Seven Days of God’s Process: 3. The Working of Miracles

The Working of Miracles:

Looking at the number seven in this way then, we see it relates to the idea of kingdom authority conferred by the covenantal transaction of the cross, conferred upon men through the Lord Jesus Christ, the crowned son of man. This was not an instantaneous act or declaration. There were steps involved and process employed over time. The laying out of seven days and the events contained in them speak to us of process. Authority is not the mere waving of a scepter. Again, God could have done this and made an instantaneous creation, but He did not. Likewise, in redemption, He could have simply declared over humanity 2000 years ago, “I redeem you”, but He did not. God is a God of process. The Pentecostal / Charismatic obsession with instantaneously receiving from God, as the only valid or authentic means of the Father’s intervention, robs them of the miracle that involves, and in fact demands, process

[Gal 3:5 KJV] 5 He therefore that ministereth to you the Spirit, and worketh miracles among you, [doeth he it] by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?

Miracles are part of the nine gifts of the Spirit listed in 1 Cor. 12:8-10. Miracles are different from the other 8 gifts, because according to the apostle Paul in Gal. 3:5, miracles must be worked. They seldom function like some dollop of Holy Ghost whip cream being doused upon the top of your head. They very often involve process and action, including cooperation on the part of the person receiving the miracle. Even in the life and ministry of Jesus, He at times performed instantaneous miracles, but often, apparently chose to resort to an applied process, in order to effect miraculous recovery of various cases.

In one place, Jesus made clay of his saliva and put it on a man’s eyes to heal blindness:

[Jhn 9:6 KJV] 6 When he had thus spoken, he spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and he anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay,

In another instance, Jesus took a man aside from the crowd and spit on him to recover the person from a deaf and dumb state:

[Mar 7:33 KJV] 33 And he took him aside from the multitude, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spit, and touched his tongue;

In still another situation, Jesus took a man for a walk, specifically out of town, in order to effect healing from blindness:

[Mar 8:23-25 KJV] 23 And he took the blind man by the hand, and led him out of the town; and when he had spit on his eyes, and put his hands upon him, he asked him if he saw ought. 24 And he looked up, and said, I see men as trees, walking. 25 After that he put [his] hands again upon his eyes, and made him look up: and he was restored, and saw every man clearly.

Why would Jesus do things this way? Is He simply mixing it up because He is bored and wants to try something new? We know, if we accept Him for who He is, that He could have simply, with a word, healed every person in the earth in a moment of time, but He didn’t. He chose in His earth walk (and God Himself chose in creation) to act in the context of process. God is a God of process and that requires initiative on our part, not only to hear, but to act in expectation of an outcome when we follow the leading of the Holy Spirit in our lives. We may be called upon to do many unusual things, but if they are led by God, they will have an outcome.

Is God’s process learnable or totally random? The Genesis account helps us, if we choose to dig deeper into the narrative of Genesis 1 and 2. In it, we see God moving upon the chaos of whatever existed before He made the heavens and the earth. He doesn’t, in this case, move spontaneously or instantaneously. He moves deliberately and within a regimented number of days in a specific order. He could have made man first and light last. He could have made dry land and then seas. God is God and He can do anything He wants anytime He wants, therefore, in examining the order in which He DID act, we can only conclude there was a reason for doing so that was not of necessity, but in fact, leaving clues and examples for us who would examine these accounts later, so we could understand something of His process and cooperate with it in our own lives. Process brings outcome. God’s process functions according to learnable truths, that represent a framework of authenticity, within which, we can anticipate and even provoke what happens next as we move in the things of God from a posture of want, need and necessity, to a place of total outcome and destiny.

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