Hebrews 2:4 "God also bearing them witness, (those who had heard the Lord during His earthly ministry to Israel) both with signs and wonders, and with divers miracles, and gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to His own will?" And there’s our question mark at the end of that verse. So these whole two verses are tied to the word "How." How shall we neglect, and all of this confirms that we have no reason to neglect so great a salvation, and that’s the way we have to look at it. How can we neglect something that has been so meticulously, so miraculously, revealed to the human race? We're making these things so understandable that we’re not just throwing stuff out there expecting people to believe it, but the Scripture meticulously, and intrinsically puts it all together. Now verse 4, and the last half of the question.
Hebrews 2:4 "God also bearing them witness, (those who heard the Lord during His earthly ministry in particular) both with signs and wonders, and with divers miracles, and gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to His own will?" Now, there are only two places that we're aware of where all three of these words are used in one verse. This is one of them and the other one is back in Acts chapter 2, and we’ll look at that one a little later. These things here listed are proofs of who Jesus was and are the witness of Him being the promised one of the line of David's kingship. They are also of the material and external application of the Levitical Law of Moses for their physical sight as this Law required the testimony of two or more eye witnesses for the proof of any fact. This same Law required a passing of the priesthood by the washing with living water from a high priest to another. This is just what John the Baptist did when he baptized Jesus in accordance to fulfill all righteousness in the presence of witnesses. God then confirmed this action when the Heavens were opened and He said “this is My Son in whom I'm well pleased” Matthew 3:15-17.
Now these three words in the Greek, the first word is "semeion" in the Greek, and is usually translated and should be translated "signs," and signs were given to the Nation of Israel to teach them something in particular. That was the whole idea of these miraculous signs.
Then the next one in the Greek is "teras," which was translated "wonders." These were the wonders we’ve heard of so often in Christ’s earthly ministry, and these were given to have an effect on the Nation of Israel, the Hebrew people.
Then the third one was "dunamis" from which we get our English word, Dynamo, out of which we get a generator, and "dynamos" was for the sake of power, and it, too, was to bring about the work, or as is translated so often, "the miracles." Maybe we should put it the other way around, but whatever, the miracles and works were to show the manifestation of the power of God's presence in Him by the Holy Spirit.
But there not for our working or doing unless of course God chooses to use us in this manor. For those who do so show that they are but a child in their understanding as a beginner or elementary school child and have as yet not been learned of the Holy Spirits training for righteousness unto obedience and that obedience is only unto death in the same fashion as Jesus and Paul. For through Him is revealed our need and desire which alines with God's desire that being our willingness by way of obedience to His perfect Will, death to the world and all self life of sin. Remember Paul in Romans and especially the first five chapter reveals mans, religions, and saved mans true condition of bondage through religions legalism and its weakness to fulfill the required results mans obedience.
Now these three words were used throughout the New Testament, and especially the Four Gospels. But in two verses they’re always used together, here in Hebrews and then in Acts chapter 2. Now in Acts chapter 2, we think they’re reversed in their order, but it’s the same thing. We’re going to be looking at how, during Christ’s earthly ministry, He gave signs, which were to teach a particular lesson to the Nation of Israel and us. These were all for the confirmation of the priesthood that John had conferred on Jesus as he was the son of the high priest Zacharias, of the course of Abia.
But let’s get one thing straight. Whether it’s signs or wonders or miracles, they are all miracles. But not all miracles are signs. Not all miracles were necessarily wonders in order to have an effect on the Hebrew people, but they all played a particular role and, consequently, this is why we have three different words. Otherwise they could have just used one word, and said, miracles.
But as we’re going to see a little later, when we come to the signs, especially in John’s gospel, they taught a particular truth to the Hebrew people that the Lord expected them to understand. So let’s come back for a minute to Matthew chapter 9 verse 35, and pick up just a little bit of this miraculous working of Christ during His earthly ministry. And, as we’ve stressed, what was the basic purpose of Jesus' performing miracle after miracle after miracle. To prove Who He was! That was the whole idea. The Messiah had been promised ever since Genesis 3:15, and the prophets foretold of His coming. But in order for them to understand He was the promised Messiah from the Old Testament promises, covenants, and prophecies, He performed miracle after miracle. But the various categories of miracles had different effects upon the Nation and, consequently, they’re divided. The signs were given to teach, the wonders were to have an effect, and His other miraculous works were to show that He was exercising the power of God. Why? Because they did not know the day or the hour of His first visitation, they were unprepared for Him. Are we prepared for Him now?
Now it takes a little while to sift all of that through, but hopefully, we’ll see what we're trying to say. In Matthew chapter 9, and verse 35, this is more or less at the beginning of His earthly ministry we find:
Matthew 9:35 "And Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and (not just one now and then, but) every disease among the people." The gospel of the kingdom was that which was foretold of David's reign and the comforts with the Blessings that the nation enjoyed under King David and its being restored, but it was not restored in the fashion that they were looking for. They were looking for the material and external reality as this is all they know and therefore understood. Now that was part and parcel of His earthly ministry. Now come on over a little further in Matthew to chapter 15, and drop down to verse 29. And this was just commonplace in those three years of His earthly ministry. Here it is:
Matthew 15:29-30 "And Jesus departed from thence, (from the borders of Tyre and Sidon, back in verse 21) and came near to the Sea of Galilee; and went up into a mountain, and sat down there. 30. And great multitudes came to him, having with them those that were (now look at this) lame, blind, dumb, (unable to speak) maimed, (crippled) and many others, and cast them down at Jesus’ feet; and he healed them:" He healed everyone, not just some of them. Now verse 31. What was the effect? Well here it is:
Matthew 15:31a "Insomuch that the multitude wondered,…" He’s got them thinking. You know we were thinking, what we attempt to do when we sometimes may say things that some don’t hear constantly, or traditionally, is to shock people into thinking. People don’t have to go necessarily by what we say, but just think about it and search the Scriptures. Mull these things over, and not just take it blas'e and say, "Well, I’ve heard the Word this weeks, and that’s all I need." Our churches are full of people who merely go to fill an hour of worship and or read their assigned daily scripture verses mindlessly under some sort of ritualistic and religious legalism of bondage. The very yoke He came to break and destroy.
See when the Lord Jesus performed these miracles, it was to make people sit up and take notice of Who He was. He wasn’t just another prophet, He was One Who had power and could perform these miracles without any of them ever failing. He was proving to the stiffnecked, hardhearted and unbelieving Israelite that He was God's sent one, the one of promise.
Now with that, we’ll go to John’s gospel chapter 4, and in John’s gospel we always like to point out the fact that there are miracles, and they are all "semeion (signs)." The word in the original Greek, in all of John’s gospel, all 8 of them are this word here, "semeion." And even though the King James and some of the others translate it as miracles and so forth, it really should have always been, these 8 signs. So let’s begin in John 4:46. Until now, we hadn’t even decided where we were going to start in this passage. We thought we were just going to use one verse, but we’ll also use a few more. Now this is the second sign already in John’s gospel, the first one of course is when He turned the water into wine in chapter 2.
John 4:46 "So Jesus came again into Cana of Galilee, where He made the water wine. And there was a certain nobleman, whose son was sick at Capernaum."
So Christ goes up to Capernaum, and now verse 47:
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