A lady who attends a 'Word of Faith' or,
'Positive Confession' church asked her pastor about the undue
emphasis on miracles which they taught.
She said, "The pastor's wife got back to me and said, "Christ
proved miracles and healing before he offered salvation." She
also told me that I was , "....Debating the scriptures, which
wasn't unifying in the body of believers."
Your Pastor's wife said, "Christ proved miracles
and healing before he offered salvation." Actually I find that a
very misleading statement .
First of all, it was within God's plan from eternity that
salvation would be offered by the Son of God. Just read
Revelation 13:8 where Christ is described as the 'Lamb slain from
the foundation of the world'.
Secondly, Jesus performed spectacular signs and wonders in order
to show just who He was! He healed sicknesses in order to show
that He had the power to forgive sin. He healed sicknesses in
order to prove to the masses who He was! If the ministry of Jesus
and the Apostles had not been surrounded by signs and wonders
nobody would ever have heard of Jesus! We must remember that
there were no means of mass communication in His day. God
intended that the world should learn about Jesus very quickly as
a witness that the Christ had indeed come, therefore He
surrounded the ministry of Jesus - and later the Apostles - with
great notoriety and great wonders! Jesus did not need to "prove"
miracles, but when the time was right for His ministry to start
He did indeed use miracles, not in order to "prove" miracles or
to "prove" healing but to indicate that the promised Messiah had
come and that He had the power to forgive sin. Notice Mark
2:9-11, 17. These verses showed why Jesus performed
healings!
Jesus was very soon surrounded by great crowds (Mark 3:7-10), but
these folk were mostly only interested in Jesus as a miracle
worker; yet it is obvious that few of these people joined the
very first Christians, because Jesus separated Himself from the
masses in order to give spiritual teaching to the original
Apostles (Mark 3:13-14).
He then gave the original Apostles and the original 70 special
power to heal the sick and to cast out demons. Notice Mark
3:13-14, Matthew 10:1, Luke 10:1,17-20, Acts 5:12-16, Acts
19:11-12 & 2 Corinthians 12:12. The original Apostles were
granted special powers. The 'church fathers' who lived 100-400AD
spoke of a great 'Age of Miracles' which they had witnessed but
which was then passing. Why? Because the Apostles and the
original 70 were leaving the scene. Of course, God still
occasionally grants miracles, especially of healing, but it is in
His hands. All we can do is petition Him to heal, but there is no
promise of blanket healing today. We just have to accept this.
The very shadow of the Apostle Peter passing over the sick was
enough to heal people of any sickness in Jesus' day - that does
not happen now and we just have to accept it. But don't forget
that even in the age of the Apostles Paul & Timothy were not
healed of their health problems because God simply did not will
it. God alone decides these things.
But we should not conclude that God never heals the sick today -
indeed, I myself have personally witnessed several dramatic
healings after prayers have been offered for the sick. Where the
'positive confession' people are wrong is in assuming that they
should adopt a dictatorial and demanding approach when
petitioning God for healing and in falsely believing that their
own words have some sort of magical power. This is completely
unsciptural, in fact the teaching appears to be derived from the
occult; from there it went into New Age and from New Age into the
Word-faith movement!
Hope this helps.
Museltof, 2004.