Do the miraculous gifts still happen today?

The Holy SpiritIn theological review

The short answer

Christians differ on whether the miraculous gifts, such as healing, prophecy, and tongues, continue in the church today, and the Bible texts each side leans on are set out fairly here. Paul teaches in 1 Corinthians 13 that gifts like prophecy and tongues will cease when the perfect comes, and believers disagree over what that means and when it arrives. No side in this debate questions that God himself can act miraculously whenever he pleases.

The fuller answer

The key text is Paul's great chapter on love. He writes that prophecies will be done away, tongues will cease, and knowledge will pass, because we know only in part now, while what is partial will be replaced when the perfect comes, in 1 Corinthians 13:8-12. He compares the present age to childhood and to seeing in a mirror dimly, and the future to seeing face to face. Everything in the debate turns on identifying that moment: the completion of the New Testament, the maturing of the church, or the return of Christ and the age to come.

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be restrained; where there is knowledge, it will be dismissed.

1 Corinthians 13:8 (BSB)

One main view, often called cessationist, holds that the sign gifts served to confirm the apostles and the new covenant message, and largely ceased as that foundation was completed. Those who hold it point to the pattern of Acts, where miracles cluster around the apostles, and argue that the perfect in Paul's chapter fits the completed canon or the mature church. Another main view, often called continuationist, holds that nothing in the text sets an expiry date before Christ returns, that the perfect is most naturally his coming, and that the gifts should be expected, tested, and ordered by Scripture today.

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

Acts 1:8 (BSB)

Both sides agree on more than their arguments suggest. Both confess that God is sovereign and can heal and act extraordinarily today, since no one limits God's own freedom. Both insist that any claimed gift must be tested by Scripture, exercised in love, and never used to add new doctrine alongside the Bible. Both warn against faking, manipulation, and chasing experiences for their own sake. The honest difference is narrower: it concerns what believers should expect as normal in church life now, and faithful Christians have landed on both sides of it.

And afterward, I will pour out My Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions.

Joel 2:28 (BSB)

Joel's prophecy, quoted by Peter at Pentecost, is the shared starting point both sides build on. God promised to pour out his Spirit on all flesh in the last days, in Joel 2:28, and the whole church agrees that age has begun in Christ. The disagreement is only about how the Spirit's extraordinary gifts operate across that age: concentrated around the apostolic foundation, or distributed throughout it until Jesus returns. Readers weighing the question do well to hold both sets of texts together, refuse caricatures of either side, and remember that the chapter at the centre of the debate is, before anything else, a call to love.

Sources

Berean Standard Bible (BSB)

Review status: in-theological-review. Every Contend page passes a human theological review against the Statement of Faith before it is published as approved teaching. This section is in that queue.

Dig deeper

No answer here is a dead end. Follow the question on, test it in practice, or work the method yourself on the Dig deeper page.

What are the gifts of the Holy Spirit?The gifts of the Holy Spirit are abilities God gives to believers for serving others and building up the church, not for status or display. Paul lists wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, miracles, prophecy, discernment, tongues, and interpretation in 1 Corinthians 12, with further lists in Romans 12 and Ephesians 4. The same Spirit distributes them as he wills, so every Christian has a part and no one has everything.What is speaking in tongues in the Bible?Speaking in tongues in the Bible is speech given by the Holy Spirit, first seen at Pentecost when the disciples declared God's works in languages their hearers understood. In 1 Corinthians 14 Paul describes tongues speech directed to God that needs interpretation in church and must never crowd out clear teaching. Christians differ on exactly what the gift involved and how it should be practised, and those main readings are set out fairly below.Who is the Holy Spirit?The Holy Spirit is God himself, the third person of the Trinity, not a force, a feeling, or God's power in the abstract. He is there at creation, hovering over the waters. He speaks, teaches, and can be lied to, and when Peter confronts Ananias he says the lie told to the Holy Spirit was a lie told to God.Does God still heal when we pray?Yes, God still heals, and Christians should ask him to heal, bring the sick to the elders of the church, and pray with real expectation. But God does not heal every time in this life, as Paul's own unanswered prayer shows, and a person who is not healed has not failed in faith. The final, complete healing for every believer is the resurrection.How do we know the Bible is God's word?Because the Bible claims it, Jesus treated it that way, and the evidence we can test supports taking the claim seriously. Paul calls all Scripture God-breathed. Jesus said the Scripture cannot be broken, and argued his whole mission out of the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms. Christians receive the Bible as God's word on the testimony of the God-man who rose from the dead.Bible Character: PaulThe Pharisee who persecuted the church until the risen Jesus stopped him on the Damascus road, and who became his apostle to the Gentiles, travelling the Roman world and writing many of the New Testament letters.