5:30)
“Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own authority, but the Father who dwells in Me does His works. Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me, or else believe on account of the works themselves.” (John 14:10-11)
“… how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him.” (Acts 10:38)

Jesus lived in perfect union with His Father, in continual fellowship with His Father, in continual dependence on His Father. Thus, Jesus described the works He did as the works of His Father.

Jesus answered them, “I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in My Father’s Name bear witness about Me …” (John 10:25)
“If I am not doing the works of My Father, then do not believe Me; but if I do them, even though you do not believe Me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in Me and I am in the Father.” (John 10:37-38)
“Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own authority, but the Father who dwells in Me does His works.” (John 14:10)

Thus, as God, Jesus worked miracles to reveal His deity and to lead people to believe in Him and to worship Him; yet at the same time, as Man He lived in union with the Father, in dependence on the Father. Jesus functioned in His ministry both as God and as Man.

This is part of the mystery of the Incarnation.

The Mystery of the Incarnation

Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of godliness: He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory. (1 Timothy 3:16)

There are many things in the Scripture we can understand. But there are also some very important things we simply cannot understand or resolve.

“The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.” (Deuteronomy 29:29)

For example, God is triune — He is three and yet He is one. The sovereignty of God is another mystery — God is fully sovereign and yet man is entirely responsible for his actions. In both cases we should not try to reconcile the apparent contradictions. We should simply believe them both. God is three and God is one. God is sovereign and man is responsible. If we try to reconcile them, we fall into error.

It is the same with the nature of Jesus. He is fully God and fully Man — two natures in one Person. We simply cannot understand how that is possible and exactly how it works. If we overemphasize His deity, we will diminish His true humanity. If we overemphasize His humanity, we will diminish His deity.

Therefore, we should hold strongly to both the deity and humanity of Christ without diminishing either one, in spite of the fact that we cannot answer every question about this. We should stay with what the Word of God clearly teaches and not go beyond that.

David gives us beautiful advice in Psalm 131:

O Lord, my heart is not lifted up; my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me. But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child is my soul within me. O Israel, hope in the Lord from this time forth and forevermore. (Psalm 131:1-3)

Instead of arguing about the things that are simply “too great and too marvelous” for us, let us look at God — like a weaned child with his mother — trusting Him, resting in Him, and believing and obeying His Word.

Malcolm’s Musings

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