30. When Jesus performed His work, He healed the sick, drove out demons, and performed signs and miracles. Why doesn’t Almighty God perform signs and wonders in His work?

The Church of Almighty God|30. When Jesus performed His work, He healed the sick, drove out demons, and performed signs and miracles. Why doesn’t Almighty God perform signs and wonders in His work?

The Answer from God’s Word:

God does not repeat the same work. Jesus’ stage of work has already been completed, and God will never again undertake that stage of work.

The work of God is irreconcilable with the conceptions of man; for example, the Old Testament foretold the coming of a Messiah, but it turned out that Jesus came, so it would be wrong for another Messiah to come again. Jesus has already come once, and it would be wrong if Jesus were to come again this time. There is one name for every age, and each name is characterized by the age. In the conceptions of man, God must always display signs and wonders, must always heal and cast out demons, and must always be just like Jesus, yet this time God is not like that at all. If, during the last days, God still displayed signs and wonders, and still cast out demons and healed—if He did exactly the same as Jesus—then God would be repeating the same work, and the work of Jesus would have no significance or value. Thus, God carries out one stage of work in every age. Once each stage of His work has been completed, it is soon imitated by evil spirits, and after Satan begins to follow on the heels of God, God changes to a different method; once God has completed a stage of His work, it is imitated by evil spirits. You must be clear about these things. Why is the work of God today different to the work of Jesus? Why does God today not display signs and wonders, not cast out demons, and not heal? If Jesus’ work were the same as the work done during the Age of Law, could He have represented the God of the Age of Grace? Could Jesus have completed the work of crucifixion? If, as in the Age of Law, Jesus had entered into the temple and kept the Sabbath, then He would have been persecuted by none and embraced by all. If that were so, could He have been crucified? Could He have completed the work of redemption? What would be the point if God incarnate of the last days displayed signs and wonders, like Jesus? Only if God does another part of His work during the last days, one that represents part of His management plan, can man gain a deeper knowledge of God, and only then can God’s management plan be completed.

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Today, it should be clear to all of you that, in the last days, it is principally the fact of “the Word becomes flesh” that is accomplished by God. Through His actual work on earth, He causes man to know Him, and to engage with Him, and to see His actual deeds. He causes man to clearly see that He is able to display signs and wonders and there are also times when He is unable to do so, and this is dependent on the age. From this you can see that God is not incapable of displaying signs and wonders, but instead changes His working according to His work, and according to the age. In the current stage of work, He does not show signs and wonders; that He showed some signs and wonders in the age of Jesus was because His work in that age was different. God does not do that work today, and some people believe Him incapable of displaying signs and wonders, or else they think that if He does not display signs and wonders, then He is not God. Is that not a fallacy? God is able to display signs and wonders, but He is working in a different age, and so He does not do such work. Because this is a different age, and because this is a different stage of God’s work, the deeds made plain by God are also different. Man’s belief in God is not the belief in signs and wonders, nor the belief in miracles, but the belief in His real work during the new age. … In each age, God makes plain different deeds. In each age He makes plain part of the deeds of God, and the work of each age represents one part of the disposition of God, and represents one part of the deeds of God. The deeds that He makes plain vary with the age in which He works, but they all give man a knowledge of God that is deeper, a belief in God that is more down-to-earth, and more true.

from “Knowing God’s Work Today” in The Word Appears in the Flesh

God has come to earth principally to speak His words; what you engage with is the word of God, what you see is the word of God, what you hear is the word of God, what you abide by is the word of God, what you experience is the word of God, and this incarnation of God principally uses the word to make man perfect. He does not show signs and wonders, and especially does not do the work Jesus did in the past. Although They are God, and are both flesh, Their ministries are not the same. … Today, God has become flesh primarily in order to complete the work of “the Word appearing in the flesh,” to use the word to make man perfect, and make man accept the dealing of the word and the refinement of the word. In His words He causes you to gain provision and gain life; in His words, you see His work and deeds. … And so, in this age of God become flesh, do not try to see God heal the sick and cast out demons again, do not always try to see signs—there is no point! Those signs cannot make man perfect! To speak plainly: Today, the real God Himself of the flesh only speaks, and does not act. This is the truth! He uses words to make you perfect, and uses words to feed and water you. He also uses words to work, and He uses words in place of facts to make you know His reality. … God causes man to gain life from His words, and this is the greatest of all signs, and even more so, it is an undisputable fact. This is the best evidence through which to have knowledge of God, and is an even greater sign than signs. Only these words can make man perfect.

