The Gifts of the Holy Spirit, Miracles, Prophecy, Speaking in Tongues and Healings

Besides the baptism of the Spirit and His filling, we also have gifts of the Spirit, according to the Scriptures (Rom 12:3-8, 10; 7:7; 12:4-11, 27-31; Eph 4:7-16; 1 Pet 4:11). Wayne Grudem defines a spiritual gift as “any ability that is given by the Holy Spirit and used in any ministry of the church.”

He emphasizes that some gifts are related to our natural abilities, such as teaching, showing mercy, and administration. Others are more "supernatural," such as tongues, prophecy, healing, and discerning of spirits.

The biblical lists of gifts are not exhaustive. Note that they differ from passage to passage. Any divinely given ability to the church should be considered a spiritual gift.

I wouldn't hesitate to say that the ability to sing in worship is a spiritual gift. Or the ability to cook in church services or in mercy ministries. Or the ability to manage finances for the church body.

So, if you are a believer in Christ, God has given you one or more gifts that the church needs for your ministry. If you are a pastor or other church leader, one of your primary responsibilities is to help your people identify their spiritual gifts and then encourage the use of those gifts so they can thrive in the body.

How do you discover your spiritual gifts? Pray that God will make them evident to you. Then, test your abilities in different areas until you discover how you can contribute most. Ask other believers for help. Their perspective will greatly enhance your own.

Miracles

Now, there are many controversies about spiritual gifts, and we need to investigate them here. In our time, the main controversies concern the more "miraculous" gifts, such as prophecy, tongues, and healing. I say "more miraculous" because I don't believe it's possible to clearly distinguish between miraculous and non-miraculous events.

Does God give miraculous gifts to the church today? We must remember that miracles are actually quite rare in biblical history. Hundreds of years pass in biblical history without any mention of miracles. Clearly, God did not desire to make miracles a regular part of the lives of His people.

Miracles appear at special moments, when God is performing a great work of mercy and/or judgment. We read of numerous miracles during the time of Moses, the time of Elijah and Elisha, and the earthly ministry of Jesus and his apostles.

In the time of the apostles, miracles had a special connection with the witness of Jesus' apostles. They are called "credentials of apostleship" in 2 Corinthians 12:12. In this passage, Paul uses his miracles to demonstrate that he is a true apostle.

His argument wouldn't be very compelling if everyone could perform miracles. Instead, he suggests that miracles are special gifts given to the apostles, to identify them as God's messengers throughout the world where they preached Christ. Hebrews 2:4 also shows God using signs and wonders (miracles) to confirm the apostles' message.

So, it seems that the most miraculous types of gifts were given primarily to the apostles in the NT period and to prophets like Moses, Elijah, and Elisha in the OT. However, the point is not that they were probably the only ones in the world who could perform miracles. Rather, it is that the Lord empowered the prophets and apostles to perform countless miracles to show everyone that God had chosen them.

For us, however, the fact is that we shouldn't expect God to perform miracles for us. They are not a regular part of the Christian life. Certainly, they can happen according to God's will, and we should be grateful when they do.

However, we should not demand miracles or become angry with God when He chooses not to perform a miracle for us. Even Paul was not able to perform miracles all the time, for the Lord did not answer Paul's prayer for his own healing (2 Cor. 12:7-9).

Prophecy

But what about the special kind of miracle called prophecy? In prophecy, as we saw in chapter 24, God empowers a human being to speak God's own word (Deuteronomy 18:18-22). Does God still inspire prophets today?

Wayne Grudem believes that the people called prophets in the NT were quite different from those called prophets in the OT.2 In the OT, prophets spoke the very word of God, so what they spoke was absolutely true, reliable, infallible, and inerrant.

However, in the NT, according to Grudem, the gift of prophecy is a lesser gift. It was simply the ability to translate a message from God into human, but fallible, words. In other words, in the NT, God revealed his thoughts to the prophets, but their actual words were not identical to God's.

Grudem believes that there are no prophets in the Old Testament sense today, only in the New Testament sense. He acknowledges that if there were prophets like those in the Old Testament today, they would add substance to the Scriptures.

Therefore, the Bible would not be aware, since there would be other words of God with the same authority. But Grudem believes that there are prophets like those of the New Testament in the church today. Since their words are fallible, they do not challenge the sufficiency of Scripture.

I'm not convinced by Grudem's thesis. If it's true, then there may indeed be prophets in the New Testament sense in the church today. But I think there aren't, and therefore, there are no biblically defined prophets in the church today. There's no one in the church today who can give us a message with the same authority as the Bible.

Of course, the word prophecy can be used more informally. People sometimes refer to preaching as prophecy, since it conveys the teaching of the Bible and is often empowered by the Holy Spirit.

People sometimes claim that the church has offices of prophet and priest, and nothing I've said in this chapter should lead us to stop using the term prophet in this general sense. What I want to emphasize is that in the contemporary church, there is no one with the authority described in Deuteronomy 18.

Nor do I want to say that God cannot reveal himself in unusual and surprising ways. I've heard of Christians who dreamed of a certain great disaster coming in time to warn others to avoid the real disaster. Could this be from God?

He is sovereign over our dreams and our subconscious, just as He is sovereign over the functioning of our eyes, ears and nose.

Every event, in some way, reveals God, as we saw in chapter 8. All I am saying is that the Bible is the only place where we can find words from God with supreme authority.

Languages

So what about tongues? Grudem says that “speaking in tongues is prayer or praise spoken in syllables not understood by the one praying.”

