Not to get into whether UFOs and aliens exist or not, but if it were ever confirmed as true, the existence of life from other planets would be one of the biggest revelations of all time. With supercomputers and CGI and government conspiracies, now its easier than ever to fake photographs and doctor videos; so what would it take to convince mankind that UFOs and aliens are real? I’m not just talking about one person or a group of people, but all mankind.
Believe me, this article has nothing to do with aliens, but I want you to think about what kind of evidence you would accept–I mean really accept without any doubt. What would it take?
Now let’s switch gears and put yourself in the position of the Jews of Jesus’ time. What evidence would they accept such that they would have no doubt at all that the Messiah–God himself in the flesh–had come down from heaven to live amongst us?
As Christians we clearly take this for granted: He already came and we’re not looking for another savior to come. But for the Jews this was a huge deal. God could appear to a person or a group of people and perform some miracle to convince them that he was real–but this would only serve to convince a few. Even if a respected rabbi went to other rabbis and told them, “The Christ appeared to me,” would that be enough for the rabbis for such an important decision? It might be enough to intrigue them to go check it out, but it would not be enough to convince them. And the leaders of the Jews felt it their responsibility to confirm to themselves and then announce to the rest of Jews when they found him.
Of course God knew that men would have a difficult time accepting the Messiah, so he made many specific prophesies about what the Christ would do for over a thousand years before Jesus came.
But while the prophecies about Jesus may seem completely clear to us now after the fact, applying them beforehand is a much more difficult task.
Perhaps “miracles” was your first thought about the kind of evidence that could prove one to be the Messiah. That’s a good idea. The problem is God already did work miracles through various prophets and anointed people throughout Jewish history.
To resolve these difficulties and come up with a full-proof way of identifying the Messiah, the Pharisees got together and agreed upon miracles that only the Messiah could do. They were miracles, but were thought to be more difficult to do than had ever been performed by a prophet of Israel.
You might think “resurrect a dead person” would top the list. I mean it seems very miraculous to me, and it would make me believe someone was the Messiah. But it wasn’t on the list because Elisha had raised a person from the dead (2Kings 4).
So what were the three? 1) Cure a leper, 2) Give sight to a person born blind, and 3) Cast a demon out of a mute person.
Could there have been more? Possibly, but as you’ll see, the Pharisees still found a way to reject Jesus after doing the three miracles (by claiming it was by the power of the Devil). Therefore Jesus said he would do no more miracles to prove to them that he was the Messiah. Sure he did more miracles, but none as public and pre-planned by the Pharisees.
How do we know the Pharisees came up with this list? It’s possible that someone has already found some Pharisaical writings on this (not to my knowledge though), but in this case we don’t need any. The Gospels themselves give the necessary clues to see what was going on. These clues mainly came in the form of the Pharisees’ reactions to the miracles, and Jesus’ reactions to them not accepting him as the Messiah even though he had jump through all their hoops.
I. A Bona Fide Leper
Getting back to the miracles, the reason the first miracle, curing a leper, made the Messianic list was because in all Jewish history from the giving of the Law until Jesus, no one had ever been declared a leper under Levi 13 and then later had his leprosy cured such that the provisions of Levi 14 would be necessary. In fact, as far as is known, Levi 14 had never been exercised. You might point out Miriam (Exo 12) and Naaman (2King 5), but neither of these qualify. The reason Miriam doesn’t qualify is because God healed her before the 7-day examination period ended; therefore she was never declared a leper and never had to shout “unclean!” among other things. Naaman doesn’t count because he was not a Jew and therefore had never been examined by a priest under Levi 13. These may seem like technicalities, but you must realize that being declared a leper under Levi 13 had serious religious, societal and personal ramifications.