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… God of the last days principally uses the word to make man perfect. He does not use signs and wonders to oppress man, or convince man; this cannot make plain the power of God. If God only showed signs and wonders, then it would be impossible to make plain the reality of God, and thus impossible to make man perfect. God does not make man perfect by signs and wonders, but uses the word to water and shepherd man, after which is achieved the complete obedience of man and man’s knowledge of God. This is the aim of the work He does and the words He speaks. God does not use the method of showing signs and wonders to make man perfect—He uses words, and uses many different methods of work to make man perfect. Whether it be the refinement, dealing, pruning, or provision of words, God speaks from many different perspectives to make man perfect, and to give man a greater knowledge of the work, wisdom and wondrousness of God. … Showing signs and wonders is supremely easy, but that is not the principle of God’s work, nor is it the aim of God’s management of man. If man saw signs and wonders, and if the spiritual body of God were to appear to man, would all people not believe in God? I have previously said that a group of overcomers are gained from the East, overcomers who come from amid the great tribulation. What is the meaning of such words? They mean that these people who have been gained only truly obeyed after undergoing judgment and chastisement, and dealing and pruning, and all kinds of refinement. The belief of such people is not vague and abstract, but real. They have not seen any signs and wonders, or any miracles; they do not speak of abstruse letters and doctrines, or profound insights; instead they have reality, and the words of God, and a true knowledge of the reality of God. Is such a group not more capable of making plain the power of God? God’s work during the last days is real work. During the age of Jesus, He did not come to make man perfect, but to redeem man, and so He displayed some miracles to make people follow Him. For He principally came to complete the work of crucifixion, and showing signs was not part of the work of His ministry. Such signs and wonders were work that was done in order to make His work effective; they were extra work, and did not represent the work of the entire age. During the Old Testament Age of Law, God also showed some signs and wonders—but the work God does today is real work, and He would definitely not show signs and wonders now. As soon as He showed signs and wonders, His real work would be thrown into disorder, and He would be unable to do any more work. If God said for the word to be used to make man perfect, but also showed signs and wonders, then could whether or not man truly believes in Him be made plain? Thus, God does not do such things. There is too much of religion within man; God has come during the last days to expel all the religious conceptions and supernatural things within man, and make man know the reality of God. He has come to remove an image of God that is abstract and fanciful—an image which, in other words, does not exist at all. And so, now the only thing that is precious is for you to have a knowledge of reality! The truth overrides everything. How much truth do you possess today? Is all that shows signs and wonders God? Evil spirits can also show signs and wonders; are they all God? In his belief in God, what man searches for is the truth, what he pursues is life, rather than signs and wonders. Such should be the goal of all those who believe in God.

from “All Is Achieved by the Word of God” in The Word Appears in the Flesh

In this stage of the work God does not perform signs and wonders, so that the work will achieve its results by means of words. Moreover, this time the work of God incarnate is not to heal the sick and cast out demons, but to conquer man by speaking, which is to say that the native ability possessed by this incarnate flesh of God is to speak words and to conquer man, not to heal the sick and cast out demons. His work in normal humanity is not to perform miracles, not to heal the sick and cast out demons, but to speak, and so the second incarnate flesh seems to people much more normal than the first. People see that God’s incarnation is no lie; but this incarnate God is different from Jesus incarnate, and though They are both God incarnate, They are not completely the same. Jesus possessed normal humanity, ordinary humanity, but He was accompanied by many signs and wonders. In this incarnate God, human eyes will see no signs or wonders, neither healing the sick nor driving out demons, nor walking on the sea, nor fasting for forty days…. He does not do the same work that Jesus did, not because His flesh is in essence any different from Jesus’, but because it is not His ministry to heal the sick and cast out demons. He does not tear down His own work, does not disturb His own work. Since He conquers man through His real words, there is no need to subdue him with miracles, and so this stage is to complete the work of incarnation. … If this time around, God incarnate performed supernatural signs and wonders, if He healed the sick, cast out demons, or could kill with one word, how could the conquering work be carried out? How could the work be spread among the Gentile nations? Healing the sick and casting out demons was the work of the Age of Grace, the first step in the redemptive work, and now that God has saved man from the cross, He no longer performs that work. If in the last days a “God” the same as Jesus appeared, one who healed the sick, cast out demons, and was crucified for man, that “God,” though identical to the description of God in the Bible and easy for man to accept, would not, in its essence, be the flesh worn by the Spirit of God, but by an evil spirit. For it is the principle of God’s work never to repeat what He has already completed. And so the work of God’s second incarnation is different from the work of the first. In the last days, God realizes the conquering work in an ordinary, normal flesh; He does not heal the sick, will not be crucified for man, but simply speaks words in the flesh, conquers man in the flesh. Only such flesh is God’s incarnate flesh; only such flesh can complete God’s work in the flesh.

from “The Essence of the Flesh Inhabited by God” in The Word Appears in the Flesh