This is part two of The Best Cessationist Arguments

(See The Best Arguments for Continuationism)

(More) Biblical Arguments

First, when considering whether or not we should expect miracles, healings, and exorcisms to be performed today in the same way it was performed in the time of Jesus and the apostles, we should realize (1) how rare these kinds of miracles are in Scripture and (2) what their primary purpose was.

(1) Displays of super-abundant miracles performed through humans are relatively rare in Scripture. There are three high-points: Moses and the Exodus; Elijah and Elisha; Jesus and the Apostles. There are certainly other miraculous events scattered throughout the Bible, such as Daniel being preserved in the lion’s den, Joseph’s ability to interpret dreams, Joshua commanding the sun to stand still, etc. But the three epochs listed above are unique in the concentration of miraculous events and in the manner in which they are performed.

While it is certainly miraculous that the three are saved in Nebuchadnezzar’s fiery furnace, for instance, they do not appear to wield the miraculous in the same manner that the apostles or Elijah or Moses do. They are miraculously preserved, while Moses, Elijah/Elisha, Jesus, and the apostles seem to possess an ability to perform the miraculous. Moses strikes the rock and water gushes forth; Elisha makes an ax-head float; Jesus speaks and demons leave; Peter’s shadow heals the sick. It is these kind of sensational performative miracles that charismatic Christians look at today and believe should serve as a model for us today, even if they rarely repeat the same caliber of miracles. Yet, when we look at the whole timeline contained in the scope of Scripture, these are exceedingly rare. This does not mean, of course, that they cannot happen today. But it does lead us to question whether or not they should be normative in the church when they apparently were not even normative in the pages of Scripture.

(2) And, more importantly, when investigated we see that in these instances, miracles functioned as a means by which to authenticate the identity of these individuals as representatives of God.

Both Moses and Elijah/Elisha worked miracles to prove their identity and authority as God’s spokesman (Ex 4:1-5; Ex 7:3; 1 Kings 18:36). When Jesus’ authority or identity as the Messiah was challenged he repeatedly pointed to His miraculous works as His verification (Luke 7:22; John 10:25, 38; 14:11) and others pointed to His miracle-working as confirming His identity (John 3:2; Acts 2:22; John 20:30). Further, Christ’s apostles were able to validate their unique authority by the miracles they could perform (2 Cor 12:12; Heb 2:3-4). Much more could be said about this, but the point is to show that the purpose of miracles were never solely about alleviating the suffering of the individuals helped—though that certainly was included—but they were primarily intended to attest to the identity and authority of God’s messengers through the miraculous power of God.¹1

To be clear: this does not mean that miracles cannot occur today. Charles Hodge, a staunch cessationist, affirmed this attesting-function of miracles, yet conceded that this didn’t exclude miracles from happening today:

When the Apostles had finished their work, the necessity of miracles, so far as the great end they were intended to accomplish was concerned, ceased. This, however, does not preclude the possibility of their occurrence, on suitable occasions, in after ages. It is a mere question of fact to be decided on historical evidence. In some few cases the nature of the event, its consequences, and the testimony in its support, have constrained many Protestants to admit the probability, if not the certainty of these miraculous interventions.

God can still miraculously intervene, just like He can choose to give someone the ability to speak in a previously unknown language. The question is simply whether or not we should anticipate the working of miracles to be normative in the life of the church today in the same way it was in the apostolic age.

Second, 1 Corinthians 13 is admittedly a difficult passage for the cessationist perspective because it seems to teach that prophecy and tongues will only pass away when Christ returns. Add on to this Peter’s citation of Joel 2 at Pentecost, where prophecy is a hallmark of last days, and it appears that prophecy and tongues should be practiced today. But this deserves its own article, so I will respond to this more fully later.

Theological Arguments

If apostles and prophets are still functioning today, then in what sense is the canon of Scripture closed? Sola Scriptura was the formal principle of the Reformation because the Reformers realized that it was God’s Word alone that bears final and decisive authority in faith and practice—not Popes or councils or tradition. But, if there are individuals today who can provide the kind of revelation that Paul provided, then are we not in a similar boat to the Roman Catholic church (or even, the LDS church) who receive continuing revelation from God?

Most responsible continuationists would argue that the gift of prophecy does not entail continuing revelation the way the prophet of the LDS church or the vicar of Christ in Rome practice it. They would offer a number of varying definitions of prophecy that set it apart from that kind of oracular, binding authority. One option would be to re-define prophecy to mean being given divine insight into a situation, knowing things that you normally would not be able to know. Something similar to Jesus’ awareness that the bleeding woman had touched him in Luke 8. Another option would be to understand prophecy to be exercising inspired interpretation of Scripture or, as many Puritans understood it, simply teaching and preaching God’s Word. But the Bible doesn’t define prophecy in any of these ways. In Richard Blaylock’s extensive survey of prophecy throughout the Old and New Testament, he synthesizes all of the data into a helpful definition of prophecy:

NT prophecy can be defined as (1) a miraculous act of intelligible communication, (2) rooted in spontaneous, divine revelation and (3) empowered by the Holy Spirit, which (4) results in words that can be attributed to any and all members of the Godhead and which therefore (5) must be received by those who hear or read them as absolutely binding and true.

Fallible Prophets?