In Acts 2, Jews from many nations, speaking many languages, gathered in Jerusalem for the Feast of Pentecost and heard Peter's sermon in their own languages. This was certainly a great miracle, given by God.

Elsewhere, the NT speaks of the gift of tongues as a gift used in worship, both publicly and privately. Apparently, people prayed or taught in languages ​​they themselves did not understand, and those listening did not understand either.

It is difficult for us to imagine the purpose of this, but it apparently had some devotional value (1 Cor. 14:14). It is evident that in many cases at least, God himself spoke to people in an unknown language.

When someone used a tongue in public worship, there was usually an interpreter present who explained to the congregation what the person had said.

Since God was communicating through the person speaking in a tongue, the interpretation of that tongue was also part of God's speech. Therefore, the interpretation of the tongue was equivalent to prophecy.

Indeed, since it was a God-given interpretation of a God-given message, it amounts to prophecy in the OT sense. In both the unknown and the interpreted tongues, the message was the very word of God.

However, in 1 Corinthians 14, Paul is very concerned that the church's worship not only honors God but also edifies the people. It is not enough to speak to God in worship; we must also teach, encourage (Heb. 10:25), edify, and guide one another in spiritual growth.

Paul says that those who speak in tongues have fellowship with God, but do not edify the congregation unless there is interpretation.

Therefore, Paul states, Christians should not speak in tongues in worship unless someone present has the gift of interpretation, unless someone is able to translate the speech in an unknown tongue into a known language.

By the way, it's clear from 1 Corinthians 14 (and 12:30) that not every Christian spoke in tongues. Some think that every true Christian speaks in tongues, or at least all those who are baptized in the Spirit. But, as we've seen, every Christian is baptized in the Spirit, but not every Christian speaks in tongues.

Does God still grant the gift of tongues today?

Or is tongues, like prophecy, a temporary gift God gave to the church that is no longer needed now that we have a complete Bible?

Well, since interpreted tongues are like prophecy, our previous argument implies that there are no interpreted tongues today. Consequently, 1 Corinthians 14 teaches us that we should not speak in tongues in public worship services.

However, Paul does not condemn the use of tongues in private devotions. In fact, he says in 1 Corinthians 14:2, “For he who speaks in an unknown tongue does not speak to men but to God, for no one understands him; but in the spirit he speaks mysteries.”

Does God still grant some Christians this ability to speak to him privately in an unknown tongue? It's hard to imagine why God would give such a remarkable gift to be used only in private.

The general teaching of Scripture regarding the gifts of the Spirit is that they are not for our private use but for the benefit of the whole body. Still, there may be something about the private use of tongues that enables a person to minister to others more effectively.

It's also difficult to imagine why God would remove the gifts of prophecy and interpretation from the church while leaving the gift of the private use of tongues intact. However, I think it's best to leave this question unanswered for now.

Cures

Healings In the New Testament, God granted miraculous healings as a testimony of Jesus and the apostles (Matthew 9:18; Mark 6:13; Luke 4:40; Acts 28:8). Jesus could heal merely with his word or using materials such as mud and saliva. He is Lord over all the forces of nature and can reverse the curse on the earth at his will.

The apostles also frequently healed the sick, but healing wasn't automatic. In Mark 9:28, the disciples are unable to cast a demon out of a boy, and Jesus teaches that this type of exorcism requires prayer.

At one point, Paul was also unable to heal, that is, to be cured of what he calls a “thorn” (2 Cor. 12:7). He begged God for healing three times (v. 8), but God answered: “(…) my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.

Therefore I would gladly bear with you my weaknesses” (v. 9; cf. 2 Tim. 4:20). We also realize that all of them died in God’s time. They were not able, through the gift of healing, to avoid death forever. The mortality rate remained at a little less than one per person.

We also read in Psalms (as in 119:67, 71) and elsewhere that God uses affliction, which certainly includes sickness and injury, for his good purposes.

Does the gift of miraculous healing still exist today?

I would argue that God gave a special healing ability to the apostles and some others during the apostolic age (1 Cor. 12:9). Although this ability was limited, it was sufficient to bear witness to the watching world that the new Christian sect had God's blessing.

Like other miraculous gifts, this ability was not given to all Christians, nor was it given throughout biblical history. Rather, it was given for a special purpose, at a special time.

Therefore, we shouldn't expect to find people with this gift of healing in today's church. But that doesn't mean God won't ever give this gift to anyone. We just don't know God's purposes well enough to make that generalization.

It is true, however, that the church has some access to divine healing. There may not be anyone today with the New Testament gift of healing. However, we certainly continue to have access to God's throne through prayer. And the New Testament encourages us to pray for healing. James 5:14-15 says:

“Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the sick person, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, they will be forgiven.”

Here we read not only about prayer for healing, but about this prayer as a special ministry of the church. In some ways, the passage is difficult because there is a connection between healing and forgiveness that is difficult to understand.

Final Words

I take the passage to promise that when a person is sick because of sin, he should confess that sin to the elders of the church, and their prayers of faith, with the anointing of oil, will raise him up again.

Certainly, however, even when there is no clear connection between sickness and sin, we have the privilege of praying and taking the matter to our heavenly Father. As with the apostles, this prayer is limited; there is nothing automatic about it.

God may say no for many reasons, including the reason he gave to Paul in 2 Corinthians 12:9. But the power of prayer has not been diminished since the time of the apostles. We must approach the throne of grace with confidence, confident that in God's way and timing, we will receive his mercy (Heb. 4:16).

To delve deeper and continue your studies, read our next article. For a more accurate understanding of the subject, I recommend John Frame's book "Systematic Theology," which inspired this article. God bless you, until the next post.