1 Corinthians 13:10

[Presbyterian Continuist]

How come Calvinists teach that 1 Corinthians 13:10 says that the sign gifts passed away when the canon of Scripture was received, when John Calvin himself exposited the verse as the gifts will cease when either we die or when Christ comes again?

If you don't believe me, read John Calvin's commentary on 1 Corinthians.

This shows that professing Calvinists don't believe what Calvin actually says. If they are wrong concerning Calvin's exposition of that verse, how in many other places in Scripture they might be wrong as well?

A challenge to Steven Lawson concerning his sermon concerning Charismatic Calvinists. Explain Calvin saying that the sign gifts will cease when we die or when Jesus comes again in his commentary on 1 Corinthians 13:10, contradicting cessationist teaching that the gifts ceased when the canon of Scripture was completed.

 

[Carl Emerson]

I am not sure why you assume Calvinists are cessationists...

 

[St_Worm2]

I am not sure why you assume Calvinists are cessationists...

Many are. Then again, many Arminians are, and many Calvinists are not

Calvin seemed to believe that the gifts had ceased in the church (in the normative sense anyway), though like many modern Calvinists, he believed that they were still very much in operation whenever/wherever the Spirit deemed them necessary (on the mission field, for instance).

Here's an excerpt from Institutes that speaks to this (though I need to look a little more deeply into it when time allows me to as this is a belief/teaching of Calvin's that I know little about).

If this ministry which the Apostles then carried out still remained in the church, the laying on of hands would also have to be kept. But since that grace has ~ceased to be given~, what purpose does the laying on of hands serve? Surely, the Holy Spirit is still present among God’s people, for the church cannot stand unless He is its Guide and Director. For we have an eternal and permanently established promise by which Christ calls to Himself those who thirst, that they may drink living waters [John 7:37; cf. Isaiah 55:1; also John 4:10; John 7:38].

But those miraculous powers and manifest workings, which were dispensed by the laying on of hands, ~have ceased~; and they have rightly lasted only for a time. For it was fitting that the new preaching of the gospel and the new Kingdom of Christ should be illumined and magnified by unheard-of and extraordinary miracles. ~Calvin, J., Institutes of the Christian Religion, J. T. McNeill, Ed.; F. L. Battles, Trans.; excerpt, Book IV/Chapter XIX/Section VI.
​

If I uncover additional things, I will return and let you know what I've found (because I have found that discovering what Calvin is actually saying requires context, not unlike understanding the Bible often does).

--David

 

[Presbyterian Continuist]

I am not sure why you assume Calvinists are cessationists...

Justin Peters, John MacArthur, and the others at the Strange Fire conference are Calvinists. There are restorationists like me who read Calvin and other Puritan writers but we are not strict Calvinists like the ones who preach cessationism.

My point is that professing Calvinists who preach cessationist doctrine cannot count on Calvin's support for it, and that would be the elephant in the room for them. The Youtube comments for the video clips that contain those prominent cessationists who claim to be Calvinist, are turned off, so no one can challenge them on their breach of exegesis principles (forming a doctrine out of one verse taken out of context), and Calvin's exposition of 1 Corinthians 13:10.

 

[Pavel Mosko]

I am not sure why you assume Calvinists are cessationists...

Well it is the historical and demographic norm, the existence of Charismatic Calvinists in the last few decades is sort of a rare anomaly.



John Calvin himself took this position when he faced off with a Catholic friar Apologist who used the lack of miracles by him and the Reformation as proof that they might not really be sent by God based on the Biblical apostles and prophets, and the various historical saints. He basically took a rough idea of saint Augustine's that miracles were more for launching the young church and made it into a law and kind of rhetorically attempted to remove the issue from the board.

 

[Pavel Mosko]

Here is an old Facebook Blog style post I did years ago.


"My Beef with the New Apostolic Reformation is it is largely ahistorical (besides being self aggrandizing and dubious in other ways especially in terms of doctrine)!
In a nutshells John Calvin invented Cessionism (the belief that the supernatural gifts of Christianity died out with the original apostles) see the article below that quotes from the Institutes of Christian religion. He basically took speculations and hypothesis of saint Augustine and went further with them making them more into out and out facts or spiritual laws. Upon that edifice, many Protestants built their theological foundation, even Pentecostals and Charismatics as ironic and paradoxical as that sounds (They saw Cessionism as a reality but one that was fixed by their movement)!
Much of the phenomenon of NAR was invented by prophet Bill Hamon, He had a kind of evolutionary view of the Church (The link directly below elaborates his views)
http://www.perryflm.com/.../history-of-the-church-and.../
Hamon believed that various Protestant movements were restoring "lost doctrines" that were lost to the Church due to corruption that happened with the Church "since Constantine" (and this includes the various supernatural gifts as well as all ministry offices too the Church). The only problem with this view, is it doesn't really mesh with Church history if you study it (there is evidence of miracles etc. that go through Church history), and it also is questionable when you look at the totality of what the Bible has to say on the subject (especially regarding the Cessionist assumptions that are its underpinnings)!
http://pulpitandpen.org/.../john-calvin-on-continuationism/
"

