Greater Miracles Than Jesus Performed

The apostle John carefully explained one of the purposes of Christ’s miracles. “And truly many other signs Jesus did in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book: but these are written, that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God; and that believing you might have life through his name” (John 20:30-31). If anyone in the time that Jesus lived had any doubts about his deity, the miracles Jesus performed should have forever removed those doubts. How could honest witnesses to Christ’s raising of Lazarus ever question the claims Jesus made about his coming down from the Father and being equal with the Father? Christ’s miracles confirmed his claims to be God manifest in the flesh.

Some people in the so-called “Brownsville Revival” which originated in Pensacola, Florida, apparently believe they can perform greater miracles than those our Lord performed. Dr. Michael L. Brown, one of the leading lights in that segment of the Pentecostal movement, published a book with the title, Let No Man Deceive You: Confronting the Critics of Revival (Shippensburg, PA: Revival Press, 1997). Dr. Brown argues that Jesus promised that all who believe in him “will do the same miraculous works he did, and even greater things,” because he was going to the Father. Dr. Brown says he does not fight over what Jesus meant by the expression “greater things.” He is content to “concentrate on simply doing the same things” Jesus did (p. 114). As I read Dr. Brown’s book, I was troubled by two major problems: His extremely ugly attitude toward his critics and his endorsement of worship practices that have no scriptural foundation, although neither of these ideas will occupy our time in today’s study.

I plan to return shortly to the term “greater things,” but I shall first examine whether Pentecostal preachers (or anyone else) can duplicate the miracles of Jesus. According to Dr. Brown, Jesus taught very clearly that those who believe in him will be able to do the same miracles Jesus did and even greater. If that is what Jesus meant in John 14:10-12, Christianity has some tremendously troubling problems. I shall not have time to review the many miracles Jesus performed, but the ones I shall mention have not and cannot be duplicated by any leader in the Brownsville Revival or in any other religious movement. Anyone who thinks he can do the miracles Jesus did is hereby challenged to do so. I can readily furnish him an audience for his performance.

Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John record the Lord’s miracle of multiplying loaves of bread and fish. Our Lord attracted a large crowd to his preaching and healing. The disciples knew the crowd might grow restless since they had no food and there was no place to buy it. They suggested that Jesus send the people away so they could go into various villages to buy food. Our Lord had compassion on those who had come to hear him and to witness his miracles. He said to the apostles, “They need not depart; give them to eat.” The apostles knew they did not have enough food for so many. They said to Jesus, “We have here but five loaves and two fish.” He instructed them to bring the bread and fish to him. He “took the five loaves, and the two fish, and looking up to heaven, he blessed and broke, and gave the loaves to his disciples, and the disciples to the multitude. And they did all eat, and were filled: and they took up of the fragments that remained twelve baskets full. And they who had eaten were about five thousand, beside women and children” (Mt. 14:15-21).

Dr. Brown and other Pentecostals have to know of the millions and millions of people worldwide--including hundreds of thousands in the United States--who go to bed hungry every night. Some nations simply cannot grow enough food to satisfy the needs of their citizens. Other countries, such as Ethiopia, deliberately starve political dissidents. If Dr. Brown and his associates believe they can do all the miracles Jesus did, why, in the name of compassion, do they not go to Africa, to North Korea, to South America, and to other places where people are starving to death and multiply the food that is available? I know many of you will join me in the proposal I am about to make to Dr. Brown and to the Brownsville Revival. I will furnish--not five loaves and two fish--but hundreds of loaves and hundreds of pounds of fish so the so-called “miracle workers” can feed--not five thousand--but hundreds of thousands of hungry people. How could anyone who believes he can multiply loaves and fish refuse that offer? Do they not care about starving people--especially children--in countries all over the world? Will they accept my proposal? You know they will not because they know they cannot miraculously multiply bread and fish.

A few years ago, a very destructive hurricane seemed to be headed for the North Carolina coast. Fortunately, the storm turned away from the coast and headed back into the open waters of the Atlantic Ocean. Many lives and millions of dollars of property were saved because the hurricane changed its course. Did you know Pat Robertson boasted that the Lord changed the course of that storm in answer to his prayers? Even if that were true, there is no way Pat Robertson could have known the Lord’s mind, unless the Lord specifically told him about the answer to his prayers. And the Lord is not speaking directly to Pat Robertson or to Kenneth Copeland or to Paul Crouch or to any other modern preacher--whether Pentecostal or otherwise.

