It is surely true that a
growing number of Christians worldwide are accepting that God works miracles
today. Increasingly, believers are seeking to be used by Him as instruments in
miracle work including supernatural healing.
There are still more than a
few Christians, however, who claim that God does not work miracles today. They
say that would-be miracle workers are deceived or sometimes even conscious
deceivers.
I believe firmly that God does
indeed work miracles today and that He wants Christians to seek to get involved
in this work. In this article I will therefore do three things:
In part 1 I will discuss
the most important biblical passages that have a bearing on the place of
miracles today. In part 2 I will answer objections made by those who deny that
God still wants to work miracles. And in part 3 I will say something about
testimony of miracles.
BIBLICAL TEACHING
When thinking about any
topic, the most important thing to do is see what the Bible has to say about it.
Scripture is our God-given “Manual for the Human Life,” and what it teaches must
be given priority. So we will start with this.
John 14:11-12
John 14:11-12 is a good
place to begin our discussion. This passage strongly implies that miracles will
continue until Jesus returns. Here Jesus states:
“11 Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me. Otherwise believe because of the deeds themselves.
12 Truly, truly, I tell you, the person who believes in Me, the deeds that I do, he will do also . . .”
The deeds of Jesus that He
refers to in both these verses surely include the miracles that He is found
performing throughout John’s Gospel, as commentators widely agree.
It is true that it would be
a mistake to take these words in v. 12 literally. Jesus surely doesn’t mean
that we should expect every Christian to work the sorts of miracles that He
Himself worked. That would contradict 1 Corinthians 12:29-30, where Paul is
clear that only some Christians work miracles.
Instead, in these words of
v. 12 the idea seems to be that being a believer in Christ is all the
qualification that people need in and of themselves to work miracles. For
someone to actually work a miracle, God would still need to take the extra step
of granting the ability to perform the miracle in that specific case. But
believing in Jesus qualifies us to potentially work miracles if God enables us.
Importantly, these words in
v. 12 strongly imply that it is God’s
will to grant the ability to work miracles to some Christians. If this were not
the case, the words would seem to be meaningless.
Importantly too, what Jesus
says here cannot be restricted to apostles. “The person who believes in Me” won’t
allow us to make this restriction.
Similarly, those who want
to restrict the words to Christians living in the first century are also
clutching at straws:
First, that would be an
extremely unnatural interpretation of the words.
And second, there is the date
of John’s Gospel to take into account. Scholars broadly agree – rightly in my
view – that this Gospel was written around the end of the first century. If
this is right, then if the words I have quoted in v. 12 were only supposed to
apply to Christians living in the first century or thereabouts, these words
would have become obsolete almost as soon as they were written. But what would
be the point of that? Instead, we can be confident that v. 12 applies to
Christians throughout the Christian era.
To sum up, then, John
14:11-12 is a strong piece of biblical evidence that we should expect some
Christians today to work miracles.
Acts 1:8
Another verse that fits
awkwardly with the idea that miracles ceased in the first century is Acts 1:8. Here
the risen Jesus tells the 11 remaining apostles:
“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the furthest reaches of the earth.”
The receiving power the
Lord speaks about here doubtless refers to the events on the day of Pentecost
described in Acts 2:1-41. At that time the apostles received power from the
Spirit, which remained with them afterwards.
Importantly, in the book of
Acts there are many references to the apostles working miracles. And it seems a
very unlikely interpretation that would separate the power the apostles
received from their miracle work. The power that Jesus refers to in Acts 1:8
therefore surely includes power to work miracles.
Although Acts 1:8 was
spoken to the 11 apostles, it seems natural to broaden its application to the
whole church:
The first thing we need to
recognise is that this verse strongly implies that the 11 will be Jesus’
witnesses in the power they will receive. Jesus is not telling them two
separate things, one, that they will receive power and, two, that they will
also be His witnesses. There is a much closer connection between the power and
the witnessing than that. The witnessing will be done in the power they receive.
Secondly, note how Jesus
tells the 11 that they will be His witnesses “to the furthest reaches of the
earth.” However, the good news was not taken this far before the 11 were all
dead. So it makes sense to think that the witnessing in power would be continued
by other Christians after the 11 had died. This is
supported by the fact that in Acts itself we find Christians other than the
apostles receiving power from the Spirit (Acts 6:8-10; 8:4-13; 9:17-18) and
acting as Jesus’ witness (Acts 22:20).
