3  Jesus’ Power over  the Natural (8:23-27)

And when He got into the boat, His disciples followed Him. And behold, there arose a great storm in the sea, so that the boat was covered with the waves; but He Himself was asleep. And they came to Him, and awoke Him, saying, “Save us, Lord; we are perishing!” And He said to them, “Why are you timid, you men of little faith?” Then He arose, and rebuked the winds and the sea; and it became perfectly calm. And the men marveled, saying, “What kind of a man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey Him?” (8:23-27)

At creation God ordained man to be king of the earth, to “rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth” (Gen. 1:26). But when man fell into sin, he was dethroned and lost his sovereignty over the earth. He lost his God-given majesty along with his innocence. With the rest of the earth man was cursed and corrupted. He lost his dominion, and both man and earth lost their glory. The control of earth fell into the hands of the usurper, Satan, who now reigns as ruler of this world and age (John 12:31; 14:30). Man’s sin, earth’s corruption, and Satan’s rule have brought sickness, pain, death, hardship, sorrow, war, injustice, falsehood, hunger, natural disaster, demonic activity, and every other evil that plagues the world.

But from the beginning, and even before the beginning, God planned the redemption of both man and the earth, reversing the curse. According to His divine plan, God’s own Son would come to earth twice in the process of that redemption—the first time to redeem man and the second time to redeem the earth. In His first coming Jesus Christ came in humility, going to the cross and rising from the grave to redeem man from sin. In His second coming He will come in blazing glory and establish His thousand-year kingdom, the Millennium, and after that a completely new heaven and earth—redeeming the whole of creation for all eternity.

In the coming kingdom of God, His ultimate plan for earth will be restored—without sin, pain, disease, hatred, hardship, sorrow, disaster, or demons. There will be only holiness, righteousness, truth, peace, love, and beauty. Everything that now blights man’s happiness, that breaks his heart, that frustrates his hopes, that disrupts and perverts his dominion will be removed forever. For all time and eternity the universe will be redeemed.

As we look at mankind and the present earth, however, it is glaringly obvious that man himself could never effect such changes. Man cannot solve the natural problems of environment, weather, droughts, famines, disease, and sickness. Someone has said that for every problem science solves, six others are created in its place. The greater our advancements, the more severe the complications.

Even less can man solve his moral and spiritual problems. As we become more advanced in psychology, sociology, criminology, and diplomacy, we also become more engulfed in psychological disorders, sociological problems, and in crime and war.

The power to reverse the curse and bring a new heaven and a new earth not only is infinitely beyond man but is inconceivable to man. We cannot imagine the power necessary to make such a radical recreation of the universe, any more than we can imagine the power it took to create it in the first place and to sustain it. Man has the capability to destroy his world, but not the power to perfect it.

The psalmist tells us that “power belongs to God” (Ps. 62:11). He speaks of “the greatness of Thy power” (79:11) and of the one “who dost establish the mountains by His strength, being girded with might” (65:6). David cried out, “O God, Thou art my God; I shall seek Thee earnestly; my soul thirsts for Thee, my flesh yearns for Thee, in a dry and weary land where there is no water. Thus I have beheld Thee in the sanctuary, to see Thy power and Thy glory” (Ps. 63:1-2). Paul reminds us that, “since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made” (Rom. 1:20).

The more man delves into the universe, the more amazing and awesome the wonder of creation becomes. Telescopes can take us some four billion light years—about twenty-five sextillion miles—into space, and yet we have not come near the edge of the universe. We have discovered certain gravitational principles that keep the stars and planets in their orbits, yet we are far from fully explaining those principles, much less duplicating them. The earth spins on its axis at a thousand miles an hour at the equator, travels in a five-hundred-eighty-million-mile orbit around the sun at about a thousand miles a minute, and, with the rest of its solar system, careens through space at an even faster speed in an orbit that would take billions of years to complete. The energy of the sun has been estimated to be equivalent to five-hundred-million-million-billion horsepower. There are at least one-hundred-thousand-million other suns in our galaxy, most of them larger than ours.

God is also creator and sustainer of the microcosm. A teaspoon of water contains a million-billion-trillion atoms, which themselves are composed of still smaller particles of energy. Smaller subparticles of those particles are still being discovered.