Mark tells of our Lord’s teaching the people in parables. At the end of the day on which Jesus was teaching, he said to his disciples, “Let us pass over unto the other side (meaning the other side of the sea of Galilee).” Mark says a great storm of wind arose and the waves from the sea beat upon the boat in which Jesus and his disciples were riding. Jesus was asleep in the back part of the ship. The apostles awakened him, and asked, “Master, do you not care that we perish?” “And he arose, and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was great calm. And he said unto them, Why are you so fearful? How is it that you have no faith? And they feared exceedingly, and said to one another, What manner of man is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?” (Mk. 4:33-41.

Hundreds of small boats and larger craft sink every year and not just because of high winds and waves. Sometimes the boats are not seaworthy or the captains of the boats are poorly trained or have had too much alcohol in their systems. But whatever the cause, many lives are lost at sea. If the Pentecostals are sincere about their miracle-working power, they will intervene on the part of the potential victims of vicious storms at sea and on land. When the pilot of a small airplane gets into trouble in a storm, how desperately he needs a Brownsville Revival preacher to pray for him! One well-known Pentecostal preacher plunged to his death in a storm in the Midwest. Maybe he believed his prayers would get him out of the storm or he could stop the storm with his prayers. Whatever the case, he and his passengers died because of his careless piloting. How absolutely foolish for men to boast of their abilities to change the course of a hurricane or of a tornado! Jesus could, and did, stop a storm, but neither Pat Robertson nor Michael Brown can do so. But are not Pentecostal preachers supposed to perform all the same miracles Jesus performed? You know they cannot; I know they cannot; they know they cannot.

One of the saddest events in the life of our Lord was the death of his friend Lazarus. The language John used of our Lord’s reactions at the death of Lazarus show conclusively how much he suffered when he learned that Lazarus was dead. Jesus told his disciples that Lazarus was sleeping. He said he was going to awaken him from his sleep. The disciples said to Jesus, “Lord, if he sleep, he shall do well.” But Jesus was speaking of the sleep of death. So he said very plainly, “Lazarus is dead.” When Jesus arrived in Bethany, Martha said to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” She believed God would answer his plea, whatever Jesus asked. He informed her that her brother would rise again. She thought he meant in the general resurrection at the last day. But our Lord said, “I am the resurrection and the life: he who believes in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. And whosoever lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” Martha confessed: “Yea, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who should come into the world.” When Jesus saw Martha and some of the Jews weeping, “he groaned in his spirit, and was troubled” (John 11:11-33).

The word “groan” gives us considerable insight into the extent and nature of our Lord’s sorrow because of the grief Mary and Martha were experiencing at the death of their beloved brother. Dr. A.T. Robertson’s great set of books, Word Pictures in the New Testament (Nashville: Sunday School Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, 1932) says the word “groan” means to snort with anger like a horse…The notion of indignation is present in other examples of the word in the New Testament” (volume 5, p. 202). Later in this same chapter, John wrote of Jesus: “Jesus therefore again groaning in himself comes to the grave. It was cave, and a stone was laid upon it” (John 11:38). Verse 33 not only mentions our Lord’s groaning; it also says that he “was troubled.” This is the same word used of the troubling of the waters (John 5:4). It is also the word Jesus used when he urged his disciples: “Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in me” (John 14:1). John also said, concerning our Lord: “Jesus wept” (John 11:35).

Most of us have lost loved ones to death. During my lifetime, I have suffered the loss of three of my grandparents, my parents, one sister, three brothers, and other relatives and friends. Like all preachers, I have had the obligation of speaking at the funerals of some of my dearest friends. If only the members of the Brownsville Revival had been present at the deaths of my loved ones and friends! I did not want to give up my loved ones and friends to death. Like Martha, I believe my family members and brothers and sisters in Christ are going to “rise again in the resurrection in the last day” (John 11:24). But I did not want to separate from them even for a short time. Are the Brownsville Revival evangelists being faithful to God when they refuse to raise dead people?

Dr. Brown affirms that Christ clearly taught that all who believe in him “will do the same miraculous works he did and even greater” (p. 114). I have no intention of speculating on whether raising Lazarus was a greater miracle than stilling the storm or feeding the five thousand. But we know Christ’s raising Lazarus was truly a manifestation of divine power. No man--not Dr. Brown, not Oral Roberts, not Rod Parsley, not any other modern Pentecostal--can raise dead people. I heard Richard Roberts say that his father had restored to life a baby who had died in an audience where Oral Roberts was preaching. But no one except the most gullible people would give any credence to such a story. If Oral Roberts had raised a baby from the dead, the news media would have been full of the story. It simply did not happen and is not going to happen. But it could occur, if the Brownsville Revival preachers can do all the miracles Jesus did.

