Sir Robert Anderson, Miracles, and the Silence of God

Sir Robert Anderson’s The Silence of God argues that in the present dispensation God is not publicly intervening in the world in the same sign-miracle manner as during Christ’s earthly ministry and the apostolic period. Anderson is dealing with the practical problem: earnest believers pray for dramatic interventions—healings, conversions, providential rescues—and often do not see them, in contrast to the visible miracles in the Gospels and Acts.

Yet Anderson clearly affirms that God can work miracles. He explicitly states that to deny the possibility of miracles is to deny Christianity itself. He distinguishes between (1) God’s inherent ability to act supernaturally at any time, and (2) whether God has promised, in this age, a public economy of attesting signs and wonders. In his view, the latter has ceased; the former remains. Thus he did not teach an absolute impossibility of miracles, but rather that we should not expect a normative continuation of apostolic sign-miracle patterns in the present administration.

Prayer as a Privilege in Israel’s Program

Your second question presses a more radical hypothesis: Was prayer—as a means of appeal by which God might alter His declared course of action—a special privilege unique to Israel?

This is a provocative and worthwhile line of inquiry. If we survey Scripture, most explicit, spectacular prayer promises cluster around Israel and her kingdom program. During Israel’s covenantal and kingdom offer eras we read, for example, promises such as "ask, and it shall be given you,’’ "whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do,’’ and similar statements that appear to grant "nuclear’’ prayer power conditioned on faith and obedience. These promises are given in a context where God is directly dealing with Israel, confirming His messengers with signs, and actively advancing the kingdom offer.

Further, Old Testament narratives show God responding to intercession in ways that appear to adjust announced dealings—Moses pleading for Israel, Hezekiah’s extra years, and others. Much of this is bound up with Israel’s covenant status and prophetic role.

When we turn to the distinct Gentile, body-of-Christ epistles, the language shifts. For example, Philippians 4:6–7 commands believers:

"Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.’’

Here Paul urges believers (in what appears to be a largely Gentile assembly) to pray about everything, but the explicit promise attached is not miraculous intervention; it is the guarding peace of God. There is no stated guarantee that the specific requested outcome (healing, deliverance, etc.) will be granted. Likewise, Ephesians 6:18 calls for persistent prayer "for all saints’’ and for Paul himself, yet again without attaching kingdom-style guarantees.

By contrast, many of the strong prayer promises commonly quoted today come from the earthly ministry of Christ, spoken in an Israelitish, kingdom-offer setting. If we read those as directly and unchangedly addressing the body of Christ today, we have to explain why our experience does not match the plain reading—unless we dilute the promises into something less than their words suggest. A dispensational reading allows us to recognize them as covenantal-kingdom privileges for Israel.

Was Prayer Itself Unique, or Its Promises?

On that basis one could argue:

• The form of prayer—calling upon God, petition, praise—is common throughout Scripture and not in itself unique to Israel.
• The specific promises attached to prayer in Israel’s kingdom program—"whatsoever ye shall ask’’ with consistent, spectacular answers—do appear to be covenantal privileges that are not repeated in the same way for the body of Christ.

Your question goes a step further and suggests that prayer, as a means through which God might alter His declared course of action, could be uniquely Israelitish. That is more difficult to assert dogmatically, but it is not an unreasonable hypothesis to test. One would need to:

1. Catalogue the passages where God appears to change a stated course in response to prayer.
2. Examine the dispensational setting of each (typically Israel under law and kingdom offer).
3. Examine post-Acts body-of-Christ passages and see whether any clearly promise that kind of "course-altering’’ response.

At present, the passages that could be marshaled against your hypothesis within the Pauline epistles are relatively few and are modest in their explicit claims. They command prayer; they associate prayer with spiritual benefits (peace, perseverance, boldness, thanksgiving); but they do not simply reissue Israel’s kingdom guarantees. That suggests at minimum that the nature and expectation of prayer is different in this dispensation.

Prayer in the Present Age

Even if one were to conclude that the dramatic, course-altering promises were Israel’s unique privilege, it does not follow that prayer is empty for us. Paul’s repeated injunctions to pray assume that something real happens in prayer, even if its mechanisms and outcomes are not fully revealed.

We can say at least:

• Prayer is commanded for believers in the body of Christ.
• Prayer is associated with inner spiritual effects (the peace of God, watchfulness, perseverance, boldness in witness, mutual care among the saints).
• God remains free to act providentially or even miraculously, though we have no apostolic-level guarantee that He will do so on demand.

How, precisely, prayer interfaces with God’s providence and with the fabric of creation is beyond our present knowledge. It would not be surprising if, in the end, some of this touches realities we now only glimpse loosely in fields like physics—created structures that respond, under God’s design, to the believing mind and will of man. Scripture does not spell this out, so any such connections remain speculation.

Your suggestion—that the strong, "change-the-course’’ prayer economy belongs in a particular way to Israel—fits both the textual distribution of prayer promises and Anderson’s broader contention that we are not in an age of public sign-miracles. It is a line of study worth pursuing carefully and inductively.

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