Stott on Signs/Wonders in Acts

Perhaps the three most notable features of Luke's narrative
in Acts 3 and 4 are (i) the spectacular healing miracle and prayer
for more, (ii) the Christ-centred preaching of Peter, and (iii)
the outbreak of persecution. Because Peter's testimony to Christ
has already been considered in some detail during the exposition,
and because we will revert in the next chapter to the subject of
persecution, we will concentrate now on the other topic of
miracles.
The current controversy over signs and wonders should not
lead us into a naive polarization between those who are for them
and those who are against. Instead, the place to begin is the wide
area of agreement which exists among us. All biblical Christians
believe that, although the creator's faithfulness is revealed in
the uniformity and regularities of the universe, which are the
indispensable bases of the scientific enterprise, he has also
sometimes deviated from the norms of nature into abnormal
phenomena we call `miracles'. But to think of them as `deviations
of nature' is not to dismiss them (as did the eighteenth century
deists), as `violations of nature' which cannot happen, and
therefore did not and do not happen. No, our biblical doctrine of
the creation, that God has made everything out of an original
nothing, precludes this kind of scepticism. As Campbell Morgan put
it, `granted the truth of the first verse of the Bible, and there
is no difficulty with the miracles'. Moreover, since we believe
that the miracles recorded in the Bible, and not least in Acts,
did happen, there is no *a priori* ground for asserting that they
cannot recur today. We have no liberty to dictate to God what he
is permitted to do and not to do. And if we have hesitations about
some claims to `signs and wonders' today, we must make sure that
we have not confined both God and ourselves in the prison of
Western, rationalistic unbelief.
The popular exponent of `signs and wonders' teaching today
is John Wimber of the Vineyard Fellowship in California. He and
Kevin Springer have summarised his position in *Power evangelism*
(1985) and *Power healing* (1986). Although it is impossible to do
justice to it in a few sentences, its leading ideas are (i) that
Jesus inaugurated the kingdom of God, demonstrated its arrival by
signs and wonders, and means us similarly both to proclaim and to
dramatize its advance; (ii) that signs and wonders were `everyday
occurrences in New Testament times' and `a part of daily life', so
they should characterize `the normal Christian life' for us too;
and (iii) that church growth in the Acts was largely due to the
prevalence of miracles. `Signs and wonders occurred fourteen times
in the book of Acts in conjunction with preaching, resulting in
church growth. Further, on twenty occasions church growth was a
direct result of signs and wonders performed by the disciples.
John Wimber argues his case with sincerity and force. But
some unanswered questions remain. Let me ask three, especially in
relation to our study of the Acts. First, is it certain that signs
and wonders are the main secret of church growth? John Wimber
supplies a table of fourteen instances in the Acts in which he
claims, signs and wonders accompanied the preaching and `produced
evangelistic growth in the church'. One or two cases are
indisputable, as when the Samaritan crowds `heard Philip and saw
miraculous signs he did' and so `paid close attention to what he
said' (8:6,12). In a number of other cases, however, the
connection between miracles and church growth is made by John
Wimber not by Luke. For example, to take the only two cases he
gives from the chapters we have so far considered, there is no
evidence from the text that the Pentecostal phenomena of wind,
fire and languages (2:1-4) were the direct cause of the three
thousand converts of verse 41, nor that the healing of the
congenital cripple (3:1ff.) was the direct cause of the increase
to five thousand (4:4), as John Wimber's Table claims. Luke seems
rather to attribute the growth to the power of Peter's preaching.
In this sense all true evangelism is `power evangelism', for
conversion and new birth, and so church growth, can take place
only by the power of God through his Word and Spirit. (eg. 1 Cor.
2:1-5; 1 Thess. 1:5)
Secondly, is it certain that signs and wonders are meant by
God to be `everyday occurrences' and `the normal Christian life'?
