The Miracles of Christ

how did he do them?

This post considers the thought of Christians, both Protestant and Catholic, who teach that believers should practice a “naturally supernatural lifestyle” and imitate the “lifestyle of Jesus” by working miracles. Since the Latter Rain Revival, John 14:12 has been invoked to say that Christians today can and should work the same miracles that Christ performed. But how is that possible, when Jesus was the only Son of God? As noted previously, an explanation was supplied by Charles H. Kraft. a collaborator of John Wimber and C. Peter Wagner:

...Kraft argued the connection between the baptism of Jesus and the filling of everyday Christians with the Holy Spirit. As the source of power, the Holy Spirit began his work when he empowered Jesus at his baptism (Luke 3:21-22); likewise, all believers are empowered when they are filled with the Holy Spirit. … Wagner expounded further: “The Holy Spirit was the source of all Jesus’ power during his earthly ministry. Jesus exercised no power of or by himself. We today can expect to do the same or greater things than Jesus did because we have been given access to the same power source.” ... His explanation for Christians’ ability to do greater things than Jesus was made possible by his kenoticist approach to the two natures of Jesus, which he based on Phil 2:6-7. He asserted that Jesus temporarily differed from the Father and the Holy Spirit in having two natures. He subordinated himself to God by totally suspending all use of his divine attributes. This made him dependent on the Holy Spirit’s working for any power that he demonstrated.¹

The word “kenoticist” derives from the Greek kenosis, or emptying, a reference to Philippians 2:5-7

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.

According to the “kenoticist” interpretation, Jesus Christ was both God and man; however, during the time of his incarnate presence on earth, he worked miracles as a man dependent on the Holy Spirit, not by divine power. Accordingly, the Christian who has a “renewed mind” will also work miracles just as Jesus did. This teaching has been spread by many NAR figures, such as Bill Johnson:

Johnson says “compelled” because he believes that all Christians have been commanded to heal the sick by Christ:

In recent years, some Catholics have adopted this teaching, notably the Encounter School of Ministry (ESM). Unlike Bill Johnson, they attempt to support this teaching by quoting two Catholic saints and Doctors of the Church: Lawrence of Brindisi (1559-1619), and Hilary of Poitiers (c. 310 - c. 367). ESM’s lesson on this topic is called “Jesus Our Standard of Ministry,” a wording borrowed from Bill Johnson. ESM has shared the slides from this lesson on the internet.

There are two problems with ESM’s teaching. First, the quotations from the two saints do not support the assertion that Jesus worked his miracles as a man. Second, their teaching contradicts the constant doctrine of the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Christianity, and mainstream Protestant denominations. I will comment on the two quotations, then review Catholic teaching on the matter.

The quotation from St. Lawrence is

Christ came into the world to do battle against Satan, to do away with idolatry, and to turn the world to faith and piety and the worship of the true God. He could have accomplished this by using the weapons of his might and coming as he will come to judge, in glory and majesty.... But in order that his victory might be the more glorious, he willed to fight Satan in our weak flesh. It is as if an unarmed man, right hand bound, were to fight with his left hand alone against a powerful army; if he emerged victorious, his victory would be regarded as all the more glorious. So Christ conquered Satan with the right hand of his divinity bound, and using against him only the left hand of his weak humanity.

ESM believes the last sentence means that Christ worked his miracles as a man. In fact, St. Lawrence taught that Christ’s miracles were “done by divine power in Christ.”

St. Lawrence has a beautiful theology of the humanity of Christ. He taught that the humanity of Christ was in the mind of God from the beginning, and that the Incarnation would have happened even if man had never sinned. Seeking to confirm their mistaken teaching, ESM has misunderstood St. Lawrence’s emphasis. The same misinterpretation of St. Lawrence’s teaching is found in a book co-authored by Randy Clark and Mary Healy, who is the curriculum advisor for the Encounter School of Ministry.²

When St. Lawrence says, “Christ came into the world,” he is speaking of the eternal Son of God, the second Person of the Blessed Trinity. Coming into the world, he humbled himself and assumed a human nature – “our weak flesh.” His humanity was the instrument his divinity used to work miracles and to conquer Satan. St. Lawrence does not teach two Persons in Christ, but one Person with two natures, attributing the miracles of Christ to that one divine Person.

