In part 1 of this article we saw that the Bible fits best with the
view that God wants to keep using Christians in miracle work until Jesus
returns.
In this second part I will move on to look at objections made by those
Christians who deny that we should seek to work miracles today. I am confident that each objection can be adequately
answered.
OBJECTIONS ANSWERED
The usefulness of
miracles
There some Christians who say that it is not God’s will to work miracles
today because they are unnecessary. They
agree that God used miracles in the first century to help the church get up and
running. But they claim that once the
church was well established, miracles had outlived their usefulness, so God
stopped performing them.
This argument is completely misguided:
First, the argument seems to start from the assumption that God
wants to do the minimum amount of miracle work possible. But why would we assume this? There is no good reason.
Second, the book of Acts makes it clear that in the first century,
miracles were used massively by God to build His church. He used them to make evangelism more
successful and to build up those who were already saved. See, e.g., Acts 2:1-13, 41; 3:1-4:4; 4:31;
5:1-11; 8:5-8; 9:1-22, 32-35, 36-42.
There is absolutely no reason for thinking that miracles should
have a different result today. As far as
their effectiveness is concerned, the fact that the church is now well established
is beside the point.
Third, the New Testament strongly suggests that most miracles in
the early church were healing miracles. And
a large part of God’s motivation for performing these was certainly because He
loved people and wanted to free them from various afflictions. But God obviously has the same love for
people who are afflicted today.
To sum up this section, then, there are very good reasons for
thinking that miracles today would, at least in many circumstances, be
extremely useful.
Church history and
miracles
Some Christians argue against the existence of miracles in our day
by appealing to church history. The
argument goes in this way:
If God continued working miracles throughout the church age, we
would expect Him to have done this as often as He did in the first century. However, it cannot be denied that there have
been relatively few claims of miracles in the following centuries as compared
to the first century. Therefore, this
suggests that the claims there have been were all fakes or wishful thinking.
It is surely true that for at least most of the church age there
have been relatively few reports of miracles as compared to the first century. However, there are two important points to
make here.
First, the Bible often makes receiving things from God conditional
upon believing. The believing is very
important. So when a Christian doesn’t
believe that God wants to give a gift of some sort, it seems that God would very
probably not give that gift, even if He wanted to. I would suggest that part of the reason why
there has been a lack of miracles throughout church history is because most
Christians wrongly believed that God had no desire to give them the ability to
work miracles.
Second, we need to recognise that the Holy Spirit is thoroughly
mysterious. And it is a mistake to claim
that He must have chosen to do things in more or less the same amounts in each
century of the church.
In 1 Samuel 3:1 we are told that when Samuel was a boy, ‘the word
of the LORD was rare in those days’. Similarly,
I think that even under post-Pentecost, New Covenant conditions, it is not all
that surprising if there is considerable variation in how much the Spirit
operates supernaturally from time to time.
That is not to say that over the centuries God has been
inconsistent in His requirements or promises.
In all centuries of the church He has wanted Christians to seek the
ability to work miracles. And in all
centuries His biblical promises of healing in response to faith have stood, as,
for example, in James 5:14-16. But even
so, I think this still allows room for considerable variety in how many
miracles the Spirit performs at different times.
The Reformation and
miracles
Another argument that is sometimes made by those who say that
miracles are not for today appeals to the Reformation.
The principle Reformers in the 16th century, most notably Martin
Luther, John Calvin and Huldrych Zwingli, believed that God stopped working
miracles in the first century. Because
these men were giants of the faith, it is argued, it makes sense to think that
their views on miracle work were correct.
It is true that the Reformation was extremely helpful in some
respects. But to assume that the
Reformers were correct on everything of importance cannot be right for the
simple reason that they differed among themselves on a number of key issues.
There are unfortunately many evangelicals today who follow certain
people in church history without questioning their beliefs nearly enough. This is really a form of idolatry and it
should be avoided. What matters is what
the Bible teaches, not what certain Christians leaders have believed in the
past.
Abuses do not mean
that miracles are wrong in themselves
Sometimes those who deny the place of miracles today refer to
abuses in the church to try to make their case.
They point to examples of where claims of miracles were surely wrong. And they also point to false teaching, such
as the so-called prosperity gospel, that is often held by Christians who say
that the church should be working miracles today.
It is doubtless true that there are many false claims of miracles
in the church in our day. And it is true
too that churches that are interested in miracles often have some seriously
wrong ideas about things. I am also sure
that sometimes devout Christians who are trying to submit to God’s will in
miracle work make mistakes in how they go about things.
But to say that abuses and mistakes show that all miracle work is
invalid today makes no sense. By the
same logic, we should avoid anything that is abused or about which mistakes are
sometimes made.
For example, teaching from the Bible is something that is
massively abused in our day. Every
Sunday there are thousands of so-called Christian pastors worldwide who say
they are teaching from the Bible, but who are actually promoting heresy in one
way or another.
But this doesn’t mean that all teaching from the Bible is false! It doesn’t mean that pastors on a Sunday
should abandon giving biblical instruction to their flocks! And the same applies to miracles. To say that abuses and mistakes mean that
there is no place for miracles today is illogical.
Wherever there is something that is from God, Satan will almost
always try to counterfeit it. He will
also tempt Christians into using gifts, including the ability to work miracles,
in ways that are less than edifying. And
part of what it means to be a fallen human being is to make mistakes. So even Christians with good intentions and
motivations can get things wrong at times.
Therefore, bad reports surrounding miracle work in no way mean
that God doesn’t want Christians to work miracles today.
This is not a matter
of variation between churches
Sometimes Christians who accept that God works miracles today seem
to have an attitude something like this:
Some churches work miracles and others don’t. It’s just a different way of living out the
Christian life. We shouldn’t expect a
great God to be uniform in His dealings with His children. Therefore Christians and churches are under
no obligation to seek the ability to work miracles.
There is a huge mistake here:
First, as we saw in part 1 of this article, the Bible actually
commands all Christians to desire spiritual gifts, including the ability to
work miracles.
Second, there is wrong thinking here about variation in the church. Certainly, we can expect variety in how God
deals with His children. But not in
terms of whether we should seek the ability to work miracles. Miracles, and the other gifts mentioned in 1
Corinthians 12:8-10, are not just a minor issue, a kind of decoration that a
church might or might not have. Miracles
are spiritual high explosive against the powers of darkness. If you are in any doubt about this, just have
a read through the book of Acts. The
power for building the early church that came through miracles was enormous. And there is no reason whatsoever for
believing that it should be any less today.
Those who see miracles, and other gifts of the Spirit, as one way,
among others, of living out the Christian faith have not begun to grasp what
these things are all about. Not using
the gifts of the Spirit listed in 1 Corinthians 12:8-10 is a bit like an army
in a fierce fight to the death leaving some of its heavy weaponry in storage. It makes no sense at all.
Summing up
There are other arguments that are sometimes used to support the
view that God doesn’t want to use Christians to work miracles today. But I have listed the most important of them. In short, none of the objections convinces.
In part 3 I will move on to speak about testimony of miracles.
See also:
