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Discussion Forum : Scriptures and Doctrine : What are the Biblical verses that support cessionism?

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Heydave
Member



Joined: 2008/4/12
Posts: 1306
Hampshire, UK

 Re:

UntoBabes:"Heydave, I believe you might have misunderstood Bear's question.
He was looking for evidences in the bible to justify the cessationist's view rather than evidences of the cessationist's ignorance of both the bible and church history."

Just to make it clear, I don't agree with the article of McArthur's I posted. There is much in it that I think is clearly bad exegesis. However I thought it would be helpful to have a detailed explanation 'from the horse mouth', so we could respond correctly to the actual teaching, rather than a caricature of it.


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Dave

 2013/10/24 6:23Profile









 Re:

Hi Heydave

I have quoted the source at the end of the article.

He is using the term with association with maturity or completeness (ES) While we sin there is a veil between us and God and when that veil is ripped in two, then we see Him as we are seen and we are living in reality, unclouded by the deceptions with which the enemy infects our thinking. When he has no stake in us, that is when we completely in the kingdom of God and walk as He walked, then we see clearly. This great blessing is not withheld from us in this life.

 2013/10/24 7:07
KingJimmy
Member



Joined: 2003/5/8
Posts: 4419
Charlotte, NC

 Re:

When the two prophets of the book of Revelation appear, the John MacArthurs of the world will condemn them. Apparently they will not have understood that the gifts of the Spirit have ceased with the closing of the canon.


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Jimmy H

 2013/10/24 8:21Profile
Sidewalk
Member



Joined: 2011/11/11
Posts: 719
San Diego

 Re: Prophecy and tongues in church (Heydave)

To begin with, tongues and interpretation seems to be quite rare in church these days, though there are a lot of churches I don't know about. When I first encountered the practice I was attending some Assembly of God churches in Springfield Missouri. I was in their bible school there, and the town had something like 60 Assembly congregations.

That was where I learned about it, and as a young bible school student I eagerly embraced the new and exciting expressions of Christianity never known in my Presbyterian upbringing.

What I meant by the percentages of my flesh vs God's Holy Spirit is that launching into a tongue, an interpretation, or a prophetic utterance is a decision of my will hopefully cooperating with the Spirit's will. I certainly feel the presence of the Holy Spirit, but I am choosing the words that flow. It is not as if my mind vacates and something else takes over. That would be a demonic expression, and I don't want to deal with that here.

In Romans 12:6 Paul admonishes that it is good to prophesy, but that one should prophesy in proportion to his faith. This is the basis for my comment that my utterances in church were some percentage me, and some percentage the Holy Spirit. This I firmly believe, that my words spoken in church must be completely and easily supported by the Scriptures. It is His word, not mine, that brings any obligation to the hearers.

It may follow that as my heart and mind are more attuned to the Scripture, the proportion of the Holy Spirit would increase and the proportion of me would decrease. But, one has to start somewhere!

This is why submission to authority in church is important, because if someone begins bringing prophecies that do not comport with Scripture those who are elders need to confront or guide these emerging prophets.

If they don't, the church will blow up. It is no wonder the practice of these utterances has diminished, and it is as much the fault of the leadership who don't want to be bothered with the messy learning process as it is the hot-headed "prophets" who think every time they open their mouth God is speaking!

Hence- 1 Corinthians 13....! Without love, it is clanging brass.


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Tom Cameron

 2013/10/24 12:13Profile









 Re:

But are there clear scriptures that teach that sign gifts are no monger valid today. For there cry of sola scriptural. I see no clear appeal to scripture from the cessionist. They appeal to one set of scriptures out of 1 Cor 13 that the perfect has come meaning the canon of the.New Testament. The context does not support that.

So where is the sola scriptural from the cessionist. What I see is no scriptura.

Bearmaster.

 2013/10/24 12:53
Lysa
Member



Joined: 2008/10/25
Posts: 3699
East TN for now!

 Re:

Quote:
bearmaster wrote:

So where is the sola scriptural from the cessionist. What I see is no scriptura.


I am in total agreement brother, I see none either. What amazes me about cessionists and others who do not believe in speaking in tongues feeling very confident in telling those that DO have them how to use them! Sheer pride.

Like Paul, I will say, “I thank my God in speak in tongues more than you all” and I don’t agree with those who have misused the gifts but our Lord and Savior, Jesus, said to let the tares and wheat grow together UNTIL the end of the harvest (Matt 13.29-30).