The theologian Alejandro de Villalmonte explains St. Lawrence’s thought:

While it is certain that the ultimate subject of attribution is the Person of the Word, it is very important for understanding St. Lawrence’s christocentrism to affirm that, directly or indirectly, this whole series of attributes and other similar ones are predicated of the Word because of the Humanity the Word assumed. For this reason we speak continuously of Jesus, the Man-God.³

Finally, isn’t it highly unlikely that St. Lawrence would have contradicted his great Franciscan predecessor, St. Bonaventure, who taught that Christ worked miracles by the power of his divinity?⁴

An even more serious blunder is ESM’s attempt to enlist St. Hilary of Poitiers to support their teaching. Having written my doctoral thesis on the theological vocabulary of St. Hilary, I was interested to see this slide…

…and startled to read the next slide:

Why was I startled? Because I know St. Hilary’s definition of the sin against the Holy Spirit. For him, it consisted in denying that Jesus worked miracles by his own divine power. St. Hilary says that those who deny this will not share in the resurrection (see his Commentary on Matthew, 5.15.5-8; 11.10). ESM has presented a single brief quotation (without a reference), and used it to teach that St. Hilary taught something that he himself defined as the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. This makes no sense.

When I wrote my dissertation on St. Hilary of Poitiers, my advisor was the future cardinal Luis Ladaria Ferrer. Cardinal Ladaria wrote his doctoral thesis on the Holy Spirit in the thought of St. Hilary, and later published the standard work on the Christology of St. Hilary. This is how he summarizes St. Hilary’s teaching on the sin against the Spirit:

The confession of the divinity of Jesus is tied to the recognition of the divine uirtus that he possesses, and which is contrasted to the humility of his humanity. The sin against the Spirit… means precisely not recognizing the divinity of Christ; concretely, his divine power manifested in his miracles…⁵

Far from teaching that Jesus worked miracles as a “man dependent on the Holy Spirit,” St. Hilary insists that he worked them by his own divine power which, unlike the Holy Spirit, cannot be shared with others.⁶ For St. Hilary, it is not enough to confess that Jesus worked miracles; the Arian heretics believed that also. You have to go beyond what you see, and confess faith in Christ, affirming the divinity of the eternal Son at work in his miracles.⁷

ESM attempts to base their erroneous teaching on Philippians 2:6-7, a text St. Hilary wrote about extensively. But St. Hilary would never have countenanced any interpretation that suggests a division in Christ of the kind ESM teaches. St. Hilary taught:

…the faith of the Church, inspired by the teaching of the Apostles, has recognized a birth of Christ, but no beginning. It knows of the dispensation, but of no division : it refuses to make a separation in Jesus Christ, whereby Jesus is one and Christ another; nor does it distinguish the Son of Man from the Son of God, lest perhaps the Son of God be not regarded as Son of Man also. On the Trinity, 10.52

By “birth,” St. Hilary is referring to the eternal birth of Christ, who was born of the Father before all ages. By “dispensation,” he means the Incarnation, when the Son of God assumed a human nature in Mary’s womb. In the understanding of the Church, the Incarnation does not suppose two subjects or agents in Jesus Christ, one being Christ the eternal God, and the other the man Jesus. By contrast, the teaching of Bill Johnson and the Encounter School of Ministry necessarily supposes that there are two subjects. They say that one subject, the Christ born eternally, chose to do nothing during the time of the Incarnation, while the other subject, the man Jesus, performed miracles as a man dependent on God. But a Catholic may not believe or teach this.

A Review of Official Catholic Teaching on the Miracles of Christ

To think about the miracles of Christ as a Catholic, you need to believe that Jesus Christ is a divine Person with two natures, divine and human. His humanity was the “conjoined instrument” of his divinity; that is, not separable from his divinity. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 515, puts it this way:

His deeds, miracles and words all revealed that "in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily." His humanity appeared as "sacrament", that is, the sign and instrument, of his divinity and of the salvation he brings: what was visible in his earthly life leads to the invisible mystery of his divine sonship and redemptive mission.

