Well, from a Jewish perspective, from an Old Testament perspective, the Messiah, according to Messianic prophecy, was going to have to be greater than Moses. As it was with the first redeemer, so will it be with the Messiah, the second redeemer. So what’s the first sign that Moses performed when he came to redeem the children of Israel out of Egypt? He turned the water into blood. But Jesus doesn’t come to bring death. He comes to bring life that we might have it more abundantly. So he turns the water into wine.
Also, he does the miracle at a wedding. Why at a wedding? Because his ministry begins publicly at a wedding. Because it’s going to culminate at a wedding, the Marriage Supper of the Lamb that we read about in the Book of Revelation. So he’s given us a sneak preview of the coming attraction. He also does the miracle with six stone pots. Why six stone pots? If there’s a detail in the Bible, it’s there for a reason. Well, the Bible tells us man was created on the sixth day. Six is the number of man; in Jewish thought we fell on the sixth day.
So when Jesus comes and he actually dies on the cross, he dies on a Friday, which is the sixth day of the week. He dies on the same day we were created and fell to reverse the curse and restore the blessing. And he does the miracle with six stone pots because he’s restoring the original fruitfulness of creation that was lost according to the Fall. It’s a miracle of transformation. He takes something that’s ordinary, water, turns it into wine. That’s extraordinary. And that’s exactly what he wants to do with each and every one of our lives.
You spend quite a bit of time in the book elaborating on patterns and symbolism in Scripture, especially in regard to Hebrew words and numbers. Why is it important for us to be familiar with such patterns?
First of all, there’s the reality that Jesus was a rabbi. His disciples would have been raised in Torah. They would have studied with the rabbis. So there’s a way that Jewish people have historically thought about and engaged with and looked at the Scriptures. I think that’s important, knowing those connections. But then specifically, Jewish people, especially rabbis, make a big deal out of numbers and out of numeric connections.
What’s interesting is that in the beginning, when God spoke the world into existence, an academic might look at that and think, “That’s crazy. That’s just ancient people. They didn’t understand science and they did the best they could. And so we can’t believe the Genesis account.”
But if you understand that Hebrew and Greek, the languages of the Bible and Aramaic are all alphanumeric—that means there’s no Roman numerals in the Bible. You actually write numbers with letters. So if I say, “Open up Chapter 1 of your Bibles,” you will open up the Chapter Olive, which is the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet and has the numerical value of one. So the whole numbering system in the Bible is based on letters.
Now think about it: If letters and numbers are interchangeable, when God spoke the world into creation, he was creating the spiritual as well as the physical, mathematical basis of all of creation.
There’s a sense in which when God speaks the world into existence, he’s coding creation, right? That’s what code is. It’s letters and numbers. And then you could even say that sin is a virus in the system that causes it to collapse. And Jesus comes to remove the virus and to reboot the system and restore it.
You also cover Jesus’ healing miracles. Could you touch on why those are significant, as well as share whether you have personally seen God heal people?
So we’re talking about numbers, significance and numbers. I love taking people to Israel. Our first book, “The Rock, the Road, and the Rabbi” with Kathie Lee Gifford, so many people have read that. We take people on tours, and one of the places we love to go is the Pool of Bethesda, one of my favorite places, where Jesus healed the man who was an invalid for 38 years. And you know, Jesus says to the man, “Do you want to be made well?” And it seems like, “Oh, that’s a silly question. Who wouldn’t want to be made well?”
But when you’ve had a debilitating disease or a trauma in your life for so long, it becomes so part and parcel of your identity that sometimes it’s hard to see yourself in any other state. Hope deferred makes the heart sick. This man had lost hope for 38 years. Nothing’s going to change, right?
But why the detail of 38? What’s interesting is Deuteronomy 2 tells us Israel wandered in the desert for 38 years because of their unbelief. It was in the second year that they sent the 12 spies into the land. They believed the evil report. And because they lacked faith, God said that generation of adults was going to die in the desert.
Thirty-eight is also the numerical value of the phrase in Hebrew that means “his heart.” Jesus was testing this man to see what was in his heart: Are you going to be like the generation that came out of Egypt and for 38 years had to wander and ultimately die in the desert because of their unbelief?
Or are you going to have faith and believe in me like Joshua and Caleb? Be like the two, not like the 10 [spies] and take up your mat and walk and find healing. Jesus is the ultimate hope dealer. He’s saying, ‘You don’t have to remain stuck. There’s hope. Your future can be better than your past.’ And the number 38 is key to unlocking the significance of this miracle on a deeper level.
It’s a hard reality that some people have faith, believe in God and pray for miracles that never happen. How would you encourage people who are in that situation?
Yes, and let me just finish what you had asked me before, before we jump into that, which is, yes, we’ve seen a number of miracles. When I was a new believer, one of the first things that happened was I got a call from a homeless friend who needed to have both legs amputated because he got frostbite.
And he called me terrified, had gone to the hospital just literally a couple of weeks earlier, came to faith, read the gospels, read the book of Acts, saw that God can heal. I laid hands on him, prayed for him, and he got healed. He came to faith and he walked out of the hospital a week or so later. It was an incredible miracle. I knew God was real.