But now for the differences: Apollonius’s miracle-working words are magical. Philostratus does not want to say it too directly, but that is the precise background. Jesus, in contrast, does not utter any words of wizardry but speaks a very brief command: “Rise!” Further, Philostratus insinuates that the girl only appeared to be dead. In doing so he intends to show that he is a critical and objective narrator. Luke, in contrast, leaves no doubt: the man was dead. A further difference in the story as a whole is the role of God. F. C. Conybeare’s English translation of the Apollonius story omits a detail in the original that is still reflected in German versions: namely, that in the third paragraph instead of “it was raining at the time,” the text reads “Zeus caused dew to fall on her.” But why did Zeus do that? To sustain a spark of life in her? Or was the dew only a signal for the wonder worker that the girl was not really dead? Here again Philostratus maintains an ambivalence that is typical of him. There is no such ambiguity in Luke. For him it is clear that God himself was acting through Jesus: “God has looked favorably on his people.”
But the decisive difference is that Philostratus portrays Apollonius as an effective and humane miracle worker. The real character of this humanity is revealed by the horrifying story in which Apollonius has a supposed plague demon stoned.32 That need not, however, concern us here. In any case, Philostratus wants to celebrate Apollonius as a humane wonder worker. It is true that Zeus is permitted to peek through the curtain a bit, but in reality it is all about Apollonius, and the whole event, despite the sorrow of the city of Rome over the young woman, remains a private matter.
It is just the reverse in Luke: here it is all about Israel. A prophet like Elijah has “risen among us” [or: been raised up among us], and “God has looked favorably on [lit.: visited] his people.” Luke is quoting from Zechariah’s canticle:
Blessed be the Lord God of Israel,
for he has looked favorably on his people and redeemed them.
He has raised up a mighty savior for us
in the house of his servant David,
as he spoke through the mouths of his holy prophets from of old.
(Luke 1:68-70)
Thus a whole fabric of relationships is made visible. It is not only that God himself has acted in Jesus to raise up the young man of Nain! Still more, God has acted in Israel, his people. This theological interpretation of the event is breathtaking. It is anything but obvious. What has happened in the little village of Nain, and for one widow, is applied to all Israel. The miracle story opens a vista onto a long history of God’s promises and mighty deeds in Israel. Therefore Jesus’ mercy shown to the widow is not mere human sympathy as with Apollonius, but a reflection of God’s mercy on his people (Luke 1:54, 72). And therefore the witnesses of the miracle are seized with fear that issues in praise of God.
Thus the mighty deed on behalf of the young man of Nain is part of a long history—the history of God’s mighty deeds in his own special people. There is no comparable history in Apollonius, and so his miracle is ultimately “private.” With Jesus nothing is “private.”
The whole is still clearer when we consider, for example, miraculous phenomena known in Hinduism.33 Here the divine is present as “power” in every living thing. Therefore everyone, through religious practice and appropriate application, can acquire superhuman abilities that are regarded as miraculous, becoming a yogi. Then one can supposedly make oneself tiny or enormous, heavy or weightless, present in many places at the same time and having control over everything—in short, such a person acquires an irresistible will. That too is “private” in an exalted sense.
The contrast to the biblical miracles hits you in the eye. The latter happen in and for Israel and are part of a long history of rescue, of salvation. That is what I mean by the phrases “referential context” and “frame of reference.” Jesus’ miracles cannot be understood outside this referential context. “Reference” is the inmost center of his mighty deeds. His miracles point to the reign of God, now breaking forth: “if it is by the finger of God that I cast out the demons, then the kingdom of God has come to you” (Luke 11:20). But they also point to the new creation of the people of God now coming to pass. They are in service of the gathering of Israel, and in them the world to come is already shining forth, a world in which everything will be made whole by God—not only human beings but all creation. Every miracle of Jesus reveals a bit of the new heaven and the new earth.34
Without this reference there is no such thing as a miracle in the Christian sense. It is therefore no accident that in the theological language of the gospels Jesus’ miracles are not only called “mighty deeds” but also “signs.” Apparently this word intends precisely what I have here called a “referential context.”35 If the gospels, in their description of Jesus’ miracles, had been concerned only with what ruptures the norm they could have spoken of Jesus’ paradoxa erga or his thaumasia. But, apart from Matthew 21:15, they do not do so, for the unusual and marvelous is not what makes Jesus’ miracles. Otherwise, the healings achieved by the emperor Vespasian would also have been real miracles. But they lacked the sign-context we find here. Vespasian’s healings point only to the god-given luck of Vespasian, his fortuna.
In every New Testament miracle the referential context of the inbreaking reign of God and the eschatological new creation of Israel is present. The wonder worker believes in that context, and the recipients of the miracle believe in him. We see this very beautifully in the Gentile woman who begs Jesus to heal her sick daughter:
From there he set out and went away to the region of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there. Yet he could not escape notice, but a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet. Now the woman was a Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin. She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. He said to her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” But she answered him, “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” Then he said to her, “For saying that, you may go—the demon has [already] left your daughter.” So she went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone. (Mark 7:24-30)
Jesus does not want to heal the daughter of the Gentile woman. When he at first refuses the woman it is not, of course, because he does not care about Gentiles. On the contrary: precisely because he cares for the Gentiles he must concentrate on Israel, for if God’s new world does not shine forth in Israel it will not be manifest to the world of the nations either. That is why Israel has the primacy. It is a primacy for the sake of the world.