Acts: Signs, Wonders, and Miracles, Part 1
Signs, wonders, and miracles. The Book of Acts is full of them. So much so that the Book of Acts would not be the Book of Acts without them. Apparently, there were so many that often all Luke could do was summarize these extraordinary events:
Acts 2:43 Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles.
Acts 5:12 The apostles performed many signs and wonders among the people.
Acts 5:16 Crowds gathered also from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing their sick and those tormented by impure spirits, and all of them were healed.
Acts 6:8 Now Stephen, a man full of God’s grace and power, performed great wonders and signs among the people.
Acts 8:6 When the crowds heard Philip and saw the signs he performed, they all paid close attention to what he said.
Acts 8:7 For with shrieks, impure spirits came out of many, and many who were paralyzed or lame were healed. So there was great joy in that city.
Acts 8:13 Simon himself believed and was baptized. And he followed Philip everywhere, astonished by the great signs and miracles he saw.
Acts 14:3 So Paul and Barnabas spent considerable time there, speaking boldly for the Lord, who confirmed the message of his grace by enabling them to perform signs and wonders.
Acts 15:12 The whole assembly became silent as they listened to Barnabas and Paul telling about the signs and wonders God had done among the Gentiles through them.
Acts 19:11 God did extraordinary miracles through Paul.
These signs, wonders, and miracles occurred regardless of place or person. To what end? Hebrews 2:3-4 tells us:
This salvation, which was first announced by the Lord, was confirmed to us by those who heard him. God also testified to it by signs, wonders, and various miracles, and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.
And Paul notes:
I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me in leading the Gentiles to obey God by what I have said and done— by the power of signs and wonders, through the power of the Spirit of God. So from Jerusalem all the way around to Illyricum, I have fully proclaimed the gospel of Christ.
Similarly, John says:
We accept human testimony, but God’s testimony is greater because it is the testimony of God, which he has given about his Son.
Simply put, the signs, miracles, and wonders point to Christ, and it is important to understand in what ways these events point to Jesus. As we know from the Gospels, these signs and wonders and miracles were evident during Jesus’ earthly ministry—and if the Jewish leaders had been honest, they would have immediately come directly to the point of Isaiah 61:1:
The Spirit of the Lord GOD is on Me, because the LORD has anointed Me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent Me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and release from darkness to the prisoners,
Jesus was connected to them through the prophet Isaiah—that is, looking backwards to Isaiah while realizing Isaiah was looking forward; a meeting together of both past and present operative in one person. The works of signs, miracles, and wonders Jesus performed, as the union of past and present, were more than suggestive that here was God. A stumbling block for them was God manifest Himself in what they perceived to be a man. Witness Nicodemus in John 3: ““Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.” Right? From God, but not God. Even the sagest amongst them could not bridge that gap.
How did God bridge that gap? Two ways. The resurrection of Jesus Christ, and the continuity of signs, miracles, and wonders after his ascension. By the resurrection, we learn “regarding His Son, who was a descendant of David according to the flesh, and who through the Spirit of holiness was declared with power to be the Son of God by His resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord.” The resurrection corrected the misunderstanding that Jesus was merely from God and established that he was God, author of life, together with the Father, and the Holy Spirit.
What of these continuing signs, miracles, and wonders by Peter and John, the apostles, Philip, Stephen, Paul, and Barnabas? These events in Acts lock arms, and stand shoulder to shoulder with, the resurrection in declaring that Jesus Christ is in fact the Son of God, and more particularly that Jesus is not only alive, for evermore, but present . . . still. He hasn’t gone anywhere. As if to say, over and over again in Jerusalem, Judah, Samaria and to the ends of the then-know world, I am . . . I am . . . I am.
When Jesus said “I am” in the Garden of Gethsemane, men fell back and were cast down to the ground (“When Jesus said, “I am he,” they drew back and fell to the ground. John 18:6). Now, the resurrection resounds “I am.” So too every healing of every Aeneas and Tabitha resounds, “I am.” What was man’s rejection in the Garden (Hello? Are you paying attention? There is a parallel here hearkening back to the Garden in Genesis; but I leave that to you) has become after the shedding of blood for the remission of sins God’s acceptance of man through Jesus Christ—so great a salvation, first announced by the Lord, confirmed to us by those who heard him. and God also testified to it by signs, wonders, and various miracles, and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will. (Hebrews 2:3-4).
The signs, wonders, and miracles in Acts cannot be divorced from the resurrection as evidence to the Person of the Lord; they agree in witness to the truth of Jesus Christ.
In addition to affirming Christ, these extraordinary events speak to the ordinary events of our lives now that Jesus has risen from the dead, now that he is seated at the right hand of God as the Father is making his enemies a footstool for his feet; and in light of his imminent return to claim what is his by right.
Let’s deal with that in the next post.
