Acts: Signs, Wonders, and Miracles, Part 3

To be clear, I am not advocating for signs, wonders, and miracles per se, and I would never advocate for signs, wonders, and miracles if they were divorced from the Presence of God. They are otherwise false in that case.

The point I am pressing is this: the Presence of God, and in particular, the Third Person of the Trinity, includes extraordinary events that often stretch our imagination and beggar belief. Take 1 Samuel 10. as example.

Then Samuel took a flask of olive oil and poured it on Saul’s head and kissed him, saying, “Has not the Lord anointed you ruler over his inheritance? When you leave me today, you will meet two men near Rachel’s tomb, at Zelzah on the border of Benjamin. They will say to you, ‘The donkeys you set out to look for have been found. And now your father has stopped thinking about them and is worried about you. He is asking, “What shall I do about my son?”’

Then you will go on from there until you reach the great tree of Tabor. Three men going up to worship God at Bethel will meet you there. One will be carrying three young goats, another three loaves of bread, and another a skin of wine. They will greet you and offer you two loaves of bread, which you will accept from them.

After that you will go to Gibeah of God, where there is a Philistine outpost. As you approach the town, you will meet a procession of prophets coming down from the high place with lyres, timbrels, pipes and harps being played before them, and they will be prophesying. The Spirit of the Lord will come powerfully upon you, and you will prophesy with them; and you will be changed into a different person. Once these signs are fulfilled, do whatever your hand finds to do, for God is with you.

. . . .

When all those who had formerly known him saw him prophesying with the prophets, they asked each other, “What is this that has happened to the son of Kish? Is Saul also among the prophets?”

A man who lived there answered, “And who is their father?” So it became a saying: “Is Saul also among the prophets?” (emphasis added). .

The Spirit of the Lord came upon Saul pre-Pentecost by one thousand years. The sign to Saul and to Israel that he had been annointed king over Israel was the Presence of God upon him evidenced by his prophesying just like the then-recognized prophets.

That said, the then-apparent Presence of God meant Saul was annointed as king, but it did not mean he was a king within, yet. The manifest Presence of God should have counseled Saul’s heart towards obedience. To borrow from Peter Parker’s uncle, “with great power, comes great responsibility.”

In addition to the annointing with oil and by the Spirit of the Lord, Samuel gave Saul instructions—one of which was:

Go down ahead of me to Gilgal. I will surely come down to you to sacrifice burnt offerings and fellowship offerings, but you must wait seven days until I come to you and tell you what you are to do.

But three chapters later we read:

Saul remained at Gilgal, and all the troops with him were quaking with fear. He waited seven days, the time set by Samuel; but Samuel did not come to Gilgal, and Saul’s men began to scatter.  So he said, “Bring me the burnt offering and the fellowship offerings.” And Saul offered up the burnt offering. Just as he finished making the offering, Samuel arrived, and Saul went out to greet him.

“What have you done?” asked Samuel.

. . . .

I felt compelled to offer the burnt offering.”

“You have done a foolish thing,” Samuel said. “You have not kept the command the Lord your God gave you; if you had, he would have established your kingdom over Israel for all time. But now your kingdom will not endure; the Lord has sought out a man after his own heart and appointed him ruler of his people, because you have not kept the Lord’s command.”

The Presence of God did not get to Saul where it mattered: his heart. The central issue was not whether Saul prophesied, but whether he was obedient to the Lord’s command. That the Spirit of the Lord was upon him should have encouraged Saul’s obedience to wait for Samuel as God has commanded.

And we see this principle repeated by Jesus to his disciples:

Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you workers of lawlessness!’ See Matthew 7:21-23.

And picked up by Paul in 1 Corinthians 13:

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a ringing gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have absolute faith so as to move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.

How do you demonstrate the heart Paul is talking about, or the heart God seeks (“a man after his own heart”) (See 1 Samuel 13:14)? Jesus focuses our attention: “if you love me, you will keep my commandments.” John 14:15.

I say all this to say: signs, wonders, and miracles are not statements about the recipient as much as a evidence of His Presence. That is an important and critical distinction that, I should I think, remove some of the confusion about the place of these things. Take the healing of the lame man at the Beautiful Gate—a remarkable sign as I have previously discussed (here and here). We are not told what happened to him.

But that great gift of healing bestowed upon the lame man would have proven to be of no value to him if he didn’t walk with God thereafter. That demand on his life to continue with God is substantively no different that the demand on the lives of the three thousand added to the church on the Day of Pentecost. (Acts 2:41).

