A Christmas Gift to the American Home and the Youth of America

by N. P. Gravengaard

But has not the miracle, this unrestrained action of the powers, disappeared from the church? Miracles do not happen nowadays as in the time of the apostles.

People are often heard to speak like this, and here we must first of all call attention to the fact that one period in the history of the church may be profuse in miracles while the other is devoid of them. It does not go according to our desires and thoughts, but according to what the Lord in His wisdom deems well for the fulfillment of His eternal thoughts. Furthermore, our age is not in a very receptive mood for the "miracle"—it might face the strange things gapingly instead of believingly accepting the "miracle" as a "miracle" and give God the glory therefor. Yet I am convinced that the unrestrained interference of powers has not ceased in our age, but it takes place only according to the counsel of the Lord, and where receptivity is present. Nowadays, this applies especially in heathen lands and in secret where the faithful pray and receive unseen by the eyes of the world.

But, in this connection, I would call attention to the following: The greatest miracle is not that some sick person may be restored to health, or freed of some bodily weakness, but that I, the sinner that I am, may be resurrected in spirit, soul and body, in accordance with the eternal thoughts of glory of God. This miracle is a thousand times greater than that which took place at the door of the temple when Peter said to him who was lame from his mother's womb: "Rise up and walk!" For this does not apply to a certain part of the body nor to certain bodily weaknesses, but to the entire being with all its weaknesses. This is the greatest miracle of all, and it takes place until the very end of time within the church of the Lord.

Here we truly have reason for saying: Praise be to God that we are not expected to look for the unrestrained interference of the powers for the sake of the restitution of our entire being, but that we can adhere to the regulated, law-restrained acts of the powers, fully convinced that the good work which is thus begun shall be completed in this manner, in spite of the devil and in spite of death.

The power of the resurrection of Jesus Christ does not work here in the same way as in the case of the resurrection of Lazarus; for there it acted unrestrainedly and visibly, even to the unbelieving Jewish people. Here it works invisibly, but none the less tangibly, and a far greater goal is to be attained. I am not to be resurrected like Lazarus to once more live under conditions of sin, and to once more face death. I am to be resurrected from death and from the conditions of sin wholly prepared to be at home in the halls of Heaven. In order to achieve this I am not to look for sensations and movements in bluish dimness, but to adhere faithfully to the regulated, law-restrained acts of the powers within the church of the Lord.

It is in the faith in this action of the powers that we are, with Paul the apostle, to look forward to the resurrection of all things. I do not think that through the power of the resurrection of Jesus Christ all things are to be restored to the extent, as some have thought, that even the devil himself is to enter into the kingdom of God and become a leader of angels as he had been before; nor do I think that the godless and the infidels will be placed among the Godfearing and the faithful in the Kingdom of Heaven without repentance and faith. But I do believe for a certainty that all things are to be restored according to the eternal design of God in which the power of the resurrection of Jesus Christ is allowed to act. And for that we are yearning within the church.

But nature also yearns; that, too, is subject to corruption. That, too, shall be freed of the thraldom of corruption into the glorious freedom of the children of God. When the power of the resurrection of Jesus Christ has penetrated nature, then it will appear as the new earth in which justice abideth. But just as man must pass through death, through perdition, humanly seen, so the ancient earth must pass through death and perdition, and the scripture testifies with equal firmness in the case of both, that man must die and the earth must perish.

Then the great miracle has happened that everywhere in the life of man and in nature where the power of the resurrection of Jesus Christ is working, the restoration of all things has taken place, and the rest has been completely segregated from us so that it no longer may tempt or ensnare us. All bonds have broken. The miracle has been accomplished in its entire extent in accordance with the counsel of the wisdom of God—that miracle which was begun when the only begotten Son of God was conceived by a woman—that miracle which, as far as you are concerned, took place when He was conceived within you at the sacred moment of baptism.

It is said about the miracle of Jesus at Cana that it was a token, and that may be said about all the miracles of the Lord. But, of what are they tokens? Of the fact that His power can conquer everywhere, in nature, in the life of mankind, and in the spiritual world.

Tokens of His mastery of nature were witnessed at the marriage at Cana where He turned water into wine; when He stilled the storm on Gennesaret lake; and when He filled the nets of the fishermen: In the life of mankind when blind became seeing; deaf became hearing; the lame walked and the dead arose: In the spiritual world when Jesus drove the evil spirits away from those who had become obsessed by them—indeed, even the prince of the evil spirits, the devil, was forced to yield defeated. All these are tokens that the power of Jesus Christ can do everything, can master anything from the deep of the sea to the highest arch of the sky, and that it is capable of attaining victory in the struggle with principalities and powers, with the spiritual hosts of evil beneath the sky.