Series

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. [9] For we know in part and we prophesy in part, [10] but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. [11] When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. [12] Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

Last week I mentioned that I believe all the gifts of the Spirit, including the miraculous ones, are still available and operating in the church today. Not all evangelicals agree with this, so this morning, let me tell you why I think that. I’m going to give seven of the most common arguments of those who believe these gifts have stopped, and try to respond to them. The view that the gifts have ceased is called “cessationism”, but that seems like sort of a cumbersome word to me, so I won’t use it very much.

I. 1 Cor 13:8-12 teaches that the miraculous gifts stopped with the completion of the New Testament[1]

The passage that is most often used to suggest that the miraculous gifts have ceased is 1 Cor. 13:8-12. Let’s read it again. “Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. [9] For we know in part and we prophesy in part, [10] but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. [11] When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. [12] Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.”

This clearly says that miraculous gifts such as tongues and prophecy, and the special Spirit-given “words of knowledge” will cease. But when? It says, “when perfection comes.” These gifts are imperfect, incomplete, and when perfection comes, they will stop. The question is, When is that? Some people say that this refers to the completion of the New Testament canon. The New Testament is the “perfect” revelation by God to man. The early church needed these miraculous gifts of revelation because the New Testament was still being written, but when it was complete, they were no longer needed and stopped.

But is that what Paul meant? When perfection comes, he says, we will see spiritual realities face to face, not dimly or distorted like we do now. And we will know things as fully as God now knows us. So we have to ask, What time is he referring to? The Old Testament uses the phrase “face to face” to refer to seeing God personally six times.[2] Revelation 22:4 says that in heaven, “They will see His face.” So when will we see spiritual realities, and possibly God, face to face? It didn’t happen when the New Testament was completed. That won’t happen until Jesus returns or we die. When will we know things as fully as God now knows us? That won’t be until Jesus returns, either. If “perfection” meant the completed New Testament, then we would know more of God’s truth than the Apostle Paul, because it was still being written during his lifetime, and not completed until after he died.

The point of this passage is that the gifts do not belong to the future age; they are given for the common good, to build up the Church between now and the time Christ returns. They are partial, not complete; they are like childhood in comparison with adulthood; they are like looking into a mirror compared to seeing someone face to face. This isn’t meant to devalue the miraculous gifts, but to put them in the perspective that their intended purpose was for this age.[3] So when this age is over, the gifts will cease.

The verb[4] Paul uses in this passage, which is translated “cease” and “pass away” in v.8, and “disappears” in v. 10, is used four other times elsewhere in 1 Corinthians to refer to the passing away of what belongs to the present age. This lends more weight to the notion that Paul is referring here to what will happen at the end of the age, rather than to something that would happen when the New Testament was completed. The most reasonable interpretation of this passage in 1 Corinthians 13 is that the gifts will cease when Jesus returns to earth.[5]

II. The miraculous gifts authenticated the apostles and ceased when they died Acts 9:17,18; Rom 12:6; 1 Cor 12:8-10; Galatians 3:5; Acts 6:8; 8:6,7

The idea is that the apostles held a unique position in the early church, as the men who had actually lived with Jesus, or seen the risen Christ as in the case of Paul. The miraculous gifts were given to them to authenticate their ministry as trustworthy teachers of doctrine. This view cites passages like these:

Acts 5:12, “The apostles performed many miraculous signs and wonders among the people…” and 2 Cor. 12:12, “The things that mark an apostle--signs, wonders and miracles--were done among you with great perseverance.”

There is no question that the original 11 apostles plus Paul were unique in the history of the church. Paul himself says that the apostles and prophets form the foundation for the New Testament church (Eph 2:20), and that the mystery of Christ had been revealed to them as it had not been to any one else (Eph 3:5). And the Bible does seem to make a special point of saying that the apostles were able to perform miracles of various sorts (see Acts 2:4; 2:43; 3:6-8; 5:12; 9:34; 9:40; 13:11-12; 14:3; 14:8-10; 16:18; 19:11-12; Rom 15:18-19).

