John Calvin Commentary Mark 16:17

"And these signs shall accompany them that believe: in my name shall they cast out demons; they shall speak with new tongues;" — Mark 16:17 (ASV)

And these signs shall follow them that shall believe. As the Lord, while he still lived with men in the world, had ratified the faith of his gospel by miracles, so now he extends the same power to the future, lest the disciples should imagine that it could not be separated from his bodily presence.

For it was very important that this divine power of Christ should continue to be exerted among believers, so that it might be certainly known that he had risen from the dead, and that thus his doctrine might remain unimpaired, and that his name might be immortal.

When he says that believers will receive this gift, we must not understand this as applying to every one of them; for we know that gifts were distributed variously, so that the power of working miracles was possessed by only a few persons.

But since that which was bestowed on a few was common to the whole Church, and as the miracles performed by one individual served for the confirmation of all, Christ properly uses the word believers in an indefinite sense.

The meaning, therefore, is that believers will be ministers of the same power that had formerly excited admiration in Christ, so that during his absence the sealing of the gospel may be more fully ascertained, as he promises:

that they will do the same things, and greater, (John 14:12).

To testify to the glory and the divinity of Christ, it was enough that a few of the believers should be endowed with this power.

Though Christ does not expressly state whether he intends this gift to be temporary, or to remain perpetually in his Church, yet it is more probable that miracles were promised only for a time, in order to give luster to the gospel while it was new and in a state of obscurity.

It is possible, no doubt, that the world may have been deprived of this honor through the guilt of its own ingratitude; but I think that the true design for which miracles were appointed was that nothing that was necessary for proving the doctrine of the gospel should be lacking at its commencement.

And certainly we see that their use ceased not long afterwards, or, at least, that instances of them were so rare as to entitle us to conclude that they would not be equally common in all ages.

Yet those who came after them, so that they might not allow it to be supposed that they were entirely destitute of miracles, were led by foolish avarice or ambition to forge for themselves miracles that had no reality.

Thus the door was opened for the impostures of Satan, not only so that delusions might be substituted for truth, but also so that, under the pretense of miracles, the simple might be led aside from the true faith.

And certainly it was fitting that men of eager curiosity, who, not satisfied with lawful proof, were every day asking for new miracles, should be carried away by such impostures.

This is the reason why Christ, in another passage, foretold that the reign of Antichrist would be full of lying signs (Matthew 24:24), and Paul makes a similar declaration (2 Thessalonians 2:9).

So that our faith may be duly confirmed by miracles, let our minds be kept within that moderation that I have mentioned.

Hence, also, it follows that it is a foolish calumny that is advanced by those who object against our doctrine, that it lacks the aid of miracles, as if it were not the same doctrine that Christ long ago has abundantly sealed.

But on this subject I use greater brevity, because I have already treated it more fully in many passages.