By R. M. Davis

Contents:
Lying Miracles
God’s Purposes in Lying Miracles
The Miracles of God Contrasted With the Miracles of Satan
  - The Miracles of God Move Us to Faith in His Word
  - Antichrist’s Miracles Pull Us from God’s Word
  - God’s Miracles Cease, Satan’s Never End
  - Miracles in the Bible
Miracles Confirm Us In Our Faith, Be It False or True

Lying Miracles

Anyone who has spent time in a Charismatic Church knows that miracles—that is, supernatural occurrences of different sorts—are really happening there. Not all the stories about signs and wonders and ‘manifest presence’ are false.

In the 16th century the Roman Catholic Church, walking in a black night of apostasy, also boasted of miracles, and had its share of false prophets and prophetesses who claimed to have received divine revelations and visions. William Tyndale (c. 1494–1536) was one of many men God raised up in those dark times to expose spiritual deception, to free the Scriptures from the lock-up of the powerful Church, and to teach the true sense of His word to nations mired in superstition and falsehood.

In 1528 Tyndale published The Obedience of a Christian Man. This book addressed many issues of the day (which remain of concern), and was influential when it reached the hands of King Henry VIII. In The Obedience, Tyndale briefly discussed the miracles of Satan, why God permits them, and what they may reveal about us. He also added some commentaries in the margin of his translation of 2 Thessalonians 2. I will review his teaching here, using the Penguin edition of the Obedience which has helpful notes by Professor David Daniell.¹ When I quote from it, I will modernize minimally for clarity’s sake (e.g. thou to you, syntax, obsolete words). I encourage everyone to acquire a copy of The Obedience, which is available online, whether to check my editing or, better yet, to learn more about Tyndale's theology. It is full of valuable teaching, though the archaic English makes it difficult in places.

Scripture quotations are from the Matthew Bible, and are also minimally modernized.

God’s Purposes in Lying Miracles

When Roman Catholics claimed miracles to show a divine anointing, Tyndale, in The Obedience, cautioned that it is to God’s word and God’s promises alone that we must look, not signs and wonders:

And when they cry “miracles, miracles”, remember that God has made an everlasting testament with us in Christ’s blood, against which we may receive no miracles—no, not even the preaching of Paul himself, according to his own teaching to the Galatians², nor yet the preaching of the angels of heaven. Therefore the miracles claimed either are not genuine, but feigned (as in the case of the miracle where Saint Peter hallowed Westminster³), or if there are miracles that confirm doctrine contrary to God’s word, then they are done by the devil (as with the maids of Ipswich and of Kent⁴).

Miracles done by the devil are to test us, whether we will cleave firmly to God’s word. And they are also to deceive those who have no love for the truth of God’s word and no desire to walk in his laws.⁵                            

In the above passage, Tyndale summarized God’s purposes in permitting lying miracles. First, He allows them to prove our faithfulness to His word. We are to be guided by nothing but the word of God. No signs and wonders should draw us aside. Second, Tyndale says miracles done by the devil have the very purpose of deceiving those who do not love truth; this he takes from 2 Thessalonians 2:

⁸And then will that wicked be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the Spirit of his mouth and will destroy with the appearance of his coming—⁹even him whose coming is by the working of Satan, with all lying power, signs and wonders,¹⁰and in all deceivableness of unrighteousness among those who perish because they did not receive the love of truth, that they might be saved. ¹¹And therefore God will send them strong delusion, to believe lies—¹²that all who did not believe the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness, might be damned.

I pause to make a note on the word ‘damned’. The verb to damn has lost meaning over the years. We now understand it as meaning only to condemn to eternal retribution. It used to also mean to be found guilty, or adjudged to be bad.

In any case, Tyndale’s marginal commentaries on these verses in 2 Thessalonians 2, as contained in the Matthew Bible, were:

People who are stubbornly persistent and content to rest in deception reveal themselves to be under the judgement of God because they do not love truth; He therefore lets false prophets “slip in” to deceive them. By this they are proved; that is, their unfaithfulness and unbelief are proved. Understanding this can guide us if we are tempted to strive with deceived individuals. If God is not with them, there is nothing we can do except pray. I refer not to informing them, but coming into strife with them. (And see 2Ti 3:13—…evil men and deceivers will grow worse and worse, while they deceive and are deceived themselves”.)

The “deceivableness” of the unrighteous (2Th 2:10) refers to the gullibility, or capacity for self-deception, of those who do not love truth. These take pleasure in unrighteousness; that is, they prefer that which is false over that which is true. God therefore sends them delusion so that by their belief and pleasure in lies (2:11) they “might be damned” (2:12). It appears that the Day of Judgment is in view. Their disregard for truth and pleasure in unrighteousness will be evidence against them. The Greek Tyndale translated “damned” is a form of the Greek verb krino, which Strong’s defines as “to distinguish, i.e. decide; by implication to try, condemn, punish”. The KJV followed Tyndale by putting “damned” here, but others have substituted “condemned” (NIV, NKJV), or “judged”, which is weaker. I agree that these are necessary substitutions, given the loss of meaning of damned, but it is unfortunate that ithas lost it earlier sense. Any man can judge, and any magistrate can condemn, but when it is God who does so the consequences are spiritual and eternal: only damn was able to convey this.

