Should Christians Expect Miracles Today? Objections and Answers from the Bible, Part 4, by Wayne A. Grudem
28. Isn’t it dangerous for churches to allow for miraculous spiritual gifts today?
To say that the use of many spiritual gifts today is “dangerous” is not an adequate criticism, because some things that are right are dangerous, at least in some sense. Missionary work is dangerous. Driving a car is dangerous. If we define “dangerous” to mean “something might go wrong,” then we can criticize anything that anybody might do as “dangerous,” and it just becomes an all-purpose criticism when we have no specific abuse to point to.
A better approach regarding the use of miracles and spiritual gifts is to ask, Is it in accordance with Scripture? and Have adequate steps been taken to guard against the dangers of abuse? I think that many responsible charismatic leaders have taken considerable care, using extensive teaching and writing, to guard against abuse and avoid the mistakes of previous generations; both the mistakes involved in abusing the gifts, and the mistake of forbidding some gifts altogether.82
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Notes
53. Some may object that one exception to this may be the vision of the end times in Revelation 13:7, where the beast “was allowed to make war on the saints and to conquer them.” But even here these is no indication that the miraculous powers of the beast are greater than the power of the Holy Spirit. This seems to be best understood not as a confrontations of miraculous power but simply as a persecution by military force, for we read later of “those who had been beheaded for their testimony to Jesus and for the word of God, and who had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands” (Revelation 20:4).
54. The fact that people who name the name of Christ are able to prophesy and cast out demons and do “many mighty works” in His name (Matthew 7:21-23) does not contradict his, because these are non-Christians. Jesus says to them, “I never knew you; depart from me, you evildoers” (Matthew 7:23). Although it is possible that these are false miracles worked by demonic power, it seems more likely that they are operations of common grace God works through non-Christians, similar to the effectiveness of the gospel God sometimes allows when it is preached by those who have impure motives and do not know Christ in their hearts (cf. Philippians 1:15-18).
55. D. A. Carson, in Horton, ed, Power Religion, p. 101.
56. Although Jesus is speaking specifically to the official (“Jesus therefore said to him“), the Greek test shows that He uses a plural verb to speak of the Galileans generally (“Unless you (plural) see signs and wonders you (plural) will not believe”).
57. Carson in Horton, ed., Power Religion, p.101
58. Carson, in Horton, ed., Power Religion, p. 101; id., The Gospel According to John (Leicester, England: InterVarsity, and Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), p. 238.
59. In order to support the idea that “the welcome the Galileans accorded Jesus was fundamentally flawed, based as it was on too great a focus on miraculous signs” Dr. Carson’s commentary (The Gospel According to John, p. 238) mentions verse 45 (“So when he came to Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him, having seen all that he had done in Jerusalem at the feast, for they too had gone to the feast”). But this verse talks only about the welcome of the Galileans, and does not mention faith, whether strong or spurious. A more likely interpretation is that many who saw Jesus’ miracles were pondering the miracles and gradually growing in their positive assessment of Him, and that day after day more were coming to believe in Him. Their welcome was simply a welcome, as the text says, and no generalization about the nature of their faith at that point should be drawn from it. Carson’s commentary (p. 238) also mentions John 2:23-25, but I doubt that “inadequate faith” is indicated here. It simply says that when people saw the signs He did “many believed in his name“—the same expression used in John 3:18 to refer to saving faith. The fact that Jesus “did not trust himself to them” (John 2:24) simply refers to the fact that He did not yet fully disclose His Messiahship and deity to them, not that their faith was inadequate. I doubt that the fact that people “believed in his name” can be made to say that people did not believe in His name. If John had wanted his readers to be warned to these stories of people coming to faith because of miracles, he would not have portrayed the results so positively.
60. Here the word “sign” (sêmeion) is not used and “work” (ergon) is found instead, but I agree the reference is primarily to Jesus’ miracles; cf. K. H. Rengstorf, “sêmeion,” TDNT, vol. 7, pp. 247-248: “Most of the 27 erga [‘works’] passages in John are clearly related to the sêmeia [‘signs’] of Jesus …Furthermore they …establish a close connection between the erga [‘works’] of Jesus as sêmeia [‘signs’] and the work of God effected in erga [‘works’] …When Johannine Jesus Himself refers to what John calls sêmeion [‘signs’] He consistently uses the word ergon [‘work’].”
Category: Fall 2000, Pneuma Review, Spirit
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