Episode 71 – Miracles Part 4 – The Lord of Matter, Energy, and Time

Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. In John 14:6, Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” The goal of Anchored by Truth is to encourage everyone to grow in the Christian faith by anchoring themselves to the secure truth found in the inspired, inerrant, and infallible word of God.

Script: (Bible quotes from the New Living Translation)

But you may wonder, ‘How will we know whether or not a prophecy is from the LORD?’ If the prophet speaks in the LORD’s name but his prediction does not happen or come true, you will know that the LORD did not give that message. That prophet has spoken without my authority and need not be feared.

Deuteronomy, Chapter 18, verses 21 through 22, New Living Translation

On the day the LORD gave the Israelites victory over the Amorites, Joshua prayed to the LORD in front of all the people of Israel. He said,

“Let the sun stand still over Gibeon, and the moon over the valley of Aijalon.”

So the sun stood still and the moon stayed in place until the nation of Israel had defeated its enemies. … The sun stayed in the middle of the sky, and it did not set as on a normal day.  There has never been a day like this one before or since, when the LORD answered such a prayer. Surely the LORD fought for Israel that day!

Joshua, Chapter 10, verses 11 through 14, New Living Translation

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VK: Hello! I’m Victoria K. Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. Today on Anchored by Truth we’re going to continue our discussion of miracles in the Bible – possibly one of the most misunderstood parts of scripture. To help us do that, I’m here today with RD Fierro, author and founder of Crystal Sea Books, and part-time cold storage space planner – he rearranges the drinks in the mini-fridge when it starts getting full. Sometimes we think it’s a miracle that they all fit. Anyway, as those who have been listening for the last few weeks know we’ve been looking into many of the Bible’s accounts of miracles. RD, why don’t you give us a little background on why you wanted to begin this discussion?

RD: I thought it was important for us to take an extended look at Biblical miracles because our understanding of miracles is, or at least can be, tied to how we view the validity and reliability of scripture.

VK: How so?

RD: Because critics often argue that the Bible is not a reliable historical account by pointing to the accounts of the miracles contained in the Bible. Their argument is essentially that since it is impossible – in their view – to violate the natural laws of physics or chemistry that anytime the Bible contains a story that seems to do so that that story must be myth or fairy tale. In addition, if you don’t study the accounts of the Bible’s miracles carefully you can form the false impression that miracles in the Bible are sort of random and sporadic events, good things that happen from time to time but without any overarching connection or discernible pattern.

VK: But nothing could be further from the truth. As we have talked about in our first few episodes on this topic we have seen that, in fact, the Bible uses descriptions of miracles for specific purposes that all fit in with the Bible’s overall story of redemption. Specifically, we’ve seen that God uses miracles to validate that certain people throughout the Biblical period were messengers that He sent. The fact that some people could perform miracles was a graphic illustration that that person had been tasked by God to bring God’s message to the people of their time. And, when that message was recorded and preserved in the Bible, to us. And we have also seen that there were certain periods in Biblical history when there were clusters of miracles that seemed to mark certain important turning points in redemptive history such as the miracles that accompanied Moses leading the people out of Egypt or Jesus inaugurating the New Covenant.

RD: Precisely. And we have seen that miracles in the Bible varied widely in their immediate effect from something as seemingly mundane as recovering a lost ax head from a river to as big as feeding crowds of thousands with just a few loaves and a couple of fish. This span of impact shows that God is the God of both the big and the small, that He is control of the destinies of both individuals and nations.

VK: And you said that today you wanted to build on that foundation by examining a couple of other dimensions of Biblical miracles. And all of this is leading us to an examination of the objections that often lodged against the miracle accounts and a review of whether Biblical miracles still continue today.

RD: Yes. We’ve stressed heavily in our first few episodes that God used miracles in the Bible to authenticate certain people as being messengers sent from Him. But I think there’s an important point that we haven’t touched on up until this time.

VK: And that is...

RD: That while miracles in the Bible were one way that God authenticated His messengers, it was not the only way He did so.

VK: And that’s why we included in our opening scriptures the verses from Deuteronomy 18: 21 through 22?

RD: Yes. Those verses show us that another way God authenticated certain people as being prophets was by giving those people supernatural knowledge. Sometimes the supernatural knowledge that conveyed to His prophets concerned events in the immediate or near future and sometimes the prophet received knowledge about something that would take place decades or even centuries in the future. So, for instance, the prophet who prophesied 700 years before Jesus was born told us that Jesus would be born of a virgin (7:14) and be buried in a rich man’s tomb (53:9) also told King Hezekiah that the Assyrians would fail in their attempt to capture Jerusalem. In fact, as the Assyrians were approaching Jerusalem with a huge army Isaiah told Hezekiah that the Assyrians would never get around to building siege ramps against the city or even be able to shoot an arrow into Jerusalem (2 Kings 19:32 – 36). And just as Isaiah prophesied the Lord turned the Assyrian army around by sending an angel to kill 185,000 of their soldiers when they were just outside the city.

