The Meaning of Miraculous Healings in Acts (and the Gospels, too)

“This healing [Acts 4, the lame man at Solomon’s Portico] may be thought of as both an X-ray and a preview. As an X-ray, it makes visible to outside observers the unseen inner cure that faith in Jesus produces. Astonishing as it is for a man of forty who has never walked to leap in the temple, the cure of hearts paralyzed in sin is even greater. As a preview, it shows the final completion of Jesus’ restorative work, when believers’ physical bodies will fully experience the salvation which we already taste in the form of firstfruits (see Rom. 8:18-25). Astonishing as it is for a lame man to leap, it is nothing when compared to the cosmic restoration to come– “the restoration of all things” (Acts 3:21).”  -Dennis Johnson, The Message of Acts, pg. 65