Do Cessationists believe in modern miracles?

Albion · Dec 26, 2021

JAL said:
None of this is a cogent response to any of my charges.

I'm sorry you disagree.

1. You refuse to entertain the possibility that the church is at fault for the decline of the gifts.

.
Why would I agree with such a proposition when you haven't attempted to make that case? And the Continuationists by and large do not make that argument anyway, preferring to say only that the gifts didn't cease; and if anyone disagrees with this, they aren't going to hear of it.

2. In so doing, you cast aspersions on God regarding HIS willingness to heal the sick and save the lost.

If you believe that, you may not have been paying any attention to what has been explained so far here. But, interestingly enough, you would be affirming the correctness of my observation above.

Continuationists I have discussed this with never offer any response to the explanations given by Cessationists. They simply reject the answer they've been given out of hand. (Or, after reading your post, I guess I should add that they might call anyone who explains the Cessationist position, such as I did, an enemy of God!) :doh:

JAL · Dec 26, 2021

Albion said:
.
Why would I agree with such a proposition when you haven't attempted to make that case?

Not made a case? Oh that's right, the Problem of Evil has no bearing. Since God is free to do any evil He chooses, we must accept all theological stances as equally valid.

Myself and others have cited numerous passages indicating God's intent to supernaturally intervene to heal the sick and save the lost. How is that a failure on our part to make a case?

Here's another "case" made to you several times in the past. What about biblical emphasis? Is God an incompetent author? In the first chapter of Mark, there are probably 10 references to charismatic principles whether visions, voices, prophecy, healings, or excorcisms. That's just ONE CHAPTER of the New Testament! With that kind of biblical emphasis (and assuming that God is a COMPETENT author), the entire burden of proof falls on Cessationists.

What do Cessationists bring to the table? Evidence? Primarily they rely on the testimony of EXPERIENCE (viz. "I don't see any miracles happening these days") and thus NOT on Scripture. (Pretty ironic behavior, coming from a self-proclaimed Sola Scriptura party).

They simply reject the answer they've been given out of hand.

Well if that's not the pot calling the kettle black....

And the Continuationists by and large do not make that argument anyway, preferring to say only that the gifts didn't cease; and if anyone disagrees with this, they aren't going to hear of it.

Again, disingenuous. Continuationists hold that the gifts didn't cease as a matter of divine decree. There was never a period where the gifts were completely unattainable. But all Continuationists recognize that the early church had them in more abundance wherefore it is incumbent upon us to fan them into flame. In a most misleading manner, you continue to blur these kinds of distinctions.

Continuationists I have discussed this with never offer any response to the explanations given by Cessationists. They simply reject the answer they've been given out of hand.

I have no idea what you're referring to here. In every charismatic thread where I've seen you debate, the Continuationists seemed quite effective in debating you.

JAL · Dec 26, 2021

Somehow I attached emojis accidentally.

Albion · Dec 26, 2021

JAL said:
Not made a case? Oh that's right, the Problem of Evil has no bearing. Since God is free to do any evil He chooses, we must accept all theological stances as equally valid.

Well, if that's your reply to everything I tried to explain, I'd say we're done here.

JAL · Dec 26, 2021

Albion said:
Well, if that's your reply to everything I tried to explain, I'd say we're done here.

Disingenuous. I'm not a one-argument man. I made several.

JAL · Dec 26, 2021

I don't know how I got those attachments and don't see an option to remove them.

JAL · Dec 26, 2021

I found the option to delete them.

Guojing · Dec 30, 2021

Bible Highlighter said:
Again, for clarity on this topic: Cessationists in general believe that miracles in general can happen by God’s own choice and will. However, they just do not believe the miraculous sign gifts have continued. An example of a miraculous sign gift would be a Christian having the gift of healing. This means he can heal others miraculously 100% of the time because he has the gift of healing from God. As far as I know, no Christian today can do this (to my knowledge). Can God heal miraculously if Christians pray? Yes. But that does not mean they have the gift of healing. So the miraculous sign gifts during the early church is not the same as miracles in general. So most Cessationists are not saying that all miracles of any kind by God have ceased.

We don't often agreed but well said.

All signs are miracles
But not all miracles are signs

Guojing · Dec 30, 2021

JAL said:
I find your comments rather tongue-in-cheek as usual - designed to give the (misleading) APPEARANCE that cessationists haven't cheapened the Kingdom or deprecated God in any form or fashion. It's a subtle way of seducing people into cessationism.

That's a bold statement coming from a cessationist. So the number of healings wasn't supposed to decline after all? Maybe the real problem is that the church has strayed off course starting almost 2,000 years ago? TruthSeek3r perceptively challenged you on this point. He asked you:

"Are you including here praying for someone to be healed of an incurable medical condition?"

AT WHICH POINT, you backed off some of that boldness, by replying:

Deflection. What happened to all that boldness? You continue:

How is "rare and intermittent" NOT a decline in His "intentions" (your word) with respect to the early church? Or with respect to Exodus 15:26, Mark 11:23, and James 5:15?

