Did Jesus perform miracles after His resurrection and before His ascension?
I believe that the Lord Jesus did perform “miracles” after His resurrection from the dead. It is interesting to note that there are around 3 Greek words that are translated “miracle” in the NT, one from a word meaning “wonders”, another meaning “signs”, and a third one meaning “power or mighty works”. Most of the Lord Jesus’ “miracles” were performed prior to His death and resurrection, and the purpose of such works was to declare to Israel that God had visited His people, and to clearly identify the Lord Jesus as the Christ of God, as demonstrated in the prophetic OT Scriptures. While the New Testament does list many of Christ’s miracles while on this earth, they are certainly not all spelled out in the Scriptures (see Mark 6:55-56; John 21:25). But, as to your question, I do believe that the Lord Jesus did perform some signs and wonders after His resurrection from the dead and prior to His ascension to heaven, and I’ll try to list my warrants for saying this through a couple of examples.
One example is seen in John 21:5-11, where Jesus met the disciples on the bank of the Sea of Galilee, while the disciples were out on the water fishing. They had been out all night and caught nothing, but He bade them to throw their nets out of the right-hand side of the ship, and they came up with a huge catch. This was in fact a miracle, along with the fact that the net didn’t break with such a haul! As a proof that this was a miracle and not just a natural occurrence, consider that many of those disciples were quite experienced in fishing the sea of Galilee, and they had just spent several hours fishing during the very early morning hours when fishermen generally knew to fish this body of water. They had been totally “skunked,” but then were told to simply cast their nets “to the right,” which should have made no difference whatever, and look what happened! Now, I believe that Jesus performed this miracle so that His disciples might recognize Him, that He indeed had risen from the dead just as He had told them previously that he would do; and notice that this was a very similar miracle to that which was described in Luke 5, and which seemed to really help the disciples to connect the dots. Then, upon recognizing Him, the disciples came ashore, and there were fish on the fire broiling. Where did those fish come from since Jesus was apparently alone there on the shore, and with no fishing equipment?
Now, two more examples can be seen in John 20:19-31, where we find the Lord Jesus appearing to His disciples on that day in which Jesus rose from the dead, and on the following Sunday, both in the upper room. You will recall that the disciples had locked themselves into that upper room for fear of the Jews, but that the Lord Jesus had suddenly appeared in their midst, locked doors and all, and showed Himself to be alive (John 20:19). And then we read in John 20:25 that the disciples met with Thomas later and told him that they had seen the Lord Jesus alive, but Thomas proclaimed, “…Except I shall see in His hands the print of the nails and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into His side, I will not believe”. On the following Sunday, we read in verses 26 and 27 that the disciples were once again in the upper room with the doors locked, and this time Thomas was also there. The Lord Jesus again suddenly was in their midst, and how did this happen with the door securely locked? Then, we see that the Lord knew all about what Thomas had said about putting his fingers into the Lord’s wounds before he would believe. So, the Lord Jesus invited Thomas to go ahead and feel those wounds, and Thomas believed. Thus, we know that the Lord Jesus was indeed all knowing since He knew all along what his doubting disciple had said in Jesus’ absence.
One more good example is that scene on the road to Emmaus found in Luke 24:13-35. In this portion of scripture, the Lord Jesus appeared after His resurrection to two of His disciples as they walked towards their home on the very afternoon of the Lord’s resurrection. He somehow made Himself unrecognizable to these two, who would have known Him very well. He opened the scriptures to them while on the road, and at journey’s end, He entered their house and broke bread with them. Then, we read that the disciples suddenly recognized this man who had been in their presence. (Luke 24:31).
My dear friend, I do believe as above that the Lord Jesus did in fact perform some signs and wonders after His resurrection so that His disciples would believe that He was alive from the dead, and thus that He was indeed the Christ, and that all that He had taught them (and us through the testimony of the Bible) about Himself was true. The Lord Jesus on earth was Emmanuel, or God with us, and because He lives, true believers on the Lord Jesus will live also. We read in John 20:30-31: “And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book: 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”. Do you believe? (SF) (532.5)