Objection: Jesus Healed and Did Miracles to Authenticate His Messiahship

This objection is a little different from the one that He healed to prove His deity, but it is just as false.  The assumption made by the objectors is that miracles have been done away with, but they were needed right at the time to show the world that Jesus is the Messiah.  As there will never be a need for that again (supposedly), signs and wonders ceased with the last apostle.  (This also assumes falsely that apostles will not be around until the church is complete, as Paul taught in Ephesians 4:11-13).

I don’t question that His miracles pointed to His Messiahship, but the Bible never teaches that Jesus was moved by a desire to authenticate His Messiahship.  He was moved with compassion and He healed the sick.  (See God’s Mercy and Compassion.)  Why is that so crucial?  His earth walk, culminating in His atonement, resurrection and ascension, is over.  If He only healed to prove His Messiahship, given that no one else is the Messiah, we would not expect miracles today.  But if He healed out of compassion, we MUST assume that He is just as willing to heal today because He is just as compassionate today.  Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever (Hebrews 13:8), so if He was compassionate toward the sick then, He is compassionate toward the sick today.  The Bible affirms that He is our merciful and faithful High Priest (Hebrews 2:17).  His mercy has not diminished since His earthly healing ministry in person, when you could cry out in faith, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” and get healed.  Therefore, His healings and miracles are to continue today.  As Luke said after all the events in the Gospel of Luke, his gospel was a record of all that Jesus BEGAN to do and to teach, not a record of His doings and teachings that were now stopped (Acts 1:1).  He now “does and teaches” through His Body, the Church.

Jesus’ compassion is evident by cases where His motive for healing wasn’t to authenticate His Messiahship.  He told some people not to tell anyone what had happened!  That would be consistent with His motivation being compassion, but totally inconsistent with a motivation to shout to the world that He was indeed the Messiah.

Various Scriptures assure us that His healing ministry was to continue after His death, burial and ascension.  The world still needs authentication that Jesus is the Messiah, perhaps now more than ever.  His church will lay hands on the sick and they will recover (Mark 16:18).  Believers will do the works that He did and greater (John 14:12).  If you’re going to do the works Jesus did, you have to do miracles as well.  Moreover, gifts of healings will continue until the perfect has come, at which point you will know everything.  But that point hasn’t come yet because we don’t all know everything.  If we did, we’d know better than to object to divine healing!