I have understood that the passing on of the gifts of the Holy Spirit came through the apostles, but I am hoping you can shed light on the laying on of hands mentioned in Mark 16:15-18. This scripture says, among other things, that those who believe will be able to "place their hands on sick people, and they will get well (NIV)," and "they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover" (RSV). I have searched a few commentaries and have not come up with a conclusive answer. Your help would be greatly appreciated. -- Chris Tolbert (Los Angeles)
The prediction was fulfilled in the book of Acts. The final verse or two of Mark's gospel state that the Lord went with the disciples and confirmed his word (past tense) through the miracles they did. It is hard to prove the neopentecostal position: that Jesus was describing actions that should characterize all Christians in future generations. I believe the key is found in verse 20, which mentions the purpose of these miracles. It was to confirm the spoken word of God. Never in the Bible do we read of the written word being confirmed miraculously. In other words, once the word was committed to writing--once it had become scripture--no miracles were needed. Since we have the entire faith in scriptural form in the New Testament (Jude 3), we do not need miracles as did the first generation of Christianity. This is not to say God can or does no longer perform miracles, only that conditions are quite different today.
Mark 16 has a specific church-historical context, and without awareness of the distinctions I am describing it is easy to misapply what Jesus spoke about. However, perhaps I should mention that it is not likely that verses 9-20 are original. They are missing from the oldest New Testament that has survived (which I was looking at only yesterday, in London's British Library).
