I Am A Temporal Cessationist While I Wait…
I guess I should begin by defining terms. In fact, the original title of this post was, “Cessationism is not what you think it is.” That is because I have often been embarrassed by the ignorance of those who claim to know what cessationism is, particularly those from the opposite end. My hope is that today we all get a clear understanding of this once and for all. Come the future we will not be guilty of being false witness about other believers.
What is not cessationism
We have all heard the famous teaching that a cessationist is the one who does not believe in the Holy Spirit; one who denies the gifts of the Spirit, or perhaps that person who believes that God no longer does miracles. That, beloved, is not true – not even close!
Cessationism (from the word cease) is the belief that the gifts of the Spirit are still operational in the Church; that God still does miracles, however, it is only the “revelatory gifts” that have ended and only the “Apostolic miraculous gifts” that are no longer operational in the Church.
A revelatory gift is a gift that was purposed to reveal “new information” to the Church. For example, the Apostle stresses that the Gospel came to him via revelation (Gal 1:12). The Holy Spirit directly taught him this truth so he could tell it to the Church. Therefore, a cessationist is that individual who believes that gift was unique to the New Testament Apostles – nobody in today’s age possesses that gift. It ceased! In that line, cessationists categorize the gift of prophecy as one of those “revelatory gifts”. According to them, the Holy Spirit is no longer using prophecy to “reveal new information” about God previously unknown to believers. Instead, cessationism defines the prophetic today in terms of “illumination”. That is, a prophet is simpley an individual gifted to understand Scripture so as to teach it for the edification of the Church.
Cessationists also view the gift of tongues as a revelatory gift. Because – according to their sources – Biblical tongues were intelligible human language which the Spirit gifted to the Apostles to communicate the Gospel truth to foreign languages as we see in Acts 2. Hence a cessationist would reject tongues as gibberish, non-intelligible words that are flaunted publicly without interpretation.
When it comes to miracles, a well-meaning cessationist believes that God always does miracles – according His sovereign will. What they dispute vehemently is that the gift of working miracles is given to anyone today. They believe there was something special with the New Testament Apostles, hence there were without a doubt, gifted with mighty miraculous power that saw them raising cripples and the dead–instantly. They compare that with those who claim the gift today and something is quite not the same.
The entire cessationism doctrine can be either destroyed or confirmed in these critical questions below. Your Christian honesty is highly appreciated at this time:
Is the quality of the miraculous gifts that we see operating with Paul & Peter the same as what we see with the charismatic faith healers today? Yes or no?
Is the gift of tongues that we see in the New Testament, where an interpreter was required because it was a human language spoken through the power of the Spirit – is it the same thing that we see in our churches today? Yes or no?
Is the gift of prophecy that operated infallibly (without error) and authoritatively through Biblical figures like Jeremiah and Isaiah the same thing as we have in today’s prophets? Is it really the same in quality and accuracy or there is a difference somehow? Yes or no?
Are there Apostles today who carry the same authority (even to write Scripture) as James and John? Is it still the same gift of apostleship in the Church today? Yes or no?
If you said, “yes” to any of the questions, then you are a continuationist – you believe the New Testament gifts all continue to work exactly the same manner as they did. It means you are a witness from your church of individuals who are gifted with miraculous power to raise the dead; the crippled – instantly without gimmicks.
It also means that you believe that through the gift of prophecy, God continues to reveal new things. Which means Scripture is not really complete (open canon). Hence believers have the right to add that new revelation to the Bible if possible.
However, if you said, “no” to any of the above questions, then you believe something changed somehow; the Holy Spirit was doing something peculiar in the dispensation of the New Testament era. Once that purpose was served, the Apostolic gifts went along with the death of the Apostles. It means the Lord was laying the foundation of the Church, now that the foundation has been laid, we are simpley building upon that instead of laying it again and again.
Is cessationism Biblical?
Although cessationists have repeated thrown Ephesians 2:20 as the Biblical premise of their system, its still not convincing enough for many. What they want is a clear verse that says, “Revelatory gifts have ceased.” I believe we can solve this dilemma with another question: Do you believe that the Bible is supposed to have only 66 books no more? If so, where is a verse that directly says that? What is the Biblical premise for the closing of the canon?
The answer to all this is that Believers throughout history have recognized and discerned that the cannon is closed, even though there is no Biblical verse that says so. In the same way, a cessationist also has the right to say that Believers throughout history have recognized and discerned the ending of the revelatory gifts. And guess what? Cessationists even today continue to challenge continuationist to show them real life evidence of apostolic quality miraculous gifts (raising the dead) to prove them otherwise. And no one has given that evidence, apart from just the stories we hear that "dozens of people are being raised from the dead" somewhere in Africa, with zero documentation even from secular hospitals.
Therefore, the challenge is still open: if you believe that there are individuals in your church that possess the same gift as Apostle Paul, in the name of heaven and earth, please refer us to that person. Otherwise, don’t boast of being a continuationist, because in reality, you are also a hidden cessationist.
Another argument is that there are still Apostles today because upon building a house, you don’t throw away the foundation materials but you continue with them until you finish your house. Indeed, the cessationist never say that we no longer need the apostles and prophets, instead we have an abundance of their materials and writings to build the Church with – it’s called Scripture!
I end this way: Cessationism simple divides the working of the Spirit into different timeframes. It means as much as Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever (in character), He, however, works differently through time; in dispensations and seasons just as He has been doing from Genesis to Revelation. Therefore, the manner in which He worked in the 1st century has now ceased. As for me, I remain a temporal cessationist as I wait for the real-world evidence of anyone who possesses the Apostolic gifts. Out.
Sinothi Ncube
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