This was originally an essay I wrote for a bible college paper, first published on 1 September 2002.

Christianity is a religion founded upon miracles. The gospel story begins with a supernatural conception and finishes with the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. One might think that this would be cause enough to expect the miraculous to occur in the church today, but even among born-again Christians, there are many who do not believe in miracles today. Some believe the miracles in the gospels, but take the view that miracles have ceased to occur today, whereas others may pay only lip service to the idea of God intervening miraculously, even in the Bible. It is fairly easy to see how many Christians have got into this position. The miraculous element of Christianity has been under attack for centuries: the historical accuracy of the gospel stories, and the philosophical possibility of miracles, are only two areas where attacks have been carried out. In addition, particularly in the Western, materialistic society that many Christians live in, it is easy to give in to the demands of a secular society, and limit the activities of God to purely within the spiritual domain.

Rudolf Bultmann (1884-1976) is one scholar of last century who argued for the demythologisation of the New Testament. He claims that no one who uses the radio or electric lights should be expected to believe in the mythological worldview of the Bible in order to become a Christian. He insists that he is not trying to make Christianity more palatable to modern man, but is trying merely to remove a false stumbling block so that the true stumbling block – the call to authentic existence symbolised by the cross – might become evident[1]. More recently, Bishop John Shelby Spong has claimed that the gospels are a form of Christian midrash[2], and so this mythical wrapper must be removed so that true gospel message may be seen[3].

Although both Bultmann and Spong hold positions well outside those held by evangelical Christians, they nevertheless proclaim views that are widely accepted by the secular world – namely that the miraculous is impossible, and so must be removed from any understanding of Christianity today. They assume that the Jews who lived in the first century firmly believed in the miraculous and so that the miracles recorded in the gospels are just part of their way of thinking. Modern science, they say, has contradicted these views, and so we need to drop them[4].

C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) also points out that a mythological view of the gospels cannot explain all the recorded miracles in any case. Taking for example, the virgin birth, and the resurrection: when Joseph heard that Mary was pregnant, he response was not just accept a miraculous conception automatically, but to break off the marriage. He knew as well as we do that a woman does not just get pregnant on her own. He recognised the conception by the Holy Spirit as a miracle precisely because he understood enough biology to know that this was a suspension of the Laws of Nature[5]. In the same way, the people of the first century knew as well as we do that people do not die and then come back to life three days later.

In the eighteenth century, the skeptic David Hume (1711-1776) argued persuasively against miracles. Hume argued that even if the evidence for a particular miracle amounted to a “full proof”, a wise person would not believe it, because opposed to this proof is the universal experience of the unchangeable laws of nature, which say that the event in question is not a miracle. Craig shows in Reasonable Faith, that this is simply question-begging[6]. For Hume to say that universal experience is against miracles is to implicitly assume that already that no miracles have occurred (and hence universal experience is opposed to them). Even if we relax Hume’s definition to mean merely “general experience”, then his argument is still wrong. That dead men do not rise is a generally observed pattern in our experience, but the most that it can prove is that resurrection is naturally impossible. However, this is not something that the Christian is disagreeing with when arguing for the resurrection of Jesus. It is not a logical contradiction to believe both that people do not naturally rise from the dead, and that God raised Jesus from the dead. One cannot counterbalance the evidence for a particular miracle with evidence for the regularity of nature in general. The opposite to the belief that God raised Jesus from the dead is that Jesus remained dead, not that other people remained dead[7][8].

Leaving aside these historical and philosophical objections, let us turn to the question of whether Christians should expect miracles to occur today by considering the gospel accounts of the miracle stories, and the teaching of Jesus and the apostles. The Bible divides history into two periods: this age, and the age to come. The kingdom of God was inaugurated by Jesus during his earthly ministry, but has still not yet fully come. We see this tension in gospels, where at times Jesus claims that the kingdom of God is among us now (Mt 12:28, Lk 17:22), but at the same time the kingdom is still to come (Mt 25:34, 1 Co 6:9-10). If the kingdom of God is present in part, then this would seem to imply that we should see parts of it breaking into this age. We witness this in the gospels with the power of the Spirit in action, and the fact that the kingdom is still present implies that this power is still present. Today, we should still expect the power of the age to come to breaking into this age. Limiting the power of present kingdom to “spiritual things” (such as conversion, justification, and sanctification) seems to be an arbitrary limit of God’s power and guilty of the age old saying of “putting God in a box”. As Wenham says, we allow the secular outlook to push God out of the physical world into a purely spiritual sphere[9]. However, the present nature of the kingdom should lead us to expect continued action from God as the power of the kingdom overflows into this age.

