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Miracles of the ancient Word
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stars. Each is a point of light, each a celestial shard of glory bestowing glimpses of the eternal. Miracles in Scripture are like the stars. They help us glimpse the by eternity, settings of almighty declaration, moments marked by deliverance, by mercy, or by visionary unfoldings of Gods holy purpose. Creation. The birth of humanity. The fall, and the matchless promise of redemption to come. Gods dealings with Noah, Abraham, Moses, and Elisha. The incarnation. The miracles of Jesus. His death and resurrection. The triumph and purchase of our redemption. An apostles conversion. The advent of the church. To learn of these holy events and peoplesupremely, to look upon the Savioris to see the power of God, and to see how God has always sought to draw us to Himself. He is our eternal home. Miracles point the way there.
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the great tapestry of redemption, to look upon scenes and lives touched

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To gaze upon miracles in the Old and New Testaments is to look upon

eternal. And they, like the heavens, declare the glory of God.

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he heavens, Scripture tells us, declare the glory of God of deepest blue, studded with numberless constellations of

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(Psalm 19:1). Look at a night sky, shrouded in a mantle

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in the Beginning: The Miracle of our World

God calls for things that are not, and they come.

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to the origin of the world itself. What is the first miracle? God created the heavens and the earth. All that we knowthis world and the universe in which it resideswere spoken into existence through a mighty, matchless word. Then God said, Let there be . . . ; it was the soaring refrain an omnipotent God gave to the song of creation (Gen. 1:3). Each time it was voiced, something more of the world we know became a reality: light, the heavens and earth, flora, fauna, and humanity itself. All have their origin in God.
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to this ancient question from the book of Judges must be traced

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about?(Judg. 6:13). For Jews and Christians alike, the answer

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nd where are all His miracles which our fathers told us

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The Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom1

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William Cowper 2

Thou hast brought us into being out of nothing.

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As we have seen, every miracle is accomplished by God as a sign of some purposes of his own.3 The first miracle reveals that God is the king of creationthe heavens and earth His royal decree. They show forth His glory. The psalmist told us this: The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows His handiwork. . . . Their line has gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world (Ps. 19:1, 4). The writer of Psalm 93 heard this celestial hymn of praise. It called forth stirring reflections in which he saw God, the king of creation,

shows Him to be the majestic Creator, the gifting God who decreed the beneficent, almighty sovereign.

This truth is captured beautifully in lines from the poet William Cowper, which tell us that a ray of heavnly light gilds all forms . . . in God.4 the vast and the minute. In them we see the unambiguous footsteps of

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The foregoing paragraphs speak of the majesty of God as reflected in the colossal act of creation. It ought to inspire within us an enduring, overwhelming sense of awe. And so it does whenever we see a sunset that far surpasses any skyscape rendered by J. M. W. Turner, mountains whose beauty far transcends any sculpture Michelangelo crafted, or a sea alongside which any painting of Winslow Homer pales in comparison. I am the Lord, who makes all things, we read in Isaiah 44:24, who stretches out the heavens all alone, who spreads abroad the earth by Myself.

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worlds existence because it was His good will and pleasure. He is our

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And that is how we should see God in this first of all miracles. It

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clothed with majesty . . . [and] strength (v. 1).

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But lost in wonder at such sights, we may tragically miss asking ourselves a question that gets to the heart of the miracle of creation: why did God do it? No one has written more beautifully in framing an answer to this question than Bishop Kallistos Ware, whose reflections grace a subsequent chapter in this bookone exploring the faith heritage of the Orthodox Church. If nothing compelled God to create, Bishop Ware asked rhetorically, why then did He choose to do so? It is a staggering question, he admitted, but
in so far as such a question admits of an answer, our reply must be: the universe out of nothing, we should say that he created it out of His or God the Craftsman, but of God the Lover. . . . Gods love is, in the literal sense of the word, ecstatica love that causes God to go out from Himself. By voluntary choice God created the world in ecstatic in the life and love that are His.5 love, so that there might be besides Himself other beings to participate

and complemented in Scripture. Do we remember the description given in Job 38, when the Lord spoke out of the whirlwind? I laid the foundations of the earth (v. 4), the Lord told Job, but do you know where its foundations are fastened, or who laid its cornerstone? Were you there when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy? (v. 7). As this passage shows, there was an ecstasy that marked the creation of the world. The very heavens and earth rejoiced in what God had done. Does this sound strange? It shouldnt. For 1 Chronicles 16:31 is just one of many passages that declares, Let the heavens rejoice, and let the

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This moving description of Gods purpose in creation is one rooted

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own self, which is love. We should think, not of God the Manufacturer

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Gods motive in creation is His love. Rather than say that He created

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earth be glad; and let them say among the nations, The Lord reigns. So, too, we read in Psalm 96:11: Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad; let the sea roar, and all its fullness. And if love and joy were woven into the fabric of creation, other aspects of Gods divine intent are present within that matchless tapestry. Consider Isaiah 45:8: Rain down, you heavens, from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness; let the earth open, let them bring forth salvation, and let righteousness spring up together. I, the Lord, have created it. All of these passages, in concert, only deepen our sense of what God was Gods opening movement in the symphony of our reality, and there imparted to us in the miracle that is the creation of the world. Creation

Moving from the creation of the world to the flow of human history in the Old Testament, we begin to learn more about the nature of miracles as they transpired among men and women whose lives were closely asso-

Among them are confirmatory miracles, through which God shows his choice and support of certain individuals or groups. Confirmatory miracles were displayed prominently in Gods dealings with the patriarchs Abraham and Jacob, as well as Moses, who led the Israelites out of bondage in Egypt.6 A second kind of Old Testament miracle is that which is judgmental in nature. We see them in the plagues God visited on the Egyptians because they refused to obey the commands of God spoken to them by Moses or in the fall of the walls of Jericho because its citizens resisted Israels entry into the promised land.7

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describing the several kinds of miracles that occur in the Old Testament.

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Here, The Oxford Companion to the Bible has done a good service in

ciated with the purposes of God.

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is none other like it.

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Miracles of mercy are a third type of miracle displayed in the Old Testament. In the book of 2 Kings, for example, the prophet Elisha is the mediator through whom God performs miraculous healings.8 Miracles of deliverance represent a fourth kind of miracle found in the Old Testament. The preservation of Daniel in the lions den is one famous example, as is the saving of his friends from death in the fiery furnace.9 Lastly, a fifth type of miracle described in the Old Testament is a miracle of divine vision. Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel were three prophets of God who were favored with such visions from God. these visions were given to reveal Gods purpose for his people, or to achieve some form

Now that each of these kinds of miracles has been described in brief, we may take time to explore them more fully. We cannot take every instance of these types of miracles into discussion, but we can select representa-

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miracles are all about God and what He wishes us to know of Himself.

tive examples of each and consider what they tell us about God. For

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nation, of her enemies, or of the minority who remain faithful to God.10

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of deliverance or punishment in behalf of individuals, of the Israelite

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