There is something striking, about the casual way, Acts 3:1 says: “Now Peter and John were going up to the temple for the time of prayer at three in the afternoon.” The authenticating witness of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, the tongues of fire, being poured out by God, upon his people… The boldness of the Apostles to stand in the temple courts to preach day after day, to brazenly, publicly, unapologetically baptize converts… The Apostles didn’t see themselves as imposters of the Temple. Nor did they see themselves as hijackers of Ancient Judaism. They saw themselves as gospel workers—sent from God Himself—much like the Prophets—filled with his Spirit —to announce that Christ Jesus our Lord had come to fulfill all things! This was just another day of business in the Temple!
But on this day a second powerful sign occurs. Acts 3:2-10, “2 A man who was lame from birth was being carried there. He was placed each day at the temple gate called Beautiful, so that he could beg from those entering the temple. 3 When he saw Peter and John about to enter the temple, he asked for money. 4 Peter, along with John, looked straight at him and said, “Look at us.” 5 So he turned to them, expecting to get something from them. 6 But Peter said, “I don’t have silver or gold, but what I do have, I give you: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, get up and walk!” 7 Then, taking him by the right hand he raised him up, and at once his feet and ankles became strong. 8 So he jumped up and started to walk, and he entered the temple with them—walking, leaping, and praising God. 9 All the people saw him walking and praising God, 10 and they recognized that he was the one who used to sit and beg at the Beautiful Gate of the temple. So they were filled with awe and astonishment at what had happened to him 11 While he was holding on to Peter and John, all the people, utterly astonished, ran toward them in what is called Solomon’s Colonnade.”
What really bothers me about this passage is Peter & John’s statement. Essentially, they are saying, “We don’t have silver or gold… but we know the power of the name of Jesus… get up and walk!” In Acts 3:16 Peter explains that this man was “made strong” and given “perfect health.” What bothers me—and not just me—I’m just not afraid to say the obvious—what bothers a great many is that the modern church seems to have plenty of silver and gold, while lacking any substantive power to heal! In the name of Jesus, “get up and walk?” Do you realize how full our churches would be if we could give everyone perfect health? Do you realize what awe, what astonishment there would be? Entire hospital systems would be shutting down and becoming obsolete!
I’ve prayed over and studied such passages like these through the years. And really the core question comes down to authority and power. Whether we’re talking about the church as a whole, or someone like myself (a minister). Have we been given the same authority and power to heal as the Apostles? Are we perhaps, just a bunch of incompetent, ungodly, bumbling fumbling imposters neither believing in the name, nor knowing how to appropriate the name, robbing people of badly needed healing they’d otherwise be due?
• Acts 2:43 might offer a clue. Sprinkled throughout Acts are such snapshots of the church… “Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and signs were being performed through the apostles.”
• A clue might be Acts 3:12, where Peter says, “Fellow Israelites, why are you amazed at this? Why do you stare at us, as though we had made him walk by our own power or godliness?”
• Acts 3:16, “By faith in his name, his name has made this man strong, whom you see and know. So the faith that comes through Jesus has given him this perfect health in front of all of you.”
• Acts 4:22 says, “For this sign of healing had been performed on a man over forty years old.”
• Acts 4:29-30 the Church acknowledges that while it’s the Apostles doing the peaching, it’s Jesus who is doing the healing. Notice how church acknowledges what’s happening here: “your servants may speak your word with all boldness. . . while you [i.e. God] stretch out your hand for healing, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus.”
• Acts 4:33, “With great power the apostles were giving testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus”
• Finally Acts 5:12-16, notice the nuanced way in which Luke writes, “12 Many signs and wonders were being done among the people through the hands of the apostles. They were all together in Solomon’s Colonnade. 13 No one else dared to join them, but the people spoke well of them. 14 Believers were added to the Lord in increasing numbers—multitudes of both men and women. 15 As a result, they would carry the sick out into the streets and lay them on cots and mats so that when Peter came by, at least his shadow might fall on some of them. 16 In addition, a multitude came together from the towns surrounding Jerusalem, bringing the sick and those who were tormented by unclean spirits, and they were all healed.”
I understand Acts 5 much the same way I understand Acts 2.
