I don’t know about you, but I hate it when I see people get into doctrinal error. It saddens me to see people get deceived and frustrates me when deceived people teach their errors to others. This causes many to live in deception. Jesus felt the same way during His ministry, which is why He turned over the moneychangers tables in John 2.
The story about Jesus in John 2 reveals frustration with doctrinal error is a good thing as long as we process our frustrations in a godly way. Unfortunately, many people haven’t properly processed their frustrations with doctrinal error over the years, which has led them into even greater error. This is what happened with many of the reformers in the 1600’s. Their overreaction to error led them into the error that God no longer does miracles. I’m going to address this topic in this article, which is part of my series called “Are Miracles For Today.” If you missed the first two articles, you can read them here.
When we study church history, we’ll find that many of the church fathers and the Catholic Church believed God continued to do miracles from the time of the apostles through the reformation. A major shift happened during the reformation because of the Catholic church’s response to the reformers. One of the ways the Catholic Church attempted to refute Martin Luther’s 95 theses was by saying, “We see miracles when we pray. These miracles accredit our doctrine.”
The reformers knew from scripture that the Catholic Church taught a lot of error including a works based theology and the selling of indulgences. They did not have a response, however, for the miracles the Catholic Church proclaimed because many Catholic leaders saw miracles when they prayed for people. The reformers acknowledged this. Since they could not deny the miracles, many of the reformers said, “These must be counterfeit miracles.” Eventually, some of the reformers took things a step further and said, “All miracles ceased the day the last apostle died and any miracle that happens today is a counterfeit.”
The reformers did not base their theology about miracles from scripture. They did not have any scripture that supported their position. Their theology was a reaction to error, which led to a different kind of error. The lesson we need to learn is when we react to error instead of respond to the Father we will end up in error.
The proper response to the Catholic church’s claims to miracles verifying their doctrine should have been, “Praise God for the miracles, but they don’t accredit your doctrine. Your doctrine is wrong based on scripture. The miracles God is doing through your hands verify He is a loving Father, which we think the world would see more clearly if you would reform your doctrine to be in line with the Bible.”
While the reformation was amazing, unfortunately, it helped strengthen the cessationist movement that taught miracles ceased the day the last apostle died. This became a dominant position in many Protestant churches from the 1600’s through the 20th century. This only began to change with the Azusa Street Revival in 1906 and the charismatic renewal in many mainline denominations in the 1960s. While the cessationist movement isn’t as strong today as it once was, many people still subscribe to its doctrine and practices.
I make the distinction between doctrine and practice because even though many Christians have shifted their doctrine about miracles to line up with the Bible, they haven’t shifted their practices to consistently align with the Bible. This is why many don’t pray for the sick even when they have a theology of healing and even those who do, don’t really expect to see results. Unfortunately, the church has marinated in unbelief so long, it’s going to take time for those who have proper doctrine to saturate in faith and practice about the miracles so they become normative again.
I do have good news, however, there are pockets of faith in the world where miracles are a normal part of every day life. If miracles aren’t a normal part of your everyday life, I’d encourage you to find a place where miracles are normative so you can saturate in the presence of God and marinate in faith. For some of you who are riddled with unbelief, this may me mean you need to move to a place like Woodland Park, Colorado where Charis Bible College is. Others of you don’t need to go to that extreme, but you may need to leave your current church that doesn’t believe miracles should be normative and find one that teaches the full gospel with the demonstration of power.
I’m not telling you what to do, I’m just telling you to do whatever you need to do to get into an atmosphere of faith so the miraculous is a part of your everyday existence! That really is what Jesus wants for you. Look at His words in John 14:12:
12 “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father.
These words almost seem too good to be true, but the gospel is the almost too good to be true news! It’s too good to not believe, which is why we need to go after all of it! I hope this article has both encouraged and challenged you. If you’d like to learn more, check out this message I taught at Grace Life Church.
