Do miracles take place today?
Many people believe that they have seen a miracle, but have they?
Lots of miracles happen in the Bible, that's for sure,
but do they still take place today like they did back then?
Well, what is a miracle?
Some people just use the term very loosely
like when a baby is born or if a tornado spares someone's house.
Perhaps beautiful or lucky, but those aren't miracles.
Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead or the parting of the Red Sea,
those things are entirely outside the realm of natural laws.
This is what a miracle is. Okay, but do they still take place today?
First, we have to consider the purpose of miracles.
In John 3:2 Nicodemus says to Jesus:
Also, when Jesus sent His disciples out on the Great Commission, Mark 16:20 says:
So we can see that one of the reasons for a miracle is it acted as evidence
confirming when someone was speaking on God's behalf.
Hebrews 2 says about the Gospel, "At the first began to be spoken by the Lord
and was confirmed to us by those who heard Him.
God also bearing witness, both with signs and wonders
with various miracles and gifts of the Holy Spirit."
Notice: "It was confirmed." Past tense.
Like any historical event, once it is confirmed it no longer needs to be continually proven,
and so this need for miracles has gone away.
What else were miracles for?
Remember that when the church first began
they didn't have the New Testament written down yet,
so God provided His message to His people through miraculous revelation
until the point in time which the New Testament was completed.
So when a preacher got up to speak,
God would give him a portion of the New Testament message.
The Bible explains this in 1 Corinthians 12. A number of miraculous gifts are mentioned
and among them were prophecies-- or speaking on God's behalf--
and miraculous knowledge or knowing things that they didn't have to study.
In the next chapter--13--we learned that these miraculous gifts would cease and when.
So what does this mean? Verse 9 says, "We know in part."
They had only parts of the New Testament message miraculously revealed to them bit by bit,
but verse 10 says:
When that which is perfect--or complete--has come, then that which is in part will be done away.
When the New Testament was completed, then these miracles would cease.
Okay. Has that happened yet?
Second Timothy 3:16 says:
Today, the New Testament is complete.
Any supposed new revelation will either say what has already been said
and so it's redundant and we don't need it, or it'll contradict what has been said,
and therefore it's wrong and we don't need it.
In the New Testament, miraculous abilities were given
from heaven directly to human beings only two times:
in Acts 2 to the apostles when the church first began
and in Acts 10 to signify that Gentiles were now allowed in the church.
Beyond that, the Bible says the power to do miracles
was given only through the laying on of an apostle's hands.
For example in Acts 8. Philip was a preacher who could do miracles.
He went down to the city of Samaria and taught them about Jesus.
They believed Phillip and were baptized in order to become Christians.
And even though Phillip had miraculous abilities, he wasn't able to pass it on to others.
Verse 14 tells us that they had to send for two of the apostles--Peter and John--
to come down from Jerusalem and lay their hands on the new Christians to give them this power.
We see this also in Romans 1.
The apostle Paul wrote to the brethren in Rome saying:
he had to be there in person to impart the spiritual gift.
Second Timothy 1, Paul told Timothy:
It was only by the laying on of the apostles' hands that people received miraculous powers.
God can still work today providentially.
But are there the same kinds of miracles today as back in the Bible times?
No.
The word has already been confirmed to us,
and we have ample evidence to believe that the Bible is from God.
And everything that God wants us to know has already been written down for us today.
And, finally, there's no apostles still alive to pass on this ability.
So today there are no miracles. Today we need no miracles.
But if you'd like to study more about the topic, please reach out to us.
We'd love to hear from you.