“Amazing Acts”

Tuesday, October 21, 2014

The five miracles that the Scripture speaks of are: multiplying of the fish, turning water into wine, walking on water, raising the dead, and healing the sick.  Now, if a person could preform one of these miracles, should they be able to do all of them?  I know they can’t today… but in the first century.  What were miracles for, and when did they stop?  Thanks for the answers.

Sincerely,
Stumped By Supernatural

Dear Stumped By Supernatural,

The Scriptures also talk about the miraculous ability to speak in different languages (Acts 2:4-6), prophetic wisdom and supernatural recall of events (Jhn 14:26), and a host of other things.  Not everyone could perform every type of miracle.  In fact, Paul specifically said that in the first century church, different people had different miraculous abilities (1 Cor 12:28-30).  The gifts of the Holy Spirit were given to the apostles (Acts 2:1-4), and the apostles were able to pass on these gifts to others by laying their hands on them (Acts 8:18).  The apostles were the only ones with the ability to pass on the gifts.  Therefore, when the last person that the last living apostle laid hands on died… the gifts ceased to exist.  God intended for this to happen.

Miracles were needed to prove that Jesus and His apostles were sent from God (Acts 14:3, Acts 2:22, Jhn 9:16).  Miracles were used as a proof that what the disciples said was truly God’s Word (Acts 8:6).  Now that we have the perfect and complete Bible, we no longer need those miracles – which was Paul’s point in 1 Corinthians.  When the “perfect” of 1 Cor 13:8-10 happened, the church no longer needed miracles to further the message of Christ.  After the Bible was completed, the church was able to fully see God’s message of salvation (1 Cor 13:12) without further need of prophecies and miracles.

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