But just because the apostles could do miracles, does not mean that no one else could do miracles, or that the possibility of anyone doing a miracle ceased when the last apostle died. We might just as well say, Only the apostles planted churches; the apostles are dead; therefore church planting has ceased.

The argument is that the miracles authenticated the message and the writings of the apostles. But some authors of the New Testament were not apostles. Mark was an associate of Peter’s; Luke was a physician who traveled widely with Paul, who wrote both the gospel of Luke and the book of Acts. Jude was probably a step brother of Jesus, and no one knows who wrote Hebrews. Not every writer of the New Testament was an apostle or had supernatural manifestations of the Spirit. So it does not seem that the function of the miraculous gifts was just to help people believe that the New Testament was being written by men of God.

As it turns out, a number of other people besides the apostles performed miracles in the New Testament: Ananias healed Paul of blindness (Acts 9:17,18); Paul refers to the gift of prophecy in Rome, a city where no apostle had been at that point (Rom 12:6); he refers to the gifts of healing and prophecy taking place in Corinth when no apostle was present (1 Cor 12:8-10); and in Galatians 3:5, he says the Holy Spirit “work[s] miracles among you.” The “you” there is plural and has to refer to the churches as a whole, which were not led by an apostle. Stephen “did great wonders and miraculous signs among the people” (Acts 6:8); Philip cast out demons and healed many paralytics and cripples (Acts 8:6,7).

So it just is not accurate to say that only apostles performed miracles and that when they died, the miracles ceased. Moreover, to say that the purpose of the miracles was to confirm the Scriptures is not true either. No writer of Scripture ever referred to miracles as proof that his writings were true. Scripture tests miracles, not the other way around.

III. Church history proves that the miraculous gifts stopped after the first century

Several writers I read make the point that some people have seen too much of the miraculous in church history, and some have seen too little.[6] People come at the historical records with a bias, and that tends to cloud their judgment. So I would not say that there have been lots and lots of miraculous manifestations of the Spirit all through church history; that would be an overstatement. But here are some examples of people writing after the first century about their experience.

· Justin Martyr lived about A.D. 100 – 165, and he wrote, “many of our Christian men… have healed and do heal, rendering helpless and driving the possessing devils out.”[7]

· Origen, writing in the third century reported, “The gospel has a demonstration of its own … this…method is called by the apostle the “manifestation of the Spirit and of power:” of “the Spirit” on account of the prophecies, which are sufficient to produce faith in any one who reads them… and of “power”, because of the signs and wonders.”

· A Latin theologian named Hilary of Poitiers, wrote in the fourth century, “The gift of the Spirit is manifest…where there is…the gift of healings, that by the cure of disease we should bear witness to His grace…or by the working of miracles…or by prophecy…or by discerning of spirits…or by kinds of tongues, that the speaking in tongues may be bestowed as a sign of the gift of the Holy Spirit; or by the interpretation of tongues.”

· The great theologian Augustine, who lived in the late 4^th and early 5^th centuries, described his own congregation this way: “…many miracles were wrought… One miracle was wrought among ourselves…I suppose there is no inhabitant of Hippo who did not either see or hear of it…There were seven brothers and three sisters…all of them seized with a hideous shaking of their limbs…Two of them came to Hippo…They came daily to the church. Easter arrived, and on the Lord’s Day…the young man was holding the bars of the holy place…and praying; suddenly he fell down…All present were astonished…And behold! He rose up, and trembled no more, for he was healed.”

There are lots more references on the sermon on the web site to works that review the miraculous in church history.[8] (By the way, there is always more material on the sermon posted on the web site than I mention verbally; check it out if you want more.) Just one example of a well-attested miracle after the time of the apostles, would sink this argument, and we have a number of those. So I think we cannot prove from church history that the miraculous gifts have stopped altogether.

