The Purpose of Signs and Wonders in the New Testament: What Terms for Miraculous Power Denote and Their Relationship to the Gospel, Part 2, by Gary S. Greig

IVd. Cheapening or Illustrating the Gospel?

Despite such evidence, the charge has been leveled by some that miraculous healing somehow “cheapens the gospel.” Boice, for example, says the following:

Again, the signs and wonders movement shifts from the sublime to the ridiculous. It cheapens and overshadows the gospel. It cheapens it because it reduces its promises to shrinking goiters, straightening backs, and lengthening legs… Those alleged wonders are next to nothing in comparison to the message of God’s redeeming work in Jesus Christ or the true miracle of the new birth.⁸⁷

One can agree that the greatest miracle of all is new birth through faith in Christ, because Jesus himself explicitly taught this to his disciples in Lk. 10:20. But one must ask if simply expecting signs and wonders of healing and deliverance to accompany the proclamation of the gospel, according to the New Testament’s consistent model, “cheapens” the gospel?

Was Jesus cheapening God’s redeeming work to forgive sin when he healed the paralytic, certainly straightening his back, lengthening and strengthening his legs, by saying, “‘So that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins…’ Then he said to the paralytic, ‘Get up, take your mat and go home.’“ (Mat. 9:6)? Of course not. He was illustrating God’s forgiveness through miraculous healing.

Signs and wonders do not cheapen the gospel. They illustrate it. How else could the one word dunamis be used to denote God’s power to save sinners in such passages as Rom. 1:16—“I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes”—and simultaneously be used to denote “miracles” throughout the entire New Testament?⁸⁸ How else could the one word sōzō denote both salvation from sin and healing of illness in the New Testament, unless healing was a symbol of God’s power to save sinners?⁸⁹

 

V. Signs and Wonders Versus “The Sign from Heaven”

Some evangelicals also suggest that expecting or asking God for signs and wonders to accompany and confirm the preaching of the gospel and the Word of God is wicked and against God’s will. Carson, for example, makes the following case:

The four gospels preserve many instances where people demanded a sign from Jesus, and he roundly denounced them for it, sometimes dismissing them as ‘a wicked and adulterous generation’ (Matthew 12:38-45; cf. 16:1-4; Mk. 8:11-12; Lk. 11:16, 29). One can understand why: the frequent demands for signs was [sic] in danger of reducing Jesus to the level of clever magician… Such a demand is wicked and adulterous: it makes human beings the center of the universe and reduces God to the level of someone who exists to serve us.⁹⁰

Such statements make it sound as if any expectation, desire, or request for signs and wonders or miraculous healing is wicked. But was the Early Church wicked and adulterous for seeking signs and wonders in Acts 4:29-30?

Acts 4:29-30—“Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. Stretch out your hand to heal and perform miraculous signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus.”

God did not seem to consider such requests for signs and wonders to be wicked, since He obviously granted them to the Early Church (e.g., Acts 5:12-16; 6:8; 8:5-6, 26-40; 9:17-18; etc.). Was Paul wicked for expecting to proclaim the gospel “in the power of signs and wonders” (Rom. 15:18-19; II Cor. 12:12)? Or was he sinful for expecting God to continue to work miracles among the Galatians (Gal. 3:5) and for telling the Corinthians to seek the gift of prophecy which he said is a “sign” for believers (I Cor. 14:1, 22⁹¹)?

Similarly one might ask the same about John. Was John misguided in calling all of Jesus’ works of miraculous healing “signs” (sēmeia; Jn. 4:54; 6:2; 9:16: 12:17-18)⁹²? Or was John misguided for recording Jesus’ words suggesting that these ”signs” of miraculous healing function to encourage faith and repentance: “Even though you do not believe me, believe the miraculous works (tois ergois⁹³), that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father” (Jn. 10:38); “At least believe on the evidence of the miraculous works themselves (dia ta erga auta)” (Jn. 14:11)? Compare Mark 2:10:

Mark 2:10—“‘But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins…’ He said to the paralytic, ‘I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.’”

Was Jesus misguided in His condemnation of Korazin and Bethsaida’s lack of repentance and faith for suggesting that His miraculous works should have produced repentance (Mat. 11:21; and Lk. 10:13)? Was Peter unbelieving and wicked when he claimed that God gave testimony to Jesus by signs and wonders (Acts 2:22)? Were the apostles or laymen like Stephen, Philip, and Ananias sinful and adulterous for working signs and wonders of healing and deliverance (Acts 5:12; 6:8; 8:5-7, 13; 9:17-18; 14:3; 15:12; passim)? Or was Luke sinful for describing the miraculous healings of the Early Church as “signs and wonders” in the Book of Acts?

Tags: denote, gary, gospel, greig, miraculous, part, power, purpose, relationship, signs, terms, testament, wonders

Category: Biblical Studies, Spring 2007