However, an argument can be made for the special circumstances surrounding the ministry of Jesus. The life of Jesus and the establishment of the early church are unique events in salvation history, and so we would expect special acts of God at these times. Although this argument does not seem to justify a cessationalist point of view[10][11], it can be seen that the some of the events in the Gospels and Acts are unique events by nature. For example, Pentecost marked the transition from the Old Covenant to the New Covenant, when the Holy Spirit was poured out on all believers[12]. This, by its very nature, is a one off event, and so special allowances can be made for some of amazing miracles in the life of the early church. Marshall points out that there seems to be more emphasis on demonic confrontation before the cross than afterwards, which should immediately warn us about assuming that the miraculous (or exorcism in this case) should be as significant part of our ministries as it was of Jesus’ ministry[13].

So, the correct approach seems to be somewhere in the middle. We should expect miracles to happen because the kingdom of God is present among us now, but also need to recognise the special circumstances of the ministry of Jesus and the early church. We must take a view that encourages an active faith, but does not fall into presumption. As Shogren points out when discussing the pastoral implications of the healing ministry, we should neither rule out nor demand instantaneous healing. The same applies to other miracles[14]. It is easy to take a view that goes too far either way – either not really expecting God to act, or demanding that he act, and consequently being really disappointed when he does not seem to. We can understand part of God’s will through his word, but not all of it. God may have very good reasons for not healing – he did not heal Paul of his thorn in the flesh so that Paul did not get conceited. God did not heal Joni Eareckson from a diving accident that left her a quadriplegic, but years later she is able to look back and see what God has been able to do through her because of her disability[15]. God may not always heal us instantly, or grant us miracles, but he is still sovereign. Our faith should like that of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, just before they were thrown into the fiery furnace: “If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue us from your hand, O king. But even if he does not, we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up” (Dan 3:17-18).

[1] James F. Kay, Rudolf Bultmann in The Oxford Companion to Christian Thought, Oxford University Press, 2000, edited by Adrian Hastings, Alistair Mason, and Hugh Pyper, pp 83-84.

[2] Spong explains his use of the term ‘midrash’ in his book Born of a Woman (Harper Collins, 1992), pp 18-20:

The Gospels, far more than we have thought before, are examples of Christian midrash. In the Gospels, the ancient Jewish story would be reshaped, retold, interpreted, and even changed so as to throw proper light on the person of Jesus. There was nothing objective about the Gospel tradition. They were not biographies. They were designed to inspire faith.

To force these narratives into the straightjacket of literal historicity is to violate their intention, their method, and their truth. To see them as expressions of the genre called midrash with a Christian twist is to enter Scripture in a new and perhaps life-giving way.

[3] David H. Lane in Redefining God In Man’s Image III (published in Apologia Vol 7, edited by David Lane, pp 41-50), shows that Spong’s allegations of midrash in the gospels cannot be justified. He quotes New Testament scholar N.T. Wright who makes the following points:

1. Proper midrash consists of a commentary on an actual biblical text, not just a fanciful retelling of it.


2. Real midrash is tightly controlled and argued (unlike Spong’s claim that the imagination is freed to roam and speculate).


3. Midrash never included the invention of stories to evoke awe and wonder, or to invent all kinds of new episodes about recent history in order to advance the claim that the Scriptures had been fulfilled.

[4] Bultmann believed Scripture to be founded on a three-story universe, with the earth in the center, heaven above with God and angels, and the underworld beneath. The world “is the scene of the supernatural activity of God and his angels on the one hand, and of Satan and his demons on the other. These supernatural forces intervene in the course of nature and in all that we think and will and do”. He claims that the New Testament documents need to be stripped of this mythological structure, and that “the real purpose of myth is not to present an objective picture of the world as it is, but to express man’s understanding of himself in the world in which he lives”. He concludes that “obviously [the resurrection] is not an event of past history… An historical fact which involves a resurrection from the dead is utterly inconceivable”. He gives his reasons as:

1. “the incredibility of a mythical event like the resuscitation of a corpse”.


2. “there is the difficulty of establishing the objective historicity of the resurrection no matter how many witnesses are cited”.