We know Jesus Christ “upholds all things by the word of His power” (Heb. 1:3). He energizes every atom and every atomic particle and subparticle in the universe. That is the power of our God and Savior! If He has power to create and sustain the earth, surely He has power to recreate it. He has the power to bring back Eden and, indeed, create a new earth that far surpasses Eden.

Jesus Christ came into the world, in part, to demonstrate that power, to show for all who would see it that He was indeed the Son of God. The promised Messiah and King had power to redeem man from sin and to give him renewed sovereignty over a renewed earth. As noted in the previous chapter, Matthew has already shown that Jesus had the right genealogy, the right birth, the right baptism, the right success over temptation, and the right message. God had said that the One who would reverse the curse would come through the line of David, and Jesus did. God had said this Deliverer would be born of a virgin, and Jesus was. God had said He would be approved by the Father, and Jesus was. God had said He would be more powerful than Satan, and Jesus proved that He was. God had said His Son would speak the truth, and Jesus did. God had said He would have power over disease and death, and Jesus proved that He did.

Above all else the miracles were foretastes of kingdom power. When Jesus healed diseases and restored broken bodies, He previewed the kingdom, in which there would be no sickness or deformity. When He cast out demons, He previewed the kingdom, in which there would be no demonic activity. When He raised the dead, He previewed the kingdom, in which there would be no death.

After Jesus had both forgiven and healed the paralytic, He said that He had done so “in order that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth” (Matt. 9:6). When the multitudes saw Jesus’ miracles, “they were filled with awe, and glorified God, who had given such authority” (9:8). To prepare them for His transfiguration, Jesus told His disciples, “ ‘Truly I say to you, there are some of those who are standing here who shall not taste death until they see the kingdom of God after it has come with power.’ And six days later, Jesus took with Him Peter and James and John, and brought them up to a high mountain by themselves. And He was transfigured before them; and His garments became radiant and exceedingly white” (Mark 9:1-3). As He taught in the Capernaum synagogue one Sabbath, the people “were amazed at His teaching, for His message was with authority” (Luke 4:32). When He cast a demon out of a man in that synagogue, they were still further amazed and exclaimed, “With authority and power He commands the unclean spirits, and they come out” (v. 36). In the opening words of his letter to the Romans, Paul speaks of Jesus’ being “declared the Son of God with power” (1:4), and in First Corinthians speaks of Him as “Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1:24). The supreme proof of Jesus’ divinity and messiahship was His absolute authority and power over everything on earth.

In Matthew 8:23-27 Jesus demonstrates His unlimited power over the natural world. His stilling the storm is the first miracle of the second group of three miracles presented in chapters 8 and 9.

THE PARTICULARS

And when He got into the boat, His disciples followed Him. And behold, there arose a great storm in the sea, so that the boat was covered with the waves; but He Himself was asleep. (8:23-24)

After confronting the three superficial followers with the true cost of discipleship (8:18-22; Luke 9:61-62), Jesus got into the boat to go to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, which is about 13 miles long and as much as 8 miles wide.

The disciples who followed Him included the twelve, some of whom were in the same boat as Jesus, along with other followers who went in separate boats (Mark 4:36). Because Jesus healed many people and talked with the three professing disciples after “evening had come” (v. 16), it was probably well into the night when the small flotilla departed.

Mathts (disciple) simply means a follower, learner, or pupil. The word itself has no spiritual connotation, and it is used of superficial followers of Jesus as well as of genuine believers. Because the Sermon on the Mount is essentially a message on salvation, the disciples who gathered on the mountain to hear Jesus (Matt. 5:1) obviously included unbelievers. The two men who approached Jesus just before He entered the boat are called disciples (Matt. 8:21; cf. v 19), but their leaving Him proved them to be false disciples. The men of Jesus’ inner circle are often referred to as disciples (Matt. 10:1), yet unbelieving Judas ended up betraying the Lord.

At least four categories of disciples are seen in the gospels. The broadest group were the curious, those who followed Jesus for a while simply to find out what He was like. They were fascinated and intrigued by what He said and did, but they would not surrender to Him as Lord and Savior. We see some of these disciples in John 6. When Jesus proclaimed, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves, . . . Many therefore of His disciples, when they heard this said, ‘This is a difficult statement; who can listen to it?’ … As a result of this many of His disciples withdrew, and were not walking with Him anymore” John 6:53, 60, 66).

