Did Jesus and the Apostles have ulterior motives...?

Reading another post brought this question to mind that I guess I haven't considered before:

Did Jesus or the apostles have "ulterior motives" when they performed a miracle?

I was reading the different threads and came across this title and said to myself, "That is a TMK question." Click on it and BOOM, there you were!!! :)

Back to your question... I thought of Simon the Sorcerer...

in Acts 8:17-24, Then they began laying their hands on them, and they were receiving the Holy Spirit. Now when Simon saw that the Spirit was bestowed through the laying on of the apostles' hands, he offered them money, saying, "Give this authority to me as well, so that everyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit."

But Peter said to him, "May your silver perish with you, because you thought you could obtain the gift of God with money! You have no part or portion in this matter, for your heart is not right before God. You have no part or portion in this matter, for your heart is not right before God. Therefore repent of this wickedness of yours, and pray the Lord that, if possible, the intention of your heart may be forgiven you. For I see that you are in the gall of bitterness and in the bondage of iniquity."

I enjoy your questions, do not stop asking them!!!

God bless,
Lisa

"When Jesus heard that, He said, "This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”

Everything Jesus did had the ulterior motive of glorifying His Father.
Everything the apostles did and we do should be to bring glory to God. If you want to call this an ulterior motive, then yes it is.

Jesus said in the above that his friend Lazarus' death and being raised from the dead was to bring glory to God and the Son of God.

Ultimately its not about us, but it is all about Him. Even us being saved is for God's glory and not centered on us. Yes we are beneficiaries of God's mercy and grace, but blessed beyond measure, but it is still God who is the focus and gets all the glory.

"When Jesus heard that, He said, "This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”

Everything Jesus did had the ulterior motive of glorifying His Father.
Everything the apostles did and we do should be to bring glory to God. If you want to call this an ulterior motive, then yes it is.

Depends how you define ulterior motive. In my understanding it is not necessarily a negative thing. It just means a motive that is beyond or different to that which it seems on the surface.

I am taking it that TMK is not suggeating Jesus had any wrong motives (Otherwise he is posing a stupid question). But in the sense that I take it, then yes Jesus always had an ultimate motive beyond the temporal, which was to glorify God.

Ulterior or alterior? :)
Ulterior is underlying motive or you could say ultimate motive. It might or might not not be readily apparent.

Alterior is motive that belies the stated motive.

Jesus allowing Lazarus to die was ulterior. He said why He waited to go to Bethany.

If Jesus had said "I have to go to Jerusalem first to feed some hungry kids," and really went only to go and afterward to go to Bethany and raise Lazarus for the glory of God, his statement about going to Jerusalem would have an alterior motive: to let Lazarus die and lie for 4 days before raising Him to God's glory.

Heydave-

I agree with you but about the "ulterior motive" being always to bring glory to God. But I wasn't thinking along those lines.

For example, in Lysa's example re Simon the Sorcerer he did have an ulterior motive- namely he wanted the power to work miracles.

But I am trying to think of a time when Jesus or the apostles had other ulterior motives, even GOOD ulterior motives.

It seems that a plain reading of the accounts would indicate that Jesus healed people because they needed to be healed. It wasn't to grow his ministry (although that was a result). When he calmed the storm it was because there was a storm that needed calmed (and because the disciples were freaking out). Peter and John healed the lame man because he was lame, and Jesus multiplied food because people were hungry and had no food to eat.

The only miracle I am not exactly sure about the motivation is Jesus walking on water.

I guess maybe the "ulterior motive" behind my question is that I am wondering if we do not see more **legitimate** miraculous type things is because Christians have ulterior motives. In other words, would we ever lay hands on someone and pray for healing just because we have compassion and they are sick- or are we thinking about something else, like "I wonder if this will work" or "if this works I will post in on Facebook" or "if this works I can then share the gospel." I am not saying this last thing is a bad ulterior motive but it may be an ulterior motive that may (or may not) have an effect on how effective our attempt may be.

Just musings!

I agree with Heydave on the ultimate motive for Jesus' and the Apostles' miracles. Another motive or reason from God's standpoint is the fulfillment of OT prophecies which proved Jesus to be the Messiah and the Apostles and disciples to be sent from God. A few scriptures that teach that are:

Matt.8:16-17
"When evening had come, they brought to Him many who were demon-possessed. And He cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were sick, 17 that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying: "He Himself took our infirmities And bore our sicknesses."

Isa. 35:5-6
"Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, And the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. 6 Then the lame shall leap like a deer, And the tongue of the dumb sing. For waters shall burst forth in the wilderness, And streams in the desert."

Matt.11:4-5
"Jesus answered and said to them, "Go and tell John the things which you hear and see: 5 The blind see and the lame walk; the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear; the dead are raised up and the poor have the gospel preached to them."

Joel 2:28-29
"And it shall come to pass afterward That I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh; Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, Your old men shall dream dreams, Your young men shall see visions. 29 And also on My menservants and on My maidservants I will pour out My Spirit in those days."

2 Cor. 12:12
"Truly the signs of an apostle were accomplished among you with all perseverance, in signs and wonders and mighty deeds."

TMK,

You seem to miss the source of the miracles. Are familiar with what Christ stated about where every speaking and act came from?