VK: So the fulfillment of the near term prophecies gave the people confidence that the prophet speaking had been sent by God. This meant that not only would their near term prophecies be true but also their long term ones would come to pass. But I think it’s important to note the test that God established whether someone who claimed to be a prophet was a pretty demanding one. Anyone claiming to be a prophet had to 100 percent accurate. Even a single prophetic failure disqualified that person. That, of course, is a stark contrast to the records of many of the so-called prophets who have appeared throughout the ages. And it’s also important to note that the Biblical prophets gave very specific prophecies. For instance, the prophet Micah gave the name of the town where the Messiah would be born and he did that about 700 years before Jesus was born.

RD: Exactly. So we now have two different ways that we know that God authenticated certain people as being messengers sent from Him: some prophets performed miracles, signs, or wonders; some prophets demonstrated a supernatural knowledge of future events. I want to emphasize that there are these two different ways for a very specific reason.

VK: Which is?

RD: When we look at the physical created order we can see that it consists of at least four major components: matter, energy, space, and time. And all of these components have a relationship with one another and have normal behavioral patterns. We speak of those relationships and behavioral patterns as natural laws. And, while time is often thought to be constant, in fact it is not. We normally think of time as being an invariable construct, but Einstein’s special theory of relativity predicted that time would vary depending on whether an object was in motion. Today, science knows that there is such a thing as time dilation. Time dilation is the difference in the elapsed time measured by two clocks, either due to them having a velocity relative to each other, or by there being a gravitational potential difference between their locations.

VK: Well all that is pretty interesting but what does it have to do with the fact that God used two different ways of authenticating his prophets, his messengers: miracles and supernatural future knowledge. 

RD: Because by using those two different ways of interceding in the created order God demonstrated His control over all facets of the physical created order. Think of this. When Elisha caused an iron ax head to float to the surface of a moving river God suspended one or more natural laws that govern density or buoyancy. When Moses raised his hands and God parted the Red Sea using a strong, constant wind, he redirected the laws pertaining to aerodynamic, hydrodynamics, and thermodynamics. When God sent a star to guide the wise men to where Jesus could be found, He demonstrated his control over matter, energy, and space. And when God gave supernatural knowledge of future events to all of His prophets He demonstrated His control over time. And remember the miracle that we heard about in our second opening scripture today. Joshua prayed to the Lord that the Lord would extend the length of the day to give the Israelite army additional time to thoroughly defeat the Amorites. When God prolonged the day He demonstrated His control not only over matter, energy, space, and time but also over the relationships that govern all four including such the intricacies of creation that have only recently come to scientific attention such as time dilation.

VK: Wow. I’m starting to see where you’re going with all this. God used miracles to both save and help His people with immediate needs both big and small. And by using specific people as His agents in performing some of those miracles God added a further dimension, a further benefit, to His work. By using some people as His agents and messengers God showed His people that those messengers were trustworthy and they could rely on them to help them with day to day questions as well as giving kings a wise counselor they could turn to for advice. And God gave supernatural knowledge of far, future events so that, long after the death of the prophet, future generations would have signs that would confirm God’s continued superintendence of redemptive history. This included providing dozens, and some say hundreds, of signs of the most important event of all time: the arrival of the Messiah. Wow. When you think about all that it starts to give you a headache.

RD: Yes. The question that most people will ask themselves is “why am I here? Is there a purpose for my life?” The answer to that question is directly dependent on two other questions. Is there a God and does that God communicate with people? Obviously, Christianity answers those questions with a resounding “Yes!” But that then leads to the question which we approach, in one way or another, on every episode of Anchored by Truth, which of the various books claiming to be the word of God is actually the word of God. Which truth claim about being a special revelation from an almighty God is true? That is a reasonable question and it deserves a thoughtful answer. Well, I think that far from being a detriment to the validity of the Bible’s truth claims about being the word of God, the Bible’s accounts of miracles actually lend considerable support to that claim.

VK: I think that is going to need some clarification. We started out by observing that critics believe that the Bible’s accounts of miracles can cast doubt on whether the Bible is historically reliable. But you’re saying that the Bible’s accounts of miracles actually support its validity.

