A Discourse for the Monday of the Twenty-Ninth Week: On Miracles and Signs (Part 1)

The Holy Gospel recounted to us today that the Pharisees, not satisfied with the miracles which the Lord was performing, demanded of Him a particular miracle: “a sign from heaven” (Mk 8:11). The demand for such a sign, in accordance with some strange understanding of signs and miracles, was repeated more than once, as the Lord Himself testified: “Why does this generation ask for a sign?” (Mk 8:12). In the demand of the Pharisees the Sadducees participated, who differed so greatly in their beliefs from the Pharisees (Mt 16:1). The desire for “a sign from heaven” was sometimes expressed by the people as well. Thus, after the miraculous multiplication of five loaves and the feeding with them of a large assembly in which there were five thousand men, excluding women and children, the eyewitnesses of this miracle, the participants in this meal, said to the Lord: “What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you? What work are you performing? Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat’” (Jn 6:30–31). For them the wonderful multiplication of loaves in the hands of the Saviour seemed insufficient: it was accomplished with quietness, with the holy humility which permeated all the actions of the God-Man, but they needed a spectacle, they needed an effect. They needed the sky to be covered with thick clouds, they needed thunder to rumble and lightning to flash, they needed loaves to fall from the air. The demand for a miracle from the God-Man by the Jewish high priests and people’s leaders had the same character, when the God-Man deigned to be lifted up on the cross. “And those passing by derided him” – the Gospel recounts – “the chief priests and scribes and elders said, He saved others; he cannot save himself. He is the King of Israel; let him come down from the cross now, and we will believe in him” (Mt 27:41–42). They acknowledge the miracles performed by the Lord as miracles and at the same time mock them; mocking, they reject them; rejecting the miracles granted by God’s mercy, they demand a miracle according to their own composition and discretion; a miracle which, if it had been performed, would have annihilated the purpose of the God-Man’s coming to earth, there would have been no redemption of men. Among those who wished to see from the Lord a miracle by which frivolity, curiosity, and thoughtlessness intended to amuse themselves, appears also Herod (Lk 23:8). He needed a sign for the pleasant passing of time; not receiving what he desired, he showered the Lord with mockery, thus providing himself a moment of entertainment. What does the universal demand for miracles from the God-Man, expressed by people of such varying dispositions, the demand joined with disdain for the striking miracles performed by the God-Man, mean? Such a demand is the expression of the concepts of carnal reasoning about miracles.

What is carnal reasoning? It is a way of thinking about God and about all spiritual things, borrowed by man from his state of fall, not from God’s Word. The property of enmity to God and opposition to God, with which carnal reasoning is infected and filled, is expressed with especial clarity in the demand to the God-Man for miracles according to the concept of falsely-named reason, while being inattentive to miracles, while rejecting and condemning the miracles which the God-Man was performing by His unspeakable goodness. He performed them, being “God’s power and God’s wisdom” (1 Cor 1:24).

Part One

A heavy sin it was to demand a miracle from the God-Man, a demand made on the basis and from the principles of carnal reasoning. The God-Man, hearing this bold, blasphemous demand, “sighed deeply in his spirit and said, ‘Why does this generation ask for a sign? Truly I tell you, no sign will be given to this generation.’ And he left them” (Mk 8:12–13; Mt 12:39).