The second category of disciple included those who were intellectually convinced of Jesus’ divine message and power. When Nicodemus came to Jesus at night, he said, “Rabbi, we know that You have come from God as a teacher; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him” (John 3:2). But at that point he was not yet committed to Jesus. As the Lord went on to point out, Nicodemus was not born again and consequently had no spiritual relationship to God, no participation in His kingdom, and no eternal life (vv. 3-15).

The third category of disciple was composed of secret believers. Joseph of Arimathea was such a clandestine follower until he asked Pilate for permission to bury Jesus in his own tomb and thereby proclaimed allegiance to his Savior (Matt. 27:57-58).

In the fourth category of disciples were the true and open believers, those who were publicly and permanently committed to Jesus Christ. The small group of disciples who followed Him was more than just the twelve and no doubt included all four kinds.

The boat was probably a small, open fishing craft of the type commonly used by fishermen such as Peter, James, and John. The Sea of Galilee lies just over 600 feet below sea level, near the northern end of the Jordan River. Mt. Hermon rises 9,200 feet to the north, and strong northerly winds often plummet down the upper Jordan valley with great force. When they meet the warmer air over the Galilee basin, the intensity is increased. Hitting the cliffs on the eastern shore, the winds swirl and twist, causing the waters beneath them to churn violently. The fact that they come quickly and with little warning makes the storms all the more dangerous and frightening.

Seismos (storm) literally means a shaking and is the term from which we get seismic, seismograph, and related terms. The storm was so violent that it shook the water in the lake as if it were a glass of water in the hands of a great giant. The exclamation behold intensifies the rapid and surprising manner in which there arose a great storm in the sea. The storm became so fierce that the boat was covered with the waves, and Mark explains that “the waves were breaking over the boat so much that the boat was already filling up” (Mark 4:37).

Yet Jesus Himself was asleep, no doubt being exhausted from the long day’s work of healing and teaching. Just before we see one of His most awesome demonstrations of deity, we see a touching picture of His humanness. The Lord was bone weary, and He slept so soundly that not even the tossing of the boat, the noise of the wind, or the blowing water in His face awakened Him. He was soaked to the skin while lying on hard planks with only a cushion for His head (Mark 4:38).

Yet this was all part of the divine plan. The storm was howling, the wind and waves were about to swamp the boat as it tossed about on the water like a cork—and the Creator of the world slept soundly in the midst of it all. Although in His divinity He was omniscient, in His humanness He was at this time oblivious to the turmoil that surrounded Him.

THE PANIC

And they came to Him, and awoke Him, saying, “Save us, Lord; we are perishing!” And He said to them, “Why are you timid, you men of little faith?” (8:25-26a)

Several of the twelve disciples were fishermen, and we can be certain they had done everything possible to save themselves. They were probably just as tired as Jesus was, but were far too afraid to sleep. They had nowhere else to turn but to Jesus and were exactly where God wanted them to be. Sometimes the Lord has to bring us to a point of absolute desperation before He can get our attention, and that is what He did with those disciples whose boat was about to be swamped or torn to pieces. They had run out of human solutions and had only Jesus to turn to. Perhaps the one who could cleanse lepers, restore sight to the blind, and heal every other sort of disease also had power over the wind and the sea. Their great fear was mixed with a glimmer of faith as they came to Him, and awoke Him, saying, “Save us, Lord; we are perishing!” Had they had the confidence in Jesus that He had in His Father, they would have been as calm and unconcerned as He.

The story is told of a hardened old sea captain who was quite vocal about his atheism. One night during a storm he was washed overboard and his men heard him crying out to God for help. When he was finally rescued one of the men asked him, “I thought you didn’t believe in God.” He replied, “Well, if there isn’t a God, there ought to be one for times like this.” Many people turn to the Lord only when every other resource has been exhausted. When sickness, death, loss of job, or some other tragedy comes, they cry out to God much as the disciples did to Jesus.