 

[Maria Billingsley]

How come Calvinists teach that 1 Corinthians 13:10 says that the sign gifts passed away when the canon of Scripture was received, when John Calvin himself exposited the verse as the gifts will cease when either we die or when Christ comes again?

If you don't believe me, read John Calvin's commentary on 1 Corinthians.

This shows that professing Calvinists don't believe what Calvin actually says. If they are wrong concerning Calvin's exposition of that verse, how in many other places in Scripture they might be wrong as well?

A challenge to Steven Lawson concerning his sermon concerning Charismatic Calvinists. Explain Calvin saying that the sign gifts will cease when we die or when Jesus comes again in his commentary on 1 Corinthians 13:10, contradicting cessationist teaching that the gifts ceased when the canon of Scripture was completed.

Thanks for the post! I did a little digging and found this article interesting. I suspect cessationisim took off as Charismania flourished in Christianity. Its roots are based on pushing back against the RCC but now its focus is on out of control Charismatic circles hence the " Strange Fire" conference.
Blessings

An inconvenient history for cessationism

 

[Presbyterian Continuist]

Here is an old Facebook Blog style post I did years ago.


"My Beef with the New Apostolic Reformation is it is largely ahistorical (besides being self aggrandizing and dubious in other ways especially in terms of doctrine)!
In a nutshells John Calvin invented Cessionism (the belief that the supernatural gifts of Christianity died out with the original apostles) see the article below that quotes from the Institutes of Christian religion. He basically took speculations and hypothesis of saint Augustine and went further with them making them more into out and out facts or spiritual laws. Upon that edifice, many Protestants built their theological foundation, even Pentecostals and Charismatics as ironic and paradoxical as that sounds (They saw Cessionism as a reality but one that was fixed by their movement)!
Much of the phenomenon of NAR was invented by prophet Bill Hamon, He had a kind of evolutionary view of the Church (The link directly below elaborates his views)
http://www.perryflm.com/.../history-of-the-church-and.../
Hamon believed that various Protestant movements were restoring "lost doctrines" that were lost to the Church due to corruption that happened with the Church "since Constantine" (and this includes the various supernatural gifts as well as all ministry offices too the Church). The only problem with this view, is it doesn't really mesh with Church history if you study it (there is evidence of miracles etc. that go through Church history), and it also is questionable when you look at the totality of what the Bible has to say on the subject (especially regarding the Cessionist assumptions that are its underpinnings)!
http://pulpitandpen.org/.../john-calvin-on-continuationism/
"

John Calvin hinted that the supernatural gifts declined and died out because of misuse by the lunatic fringe of his time. Several of the early church fathers said that it was the church declining in holiness and commitment to Christ that caused the decline. Early church history says that when the Bishops and priests took control of services and contribution was taken out of the hands of the rank and file, prophecy basically ceased. It says that tongues became so misused and ridiculed, that new converts shied away from it. This is what I gained from reading the Fathers and church history. Don't ask me for any citations, because I don't have the time or energy to trawl back through the mass of reading I have done over the last 10 years. So, you'll have to take my word for it.

 

[Pavel Mosko]

John Calvin hinted that the supernatural gifts declined and died out because of misuse by the lunatic fringe of his time. Several of the early church fathers said that it was the church declining in holiness and commitment to Christ that caused the decline. Early church history says that when the Bishops and priests took control of services and contribution was taken out of the hands of the rank and file, prophecy basically ceased. It says that tongues became so misused and ridiculed, that new converts shied away from it. This is what I gained from reading the Fathers and church history. Don't ask me for any citations, because I don't have the time or energy to trawl back through the mass of reading I have done over the last 10 years. So, you'll have to take my word for it.

Yeah doing some web searches I got a chance to read some articles quoting from the Institutes of Christian Religion etc. saying various stuff like that.