Rejoicing is in heaven over one sinner who repents; so, conversely, the inhabitants of heaven are saddened by a man’s fall into sin and his rejection of repentance. In the gracious contemplation of the infinite goodness of God toward mankind, in the contemplation of God’s good pleasure that all men be saved, Macarius the Great ventured to say that God Himself, the all-holy, impassible God, is embraced by a mourning befitting God over the perdition of men. Not foreign to the Spirit of God is the mourning exceeding our understanding, and the Spirit of God, having dwelt in a man, “intercedes with sighs too deep for words” (Rom 8:26). Such sighing was awakened in the Son of God by the demand for a miracle, a demand proud and foolish. He “sighed deeply in his spirit, saying, ‘Why does this generation ask for a sign?’” This question was God’s answer to the demand hostile to God for a sign. What deep mourning, God’s mourning, is heard in this answer! In it is heard, as it were, the expression of perplexity produced by the absurdity and audacity of the request! In it is seen the loss of hope for the salvation of the people who made a request contrary to the Spirit who gives salvation. Those sealed with carnal reasoning, who stubbornly remain in it, who suffer from an incurable affliction, the Lord abandons: He leaves them to themselves, abandons them to perdition, accepted voluntarily, held voluntarily. “And he left them” and withdrew. Truly: “To set the mind on the flesh is death” (Rom 8:6). It is characteristic of the dead not to feel their own mortification; it is characteristic of carnal reasoning not to understand and not to feel human perdition. Because of lack of awareness of its perdition it does not acknowledge the need for revivification and on the basis of false consciousness of life rejected and rejects true life – God.

Can a “sign from heaven” have particular certainty? Those who demanded such a sign certainly demanded it, attributing to it this certainty. Can one conclude that a sign from heaven is necessarily a sign from God? From Divine Scripture the contrary is evident. The very expression “a sign from heaven” is very indefinite; then people ascribed, as most men today who are not familiar with sciences ascribe to the sky, what takes place in the air and in the space above the air. Thus, the Sun, Moon, and stars are recognized as being in the sky, whereas they swim in space; rain, thunder, lightning (Jas 5:18) are called heavenly phenomena, whereas these phenomena occur in the air, in the earth’s atmosphere, belong positively to the earth. Sacred Scripture recounts that by the action of the devil “the fire of God fell from heaven and burned up the sheep and the servants” of righteous Job (Job 1:16). Clearly, this fire was formed in the air, as lightning is formed in it. Simon the sorcerer astonished the blind people with miracles, whom they recognized the power acting in him as the great power of God (Acts 8:10). Simon especially astonished the idolatrous Romans, when in a numerous assembly of them, announcing himself as a god and his intention to ascend to the sky, he suddenly began to rise into the air. Blessed Simeon the Metaphrast recounts this, borrowing the account from the most ancient Christian writers. Terrible misfortune – the absence in man of true knowledge of God: it mistakes the deeds of the devil for the deeds of God. Before the second coming of Christ, when Christianity, spiritual knowledge and discernment will become exceedingly scarce among men, “false messiahs and false prophets will appear and produce great signs and omens, to lead astray, if possible, even the elect” (Mt 24:24). The Antichrist especially will abundantly scatter miracles, strike and satisfy them by carnal reasoning and ignorance: he will give them “a sign from heaven”, which they seek and thirst for. “His coming is apparent” – says the holy Apostle Paul – “in the working of Satan, with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved” (2 Thes 2:9, 10). Ignorance and carnal reasoning, upon seeing these miracles, will not stop at all to reflect; they will immediately accept them by the kinship of their spirit with their spirit, by their blindness recognize and confess the action of Satan to be the greatest manifestation of God’s power. The Antichrist will be accepted very hastily, thoughtlessly. Men will not consider that his miracles have no good, rational purpose, no definite meaning, that they are foreign to truth, filled with lies, that they are a monstrous, all-evil, senseless piece of acting, striving to astonish, to bewilder and make self-forgetful, to seduce, to deceive, to draw by the enchantment of a luxurious, empty, foolish effect.

It is not strange that the miracles of the Antichrist will be accepted unchallenged and with enthusiasm by apostates from Christianity, enemies of truth, enemies of God: they have prepared themselves for open, active acceptance of the messenger and instrument of Satan, his teaching, all his actions, having timely entered into communion with Satan in spirit. It is worthy of deep attention and lamentation that the miracles and deeds of the Antichrist will bring perplexity even to the very elect of God.

