or transcendence of the laws of nature has been the dominant theme in popular religious explanations of the signs and wonder stories in our gospels. Thus God is viewed as acting arbitrarily, impulsively, capriciously, and whimsically. He has the authority and the power to do whatever he wills whenever the spirit moves him. He can act in behalf of his clients or withhold his power arbitrarily and capriciously. But this is to reduce God to the level of human impulse and character. God is no longer the Creator God, Lord of heaven and earth, holy, righteous, just, and loving in all that he does. Only one leper, or ten in Luke’s singular account, were cleansed of their leprosy; yet there must have been many, many lepers in Jesus’ time left to the ravages of this disease. Why did not God cleanse all the lepers and destroy this scourge of mankind if he had the power to accomplish this since he is the loving God? Jesus must have encountered death among his friends and associates on numerous occasions, but there are only two accounts in our three gospels of the raising of the dead, the twelve year old daughter of Jairus and the young man at Nain, again a story reported only in Luke’s gospel.
To refer to these events as miracles with the implication that God interrupted or defied the laws of nature in these instances is to raise the question of the goodness of God. What meaning or power can these stories have for us today as the gospel of God if they only recall that once upon a time God acted arbitrarily in behalf of a few individuals and ignored the great majority of those persons whom he had created? Of what value are these stories to us, if they become the basis for our own image of God, a God who acts in this same selective and exclusive fashion today? It is a parody to interpret the signs and wonder stories of the gospels as miracles, that is, as acts of God in which he deviates from the laws of nature and arbitrarily ignores them in an impulsive and whimsical fashion.
The Biblical Image of God
God is the Creator God who has brought into being the universe and all that is within it. He has fashioned and made it according to his will, and the laws of nature that govern and regulate its functions are expressions of that will. God is true. He is true to himself. He is faithful and trustworthy in all that he does. That means he never acts capriciously, impulsively, or arbitrarily. There is meaning and purpose for all his deeds and all his acts work together toward the realization of his eternal and immutable purpose. We can affirm with the Apostle Paul that “the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God” (Romans 8.21). No part of that creation is arbitrarily excluded from the redemptive purpose and intention of God.
The Intention and Purpose of the Signs and Wonder Stories
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