I do not believe the charismatic gifts ceased the moment the last apostle died, but rather gradually as the completed canon of scripture was distributed among the churches.
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Your final sentence is incorrect. There were plenty of recorded cases in the first 3 centuries of Christianity, but it died out a lot later than the apostolic age. So I don't think that there was a universal acceptance of this... except among those who had no experience of the gift....
I'm going to comment on that because I have heard it often enough from others.
No! All that a cessationist needs is certainty beyond a reasonable doubt that the gifts did not continue from the beginning to the present. That's not difficult to do.
All the Scripture references that the other side cites are taken by those people to be guarantees that what has happened cannot have happened. That, however, is a matter of interpretation and there are many different interpretations.
Many things are not in recorded in scripture but that doesn't mean they are not true. There is nothing in scripture about there being 66 books in the bible. Does that mean we should expect there to be more?
The bible says very little about the charismatic gifts either ceasing or continuing. But there are more verses that debatably speak of them ceasing at the end of the apostolic age (eg 1 Cor 13:8-13, Eph 2:20, Heb 2:4, etc).
In the absence of any much specific evidence in scripture, then we must look outside scripture for further evidence of cessation or continuation. Did the charismatic gifts cease to operate in the church after the apostolic age? Apart from a few dubious stories, yes they did.
Why? That certainly isn't the teaching of scripture.I do not believe the charismatic gifts ceased the moment the last apostle died, but rather gradually as the completed canon of scripture was distributed among the churches.
Many things are not in recorded in scripture but that doesn't mean they are not true. There is nothing in scripture about there being 66 books in the bible. Does that mean we should expect there to be more?
You said:The bible says very little about the charismatic gifts either ceasing or continuing. But there are more verses that debatably speak of them ceasing at the end of the apostolic age (eg 1 Cor 13:8-13, Eph 2:20, Heb 2:4, etc).
You said:In the absence of much specific evidence in scripture, we must look outside scripture for further evidence of cessation or continuation. Did the charismatic gifts cease to operate in the church after the apostolic age? Apart from a few dubious stories, yes they did.
Scripture is where we base our faith upon (Romans 10:17). If the Scriptures slowly show Paul not being able to heal anymore, for whatever the reason, it is not the sole doctrine for Cessationism, but it is merely one link in the chain that shows the miraculous gifts have most likely ceased.
James 1 is key. James 1 describes both a “mirror” (i.e. glass), and something that is “perfect” in regards to the communicated Word of God (i.e. Scripture). Paul also talks about a mirror and this perfect ceasing in 1 Corinthians 13. Coincidence? Well, Christians are to be like good Bereans and compare Scripture with Scripture. We also see long periods in the Bible where no miracles were done after Moses and Elijah, as well. This again shows us a pattern in Scripture. Another coincidence? The purpose of the sign gifts was to confirm the Word (Mark 16:20).
I have yet to have a Continuationist explain these points to me with Scripture or offer a counter explanation that has deep spiritual meaning for me according to what God's Word says. Hence, the reason why I created this thread. I am open to hearing the Continuationist case so as to explain these things.
I have a feeling that you haven't been reading most of the posts on this thread.So were you lying when you described yourself as Anglican?
I have a third Biblical concern with the idea of tongues as an "ecstatic prayer language." That's not what Acts of the Apostles 2:6-11 is talking about.
Anyway the Charismatic/Pentecostal movement has rapid growth over the decades doubling in size world wide I think every decade.
It would not surprise me if Cessionist Apologist positions and tactics have changed because of that.
But I don't think you realize how wide spread Full Cessionism was in the past...
In person no less. The rest of us have to make do with anecdotal evidence as we often do in life.What made Thomas believe? It was hard evidence, and Jesus willingly supplied it to him.
Of course that's so. However, the issue here is not about the gifts being real but whether they continued to be a feature of the church from the beginning until the present.Read the Bible and a plain reading of scripture indicates that there is a group of gifts given by the Holy Spirit and that they are there for the church to use.
But once again, you are deliberately ignoring the fact that they did end. That's the 'heart and soul' of this dispute, and it either has to be confronted or the discussion might as well be ended.There is no explicit teaching anywhere that there was an end date for these gifts, indeed both Acts and 1 Corinthians appear to teach them for general use... indicating that the authors had no expectation of an end.
But once again, you are deliberately ignoring the fact that they did end. That's the 'heart and soul' of this dispute, and it either has to be confronted or the discussion might as well be ended.
I agree, but how would you verify it? Nobody around to translate it, even supernaturally. My point is that it is dangerous to make a theology out of only one instance, particularly when that instance (praising god in the language of the visitors). In Acts 10 the purpose of the tongues is to convince Peter and hence the rest of the brethren that gentiles were included. It is quite possible that the purpose of the original use of tongues was different from the ongoing use, particularly as they including other signs such as tongues of fire.There is no description in Acts 10 of the tongues the gentiles were speaking. In the absence of any description it must be presumed to be the same as that previous described a few chapters earlier in Acts 2.
Concerning what you said on the Church Fathers and Church history.... If you want to talk about things like logic etc. don't you have to consider them, a long with other things of course when talking about the Scriptures etc?
From what I can tell you do, assuming you are sincere in the OP... