We are studying the gospel of Luke. This is the highlight, really, of our worship as we come before the Lord and He speaks to us through His Word. This is just the beginning of our study of Luke. You can open your Bible
We are studying the gospel of Luke. This is the highlight, really, of our worship as we come before the Lord and He speaks to us through His Word. This is just the beginning of our study of Luke. You can open your Bible to the first chapter of Luke, if you would like to, and follow along as we'll be commenting directly on the text of Scripture.
There are so many things that are foundational and formidable in establishing our understanding of the gospels and of Luke, that I want to address them week by week. The New Testament is the record of the person and work of Jesus Christ. That is what the New Testament is about. It's the story of Jesus. In particular, the four gospels — Matthew, Mark, Luke and John — tell the story of His life from four different perspectives.
One thing is clear in the gospels and that is the presence of miracles. In fact, in the four gospels there are thirty-five or so miracles detailed for us. Some of them are miracles which involve a single individual. Some of them are miracles which involve thousands and thousands of people. But the gospels are filled with miracles. The stories of miracles run through these four accounts. There are about twenty miracles that Luke describes in his gospel.
Now a miracle must be understood. A miracle by definition is an act or event that is entirely supernatural. It is an act or event that is entirely supernatural. It is contrary to natural law. It is explained only by divine intervention. It's very important for you to understand that. A miracle is an act or event that is entirely supernatural. It cannot be explained by natural law or by human reason but only by divine intervention. A miracle is when God halts the normal human processes and intervenes supernaturally.
Let me take it a step further. If there is any possibility of a human explanation, if there is any possibility of a rational explanation, or an empirical or scientific explanation, it is not a miracle. And the reason I say that is because miracles had a purpose. Miracles are very rare in the history of the world, even rare in biblical history. Miracles had one purpose. Miracles were to demonstrate that God had intervened into human life to speak and act. That's what miracles were for. Therefore they couldn't have any human explanation and be miracles. A miracle is an event or an act which has no explanation other than that God has intervened to speak or act. There's no way to explain it by natural law. There's no way to explain it by human reason. Miracles are inexplicable by natural law and human thought. Thus, miracles do exactly what they were designed to do; they reveal that God has intervened. Never did God intervene so potently and powerfully, never did God do so many supernatural acts, never did God do so many miracles as at the time of the arrival of Jesus Christ. The greatest miracle in human history is the miracle of the incarnation, God becoming man, God supernaturally planting a seed in a virgin woman, who brought forth a child who was 100 percent man and 100 percent God at the same time, a virgin-born God-Man, the incarnation. That is the greatest miracle of all miracles. And that miracle is the centerpiece miracle surrounded by many other miracles, many of which are described in the gospel records of the New Testament and certainly many which occurred but aren't in the gospels. There were many others. John says so many things were done by Jesus, so many things were said by Jesus that even the books of the world couldn't contain them all.
When you come into the record of the gospels, whether you're reading Matthew, Mark, Luke or John, you begin to come to miracles. You are literally going to be finding yourself in the midst of miracle after miracle after miracle as God is intervening. And God intervened at that time in human history like no other time, like no other time.
Let me just give you the big picture perspective. Miracles, frankly, don't