MIRACLES: DISTRIBUTION IN THE BIBLE

Let's start out with some interesting statistics regarding miracles. If you leave out occasions of God supernaturally communicating to people through dreams and prophetic utterances, and don't count the passages where Jesus or his followers are said to have cured many people in a town, these are the rough numbers you arrive at for specific miracles:

Old Testament – 61 miracles: 30 are negative, 31 are positive.

Gospels and Acts – 65 miracles: all but 5 are positive.

These statistics have convinced some people that the God of the OT is portrayed as much crueler and less loving than the God of the NT.

But look at these verses taken from Psalm 136:

O give thanks to the LORD, for he is good

Who struck Egypt through their firstborn,

For his steadfast love endures forever;

Who overthrew Pharaoh and his army in the Red Sea

For his steadfast love endures forever;

Who struck down great kings,

For his steadfast love endures forever.

Note that God's negative miracles toward his enemies are alternated with a repeated chorus indicating that these same miracles actually demonstrate God's great love for His chosen people. And when God did turn against the Jews themselves, it was to punish overtly sinful behavior that threatened to destroy them from within.

“The fact that Yahweh is pictured more as a smiter than a healer in the OT is due to the historically sinful character of the people, not to any lack of beneficence in the character of the Lord.” (Chan, et. al., Dictionary of Old Testament Theology and Exegesis, III, p. 1170) 

The next interesting fact concerns where miracles are found in the Bible.

“In point of fact, miraculous signs are not uniformly distributed throughout the OT. They are largely grouped in three main periods, each of which was marked by a life-and-death struggle for the people of God and which put Yahweh's saving powers and will to the proof.”

                 (Colin Brown, Dictionary of New Testament Theology, Vol. 2, p. 627)

Below I have extended the biblical time period into into the last days. Only the time periods in bold are characterized by multiple miraculous events. Sandwiched in between these periods are relatively dry spells, sometimes of hundreds of years, in which God chose not to demonstrate his presence and power in that particular way. So miracles appear to be the exception, not the rule, over the span of time. We should keep this in mind when dealing with the question of why God doesn't act so overtly today as he did in Bible times.

1. Primeval History

2. Patriarchs

3. The Exodus

4. Conquest and Settlement

5. Monarchy

6. Early Divided Kingdom

7. The Babylonian Exile

8. The Return

9. Life of Christ

10. Spread of the Gospel

11. Church Age

12. End Times

Even more interesting, at least to me, is that if you only look at those time periods in history that are characterized by miracles, they appear to be a ordered according to a symmetrical pattern.

    A. Primeval World History

        B. Moses and the Exodus

            C. Conquest and Settlement of Canaan

                D. Divided Kingdom

                    1. Elijah

                    2. Elisha

                D'. The Exile

                    1. Daniel

                    2. Daniel's Three Friends

        B'. Life and Ministry of Christ

            C'. Early Spread of the Gospel

A'. Final World History

A and A' are the only periods in which the miracles affect a large geographical region.

B and B' are times dominated by the major figures of the Old and New Testament, respectively.

C and C' represent the missions of those leaders being continued and expanded by their immediate successors.

D and D' are both difficult times for the nation of Israel in which almost the only miraculous elements are found to be associated with a small group of select individuals: two during the Divided Kingdom period and four in the Exile. And in the case of Elijah and Elisha, they were only active during about 30 of the 300 years of the Divided Kingdom.

Let's look at each pair of miraculous time periods in more detail beginning with two time periods we sometimes ignore in talking about miraculous events:

First (Genesis 1-11) and the Last Days (stretching from Day of Pentacost to the end of time—mainly Revelation)

Creation of Heaven and Earth

    Expulsion from God's Presence (east of Eden)

        Remnant Saved from Destruction (Flood)

            Noahic Covenant

                Mankind Divided (Tower of Babel)

----------------------

                Divisions Erased (Day of Pentacost – not only of language, but also in the fact that the Spirit fell on old and young, men and women, slave and free)

            New Covenant

        Remnant Sealed in Tribulation (either saved from or sealed during)

    God Dwells with Mankind (Rev. 21:3)

New Heaven and New Earth (large number of verbal parallels between Genesis 1-3 and Revelation 21-22)

Now of course a lot depends on your own particular view of the end times, but in broad outline, the events of the last days could be seen as a replaying of the tape of primeval events in reverse order.

Moses and Jesus Parallels:

Miraculous preservation at birth (Exodus 2)                   Miraculous birth (Luke 1-2, etc.)