What part of that Scripture gives a mere man the right to make war with those who have the gift of speaking in divers tongues???? Humbly I will say that pride gives a man that right and cessionist or not, we know that pride is of the flesh, not the Spirit.

God bless brother,
Lisa

(edited for clarity's sake)


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Lisa

 2013/10/24 14:08Profile









 Re:

The following from

http://www.rapidnet.com/~jbeard/bdm/Psychology/char/biblical.htm

Quote:
Hastings points out that "It is significant that the Pauline notices of 'tongue-speech' are concerned only with the Corinthian Church." Mystical, ecstatic, even demonic utterances in supposed communication with the gods were not uncommon in Corinth. Ecstatic utterances had invaded the church from the pagan worship so prevalent in the city (1 Cor. 14:2, 4, 13, 14, 19, 26, 27, including all the verses having unknown added by the translators). 1 Cor. 14:9 refers to the physical tongue of man; 1 Cor 14:23, plural with a plural pronoun, refers to the Corinthian ecstatic utterances. Observe that chapter 14 contains a mixture of the word tongues: vv. 2, 4, 13, 19, 26 & 27, pagan ecstatic utterances; vv. 5, 6, 18 & 22, actual ethnic languages. (Encyclopaedia, III.371a; The Pulpit Commentary, XIX.397; The Hebrew-Greek Key Study Bible, by Spiros Zodhiates, 1436, 1438.)

Therefore, Paul says that he desires that they would indeed be able to supernaturally speak with other ethnic languages as he can, but on the other hand, he is soundly renouncing and rebuking the ecstatic utterances which were actually taking place in this church.

 2013/10/24 15:58









 Re:

Brenda you are bringing up the issue of tongues. My question is concerning all of the prophetic sign gifts. Where are the scriptures that speak that tongues, prophesy, healing, words if knowledge, faith, etc have disappeared and no monger operate in today's economy of God's redemption?

Bearmaster

 2013/10/24 20:29
savannah
Member



Joined: 2008/10/30
Posts: 2265


 Re: What Cessationism Is Not



What Cessationism Is Not

Cessationism is not anti-supernatural, nor does it deny the possibility of miracles.

When it comes to understanding the cessationist position, the question is not: Can God still do miracles in the world today? Cessationists would be quick to acknowledge that God can act at any time in any way He chooses. Along these lines, John MacArthur explains:

Miracles in the Bible [primarily] occurred in three major periods of time. The time of Moses and Joshua, the time of Elijah and Elisha, and the time of Christ and the apostles. . . . And it is during those three brief periods of time and those alone that miracles proliferated; that miracles were the norm; that miracles were in abundance. Now God can interject Himself into the human stream supernaturally anytime He wants. We’re not limiting Him. We’re simply saying that He has chosen to limit Himself to a great degree to those three periods of time.

Cessationism then does not deny the reality that God can do whatever He wants whenever He wants (Psalm 115:3). It does not put God into a box or limit His sovereign prerogative.

But it does acknowledge that there was something unique and special about the age of miracles and miracle-workers that defined the ministries of Moses and Joshua, Elijah and Elisha, and Christ and His apostles. Moreover, it recognizes the seemingly obvious fact that those kinds of miracles (like parting the sea, stopping the rain, raising the dead, walking on water, or instantly healing the lame and the blind) are not occurring today.

Thus, cessationists conclude that:

The apostolic age was marvelously unique and it ended. And what happened then is not the normal thing for every Christian. The normal thing for every Christian is to study the Word of God, which is able to make us wise and perfect. [It] is to live by faith and not by sight.

But can God still do extraordinary things in the world today? Certainly He can, if He chooses to do so. In fact, every time a sinner’s eyes are opened to the gospel, and a new life in Christ is created, it is nothing short of a miracle.

In his helpful book, To Be Continued?, Samuel Waldron aptly expresses the cessationist position this way (on p. 102):

I am not denying by all this that there are miracles in the world today in the broader sense of supernatural occurrences and extraordinary providences. I am only saying that there are no miracles in the stricter sense [of] miracle-workers performing miraculous signs to attest the redemptive revelation they bring from God. Though God has never locked Himself out of His world and is still at liberty to do as He pleases, when He pleases, how He pleases, and where He pleases, He has made it clear that the progress of redemptive revelation attested by miraculous signs done by miracle-workers has been brought to conclusion in the revelation embodied in our New Testaments.

So, the question is not: Can God still do miracles?

Rather, the definitive question is this: Are the miraculous gifts of the New Testament still in operation in the church today–such that what was the norm in the days of Christ and the apostles ought to be expected today?

To that, all cessationists would answer “no.”

