When Jesus began His ministry, He began by manifesting His authority—through miracles and healings, through discerning and revealing the hearts of men, and through prophecy—and then He unveiled the Word, and revealed Himself. In this chapter we will look at His works, and see how each one puts on display an attribute of God.
Remember what we said at the very beginning of this book: that God, who is self-existent and self-sufficient, chose to reveal His many hidden attributes—who He truly is. Among those attributes are healing, dominion over nature and spirits, and the giving of life, for He is the very source of life. And notice something beautiful about how attributes are revealed: they require an occasion. For God to show Himself a miracle-worker, there must be a need; to show Himself a Healer, there must be someone sick; to show His dominion over spirits, there must be someone in bondage to be set free; to show Himself the Life-giver, there must be someone dead. The very brokenness of our world became the canvas on which God displayed His glory in the works of Jesus. And note well: He did these works as a man, anointed by the Spirit, so that we might see what God is like—and what a Spirit-filled human life can be.
Healing and Miracles
Consider the range of His mighty works, each one a window into the authority and compassion of God.
His authority over provision, wealth, and daily living:
- He turned water into wine at the wedding in Cana (John 2:1–11).
- He provided the temple tax in a fish’s mouth (Matthew 17:24–27).
- He gave a miraculous catch of fish on the lake of Gennesaret (Luke 5:1–11).
- He fed five thousand men, besides women and children (Matthew 14:13–21; Mark 6:30–44).
His authority over nature:
- He calmed a storm on the sea (Matthew 8:23–27; Mark 4:35–41; Luke 8:22–25).
- He walked on the water (Matthew 14:22–33; Mark 6:45–52).
- He withered the fig tree on the road from Bethany (Matthew 21:18–22; Mark 11:12–14).
His authority over sickness and bondage in the body:
- He healed many sick and oppressed at evening (Matthew 8:16–17).
- He cleansed ten lepers on the way to Jerusalem (Luke 17:11–19).
- He healed the nobleman’s son (John 4:46–54).
- He healed two blind men (Matthew 9:27–31).
- He healed a man unable to speak (Matthew 9:32–34).
- He healed a deaf man with a speech impediment (Mark 7:31–37).
- He healed a woman crippled for eighteen years (Luke 13:10–17).
His authority over demons and evil spirits:
- He cast out an unclean spirit in the synagogue (Mark 1:23–28).
- He cast out demons and set many free (Matthew 8:16; Mark 1:34).
- He commanded demons to leave a man and enter the swine (Matthew 8:32).
His authority over death itself:
- He raised a widow’s son at Nain (Luke 7:11–17).
- He raised Lazarus at Bethany (John 11:1–45).
- He raised Jairus’ daughter (Matthew 9:18, 23–26).
Over provision, over nature, over sickness, over the powers of darkness, over death itself—there is nothing outside His authority. He is Lord of all, and every miracle whispered the same truth: God has drawn near to save.
Prophesying and Discernment
Jesus also revealed the attribute of God as the all-knowing One—the Omniscient. He foretold what was to come, and He read the secret thoughts of the heart.
His prophecies and promises:
- “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away” (Matthew 24:35).
- He foretold that the woman who anointed Him would be remembered wherever the gospel is preached (Matthew 26:13).
- He foretold Peter’s threefold denial before the rooster crowed—and it came to pass exactly so (Matthew 26:33–34, 74–75).
- He foretold His own crucifixion at the Passover (Matthew 26:2).
- He foretold His resurrection: “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up”—speaking of His body (John 2:18–22).
- He promised the coming of the Holy Spirit to teach and remind His people (John 14:26).
- He promised to prepare a place and to come again for His own (John 14:3).
His discernment of the heart:
- “Jesus perceived their wickedness, and said, Why tempt ye me, ye hypocrites?” (Matthew 22:18).
- “Jesus perceived in his spirit that they so reasoned within themselves” (Mark 2:8).
- “He knew their thoughts” (Luke 6:8; 11:17).
- “He knew what was in man” and needed no one to testify of man (John 2:25).
He saw what no human eye could see and knew what no human mind could know—the future laid open before Him, and the secrets of every heart bare in His sight. This is the omniscience of God, shining out through a man.
