03 Dec JESUS DID THE WORKS OF GOD: The Christ of Christmas Part 3 of 8
At Christmas, we tend to focus on all the things that others did for Jesus as a baby. This includes Mary tending to him, the shepherds celebrating him, and the Magi worshipping him.
But, the story does not end with Jesus as a baby. In fact, Jesus grew up and did things that only God can do.
Not only did Jesus say that he was God, he also showed that he was God. The nearly forty miracles that Jesus performed throughout the New Testament reveal his divinity because they demonstrate his divine authority over creation as the Creator (John 20:30–31). For example, when Jesus gave sight to the blind man, the people would have been reminded of Psalm 146:8: “The Lord opens the eyes of the blind.” The fact of Jesus’ miracles is so well established that even his enemies conceded it (Matt. 12:24; 27:42; John 11:47). In John 10:36–39 Jesus speaks of these works:
“Do you say of him whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’? If I am not doing the works of my Father, then do not believe me; but if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.” Again they sought to arrest him, but he escaped from their hands.
Lastly, Jesus also claimed the power to raise the dead (John 6:39–44), judge our eternal destiny (John 5:22–23), and grant eternal life (John 10:28).
Taken together, all of this evidence reveals that Jesus was and is God. Or, as Colossians 2:9 says perfectly, “In him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily.”
As we consider the Christ of Christmas we cannot overlook all that Jesus did during his adult life by never seeing him beyond the babe in a manger. His rule over creation and authority over sickness and death is without precedent or peer in the history of the world. My little girls loved the story of Jesus healing a sick little girl and had me read it to them many nights before bed. Of all the recorded miracles of Jesus, which is your favorite and why?
Portions of this blog post were adapted from Vintage Jesus (2007, Crossway) and Doctrine (2010, Crossway), by Mark Driscoll and Gerry Breshears.
