Word of Salvation – Vol. 34 No. 42 – November 1989

 

Why The Signs?

 

Sermon by Rev. John Rogers on John 2:1-11

 

Introduction

Congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ,

In his Gospel John calls Jesus’ miracles signs.  Now why does he do that?  Well, why is any sign called a sign?  A sign points to something else.  The real importance of a sign is found in what it points to.

When I want to go and visit one of you people in the congregation I get out my map.  And the map teaches me, it prophesies to me, if you like, the way to go.  But I also watch the street signs very carefully to confirm to me that I am reading the map correctly.  And so finally I arrive at your house.

In our garden at home, even now while winter is only just drawing in, I can see signs that spring is coming as the crocus, lachenalia, and narcissi bulbs burst through the surface of the soil.  Later on we’ll all enjoy the beautiful spring flowers and anticipate the summer that will then be just around the corner.

Yes, we have the calendar on the wall prophesying to us that summer is coming.  But outside we have physical, tangible signs in the spring bulbs that confirm to us that we are reading our calendars correctly.

Exposition

The very first act of Jesus’ public ministry was to perform a miracle.  But John, the evangelist, calls it a sign – something that points to something else.

What was this miracle?  Jesus didn’t just do any old miracle without it having a meaning in the context in which He did it.  While the daffodils are pointers to the coming summer, they also have meaning and beauty in themselves.  So too with this miracle.

But neither did Jesus just turn water into wine to enhance the joy at this wedding feast and save His hosts the embarrassment of running out of wine.

Jesus and John the Baptist stand on the very hinge of history.  History has two great books: the old book of the Old Age, the age of forms and shadows, the age invaded by the devil and all the destruction which he has brought; and the new book of the New Age, the age of realities, the age invaded by the Holy Spirit of God and all the re-creation that He is bringing.

Jesus opens the New Age.  He spoke about that in Luke 4: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me… He has sent me to …proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.”

John the Baptist closed the Old Age.  His great task was to point out all the inadequacies of the Old Age and its greatest inadequacy was himself.

So John came preaching repentance.  “The kingdom of heaven is just around the corner (which is another way of saying that the New Age is almost upon us); repent of your sins!”  John’s great concern was that men and women turn from their sin, clear it out of their hearts and make a pathway of cleansed hearts for the Messiah to come marching in on and establish His kingdom, His righteous rule in their hearts.

John came bowed down with the sin of the Old Age.  John came weighed down with the burden that if his people didn’t repent, there was only judgement for them.  For the great and terrible day of the Lord was coming, the day of the vengeance of our God, the day when Jehovah was going to get out His flail and thresh His people so as to beat out the chaff and preserve the wheat, the true believers among them.

So John was an ascetic.  He lived in the desert – away from society.  He ate only locusts and honey and drank only water.  He wore sackcloth as a sign of mourning.

But John didn’t have a complete view of the great and terrible day of the Lord.  He didn’t seem to perceive what has now been revealed to us – that before God’s judgement was to come in fullness, salvation was to come.

So Jesus opened up the book of the New Age.  And how He opened it!  In Isaiah 25 the New Age is described as a feast of rich food for all peoples, a banquet of aged wine – the best of meats and finest of wines.  On this mountain He will destroy the shroud that enfolds all peoples, the sheet that covers all nations; He will swallow up death for ever.

So for Jesus there could be no mourning.  At least, not a life of mourning such as John lived.

And what better way to bring in the New Age, the great age of salvation, than by attending a wedding feast?  Isn’t the great age of salvation going to be consummated with a wedding feast? – the marriage supper of the Lamb; Christ Himself, and His bride, the people of God, those who are given the great salvation.

John withdrew from society because he could only see the coming judgement.  But Jesus threw Himself into life with gusto.  He enjoyed human company and fellowship and conviviality.

Oh, He well knew the seriousness of life, but He also knew that he had come to bring in the New Age of salvation.  Just as the spring bulbs cheer up the dreary winter with the promise of summer, so Jesus brings cheer and light into the darkness of the Old Age that still lingers on by giving a foretaste of the New Age.  So he provided wine that gladdens the heart of man (Ps.104:15) at the wedding feast.

Doctrine

We see in our text this morning then, that Jesus brings in the New Age with a sign.  And that is very important.  The sign points to the great blessings that we will enjoy in the fellowship of Christ for all eternity.

We may say that the New Age is Christ, and the blessings that come through Christ.  So the signs point to Him.  And this is just what John says in Ch.20:30f:

These (miraculous signs) are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name.

That is the purpose for which John wrote his Gospel.  His Gospel is a theology of miraculous signs, if you like.  And this miracle of turning the water into wine being Jesus’ first, we would expect it to teach us something of the purpose of His miracles.  And it does.