Most naturally, then, Acts
1:8 suggests that witnessing in power will last until the good news has gone to
the furthest reaches of the earth, which really means until Jesus returns. And
because, as I have noted, this power includes the ability to work miracles,
most naturally we would expect miracle work to continue until the Lord returns.
Acts 2:16-18
Peter’s quotation of Joel
in Acts 2:16-21 is also awkward for the view that God no longer wants to use
Christians in miracle work.
Here is the text of verses 16-18:
“16 But this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel:
17 ‘And it will be in the last days,’ says God, ‘that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh. And your sons and daughters will prophesy, and your young men will see visions, and your old men will dream dreams. 18 Even on my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they will prophesy.’”
Peter is saying that the
events of the day of Pentecost are the beginning of the fulfillment of Joel’s
prophecy in Joel 2:28-32. Joel prophesied that God would pour out His Spirit, says
Peter, and this has now happened.
It is true that Joel and
Peter make no specific mention of miracle work in this passage. Nevertheless,
it makes sense to think that God’s pouring out His Spirit involves the working
of miracles. In 1 Corinthians 12:8-10, which I will cite below, “gifts of healing”
and “the working of miracles” are said to be gifts of the Spirit.
Importantly, we should note
the time reference in Acts 2:17. This verse states that God will pour out His
Spirit “in the last days.” The last
days here is the period of time that began with the
crucifixion-resurrection-giving of the Spirit and will end with the return of
Christ.
But if miracle work, and
other gifts of the Spirit, ceased in the first century, this would mean that in
fact it was only in the very first part of the last days that God poured out
His Spirit as Joel and Peter describe. And this does seem a rather awkward
interpretation of the text. Acts 2:16-18 therefore reads most naturally if
miracle work is something that lasts throughout the Christian era.
1 Corinthians 13:8-10
Another important text on
this subject is 1 Corinthians 13:8-10.
Before examining this
passage itself, however, we actually need to back up a little and look at a
passage in the previous chapter, 1 Corinthians 12:8-10. Here Paul makes a list
of gifts of the Holy Spirit:
“8 For to one is given a message of wisdom through the Spirit, and to another a message of knowledge according to the same Spirit, 9 to another faith by the same Spirit, and to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, 10 and to another the working of miracles, and to another prophecy, and to another distinguishing between spirits, to another kinds of languages, and to another interpretation of languages.”
“Languages” here refers to
what is commonly known as speaking in tongues.
1 Corinthians 12:8-10 is
almost unique in the Bible in distinguishing healing from miracles. Usually
when Scripture refers to miracles, it is speaking more broadly of supernatural
acts that include healing. In what follows, as I have done so far, I will use
the more common biblical way of defining things. When I refer to miracles, I am
including supernatural healing.
Paul looks back to his list
in 12:8-10 when he states in 1 Corinthians 13:8-10:
“8 . . . if there are prophecies, they will be done away with. If there are languages, they will cease. If there is knowledge, it will be done away with. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part. 10 But when what is complete comes, what is partial will be done away with.”
Paul clearly believes that
a time will come when the gifts he has listed in 1 Corinthians 12:8-10 will no
longer be used. It is true that he refers explicitly only to prophecy, speaking
in tongues and messages of knowledge becoming redundant. But he implies that
the other gifts, including miracle working, will also cease when these others
do.
Paul seems to imply too
that the gifts will stop being used “when what is complete comes.”
There are some who claim
that the time Paul is referring to in this clause is the point at which the New
Testament was completed.
This, however, is simply
not a credible interpretation of the words. “When what is complete comes” is
certainly not referring to any experience that can be found in this world of
ours. Rather, it has in view a time after Jesus has returned to earth.
The context of verses 8-13
confirms this. In these verses Paul contrasts a present state and a future
state. The present state involves knowing in part and seeing indistinctly. The
future state, which begins when what is complete comes, involves knowing fully
and seeing face to face. Paul is clearly contrasting the present experience of
Christians with our future state of existence. So “when what is complete comes”
is definitely referring to a time after Jesus has returned to the earth.
Therefore, when Paul says
that gifts of the Spirit will be done away with “when what is complete comes,”
he is most naturally suggesting that these gifts will continue to be used until
Jesus returns.