RD: Yes. We often say that any book that claims to be the inspired, inerrant, and infallible word of almighty God would, at a minimum, have to satisfy two criteria. First, that book would have to be consistent with what we know of the physical creation, life, man, and man’s history. Second, that book would have to contain evidence of having a supernatural origin. Think about it. There have been magnificent books and even series of books that have been written during mankind’s history. There have been marvelous histories that have come down to us even from ancient times. Josephus, Herodotus, Xenophon, and many others wrote extensive histories of the world as it existed during Biblical times. There have been ground breaking scientific volumes that have been written that have opened up horizons to generations that previously couldn’t have been conceived. And naturally there have been magnificent works of philosophy or fiction that have been produced by thinkers and writers down through the ages. But none of these other books, as wonderful as they may be as books, contain any significant evidence of supernatural inspiration. The Bible does and the Biblical accounts of miracles are part of that evidence.

VK: But you’re not saying that just because there are stories of miracles in the Bible that proves that the Bible was supernaturally inspired. That would be a form of circular reasoning that would go something like this. The Bible writers wrote about certain supernatural events. Therefore because the events they wrote about were supernatural that demonstrates that the writer was supernaturally inspired.

RD: As you just described it that would be circular reasoning. And, of course, circular reasoning is a classic fallacy in logical reasoning because a circular reasoning process begins with the end that is being proven. But that’s not what I’m referring to.

VK: Okay. So, what are you referring to?

RD: Most people, even Bible critics, will agree that the Bible is an essentially reliable historical document. Even secular historians and archeologists will use the Bible as a reference source when conducting historical research. They may not believe all of the individual stories but they will subscribe to the notion that many parts of the Bible are historically reliable. For instance, let’s take the book of Acts which most scholars agree was written by Luke. In Acts Luke mentions thirty-two countries, fifty-four cities, and nine Mediterranean islands and prominent scholars such as J.B. Lightfoot have concluded that Luke got their locations, relative positions, and cultural peculiarities all correct. Furthermore, after investigating the historicity of the Book of Acts extensively for decades the famous archeologist Sir William Ramsey concluded that Luke did a masterful job of keeping straight the convoluted world of Roman government titles. Ramsey wrote, “The officials with whom Paul and his companions brought in contact are those who would be there. Every person is found just where he ought to be: proconsuls in senatorial provinces, asiarchs in Ephesus, strategoi in Philippi, politarchs in Thessolonica, magicians and soothsayers everywhere.” So, in those areas where we can test Luke’s historical accuracy we find out that Luke passes the test of being a careful historian.

VK: And Luke is the same writer who tells us that Peter performed numerous miracles during the weeks and months following Jesus’ resurrection. Acts 5:15 says that there was a time when people in Israel were healed just by having Peter’s shadow fall on them as he was walking to the temple in Jerusalem. So, your point is that if Luke were such a careful historian to be sure that he got the titles of Roman bureaucrats correct would he be any less careful when he preserved the accounts of miracles that occurred?

RD: Exactly. It’s not impossible that a careful and diligent historian like Luke could have made up miraculous stories, but why would he? If Luke’s accounts of miracles were fabricated, His first readers would have known that. That would have immediately compromised Luke’s credibility and it goes without saying that Luke knew his credibility would have been on the line anyway when he was writing books about Jesus to a hostile Roman world. Luke’s otherwise discernible, historical reliability, and the fact that he knew he was writing to a world where fabricated material would quickly be discovered and dismissed, lends a strong element of credibility to his records. So, if Luke truthfully wrote about supernatural events, well knowing that such accounts would be questioned, it lets us know that there was a supernatural source not only to the events but also to his preserving the record of the events.

VK: So, the reasoning process starts with the fact that we test Luke’s credibility as a historian. And when we find out that he passes the test we can proceed to see what the content of his reliable historical records demonstrates. And in this case Luke’s historical reliability helps demonstrate that God was intervening in miraculous ways during the time of the early church’s formation, giving us strong evidence that it was God himself who was building His church just as Jesus promised He would. Sounds like a perfect time to close with prayer. Today let’s pray a prayer of adoration for the God who not only created everything, but also uses His power to sustain and maintain an entire universe. A God who can create a universe with 50 billion galaxies, each of which has 50 billion stars, out of nothing is certainly capable of intervening in that creation to demonstrate that He is the one behind it all.

---- ADORATION OF THE CREATOR

VK: We’d like to remind our audience that a lot of our radio episodes are linked together in series of topics so if they missed any episodes or if they just want to hear one again, all of these episodes are available on your favorite podcast app. To find them just search on “Anchored by Truth by Crystal Sea Books.”

If you’d like to hear more, try out crystalseabooks.com where “We’re not famous but our Boss is!”

(Bible Quotes from the New Living Translation)

Deuteronomy, Chapter 18, verses 21 through 22, New Living Translation

Joshua, Chapter 10, verses 11 through 14, New Living Translation