The apostle John records the very first miracle Jesus performed. Christ and his apostles were attending a wedding feast in Cana of Galilee when the host ran out of wine. Christ’s mother asked her Son to provide wine for the celebration. She told the servants to do whatever Jesus asked them to do. He instructed them to fill some water pots with water. He then told them to draw from the pots and bear the contents to the governor of the feast. Jesus, by his divine power, had turned the water into wine (John 2:1-11). My concern in this lesson is not to discuss whether the wine was intoxicating. But if it were, he made enough wine--approximately fifty-five gallons--to make the whole community drunk. Do you believe Jesus Christ endorsed drunkenness?

My question for the Brownsville Revival evangelists is: Do you believe you can duplicate the Lord’s miracle at the wedding feast in Cana of Galilee? If you believe you can do that, I shall fly all the way from Fayetteville, Tennessee to Pensacola, Florida to witness the miracle. Unless you can miraculously turn water into wine, you are not being exactly honest when you pretend you can do all the miracles Jesus did. Why not admit you cannot do any of the miracles Jesus performed? You cannot heal any of the sick, except those who have psychosomatic diseases.

When non-charismatics ask for a demonstration of the miraculous powers of Pentecostal leaders such as the evangelists of the Brownsville Revival, the leaders usually respond by quoting the words of Jesus when the Pharisees asked him, “Master, we would see a sign from thee.” Our Lord responded: “An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of Jonah” (Mt. 12:38-39). Every time I read this account I am reminded of a conversation between Boone Douthitt and a charismatic preacher. Brother Douthitt asked the charismatic preacher to perform a miracle--any miracle. The preacher quoted what I have read to you from Matthew 12: “There shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of Jonah.” Brother Douthitt told the preacher he would like to see that miracle. The preacher had no idea what Jesus was teaching in Matthew 12. Please listen to what Jesus told the Pharisees. “For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” (Mt. 12:40). Jesus was telling the Pharisees that the only miracle they would see was his resurrection from the dead. If the charismatics can raise someone from the dead, their other works will not likely be questioned.

In case you think Dr. Brown may be the only charismatic who believes everyone who accepts Christ can do the same works Christ did, let me assure you that such is not the case. In 1974, Pat Boone wrote a book with the title, Dr. Balaam’s Talking Mule (Van Nuys, CA: Son-Rise Books). Chapter 22 has the heading, “No Two-Thousand Year Barrier” (pp. 97-99). Pat affirms: “What Christians in the first century experienced with Jesus, we are meant to experience today” (p. 97)! Does Pat mean we can multiply five loaves and two fish to feed five thousand people? Does he believe modern charismatics can raise dead people? Can they turn water into wine? If Christians experienced these miracles in the first century, they should expect to experience them today. The only problem is: that this is not going to happen, as any serious Bible student should know. It is unbiblical and unreasonable to expect those miracles. Miracles have ceased, whatever charismatics believe and preach.

But before our time expires, let us return to the passage Dr. Brown misused to teach that modern believers can do what Jesus did and even greater things. Please listen to what Jesus told his disciples. “Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me; or else believe me for the very works’ sake. Verily, verily, I say unto you, He who believes on me, the works that I do shall he do also and greater works than these shall he do; because I go to the Father” (John 14:11-12). If Jesus were speaking of the miraculous, his words have not come true. Not one of Christ’s miracles has been duplicated and none greater has ever been performed--not before Jesus came into the world and not since.

When Jesus taught that believers would do greater works than he did, was he speaking of their having greater power? Were the works believers were to do greater in extent or greater in quantity? Our Lord had to be speaking of those who would be converted through the preaching of his apostles and of other disciples. Think, for example, of what occurred on the day of Pentecost. There were three thousand men and women who obeyed the gospel and became members of the Lord’s church. After the founding of the New Testament church on the day of Pentecost, countless thousands were taught the truth and brought into the kingdom of God. Jesus Christ had prepared the way for the great number of conversions that took place in the first century, but he had not taught so many people to obey God. The apostles and other faithful Christians would continue the work Jesus Christ had begun. But he was returning to the Father and would no longer have direct contact with people.

Fortunately, the work Jesus and the apostles began continues today. Thousands of men and women have heard the gospel message, have confessed their faith in Jesus Christ as the Son of the living God, and have been baptized into Christ for the remission of their sins. If you have not obeyed the gospel, will you not do so this very day?

Winford Claiborne

The International Gospel Hour

P.O. Box 118

Fayetteville, TN 37334

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