Magicians' serpents devoured (Exodus 7:12)                  Demons cast out (Matthew 17:14, etc.)

Darkness (Exodus 10:21-23)                                           Darkness at the crucifixion (Matthew 27:45)

Red Sea divided (Exodus 14:21-31)                                Christ walks on water (Matthew 14:25)

Manna provided for the people (Exodus 16:14-35)         Feeding the multitudes (Matthew 15:22, etc.)

Waters turned to blood (Exodus 7:20-25)                      Water turned to wine (John 2)

Death of the firstborn (Exodus 12:29-30)                      Widow's son raised (Luke 7:11-17)

Miriam given leprosy (Numbers 12:10)                         Lepers cleansed (Luke 5:12; 17:11-19)

Levites killed for approaching God (Numbers 16)        Veil of temple torn (Mark 15:38)

Earthquake swallows up disobedient (Numbers 16:32) Dead saints rise from the earth (Matt. 27:52-53)

Aaron's staff put forth buds (Numbers 17)                     Fig tree blasted (Matthew 21:19)

There are three types of correspondence here: in the first group, miracles associated with Jesus parallel those of Moses and sometimes exceed them; in the second group, Jesus' actions represent a sort of reversal of miracles associated with Moses; and lastly there are physical miracles occurring in the wilderness that point forward to spiritual truths related to Jesus.

Bronze serpent lifted up for healing (Numbers 21:8-9)   Jesus relates incident to himself (John 3:14- 15)

Manna provided (Exodus 16)                                           Jesus as the bread of life (John 6:35)

Water in wilderness from a rock (Exodus 15:23-25)       Jesus as the source of living water (John 4;

                                                                                          17:5-7; I Corinthians 10:4)

Paul in I Corinthians even states that the Jews in the wilderness drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ.

Joshua-Judges and Acts 1-12 In both these time periods, miracles help God's people conquer territory in His name. This is accomplished offensively in Joshua-Judges and defensively in Acts. “If the Gospels are the 'Torah' of the NT, Acts is its book of Joshua.” F. F. Bruce

Spies in Jericho are let down on a rope from wall of city (Joshua 2:15)

        Paul escapes from wall of city in the same way (Acts 9:25)

Literal and figurative signs from heaven (Joshua 10; Judges 4-5)

        Literal and figurative signs from heaven (Acts 2:2,19)

Spirit of God comes upon the judges (Judges 3:10; 6:24; 11:29; 14:6,19; etc.)

        Day of Pentacost (Acts 2)

Samson escapes by carrying off city gate at night (Judges 16:3).

        Peter escapes through city gate at night (Acts 12:10)

Samson only truly serves God after being blinded (Judges 16:18-31)

        Paul only truly serves God after being blinded (Acts 9:1-18)

Achan and Ananias and Sapphira

And then there is this closest parallel between Joshua and Acts. But since I have already dealt with this 

correspondence in my post "Acts 4-5," I will not rehearse all that I said there.

Elijah-Elisha Parallels

Elijah (I Kings)                                                       Elisha (II Kings)

no rain but God provides (17:1-7)                          no water until God provides (3:9-20)

widow's oil multiplied (17:11-16)                          widow's oil multiplied (4:2-7)

meal multiplied (17:11-16)                                     bread multiplied (4:42-44)

widow's son raised from the dead (17:17-24)        woman's son raised from the dead (4:32-37)

prophets saved (18:3-4)                                          prophets saved (4:38-41)

runs before chariot (18:44-46)                               goes in spirit to man from chariot (5:20-27)

comforting vision from God (19:9-18)                  comforting vision of God's army (6:8-17)

Benhadad defeated (20:1-34)                                 Benhadad's siege lifted (6:24-7:20)

lion kills man as predicted (20:36)                         bears maul young men (2:24)

prophet's eyes bandaged (20:38-41)                       prophet blinds soldiers (6:18-23)

Jordan River parted (II Kings 2:8)                          Jordan River parted (2:14)

So far we have shown a consistency between the miracles God performed in the OT with those in the NT. Here are examples of similar miracles and events associated with two particular prophets; it is almost as if the same man is being referred to in both sets. What is the underlying message here? I think the similarities are meant to point us to the consistent source behind these miracles, God's Spirit. Recall that before Elijah is taken up into heaven, Elisha asks if he can inherit a double portion of his spirit. I always thought that this was rather selfish of him to want twice the spiritual power that Elijah had, but that isn't what Elisha was requesting at all. There was a whole band of prophets following Elijah, and Elisha is just asking to be treated as the oldest son among them, who would usually get twice the inheritance that the other sons received.