Our Gifts are Miracles

While we do not see many miracles today, we also take the spiritual gifts for granted. As a result, we live in an in-between space that is shielded from any evidence of God’s working powers. We see no miracles (and actually don’t wish to see any because seeing one would complicate our lives); nor do we take the gifts of the Holy Spirit seriously, either for ourselves or in others, because we simply see them as traits of our natural personalities:

He teaches? Oh, that’s because he has the gift of gab. She’s an evangelist? Oh, she’s just naturally friendly. They have people over all the time? Well, they are just hospitable people.

And so by these rationalizations we blind ourselves to the working of God the Holy Spirit through the gifts that he has given to the saints around us.

But the writer to the Hebrews tells us that spiritual gifts are of the same nature as miracles. In writing about how God demonstrates the greatness of our salvation with visual evidences, the writer says:

(Our salvation) was declared … through the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard him, while God added his testimony by signs and wonders and various miracles, and by gifts of the Holy Spirit, distributed according to his will…

Lots of visual demonstrations here. Our great salvation is attested to us by (1) those who heard him – and here the writer means those who heard him in person; (2) by signs and wonders and miracles; and (3) by the gifts distributed by the Holy Spirit as he wills.

Gifts are of the same nature as miracles, both of which trace right back to those who were eyewitnesses of Jesus on earth. Miracles may be few today; but the gifts of the Holy Spirit have been freely distributed, and every time they are exercised, they attest to God’s miraculous power in saving us from perdition.

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Hebrews 2.3 how can we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? It was declared at first through the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard him, 4while God added his testimony by signs and wonders and various miracles, and by gifts of the Holy Spirit, distributed according to his will.