Is the Every Day Functioning of the Cosmos Miraculous, or are Only Direct Miracles Miraculous?
In chemistry, cotton is made up of a chain of glucose molecules. Combining sulphuric acid with the cotton in a lab, one can change the molecular structure of cotton and make it into a brownish liquid glycose that resembles maple syrup, and astonishingly, now consists of only one glucose molecule. It has become something completely different altogether through this chemical reaction.
No, this isn’t magic or a science fiction – it’s the wonder inherent in our everyday world. Our everyday world is a living and spinning factory of ongoing works of genius. It’s God’s science lab, held up and sustained by His power, moment-by-moment. (Colossians 1:17, Hebrews 1:3) It is not merely started by Him and then left to itself, pushed into operation by His power, and then self-sustaining from that point forward. No, the scientific world can not hold together and self-sustain; God holds it up each and every second.
“He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”
Colossians 1:17
“The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of His nature, upholding all things by His powerful word.”
Hebrews 1:3
Similarly, it was a work of wonder-evoking genius when Jesus turned water into wine, walked on water, or healed the blind man. All of God’s acts and works inspire wonder and worship. They heal and benefit mankind. They evoke a sense of awe in beholding the divinity and the love of God.
When God gave the gift of tongues in the Bible, foreigners from all parts of the world that had gathered in Jerusalem suddenly heard the disciples of Jesus whom they knew to speak only Aramaic, speak freely in their own languages, communicating the gospel to them with clarity and power. This was a work of divine genius that testified to the life and death of Christ. It drew the hearers to the attention of the disciples and their message. The miracle conveyed the principles and attributes of God. God is always logical. Even things beyond or outside of scientific law, are never outside of the laws of logic. (Note: when I say God is logical, I mean the formal laws of logic, such as that two things that contradict one another cannot both be true, for instance, since Jesus is the only way to the Father, it can’t also be true that there are other ways to the Father. I am not talking about human logic or human ideas when I say Jesus is always logical. It is true that He does not always use human logic or operate within our finite understanding.)
Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Being The Truth means all truth has its origin in Him. This includes the laws of logic. For instance, Jesus is not the Father, He is the Son and He cannot be both the Father and the Son; they are two separate beings, one in union and in purpose and will, but separate Persons. This fact about the Godhead is a law of logic. It’s known as the law of identity which states that a thing or concept or idea can only be itself; it cannot be two things at once. We can see from this that the laws of logic come from the nature of God Himself and originate with His own attributes.
God is never nonsensical, chaotic, undisciplined. He never moves from impulse or arbitrarily, based on preference or mood or evil principles like favoritism. No, rather He does things from the principle of love, and makes decisions this way. All his acts involve the principles of love and goodness and truth.
When the Pharisees claimed Jesus was drunk or demon-possessed, this was an accusation against Jesus being the truth. They were saying He didn’t make sense, wasn’t logical, wasn’t preaching truth, wasn’t in His right mind, and was thus presenting falsehoods that were inaccurate. They accused Him of this to try to discredit His message and turn the people from the truth into the errors that they themselves were preaching and teaching and advocating.
Today in the church sadly, and also in false religions like New Age there are many false, counterfeit manifestations that people claim are from God and the Holy Spirit, that, rather than invoking wonder and worship to the true God, are actually confusing, disrespectful to God, and outright demeaning to beings made in God’s image. Such as babbling unintelligible words and claiming this is the gift of tongues. Or falling backwards, foaming at the mouth, or having movements where the person seems to be out of their mind, behaving unseemly or rudely (which we know from 1 Corinthians 13 is never how love behaves).
These things do not evoke wonder and worship to the true God, rather they do the opposite and scare a large number of people away from God, and those that engage in them are demeaned and disrespected and demean and disrespect God.
The worship that comes from love is a sober, serious worship of adoration and understanding. The joy we experience isn’t an out-of-control rapture, but a deep and profound appreciation and praise and gratitude that streams from that knowledge. We worship God because we see His character of self-sacrificial love and we understand these attributes and these acts He’s done for us in sending His Son, and our heart goes out in love back to Him. There is understanding, there is a personal response that wells up in our hearts for God that stems from that understanding, not blindly. True worship is not blind passion, or feelings that aren’t based on any truth.
Jesus said the Father is looking for those who worship Him in spirit and in truth. To worship in truth is to worship according to the principles of love, and to worship the way the Bible defines and depicts worship, according to the true doctrine found in the scriptures. In all things the Bible is to be our authoritative source of truth. To worship in spirit, is to not merely know truth, but to allow God to write that truth on your heart and to change your character so that you align with truth in your inward parts, in your motives, desires, thoughts, and actions.