The cause of the strong influence of the Antichrist on men will consist in his infernal cunning and hypocrisy, with which he will skillfully cover up most terrible evil in his unbridled and shameless audacity, in the most abundant aid given to him by fallen spirits, finally, in his ability to perform miracles, although false, but striking. Human imagination is powerless to represent to itself the villain that the Antichrist will be; it is not in the nature of the human heart, even corrupted, to believe that evil could reach the degree to which it will reach in the Antichrist. He will proclaim about himself, as his precursors and images have proclaimed, will call himself a teacher and restorer of true knowledge of God; those who do not understand Christianity will see in him a representative and defender of true religion, will join him. He will proclaim, will call himself the promised Messiah; those nurtured by carnal reasoning will cry out to meet him; seeing his glory, his might, his brilliant abilities, his extensive development in the elements of the world, they will proclaim him god, will become his helpers. The Antichrist will present himself as meek, merciful, filled with love, filled with every virtue; those will recognize him as such and submit to him for his highest virtue who recognize fallen human righteousness as truth and have not renounced it for the righteousness of the Gospel. The Antichrist will offer mankind the arrangement of the highest earthly well-being and prosperity, will offer honors, wealth, magnificence, fleshly comforts and pleasures: seekers of earthly things will accept the Antichrist, will proclaim him their lord. The Antichrist will open before mankind a spectacle of striking miracles, like the elaborate representations of the theater, unexplainable by contemporary science; he will inspire fear with the terror and wonder of his miracles, will satisfy with them senseless curiosity and crude ignorance, will satisfy human vanity and pride; will satisfy carnal reasoning, will satisfy superstition, will perplex human learning; all men guided by the light of their fallen nature, estranged from the guidance of the light of God, will be drawn into obedience to the seducer (Rev 13:8). The signs of the Antichrist will appear especially in the atmospheric layer: it is in this layer that Satan especially dominates (Eph 2:2; Eph 6:12). The signs will act chiefly on the sense of sight, enchanting and deceiving it. Saint John the Theologian, contemplating in Revelation the events of the world that must precede its end, says that the Antichrist will perform great deeds, so that “he even makes fire come down from the sky to the earth before everyone” (Rev 13:13). Scripture points to this sign as the highest of the Antichrist’s signs, and the place of this sign is the air; it will be a magnificent and terrible spectacle. The signs of the Antichrist will complete the effects of his intricate conduct: they will entrap in following him the majority of men. The opponents of the Antichrist will be counted as disturbers, enemies of the common good and order, will be subjected to both concealed and open persecution, will be subjected to torture and execution. Evil spirits, sent throughout the universe, will awaken in men the highest common opinion of the Antichrist, common enthusiasm, an irresistible attraction to him. The Scripture has depicted by many features the heaviness of the last persecution of Christianity and the cruelty of the persecutor. A decisive and definite feature is the name given by Scripture to this terrible man: he is called a “beast” (Rev 13:1), as the fallen angel is called a “serpent” (Gen 3:1; Rev 12:3). Both names depict with accuracy the character of both enemies of God. One operates more secretly, the other more openly; but to the beast, which resembles all beasts, combining in itself their varied savagery, “the dragon gave his power and his throne and great authority” (Rev 13:2). A terrible trial for God’s saints will come: the cunning, hypocrisy, and miracles of the persecutor will be intensified to deceive and seduce them; refined, invented, and covered with cunning ingeniousness persecutions and constrictions, unlimited power of the torturer will place them in the most difficult position; their small number will seem insignificant before all mankind and their opinions will be given particular weakness; universal contempt, hatred, slander, oppression, violent death will become their lot. Only by special cooperation of Divine grace, under its guidance, will God’s elect be able to resist God’s enemy, confess before him and before men the Lord Jesus.