3. “the resurrection is an articule of faith which, as such, cannot be a miraculous proof”.


4. “such a miracle is not otherwise unknown to mythology”.

However, as Geisler points out, Bultmann wrongly assumes that any event in this world must be of this world. He claims that because of their “mythological nature”, these miracles could not have occurred in space-time history, but by doing this he is merely revealing an unjustified and anti-intellectual naturalistic bias. Geisler concludes that Bultmann’s view is unjustified because it is: contrary to the overwhelming evidence for the authenticity of the New Testament documents and reliability of the witnesses; contrary to the New Testament claim that the miracles were real events in space-time; and finally that the New Testament is not the literary genre of mythology.

Norman L. Geisler, Entry for “Miracles, Myth and” in Baker Encyclopaedia of Christian Apologetics, Baker Books, 2000, pp 478-480.

[5] C.S. Lewis, Miracles as published in The Collected Works of C.S. Lewis, Inspirational Press, 1996, 313-321.

[6] William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith, Moody Press, 1994, pp 130-132, 134-140, 150-155.

[7] Geisler points out that taking Hume’s views through to their logical conclusion would prevent us from learning anything new, because it could never overcome past experience. No new scientific discoveries could be made. He mockingly points out that the odds of being dealt a perfect bridge hand (which has happened) are 1,635,013,559,600 to 1, but according to Hume, if you get it, you better fold your hand and ask for a redeal because you should not believer that such an outrageous thing could happen.

Norman Geisler, When Skeptics Ask, Baker Books, 2001, pp 79-80.

[8] Benedict de Spinoza (1632–1677) was another philosopher who argued strongly against miracles. His argument could be summarised as:

1. Miracles are violations of natural laws.


2. Natural laws are immutable.


3. It is impossible for immutable for immutable laws to be violated.


4. Therefore, miracles are not possible.

Both Craig and Geisler rightly point out that Spinoza is guilty of begging the question here. He has assumed that natural laws cannot be broken but offers no evidence for this, and he further assumes that there is nothing beyond nature that could act in nature. The bottom line is that if God exists, miracles are possible. Of course, Spinoza comes from a pantheistic worldview, and so his assumptions come from that outlook.

Ibid., pp 76-78.

William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith, Moody Press, 1994, pp 128-130, 132-134, 140-150.

[9] D Wenham, Miracles Then and Now, Themelios 12/1 (1986), pp 1-4.

[10] When writing to several churches in the region of Galatia, Paul assumes that miracles are occurring when he says: “Does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you because you observe the law, or because you believe what you heard?” He also mentions in the church at Corinth “workers of miracles” (1 Co 12:28), and he names “the working of miracles” (1 Co 12:10) as a gift of the Holy Spirit. Gruden points out that these last two verses are especially significant because 1 Corinthians 12:4-31 is not discussing a specific situation at Corinth but the nature of the church in general as the body of Christ.

Wayne Gruden, Systematic Theology, Inter-Varsity Press, 1994, pp 358-359.

[11] Cessationalists often cite 1 Co 13:8ff as evidence for the ceasing of spiritual gifts, and argue that miracles ceased with the closing of the Canon (“when the complete comes”). However, this seems to me to be an unnatural reading of the text. The NIV renders the phrase as “when the perfect comes”. Regardless, Paul seems here to be contrasting the present age with the future kingdom (not the present nature of the kingdom), and so we should not expect these spiritual gifts (or miracles) to cease until the consumption of the kingdom.

[12] When discussing baptism in the Holy Spirit, Gruden points out that the events of Pentecost were one off, as Pentecost marked the transition from the Old Covenant to the New Covenant. Before Pentecost, the Holy Spirit had not given out to all believers, and so consequently the disciples had not yet been baptised in the Spirit, even though they were already Christians. Gruden emphasises that this is not a pattern for us to follow because we do not live during the transition period. The same can be applied to some of the miracles that occurred at Pentecost. Although we should not write off any chance of them occurring today, we must remember that the circumstances were unique, and will not be repeated.

Ibid., pp 763-787.

[13] Chris Marshall, Ghostbusters – Then and Now, Reaper 74/5 (Oct-Nov 1992), pp 14-16.

[14] G.S. Shogren, Will God Heal Us – A Re-examination of James 5:14-16a, EQ 61/2 (1989), pp 99-108.

[15] Philip Yancey, Where is God when it hurts?, Zondervan Publishing House, 1997, pp 127-138.

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