Hi thanks for the reply.
True, but not to take that away but for one thing I think there is a different use for the word sign alone than if we see "sign and wonder" together.. Which was used for an upcoming event future prophecy .
'Sign' could be used of a prophetically predicted event or some kind of miracle. I don't think 'signs and wonders' as an idiom (or set collocation) refers exclusively to predicted events in scripture.
What I am trying to work on is the idea of sign and gift working together called signs gifts.
The phrase 'sign gifts' is used by cessationists who want to divide gifts up into categories and do away with gifts, in this day and age, that don't fit with their world view. They try to do away with the 'sign gift' category. The phrase 'sign gifts' is not in scripture.
This today I believe is used for a person to supposedly outwardly prove they have the Holy Spirit. This would include be slain in the spirit, falling back, as well as tongues or being bitten by a poisonous snake etc.
'Sign gifts' is typically used by people who don't believe in miracles occuring today. I haven't heard anyone call those things 'sign gifts.' Most people who believe in miracles don't believe you should go out looking for snakes to bite you as some kind of sign. Paul survived snake bite when he was unwittingly bit while helping with the fire after a shipwreck.
To me it is sort of like self-fulfilled prophecy. A person does the work of being patient and praying and it verifies you have the Holy Spirit. It I believe takes away the faith principle. Just as in the beginning in the garden , the cause of the fall.
2Co 5:7 (For we walk by faith, not by sight
The scripture do not inform us to seek after a sign gift. The gifts it does speak of are not outward. They would be more of a changed heart as the Spirit of Christ through His word witnesses to ours. Going beyond that shows men are not trusting God who has no form, I believe.
It seems to me like you are looking for excuses not to believe in miracles in this day and age. If your interpretation of 'We walk by faith and not by sight' does not work when you apply it to the lives of Jesus and the apostles, then you are interpreting it wrongly.
Doing miracles does not show a lack of faith. Jesus did miracles. The apostles did miracles. Some apostles were not able to do a miracle, casting out a certain demon, Jesus said, because of their lack of faith. Walking by sight in that case might be looking at the boy, looking at his dad's face and dispair, and getting caught up in the circumstances. When they believed God and the demon went out, that was walking by faith.
If you make doing miracles an anti-faith thing, then you would have to condemn Christ and the apostles. Those who prophesy, Paul says in Romans 12, are to prophesy according to the proportion of faith.
Plenty of people came to Jesus and were healed because of their faith. Jesus would say things like, "You faith has made you whole." Plenty of people came to Him specifically believing for healing. The woman who touched the hem of His garment and was healed believed if she touched it, that she would be healed. If she had walked by sight, she might have just thought all those doctors had not been able to cure her, so she was stuck with that problem. But she believed and was healed.
It is not wrong to want to see a miracle either. In John 6, Jesus told a crowd that they sought Him not because they saw a miracle but because they ate of the loaves and were filled. The problems are unbelief and disobedience. It was not a bad thing for the apostles to witness the miracle of the Lord Jesus having been raised from the dead. Thomas' problem was that He would not believe when he heard it. Yet Jesus let him be a witness of His resurrection, that Thomas be not faithless, but believing.
The idea you seem to have that Christianity must be internal and not outwardly displayed by signs and wonders to be truly spiritual doesn't stand up in light of the word of God, either. That clearly isn't what Paul meant by 'we walk by faith and not by sight' because he did miracles. If you really read the Bible, do you get the idea that people did miracles because they weren't spiritual enough and did not believe God enough? That makes no sense. Jesus did many miracles. Stephen was full of faith and power, and what did he do? He did miracles. Miracle workers are typicall portrayed as men of faith.
Consider Peter walking on water as an example of walking by faith versus walking by sight. When he saw Jesus walking on water, Peter wanted Jesus to tell him to come out of the boat and walk to him. Jesus did. So Peter, acting on faith in the word of Christ, climbed out of the boat and walked to Jesus. But then he saw the wind and the waves and doubted. That's when he shifted from walking (quite literally) by faith into walking by sight. When he walked by faith, he performed a miracle. When he walked by sight, he doubted what Christ had told him to do, and he sank.
Signs are for those who do not have faith and this is to include when the apostles who walked by sight as below.
It takes absolutely nothing away from a man of God who is full of faith to see a miracle. This in no way diminishes his faith. Jesus saw the miracles He Himself performed. He probably witnessed some of the miracles the apostles did as He taught them. Jesus was in no way lacking in faith. Witnessing miracles can help a person strengthen their faith if their heart responds properly. Sergius Paulus believed after he witnessed Elymas being blinded through the words Paul spoke.
There we can see the sign was against those who believed not .It is not reckoned as a blessing but a warning to walk by faith, mixing faith in what they did hear or see.
Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side: and be “not faithless”, but “believing”.And Thomas answered and said unto him, My LORD and my God.Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: “blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed”.And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book: Joh 20:27
If someone heard Jesus rose and beleived it (unlike Thomas), then saw the risen Christ, he would still receive this blessing. Thomas problem was not with seeing the miracle. Thomas problem was that he did not believe
before he saw the miracle.
