John MacArthur on Miracles

" I believe that if God chooses to do something miraculous, He can do it. I am convinced that most of the miracle signs and wonders, if not all, being claimed today in the Charismatic movement, have nothing in common with what we know about Biblical miracles. They do not fit the Biblical criteria. And I am persuaded by both Scripture and history that nothing like the New Testament gift of miracles, noted in 1 Corinthians chapter 12 is operating today. The Holy Spirit has not given any modern day Christians miraculous gifts comparable to those He gave the apostles.

Now, in spite of that, many Charismatics are making quite remarkable claims. Oral Roberts, for example, speaking at the Charismatic Bible Ministry Conference in 1987 said, and I quote, "I can't tell you about all the dead people I've raised. I've had to stop a sermon, go back and raise a dead person." No less in authority than Dr. C. Peter Wagner, professor of church growth at Fuller Seminary, School of World Mission, believes such things do happen, and I quote him, "I too, now believe that dead people are literally being raised in the world today. As soon as I say that some ask if I believe it is normative. I doubt it would be normative in any local situation, but it probably is normative in terms of the universal body of Christ. Even though it is an extremely uncommon event, I would not be surprised if it were happening several times a year," end quote. John Wimber of the Vineyard lists raising the dead as one of the basic elements of any healing ministry.

Now, with the supposed large number of people being raised from the dead, you would imagine that somebody could manage to come up with one who could give testimony to the validity. But not one modern occurrence of raising the dead can be verified. Say, what about Oral Roberts' claim that he's raised many people? Well, he was challenged to produce the names and addresses of the people he raised, and he balked. Later, he recalled only one incident more than 20 years before when he had supposedly raised a dead child in front of 10,000 witnesses, "During healing service," he recalled, "a mother in the audience jumped up and shouted, 'My baby's dead.'" Roberts said he prayed over the child and, "It jerked, it jerked in my hand." Roberts conceded that neither that child nor others he said he had brought to life had been pronounced clinically dead. "I understand," he hedged, "there's a difference in a person dying and not breathing and a person being clinically dead." Well, what are we supposed to make out that confusion? It's certainly a far cry from Jesus raising Lazarus who had been four days in the grave. And if this Dr. Wagner supposes dead people are literally being raised several times a year, wouldn't it be reasonable to expect that he would bring one along so we could meet him or her. The truth is those who claim miracles today are not able to substantiate their claims. And like the miracles in the New Testament which were usually done with large crowds of unbelievers watching who would be skeptical, modern miracles typically happen either privately or in some religious meeting where there are a lot of people who are in a wild kind of frenzy expecting a miracle where it's a lot easier to fabricate one in the imagination.

And the types of miracles that are being claimed today are absolutely nothing like New Testament miracles, absolutely nothing like them. In fact, the types of miracles today could be distinctly seen as different than New Testament miracles. Jesus and the apostles instantly and completely healed people born blind, a paralytic, a man with a withered arm. All obvious and disputable miracles, even Jesus' enemies didn't challenge the reality of His miracles that He had the people there to verify them. He raised the dead, of course, as we well know. They never did a miracle that was slow, they never did a miracle that took time, they never did a miracle that was less than permanent. By contrast, most modern miracles are partial, gradual, temporary, sometimes reversed, and almost impossible to verify"
                   -  John MacArthur