You pretend that the only viable explanation of the decline in the gifts is that God WANTED them to diminish. This attitude casts serious aspersions upon God because it makes Him look stingy. Jesus healed the sick out of compassion but now is largely stone-cold-hearted to them?

As I've pointed out to you before, here's Paul definition of a church - it's the only definition which I accept.

"And God has placed in the church first of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, of helping, of guidance, and of different kinds of tongues." (1Cor 12:28).

All other definitions of a church are man-made fabrications and traditions (including their man-made rites of appointment to office, ordination, and prequalifications for ministry such as seminary degrees). In the early church, God appointed apostles and prophets who, in turn, appointed local pastors.

Cessationism doesn't make God look stingy? That's odd, because if He REALLY wants people to get saved, wouldn't He want the following gift to proliferate even MORE than the early church saw it?

"If an unbeliever or an inquirer comes in while everyone is prophesying, they are convicted of sin and are brought under judgment by all, 25as the secrets of their hearts are laid bare. So they will fall down and worship God, exclaiming, “God is really among you!” (1Cor 14).

Cessationism is a confusing indeterminacy and thus a totally random shot in the dark. Meaning, if the gifts were supposed to cease, how can we know from Scripture the cutoff year? Cessationists claim, "When the gifts lapsed, that's the cutoff." But according to these same cessationists, the gifts declined at SEVERAL points in history, even for centuries at a time. By that logic, then, the gifts already ceased in the OT, which makes no sense given Acts.

Would you accept that Paul no longer had the gift of healing, near the end of his ministry?

Butch5 · Dec 30, 2021

TruthSeek3r said:
To what extent are Cessationists open to the possibility of modern miracles?

Are there concrete, specific, documented examples of modern miracles that a Cessationist would say "yes, I believe this is an example of a genuine miracle in modern times"?

I believe that God does miracles. I don't believe He gives the first century gifts today.

TruthSeek3r · Dec 30, 2021

Butch5 said:
I believe that God does miracles.

For example?

Butch5 · Dec 30, 2021

TruthSeek3r said:
For example?

I've seen people healed of disease. But, it wasn't someone laying hands on them that did it. It was answered prayer.

TruthSeek3r · Dec 30, 2021

Butch5 said:
I've seen people healed of disease. But, it wasn't someone laying hands on them that did it. It was answered prayer.

What kinds of diseases? How confident are you that they were miracles and not just natural remissions?

Butch5 · Dec 30, 2021

TruthSeek3r said:
What kinds of diseases? How confident are you that they were miracles and not just natural remissions?

Multiple exrays showed a growth. After prayer it was gone.

Presbyterian Continuist · Dec 30, 2021

Bible Highlighter said:
Bill Subritzky is a proponent of the Toronto Blessing.
Surely you cannot be in support of something like that.

Most of the claims are supported by Wikipedia (Except for the fornication charge - which appears to be a bogus charge).

Anyways, one disturbing thing (that is not mentioned in the article) but is mentioned in Wikipedia is that he was a millionaire. Any Christian should know that such a life is not a part of the Christian faith in denying oneself to following Jesus and if they were to read and believe 1 Timothy 6.

Anyways, here is the article at Wikipedia:

Subritzky was born in 1925, and lived in Auckland. In 1971 he became involved in the charismatic movement, and became an independent evangelist and healer. Subritzky's faith healing ministry, Dove Ministries, distributes pamphlets, books and videos of his teaching and his evangelistic healing meetings. He was a charismatic Anglican but the style of his ministry was more similar to Pentecostals such as the late Derek Prince.[3]

Subritzky was a proponent of the Toronto Blessing and its introduction into New Zealand. He frequently attributes problems, whether physical, spiritual, emotional or psychological, to the influence of demons, which he claims to "cast out".[4] He also claims to have insight through the "word of knowledge" into people's sins, which have made them vulnerable to demonic influence.[5] Skeptics have questioned his claim that he has ability to cure ailments such as asthma, arthritis and cancer; stating that he uses psychological manipulation to make people feel as though they are healed.[6][7]

Subritzky was a friend to the controversial Nigerian "prophet" T.B. Joshua and publicly supported him amidst criticism that Joshua's "miracles" were not of God.[8]

In 1986, Subritzky and other conservative Christians helped establish the Coalition of Concerned Citizens, a right-wing Christian pressure group formed to oppose the socially-liberal policies of the Fourth Labour Government.[9] He was married to Lucy Patricia (Pat), who died in 2011. Subritzky later married Kaylene.

In the 1991 New Year Honours, Subritzky was awarded the Queen's Service Medal for community service.[10]

Subritzky published his autobiography On the Cutting Edge: The Bill Subritzky Story in 1993.[11]

In 2014, Subritzky's 8.9 ha (22 acres) estate in Lynfield, Mount Roskill was sold to Ryman Healthcare with an estimated market value of $16.2 million. The property was developed by Subritzky and his first wife, Pat, in 1960 and featured several homes, a pool, tennis court, sheds and a separate office wing from where Subritzky ran his businesses.[12][13]

Subritzky died on 23 December 2015

Bill Subritzky - Wikipedia

I'm in no position to judge Bill Subritzky, mainly because I haven't given my life to Christian ministry in the same way he did.