Jesus was given the Spirit without measure because He loved righteousness and hated iniquity more than His brethren. You are asking a Simon the Sorcerer question as though there was deception in Jesus Christ. The means and motive were not "in" either group, it was "of" the Father. The Gospels even state that though Christ had the Spirit without measure that there were times when the Spirit was not upon Him to heal.

Quote:

"The Gospels even state that though Christ had the Spirit without measure that there were times when the Spirit was not upon Him to heal."

Can you show in the scripture where it says the Spirit was not upon him to heal? It might be there just not sure where. I know he did not do many works in Nazareth because of their lack of faith.

I am not arguing that the miracles etc were not wrought by the power of the HS nor am I suggesting that Jesus did anything not directed by the Father.

But Hebrews says that Jesus was the exact representation of the Father and the Church is supposed to be the representation of Christ on the earth but something has been lost in the translation.

TMK, I did realise the point ypu were probably trying to make, which is why I gave the scripture I did to show there was an ultimate motive (I'm using the word ultimate so not to confuse the point) in Jesus allowing Lazarus to die and then raising him from the dead.

I do agree that Jesus healed folk and did miracles out of compassion and love, but still the end motive was to glorify God and proclaim the Kingdom of God had come to them to receive. Oracio is also correct in saying there were other motives in why Jesus performed miracles. The apostles were commisioned to heal the sick and cast out demons and proclaim the Kingdom of God was at hand. So another motive for these miracles was so folk would believe the message they proclaimed.

My conclusion is more often than not there was always another motive for healing and miracles that the immediate need, which was the drawing of sinner to repent and believe the gospel and bring glory to God.

The apostles did not have ulterior motives
Most of the apostles died gruesome deaths
http://amazingbibletimeline.com/bible_questions/q6_apostles_die/
If you read any of the apocraphal writings such as the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Peter you find that there is barely any embelleshment in these texts.

From the Jewish perspective the Jewish Messiah who is suppose to rule the world dies by a gruesome death and then is ressurected.

There is some books that go into this subject Miracles by C S lewis and Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts by Craig S Keener.

It looks like you do not understand the gospel to well TMK as Jesus came to save us from our sins and we are all sinners before God and a pyschoanalysis of the apostles is bad historal method if you have read any texts at the time.

Richard Carrier does it with his debate with William Lane Craig and as psycho analysis is a very recent field.

There is something called Embaressment as the bible is full of it why would the scriptures have Peter denying Jesus, one of the 12 apostles or say the disciples running away before the Passion. Why would say James and Paul enemies of the faith suddenly turn to faith after the post ressurection appearances of Jesus.

If this was secular history this would all be deleted. As whole Egyptian dynasties have been deleted and in other such histories would not make major figures in there faith look bad

If you are using say David Humes arguments say against miracles as they have been refuted along time ago.

As the God who created the universe has power to do anything he likes in his creation as he created the laws of creation such as Strong Force, Weak Force and Gravity, Quantum Physics, Maxwell Equations.

it sound like that you do not know Jesus TMK

Deltadom--

I have no idea whatsoever what you are talking about.

A few nights ago, we saw a woman healed of lumps in her breasts. She had never, to my knowledge, visited our church before, and her friend had to prompt her to come forward for prayer. The healing was instantaneous, as she left and examined herself right after prayer. We all, on the surface, know that God's love and compassion toward this woman motivated Him to heal her. This was the obvious motive.

The other interesting thing about this woman is that she was raised hearing the gospel, but has never surrendered her life to the Lord. She has now experienced the love and power of God toward her, and it has really impacted her. She now has to deal with God's love toward her and decide how she is going to respond to it. The not so obvious, but possibly the deeper and more compelling motive, is that she come to a point of surrendering her life to the Lord and being born again.

Ulterior is not necessarily indicative of evil intent. It can just as easily be indicative of a deeper and more compelling motive.

Travis- I don't disagree with what you are saying.

I guess my question should have been "what was the PRIMARY or INITIAL motive for healings, etc.

To me it seems clear in the great majority of cases in scripture the primary or initial motive was necessity. A couple of exceptions may be Jesus walking on water or the raising of Lazarus.

I guess my point in bringing this whole thing up is that I think necessity should be OUR primary motive as well. In your example the lady had lumps that needed to be gone. That was the primary or initial reason you all prayed for her; at least I would hope that was the reason.

John 20
29 Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.

30 And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book:

31 But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.

Jesus did his miracles to prove that he was Jesus is the Messiah , he is God in human flesh

Exactly lovemeekhope. If Travis and others with him didn't give two licks about the lady who needed healed, they wouldn't have prayed for her to be healed.

We pray for healing etc because we love Jesus and we are His body.

Deltafom wrote: "Jesus did his miracles to prove that he was Jesus is the Messiah , he is God in the flesh."

Jesus didn't do miracles because he was God (although I certainly agree that He is).

He did them because He was filled with the Spirit and that is what God wanted Him to do.

Todd: 1 Cor. 13 gives what should be our motivation. The gifts of the Spirit, miracles, etc. are all to be motivated by the selfless, self-sacrificing, compassionate love of the Father. We need to pray that we have the heart and mind of God and are motivated by His Holy Spirit so that we act out of His motives.

I agree. If I did not give two licks about the lady, I would be a very sorry excuse for a representative of Christ for sure.