There are three very important strings to John’s theology of miraculous signs.  They are all mentioned in the verse I have just read and John begins his Gospel with the record of a miracle that amply demonstrates his theology.

The Reasons Jesus Did Miraculous Signs

1.  These signs were written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ.

In the third chapter of John’s Gospel we find the story of Nicodemus who came to Jesus by night.  Nicodemus said to Jesus, “Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God.”

Well now, how did Nicodemus know that?  Many other learned Jews wanted to deny just that.  Nicodemus knew that Jesus was a teacher come from God because Nicodemus had the same theology of signs that John had.  He went on to say, “For no-one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him.”

But not only did Nicodemus have John’s theology of signs.

So, apparently, did the Jewish people in general.  In John 7 we read that many in the crowd believed in Him on the basis of His miraculous signs.  They said, “When the Christ comes, will He do more miraculous signs than this man?”  In other words, nobody could possibly do more miracles than this man; therefore, He must be the Christ!

There are two things that are very obvious in these two incidents.  Firstly, Nicodemus knew that Jesus was a teacher sent from God because of all the signs He did.  In Nicodemus’ mind, teaching (prophecy) and sign gifts went together.

Secondly, in the minds of the people, the Christ (the expected Saviour) and miraculous signs went together.

Now these two ideas – teaching and signs, and the Christ and signs – amount to the same thing for the coming Christ was to be the great Prophet to come, about whom Moses prophesied in Deut.18.

See, these Jews knew their OT.  They knew that the gift of doing miraculous signs always went along with the gift of prophecy.  In Deut.34 when Moses is praised as being the greatest prophet until that point in history, do you know what is singled out as characterizing his ministry?

Surprisingly, it was not his giving of the law.  It was the fact that he “did all these miraculous signs and wonders the Lord sent him to do in Egypt.”

And Moses sets the tone for the gift of prophecy right throughout Scripture.  When God told him to go deliver His people out of Egypt, he was afraid the people might not believe that he had been sent by God to be their saviour.

So God gave Moses the gift of miracles, “so that they may believe that the Lord, the God of their fathers… has appeared to you.” (Ex.4).

That sounds just like what Nicodemus said about Jesus, doesn’t it?  That sounds like what John says in Chap. 20, doesn’t it?  “These things are written that you may know that Jesus is the Christ” – the great prophet who was promised long ago.

The reason God gives a man the gift of doing miracles is to signify to the people he preaches to that he has in fact been sent by God to preach to them.

So you see, when we ask the question, “Is the gift of miracles for today?”, we are really asking the wrong question as we so often do.  The question we should really ask is: Is God going to give us more revelation? – more, new teaching – today?

But to answer that question, we must notice something else.  As we read the Bible we notice that God almost only gives new revelation, and thus the gift of prophecy, while He is also acting in some great new way for the salvation of His people.

Most of the miracles recorded in the Bible centre around four periods of life and death struggle for the people of God.

They are:
1) when God saved His people out of Egypt and established them in Canaan;
2) during the great conflict with paganism in the time of Elijah and Elisha;
3) the time of the great Exile to Babylon;
4) and lastly, in the coming of Jesus to establish the kingdom of God which, of course, provoked the greatest conflict with the devil ever.

Now then, should we look for miraculous signs today?  Well, the real question is: is there still some great work of salvation that God must yet do for His people?

Ah yes, you say, He will come again and redeem us completely.  True, but our resurrection and glorification is simply the completion of Jesus’ resurrection.  It’s all one resurrection really.

There is the work of the judgement of the wicked.  Yes, but that’s really only the other side of our resurrection, the complete salvation of the righteous.  See, while this New Age is the day of the Lord’s favour, it is also, as Isaiah 61 continues, the day of the vengeance of our God when God brings salvation for those who love Him but judgement for those who disobey Him.

The period in which we live, from the first coming of Christ to the second coming of Christ, is the one great day of the Lord.

God has no more great and new work of salvation to do.  Therefore we do not look for any more prophets in the sense of bringing new revelation.  Therefore, there is no reason for miraculous signs.  For what would they signify?

The purpose of miraculous signs is, as Heb.4:4 tells us, to testify to the truth of the new message from God.  Those miracles were God saying, “This is My prophet, hear ye him.”  When there is no new message, there is no need for attesting signs.

But not only did God enable Jesus and the apostolic prophets to do miracles to show that they were, in fact, sent from Him; John 20:30 also says.

2.  These (miraculous signs) are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Son of God.

Another very important reason why God gives miracles, people of God, is that He be glorified; that when men and women see the great works of God, they fall down and give Him praise and honour and worship.

And do we not also see that in our story this morning?  Verse 11; “He thus revealed His glory.”  And what was Christ’s glory?  “The glory as of the one and only Son, who came from the Father,” says Jn.1:14.

