W.A. Criswell, Defining Miracles

A miracle “is an interruption, an intervention, in the system of nature as we know it. It is a temporary suspension of the laws that govern this world as we commonly observe them. A miracle is ‘supernatural,’ above the ‘natural.’ The virgin birth of our Lord Jesus Christ is a ‘miracle.’ Thee is no other way to explain the birth of Christ as one without a human father except as a sovereign act of God suspending the laws of nature. We say ‘a sunset is a miracle of beauty and loveliness,’ or ‘a Christian is a miracle of grace or ‘a mother is a miracle of patience and self-sacrifice.’ But this use of the word is not in the same sense as turning common dust into insects (Moses), or dividing a stream by the sweep of a mantle (Elijah and Elisha), or feeding five thousand with a few loaves and fishes (Jesus). To turn water into wine through the processes of nature is one thing; to turn water into wine by fiat [meaning “decree”], as a sovereign act apart from the processes of nature, is another thing. The latter is truly a ‘miracle.” (The Holy Spirit in Today’s World, pgs. 145-46)