Moses warned the Israelites that God will test us by sending false prophets:

If there arises among you a prophet or a dreamer of dreams, and he gives you a sign or a wonder, and that sign or wonder of which he spoke comes to pass, and then he says, “Let us go after other gods which you have not known, and let us serve them”: do not listen to the words of that prophet or dreamer of dreams, for the Lord your God tests you to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your hearts and with all your souls. For you must walk after the Lord your God and fear him, and keep his commandments, and listen to his voice, and serve him, and cleave unto him. (De 13:1-4).

A sincere love for God fears Him, keeps His commands, listens to His voice in His word, and will not follow another voice (Joh 10:5).

The Miracles of God Contrasted With the Miracles of Satan

In the Obedience, Tyndale further expounds on miracles as follows:

The Miracles of God Move Us to Faith in His Word

Antichrist will not only come with lying ceremonies and disguised with falsehood, but also with lying miracles and wonders, says Paul at 2 Thessalonians 2. All the true miracles that come from God are to move us to hear God’s word, and to establish our faith in God’s word, and to confirm the truth of God’s promises, so that we might believe them without doubting.

For God’s word, through faith, brings the Spirit into our hearts, and also life, as Christ says (Joh 6): the words I speak are spirit, and they are life. The word of God also purges us and cleanses us, as Christ says (Joh 15): you are clean by the means of the word. Paul says (1Ti 2): there is one God, one mediator (which is to say, advocate, intercessor, or maker of atonement) between God and man, and Peter says (Ac 4) that Christ Jesus gave himself as a ransom for all men. Nor is there health⁶ in any other, nor yet any other name given to men by which we must be saved. So now it is Christ who is our peace, our redemption, our ransom for our sins, our righteousness, satisfaction—and all the promises of God are yea and Amen in him (2Co 1).

And we, for the great and infinite love that God has for us in Christ, love him in return, and love also his laws, and love one another. And from now on the things we do are not to atone for our sins, or to obtain heaven, but to help our neighbour and tame the flesh so we may grow perfect and strong in Christ, and return thanks to God for his mercy, and glorify his name.

Antichrist’s Miracles Pull Us from God’s Word

But the miracles of Antichrist are done for contrary purposes. They are done to pull you from the word of God, and from believing his promises, and from Christ. And they teach you to put your trust in a man, or in a ceremony where God’s word is not.

God’s Miracles Cease, Satan’s Never End

Once God’s word is believed and the faith is spread abroad, then the miracles of God cease. But the miracles of Antichrist, because they are worked by the devil to quench the faith, grow daily more and more. Nor will they cease until the world’s end among those who do not believe God’s word and promises.

Do you not see how in the old world God loosed and sent forth all the devils among the pagans or Gentiles? And how the demons worked miracles and spoke to them in every image? Even so will the devil work falsehood by one craft or another until the end of the world, among those who do not believe God’s word. For the judgment and damnation of a person who has no desire to hear the truth is to hear lies, and to be established and grounded therein through false miracles. And he who does not want to see truth is worthy to be blind; and he who bids the Spirit of God to go from him is worthy to be without him.

Miracles in the Bible

Paul, Peter, and all true Apostles preached Christ only. And the miracles did but confirm and establish their preaching and those everlasting promises and the eternal testament that God had made between man and him in Christ’s blood. And the miracles also testified that they were true servants of Christ.⁷

Miracles Confirm Us in Our Faith, Be It False or True

The miracles of God that cease do not include such things as answers to prayer, which Jesus promised repeatedly to all who have faith, and which I might call “private miracles” for the purpose of contrasting them with open and sensational miracles, such as those the Apostles performed and the devil mimics. Private miracles, such as God’s provision, His teaching by the Holy Spirit, His protection, His guidance, His sending angels to minister to the heirs of salvation, His making His home with those who love Him and obey His commands, and His answering the prayers of those who ask in accordance with His will: all these are promised by many Scriptures; and they are, after all, miracles also, and they are miracles that confirm our faith.

Where Tyndale wrote about putting trust in ceremonies rather than in God’s word, he would have had in mind the incense burning and candle-lighting of Roman Catholic rituals, the hocus-pocus of their masses, superstitious prayers to saints, etc. Where he wrote of putting trust in men rather than God’s word, he would have been referring to things like trusting for forgiveness through confession in a priest’s ear, or accepting the word of a priest as if it were the very commandment of God instead of weighing all things against Scripture.

When Tyndale lived, the Roman Catholic Church was the major purveyor of false Christian ceremonies, and of course still offers them to lead men astray. But misleading and idolatrous ceremonies can assume different forms. Consider what trust Charismatics place in their ceremonies, such as soaking in the spirit to experience God instead of seeking Him in His word. And consider what faith they place in men by lining up to receive the Holy Spirit through them (as they think), by which they hope to find communion with God, or healing, or sanctification—when all along it is through the Scriptures that God ministers life, and righteousness, and true sanctification. And the life that is in the word is the knowledge of God, and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, and all that flows therefrom.

I have discussed in particular the miracles of the so-called “Charismatic Church”, but there can be no doubt that others will boast of miracles of different sorts, and will have their false prophets, to testify to false doctrine, foster superstition and unrighteousness, and teach people to trust in things that do not save. The word’s Tyndale wrote over 450 years ago are true today and will remain so until the world’s end.

Therefore the miracles of Satan, in the mysterious purposes of God, serve to confirm us in our faith, whatever it be, whether true or false. And we see that the miracles of the devil will never cease, and are used to turn men from God’s word and truth—and if there is faith, to quench it.

© R M Davis, 2010

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