The Power of the Cross: Introduction

E. Thurneysen points out that Jesus’ healing ministry illustrated the gospel in that the healings are “signs which show the victory of Christ over sin and death and thereby confirm the power of his word.”²¹ Prof. Walter Grundmann, a German scholar, similarly stresses that Jesus’ healing ministry showed that He came to destroy the devil’s work through sin (I Jn. 3:8):

The miracles of Jesus are a part of the invading rule of God which Jesus brings with his person in preaching and acting. They are the rule of God overcoming and pushing back the demonic-satanic sphere of influence.²²

H. van der Loos points out that God’s power manifested in Jesus’ healing ministry shows that Jesus came to destroy sin and to begin to reverse the effects that sin has brought upon mankind:

This power presents itself in dual form, viz. as evidential power and as militant power. As evidential power it identifies Jesus as the Messiah-King and reveals His divine mission. As militant power it reveals Jesus as the adversary of all the forces of ruin. For Jesus has come to smash the forces of disease, sin and death, to dethrone Satan. This dual nature of the power function finds striking expression in Jesus’ important pronouncement: “But if I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the Kingdom of God is come unto you,” Mt. 12:28, and cf. Lk. 11:20.²³

Professor Richardson affirms that “miracles of healing are, as it were, symbolic demonstrations of God’s forgiveness in action.”²⁴

The German scholar, Prof. Otfried Hofius, summarizes the New Testament evidence concerning the integral relationship of healing and gift-based ministry to the proclamation of the gospel and the Word of God:

According to the witness of the Synoptic Gospels, Jesus sent out his disciples to preach and to perform miracles (Mat. 10:7f.; Mk. 3:14f.; Lk. 9:1f.; 10:9; cf. Mk. 6:7ff.; Lk. 9:6) …
Similarly, Acts mentions many times the correlation of apostolic proclamation and apostolic miracle-working (2:2f.; 4:29f.; cf. 3:1ff.; 4:16, 22; 5:12; 6:8; 8:5ff.; 9:32ff.; 15:12; 20:7ff.). The miracles are co-ordinated with the preaching—they are “accompanying signs,” by which Christ confirms the word of the witnesses (Acts 14:3; cf. Mk. 16:20). As in the authoritative word (Acts 6:10) so in the signs is manifested the power of the Holy Spirit promised to the disciples (Acts 1:8). . . .

For Paul, too, “word and deed,” preaching and signs belong together; in both Christ is at work in the power of the Spirit (Rom. 15:18f.). Signs and wonders accompany the proclamation which takes place “in demonstration of the Spirit and power” (I Cor. 2:4; cf. I Thes. 1:5). . . . To the hearers of the preaching also the Holy Spirit mediates miraculous powers (Gal. 3:5). That is why alongside the gifts of proclamation the charisma of healing and the power to perform miracles belong to the living gifts of the Spirit in the church (I Cor. 12:18ff., 28; cf. Jas. 5:14f.).

Finally Hebrews also bears witness that God confirms the preaching of salvation, which proclaims the dawn of the age of salvation, by signs and wonders (2:3ff.), which, as “powers of the world to come” (6:5), foreshadow the completion of salvation. . . .

Preaching and miracles thus belong essentially together according to the New Testament. In both Jesus Christ proves himself to be the living Lord, present in his church in the Holy Spirit.²⁵

Evangelism with or without Use of Healing and Miraculous Gifts

Scholars like those quoted above and cited in the notes are unanimous that the New Testament’s concept of evangelism included healing ministry and ministry with all spiritual gifts (see also appendix 1: “Power Evangelism and the New Testament Evidence”). But this conclusion does not suggest, on the other hand, that “any form of evangelism not accompanied by miracles [is] not … true evangelism”²⁶ or that such evangelism is “substandard.”²⁷

As was mentioned above, the fact that Paul preached the gospel without any signs and wonders at the Areopagus in Athens (Acts 17:16-34) is enough to show that biblical evangelism is not substandard “when no genuine sign or wonder is performed.”²⁸ The obviously anointed ministry of such a great evangelist as Billy Graham is enough to show that evangelism unaccompanied by miraculous healing is not substandard. But even Graham affirms the use in the Church today of all spiritual gifts, including the miraculous gifts—healing, tongues, miraculous powers, etc.—because, according to him, they are biblical.²⁹

Tags: cross, introduction, power

Category: Pneuma Review, Spirit, Spring 2006