When it comes to the topic of miracles, we have people believe the scriptures and believe in them, and then we have people on the forum thinking up theological excuses to think they happened in the past, but couldn't happen in our own life now where we'd experience them.
Signs especially involving tongues which is twofold , It fulfilled the prophecy ( Isaiah 28) and at the same time in the twinkling of the eye as it confirmed unbelief to those who would not hearken unto the authority of God’s word , God used it as prophecy, the unseen working of God’s will in the many nations that did hear the gospel in their own tongue and believed to the salvation of their soul. The sign or the prophecy was not reckoned to Peter or any man. Prophecy was the gift as the unseen working of God.
There is no evidence of anyone actually preaching the Gospel 'in tongues' in the Bible. In Acts 2, the tongues God gave were such that many present could understand. It captured their attention so that they listened to Peter preaching the Gospel, apparently in a commonly understood language. In I Corinthians, speaking in tongues edifies the speaker, and if it is interpreted, it edifies the church. It also serves as a fulfillment of the sign 'and yet for all that they will not hear me' when unbelievers hear it, because they tend not to believe when they hear speaking in tongues. Unbelievers tend to respond with faith when they hear the secrets of their hearts made manifest through the gift of prophecy. Some of us who have witnessed the gift of prophecy enough know that through the gift the secrets of someone else's heart can be told.
I am not saying he did not use signs ever and God did not give signs when he was still adding to scripture. In that way we know with absolute certainty from whom they did come. The last sign and wonder in respect to Jonah coming from God was fulfilled when Christ said it is finished. Signs manifest His glory they are not designed that we glory in them as outward evidence we have the Holy Spirit.
The Bible does not teach that signs only occurred while the Bible was being written. That idea is not part of the 'faith once delivered to the saints.' Also, there were signs recorded in Acts that occurred after the resurrection of Christ, the fulfillment of the sign of the prophet Jonah.
This is seeing the father of lies is in one way able to duplicate many signs as he did in Egypt and offer his lying signs and wonders in a hope of drawing men away from God .Which today the god of this world is still able to bring lying signs and wonders to deceive the nations of the world that God is still brining new revelations. Even though we now have the perfect or whole will of God.
Jesus said, 'Beware of false prophets' and then later, 'Behold, I send unto you, prophets, wise men, and scribes....' If one believes all prophets are true, he can be deceived by false prophets. If one believes all prophets are false, he can reject the genuine prophets Jesus sends. The balance is in knowing both truths and being discerning.
The epistles teach that gifts like the working of miracles are given to the saints. It also warns about lying signs and wonders. So we must be discerning. Rejecting all miracles is wrong. Not being discerning when it comes to miracles is also wrong. One approach can lead to rejecting the works of God. The other can lead to embracing the works of the Devil. We must have discernment. Cessationism is dangerous doctrinal error since it can lead people to reject the work of God. It could also lead those who are wreckless in their speech and lack the fear of God to blaspheme the Holy Ghost, and think they are justified because of their theology.
Where if I believe if men would trust that God is no longer bringing new revelations seeing we have his whole will with no laws missing and he added a warning to us not add or subtract from it that because he is not adding false prophets like Mohamed would be easier to weed out.
The book of Revelation predicts the two witnesses who would prophesy and do miracles before giving that warning at the end of the book to those who would add to the scroll of Revelation.
And Muhammad did no miracles, instead arguing that the recitation (quran) he taught was the miracle.
Ultimately we walk by faith the unseen not by that seen. it’s the evil generation of man, the generation of Adam that does walk by sight after signs.
Do you think Jesus, the apostles, and the early church were less holy than modern cessationists? Again, I think you should think of Peter walking on water as an example of this. For him, walking by sight was seeing the wind and the waves. Walking by faith, he was able to walk on water and do miracles. Miracles are associated with faith, not with 'walking by sight.' Doing miracles isn't the only way to walk by faith, of course.
Then certain of the scribes and of the Pharisees answered, saying, Master, we would see a sign from thee.But he answered and said unto them, An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas: Mat 12:38
As a matter of logic, I would like to point out if that if an evil and adulterous generation seeks a sign, that doesn't mean all who seek a sign are evil and adulterous. An evil and adulterous generation drinks water, too. But so do the righteous. The apostles asked Jesus for a sign, "What shall be the sign of thy coming and of the end of the age?" King Ahaz received a rebuke when he refused to ask for a sign when Isaiah told him to.
The idea of seeking after a sign as a gift that proves a person has the Spirit of Christ ,the Holy anodizing Spirit of God is not a biblical idea.
If someone is trying to do miracles to prove how spiritual he is, I'd be wary of that person's motivation. I don't know of any church that teaches that as the motivation for doing miracles. If people seek to do miracles to glorify Christ and to testify to the Gospel, I don't have a problem with that.
Something to notice in the Gospels is that signs confirm the word of God as it is preached. The Bible never presents signs and wonders as something to confirm the Bible as a complete book. That idea was developed later on, not taught in scripture.