It is true that Paul is
speaking very concisely here. And it is true too that his main focus in this
passage is not on precisely when the gifts of the Spirit will cease being used.
I am not saying that this passage proves outright that miracles should be taking
place today. But Paul’s words certainly fit better with them continuing until
Jesus returns than ceasing centuries ago.
1 Corinthians 14:1
Another verse that points
in the same direction is 1 Corinthians 14:1. Here Paul instructs the Christians
in Corinth:
“Pursue love, and eagerly desire spiritual gifts . . .”
The “spiritual gifts” Paul
refers to here certainly include the gifts he has listed in 12:8-10, quoted
above, which include miracle work.
The first thing to note
about the command to desire spiritual gifts in 14:1 is that it must have applied
to all Christians in the 50s of the first century, when Paul wrote 1
Corinthians. Clearly, this command was given to all the Christians in Corinth. And
there is no reason whatsoever for thinking that Paul or God would have wanted
anything different in other churches at that time. We should therefore have no
doubt that in the mid first century God wanted all Christians to eagerly desire
spiritual gifts, including the ability to work miracles.
Next, we need to give due
weight to an argument from probability:
If we consider the rest of the
New Testament, it contains hundreds of commands that would have applied to all Christians
at the time they were written. I am not aware of a single one of these that no
longer applies to Christians today.
If it is correct that every
other NT command that applied to all Christians at the time of writing still
applies today, then, all other things being equal, it is highly probable that the
command in 1 Corinthians 14:1 also still applies. And this argument from
probability carries considerable weight, although I admit that it doesn’t prove
outright that God gives gifts of miracle work today.
Even if I am mistaken about other NT commands that applied to all
Christians when they were written, and there are a few that no longer apply
today, the number of these is surely very few. So the argument from probability
would still carry some weight, although admittedly not nearly so much.
James 5:14-16
James 5:14-16 is another
key passage. Here James says:
“14 Is anyone among you ill? He should summon the elders of the church, and they should anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord and pray over him. 15 And the prayer of faith will heal the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, they will be forgiven him. 16 So confess your sins to each other and pray for each other, so that you may be healed.”
In this passage James instructs
his readers to seek healing miracles for those who are ill.
The letter of James was
written to Christians generally. So the instructions in James 5:14-16 would
have applied to all Christians alive at the time of writing, probably sometime
in the mid first century.
The same argument from
probability that applied to 1 Corinthians 14:1 also applies here:
If it is correct that every
other NT command that applied to all Christians at the time of writing still
applies today, then, all other things being equal, it is highly probable that the
commands in James 5:14-16 also still apply.
And again, even if there
are a few NT commands that no longer apply today, the number of these is surely
very few. So the argument from probability would still carry some weight.
The signs of an apostle
In 2 Corinthians 12:12 Paul,
referring to his earlier ministry in Corinth, writes:
“The signs of an apostle were performed among you in all endurance, in signs and wonders and miracles.”
Interpreting the Greek of
this verse is not entirely straightforward. Nevertheless, it is highly likely
that Paul is saying that performing miracles is a major distinguishing feature
of apostles.
There are some who argue as
follows:
This verse shows that in
the early church miracle work was basically the preserve of the apostles. Because
there are no apostles today, we should no longer expect miracles.
This an extremely weak argument:
First, the words Paul uses
in this verse can be understood simply to mean that every apostle performed a
significant number of miracles, without also implying that non-apostles only
rarely performed them.
Second and much more
importantly, we need to take account of 1 Corinthians 12:9-10, 28-30, passages that
Paul wrote a matter of months before writing 2 Corinthians. In these passages
he clearly envisages many non-apostles working miracles. And it is not
reasonable to think that he would have contradicted himself in 2 Corinthians.
There is also a great deal
more biblical evidence that in the early church non-apostles often performed
miracles. For more details, see my article: In
the Early Church How Often Did Non-Apostles Work Miracles?
2 Corinthians 12:12, then,
cannot be saying that miracle work is basically the preserve of apostles. And
so this verse in no way implies that we should not expect miracles today.
Hebrews 2:3-4
Hebrews 2:3-4 is another
passage that is relevant for our subject. Here the author writes:
“3 . . . how will we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? This salvation was first announced by the Lord, and then it was confirmed to us by those who heard Him, 4 while God added His testimony by signs and wonders, various miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to His will.”