I think not. Not only are miracles by definition `abnorms' rather
than norms, but the Acts does not provide evidence that they were
widespread. Luke's emphasis is that they were performed mostly by
the Apostles (2:43; 5:12), and especially by the apostles Peter
and Paul on whom he focuses our attention. True, Stephen and
Philip also did signs and wonders, and perhaps others did. But it
can be argued that Stephen and Philip were special people, not so
much because the apostles had laid hands on them (6:5-6) as
because each was given a unique role in laying the foundation of
the church's world-wide mission (see 7:1ff. and 8:5ff.). Certainly
the thrust of the Bible is that miracles clustered round the
principal organs of revelation at fresh epochs of revelation,
particularly Moses the lawgiver, the new prophetic witness
spearheaded by Elijah and Elisha, the Messianic ministry of Jesus,
and the apostles, so that Paul referred to his miracles as `the
things that mark an apostle' (2 Cor, 12:12). There may well be
situations in which miracles are appropriate today, for example,
on the frontiers of mission and in an atmosphere of persuasive
unbelief which calls for a power encounter between Christ and
Antichrist. But Scripture itself suggested that these will be
special cases, rather than `a part of daily life'.
Thirdly, is it certain that today's claimed signs and
wonders are parallel to those recorded in the New Testament? Some
are, or seem to be. But in his public ministry by turning water
into wine, stilling a storm, multiplying loaves and fishes, and
walking on water, Jesus gave a preview of nature's final, total
subservience to him - a subservience which belongs not to the
`already' but to the `not yet' of the kingdom. We should not,
therefore, expect to do these things ourselves today. Nor should
we expect to be miraculously rescued from prison by the angel of
the Lord or to see church members struck dead like Ananias and
Sapphira. Even the healing miracles of the Gospels and the Acts
had features which are seldom manifest even in the signs and
wonders movement today.
Let me come back to the Acts to illustrate this, and take
the healing of the cripple as my example. It is the first and
longest miraculous cure described in the book. It had five
noteworthy characteristics, which together indicate what the New
Testament means by a miracle of healing. (i) The healing was of a
grave, organic condition, and could not be regarded as a
psychosomatic cure. Luke is at pains to tell us that the man had
been a cripple from birth (3:2), was now more than forty years old
(4:22), and was so handicapped that he had to be carried
everywhere (3:2). Humanly speaking, his case was hopeless. Doctors
could do nothing for him. (ii) The healing took place by a direct
word of command in the name of Christ, without the use of any
medical means. Not even prayer, the laying on of hands or
anointing with oil were used. True, Peter gave the man a helping
hand (3:7), but this was not part of the cure. (iii) The healing
was instantaneous, not gradual, for `instantly the man's feet and
ankles became strong', so that he jumped up and began to walk
(3:7-8). (iv) The healing was complete and permanent, not partial
or temporary. This is stated twice. The man has been given `this
complete healing'. Peter said to the crowds (3:16), and later
stood before the Council `completely healed' (4:10, 1978 edition
of NIV). (v) The healing was publicly acknowledged to be
indisputable. There was no doubt or question about it. The
crippled beggar was well known in the city (3:10, 16). Now he was
healed. It was not only the disciples of Jesus who were convinced,
but also the enemies of the gospel. The as-yet-unbelieving crowd
were `filled with wonder and amazement' (3:10), while the Council
called it `an outstanding miracle' which they could not deny
(4:14,16).
If, then, we take Scripture as our guide, we will avoid
opposite extremes. We will neither describe miracles as `never
happening', nor as `everyday occurrences', neither as `impossible'
nor as `normal'. Instead, we will be entirely open to the God who
works both through nature and through miracle. And when a healing
miracle is claimed, we will expect it to resemble those in the
Gospels and the Acts and so to be instantaneous and complete cure
of an organic condition, without the use of medical or surgical
means, inviting investigation and persuading even unbelievers. For
so it was with the congenital cripple. Peter took his miraculous
healing as the text of both his sermon to the crowd and his speech
to the Council. Word and sign together bore testimony to the
uniquely powerful name of Jesus. The healing of the cripple's body
was a vivid dramatization of the apostolic message of salvation.
--John Stott, from his commentary on Acts 3-4