Remember when Christ was talking to that Samaritan woman by the well.  He said, “My (very) food is to do the will of Him Who sent Me.”  So in John 17, as His earthly life was drawing to its close, Jesus could say to His Father, “I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do.”

Jesus never performed miracles on demand, for the sake of people’s curiosity.  Nor did He ever perform them for His own benefit.  If ever Jesus needed to do a miracle for His own benefit, it was when He had been starved in the desert for 40 days.  But He would not turn the stones into bread for to do so would have been against His Father’s will and He would have brought shame on His Father instead of glory.

What I am getting at congregation is this.  There are a lot of men and women around today who claim to have a gift of healing or miracles.  There are many differences between the way these supposed gifts are used and how we see the genuine article being used in Scripture.

But perhaps the greatest difference is in this area.

We don’t read that Jesus did this miracle at Cana for the benefit of the people at all.  I’ve no doubt that they benefitted, but it is not the important thing to the Gospel writers.  The really important thing as far as they are concerned is that Jesus did these miracles to display the glory of God.

That’s why Christ raised Lazarus – see John 11:4.

That’s why Christ healed the man blind from birth – see John 9:3.

Jesus never held healing meetings as such.  But when I see advertisements for healing meetings today, the catch line is never, “Come and see Almighty God glorified.  No, it’s always, “You can be successful.  You can have fulfilment.  You can have wholeness.”

We live in a very self-centred age, people of God.  Not only do we think of ourselves before our fellows but we also think of ourselves before our God.

Congregation, let us avoid that like the plague.

3.  These things are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ.

Did you notice the very last line of our miracle story?  Who does it say came to put their faith in Christ as a result of seeing Him do this miracle?  It was Jesus’ disciples.  But one would think, being disciples, they already did believe.  And we have no reason to think they didn’t.

But Jesus is teaching us another very important thing about why He did miracles.  Jesus did not do miracles for unbelievers.  He did miracles for His disciples – to confirm the faith they already had.

And we see that in Ex.4 as well.  After God had showed Moses how to turn his staff into a snake, God says, “This is so that they may believe that the Lord, the God of their fathers the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob – has appeared to you.

The miracles Moses did in Egypt were intended to break Pharaoh – so he would let God’s people go.  They were not intended to bring Pharaoh to faith.  God gave Moses that great gift as confirmation to the Israelites.

Only faith can receive miracles.  When an unbeliever sees a miracle he is just as likely to say that it is of the devil.  Once when Jesus cast a demon out of a man said, “It is only by Beelzebub, the prince of demons, that this fellow drives out demons.  (Matt.12:24).

So many people in our day are just like those Jews in Jesus’ day; “What miraculous sign then will you give that we may see and believe you. (6:30).  As if God should prove Himself; as if His Word is not enough!

Jesus told a story once about a rich man who ignored the plight of a poor man called Lazarus.  When they both died, the rich man, burning in hell, cried out to Abraham to send Lazarus to his brothers to warn them to repent and escape going to hell themselves.

He thought a great miracle would wow them into faith too.

What greater miraculous sign could you get than that?  Someone come back from the dead!

Well, Abraham replied that if they wouldn’t listen to Moses and the prophets, neither would they listen to Lazarus claiming to come back from the dead.  You can just hear the rich man’s brothers, can’t you?  “Oh yeah, Lazarus?”

And so we read in Jn.12:37; “Even after Jesus had done all these miraculous signs in their presence, they still would not believe in him.”

Yes, I know that some of these supposed miracle-working churches are supposed to be growing very fast.  And so they may be – for a time.  But when you preach some of the more difficult teachings of Scripture, when you bring the whole counsel of God, the honeymoon soon ends.  When you start teaching about the total inability of man to move toward God in any way at all, the miracle-lovers are soon disillusioned.

That happened to Jesus too.  When Jesus preached total inability and the need for irresistible grace, we read “many of His disciples turned back and no longer followed Him.” (Jn.6:66).

Conclusion

Congregation, the New Age of the Spirit is here.  And if we are Christ’s, then we have the Holy Spirit.  One of the Spirit’s greatest works is to give faith to those who belong to Christ.

You know it’s sometimes said to people that if God didn’t do a miracle for them then that is because they didn’t have enough faith.  That’s a cruel Gospel.

In fact, it’s exactly the other way round.  It would be natural when God was doing a new work and bringing a new revelation that people’s faith would be a little tentative “is this really from God?”  See, those disciples were only just emerging from the Old Age.  They hadn’t lived in the New Age of faith through the Spirit from birth.  We have the full and complete revelation from God.

Is Moses and the prophets, the written Word, good enough for you, brother, sister?  Or is your faith so weak that you still need confirming signs – almost as if you didn’t have the Spirit after all?

Come on Christians, let’s walk by faith, not by sight.  For we who are Christ’s have some of the full blaze of the summer of salvation. We don’t need the signs, for we have the reality.

AMEN