Also, I don't judge anyone concerning the friends he has. Just because he has friends who may not subscribe to sound doctrine, doesn't mean that he practices the same doctrines they do. I have close friends who are not Christians but that doesn't mean that I live the same lifestyle they do.

Also, there are no perfect preachers of the Gospel. Everyone, including you and me, has faults and shortcomings. From 1966 to 1979, I was fully involved in Pentecostal churches, and so very aware of the faults and shortcomings of the movement, as well as the very positive and godly aspects of it. What i found was that most critics of the movement was out of envy and jealousy that while Pentecostal churches were growing and attracting people to it, their own churches were declining because they had little to attract people to want to join them.

So, because the heart of man is desperately wicked and who can know it, we must always examine our motives to ensure that when we express concern about another Christian movement, or ministry, we do it with the right motives.

Presbyterian Continuist · Dec 30, 2021

Bible Highlighter said:
Our standard of truth is ultimately the Bible. I make a good case involving the Bible for Cessationism (i.e. the Cessation of the miraculous sign gifts and not the cessation of miracles in general done by God in His own will and choosing).

Cessationism: Tongues, Prophecy, and the Gift of Miracles Have Ceased.

I read the post referred to . The 1 Corinthians 13 reference can be kicked into touch right away, because the most reliable commentators link the reference to what happens when the church age ends.

The other Scripture references do not directly relate to the sign gifts at all. All they do is to attempt to support the erroneous notion based on 1 Corinthians 13:10. Because the 1 Corinthians 13 reference to tongues and prophecy is a misquote, and bad hermeneutics, all the other references that depend on it fall like a house of cards as well.

All the "Biblical proof texts" are merely examples of someone trying to make the Bible say what he wants it to say, and when the context of each reference he quotes is carefully examined, we see that none of them relate directly to the sign gifts at all, and certainly do not prove that the sign gifts declined and ceased through God's decree.

In actual fact, the sign gifts ceased, because the church ceased to have ministries of the calibre whom the Holy Spirit could work with. Even today, with all the different ministries claiming all sorts of stuff they attribute to the work of the Holy Spirit, men of the same calibre of Paul, Barnabas, Silas, Stephen, Philip or Peter are as scarce as hen's teeth.

So, my view is that we don't see the sign gifts very much today because there are not the men who are of the quality of faith and commitment to Christ whom the Holy Spirit can work with to manifest them.

Presbyterian Continuist · Dec 30, 2021

Saint Steven said:
Yes!

John 14:12 NIV
Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.

The elephant in the room, which many do not see, is that all the Apostles except John died violent and brutal deaths at the hands of their persecutors. They were prepared to go into all the world preaching the Gospel even though it meant going in harm's way and putting their lives at risk. The Scripture says that they did not love their lives and were prepared to die in order that the Gospel message gets out into the world. So, when there were no more preachers of the Gospel willing to put their lives at risk, there were no more instances of the sign gifts.

There have been reports of miracles occurring in Muslim countries where to preach the Gospel means death for the preacher. Perhaps preachers of the Gospel in those countries are so fully committed to Christ and the preaching of the Gospel that they are prepared to die in order to preach the Gospel, that they are of the calibre whom the Holy Spirit can work with. Something to think about.

Most of the preachers in our western countries don't have to put their own lives at risk and all the persecution they experience at just in the form of words, and the odd egg or fruit thrown at them. Hence the absence of the sign gifts.

Albion · Dec 30, 2021

Oscarr said:
They were prepared to go into all the world preaching the Gospel even though it meant going in harm's way and putting their lives at risk. The Scripture says that they did not love their lives and were prepared to die in order that the Gospel message gets out into the world. So, when there were no more preachers of the Gospel willing to put their lives at risk, there were no more instances of the sign gifts.

I find that to be unpersuasive. Taking nothing away from the Apostles and other evangelists of the early church, we cannot say that there are no men today willing to risk their lives in order to spread the faith. There may be fewer of them. It's hard to guess.

But God certainly cannot be thwarted if he wants such men and would endow them with the gifts for the reasons already mentioned. It is much more likely that the gifts ceased because they'd accomplished the purpose for which they had been given.

Saint Steven · Dec 30, 2021

Oscarr said:
So, when there were no more preachers of the Gospel willing to put their lives at risk, there were no more instances of the sign gifts.

Not sure how you arrived at that conclusion. Pray tell.

Did this apply to the Corinthian church that was manifesting "sign" gifts? (I don't agree with the term "sign gifts", but you understand it) I doesn't seem that they were risking their lives to spread the gospel.

Presbyterian Continuist · Dec 30, 2021

Albion said:
It is much more likely that the gifts ceased because they'd accomplished the purpose for which they had been given.

Because there are no actual Scripture references to back that up, the statement is based on presumption rather than anything based on Scriptural authority.

Do Cessationists believe in modern miracles?

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