Some continuationists, however, would disagree with Blaylock’s fifth point, arguing that NT prophecy can be mixed with error, thus Christians should be discerning when listening to a prophet and not accept everything they say immediately. Wayne Grudem is the primary advocate of this position, frequently pointing to Agabus’ prophecy in Acts 21:11, “[Agabus] took Paul’s belt and bound his own feet and hands and said, “Thus says the Holy Spirit, This is how the Jews at Jerusalem will bind the man who owns this belt and deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles.’” Strictly speaking, Grudem explains, this is not how the events take place, since we are told that it is actually the Roman tribune, not the Jews, who bind Paul (Acts 21:33). D.A. Carson claims, “I can think of no reported Old Testament prophet whose prophecies are so wrong on the details.”²2

This, however, is an unconvincing example of prophecy mixed with error. Richard Blaylock helpfully summarizes the problem:

First of all, the prophet explicitly claims that he spoke the words of the Holy Spirit (τάδε λέγει τὸ πνεῦμα). If Agabus prophesied falsely, it becomes difficult to avoid the conclusion that the Holy Spirit was also culpable.¹⁰⁸ Second, Luke seems to portray Agabus in light of the OT prophets by reporting the sign act that he performed. If this is true, it is highly unlikely that Luke thought of his prophecies as being inaccurate. Third, as Robertson points out, there is no guarantee that Paul was not in fact bound by the Jews and handed over to the Romans.¹⁰⁹ Paul’s words in Acts 28:17 may echo Agabus’s prediction, indicating that the apostle was satisfied with the prophet’s accuracy.¹¹⁰ Finally, as many have noted, this interpretation is in danger of resulting in a kind of pedantry that would also call into question canonical prophecies. As Gentry warns, “if [Grudem’s] argument were valid, then much of predictive prophecy from the Old Testament could be discounted (and has been discounted by liberal theologies) on this basis.”¹¹¹

But what of Paul’s commands that prophecies must be “tested” (1 Thess 5:20-21) and “weighed” by other prophets (1 Cor 14:29)? Does this prove that the prophecies are a mixture of truth and must be sifted for error? Likely not. This refers, in Blaylock’s words, “to making distinctions between prophecies rather than within prophecies.” In other words, the “testing” and “weighing” is not extracting the good bits out of a mixed bag, but evaluating whether or not this is a true or false prophet/prophecy. This aligns with the same practice that John commends in “testing the spirits” in 1 John 4:1ff. Further, prophets in the Old Testament were subjected to this same scrutiny (Deut 13:1-5; 18:21-22; cf. Jer 28:9), yet their prophecies were not any less authoritative. In Deuteronomy 18, while providing a rubric to judge prophets, God still warns “whoever will not listen to my words that [a true prophet] shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him,” (Deut 18:19).

Another problem with the view of fallible prophecies is the repeated warnings given in the NT of “false prophets” (Matt 7:15) and “false apostles” (2 Cor 11:13). If a true prophet can err in revealing God’s truth, then what rubric could be used to determine if one is a “false prophet”? Or, to put it another way, how many errors could a modern day prophet make before being classified as a false prophet? Right before Peter warns of “false prophets” (2 Pet 2:1), explains that all true prophecy is protected from error because it comes directly from God: “For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit,” (2 Pet 1:21).

Thus, those who seek to practice the gift of prophecy today in such a way that blunts and curbs its inerrancy or authority, are pursuing a practice foreign to Scripture. When an apostle or prophet speaks, the church should receive it “not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God,” (1 Thess 2:13).

Those who believe the gift of prophecy continues today should realize the consequence of this view: if someone genuinely has the gift of prophecy, then they are speaking authoritatively binding words of God that must be obeyed. However, this not only makes many responsible continuationists uneasy, it also seems to jeopardize the classic Protestant doctrine of Sola Scriptura. It is now no longer the Bible alone as possessing ultimate authority in life and practice, but the Bible and the words of the prophet. And if that prophet is giving further revelation, this seems to leave a question mark hanging over the closed canon of Scripture. In what sense is the canon closed or complete if we have a prophet providing more of God’s Words for us to heed today?

Conclusion

The church is built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets (Eph 2:20), a foundation that serves as the deposit of revelation that the church can continue to build upon, but never expand beyond. God provided the early church sensational displays of signs and wonders to affirm the authority of the apostolic church, but once that identity was solidified we should not be surprised to see the prevalence of those signs fade. Of course, God is always free to work and we should be eager to see His miraculous intervention in healings and freeing individuals from demonic possession, even while we believe that those signs will not be normative in our churches.

In John’s apocalypse, he closes with these words: “I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book,” (Rev 22:18-19). Of course, when John wrote that he was thinking only of the book he was writing (Revelation), but in God’s providence, this book stands as the capstone of the canon, and these words serve as a fitting warning for any who seek to add to or alter them.

In my next, and final, article I will provide (and respond to) experiential arguments for and against cessationism.

Footnotes

1. This is rendered more clearly by reflecting on the term frequently used to describe miracles in the Bible: “Sign” (σημεῖον) (Ex 4:5, 31; John 2:11; 2:23; 3:2; 4:48; 4:54; 6:2; 6:14; 7:31; 9:16; 12:18 Luke 2:34; Acts 2:22; Rev 1:1). Robert Saucy writes: “A sign is that which points to something else. What is crucial in a sign is not the sign itself but its functional character, which is designed to give credibility to something,” (Are Miraculous Gifts for Today? p. 105). This is why when we study the New Testament we find times where Jesus chooses not to work miracles, or not to heal everyone, or to retreat away from clamoring crowds to be alone—if the purpose of Jesus’ miracles were solely to alleviate suffering, how could these retreats be justified? Why would He ever do anything but heal? Thus, when evaluating whether or not Christians today should work supernatural miracles to the same degree as Christ or the apostles we must first answer whether or not we have a unique authority and identity that requires that kind of supreme validation. ↩︎
2. D.A. Carson, Showing the Spirit, p. 97-98 ↩︎