Working our way through the Gospel of John on Sunday mornings, we are beginning to see an intentional literary pattern that frames Jesus' ministry around a handful of miracles he performed. Interestingly, the first two are in Cana: turning water to wine in chapter two, and healing the nobleman's son at the end of chapter 4 (the message on May 15).
While the primary points of the text are about belief in Jesus, the constant reference to miracles raises many questions, two of which I'd like to give answer here: What are the purposes of miracles, and do miracles still happen, and should we still seek them?
For this, I turn to Wayne Grudem's great Systematic Theology. For those with a philosophical bent, I encourage you to read C. S. Lewis' Miracles.
What are the purposes of miracles?
One purpose of miracles is certainly to authenticate the message of the gospel. This was evident in Jesus’ own ministry, as people like Nicodemus acknowledged: “We know that you are a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do, unless God is with him” (John 3:2). It also was evident as the gospel was proclaimed by those who heard Jesus, for as they preached, “God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his own will” (Heb. 2:4). When miracles occur, they give evidence that God is truly at work and so serve to advance the gospel: the Samaritan woman proclaimed to her village, “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did” (John 4:29), and many of the Samaritans believed in Christ.
In the New Testament, a second purpose of miracles is to bear witness to the fact that the kingdom of God has come and has begun to expand its beneficial results into people’s lives, for the results of Jesus’s miracles show the characteristics of God’s kingdom: Jesus said, “If it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you” (Matt. 12:28).
A third purpose of miracles is to help those who are in need. The two blind men near Jericho cried out, “Have mercy on us,” and Jesus “in pity” healed them (Matt. 20:30, 34). When Jesus saw a great crowd of people, “he had compassion on them, and healed their sick” (Matt. 14:14; see also Luke 7:13). Here miracles give evidence of the compassion of Christ toward those in need.
A fourth purpose of miracles, related to the second, is to remove hindrances to people’s ministries. As soon as Jesus had healed Peter’s mother-in-law, “she rose and served him” (Matt. 8:15).
Finally, a fifth purpose for miracles (and one to which all the others contribute) is to bring glory to God. After Jesus healed a paralytic, the crowds “were afraid, and they glorified God, who had given such authority to men” (Matt. 9:8). Similarly, Jesus said that the man who had been blind from birth was blind “that the works of God might be made manifest in him” (John 9:3).
Do Miracles Still Happen, and Should We Still Seek Them?
If ministry in the power and glory of the Holy Spirit is characteristic of the new covenant age (2 Cor. 3:1–4:18), then our expectation would be just the opposite: we would expect that second and third and fourth generation Christians, who also know Christ and the power of his resurrection (Phil. 3:10), who are continually being filled with the Holy Spirit (Eph. 5:17), who are participants in a war that is not a worldly war, but one that is carried on with weapons that have divine power to destroy strongholds (2 Cor. 10:3–4), who have not been given a spirit of timidity but a “spirit of power and love and self-control” (2 Tim. 1:7), who are strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might, and who have put on the whole armor of God in order to be able to stand against principalities and powers and spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places (Eph. 6:10–12), would also have the ability to minister the gospel not only in truth and love but also with accompanying miraculous demonstrations of God’s power. It is difficult to see, from the pages of the New Testament, any reason why only the preaching of the apostles should come “not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God” (1 Cor. 2:4–5).
Though there does seem to have been an unusual concentration of miraculous power in the ministry of the apostles, this is not a reason for thinking that there would be few or no miracles following their deaths. Rather, the apostles were the leaders in a new covenant church whose life and message were characterized by the power of the Holy Spirit at work in miraculous ways. Furthermore, they set a pattern that the church throughout its history may well seek to imitate in its own life, insofar as God the Holy Spirit is pleased to work miracles for the edification of the church.
It is one thing to say that miracles might occur today. It is quite another thing to ask God for miracles. Is it right then for Christians to ask God to perform miracles?
The answer depends on the purpose for which miracles are sought. Certainly it is wrong to seek miraculous power to advance one’s own power or fame, as Simon the magician did: Peter said to him, “your heart is not right before God. Repent therefore of this wickedness of yours, and pray to the Lord that, if possible, the intent of your heart may be forgiven you” (Acts 8:21–22).
