THE RELATIONSHIP
BETWEEN HIS MIRACLES
AND SINLESSNESS
What is the evidence then that the Christians present to persuade us that
Jesus Christ was indeed the Son of God and to be obeyed without question? The Church argues that the spotless goodness
of Christ plus his miracles – acts contrary to the usual workings of natural
law – prove that he was who he said he was, the
revelation of God.
Sinlessness alone would prove nothing.
Anyone could claim to be sinless and availing of the doctrine that God’s
ways are strange, could say that her or his sins were not sins but were done
for a good purpose. We all know people
who seem impeccable and if Jesus’ goodness is evidence that he was of God then
it means that they are of God as well and telling the truth if they say they
are divine. Jesus did things that look
evil like pulling his death on the cross on himself, risking the apostles lives by taking them around with him when he was a
wanted man, insulting the woman whose daughter was possessed and I could go on
for a year.
The Devil would make a sinless man think he was the Son of God for a
greater evil that we cannot understand. When God is so weird he might allow it
to happen. Moreover, if there is a Devil
he will have to be a gentleman in order to bring about a greater evil (2
Corinthians 11:14).
The New Testament may say that Jesus was sinless but there are few if any
statements that he was always sinless. And
these are problematic for they were not written by people whose expertise in
ethics and morality can be substantiated.
We know precious little about the writers except that they were
prejudiced in favour of Jesus and were writing to get people to flatter them by
agreeing with them. St Paul the Apostle
and first Christian writer and first person to mention Jesus being holy was
raving with bigotry, had a vicious tongue and disliked women and condoned
slavery. He was hardly even a
half-paragon of virtue.
Also it is boastful to describe somebody you know as sinless. It means
you claim to know thoroughly what is and isn’t sinful. You believe you know it all. You know what the best experts in the world don’t
know – how to create a system that is perfectly moral. And because of your superiority, you are able
to know if Jesus was sinless and can sit in judgment of him and work out that
he has never sinned. The doctrine of
Jesus’ sinlessness speaks more about the people who
preach it than about Jesus. The idea
that Jesus was sinless and formed a Church which is so close to him that it can
be described as being his body means that the Christian religion has a right to
dictate what to believe and do to the world.
What makes the Christians so sure they are right about Jesus being
sinless? Not everybody would believe
that a man who claimed to be God or at least the Son of God and who twisted the
Old Testament prophecy to make it seem to be speaking of him (Nostradamus style) and who waltzed off to Calvary Hill to
be crucified is really sinless.
If you advertise your sinlessness through
miracles as Jesus allegedly did you are hardly sinless
are you? True goodness hides itself. Jesus himself said that it was a sin to allow
yourself to be seen doing good when you could have
done it more discreetly. Christians may
say Jesus didn’t do them for that reason.
Even if he didn’t claim to be sinless he did them to show that his
teaching was of God and that he was the Son of God which by implication shows
he was claiming to be a saint. I am
using saint along the vein of somebody who sins but who starts again and is
very righteous.
The diabolical agency theory is the idea that Satan did Jesus’ miracles
for him. Some believe that the demons
and Satan cannot do real miracles but use natural forces such as the power of
hallucination and illusion to make people think fake miracles have happened so
that they can use the wonders to draw them to a false system of religious
belief or a false prophet. Obviously if Satan has such powers then he might as
well be able to do proper miracles.
It is certain that for Jesus’ miracles to prove that he was the supreme
revelation of God, he would have to be sinless so that
the diabolical agency theory could be made less probable.
Believers say that Jesus’ miracles proved that he was indeed the sinless
Son of God and the man whose teaching must be obeyed. They say the diabolical agency possibility isn’t
even slightly an option. The problem
with that view is that you need to be as wise as Jesus allegedly was to know
that he was sinless. Miracles cannot
prove him sinless if he is not sinless.
So the sinlessness and miracles are needed to
make an argument for Jesus - and yet neither works.
You shouldn’t reason, “Jesus did miracles therefore he was sinless”. That is making the miracles testify for
Jesus. It is not taking Jesus’
testimony. It amounts to following miracles
not Jesus. It is not a compliment to
Jesus to call him sinless on the basis of miracles. You should be able to see that without
them. And especially
when you claim to have a personal relationship with Jesus. And in that case, the miracles are good for
nothing. If Jesus wanted to draw
attention to his holiness he should have taught and nursed the sick often
falling ill himself but battling on - and lived until he was 100 when he was
murdered trying to rescue a battered wife from her husband. He shouldn’t have been doing miracles to get
attention. What the miracles prove is
that Jesus’ lifelong and absolute holiness should be put under suspicion.
If Jesus made the claim that he was gifted with lifelong and absolute freedom
from sin and was in fact sinful, doing miracles to back up his claim would show
that the miracles would be of little use.
They would be supporting the “revelations” of a man who isn’t
dependable.
Miracles need a religious context before they can be taken to be signs
that the religion or religious personage who manifests them is true. Many of Jesus’ miracles didn’t worry about religion
at all. For example, he cured lepers and
told them not to tell anyone. He didn’t ask
them to convert or believe in him. He raised
the daughter of Jairus from the dead having put all
the people out of the room and despite claiming she wasn’t dead.
The miracles would be useless in the absence of proof that Jesus was
sinless even if he was sinless. And no such proof exists.
Perhaps if we can prove Jesus did miracles then we can be sure he was
sinless or not far off it? No. You need to prove the sinlesslessness
or near sinlessness first to be able to prove that
the miracles are signs. The miracles
could not be signs that Jesus was sinless but they would be signs because Jesus
was sinless. You shouldn’t need miracles
to prove you are sinless if that is true.
The problem is we
can’t prove that Jesus was sinless.
Therefore we cannot say that his miracles happened or that they are
signs from God proving that Jesus was telling the truth about God.
|
Miracles of Jesus |
Don’t prove we must make him our Lord and Master unless he is sinless. So we must see Jesus as sinless before we
consider his miracles. |
|
Sinlessness of Jesus |
Proves nothing for we have to be experts on morality which we are not
to be able to judge him as sinless. |
|
Conclusion |
The miracles and sinlessness fail to help us gain faith in Jesus. |
|
Healing Miracles of Jesus |
Not a sign that he was good. A
man who rolls up his sleeves and wipes the pus from ulcers and does it the
hard way instead of working magic is the truly good man. That Jesus’ wonders are upheld as the
supreme good works ever done on earth is totally insulting to humanitarians
and philanthropists. The miracles command
you to put Christian religious faith before people by implication. They are evil miracles in their intent even
if people did get cured. |
|
Jesus dying for sinners |
Any saying that he died for this reason was written down after his death. Jesus screamed against God on the cross
that he had forsaken him. That can be
taken as saying he didn’t plan to die.
Also we don’t have any statistical evidence or visible evidence that
Jesus’ death heals the heart of evil. Even
the gospels themselves don’t indicate that his crucifixion was that bad. We don’t regard a man who does nothing for
others but who believes that when he dies that he is offering it to say
forgive the sin of murder through the world as good. |
|
Conclusion |
The miracles and sinlessness fail to help us gain faith in Jesus. |