Do Modern Believers Have Apostolic Authority To Heal Or Cast Out Demons?
Q: I have a question regarding healing. Do believers still possess the same authority or ability to heal the sick and cast out demons as the disciples did? The Bible states that even with Peter’s shadow, people were healed. Is that true to this day, or is that authority somehow withdrawn?
A: The realm of the miraculous, as we see it in the book of Acts, has to be put in context. I think there is a fascinatingmisconception about the gifts of the Spirit which is adopted by both hyper charismatics and stone cold cessationists. Their misconception is that there was some kind of standing gift of miracles that was the property of the Apostles or someone else in the first century church, as if they could just perform miracles at will. It assumes that the Apostles held a resonant power of the miraculous within them to be able to cast out demons from people at any moment. The miraculous power of God doesn’t work like that. I don’t think it has ever worked like that.
In a sense, the miraculous power didn’t even work through Jesus the Messiah in that way. He’s God. He could do whatever He wanted. If there was anybody who could point His finger and say, “You’re healed, and you’re healed, and you’re healed,” it was obviously Jesus. But Jesus also said, “I don’t do anything except what My Father tells me to do.” Nothing. Jesus submitted His whole ministry unto God the Father. I think that there was some sense in which, every time Jesus was going to heal somebody, He had a conversation with the Father, “Father, do You want to heal this person?” And if the Father said, “Yes,” then the person was healed. It’s not that Jesus didn’t have the power. This was part of His own self-imposed limitations. Jesus accepted on earth that He would be dependent upon the Father for guidance.
This question seems like you may be envisioning a scene where the Apostles had the power to do miracles at their own will or decision. And I don’t think that was ever the standing case. Now, there were times when unusual things were being done. Acts 19:11 mentions that many unusual miracles were done by the hands of Paul. What a radical statement. Miracles are unusual by their very nature, but these were super-unusual.
When we read the book of Acts, we feel like there was a new miracle every single day. It’s important to understand that the book of Acts records what God was doing in the church over a roughly 30-year period. These are the highlights of what God was doing over a 30-year period. I come from the Calvary Chapel movement, which is a church movement that has been blessed by God. If you took a 30-year period from the Calvary Chapel movement, let’s say 1968-1998, and researched and wrote a history of the miraculous that happened in the Calvary Chapel over that span of 30 years, it would read like the book of Acts. We read the book of Acts and get the feeling that it all happened within a year or two, but in reality, it happened over 30 years. I would also stress that God was doing much more in the first century than the events which were recorded in the Book of Acts.
I would say that believers have never had the authority to do the miraculous by their own volition or their own will, as if the power was resident in them. They have the power and authority of Jesus to be channels through which God may work, to be able to perceive by the Spirit when God wants to do something in a situation, and to be led by God and used by God. But I would argue that that’s a very different thing than resident power within a person to perform miracles.
God does miraculous things today, but no man or woman is in control of the miraculous power of God. That’s just not how it works.