God is always pleased when men turn to Him, especially for salvation. People can be healed, comforted, saved from financial ruin, and helped in many other ways without God’s direct intervention, but the person who is not saved has absolutely no resource but the Lord. God loves to hear a sinner’s cry of desperation, because realizing one’s own inadequacy is the first step in turning to Him. He also loves to hear His own people cry out to Him, even in desperation, because that is a sign they remember to whom they belong.

Even the greatest saints of God have at times forgotten their heavenly Father and become swamped by circumstances. The psalmist cried, “Why dost Thou stand afar off, O Lord? Why dost Thou hide Thyself in times of trouble?” (Ps. 10:1). The writer of Psalm 44 lamented: “But for Thy sake we are killed all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered. Arouse Thyself, why dost Thou sleep, O Lord?” (vv. 22-23). Even Isaiah was dismayed at God’s seeming inability to help His people. “Awake, awake,” he cried out, “put on strength, O arm of the Lord; awake as in the days of old, the generations of long ago” (Isa. 51:9). Like the disciples during the storm, he wondered why God slept while His people were perishing.

Jesus’ first response to the disciples’ plea was to rebuke them gently for their lack of faith. He said to them, “Why are you timid, you men of little faith?” Deilos (timid) has the basic meaning of being fearful or cowardly, and the disciples must have wondered why Jesus wondered at them. How could He ask why they were afraid and timid, when they obviously had everything to be afraid of? The great question in their minds was why Jesus was not afraid. It was the middle of the night, the storm was sure to wash them overboard or sink the boat, and any response but fear seemed foolish and unnatural. Jesus’ calmness so perplexed the disciples that they accused Him of insensitivity: “Teacher, do You not care that we are perishing?” (Mark 4:38).

But Jesus turned the rebuke back upon them. Why are you timid, He asked, and then gave the answer as part of the question: you men of little faith? They were fearful because they were faithless, timid because they had little faith. “Don’t you believe in Me and in My power?” He asked, in effect. “Haven’t you seen enough of My power and experienced enough of My love to know you are perfectly safe with Me? You have seen Me perform miracle upon miracle, even on behalf of those who never trusted in Me or even bothered to thank Me. You have seen My power and My compassion, and you should know that because of My power I can help you and that because of My compassion I will help you. Even if you should drown, don’t you know that would mean instant heaven? What, then, do you have to be worried about?”

The disciples knew the Psalms. Many times they had heard and repeated the words of Psalm 89: “O Lord God of Hosts, who is like Thee, O mighty Lord? Thy faithfulness also surrounds Thee. Thou dost rule the swelling of the sea; when its waves rise, Thou dost still them” (vv. 8-9). They had sung, “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change, and though the mountains slip into the heart of the sea: though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains quake at its swelling pride” (Ps. 46:1-3). They knew well the majestic and comforting words of Psalm 107:

Those who go down to the sea in ships, who do business on great waters; they have seen the works of the Lord, and His wonders in the deep. For He spoke and raised up a stormy wind, which lifted up the waves of the sea. They rose up to the heavens, they went down to the depths; their soul melted away in their misery. They reeled and staggered like a drunken man, and were at their wits’ end. Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and He brought them out of their distresses. He caused the storm to be still, so that the waves of the sea were hushed. Then they were glad because they were quiet; so He guided them to their desired haven. (Ps. 107:23-30)

It was a literal fulfillment of those verses that Jesus was about to accomplish on the Sea of Galilee.

The believer who is aware of God’s power and love has no reason to be afraid of anything. Because God both can and will take care of His children, there is no hardship or danger through which He cannot or will not take them. God’s power and love will see us through any storm, and that is the essence of what we need to know and consider when we are in trouble.

Yet every believer realizes from his own experience that knowing about God’s power and love and trusting in them do not always go together. Our weaknesses and frailties are so much a part of us that, even after we have witnessed God doing marvelous things, we still fall into doubt and fear. In fact, like Elijah after the great miracle on Mt. Carmel and the disciples after the great miracles in Capernaum, we sometimes are most afraid just after we have been overwhelmed with God’s greatness. We marvel at His greatness, but as soon as trouble comes we forget His greatness and see only the trouble.