IV. Allowing miraculous gifts such as prophecy undermines the authority of Scripture 1 Cor. 14:26; 1 Thes. 5:20; Gal 2:2; Eph 1:17

The concern is that if we say the gift of prophecy has the same authority as Scripture, then it is easy to get off base theologically. There’s no question about that. In fact, many groups in history have gotten into heresy when they became detached from Scripture and began “hearing God” speak to them. Most cults have gotten started from this error. John MacArthur is a well known proponent of this view, and he says, “If we then undermine the uniqueness of the Bible, we will have no way of distinguishing God’s voice from man’s voice. Eventually anyone can say anything and claim it is God’s Word, and no one will have the right to refute it.”

That’s a valid concern. At least, it would be if New Testament prophecy were the same as Old Testament prophecy in its authority, but it is not. I’ll deal with the gift of prophecy in more detail in a later sermon, but let me just make a few comments about it here. It is a grievous error to assert that someone has received revelation from God today that is as authoritative as the Bible. But the word “revelation” (apokalypsis) is sometimes used in the New Testament in a way that does not refer to Scriptural revelation. For example, in 1 Cor. 14:26, Paul describes a typical worship service, “…When you come together, everyone has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation.” He certainly did not mean that people in the Corinthian church were regularly speaking with Old Testament prophetic authority. If they were, why would they have to be tested by the congregation (v.29)? He is evidently referring to a revelation from God that has less authority than that.

In Gal 2:2, Paul reports that he went to the Jerusalem Council in response to a revelation he had from God; and in Eph 1:17, he prays that God will give the believers, “the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that [they] may know Him better.”

I think we use the word revelation this way when we describe a situation where we were reading the Bible, or listening to a message on the Scripture, and suddenly a new insight comes to us. We see the implications of that truth in a new and powerful way. It “hits” us, and we know that it is God who revealed that truth to us and enabled us to understand it more fully. I think that’s what Paul means when he says that “everyone(!) has…a revelation.”

Let me say it again: No new revelations from God are being given which are equally authoritative with Scripture. But that does not mean that God is not revealing things to His people for their strengthening, encouragement, and comfort, as it says in 1 Cor 14:3. In fact, 1 Thes. 5:20 specifically says, “do not treat prophecies with contempt.” Insisting that prophecies do not exist seems pretty contemptuous to me.

V. The miraculous gifts were given only during the three periods of history when new revelation was being given. Therefore, they are not being given today.

There were three periods of Bible history when there seemed to be an explosion of miracles: in the days of Moses and Joshua, during the time of Elijah and Elisha, and in the time of Christ and the apostles. These were also times when large blocks of Scripture were written. Therefore, the purpose of the miracles was to authenticate the writing of Scripture as being from God. Since the New Testament is complete, we no longer need miracles.

It could be that miraculous manifestations of God were more prevalent during those three periods of history. But it does not prove that they did not happen at all during other periods. In fact, just the opposite is the case. Leaving out the two periods of history that were concurrent with the writing of much of the Old Testament Scriptures, Jack Deere has an appendix listing 115 separate miracles.[9] There are appearances of the Lord to individuals, appearances of angels, supernatural dreams and visions, supernaturally given interpretations of dreams and visions, miraculous healings, and prophecies from people who were not necessarily recognized as prophets. So it is just not accurate to say that miracles only occurred in the Bible during times when Scripture was being written.

Even if it were true that all the supernatural events in the Bible were confined to the times when new revelation was being given, that would not prove that miraculous gifts ceased when the New Testament was complete. We would need a clear teaching from Scripture itself that that is what would happen, and we do not have that, not even in the favorite passage of 1 Cor 13:8ff.

VI. Jesus said, “A wicked and adulterous generation looks for a miraculous sign” (Matt 16:4). This means we should not seek miraculous manifestations in our ministries today.

