Has God stopped doing miracles? Some theologians say yes. Ordinary Christians, without any ‘education’ to brainwash them otherwise, say of course not.
A few weeks ago I tried to define a miracle. Some might say finding a parking place in a ‘full’ parking lot is a miracle. Others insist it has to be more spectacular, like being healed of an illness that has no cure. I’m thinking, what about the power behind the event? Can Satan do ‘miracles’? And what about the motivation for calling things a miracle? Can that just be an attention-getting device? Do real miracles have another purpose?
In Acts 4, the story is told of a healing. It made religious authorities angry so they rounded up Peter and John and asked them, “By what power or what name did you do this?”
Peter replied. He told them, “It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed. He is ‘the stone you builders rejected, which has become the capstone.’ Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.”
Peter could have basked in the attention, claimed that God gave him healing powers, pointed out that this would be the end of medicine as they knew it, and so on, but he didn’t. Instead, he pointed to Christ, not only as the source of the miracle but as the only Savior. He made sure that this miracle pointed to a far greater miracle; God the Son died for our sins, rose from the dead and is now the chief cornerstone, a metaphor these men would understand. Jesus was the foundation of all things, the source of the miracle, and the only reason Peter and John were doing what they did.
Most of today’s miracle-mongers use their version of miracles to draw attention to themselves, or maybe to the miracle, but not to the saving power of Christ. They say look at this miracle, not “Look at Jesus.” Many of them at this point are quick to pass the collection plate.
In Acts 4, the critical religious leaders were cornered. “When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus. But since they could see the man who had been healed standing there with them, there was nothing they could say.”
Personally, I’m skeptical (can’t you tell) of most miracle claims. For me, this might be the best test of a miracle—it leaves me speechless.
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