There are still numerous denominations that hold the position that the Holy Spirit no longer does miraculous or supernatural acts through God’s people and that God no longer intervenes in the affairs of men in miraculous ways. In other words, these churches teach that since the end of the first century, the Holy Spirit no longer activates the gifts of prophecy, tongues, words of knowledge, miracles, healing, and so forth given to the church. Since those days, we should no longer expect angels to visit men with messages from God, or bodies of water parting for God’s people, or angels being sent out to defeat the enemies of God without a battle. According to these denominations, for the last 1900 years or so, God has answered prayers through natural means rather than supernatural. There have even been books written in the past ten years railing against the deception of supernatural spiritual gifts and the supernatural intervention of God in our circumstances.
I was part of one of those denominations for two decades. Our people loved God and they loved the Word of God. They prayed. They worshipped. They served. I have no reason to doubt they were saved. There was a common denominator among many of the people I fellowshipped with, however. They all felt as if there was something “more” they should be experiencing, but were not sure what it was. It just felt like something was missing.
I believe the missing piece was the opportunity to experience God, not just know about God. If you think about it, the entire Bible from Genesis to Revelation is a record of men and women encountering God in supernatural moments. Something happened to them outside the natural order of things. God walked with Adam and Eve in the Garden. God directed to Noah to build an ark. God visited Abraham with angels and promises of a son to be born long after it was physically possible for Sarah. Then we have Moses and the burning bush, the ten plagues, and the parting of the Red Sea. These kinds of moments are recorded throughout the Old Testament. Visions and dreams, angelic visits, supernatural victories in war, deliverance from fire and lions, supernatural provision, and so on.
In the New Testament that theme continues. E very encounter with Jesus was supernatural…God in the flesh. Healings, raising the dead, supernatural catches of fish, demons being dispatched, and storms being quieted with a word. After Jesus returned to the Father, we see tongues of fire on Pentecost, jail breaks facilitated by angels, more healings, deliverance and people raised from the dead. The church is given the spiritual gifts of healings, tongues, miracles, words of knowledge, prophecy, etc. and was instructed to use them for building up the body of Christ.
The notion that God revealed himself to his people through miracles, visions, and angelic visits from the beginning of scripture to the end and then suddenly stopped the flow of power and supernatural encounters to his church seems unreasonable and out of character for God. In scripture, the very thing that propelled Gods’ people through each crisis was the expectation that God would move in some miraculous way to deliver them. That attitude is what the Bible calls faith and without faith it is impossible to please God.
nterestingly, we see the Apostle Paul in Athens in Acts 17. He is invited to speak to the intellectual elites of the day by sharing the gospel on Mars Hill. Paul gave his best explanation of the gospel, perhaps using the learning and training he had received at the feat of his mentor, Rabbi Gamaliel, when he was growing up. A few responded, but not many. Paul was disappointed.
His next stop was Corinth, and when he wrote his first letter to them, he recalled their initial encounters. He said, “When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power” (1 Cor. 2:1-5).
It seems after his experience on Mars Hill, he put away intellectually persuasive arguments and rhetoric and began preaching a simple gospel…but with a demonstration of power. In other words, he still preached but then enabled those who heard the word to actually experience God through the exercise of spiritual gifts…a supernatural moment. The pattern of Jesus had been to preach the coming of the kingdom of God and then to demonstrate it through healing, deliverance, miracles (loaves and fish), and sometimes calling people back from the dead. We can safely assume Paul did the same. After all, a gospel without power is no gospel at all.
The “more” that most believers are looking for is an experience with God, not just more knowledge about him. That is the biblical pattern from Genesis to Revelation and should still be our pattern in the church. Can spiritual gifts and claims of miracles be abused? Of course. They were abused in Corinth, but rather than telling the people to stop using the gifts or that the gifts were fraudulent, he simply instructed them about how to use the gifts as God intended. Many believers suffer from a faith that is devoid of power. Rather than confronting the attacks of Satan they are instructed to simply endure the attacks. Without the use of the divine (supernatural) weapons that Paul describes in 2 Corinthians 10, we cannot confront spiritual forces. Therefore, those who believe that God no longer intervenes or that the Holy Spirit no longer imparts power, simply have to take what Satan is handing out. That is not the character of God nor should it be the character of his people.
Let me encourage you to seek more experiences with God…biblically balanced and tested. Those experiences will always have some supernatural component because God is supernatural. And remember that God is interactive not simply observational. He always has been. He has always extended the invitation to experience him whether at a burning bush, the Tent of Meeting, or through his Holy Spirit living in us,. So let’s accept the invitation and find the “more” we are looking for.
