Is raising the dead still possible today?

The last verse speaks of the following work of God in disciples as seen in the book of Acts, but does not mention the coming of the Spirit of God. The preaching of Christ is seen to be accompanied by His own working with the disciples and confirming His Word with signs following. This fulfils what the Lord said in verses 17 and 18, and is declared also in Hebrews 2:4. This being fulfilled, there is no reason for us to expect such miracles today. The service of the Lord Jesus continues, but that service is seen in His own servants.

278 As to the signs, we read, "confirming the word with signs following," as a promise. Moses wrought miracles, and Elijah too, in the midst of apostate Israel. But not so the other prophets. Isaiah and Jeremiah worked no miracles, nor John Baptist. When God is introducing something new, you have them - wherever the thing was to be made good in testimony for our poor hearts to sanction the truth. I see no restoration of miracles, or of anything indeed. There will be miracles at the end on the devil's part: power, and signs, and lying wonders. There was no statement to the church that it must lose them at a certain time, nor that they must go on for a certain time. Some ask as to the continuance of apostles and elders. This was what they said to me in Switzerland: "How can you think of God setting up a church with elders and apostles, and yet making no provision for their continuance?" I said, It is so, because God did not mean the church to continue. We see this to be the way God used miracles. Of course, He could work a miracle at any time.

278 As to the signs, we read, "confirming the word with signs following," as a promise. Moses wrought miracles, and Elijah too, in the midst of apostate Israel. But not so the other prophets. Isaiah and Jeremiah worked no miracles, nor John Baptist. When God is introducing something new, you have them - wherever the thing was to be made good in testimony for our poor hearts to sanction the truth. I see no restoration of miracles, or of anything indeed. There will be miracles at the end on the devil's part: power, and signs, and lying wonders. There was no statement to the church that it must lose them at a certain time, nor that they must go on for a certain time. Some ask as to the continuance of apostles and elders. This was what they said to me in Switzerland: "How can you think of God setting up a church with elders and apostles, and yet making no provision for their continuance?" I said, It is so, because God did not mean the church to continue. We see this to be the way God used miracles. Of course, He could work a miracle at any time.

In the latter part of the New Testament we read little about miracles, less and less as time passes on. Miracles in the Old Testament never continued, but were exceptional events at the beginning of a new work of God. So doubtless these miraculous powers were temporary gifts to the early Church. With the Church in disorder, division, and rebellion today, the Spirit is grieved and cannot act in full manifestation of mighty signs and thus put His outward seal on such a mass of confusion. We are aware that various ones claim to possess these gifts today, but the true marks of the Spirit's work are missing and we cannot accept their claims as genuine.

In this same epistle (chapter 14) we are told that the gift of tongues is not for ordinary use, but as a special sign. The same is true, I doubt not, with the other supernatural gifts, of miracles and healing. They are the sign-gifts for the special authentication of the messenger. I do not dwell, therefore, at length upon these sign-gifts, not only for the reason already stated, as to their being more particularly connected with the founding of Christianity, but because they, as distinct signs of divine approval, would ill accord with the present state of division in the Church. God cannot authenticate what is contrary to His will; and while I do not doubt He meets faith in the individual, and even heals the sick in answer to the prayer of faith, I do not judge that Scripture warrants us to look for these special manifestations in a day of ruin and declension like this.

It is impossible, however, to discover in this second chapter of the Acts any suggestion that there would be a continuance of these miraculous signs in the assembly to the present time. No believer would question that such a thing is impossible, for “with God all things are possible.” This is a fundamental and unchanging truth. But we must inquire, not what God can do, but whether the revelation of His ways warrants us to believe that He will do a certain thing. In this case, we find no such evidence, but we do find that tongues with other signs marked the commencement of a new era which was in sharp contrast with its predecessor. Pentecost initiated the period during which Christ is on high and the Spirit on earth, in which grace succeeds law and faith succeeds works, and in which the overtures of mercy and salvation are extended to the ends of the earth. As soon as the body of the disciples of Christ had assumed its cosmopolitan character, and the gospel had secured believers, and consequently fresh witnesses, throughout the world (Col. 2:6), the need for supernatural signs disappeared, and the display of New Testament miracles appears to have ceased.

Thus we are brought very near to the actual condition of things that obtains in Christendom today. Nor do the Lord's words make that condition a hard matter to reconcile with them. The signs did follow, and fulfilled the object for which they were designed. As Christianity became known; and the truth came to get hearing, the miraculous accompaniments ceased, after the manner of all such whenever their purpose was fulfilled. Miracles have always been temporary, gathering around certain crises in the divine history of mankind, times of special divine intervention, and then passing away; and Christianity is no exception to the rule. As to power for conviction; where the word of God is once fairly before men; the Lord Himself has assured us that, if they believe not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.

The Lord tells His disciples that signs should follow them that believe. In Christ's name they would cast out demons, speak with tongues, and heal the sick. It is to be noticed that the Lord does not say that these signs would follow all that believe, or that they would continue for all time. It is well to distinguish between the sign-gifts referred to by the Apostle in 1 Corinthians 12:29-30, and the nourishment gifts of Ephesians 4:11. The sign-gifts in Corinthians were given to the early church for a public testimony, to attract the attention of an unbelieving world. The gifts for the nourishment of the body came from the ascended Head. Seeing that the church has entirely broken down in responsibility, the Lord ceases to call attention to a ruined church by outward and miraculous signs. But though the church is shorn of her outward ornaments, the Lord does not cease to love and nourish His body; thus the gifts of Ephesians go on to the end.

The power of working miracles, p. 142. — It is evident that your correspondent does not know that the onus probandi lies upon those who assert such a power, and not upon those who deny it. All that the close of Mark 16 can be made legitimately to prove is, that certain miraculous signs were to follow them that believe. And they did, as is shown in the Acts of the Apostles. The Lord does not here or anywhere else guarantee their continuance to the end. What makes this the more striking is, that in Matt. 28 He does promise to be with His disciples alway, even unto the end of the age; but there is no promise that He would give signs till then.

That Lazarus was both a testimony and a figure of the Lord's ways with His earthly people, can hardly be questioned; yet is it no less an encouragement to the believer, in the feelings and sympathy of Jesus, before the display of His power, as the Son of God, in raising the objects of His affection from the dead. It is incontestable that many miracles and cures were done by the apostles after the Lord Jesus ascended. Acts 3 is specially chosen to encourage those advocating faith-healing. This, if looked into, will be seen to be a special and further testimony to those who had crucified their Messiah, giving evidence to the loving power in the name of Jesus. "Ye men of Israel," etc. If convinced by it, and bowing to God's object in it, by judging themselves, and owning their sin, then the promised times of refreshing would come, and Jesus return from heaven, and earthly blessedness dawn under the rule of their Messiah. It was, like others, a sample of the powers of the age to come, as spoken of in Hebrews 6:5. Compare it with what is said in Heb. 2 of God bearing witness to the great salvation, spoken first by the Lord, and confirmed by those who had heard, and afterwards received the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven.

That signs were given, and wonders wrought in the early moments of the church is most unquestionable; but were these to continue any more than the apostles themselves? This would be to lose sight of much unfolded in later inspiration, in those Epistles particularly which mark the corruption and apostasy of the last days. If the Lord Jesus is the same, and the presence of the Spirit ever-abiding, yet who would contend that the ways of God, as to outward power, are the same at the close of the church's history as at the beginning? It was not so with Israel even in Ezra's day — much less at a later; and shall it be expected of the church in its present ruin state, however truly God's purpose and our moral responsibility remain unchanged?