Cessationism is not founded on one’s interpretation of “the perfect” in 1 Corinthians 13:10.

For that matter, it seems there are almost as many views of “the perfect” among cessationist scholars as there are commentators who write about 1 Corinthians 13:8–13. Space in this article does not permit a full investigation into each of these, but rather a cursory explanation of the major positions.

The Different Views

(1) Some (such as F.F. Bruce) argue that love itself is the perfect. Thus when the fullness of love comes, the Corinthians will put away their childish desires.

(2) Some (such as B.B. Warfield) contend that the completed canon of Scripture is the perfect. Scripture is described as “perfect” in James 1:25, a text in which the same word for “mirror” (as in v. 12) is found (in James 1:23). Thus partial revelation is done away when the full revelation of Scripture comes.

(3) Some (such as Robert Thomas) contend that the mature church is the perfect. This view is primarily based on the illustration of verse 11 and on the close connection between this passage and Eph. 4:11–13. The exact timing of the church’s “maturity” is unknown, though it is closely associated with the completion of the canon, and the end of the apostolic era (cf. Eph. 2:20).

(4) Some (such as Thomas Edgar) see the believer’s entrance into the presence of Christ (at the moment of death) as the perfect. This view accounts for the personal aspect of Paul’s statement in verse 12. Paul personally experienced full knowledge when he entered Christ’s presence at his death (cf. 2 Cor. 5:8).

(5) Some (such as Richard Gaffin) see the return of Christ (and the end of this age) as the perfect. This is also the view of most continuationists. Thus, when Christ comes back (as delineated in chapter 15), the partial revelation we know now will be made complete.

(6) Some (such as John MacArthur) view the eternal state (in a general sense) as the perfect. This explanation interprets the neuter of to teleion as a reference to a general state of events and not a personal return of Christ. This view overlaps with both numbers 4 and 5 above in that, according to this view: “For Christians the eternal state begins either at death, when they go to be with the Lord, or at the rapture, when the Lord takes His own to be with Himself” (John MacArthur, First Corinthians, p. 366).

Of these views, I personally find the last three more convincing than the first three. This is primarily due (I will confess) to the testimony of church history. Dr. Gary Shogren, after doing an in-depth study of some 169 patristic references to this passage, concludes that the church fathers overwhelmingly saw the perfect in terms of something beyond this life (most normally associating it with the return of Christ, or with seeing Christ in heaven). Even John Chrysostom (who was clearly a cessationist) saw it this way. While not authoritative, such historical evidence is difficult to dismiss.

In any case, my point here is simply this: The interpreter can take any of the above positions, and still remain a cessationist. In fact, there are cessationists who hold to each of the positions listed above (as the names I’ve listed indicate).

Thus, Anthony Thiselton notes in his commentary on this passage: “The one important point to make here is that few or none of the serious ‘cessationist’ arguments depends on a specific exegesis of 1 Cor 13:8–11. . . . These verses should not be used as a polemic for either side in this debate” (NIGTC, pp. 1063–64).

Cessationism is not an attack on the Person or work of the Holy Spirit.

In fact, just the opposite is true. Cessationists are motivated by a desire to see the Holy Spirit glorified. They are concerned that, by redefining the gifts, the continuationist position cheapens the remarkable nature of those gifts, lessening the truly miraculous working of the Spirit in the earliest stages of the church.

Cessationists are convinced that, by redefining healing, the charismatic position presents a bad testimony to the watching world when the sick are not healed. By redefining tongues, the charismatic position promotes a type of nonsensical gibberish that runs contrary to anything we know about the biblical gift. By redefining prophecy, the charismatic position lends credence to those who would claim to speak the very words of God and yet speak error.

This, then, is the primary concern of cessationists: that the honor of the Triune God and His Word be exalted—and that it not be cheapened by watered-down substitutes.

And how do we know if something is authentic or not? By comparing it to the written testimony of Scripture. Does going to the Bible to define the gifts mean that we are bypassing the Holy Spirit? Quite the contrary. When we search the Scriptures, we are going to the testimony of the Holy Spirit Himself to discover what He has revealed about the gifts that He bestowed.

As a cessationist, I love the Holy Spirit. I would never want to do anything to discredit His work, diminish His attributes, or downplay His ministry. Nor would I ever want to miss out on anything He is doing in the church today. And I’m not the only cessationist who feels this way.

Because we love the Holy Spirit we are thankful to God for the Spirit’s amazing and ongoing work in the body of Christ. His works of regenerating, indwelling, baptizing, sealing, assuring, illuminating, convicting, comforting, confirming, filling, and enabling are all indispensable aspects of His ministry.