This passage is often cited
by those who say that God no longer works miracles today. They argue in this
way:
If the author believed that
miracles still occurred at the time of writing, we would expect him to have concentrated
on God testifying to the message by miracles in the present rather than at some
time in the past. Therefore, this passage strongly implies that miracles were
no longer taking place at the time of writing.
I do admit that this
argument isn’t one that should be quickly dismissed. Nevertheless, there are a
few points to make here.
(1) The passage is too indirect
and brief for us to reach clear conclusions on what the author believed about
the existence of miracles at the time of writing.
(2) It is possible that the
author felt that after mentioning Jesus and the first generation of Christians,
he had done enough to make his point.
In Hebrews 2:1-4 he is
aiming to convey to his readers what an enormously important thing the
Christian message of salvation is. So he tells them that no less a person than
Jesus began announcing the message. And then he goes on to say that people who
heard Jesus themselves were the ones who passed on the message to the author
and the readers. He also notes that God accompanied this passing on of the
message with miracles (and gifts of the Spirit) to validate it.
Maybe having said all this,
he thought that he had said enough to make his point that the message of
salvation was extremely important. If so, then he could have chosen not to move
on to speak about the time of writing, even if he was aware that God was still
doing miracles in his day.
(3) In Hebrews 6:5 the
author refers to Christians generally as people who have “tasted . . . the
powers of the age to come.”
This could well suggest
that miracles were ongoing at the time of writing.
(4) I think it is quite possible
that at the time this letter was written, miracles may have been a lot less common
than they were earlier in the first century. And this could have motivated the
author in Hebrews 2:3-4 to focus on miracles among the first generation of
Christians.
I will say something about
the frequency of miracles throughout church history in part 2 of this article,
and I refer the reader to the discussion there.
(5) Even if this passage
does more naturally seem to suggest that miracles were a thing of the past, we
need to beware of drawing conclusions based on one or two proof texts.
An example of the dangers
of this can be seen in Colossians 1:19-20, where Paul writes:
“19 For God was pleased to have all His fullness dwell in Him [Christ], 20 and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace by the blood of His cross – whether things on earth or things in the heavens.”
In this passage, Paul
explicitly says that God was pleased “to reconcile all things to Himself.” And
the “all things” he has in mind are described as “things on earth or things in
the heavens.” There can be no doubt that he is including human beings in what
is talking about. So the most natural reading of this passage is that all human
beings will be reconciled to God through Christ.
However, Paul cannot have
meant that, since it would contradict so much else in his letters. See, e.g.,
Romans 2:5, 9; 2 Corinthians 2:15-16; Galatians 6:8; Philippians 1:28; 3:19; 1
Thessalonians 1:10; 2 Thessalonians 1:6-9.
Instead, he must mean that all
things will be reconciled to God apart from one unexpressed, exceptional group
of beings, comprising some people and some angels, that will experience eternal
destruction.
The most natural reading of
Colossians 1:19-20 is therefore not the correct one. And the same could
potentially be true of Hebrews 2:3-4.
All things considered,
then, Hebrews 2:3-4 falls a long way short of proving that God no longer wants
to use Christians in miracle work today.
Summing up
Various other Bible
passages have some relevance for the topic we are considering, but I have given
the most important of them. The above discussion has shown that Scripture fits well
with the view that God wants to use Christians in miracle work today, but very
poorly with the opposite view.
Importantly too, we need to
take full account of the fact that 1 Corinthians 14:1 and James 5:14-16 contain
not just teaching about miracles, but
commands to seek to work miracles.
As we saw, these commands would
have applied to all Christians at the time of writing. However, when we see a biblical
command that applied to all Christians when it was written, it would only be
right to make a conscious decision not to obey it today if we can make a compelling,
biblically-based case why we are not still supposed to obey it.
As regards the commands in
1 Corinthians 14:1 and James 5:14-16, not only is there no such case that can
be made, but biblical teaching as a whole strongly suggests that God does still want us to seek to work
miracles. We should all therefore certainly choose to obey the commands in these
passages.
In part 2 I will move on to answer objections made by Christians
who deny that we should seek to work miracles today.
See also:
