Many people today have a very provincial view of history and of human experience. “If I personally don’t see certain events happening today,”they think, “they probably never happened.” The implication for miracles is obvious. Namely, “If there are no public, biblical-quality miracles happening today (and if they were, they’d be on the Fox News Channel),then why should I think they happened in the past?” It’s a fair question.
However, there’s a common misconception behind this question. It’s the belief that the Bible is filled with miracles that occur continually throughout biblical history. That’s only partially true. It is true that the
Bible is filled with miracles, about 250 occasions of them.
But most of those miracles occur in very small windows of history, during three distinct time periods—during the lifetimes of Moses, Elijah and Elisha, and Jesus and the apostles. Why then? Because those were the times when God was confirming new truth (revelation) and new messengers with that truth.
If most of the miracles are bunched there, what’s happening miraculously during the other periods the Bible covers? Nothing. In fact, there are huge gaps of time in the Bible (even hundreds of years) where there
are no recorded miracles from God. Why? Because there was no new word from God, and most miracles confirmed some new word from God.
So why don’t we see biblical miracles today? Because if the Bible is true and complete, God is not confirming any new revelation and thus does not have this main purpose for performing miracles today. There is no new word from God that needs to be confirmed by God.Now don’t misunderstand us here. We are not saying that God cannot do miracles today, or that he never does.
As the sovereign Creator and sustainer of the universe, he can do a miracle anytime he wants. It’s just that he may not have a reason to publicly display his power the way he did during biblical times because all of the truths he wanted to reveal have already been revealed and confirmed. As with a house, the foundation only needs to be laid once. Biblical miracles were special acts of God that laid the foundation for his permanent revelation to mankind.
Jesus performed countless miracles, yet the vast majority of people did not believe in Him. If God performed miracles today as He did in the past, the result would be the same. People would be amazed and would believe in God for a short time. That faith would be shallow and would disappear the moment something unexpected or frightening occurred. A faith based on miracles is not a mature faith.
God performed the greatest “God miracle” of all time in coming to earth as the Man Jesus Christ to die on the cross for our sins (Romans 5:8) so that we could be saved (John 3:16). God does still perform miracles—many of them simply go unnoticed or are denied. However, we do not need more miracles. What we need is to believe in the miracle of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.
Speaking of the gospel, Hebrews 2:4 proclaims, “God also testified to it by signs, wonders and various miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to His will.” We now have the truth of Jesus recorded in Scripture. We now have the writings of the apostles recorded in Scripture. Jesus and His apostles, as recorded in Scripture, are the cornerstone and foundation of our faith (Ephesians 2:20). In this sense, miracles are no longer necessary, as the message of Jesus and His apostles has already been attested to and accurately recorded in the Scriptures. Yes, God still performs miracles. At the same time, we should not necessarily expect miracles to occur today just as they did in Bible times.
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