Do Miracles Exist Today?

People claim all sorts of miracles today.   These include, but are certainly not limited to: “faith healings,” recovery from terminal diseases, speaking in tongues, prophesies, and divine visions.  On one hand, it can be difficult to invalidate the claims and experiences of others.  On the other hand, the answers are there in scripture, and, in our opinion, are very clear. 

In competitive debate, a debate can be very close, but ultimately very clear.  Searching scripture is often the same way on difficult topics.  This blog post explains a few of the common claims of miracles, looks at them through the lens of scripture, and explains what the Bible clearly says about the existence of miracles today.

There are various claims to miraculous occurrences today.  These claims typically involve people who say that they have received a gift from the Holy Spirit.  Some persons claim the special gift of healing, often citing (among others) Matthew 17:20.  Some claim the gift of speaking in tongues or prophesying citing (among others) 1 Corinthians 12:10.  Some claim to be able to handle poisonous snakes safely citing (among others) Mark 16:18. 

Scientific and scriptural challenges to the individual occurrences is outside the scope of this post.   What is in the scope of this post are some general thoughts about the existence of the gifts today.  Specifically, this post uses scripture to dispute the notion that anyone possesses these types of gifts anymore in places where the Bible is available.

We know that miracles existed in the Old Testament.  Few dispute that Jesus performed them as well.  Jesus went so far as to raise at least two persons from the dead – Lazarus (John 11:38-44) and Jarius’ daughter (Luke 8:40-56).   The apostles also performed various miracles, including raising people from the dead (Acts 20:7-11).

So, if Jesus and the apostles were able to perform miracles, why would the Hebrew writer say that God used to speak to us through prophets but now has spoken to us through his Son? (Hebrews 1:1) Why also would Paul write that people could simply look at creation and understand that God exists?  (Romans 1:20) Why should some people get more “convincing” than others?

Some say that receiving the Holy Spirit is enough to trigger special gifts (Romans 12:1).  Still others claim to have received the gifts through the transfer by some else who had this special power laying their hands on them.    There is some evidence to support the fact that people who had this healing power did so because someone empowered with this gift laid their hands on them (Acts 8:18-20)

However, the capability to transfer this gift appears to have been limited.   We have heard it argued, not infrequently, that the ability to pass this gift on through the laying on of hands was “limited” to one generation – that is the apostles could pass it on, but the persons to whom they passed the gift through the laying on of hands could not pass it on.   We do not see evidence to support this interpretation.

We do see evidence that where the Bible exists, there is no reason for miraculous gifts to exist.  First, remember that the Hebrew writer noted that God speaks to us through His Son now, and those Gospel accounts were not written down and circulated until the latter half of the second century, at the earliest.  Second, consider the fact that, right in the middle of his discussion of gifts with the Corinthian church, Paul explains that when the “perfect” has come, there will be no more need for such gifts (1 Corinthians 13:8-9).  The most likely explanation of that statement is that the Bible is the perfect word of God (Psalm 19:7), although some posit this is talking about Jesus.  Since Jesus was also called “The Word” (John 1:1), we see this as a distinction without an effective difference.   No matter how we examine it, the need for God to speak to us through miracles ended when we could read about Jesus’ life and message.

This is not to say we don’t believe in “miraculous” events today.  We believe the power of prayer from righteous people is very effective. (James 5:16) We have also heard enough credible stories from parts of the world where the word is not available to believe that God uses providential events to manifest Himself there however He chooses.  In other words, we do believe that the power of prayer, especially by the righteous, is the only “gift” left where the word exists, and where it does not it is up to God to choose how He wants to manifest Himself.

To read more on this topic, you may want to access a previous post which is very personal to the author…