Because we love the Holy Spirit we are motivated to study the Scriptures that He inspired to learn how to walk in a manner worthy, being characterized by His fruit. We long to be filled by Him (Eph. 5:18), which begins by being indwelt with His Word, which is the Word of Christ (Col. 3:16–17), and being equipped with His sword, which is the Word of God (Eph. 6:17).

Finally, it is because we love the Holy Spirit that we long to rightly represent Him, to understand and appreciate His purposes (as He has revealed them in His Word), and to align ourselves with what He is doing in this world. This more than anything else gives us reason to study the issue of charismatic gifts (cf. 1 Cor. 12:7-11). Our goal in this study has to be more than mere doctrinal correctness. Our motivation must be to gain a more accurate understanding of the Spirit’s work—such that we might better yield ourselves to Him in service to Christ for the glory of God.

Cessationism is not a product of the Enlightenment.

Perhaps the easiest way to demonstrate this final point is to cite pre-Enlightenment Christian leaders who held to a cessationist position. It is, after all, difficult to argue that John Chrysostom’s fourth-century theology was a result of 18th-century European rationalism.

In bringing this blog post to a close then, here are ten leaders from church history to consider:

1. John Chrysostom (c. 344–407):

This whole place [speaking about 1 Corinthians 12] is very obscure: but the obscurity is produced by our ignorance of the facts referred to and by their cessation, being such as then used to occur but now no longer take place.

(Source: John Chrysostom, Homilies on 1 Corinthians, 36.7. Chrysostom is commenting on 1 Cor 12:1–2 and introducing the entire chapter. Cited from 1–2 Corinthians, in the Ancient Christian Commentary Series, 146.)

2. Augustine (354–430):

In the earliest times, the Holy Spirit fell upon them that believe and they spoke with tongues, which they had not learned, as the Spirit gave them utterance. These were signs adapted to the time. For there was this betokening of the Holy Spirit in all tongues [languages] to show that the gospel of God was to run through all tongues over the whole earth. That thing was done for a sign, and it passed away.

(Source: Augustine, Homilies on the First Epistle of John, 6.10. Cf. Schaff, NPNF, First Series, 7:497–98.)

3. Theodoret of Cyrus (c. 393–c. 466):

In former times those who accepted the divine preaching and who were baptized for their salvation were given visible signs of the grace of the Holy Spirit at work in them. Some spoke in tongues which they did not know and which nobody had taught them, while others performed miracles or prophesied. The Corinthians also did these things, but they did not use the gifts as they should have done. They were more interested in showing off than in using them for the edification of the church. . . . Even in our time grace is given to those who are deemed worthy of holy baptism, but it may not take the same form as it did in those days.

(Source: Theodoret of Cyrus, Commentary on the First Epistle to the Corinthians, 240, 43; in reference to 1 Cor 12:1, 7. Cited from 1–2 Corinthians, ACCS, 117).

Note: Proponents of continuationism, like Jon Ruthven (in his work, On the Cessation of the Charismata), also acknowledge cessationist views in other church fathers (like Origen in the 3rd century, and Ambrosiaster in the 4th century).

Additionally, to this list, we could include the most well-known name of the middle ages, the 13th-century scholastic, Thomas Aquinas.

But let’s jump ahead to the Reformation and Puritan eras.

4. Martin Luther (1483–1546)

In the early Church the Holy Spirit was sent forth in visible form. He descended upon Christ in the form of a dove (Matt. 3:16), and in the likeness of fire upon the apostles and other believers. (Acts 2:3.) This visible outpouring of the Holy Spirit was necessary to the establishment of the early Church, as were also the miracles that accompanied the gift of the Holy Ghost. Paul explained the purpose of these miraculous gifts of the Spirit in I Corinthians 14:22, “Tongues are for a sign, not to them that believe, but to them that believe not.” Once the Church had been established and properly advertised by these miracles, the visible appearance of the Holy Ghost ceased.

(Source: Martin Luther, Commentary on Galatians 4, Trans. by Theodore Graebner [Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 1949], pp. 150-172. This is from Luther’s comment on Gal. 4:6.)

5. John Calvin (1509–1564):

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

(Source: John Calvin, Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels, III:389.)

The gift of healing, like the rest of the miracles, which the Lord willed to be brought forth for a time, has vanished away in order to make the preaching of the Gospel marvellous for ever.

(Source: John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, IV:19, 18.)

