This post is written by Allyson M. Howell and is published as a companion to Unit 13, Session 4 of The Gospel Project for Adults Vol. 5 (Fall 2022): From Rebellion to Exile.
We often do not see miracles the same way that they were performed in ancient Israel. Bread and fish are not multiplied, skin diseases are not healed with a touch, and mud doesn’t make a blind man see.
It can be difficult as believers on this side of the apostles’ and Jesus’s life to believe that God is really at work in the world. We don’t see fire fall from the sky to consume an offering, so is God as active and powerful today as He was “back then?”
Wanting Proof
This can be a rather defeating question. It is natural for us to want proof for our beliefs. If we say the sky is blue, we need to go outside and see for ourselves that this is true. We say that Jesus is the Messiah, but do not have an angel on demand glowing above our heads, appearing whenever we desire proof.
How, then, do we know? What assurance do we have?
They Asked for a Sign
Jesus often spoke in parables to the people He interacted with. In John 2:13-25, Jesus entered the temple and began to create a ruckus and overturn tables. These people were treating God’s house like a market and Jesus was having none of it.
The Jews then asked for a sign to prove He could do such things. Jesus then told them to destroy the temple and He would raise it in three days. He didn’t make a dove appear from thin air or cause a storm to begin, but He stated the most important miracle and sign anyone could ever need. He spoke of His resurrection.
Proof in the Resurrection
When we look around and wonder how we can know for sure that following Jesus is worth it all, we must look at Jesus’s death, burial, and resurrection. We must stare at His bloody and broken body, His wounded side, His crown of thorns. We must remember the final breath He took and the curtain that was torn. We must think of His burial and His body in the tomb with guards and a stone placed in front. And we must look straight into the empty tomb on that third day. Was His body stolen? Was it all a big ploy to usurp the throne? What actually happened there?
Either Jesus really was raised to life and ascended to heaven, conquering death, or He was a liar and all of his disciples were liars.
But if we look at Jesus and we discern that what is said about Him and what He says about Himself is absolutely true, then we have the only sign we will ever need.
The resurrection is incomparable to any other proof. The resurrection is the greatest sign that Jesus is God, Lord of all, the Messiah of His people.
Allyson M. Howell is an event planner and content creator for The Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. She holds an MDiv from Midwestern Seminary. Allyson is a member and the deacon of Women’s Ministry at Wornall Road Baptist Church and lives in Kansas City, Missouri, with her husband, Randy.