In saying this, the Catechism is following centuries of consistent teaching on the part of councils, popes, and theologians. Pope St. Leo the Great (c. 400-461), in his Epistle to Flavian, affirmed the unity of two natures in Christ, while also noting the proper characteristics of each nature or “form:”

For each “form” does the acts which belong to it, in communion with the other [form]; that is, the Word performs what belongs to the Word, and the flesh accomplishes what belongs to the flesh. One of these shines forth in miracles; the other succumbs to injuries.

No Catholic may blithely say, “I disagree with Leo; I think Jesus performed miracles as a man dependent on the Holy Spirit,” since Pope Gelasius I threatened with anathema anyone who refused to accept any portion of Leo’s Epistle to Flavian.

Catholics, Eastern Orthodox Christians, and mainstream Protestants accept the teaching of the great Christological councils, including Ephesus (431) and Chalcedon (451). Because Christ is one Person with two natures, Ephesus taught that the Virgin Mary is rightly called Mother of God, not merely the Mother of Jesus. The Christological definition of Chalcedon rules out the erroneous “kenoticist” teaching that Christ worked his miracles as a man:

…One and the Same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten; acknowledged in two Natures unconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably; the difference of the Natures being in no way removed because of the Union, but rather the properties of each Nature being preserved, and (both) concurring into One Person and One Hypostasis; not as though He was parted or divided into Two Persons, but One and the Self-same Son and Only-begotten God, Word, Lord, Jesus Christ…

St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430), also a Doctor of the Church, likewise taught that the one divine Person in Christ worked through the humanity he had assumed.

For the Word assumed soul and flesh, fitting on himself a whole human nature in the Oneness of his person. …And by this [Word], wherein resided the supreme power, was infirmity made use of at the beck of his will... Tractates on John 49.18

Pope St. Gregory the Great (c. 540-604), in a text found in the Church’s Liturgy of the Hours, teaches the same:

For he had from the power of his own divine nature what he gave to us through the sinlessness of his human nature.

Anyone who looks to the Fathers of the Church to prove that Christ worked his miracles as a man dependent on the Holy Spirit is on a fool’s errand. The Fathers never saw Jesus as a man possessed by the Spirit, but as the One who possessed the Spirit, and could give the Spirit to others.

Christ is not a “pneumatic man” possessed by divine force, but the “Lord of the Pneuma.” In his miracles, the presence of this divine power is manifested (see Mt 12:28; Lk 11:20).⁸

St. Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225-1274) follows St. Leo, in answering the question “Whether Christ Worked Miracles by Divine Power”:

I answer that… true miracles cannot be wrought except by Divine power: because God alone can change the order of nature; and this is what is meant by a miracle. Wherefore Pope Leo says (Ep. ad Flav. xxviii) that, while there are two natures in Christ, there is "one," namely. the Divine, which shines forth in miracles; and "another," namely, the human, "which submits to insults." Yet “each communicates its actions to the other," insofar as the human nature is the instrument of the Divine action, and the human action receives power from the Divine Nature… (ST III, q. 43, ad 2, resp.)

In the year 2000, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in the Declaration Dominus Iesus, affirmed this traditional understanding:

In this regard, John Paul II has explicitly declared: “To introduce any sort of separation between the Word and Jesus Christ is contrary to the Christian faith... Jesus is the Incarnate Word - a single and indivisible person…”
It is likewise contrary to the Catholic faith to introduce a separation between the salvific action of the Word as such and that of the Word made man. With the incarnation, all the salvific actions of the Word of God are always done in unity with the human nature that he has assumed for the salvation of all people. The one subject which operates in the two natures, human and divine, is the single person of the Word.

The teaching that Jesus worked his miracles as a man is in direct conflict with the teaching of Pope St. John Paul II. To say that Jesus worked his miracles as a man is to presume two persons in Christ, one human and one divine. But that is not the historic faith of Christianity.

