Does God still perform miracles today?

Dr Gary Burnett offers this review of Craig Keener’s recent book, Miracles Today: The Supernatural Work of God in the Modern World, Baker, 2021. Craig Keener is a significant and hugely respected New Testament scholar. If this book had been written by almost anyone else, I’m not sure what I would have made of it, containing as it does account after eye-watering account of healings and other miracles, including raisings of the dead.

The Credibility of Modern Miracles

The book begins, arrestingly, with an account of the miraculous healing of Barbara Cummiskey, who suffered for many years with multiple sclerosis. She spent many of those years in hospital, suffering a variety of dreadful infections, and became almost blind and unable to walk. One Sunday, as friends from her church were visiting, Barbara heard a voice telling her to get up and walk. And, that’s what she did, something she’d been unable to do for years. She was suddenly no longer blind, her deformed hands and feet were working just fine and she no longer needed the oxygen she’d been dependent upon. Keener has interviewed this woman and the doctors who treated her and has been able to verify this remarkable story.

The rest of the book consists largely of account after account of miraculous events, mostly healings from around the world that have been shared with Keener by eyewitnesses. Many of these have been verified by medical professionals and Keener provides dates, names and circumstances for each account, approaching the overall task with considerable academic rigour. He proceeds by grouping miracles into various chapters – so you can read accounts of healings from virtual brain death, from cancer, and from blindness, and of resuscitation of the dead.

Summary of Reported Miraculous Events

• Healings from Disease: Accounts of recovery from virtual brain death, cancer, and blindness, verified by medical professionals.
• Resuscitation: Multiple documented accounts of the resuscitation of the dead.
• Verified Case Studies: Barbara Cummiskey’s recovery from multiple sclerosis, verified through interviews with treating doctors.
• Physical Restoration: Mending of broken limbs and removal of tumours shared by eyewitnesses.

Theology, Prayer, and God's Goodness

God still performs miracles. God still heals people. We must smash the image of a frowning God, brooding in anger, perched on the edge of a ten-mile-high cliff and ready to hurl a quiver of lightning bolts at the unsuspecting and the helpless. The beauty of the Father’s personality was so perfectly mirrored in Jesus that the Savior declares, “If you’ve seen Me, you’ve seen the Father” (John 14:9). God is good. God does good. He cannot even be tempted to do otherwise (James 1:13).

Further, it is the will of God to heal and deliver the sick and tormented. I believe in the power of Jesus Christ to heal the sick and afflicted and to break any bondage when His Name is invoked in any circumstance. Prayer is the determining factor. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much (James 5:16). I believe in the power of God’s Word and Spirit to sustain and supply health to those who walk simply and humbly before Him in faith.

Divine Healing versus Faith Healing

I believe in divine healing – not in faith healing. Divine healing has as its focus on the person of Jesus Christ, while faith healing looks inwardly to human potential or outwardly to some human agent. Looking unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith (Hebrews 12:2), we make Him the center and source of healing gifts and miracles from God. Faith healing finds its energy in self-generated, personal efforts, which claim to tap hidden resources within the individual or released through the “healer.”

Biblical Perspectives and the Final Hope

What does the Bible say about healing? Isaiah 53:5, which is then quoted in 1 Peter 2:24, is a key verse, but it is often misunderstood. “But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.” However, the contexts make it clear that it is speaking of spiritual healing. The verse is talking about sin and righteousness, not sickness and disease. Therefore, being “healed” in both these verses is speaking of being forgiven and saved, not physically healed.

Sickness, disease, pain, and death are still realities in this world. It is not always God’s will to heal us physically. The apostle John gives us the proper perspective: “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us” (1 John 5:14-15). Ultimately, our full physical healing awaits us in heaven. In heaven, there will be no more pain, sickness, disease, suffering, or death (Revelation 21).