• In Acts 2, God pours out his Holy Spirit from heaven in such a unique, powerful, visible, audible, and terrifying manner. Tongues of fire! Plus the multilingual preaching that results. Let me ask you, when is the last time you saw God pour out his Holy Spirit in the exact same visible and audible manner as Acts 2? Yet how many of you agree that God still indeed pours out his Spirit on those of faith? How many of you have been in a prayer (2-3 more gathered in his name) and not felt the Spirit filling the room with his presence? Acts 2 would be so much cooler but God hasn’t deprived us of his Spirit.
• In Acts 5, Christ Jesus our Lord pours out his Healing power in such a unique, powerful, visible, awe-inspiring, instantaneous, practically on-demand manner. How many of you have been to a church service remotely resembling Acts 5? Not only would you be attending that church, I’d quit and go with you!
• But what we have here is exactly what the apostles taught. The healing is a sign “sign”, just Pentecost was a sign. A sign points to a greater reality. In the Apostle’s preaching (and in Christ’s Jesus’ preaching as well—in the gospels) the greater reality to which healings point is power of Jesus to forgive all sin… power of Jesus to grant resurrection and life in death.
• In Acts 2, and Acts 5, in the closing chapters of Luke… God confirms his promise of the Spirit, his promise of forgiveness, his promise of resurrection by raising Jeus from the dead, by pouring out his spirit, by healing a lame man in the most public and undeniable manner, place, time imaginable—that people would be without excuse regarding the power of Jesus’ name to save!
Very clearly the Church is commanded to seek healing in prayer. James 5:13-14 is an example. “13 Is anyone among you suffering? He should pray. Is anyone cheerful? He should sing praises. 14 Is anyone among you sick? He should call for the elders of the church, and they are to pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.” We shouldn’t pray for anything less than complete healing.
But notice how James 5:15-16 next rockets our understanding of the power of prayer, to a whole other stratosphere. “15 The prayer of faith will save the sick person, and the Lord will raise him up; if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.” Resurrection and Confession… those are eternal, gospel realities! “16 Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is very powerful in its effect.”
The same things that happen in James 5… happens in Acts 4-5 (with the healing of a lame man) and also in Luke 5 (with a paralyzed man).
In Luke 5:24 Jesus heals a man. But look how he explains the healing. The healing is a sign of something EVEN GREATER that God can do! Luke 5:24, “But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—he told the paralyzed man, “I tell you: Get up, take your stretcher, and go home.”
I pray knowing that God is completely unbound, he can do whatever he wills anyway, anytime, anyplace he desires.
I also pray without guilt or shame or an inferiority complex knowing that whatever God does has zero to do with my own power or godliness. There is no saving power in the name of Jon Morrissette. Clear the pews. And there is no righteousness to speak of in the name of Jon Morrissette—I stand seeking for God to grant the same forgiveness and cover me with the same blood of Christ’s righteousness, as do you.
But I also pray with total sincerity knowing that regardless of what God’s healing provides physically right now, on demand, in the shadow of my ministry—it’s just a shadow of something greater. A shadow of the greater gifts of Holy Spirit, Forgiveness of sin and Eternal Life that are 100% guaranteed for all who believe.
I can pray with certainly echoing the words of Jesus to Martha in John 11:25-26, when dear brother Lazarus died “Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me, even if he dies, will live. Everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” Ah! I can’t let the death of a loved one cloud a greater gospel reality. Death is the allusion. Healing is a sign. Forgiveness, Spirit, Resurrection are saving realities found in no other name given among men but the name of Jesus.
Some Highlights of Peter and John’s Post-Miracle Sermon. Acts 3:13-16, Peter and John preach, “13 The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our ancestors, has glorified his servant Jesus, whom you handed over and denied before Pilate, though he had decided to release him. 14 You denied the Holy and Righteous One and asked to have a murderer released to you. 15 You killed the source of life, whom God raised from the dead; we are witnesses of this. 16 By faith in his name, his name has made this man strong, whom you see and know. So the faith that comes through Jesus has given him this perfect health in front of all of you.”
Acts 3:19-21, “Therefore repent and turn back, so that your sins may be wiped out, 20 that seasons of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send Jesus, who has been appointed for you as the Messiah. 21 Heaven must receive him until the time of the restoration of all things, which God spoke about through his holy prophets from the beginning.” Acts 3:25-26, “25 You are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant that God made with your ancestors, saying to Abraham, And all the families of the earth will be blessed through your offspring. 26 God raised up his servant and sent him first to you to bless you by turning each of you from your evil ways.”