BS4A - INTRODUCTION TO WHAT JESUS DID
Jesus had been sent from the Father to earth to deliver a message that was straight from the Father’s heart. He wanted to be part of our lives again. Separation was as unbearable to the Father as it was for us, and He planned a way through Jesus to restore us to Himself --- knowing that we were helpless to do so ourselves. The Father’s heart was full of love and He wanted all of us back in His family and under His loving guidance.
Therefore, Jesus’ message when He started to teach was that God’s Kingdom (His rule and authority) had come to earth in Himself and at the heart of God’s Kingdom was a loving Father who really wanted all His children to be with Him again in His family.
This was the heart of what Jesus began to teach. But then to prove that God’s rule was back on earth and backed up by God the Father Himself, Jesus began to do miracles. The miracles that Christ performed were the proof behind His words. He was from God, and He was God.
John 1:1-2
What we need to see from the start is that even though Jesus came to earth as “God incarnate” (i.e. God in the flesh), He laid aside all his “God powers” and became a real human just like us.
Philippians 2:5-7
Question: If this was the case, how could Jesus perform miracles?
A Rabbi could only begin teaching when he reached the age of 30 years. In the case of Jesus, we see two important things: First, John the Baptist had been sent by God ahead of Jesus to prepare the people’s hearts for His message. John told them to repent (or change their thinking) and then be baptized (an outward sign of an inward change of heart).
Matthew 3:1-6
Second, we see Jesus Himself going to John the Baptist to be baptized. Why would He do this? Jesus didn’t need to repent of anything. Our answer is found in these verses.
Matthew 3:13-17
The Spirit of God descended upon Jesus and God affirmed that this man was His Son.
God had made Adam and Eve at the very beginning with spirits so that God’s Spirit could dwell within us. Through sin, man lost God’s Spirit. Jesus was now the first man back on earth who was filled with God’s Spirit the way that all of us had originally been created. And this is the answer to HOW Jesus could perform miracles. He laid aside his own “God powers” so that He could operate the way all of us humans were originally meant to operate --- by the power of God’s Spirit within us.
Miracles are the proof that Christ’s words were really God’s words and that God’s Kingdom was back on earth operating through Jesus. There were miracles that whole crowds could see all at once. But Christ’s main ministry was dealing with one person at a time and usually to heal them so that they could be whole: body, soul, and spirit. Let’s look at the three categories of miracles that Christ performed so we can understand what He was doing at that time as well as today.
Next Study: BS4B- Miracles for All