6. John Owen (1616–1683):

Gifts which in their own nature exceed the whole power of all our faculties, that dispensation of the Spirit is long since ceased and where it is now pretended unto by any, it may justly be suspected as an enthusiastic delusion.

(Source: John Owen, Works, IV:518.)

7. Thomas Watson (1620–1686):

Sure, there is as much need of ordination now as in Christ’s time and in the time of the apostles, there being then extraordinary gifts in the church which are now ceased.

(Source: Thomas Watson, The Beatitudes, 140.)

8. Matthew Henry (1662–1714):

What these gifts were is at large told us in the body of the chapter [1 Corinthians 12]; namely, extraordinary offices and powers, bestowed on ministers and Christians in the first ages, for conviction of unbelievers, and propagation of the gospel.

(Source: Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary, in reference to 1 Corinthians 12.)

The gift of tongues was one new product of the spirit of prophecy and given for a particular reason, that, the Jewish pale being taken down, all nations might be brought into the church. These and other gifts of prophecy, being a sign, have long since ceased and been laid aside, and we have no encouragement to expect the revival of them; but, on the contrary, are directed to call the scriptures the more sure word of prophecy, more sure than voices from heaven; and to them we are directed to take heed, to search them, and to hold them fast, 2 Peter 1:29.

(Source: Matthew Henry, Preface to Vol. IV of his Exposition of OT & NT, vii.)

9. John Gill (1697–1771):

[Commenting on 1 Corinthians 12:9 and 30,]

Now these gifts were bestowed in common, by the Spirit, on apostles, prophets, and pastors, or elders of the church, in those early times: the Alexandrian copy, and the Vulgate Latin version, read, “by one Spirit”.

(Source: John Gill’s commentary on 1 Corinthians 12:9.)

No; when these gifts were in being, all had them not. When anointing with oil, in order to heal the sick, was in use, it was only performed by the elders of the church, not by the common members of it, who were to be sent for by the sick on this occasion.

(Source: John Gill’s commentary on 1 Corinthians 12:30.)

10. Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758):

In the days of his [Jesus’] flesh, his disciples had a measure of the miraculous gifts of the Spirit, being enabled thus to teach and to work miracles. But after the resurrection and ascension, was the most full and remarkable effusion of the Spirit in his miraculous gifts that ever took place, beginning with the day of Pentecost, after Christ had risen and ascended to heaven. And in consequence of this, not only here and there an extraordinary person was endowed with these extraordinary gifts, but they were common in the church, and so continued during the lifetime of the apostles, or till the death of the last of them, even the apostle John, which took place about a hundred years from the birth of Christ; so that the first hundred years of the Christian era, or the first century, was the era of miracles.

But soon after that, the canon of Scripture being completed when the apostle John had written the book of Revelation, which he wrote not long before his death, these miraculous gifts were no longer continued in the church. For there was now completed an established written revelation of the mind and will of God, wherein God had fully recorded a standing and all-sufficient rule for his church in all ages. And the Jewish church and nation being overthrown, and the Christian church and the last dispensation of the church of God being established, the miraculous gifts of the Spirit were no longer needed, and therefore they ceased; for though they had been continued in the church for so many ages, yet then they failed, and God caused them to fail because there was no further occasion for them. And so was fulfilled the saying of the text, “Whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.” And now there seems to be an end to all such fruits of the Spirit as these, and we have no reason to expect them any more.

(Source: Jonathan Edwards, Sermon entitled, “The Holy Spirit Forever To Be Communicated To The Saints, In The Grace Of Charity, Or Divine Love” on 1 Corinthians 13:8.)

“Of the extraordinary gifts, they were given ‘in order to the founding and establishing of the church in the world. But since the canon of Scriptures has been completed, and the Christian church fully founded and established, these extraordinary gifts have ceased.”

(Source: Jonathan Edwards, Charity and its Fruits, 29.)

* * * * *

To this list, we could add other names: James Buchanan, R. L. Dabney, Charles Spurgeon, George Smeaton, Abraham Kuyper, William G. T. Shedd, B. B. Warfield, A. W. Pink, and so on. But, admittedly, they are post-Enlightenment historical figures.

by Nathan Busenitz

 2013/10/24 20:35Profile









 Re:

One. of the reformers became exasperated with the Anabaptist because they kept pressing for scriptural grounds to justify infant baptism. In a quote he said they say show us from the Bible.......We know that the Reformers had to resort to sophisticated theological reasoning to justify infant baptism.

This is what I see coming out of those Reformed brethren who hold to cessionusm. This doctrine cannot be defended from the scriptures.

Bearmaster.

 2013/10/24 20:39





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