A direct consequence of what has been said consists in this: that the Pharisees and Sadducees, demanding from the Lord a “sign from heaven”, were demanding a miracle in the character of the Antichrist’s miracles. By the fact that they demanded precisely such a miracle, the behavior of the Lord in relation to their demand is explained. Once, at such a demand, the God-Man expressed deep sorrow, refused the demand more than decisively, was unwilling to remain with those who allowed themselves to make the demand, withdrew from them. At another time He gave them the following terrible answer: “An evil and adulterous generation asks for a sign, but no sign will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah” (Mt 16:1, 4; Mt 12:38–42). All those who demanded a sign by kinship with one another in spirit are called a generation; they are called an adulterous generation, because they entered into communion with Satan in spirit, breaking communion with God; they are called an evil generation because, knowing the miracles of the God-Man, they pretended not to know them; while despising and blaspheming God’s miracles, they asked for a miracle corresponding to their unfortunate disposition, their spirit. The request for “a sign from heaven” was not so much a request for a miracle as mockery of the miracles of the God-Man and an expression of ignorant, perverted understanding of miracles. By the sign of the prophet Jonah, according to the explanation of the Saviour Himself (Mt 12:40), the signs were meant that accompanied His death and resurrection. Then a Divine “sign from heaven” was given! Then the sun, seeing the Lord crucified, grew dark at the very noon; universal deep darkness ensued, lasting three hours; the curtain of the Jerusalem temple was torn in two of itself, from the top to the bottom; an earthquake occurred; the rocks were split, the graves were opened; many saints rose and appeared to many in the holy city (Lk 23:45; Mt 27:45, 51–53). At the very resurrection of the Lord, an earthquake occurred again; a light-bearing angel descended from heaven to the tomb of the Lord as a witness of the resurrection, struck with terror those who guarded the tomb, whom the seekers of “a sign from heaven” had stationed there (Mt 28:2–4). The guards announced to the Jewish Sanhedrin the resurrection of the Lord that had taken place. It, having received a “sign from heaven”, expressed toward it the contempt and hatred which it expressed toward all the preceding miracles of the God-Man, bribed the guards, along with them took care to cover God’s miracle with the darkness of lies (Mt 28:11–15).

Let us now turn to the consideration of the miracles performed by our Lord Jesus Christ. They are a gift of God to mankind. The gift was given not by obligation – it was given solely by good pleasure and mercy. Men were obliged to conduct themselves toward the gift and toward the Giver of the gift with the greatest reverence and prudence, because the Giver of the gift announced Himself to be God, who took on humanity for the salvation of men, and the gift by His testimony. The gift had unquestionable excellence. But as the acceptance of salvation is left to the free will of men, so men were permitted to examine Christ’s miracles, to judge the authenticity and quality of them, to conclude from them about their Performer, so that recognition and acceptance of the Redeemer would be the result of free, positive conviction, not of hasty, frivolous, as if violent enticement. Christ’s miracles had complete definiteness. Of all of them it can be said what the Lord said to the Apostle Thomas: “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe” (Jn 20:27). Christ’s miracles were tangible; they were clear even to the simplest people; there was nothing mysterious in them; everyone could easily examine them; there was no room for doubt and perplexity whether this was a miracle or only a representation of a miracle. The dead rose, incurable diseases were healed, lepers were cleansed, the blind from birth saw, the mute began to speak; food was multiplied suddenly for those who needed it; the waves of the sea and winds grew calm by a single commanding word and those whom the storm threatened with death were saved; the nets of fishermen who had labored unsuccessfully in fishing for a long time suddenly became full of fish, obedient to the silent voice of their Lord. The miracles of the God-Man had many witnesses, most of whom were either hostile to Him, or inattentive, or sought from Him only bodily help. The miracles were irrefutable. The very worst enemies of the Lord did not deny them; they only tried to despise them by blasphemous misinterpretation and by all means suggested to them by cunning and malice (Mt 12:24; Jn 9:24). In the Lord’s miracles there was no vanity, no effect; not one miracle was performed for show to men; all miracles were covered with the mantle of Divine humility. They constitute a chain of benefits to suffering mankind. At the same time they expressed with complete satisfaction the power of the Creator over material creation and over created spirits, and expressed and proved the dignity of God, who took on Himself humanity, who appeared as a man among men.

