Could Jesus Perform Miracles?

One of the major objections to miracles is that they violate natural law. Natural law is immutable, therefore natural law cannot be violated, critics argue.

If there was no God, then this might be true. But where did the laws of nature, physics, energy and matter come from? How did they originate? Did these laws of such incredible precision and orderliness create themselves? Those who deny a Creator have no answers.

But if God is real, we would expect that miracles—in exactly the way they are recorded for us in the Gospels—would be a very reasonable part of the life of One who wanted to prove His divine identity to those around Him.

Strictly speaking, Jesus did not perform miracles on His own, having given up that divine power (Philippians 2:6-8). He clearly said He did not have the ability to perform supernatural works on His own, saying, "the Son can do nothing of Himself" and "I can of Myself do nothing" (John 5:19, 30). Obviously, then, Jesus relied on God the Father to perform the many miracles that characterized His ministry (John 14:10).

And for God, the omnipotent Creator who designed the laws of nature, it is nothing to supernaturally intervene in the creation to carry out what we might deem impossible. Jesus said: "With God all things are possible" (Matthew 19:26). Miracles do indeed happen. In Christ's case, the Father answered His every prayer and backed up His every command, so that, as Christ's disciples recognized in Matthew 8:27, even the wind and the sea obeyed Him.