The “Renewed Mind”

Unfortunately, ESM tells its students that, if you believe the authentic Catholic teaching about the miracles of Jesus, you have an “unrenewed mind.” ESM’s Satellite Campus Resource says,

With an unrenewed mind, we can see the miracles of Jesus and attribute them solely to his divinity and in ascribing him all the power, live as a powerless follower.

Conclusion

Faithful Reader, in this post we have seen that the Encounter School of Ministry has copied the erroneous Christology of non-Catholic ministers, imparting a teaching directly in conflict with the official teaching of the Church, and has unsuccessfully attempted to back it up with brief quotations from two Catholic saints and Doctors of the Church. The basis of its teaching that Christians can and should work the same miracles Christ worked has collapsed. The implications of this will be further explored in our next post.

1. Yvie Ruth Baker, From Peter Wagner to Bill Johnson: The History and Epistemology of the “New Apostolic Reformation.” PhD Thesis, University of Otago, 2021, pp. 73-74. The quotations are from Kraft’s book Christianity with Power..

2. See The Spiritual Gifts Handbook, Minneapolis: Chosen, 2018, pp. 54-55

3. En todas estas afirmaciones hay que poner como sujeto directo, inmediato a Jesús, la Humanidad asumida por el Verbo. Cierto que el sujeto último de atribución es la persona del Verbo; pero tiene una gran importancia para entender el cristocentrismo de San Lorenzo, el afirmar que, directa e inmediatamente, toda esta serie de atributos y otros similares se predican del Verbo por razón de la Humanidad asumida. Por eso hablamos continuamente de Jesús, el Hombre-Dios. Temas fundamentales en la teología de San Lorenzo de Brindis, p. 90.

4. See Bonaventure, The Life of Christ, translated by Rev. W. H. Hutchings. London: Rivingtons, 1888, p. 106. “You have here in this miracle our Lord’s commendation of faith; and you further see that the Lord would make His miracles to be known for the common good; but His own part in them, for the sake of humility, He hid, for in this instance what He wrought through Divine power He imputed to her faith.”

5. La confesión de la divinidad de Jesús va ligada al reconocimiento de la uirtus divina que posee, y que se contrapone a la humildad de su humanidad. El pecado contra el Espíritu…significa precisamente no reconocer la divinidad de Cristo, en concreto su poder divino manifestado en los milagros… Ladaria, La cristología de Hilario de Poitiers, p. 135.

6. Ladaria writes: “In all cases the case is the same: by faith, one obtains the saving action of Crist, which flows from his ‘virtus,’ from his divinity. According to this, the Holy Spirit is the saving gift par excellence, which also flows from the infinite power of the divinity of Christ, but is not simply identified with it, since the ‘virtus divina’ of Jesus, his divinity, is something which, as such, cannot be shared.” “En todos los casos se trata de lo mismo: por la fe se obtiene la actuación salvifica de Cristo, que dimana de su ‘virtus’, de su divinidad. El Espíritu Santo seria según esto el don salvifico por excelencia, que dimana también de fuerza infinita de la divinidad de Cristo, pero que no se identifica simplemente con ella ya que la ‘virtus divina’ de Jesús, su divinidad, es algo que, como tal, no puede comunicarse.” Luis Ladaria, “El Espíritu Santo en San Hilario de Poitiers,” Publicaciones de la Universidad Pontifica Comillas 18, Madrid 1977, p. 146, n. 40. Emphasis added.

7. See Ladaria, La cristología pp. 139-140; Hilary, On the Trinity 2.12.11-16.

8. “El Espíritu Santo no es simplemente una fuerza que se apodera de Jesús, sino el principio interno en virtud del cual lleva a cabo su obra. Cristo no es un «pneumático» poseído por la fuerza divina, sino el ‘Señor del Pneuma’. En sus milagros se manifiesta la presencia de este poder divino (Mt 12,28; cf. Lc 11 ,20).” Ladaria, Luis F. «Humanidad De Cristo Y Don Del Espíritu». Estudios Eclesiásticos. Revista de investigación e información teológica y canónica 51, no. 198 (julio 1, 1976): 321–345, p. 324.