Revealing the Word—God as Father
Then Jesus went further: He revealed the Word, and unveiled God as Father. He was displaying an attribute of God that had only been glimpsed before—God as a loving Father—and He was revealing His own relationship with the Father as one of perfect oneness: not merely unity of purpose, but oneness of being. And in doing so, He opened a wholly new dimension of relationship between God and man: God as Father, and all who believe in Him and in His Son as His own children.
Jesus was the only begotten Son (John 3:16)—not merely the only son, but the only One begotten of God, born of God through a virgin without the involvement of any man. Yet all who receive Him and believe on His name are given the right to become sons of God—adopted into the family (John 1:12; Ephesians 1:5). And so Jesus is “the firstborn among many brethren” (Romans 8:29): the unique Son by nature, who makes many sons by grace.
See how tenderly He reveals the Father, and His own oneness with Him:
- “If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also… he that hath seen me hath seen the Father… I am in the Father, and the Father in me” (John 14:6–11).
- “All things are delivered unto me of my Father: and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son” (Matthew 11:27).
- “O righteous Father… I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them” (John 17:25–26).
- “I can of mine own self do nothing… I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me” (John 5:30).
- “In my Father’s house are many mansions… I go to prepare a place for you” (John 14:1–4).
- “I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do… glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was” (John 17:4–5).
Clearly, Jesus introduces God to us as Father. God is Spirit, and the Spirit of Christ is the Spirit of God; so Jesus is revealing that the God who is Spirit is the Father, and that He Himself, in flesh and blood, is the Son—and that He is one with the Father. Not merely united in will, but one.
And here is the glory of it: after His death and resurrection, His Father became our Father—for all who believe:
Jesus saith unto her… go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God (John 20:17).
Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God (1 John 3:1).
And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty (2 Corinthians 6:18).
Jesus revealed the attribute of God as Father under a new covenant—a covenant sealed not by the blood of animals, but by His own blood. Now we can call God “Father.” This is not a feeling but a fact: in Christ we become new creatures, sons and daughters of God, and God is our Father.
Revealing Himself as I AM
In the Old Testament, Yahweh revealed His name to Moses as “I AM THAT I AM” (Exodus 3:14). In the New Testament, Jesus took that same divine “I AM” upon His lips—revealing, through a series of “I am” sayings, that it is only through Him that we have eternal life and access to God as Father:
- “I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger” (John 6:35).
- “I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness” (John 8:12).
- “I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved” (John 10:9).
- “I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep” (John 10:11).
- “I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me… shall never die” (John 11:25–26).
- “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6).
- “I am the vine, ye are the branches… without me ye can do nothing” (John 15:5).
Do you remember, from our chapter on the patterns, the three things in the ark of the covenant—the Law, the Manna, and the budded rod—and how they pointed to Christ as the Way, the Truth, and the Life? Here He says it in His own voice: “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” The shadow in the ark has become the living Person standing before us. The great I AM of the burning bush is the same Jesus who feeds us as the Bread, lights us as the Light, shepherds us as the Shepherd, and raises us as the Resurrection.
His Love and Compassion
Finally, in word and deed Jesus poured out the love and compassion of God upon His people, His friends, and His creation.
He revealed a love that holds nothing back: “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). He came with good news for the lowly: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor… to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised” (Luke 4:18).
And again and again the Gospels tell us He was “moved with compassion.” He touched a leper—whom no one would touch—and said, “I will; be thou clean” (Mark 1:41). Seeing a grieving widow, “he had compassion on her, and said unto her, Weep not” (Luke 7:13). Looking on the hungry crowds, He said, “I have compassion on the multitude… I will not send them away fasting” (Matthew 15:32), and “he… was moved with compassion toward them, and he healed their sick” (Matthew 14:14). This is the very heart of God, laid bare in a human face—the compassion the Lord had proclaimed of Himself to Moses now walking among us, touching, weeping, feeding, healing.
The whole ministry of Jesus revealed the attributes of God the Father through a man walking on the earth. And here is the astonishing invitation with which we close: through this same Jesus Christ, we too are called the children of God, and God is our Father. And to all who believe in the Lord Jesus as Lord and Savior, and are filled with His Spirit, He gives that same Spirit—so that they, too, begin to carry these attributes of our Father: His love, His compassion, His life—that through them, as through the Son, God may be glorified. The Word became flesh and lived among us; and now, by His Spirit, He longs to live His life out through us.