In my last blog, I stated the primary reasons that Cessationists believe that God no longer performs “miracles” in his church, especially through the gifts of the Spirit.  I want to begin to respond to those reasons in this blog.

First of all, let me address the idea that God no longer works miracles.  A Cessationist believes that God answers prayers but works within the natural order of things rather than doing what is impossible according to natural law. For instance, when a person prays for the perfect job and gets that job, that is not a “miracle,” because God worked within ordinary laws of nature and society to facilitate the answer to that prayer.  However, Jesus walking on water is a miracle because it defies the laws of nature.  Cessationsist don’t believe that God operates in that way anymore and so accept the “ordinary” spiritual gifts of mercy, faith, encouragement, leadership, service, administration etc. but reject the “miraculous” gifts of prophecy, miracles, healings, tongues and so forth because they operate outside the natural order of things.

However, I would assert that if you pray, you believe in miracles. I believe that a miracle occurs anytime God intervenes in the natural order of things.  If you pray at all, asking for protection, provision, favor, etc., you are asking God to intervene in the ways things would pan out if left to themselves.  Otherwise, why would you pray?  You probably don’t pray for the sun to rise in the east in the morning because you anticipate that it will rise in the east without your prayers. You don’t pray for the lights to come on in your house each time to touch a switch because, in the natural order of things, the lights always come on.  So if you pray, you have begun to sense that if left to themselves, the natural order of things is going to bring harm or disappointment to you or your loved ones.

Many of God’s greatest miracles worked within the realm of natural law.  Great catches of fish on Galilee employed only boats, men, nets, and fish which all function in the natural realm.  The timing and location of the fish marked the catch as a miracle.  If you don’t believe in miracles, you would mark it only as a coincidence or a unique, spontaneous convergence of natural forces that prompted the outcome.  A stone hitting an exceptionally large Philistine warrior in the one square inch that would kill him employed only a young man, an ordinary slingshot, and a common stone from a creek bed.  All of that operated within the realm of natural law.  Did God miraculously guide the stone or was it simply dumb luck? God fed his people in the wilderness with quail.  The miracle was that so many quail arrived at the camp at the same time. Was it a miracle or a migratory phenomenon of some sort?  The Bible would call it a miracle.  So…even when we ask God to work within the natural order of things to manipulate time, circumstances, decisions, job availability, favor, a doctor’s performance, etc. we are asking for a miracle. God still performs miracles on behalf of his people on a daily basis but only faith knows the difference between an intervention by God and a curious coincidence.  I believe the scriptures call any intervention by God a miracle.

Now, there are definitely acts of God throughout scripture that defy natural law…the healing of leprosy by a touch, blind eyes spontaneously gaining sight, withered hands growing out in a moment, walking on water, the Red Sea parting, a dead man being raised after four days in the tomb, etc. But those miracles are no harder for God than directing quail, fish, or a stone.  If he does miracles, he does miracles…yesterday, today, and tomorrow.  If he intervenes for his people so that the natural order of things is disrupted or reordered, then a miracle has occurred.

Now, the first argument by Cessationists is that they have never seen an authentic miracle such as we see in the gospels.  Therefore, in their view, miracles no longer occur.  These same believers have never seen an angel or Jesus face-to-face, but would not deny their reality.  So, is it not possible that authentic miracles still occur even if we haven’t seen one personally?  Secondly, I would venture that God has performed miracles in their sight but they filtered them through their unbelief and pronounced them as frauds or natural coincidences. Remember, I served in Cessationsist churches for over 20 years. I remember men and women on several occasions telling our staff and elders of amazing healings.  Tumors disappeared with proof on x-rays and children that had been declared to have severe birth defects by every scientific standard were born whole and healthy. We simply wrote those off as faulty equipment or a poor diagnosis rather than seeing the miraculous hand of God.  Even when we couldn’t deny what we saw, we never announced the healing to the church knowing that there was simply some unknown natural explanation for what had happened.

Part of the reason, these churches have not seen miracles is that they only pray for the ordinary and get what they pray for. I remember when a good Christian doctor asked me to pray that he would do his best work. I told him I believed he would do his best work even if I didn’t pray, but I would pray that God would enable him to do even more than he was capable of on his own.  Even when you see miracles outside the realm of natural law, it takes faith to acknowledge them or, at least, the source. The Pharisees saw much, but discounted the miracles as fraud or as the work of Satan. I suspect that some Cessationists have done the same.

The second argument made on behalf of Cessationism is that Jesus only performed miracles to demonstrate that he was the Messiah, the Son of God.  It is true that the miracles of Jesus testified that he was the Son of God, but he performed many miracles simply out of compassion rather than a need to demonstrate who he was (Mt.9:35-36, 15:32, 20:34; Mark 1:41, etc.). The writers of the gospels seem to go out of their way on numerous occasions to mention that the motive of Jesus for healing individuals or the crowd was compassion rather than publicity.  You would think that same unchanging compassion would still prompt him to relieve the suffering of his people – even through miracles.

In addition, he told many that he healed not to tell anyone about their healing.  Those commands are contrary to the purpose of miracles if we restrict their purpose to evidence that he was the Son of God. If that were the only purpose for miracles, surely he would have told those people to go and tell everyone they could find.   After he returned to the Father, the miracles done by his followers were done in the name of Jesus, which means “by his authority.” Those miracles, performed after his ascension, still demonstrated that Jesus was who he said he was. Present day miracles do the same.

The third argument is that God empowered the apostles to do miracles simply to confirm that they were men approved of God in order to establish their authority in the church and so that their writings would be seen as writings inspired by the Holy Spirit.  Certainly that was part of it, but why give spiritual gifts of healings, prophecy, miracles, tongues, deliverance, discerning of spirits, words of knowledge, etc. to the ordinary members of the church and to those who did not write any of the New Testament such as Philip and Stephen?

In addition, Luke wrote his gospel and the Book of Acts.  Yet, he was not an apostle nor do we have any record of him performing any miracles to demonstrate the inspired authenticity of his writings.  Therefore, miracles were not given only for the purpose of marking Jesus or the apostles as men approved of God because “to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given…” (1 Cor.12:7).

I want to reiterate that believers who attend Cessationsist churches along with their leaders are good people who love Jesus. They were taught or indoctrinated in this theology from birth or as new Christians.  I was in such awe of the men who taught me that I simply accepted their teachings, believing that the parts that didn’t make sense to me then would make sense later as I learned more Bible.  I’m sure they learned this theology in the same way.  The problem is not with the people but with the theology that robs the church of power and leaves people in the grip of Satan.

We will finish our discussion of Cessationism in my next blog.