Revival
“And now, O Lord, hear their
threats, and give us, your servants, great boldness in preaching your word. Stretch
out your hand with healing power; may miraculous signs and wonders be done
through the name of your holy servant Jesus.” After this prayer, the meeting
place shook, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit. Then they preached
the word of God with boldness. (Acts
4:29-31)
Is that how we
should be praying today? Should we be praying for boldness, including signs and
wonders like healing, as they did in the first century? Or should we be praying
only for boldness? Have the signs and wonders specially designed by God stopped?
Good question. There are libraries full of books by pastors and teachers on the
subject, half of whom argue that such signs and wonders (like healings) were
designed by God to help people recognize and believe in the Son of God, and to then
vindicate the authority of his apostles as they laid the foundation for the
church with their inspired teachings and writings. Thus, as the argument goes, after
the apostles died and their writings were gathered in the New Testament, the
place for signs and wonders was complete, and we shouldn’t be seeking them
today. The other half argue that signs and wonders should be sought and
performed today in Jesus' name, and that the only reason we don't see them is because
of how little we expect their appearance today in the church, or in the world
for that matter.
Granted, the
first view doesn’t mean that miracles don’t happen at all; it’s just that they’re
not the typical, or normal way ministry is done. The healing ministry of Jesus
and the apostles was unique; signs and wonders were not done by Christians in
general, but were the signs of the apostles. So, when the apostles died out,
the signs did too. For instance, in the book of Acts, Luke apparently intends for
us to see signs and wonders not as a common occurrence among Christians, but as
the special ministry of the apostolic group. For instance, Acts 2:22 says, Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by
God with mighty works and wonders and signs which God did through him, and
then continues some twenty verses later (verse 43) by saying that, Fear came upon every soul; and many wonders
and signs were done through the apostles – not through non-apostle Christians.
Similar passages can be found in Acts 5:12, Acts 14:3 and Acts 15:12. In other
words, it appears as if Luke wants us to see that the signs and wonders in the
book of Acts had a special role in the ministry of the apostles, thereby suggesting
that neither then, nor today, were signs and wonders intended to be a normal
part of church ministry. They were, in other words, intended to vindicate the
authority of the apostles.
Furthering this
view is 2 Corinthians 12:12, where Paul writes to defend his apostleship at
Corinth against the claims that men, other than Paul, were the true, or greater
apostles. Paul said that, The signs of an
apostle were performed among you in all patience, with signs and wonders and
mighty works. In other words, Paul was insisting that he had given
sufficient evidence of his authority as an apostle since he had worked the
signs of an apostle in the midst of their hardship. So, again, it seems as if signs
and wonders had a special role to play in authenticating the apostles which,
again, would seem to imply that when the apostles had finished their work and had
received their reward, signs and wonders would cease as a part of the gospel
ministry.
Additional evidence
for this position is found in Hebrews 2:4: It
was declared at first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard
him [i.e., apostles], while God also bore witness by signs and
wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed
according to his own will. In other words, it appears that miracles were
not an everyday occurrence in the church, but something that the church looked
back on at a very special moment in time when the eyewitnesses of the Lord
first delivered the gospel.
In fact, Jesus’
own ministry seems to indicate as much since you can’t jump to the conclusion
that just because Jesus sent his disciples out to heal during his lifetime, he now
intends for us to do ministry in the same way when He’s gone. For example, in
Matthew 10:7-8, Jesus says to the twelve, Preach
as you go, saying, “The kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Heal the sick ….” So,
there’s a command for his disciples to heal the sick as part of their ministry.
But two verses earlier he said, Go
nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather
to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Now, I think most would agree that
this command was temporary in nature since, for a short time, there was a limit
to preaching to the Jewish people during Jesus' ministry. But after the
resurrection, Jesus commands us to go to all the nations. So you just can't
assume that everything Jesus commanded during his lifetime is meant to be
continued as a ministry priority after his resurrection. There was something
unique about the time of the incarnation, and the unusual upsurge of signs and
wonders was a part of that uniqueness.