 

[Presbyterian Continuist]

Thanks for the post! I did a little digging and found this article interesting. I suspect cessationisim took off as Charismania flourished in Christianity. Its roots are based on pushing back against the RCC but now its focus is on out of control Charismatic circles hence the " Strange Fire" conference.
Blessings

An inconvenient history for cessationism

A good point was made by a more sensible Charismatic pastor who quoted the verse where it said that we see through a glass darkly but afterward face to face. The verse is in the same context as 1 Corinthians 13:10. He asked the question, "If because we now how the completed canon of Scripture, we see more clearly than Paul himself did?" Seeing that Paul was trained in the Gospel by the Lord Himself during his three years in Arabia, I guess that he could have a much better insight into the working of the Holy Spirit and the things of God than any of us. It shows that taking one verse out of context, makes other verses look ridiculous. So, either verse 10 means a time when we are no longer looking at Christ through a "glass darkly" or that cessationists who say that having the canon of Scripture makes us more mature in the things of God than Paul himself are correct.

 

[St_Worm2]

Hello @Watchman1, along with the quote that I posited from Calvin's Institutes about this topic (in post #3 above), you may find the two quotes below interesting, the first is from Dr. John MacArthur, and the second one is from Dr. R. C. Sproul (both concerning 1 Corinthians 13:10 and what they believe the "perfect" is referring to).

Verses 9, 10 indicate that what will abolish knowledge and prophecy is “that which is perfect.” When that occurs, those gifts will be rendered inoperative. The “perfect” is ~NOT~ the completion of Scripture, since there is still the operation of those two gifts and will be in the future kingdom (cf. Joel 2:28; Acts 2:17; Rev. 11:3). The Scriptures do not allow us to see “face to face” or have perfect knowledge as God does (v. 12). The “perfect” is not the rapture of the church or the second coming of Christ, since the kingdom to follow these events will have an abundance of preachers and teachers (cf. Is. 29:18; 32:3, 4; Joel 2:28; Rev. 11:3). The perfect must be ~the eternal state~, when we in glory see God face to face (Rev. 22:4) and have full knowledge in the eternal new heavens and new earth. Just as a child grows to full understanding, believers will come to perfect knowledge and no such gifts will be necessary. ~MacArthur, J., Jr., ed. (1997). The MacArthur Study Bible

13:10 perfect. The context (especially v. 12) suggests strongly that Paul is here referring ~to the second coming of Christ~ as the final event in God’s plan of redemption and revelation. In comparison with what we will receive then, the present blessings are only partial and thus imperfect. It is therefore a sign of immaturity for the Corinthians to treat the temporary, incomplete gifts of the Spirit as having ultimate significance. According to another view, Paul may be referring to the “complete” revelation of the NT Scriptures, revelation that makes prophecy and other revelatory gifts obsolete. ~Sproul, R. C., ed. (2015). The Reformation Study Bible​

God bless you!!

--David

 

[Presbyterian Continuist]

Hello @Watchman1, along with the quote that I posited from Calvin's Institutes about this topic (in post #3 above), you may find the two quotes below interesting, the first is from Dr. John MacArthur, and the second one is from Dr. R. C. Sproul (both concerning 1 Corinthians 13:10 and what they believe the "perfect" is referring to).

Verses 9, 10 indicate that what will abolish knowledge and prophecy is “that which is perfect.” When that occurs, those gifts will be rendered inoperative. The “perfect” is ~NOT~ the completion of Scripture, since there is still the operation of those two gifts and will be in the future kingdom (cf. Joel 2:28; Acts 2:17; Rev. 11:3). The Scriptures do not allow us to see “face to face” or have perfect knowledge as God does (v. 12). The “perfect” is not the rapture of the church or the second coming of Christ, since the kingdom to follow these events will have an abundance of preachers and teachers (cf. Is. 29:18; 32:3, 4; Joel 2:28; Rev. 11:3). The perfect must be ~the eternal state~, when we in glory see God face to face (Rev. 22:4) and have full knowledge in the eternal new heavens and new earth. Just as a child grows to full understanding, believers will come to perfect knowledge and no such gifts will be necessary. ~MacArthur, J., Jr., ed. (1997). The MacArthur Study Bible

13:10 perfect. The context (especially v. 12) suggests strongly that Paul is here referring ~to the second coming of Christ~ as the final event in God’s plan of redemption and revelation. In comparison with what we will receive then, the present blessings are only partial and thus imperfect. It is therefore a sign of immaturity for the Corinthians to treat the temporary, incomplete gifts of the Spirit as having ultimate significance. According to another view, Paul may be referring to the “complete” revelation of the NT Scriptures, revelation that makes prophecy and other revelatory gifts obsolete. ~Sproul, R. C., ed. (2015). The Reformation Study Bible​

God bless you!!

--David

Thank you for that! I didn't know that these men had that interpretation of 1 Corinthians 13:10. Makes me respect them and their teaching all the more.
John MacArthur gives it straight up, while R C Sproul tends to put a dollar each way to avoid undue controversy.