It is also wrong to seek miracles simply to be entertained, as Herod did: “When Herod saw Jesus, he was very glad, for he had long desired to see him, because he had heard about him, and he was hoping to see some sign done by him” (Luke 23:8). But Jesus would not even answer Herod’s questions.
It is also wrong for skeptical unbelievers to seek miracles simply to find ground to criticize those who preach the gospel:
And the Pharisees and Sadducees came, and to test him they asked him to show them a sign from heaven. He answered them, “… An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign shall be given to it except the sign of Jonah.” (Matt. 16:1–4)
This rebuke against seeking signs is repeated elsewhere in the Gospels, but it is important to note that rebukes against seeking signs are always directed against hostile unbelievers who are seeking a miracle only as an opportunity to criticize Jesus. Never does Jesus rebuke anyone who comes in faith, or in need, seeking healing or deliverance or any other kind of miracle, whether for himself or herself, or for others.
What shall we say then about 1 Corinthians 1:22–24, where Paul says, “For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God”? Does Paul mean that he did not work miracles (“signs”) at Corinth, or perhaps in his evangelistic work generally?
Here Paul cannot be denying that he performed miracles in connection with the proclamation of the gospel. In fact, in Romans 15:18–19, a passage he wrote while in Corinth, he said,
For I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has wrought through me to win obedience from the Gentiles, by word and deed, by the power of signs and wonders by the power of the Holy Spirit, so that from Jerusalem and as far round as Illyricum I have fully preached the gospel of Christ.
And 2 Corinthians 12:12 affirms clearly that Paul did work “signs and wonders and mighty works” among them.
So 1 Corinthians 1:22–24 cannot mean that Paul was denying the validity of wisdom or the validity of signs for through Christ he worked signs and he taught wisdom. Rather, here he is saying that signs and wisdom do not themselves save people, but the gospel saves people. Signs and the wisdom that Jews and Greeks were seeking were not the signs and wisdom of Christ but simply signs to entertain or to fuel their hostility and skepticism and wisdom that was the wisdom of the world rather than the wisdom of God.
There is nothing inappropriate in seeking miracles for the proper purposes for which they are given by God: to confirm the truthfulness of the gospel message, to bring help to those in need, to remove hindrances to people’s ministries, and to bring glory to God (see Section C above). In the Gospels many people came to Jesus seeking miracles, and he healed them for these purposes. Moreover, when he sent his disciples out preaching that the kingdom of heaven was at hand, he told them, “Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons” (Matt. 10:7–8). How could they do this without seeking God for miracles everywhere they went? Jesus’ command required them to seek for miracles to happen.
After Pentecost, the early church prayed both for boldness to preach the gospel and for God to grant miracles to accompany its preaching. They cried out to God,
And now, Lord, look upon their threats, and grant to your servants to speak your word with all boldness, while you stretch out your hand to heal and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus. (Acts 4:29–30)
Far from teaching that we should not ask God for miracles, this example of the early church gives us some encouragement to do so. Similarly, the disciples in Lydda sent for Peter to come and pray for Tabitha after she had died, thereby seeking a miraculous intervention by God (Acts 9:38). And James directs that the elders of the church should pray and seek healing for those who are ill (James 5:14). Of course, we should not assume that an obviously miraculous answer to prayer is somehow better than one that comes through ordinary means (such as medical help for sickness), and we must also realize that asking God for a particular need does not guarantee that the prayer will be answered. On the other hand, our faith that God will work in powerful and even miraculous ways may be far too small. We must beware of being infected by a secular worldview that assumes that God will answer prayer only very seldom, if ever. And we should certainly not be embarrassed to talk about miracles if they occur—or think that a nonmiraculous answer to prayer is better! Miracles are God’s work, and he works them to bring glory to himself and to strengthen our faith. When we encounter serious needs in people’s lives today, it is right for us to seek God for an answer, and where miraculous intervention seems to be needed, then to ask God if he would be pleased to work in that way. This would seem to be especially appropriate when our motivation is a Christlike compassion for those in need and a burning desire to see Christ’s kingdom advance and his name glorified.
