Who Is This Man?Sample

He performs miracles, and they reveal who he is.

When I read the Bible as an unbeliever, one thing I truly enjoyed was how candid it is in revealing the shortcomings of Jesus’ disciples, no matter how embarrassing. For me, as a skeptic, this honesty helped to build trust. The writers of the Gospels weren’t out to promote themselves; they were out to glorify Jesus. When even John the Baptist—the very prophet who had said of Jesus, “I have seen and testified that this is the Son of God” (John 1:34)—had doubts and needed some reassurance that Jesus was indeed “the one,” the Bible doesn’t gloss things over. And when that question comes to Jesus, he doesn’t respond directly by saying, “Yes, I am the Messiah.” Instead, he offers what looks like the beginning of an incomplete argument that John should finish for himself: “Go and report to John what you hear and see:The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, those with leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor are told the good news” (Matthew 11:4-5). In other words, “All these miracles are happening . . . therefore, fill in the blank: What, what do you think?” In short, Jesus performed miracles, and they reveal who he is.

The miracles that Jesus performed were intended to reveal his identity, and people started catching on. When he multiplied the bread and fed the crowds, “the people saw the sign he had done, [and] they said, ‘This truly is the Prophet who is to come into the world’” (John 6:14). After he calmed the storm with his disciples in the boat, “they were fearful and amazed, asking one another, ‘Who then is this? He commands even the winds and the waves, and they obey him!” (Luke 8:25). And when Jesus raised the son of a widow from the dead, the crowds concluded: “A great prophet has risen among us,” and “God has visited his people” (Luke 7:16).

Even the demons that Jesus cast out knew his identity. In Luke 4:34, an unclean spirit in the synagogue at Capernaum cries out with a loud voice “I know who you are—the Holy One of God!” And the news about Jesus spread “to every place in the vicinity” (Luke 4:37).

Jesus’ amazing works reveal the identity of the Son and the heart of the Father. The blind see, the deaf hear, and the lame walk! When Jesus healed a man blind from birth, people asked, “Was he born blind because he was a sinner? Because his parents were sinners?” No, it was so that “God’s works might be displayed in him” (John 9:3). Glorious!