One final
argument in support of this position is from church history where there’s never
been anyone that we know of that regularly healed, or heals people the way
Jesus and the apostles did. Most healing since the days of the apostles relates
to the easier cases, fails often and doesn’t happen instantly. This doesn’t mean
it’s unreal; only that it’s of a different order than the signs and wonders of
Jesus and the apostles. So for these reasons, among others, one group of Christians
says that signs and wonders ceased as a normative part of the ministry when the
apostles finished their work and, therefore, we need not pursue them today.
The other view
says that we should see more signs and wonders today than we actually do. For
instance, Jesus seems to teach continuity between his own ministry and the on-going
ministry of the church. As the Father has
sent me so send I you. (John 20:21) Luke says in Luke 9:2 that when Jesus
sent out the twelve, He sent them out to
preach the kingdom of God and to heal. And in Luke 10:9, when Jesus sent
out the 70, he commanded them, Whenever
you enter a town . . . heal the sick in it and say to them, “The kingdom of God
has come near you.” So, the preaching of the kingdom seems to be very
closely linked with the ministry of healing.
Then in Matthew
24:14, Jesus says, This gospel of the
kingdom will be preached throughout the whole world, as a testimony to all the
nations; then the end will come. In other words, the same gospel of the
kingdom that Jesus preached is to be preached until all the nations have heard
it. So, it would seem natural then that we should spread that kingdom pretty
much the same way Jesus did, except in those points where he tells us to change,
or in which some other part of the New Testament tells us to change. So, for
example, we don’t limit God’s Word to only the Jews, because he said to stop,
but we don't stop healing, because he didn't say to stop.
In fact, in John
14:12 Jesus said, Truly I say to you, he
who believes in me will also do the works that I do. Whatever this means in
detail, it seems to suggest a continuity between the signs and wonders of Jesus
and the ministry of those who believe – not just the apostles. So the first
piece of evidence for this view is that Jesus seems to teach a continuity
between his ministry and the ministry of the church. For instance, he doesn’t say,
"Make healing part of the ministry while I’m here, but not after I’m gone."
Further, it
wasn’t just the apostles who performed signs and wonders. Two
"deacons" — two of the seven chosen in Acts 6, Stephen and Philip (Acts
6:5) – also performed signs and wonders as part of their ministry. In Acts 6:8,
Luke says, Stephen, full of grace and
power, did great wonders and signs among the people. And in Acts 8:6, it
says, And the multitudes with one accord
gave heed to what was said by Philip, when they heard him and saw the signs
which he did. What makes Philip's ministry to the Samaritans so interesting
is that, later, the apostles came down and laid hands on the Samaritans. So, Philip
wasn’t acting somehow in the capacity of an apostle; he simply had sign-working
power as part of his evangelistic ministry.
Additional
evidence for this view is found in Galatians 3:5, where Paul writes to the
churches of Galatia and says, Does he who
supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the
law, or by hearing with faith? The point here was that God is now supplying
his Spirit to the Galatians (not just to the apostles), and working miracles
among them when Paul wasn’t even there. So the working of miracles doesn’t seem
to be limited to the ministry of the apostles in the early church.
The last piece
of evidence for this view is found in 1 Corinthians 12, where Paul teaches that
in the church there are gifts of healing and miracles for various believers,
not just for the apostles. He says in verses 7–10, To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good .
. . to one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom . . . to another
gifts of healing, to another workings of miracles. Then in verse 28 he
distinguishes this from just the apostles when he says, God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third
teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healings . . . . So it seems pretty
clear that there were gifts of healings and miracles that were not limited to just
the apostles. For reasons like these, then, the other group of Christians
believe that signs and wonders were not limited to the apostles or to that age,
but are available today and should be sought for the good of the church, and for
the spread of the gospel.
So what’s to
conclude? On
the one hand, we ought to honor the uniqueness of Jesus and the apostles, and
of that revelatory moment in history that gave us the foundational doctrines of
faith and life in the New Testament. But, on the other hand, we ought to be
open to the real possibility that this, too, may be a unique moment in history,
and in this moment it may well be that God's purpose is to pour out his Spirit
in unprecedented revival upon his church, and upon the world in which we live —
a revival of a love for Christ, and a zeal for worship and compassion for the
lost.
Perhaps
the best conclusion is to simply keep the keel of our ships deep and stable in
the biblical revelation of God, but our sails hoisted, unfurled and available to
every movement of God's Spirit acting upon the waters upon which we travel.
Grace,
Randy
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