Faith needs constant strengthening, as the disciples eventually came to realize. “Increase our faith!” they pleaded of Jesus (Luke 17:5). Even believers are subject to disbelief, and the more we believe, the more we also want to cry out with the father of the boy with the unclean spirit, “I do believe; help my unbelief” (Mark 9:24). We know God can provide, but we also know how easily we can fail to trust in His provision. We know God loves us, but we also know how easily we can forget His love. We know He gives peace that passes understanding, but we also know how easily we can fall into worry and despair. When it is coupled with little faith, even much knowledge about God leaves us timid and afraid when trouble comes.

THE POWER

Then He arose, and rebuked the winds and the sea; and it became perfectly calm. (8:26b)

Jesus arose, and rebuked the winds and the sea, saying, “Hush, be still” (Mark 4:39). At the word of the Creator the storm could do nothing but become perfectly calm. The winds stopped, the waves ceased, the air cleared, and the water became as glass. Storms normally subside gradually, with winds and waves diminishing little by little until calm is restored. But this storm subsided faster even than it had come; it came suddenly and ceased instantly. Though small in comparison to hurricanes and typhoons, that storm on the Sea of Galilee had generated multiplied millions of units of horsepower. Yet Jesus stopped it with a word—an easy feat compared to His bringing the entire world into existence with a word.

The one who had control over diseases and demons also had control over nature. And as Matthew would proceed to show, He also had power to forgive sins and to raise the dead.

THE PORTENT

And the men marveled, saying, “What kind of a man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey Him?” (8:27)

Thaumaz (marveled) refers to extreme amazement and can carry the idea of portending. The men could not imagine what kind of a man Jesus was, that even the winds and the sea obey Him. Mark reports that, along with their great amazement, the men were also “very much afraid” (4:41). They were now more afraid of the one who had stilled the storm than they had been of the storm itself. Many of them had encountered dangerous storms, but none had encountered such supernatural power as Jesus here displayed.

After God had declared His great power and majesty, Job exclaimed, “I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear; but now my eye sees Thee; therefore I retract, and I repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:5-6). When Isaiah “saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple,” he declared, “Woe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts” (Isa. 6:1, 5). After Daniel beheld the Lord, he testified: “No strength was left in me, for my natural color turned to a deathly pallor, and I retained no strength. But I heard the sound of his words; and as soon as I heard the sound of his words, I fell into a deep sleep on my face, with my face to the ground” (Dan. 10:8-9). When Peter saw Jesus miraculously provide the great catch of fish, “he fell down at Jesus’ feet, saying, ‘Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!’” (Luke 5:8). When Paul encountered the risen Christ on the Damascus road, “he fell to the ground. . . . And though his eyes were open, he could see nothing” (Acts 9:4, 8).

God’s majesty is so overwhelming that when He displays Himself in even a small part of His glory men cannot stand in His presence. These disciples suddenly realized that God was standing in the very boat with them, and they were terrified by His power and His holiness. On a similar and later occasion Peter walked on the water. But when the wind came up, he became afraid, and Jesus not only held up His faithless disciple but also caused the wind to stop. “And those who were in the boat worshiped Him, saying, ‘You are certainly God’s Son!’” (Matt. 14:29-33).

Isaac Watts wrote:

We sing the mighty power of God,
Who bade the mountains rise.

Who spread the flowing seas abroad,
And built the lofty skies.

We sing the wisdom that ordained
The sun to rule the day.

The moon shines full at His command,
And all the stars obey.

Lord, how Thy wonders are displayed
Where e’er we turn our eyes,

When e’er we view the ground we tread,
Or gaze upon the skies.

There’s not a plant nor flower below,
But makes Thy glories known,

And clouds arise and tempest blow,
By order of Thy throne.

He closes with the beautiful lines:

On Thee each moment we depend,
If Thou withdraw we die.

O may we ne’er that God offend,
Who is forever nigh.

The same Christ who stilled the Sea of Galilee is the Christ who keeps every atom and every star in its orbit. He keeps the universe in balance and provides for each plant and animal. One day He is coming to restore the world that sin defiled, to make completely new the heavens and the earth. Even now He is the God who gives eternal life to those who trust in Him, and who will calm their every storm and give strength for their every tragedy.