We Believe in the Supernatural

TV sportscaster Al Michaels uttered one of the most memorable lines in broadcasting history during the 1980 Olympics in Lake Placid. As America’s young hockey team skated toward a 4-3 win over the heavily-favored Soviet squad, Michaels blurted out, “Do you believe in miracles? Yes!”

An underdog victory in a sporting event doesn’t compare to parting the Red Sea, but if someone asks, “Do you believe in the miracles described in the Bible?” my answer is a resounding “yes.” Churches devoted to Restoration Movement ideals like “where the Bible speaks, we speak,” give that same answer.

Yes, we believe God provided manna for the Israelites and he made the walls of Jericho collapse. We believe Elijah prayed and fire came down. We believe Jesus changed water into wine, healed people who suffered from leprosy, and raised Lazarus back to life. We believe God confirmed the message of salvation “by signs, wonders and various miracles, and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will” (Hebrews 2:4).

Don’t Make a “Skeptacle” of Yourself

Have you ever met someone who considers belief in the supernatural naïve and out-dated? If you encounter such individuals—let’s nickname them skeptacles (“skeptic” + “miracles”)—take their questions seriously. Scripture says, “Be merciful to those who doubt” (Jude 22), and “be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks” the reason for your hope in Christ (1 Peter 3:15).

The Jewish Sadducees were skeptacles. Jesus told them, “You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God” (Matthew 22:29). They didn’t believe in angels, spirits, and the resurrection (Acts 23:8).

Greek philosophers were skeptacles. When the apostle Paul preached in Athens, some members of the audience sneered when he got to the part about Jesus’ resurrection (Acts 17:32). This anti-supernatural worldview infected the church in Corinth, moving Paul to ask in astonishment, “How can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?” (1 Corinthians 15:12).

America’s third President was a skeptacle. Thomas Jefferson held Jesus’ moral teachings in high regard, but he didn’t accept the miracles recorded in the Gospels. Jefferson took a sharp instrument and literally cut and pasted together his own version of the New Testament. The resulting 84-page document, bound in red leather and titled The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth, includes some of Jesus’ life and teachings, but omits supernatural references like the feeding of the 5,000. It includes Jesus’ burial, but not his resurrection.

TV personality Bill Maher is a skeptacle. In an interview with the New York Times, Maher said, “It’s not that there are no miracles. A tree is a miracle. You’re just used to it . . . . all the essentials of religion that are in the Bible or the Koran—we’re used to them. But it doesn’t mean they’re not crazy, doesn’t mean they’re not ridiculous. And so to be religious at all is to be an extremist, is to be irrational.”

Liberal biblical scholars tend to be skeptacles. At the same time the Restoration Movement was gaining momentum on the American frontier in the 1800s and the early 1900s, a stream of biblical scholarship influenced by theologians like Rudolf Bultmann contended that history is a closed continuum of effects untouched by supernatural powers. They set out to “demythologize” the Gospels, suggesting that the wonders attributed to Jesus in the New Testament probably could be explained by natural laws if all the facts were known. Conservative students of the Bible, though, could not accept this approach. The Restoration preacher Z. T. Sweeney challenged H. L. Willett, a prominent liberal among the Disciples of Christ who served as president of the University of Chicago, to a debate about miracles, but the debate never happened because the two men couldn’t agree on the definition of a miracle. To Willett, a miracle was merely “the unusual but normal activity of a perfect life in the domain of nature.”

Some of today’s religious leaders are skeptacles. When I was a young minister in New York, I got to know a Jewish rabbi from a Reformed synagogue known for its liberal views. When I mentioned my confidence in the Bible, the rabbi asked incredulously, “You actually believe Jacob wrestled with a real angel?” I nodded, and he shook his head in amazement, while a minister from a mainline Protestant church joined in the mockery.

