Can We Raise the Dead Like Jesus Did?

In John’s Gospel, Jesus performs a series of signs to show that he is Israel’s long-awaited Messiah. In John 11, he performs the climactic sign, raising to life his friend Lazarus, who had been dead and buried four days. In the context of this miraculous sign, Jesus proclaims: “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me, even if he dies, will live. Everyone who lives and believes in me will never die” (v. 25).

In Acts, we see Peter and Paul doing the same thing: Peter raises Dorcas (Acts 9), and Paul does the same with Eutychus (Acts 20), though neither had been dead four days.

What about Christians today, though? Can we raise the dead like Jesus and certain apostles did? Some Pentecostals would say yes. That Peter and Paul did it indicates this miracle isn’t restricted to Jesus alone. Cessationists, on the other hand, would say no: Peter and Paul were apostles, and the ability to raise the dead ceased after the apostolic era.

This subject has become increasingly popular in recent years thanks to the worldwide influence of Bill Johnson and Bethel Church in Redding, California. As Johnson writes in his Manifesto for a Normal Christian Life:

People often come to me and ask me to pray for them, that they would discover God’s will for their life. I already know God’s will for their life—heal the sick, raise the dead, cast out devils, cleanse lepers.

Bethel has even spawned a ministry called “The Dead Raising Team.” According to leader Tyler Johnson, they are fulfilling Jesus’s commission to raise the dead (Matt. 10:8).

But does Jesus really expect believers to raise the dead as part of “normal Christian life”? Read More

Also See:
Should We Be Praying That God Would Resurrect Olive?