Acts: Signs, Wonders, and Miracles, Part 4

To be clear, I have not witnessed a sign or wonder or miracle like the Gospels and the Book of Acts records. I am simply pointing out that based on the words and events in these books signs, wonders, and miracles are still possible, for no other reason than Jesus remains risen and glorified and the Holy Spirit has not been recalled to the throne of God. God is positionally and relationally the same as we read in the New Testament.

That said, I am not sure that they are probable, for no other reason than we are not jealous for His glory. Instead, we are zealous for other names. We may not necessarily have to have one ourselves, but we delight in men who have them through TV, radio, and internet. With that low bar, we are content. We are satisfied with the pages of Scripture being historical—in other words, decent, orderly, and controlled by our assessment of it.

I think we might have a real problem with Jesus. He could not be contained and was moving in a direction markedly unfamiliar to those of his earthly days. His miracles were confrontational and directed at ossified religious thought and practice. Some found him compelling of course; others were alarmed—there was no mold he fitted in.

But the resurrection creates a problem for us. Through it, he is very much alive. And through the Holy Spirit, very, very present—at least in Acts if not now. But God is immutable; he hasn’t changed. Who then?

At once, we can see an adoption of the Deistic view. Jesus came and accomplished—set a new timepiece in fine working order and then left time and space so that we could stumble along until Luther and Calvin, Zwingli and Knox, or Locke and Rousseau, Hume and Bacon came along bring us to the Light

Except that is not what Jesus said he would do. He said he would send another just like him, and for that reason it was better that he go. We all would not be without a Person of the Godhead present.

Think of that for a moment: the very same Spirit who brooded over the deep in Genesis 1 is here—and brooding once more over a formless world. The difference? He speaks, Christ the Word—the light of the World.

We cannot see him or know him if we are worldly. Plain and simple. We have an eye for him or an eye for the riches and cares of this life. He may be present, but we are not present with him. And therefore we should never expect flames of fire over our heads, the rooms where we meet shaken, lame men walking, and the dead raised. He has remained the same, the Holy the Spirit (as it is in the Greek). We may have changed I fear.