There is a potential danger here. In Matthew 16, the Pharisees and Sadducees came to Jesus and tested Him by asking Him to show them a sign from heaven. They didn’t believe He was who He said He was, and they were basically saying, “Prove it!” Their request came from a position of doubt and skepticism, and they wouldn’t have believed Him even if He had done a miracle then and there, because they didn’t believe the miracles that He had already done. It’s never a good thing to test God like this. So Jesus said, “A wicked and adulterous generation looks for a miraculous sign (in this way), but none will be given it except the sign of Jonah." His resurrection would be the greatest proof of who He was, but they didn’t even believe that.

It’s altogether different when we come to God from a position of trust and faith, believing that He is who He says He is, and asking Him to demonstrate that to us. It is faith seeking confirmation, not doubt seeking to disprove.

· So the psalmist prays, Psalm 86:17, “Give me a sign of your goodness, that my enemies may see it and be put to shame, for you, O Lord, have helped me and comforted me.” He’s saying, I know you are good; you have helped me and comforted me in the past. Please demonstrate your goodness to me again.

· Habakkuk prayed for revival in these terms, 3:2, “Lord, I have heard of your fame; I stand in awe of your deeds, O Lord. Renew them in our day, in our time make them known…. There wasn’t any doubt in his mind that God was great and mighty, and had done amazing things in the past; he’s just asking God to do it again, to show people in his day how great God is.

· Or when the believers were being persecuted in the early church, they gathered together, and rather than asking for protection from the authorities, they asked to be given boldness to witness. And then they prayed, Acts 4:30, “Stretch out your hand to heal and perform miraculous signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus." They didn’t doubt that He could; they just wanted Him to act in accordance with His own nature.

In one sense, every prayer is a request for God to do something supernatural consistent with who He is. We ask for guidance because He is all wise; we ask for healing because He is compassionate and all powerful; we ask for understanding because He knows all things; we ask Him to intervene in the lives of couples who are struggling because He is love and He has access to their hearts and minds; we ask for justice because God is just.

So I don’t think it is wrong for us to ask God to do the miraculous, or even to expect it, because He is supernatural, and He can do anything. “With God, nothing is impossible.”

VII. The early church needed miracles to help it grow up, but the mature church no longer needs them.[10]

Some people teach that miracles were necessary to get the church launched in the beginning, but once it was up and going, they weren’t needed any more. A famous theologian named B. B. Warfield said, “When the protection of the strongest power on earth was secured [i.e. the Roman empire] the idea seemed to be that the power of God was no longer needed.”[11]

Really? Jesus commissioned the church to make disciples of every ethnic group on earth, and we don’t need the power of the Holy Spirit to do that? Godless states and many non-Christian religions have tried to stamp out the church, often through violent means, and we don’t need the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit? If miracles were helpful to the church in the first century, why would they not be helpful to us now?

There are a number of other arguments for the idea that the miraculous gifts have ceased in The Word and Power Church, referred to on the bottom of your outline. I commend it to you as a well written, balanced position by a thoughtful pastor. As I study each of the arguments for why people think the miraculous gifts have stopped, I don’t see that any of them are very convincing. I think this is largely a case of what I mentioned last week, of people coming to the Bible with their “pre-understanding” already made up, based primarily on their experience. Experience alone is never to be the sole factor in deciding what something in the Bible means; but if you have never seen the gifts used responsibly, and all you have experience with is the abuses and excesses of the charismatic movement, then you tend to read the Scripture in a biased way that excludes the possibility of these gifts. I understand that, but I think it is wrong.

Finally, let me mention some positive reasons why I think all the gifts are still available to the church today:

1 Cor. 14:1, “Follow the way of love and eagerly desire spiritual gifts, especially the gift of prophecy.” This comes just two sentences after the paragraph we looked at first, in 1 Cor 13:8ff, about when the perfect comes the gifts will cease. Does it make any sense to say that Paul wrote, “eagerly desire spiritual gifts, especially the gift of prophecy,” just two sentences after he had told them the gift of prophecy was going to end soon? Was Paul saying, “Eagerly desire spiritual gifts, but just for a little while, because pretty soon I’m going to stop writing Scripture, and then all these gifts will stop. Then you are supposed to stop eagerly desiring them.”?