Miracles Really Happened

Can we reasonably believe in the miracles described in the Bible? Here are three key questions to consider: (1) Does God exist? (2) Is the Bible reliable? (3) Did Jesus rise from the dead?

the author of life, the foundation of morality, and the architect of the marvels of DNA. God has revealed himself through nature, through Scripture, and through the Living Word who became flesh and entered human history (John 1:14-18; Hebrews 1:1-3). If you accept Genesis 1:1 as true, it’s reasonable to believe that on rare occasions the God who created the universe can intervene and alter a natural process by the exercise of his divine will. Miracles don’t violate the principle of cause and effect; they simply introduce a supernatural cause into the pattern. If God exists, miracles are at least a possibility.

in countless areas where we can test it—for example, in its description of geographical details (cities, mountains, and rivers) and ancient government officials (kings, governors, and emperors). Unless you are biased against the supernatural, why wouldn’t you accept the Bible’s testimony about miraculous events?

Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit would guide his apostles “into all truth” (John 16:13). We believe “prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit” (2 Peter 1:21).

supernatural event. We declare “Jesus is Lord” because we believe “God raised him from the dead” (Romans 10:9). The resurrection distinguishes Jesus from all other religious leaders. Jesus predicted his own resurrection and considered it the ultimate proof of his identity as the Messiah. If he didn’t rise from the dead, the Master Teacher was mistaken about his main message. “And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins” (1 Corinthians 15:17). But because “Christ has indeed been raised from the dead,” our “labor in the Lord is not in vain” (1 Corinthians 15:20, 58). Hundreds of eyewitnesses saw so “many convincing proofs that he was alive” (Acts 1:3) that even doubting Thomas and skeptics like Saul of Tarsus and Jesus’ brother James were compelled to believe in Jesus (John 20:24-29; 1 Corinthians 15:3-8). The early church grew rapidly as believers confidently affirmed, “He is alive!”

Miracles Matter

The New Testament writers describe miracles in vivid terms:

Peter used all three of these words to confirm Jesus’ messianic credentials. He declared, “Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs” (Acts 2:22). Likewise, Paul saw the ability to perform miracles as a distinguishing characteristic of the apostles. He wrote, “I persevered in demonstrating among you the marks of a true apostle, including signs, wonders and miracles” (2 Corinthians 12:12).

Biblical miracles were not random magic tricks; they offered credible evidence that God’s message was trustworthy. Nicodemus told Jesus, “Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him” (John 3:2).

By contending for biblical miracles, we don’t see the world as a wild place where scientific laws are constantly disrupted. A miracle is a rare exception, not the rule. Jesus multiplied bread and fish, but once eaten, the food was digested in the normal way. After Lazarus was raised from the dead, his body was once again subject to normal processes and pains; in fact, after Lazarus was resurrected, Jesus’ enemies wanted to kill him again (John 12:9-11).

Skeptics suggest alternative views:

Miracles don’t convince everyone. Some observers “still would not believe in Jesus in spite of all the miracles he performed” (John 12:37). But many were convinced. The manner of Jesus’ death, including an earthquake and supernatural darkness, even moved the centurion near the cross to confess his admiration for the crucified Christ (Matthew 27:54).

If we read the Bible with an open mind and allow for the possibility of divine intervention, we can recognize God’s purpose and power in the signs and wonders recorded there. The grand Easter miracle validates Jesus’ claims. He was “appointed the Son of God in power by his resurrection from the dead” (Romans 1:4).

So yes, we believe in the supernatural. We agree with John’s conclusion, “Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name” (John 20:30, 31).

AUTHOR NOTES

1. Scripture references in this article are from the New International Version (2011).
2. Source of Thomas Jefferson facts: “How Thomas Jefferson Created His Own Bible,” by Owen Edwards, Smithsonian Magazine (January 2012).
3. Source of Bill Maher quote: “Cameras Roll, and Faith Hasn’t a Prayer,” by John Leland, The New York Times (September 26, 2008).
4. Source of the anecdote about Z. T. Sweeney and H. L. Willett: James B. North, Union in Truth (Standard Publishing, 1994), p. 286. See also “Willett, Herbert Lockwood (1864-1944) in The Encyclopedia of the Stone-Campbell Movement, edited by Douglas A. foster, Anthony L. Dunnavant, Paul M. Blowers, and D. Newell Williams.
5. Readers may wonder, Do miracles still happen today? That question is not within the scope of this article.