Regardless, our character and maturity issues are not a substitute for His signs, wonders, and miracles—because of what they are. They are like the sounds of the Lord walking in the garden in the cool of the evening and they tell the lame man, and the dead woman, I will never leave you or forsake you; but I will send another just like me (it is better for you that I go). They are therefore a promise kept.

Signs, wonders, and miracles ask “Adam, where are you?” (Gen. 3:9) and “Who is it you are looking for?” (John 20:15). They are fruits of the resurrection—growing out of the resurrection—and like the resurrection are unique events of God the Father testifying to God the Son through God the Holy Spirit. Our lives must also testify; I do not deny that.

But we, who are adamant to have outgrown these things, may not even have the maturity or integrity of the infant church who considered these extraordinary events normal for believers and believing communities who were busy testifying to a man rising from the dead and that after a Roman crucifixion. Their word was mixed with power, which resembled if not repeated the Word mixed with power in Jesus’ life. Their word and deed could only resemble Jesus’ word and deed if Jesus had in fact been raised from the dead, and demonstrated with power to be the Son of God—since they had no power in themselves. Nor do we.

But they accepted that, in the Name of Jesus Christ, the same evidence that he was Messiah, Son of David, Son of Man, Son of God would be present and active with them because he promised it would be the same and more (and he keeps his promises):

Truly, truly, I tell you, whoever believes in Me will also do the works that I am doing. He will do even greater things than these

WHY?

because I am going to the Father, And I will do whatever you ask in My name

WHY?

so that Father may be glorified in the Son. See John 14:12=13.

So, we see Jesus lifted up in our hearts and minds where he is (i.e., with the Father) when the believers are doing the works Jesus did. And we see, through the repeat signs in Acts, the Son glorifying the Father. That’s truly incredible that their witness (which Jesus told them they would be in Acts 1:8) would include deeds testifying to the glory of God together with their words.

But they also accepted that, in the Name of Jesus Christ, the same evidence that he was Messiah, Son of David, Son of Man, Son of God would be present because he would be present. HOW would he be present?

And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Advocate to be with you forever— the Spirit of truth. The world cannot receive Him, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. But you do know Him, for He abides with you and will be in you.

I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. In a little while, the world will see Me no more, but you will see Me. Because I live, you also will live. On that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you are in Me, and I am in you. 

So, Jesus is present through the Holy Spirit—an advocate like Jesus, another of the same kind. Jesus promised the Holy Spirit would be with believers and in them. And further, after the resurrection, he would come to them and they would know union with God through Jesus: He is in the Father, and we are in Jesus, and he is in us.

All of that is to say, we should not be surprised to see the signs, wonders, and miracles of Jesus repeated and more through different believers in ever expanding geographic locations. If Jesus were honest and prophetic, then these extraordinary events would have to be present. If they were absent, Jesus would be a liar, and not who he claimed to be.

Well, if the repetition and expansion of Jesus’ signs, wonders, and miracles were absent in the book of Acts, there would be another possible explanation than Jesus was lying or in error:

(i) they did not ask in his Name (that is like not asking at all; it is his name that is paramount, not making one for themselves);

(ii) they were uninterested in glorifying God (in other words, they did not ask aright and they were seeking their own glory);

(iii) they could not see the Holy Spirit and did not know him (in other words, they were worldly and worldly-minded; they loved the world—therefore the love of the Father was not in them);

(iv) they were not in relationship with the Father (in other words, they were living like orphans); and

(v) they were not careful to guard their hearts with all diligence where he indicated he would dwell (in other words, their hearts had crowded him out).

Since the repetition and expansion of Jesus’ signs, wonders, and miracles are largely absent in the West, what are the possibilities? Jesus said, “whoever believes in me shall . . .” That’s a problem for us who claim to believe in him; we are thrust upon the horns of a dilemma if we contend to be believers in His Person, Resurrection, and Ascension. Either Jesus was being untruthful, did not know what he talking about, or we are not complete witnesses—witnesses by word perhaps, but not deed, not in any power that rose Jesus from the dead and evidences his person, ascension, and glorification.

Is this having “a form of godliness, but denying its power”? It is not for me to say, but it is for me to question the status quo if the chief end of man is to glorify God (which I believe it is) and if Jesus meant what he said when he said “greater works than these shall you do” to the end that God would be glorified in this way. The resurrection confirms his truthfulness—so he meant what he said. Wherein lies the problem?