We in the 21^st century are to eagerly desire spiritual gifts, especially the gift of prophecy, just as much as the first century Christians were.

The whole argument of 1 Corinthians 12 is that there is just one Body of Christ, composed of many different individuals. And the thing that distinguishes one part of the body from another is our different gifts. I’ll be preaching on this chapter in a couple of weeks, but that’s Paul’s main point: we need each and every part of the body, which means we need each and every gift. You might see some of these miraculous gifts as weaker, less honorable, Paul says, but they are all needed to strengthen the church, for the common good (1 Cor 12:7; 14:26). If they were needed then, they are needed now.

Finally, the ultimate reason I don’t think the gifts ceased is because God hasn’t changed. He is the same today as He was in the first century, when Christians were speaking in tongues and receiving prophetic messages and healing people. He is just as strong and just as loving as He was then, and we need His love and power just as much as they did. Those miraculous manifestations of the Spirit revealed His nature, and He hasn’t changed.

I don’t know if anything I have said today has changed your mind, but hopefully I’ve given you something to think about. The bottom line for me is that I want God to be famous; I want to see Him glorified in our community through our church. If He would do that through what Paul called the power of signs and wonders, through the power of the Spirit, then I want it. I want to see Him get all the credit He deserves.

Hopefully, I’ve given you something to think about this morning. I am sensitive to the fact that many of you have had negative experiences with the charismatic movement, and those experiences have made you nervous when people begin to teach as I have this morning. My greatest fear is that this teaching could become divisive in our church, as it has been in some other churches—perhaps even churches you have been a part of.

I work very hard to correctly interpret the Scripture, but I am certainly not infallible. I could be mistaken. So if you have doubts or questions about my interpretation of these passages, please come talk to me. Tell me how you see it, and why, and I’ll explain more fully my thinking about each passage. If you disagree with me, the worst thing you could do would be to go off in a corner and sulk, or maybe leave the church, or worse yet, start fomenting dissention among others.

Let’s not draw up sides and attack each other. Let’s sit on the same side of the table and together try to figure out what God’s Word means. We will find our unity in the absolute truth of the Scripture. And if, at the end of the day, we still don’t agree with each other, then we can agree to disagree in love. But at least we will respect one another for our convictions and integrity.

[1] The arguments and much of their rebuttals are in Doug Banister, The Word and Power Church (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1999), Appendix One, p.179ff.

[2] Gen 32:30; Ex 33:11; Deut 5:4; 34:10; Judges 6:22; Ezek 20:35

[3] Gordon D. Fee, Paul, the Spirit, and the People of God (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1996), p.176.

[4] katargeo. 1 Cor. 2:6; 6:13; 15:24, 26

[5] See also D. A. Carson, Showing the Spirit (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1987), p.67ff.

[6] e.g. Carson, p.165-169; Fee, p.175.

[7] This and the following citations are in Banister, p.187ff.

[8] See Jack Deere, Surprised by the Voice of God (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996), p.64-93; Michael Green, Evangelism in the Early Church; John Woolmer, Healing and Deliverances; Louis Bouyer, “Some Charismatic Movements in the History of the Church,” in Perspectives on Charismatic Renewal, ed. Edward D. O’Connor (Notre Dame: University Press, 1975), 113-131; George H. Williams and Edith Waldvogel, “A History of Speaking in Tongues and Related Gifts,” in The Charismatic Movement, ed. Michael P. Hamilton (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975), p.61-113; W. J. Samarin, Tongues of Men and Angels: The Religious Language of Pentecostalism (New York: Macmillan, 1972);

[9] Deere, p.253-266.

[10] This argument and rebuttal is in Deere, p.108f.

[11] Quoted in Deere, p.109.