Why Couldn’t Jesus Do Miracles? | Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen on Mark 6:1–6

Does human unbelief have the power to limit the all-powerful God? In this episode of What in the Word?, Kirk E. Miller sits down with theologian Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen to tackle the startling claim in Mark 6:1–6 that Jesus “could do no mighty work” in his hometown. They explore the relationship between human faith and divine action and raise the practical question: What does this story mean for someone praying for healing that never comes?

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Episode guest: Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen

Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen is Professor of Systematic Theology at Fuller Theological Seminary and Docent of Ecumenics at the University of Helsinki. A prolific author, his most recent work is the five-volume series Constructive Christian Theology for the Pluralistic World (Eerdmans): Christ and Reconciliation (2013), Trinity and Revelation (2014), Creation and Humanity (2015), Spirit and Salvation (2016), and Hope and Community (2017). He is an ordained Lutheran minister.

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Episode synopsis

Setting the scene

As Dr. Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen explains, “The key to understanding any biblical passage is to know the location, the context.” Mark’s Gospel has a clear narrative arc. Its initial chapters are full of Jesus’s miracles, to which the crowds respond with amazement, asking, By what authority does Jesus do such things? That question, Veli-Matti explains, eventually turns into opposition and finally rejection, as we see here.

In Mark 6:1–6, Jesus returns to his hometown (Mark 6:1), and his familiarity breeds offense (Mark 6:2–3). As Kirk E. Miller observes, whereas later generations might stumble over the claim that a human being would also be divine, Jesus’s neighbors stumbled over the opposite problem: He was too familiar, too ordinary, too much one of their own to be taken seriously as anything more.

Previously, crowds were “amazed” at Jesus’s miracles (Mark 5:20; cf. 2:12; 5:42), but now Jesus is “amazed” at this people’s lack of faith (Mark 6:6). In the scene immediately prior, Jesus acknowledges the desperate faith of a woman who suffered from twelve years of blood-flow. Now here in Nazareth, Jesus finds not faith but its stubborn absence. The adjacent scenes offer a contrast.

Veli-Matti carefully distinguishes doubt and unbelief. A doubter is someone who wants to believe but struggles to do so (Mark 9:24). In contrast, the unbelief displayed in Mark 6 (and elsewhere in Mark’s Gospel) is settled opposition to Jesus.

“Could not” or “would not” do miracles?

Mark comments that “[Jesus] was not able to do a miracle there” (Mark 6:5). Some, like liberal theologians and Muslims, have used Mark 6:5 to argue that Jesus was not truly God, since he, in their reading, lacked power to perform miracles here.

However, Veli-Matti provides reasons why we shouldn’t interpret this inability (“not able”) as absolute:

1. Elsewhere in Mark’s Gospel, Jesus consistently exercises the power (δύναμις) to heal and cast out demons. We cannot, therefore, interpret Mark 6:5 in a way that erases this clear pattern that runs through the entire book.
2. Mark immediately qualifies his statement, explaining that Jesus did, in fact, “lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them”!¹ This signals that we’re dealing with something other than lack of power preventing Jesus from performing additional miracles.
   

Given these observations, Veli-Matti concludes that it’s not as if Jesus could not heal. Rather, Jesus would not heal—he chose not to heal—in the face of such unbelief (see Matthew’s version, which states that “[Jesus] did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith”; Matt 13:58, emphasis added). The language “he could not” refers to restraint, not inability, like a father telling his child “I cannot give you money” while possessing the money in his pocket.² Jesus had the power to heal but chose not to exercise it, not because his divine ability had been switched off by people’s unbelief, but because the crowd’s unbelief made the exercise of that power fruitless, contrary to its purpose.

Miracles as signs, not spectacles

As Veli-Matti explains, miracles function as signs pointing toward the arrival of God’s kingdom (cf. Mark 1:15). Every healing anticipates a future in which all suffering will be undone; every exorcism previews the final defeat of evil.

Performing miracles among people who have already rejected Christ and his kingdom would strip those miracles of their purpose, turning them into empty displays rather than signs inviting genuine response. Lack of faith doesn’t render these miracles impossible but meaningless, at least according to their intended design.

The relationship between faith and miracles

Yet the Gospels—Mark is no exception—do at times seem to link Jesus’s miracles to faith. Mark will even attribute healings to the faith of their recipient (e.g., “Your faith has healed you”; Mark 5:34; cf. 2:5; 10:52). (That said, there are also incidents when Jesus heals and there is no mention of faith; e.g., Mark 1:29–31; 3:1–6.) So does Jesus need faith to actualize his power? Does lack of faith become a barrier to Jesus’s ability to perform miracles?

Veli-Matti explains that although human faith is not the ultimate cause of healing, it is often the occasion for it. Faith is not a force that generates the miracle but an open hand which receives it.

What this means for those who aren’t healed

If we remain unhealed, does it mean we simply don’t believe enough? Do our unanswered prayers for healing reflect a deficiency in our faith?

To the contrary. As Veli-Matti explains, although the kingdom of God has arrived in Jesus, it has not yet come in full. As he explains in his article on this topic,

Until the kingdom appears in its fullness, every healing, every cure, every raising from the dead is not yet final, only anticipatory. Those healed would sooner or later catch another disease. Those raised from the dead would encounter death again. But at the final coming of the kingdom, all sicknesses, frailties, and even the threat of death will be overcome. Every opening of the eyes of the blind points to the coming of the glory too bright for human eyes to see.³

In the meantime, we should pray for healing. But if we don’t experience it in this life, it doesn’t mean our faith has failed. It simply means our healing awaits our resurrection. We possess the certainty of complete healing when Christ comes again.

A small or struggling faith is not an obstacle to Christ’s ability to heal. Healing rests not on the strength of our faith but the strength of our Savior. Faith, while important, is not the ultimate foundation on which our healing rests. Our hope is not the reliability of our faith but the certainty of the coming kingdom.

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Logos values thoughtful and engaging discussions on important biblical topics. However, the views and interpretations presented in this episode are those of the individuals speaking and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Logos. We recognize that Christians may hold different perspectives on this passage, and we welcome diverse engagement and respectful dialogue.

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Resources for further study

Related content

• When Jesus Heals—& When He Doesn’t: A Theology of Healing
• Every Exorcism Is Eschatological: The Words of Demons in the Presence of Jesus
• How to Read the Gospels: Moving Beyond Individual Stories
• The Kingdom of God: The Great Unfolding Drama of Salvation
• Cessationist or Continuationist: Have Some Gifts Ceased?

1. “In most any context, ancient or modern, the miraculous healing of ‘a few’ would be a momentous event, hardly classified as ‘doing no miracle’ (ποιῆσαι οὐδεμίαν δύναμιν). Yet in contrast to Jesus’ remarkable ministry up to this point, it is considered a failure.” Mark L. Strauss, Mark, ed. Clinton E. Arnold, Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Zondervan, 2014), 244.
2. Spiros Zodhiates, Sermon Starters, vol. 1–4 (AMG, 1992).
3. “When Jesus Heals—& When He Doesn’t: A Theology of Healing,” Word by Word (Logos blog), February 9, 2026, https://www.logos.com/grow/jesus-heals-theology/.