Then came Jesus in Mark 1:40-44 and cured a leper and told him to go show himself to the priests–undoubtedly for them to finally have to use Levi 14 to declare the man cleansed and able to rejoin his Jewish brothers. In the next chapter in Mark, this is where so many had gathered that the paralytic’s friends had to lower him through the roof. Why is this significant? Many Pharisees and teachers of the Law had clearly heard that Jesus had performed one of the miracles that they agreed only the Messiah could perform. Therefore they followed him to Capernaum to begin watching him.
II. The Man Born Blind
The next miracle is found in John 9. The Pharisees taught that tragedies and curses happened to people because of disobedience to God’s laws. Therefore it was God who was punishing them. This may sound harsh and wrong, but this is in accordance to what Moses said in Deut 28, namely that following the Law meant blessings but disobedience meant curses. But what about a baby born with blindness? How could a baby have broken a law? The Pharisees taught that the baby must have done something truly heinous in the womb in order for God to have stricken him with the divine judgment of blindness. This is why the apostles asked, “who sinned, the parents or the child?” For us nowadays, we’d likely say “neither”, but no one would say “definitely the fetus!” And because this was considered a divine judgment of God, the Pharisees taught that only the Messiah himself could reverse this judgement.
Jesus heals the man, and naturally word of this makes it back to the Pharisees. In verses 13 to 34, the Pharisees conduct their investigation. The dialogue here gives away the turmoil that was going on within the Pharisees and amongst the Jews. Verse 16 is a good example. Jesus had done this miracle on the Sabbath. Had Jesus violated the Sabbath Law? This could be an article in and of itself, but suffice it to say “no” for now. He had not done any work or engaged in any commerce. It was the Pharisees who took the laws to the N-th degree and heaped on stricter and stricter teachings of their own.
The Pharisees wouldn’t take the man’s own word for it, so they brought his parents in. Remember, a lot is at stake for everyone involved. The Pharisees had gone as far as to threaten to excommunicate anyone who claimed Jesus was the Messiah (v22), so the parents had to be careful. The Pharisees didn’t want to admit that Jesus was the Messiah. “Why not?” is a great question and subject of a future article. The rest of the dialogue between the Pharisees and the man are classic. Verse 32 really points at this miracle being one of the Messianic miracles: “Nobody has ever heard of opening the eyes of a man born blind”. And verse 34 underscores the Pharisees’ position about people born blind: “You were steeped in sin at birth”.
III. The Blind, mute, demon-possessed man
Mat 12:22-23 and Luke 11:14-20 we find Jesus healing a mute, and demon possessed man. Why would this be a miracle only the Messiah could perform? Because the Pharisees had a procedure for exorcism, but it involved getting the name of the demon in order to command it to leave (see Mark 5). You can see the problem: if the individual was mute, you could not get the name of the demon. Note Mat 12:23: why would the people say, “Could this be the Son of David?” Because this is one of the miracles that the people were taught only the Messiah could do.
And what was the Pharisees’ response? They couldn’t deny what he had done, so that best they could come up with was the Jesus was doing this through the power of Satan. Verses 27 and 28 in Matthew also lend credence. v27 shows that the Pharisees did exorcisms on their own, and v28 is key: Jesus knew what the Pharisees taught the people, which is why he says “But if I drive out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.” If they would admit that Jesus had driven the demon out of the mute person by the power of God, then they would have to believe he was the Messiah.
Both Matthew and Luke show what follows in Mat 12:39-42 and Luke 11:29-32: Jesus says he will perform no more signs but the sign of Jonah. Of course he’s referring to the miracle of his resurrection, but why no more signs and didn’t he do more miracles after this? I believe Jesus was done performing signs from their Messianic list just to have them attributed to Satan. Jesus did have to fulfill prophesies like Isa 35:5-6, but he did not have to jump through the specific hoops that the Pharisees had laid out. But he did, I believe in the hopes that he could convince and save as many as possible. Of course Jesus did perform more miracles, but none as public as these three and none to prove he was the Messiah based on miracles the Pharisees believed only the Messiah could perform.