One of the Lord’s miracles, having mystical significance, was not accompanied by any visible benefit to any of men, signifying a benefit ready to pour forth upon all mankind. A miracle was the death of the barren fig tree rich only in leaves (Mk 11:13–14, 20). This tree is mentioned in Scripture (Gen 3:7) among the trees of paradise in the account of the fall of our forefathers. It served them with its leaves for covering the nakedness which the forefathers did not notice before falling into sin, which sin revealed to them. Perhaps the fruit of the paradise fig tree was the forbidden fruit. The Lord found no fruit on the fig tree: He sought it on it out of season; He allowed His flesh out-of-season desire for food, which depicts the impropriety of the desire of our forefathers, which, like all human infirmities, the Lord took upon Himself and annihilated in Himself. Not finding fruit, the Lord rejected even the leaves, destroyed the very existence of the tree: another tree, the tree of the cross, was already being prepared as the instrument of salvation of men. The tree, instrument of the perdition of men, is killed by the command of the Saviour of men. The mystical miracle was performed in the presence of only the confidants of mystical teaching, the holy Apostles. It was performed before the very entrance of the God-Man into the ascetic struggle of redemptive sufferings for mankind, before the ascent to the cross.

The Lord’s miracles had a holy meaning, a holy purpose. Although they were in themselves great benefits, in the designs of divine providence they served only as testimony and proof of a benefit incomparably higher. The Lord, taking on humanity, brought to men an eternal, spiritual, priceless gift: salvation, healing from sin, resurrection from eternal death. The word of the Lord and the pattern of life manifested this gift with complete satisfaction: by His life the Lord was sinless, all-holy (Jn 8:46); His word was full of power (Mk 1:42). But men had fallen deeply into the darkness and gloom of carnal reasoning; their hearts and minds were blinded. It turned out that special condescension to the sickly condition of men was necessary; it turned out that it was necessary to give the clearest testimony to their bodily senses; it turned out that through bodily senses it was necessary to communicate vital knowledge to the mind and heart, which had died with their own death, eternal death. To aid God’s word, God’s miracles were given. So that men might understand and accept the spiritual gift seen only by spiritual eyes, the Lord joined to the spiritual, eternal gift a like gift, a temporal, bodily gift: healing of bodily diseases of men. Sin is the cause of all ailments in man, both of the soul and of the body, is the cause of temporal and eternal death. The Lord, manifesting His power over the consequences of sin in human bodies, manifested thereby His power over sin in general. Carnal reasoning does not see either soul ailments or eternal death; but bodily ailments and bodily death it sees, it recognizes them, they greatly act upon it, occupy it. The Lord, healing with a single word, by a single command all the sick, raising the dead, commanding unclean spirits, manifested His power, manifested the power of God over man, over sin, over fallen spirits, manifested it clearly to bodily senses, to carnal reasoning itself. It, seeing and touching this power, could and should, by logical consequence, acknowledge the Lord’s power over sin not only in relation to sin to the body, but also in relation to sin to the soul, acknowledge the Lord’s power over the very soul all the more, in that in some of the Lord’s miracles, as for example in the raising of the dead, unlimited Divine power appeared both over the body and over the soul. The body was quickened; the soul already departed into the world of spirits was called back into it from that world; it was united with the body from which it had already parted forever. Signs were given to man in himself, not somewhere outside; proofs of his salvation were given to him in himself, not far from him. Testimony of eternal salvation of soul and body was given through temporal salvation of the body from bodily ailments and bodily death. With a correct and pious view of the Lord’s miracles they prove to be filled with Divine wisdom: the demand for “a sign from heaven” proves to be, as it was, devoid of sense. Rare are the cases when the power of the Lord was manifested outside man over the objects of material nature; but these cases were. They constitute a testimony that the Lord’s power over all nature is unlimited power, the power of God. These miracles serve as a supplement to those miracles which were benefits to mankind in the very constitution of man, so that the significance which men should have given to the Redeemer who appeared to them might be the most exact. As the purpose of the Lord’s coming to earth was the salvation of man, so the Lord’s concerns were concentrated on man, on the most exquisite creation of the Lord, on His image, on His rational temple. The land of our exile and sorrowful sojourn – the earth, all material creation, despite its vastness, was left by Him without attention. And if some miracles were performed amid matter, they were performed to satisfy the needs of men.