Have the spiritual gifts ceased to be? Are they no longer in operation in the church today? This is a fiercely debated issue, and I’m not going to be able to address every point of contention in just one article. My goal, rather, is to just get you thinking in the right direction, the Biblical direction.
We must recognize, first and foremost, that our foundation is the Word of God - no debates there. So, does the Word of God teach that the gifts have ceased to be? Not by any stretch of the imagination.
The belief that the spiritual gifts have ceased is called “cessationism.” Those who believe that the gifts have ceased are called “cessationists.” Of course, that’s an oversimplification of the terms, as there are varying beliefs even within cessationism. But, for the sake of conversation, we’ll stick with the simpler definitions I just gave you.
So upon what exactly does the cessationist base their faulty interpretation of reality?
There are a few things.
#1 Speculation
#2 Arguments from History
#3 Poor Biblical Interpretation
#1 Speculation
First, you’ll notice that cessationists use a lot of speculation - something they’d discourage in any other context. Here’s an example of speculation: Paul the apostle instructed Timothy to use wine as medicine. “Why”, the cessationist will ask, “didn’t Paul just heal him?”
Then they’ll conclude that because Paul didn’t heal Timothy or because Timothy didn’t just heal himself, that the spiritual gifts had already stopped operating. This is faulty logic for a couple reasons.
Firstly, there are many examples in Scripture where godly men died, suffered, or remained sick. This by no means leads to the conclusion that therefore God just picked some subjective spot on the timeline of history to end His demonstrations of power. This just means that God’s sovereignty still applies even in the context of the miraculous. His sovereignty and His miracles have never been at odds with one another. So, there are instances, both in the OT and NT when God didn’t demonstrate his power as people thought He should. Simply put, God exercising His sovereignty to withhold a miracle never means that miracles are no more.
Secondly, the other problem with speculation is that it’s just that - speculation. There’s nothing in all of Scripture that even comes close to indicating that God’s power has stopped working. Now here’s where things get interesting. Once you show through Scripture that God’s power still works today, the cessationist will dodge the point.
They might interject, “Oh, we believe that God still demonstrates His power. We believe He still does miracles. He just doesn’t do miracles through the spiritual gifts anymore.” And what a telling dodge that is on the part of the cessationist. They have to play semantics, word games to hold their position.
But the position of those who believe the spiritual gifts are still in operation is quite simple: just as God moved sovereignly and miraculously through men and women in the past, so He still moves today. As believers who embrace the spiritual gifts, we don’t actually believe that we carry power of our own or that we wield a gift independently of God’s will - nor does the Scripture teach that. Again, God’s sovereignty applies even when spiritual gifts are involved.
Sadly, the cessationist rejects God’s sovereignty because they box him in to their worldview. They rely on their own personal experiences - or lack thereof - rather than the Word. That’s ironic being as how the spirit-filled believer is the one often accused of relying upon or focusing too heavily upon “experience.”
#2 Arguments from History
But if it’s not speculation the cessationist is using, it’s going to be an argument from history. For example, the cessationist may say that the early church fathers didn’t pray in tongues or that there were some early believers who believed the gifts had ceased.
In the first place, there are thousands of actions all of us perform every week for which there will never be a historical record. How can we know what the early church didn’t practice? We’d need a complete record of every early church member’s life to know that. The cessationist is in a tough position, in that he has to prove that the early church - all members and leaders -stopped practicing the spiritual gifts.
Still, the cessationist might be able to point to some early church father who believed the gifts ceased. But all that does is demonstrate that there were even cessationists back then. There were debates and differences of opinions even then. We honor the early church, but we shouldn’t idolize it. The Bible, not historical Christian figures, is the final authority. The question is not, “What did the early Church believe?” The question remains, “What does the Bible teach?”
So then after you rightfully dismiss the cessationist’s philosophical or historical arguments, the question arises: does the cessationist have any good Biblical reason for his position?
#3 Poor Biblical Interpretation
The best a cessationist can offer is a poor interpretation of this verse:
8Prophecy and speaking in unknown languages and special knowledge will become useless. But love will last forever! 9Now our knowledge is partial and incomplete, and even the gift of prophecy reveals only part of the whole picture! 10But when the time of perfection comes, these partial things will become useless. (1 Corinthians 13:8-10, NLT)
So the gifts will cease to be in operation at the time of perfection. So when does that take place? The Bible clearly tells us in the next two verses:
11When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things. 12Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely. (1 Corinthians 13:11-12, NLT)
Now, I don’t know about you, but I don’t know anyone on earth (besides the Holy Spirit) who knows everything “completely.” The Scripture, in this context, is most certainly talking about eternity. Until then, the gifts are still available to the Church.
Now, I can already see the comments. Of course, there are angles that I couldn’t address in this short article, but I assure you that whatever the angle, whatever the argument, cessationsm has been Biblically, thoroughly debunked. And I want you to pay close attention to the comments that cessationists might leave on this post. Notice that all of the dissenting comments will fall under the categories of personal attack, speculation, historical arguments, or forced interpretation of Scripture. Many will reference their bad experiences with the spiritual gifts. Many will misunderstand several of the points made in this article.
Some will say I misrepresented cessationism. I didn’t. Some will say I twist the Scriptures. I don’t. Some will say that there’s plenty in Scripture to show cessationism to be true. There isn’t. No amount of scriptural gymnastics can produce such a counter-biblical view. So the next time someone tries to tell you the gifts have ceased, ask them for the specific chapter and verse. Don’t be intimidated by those who love to debate. Stand on the Word. There’s no debating with the Word of God.
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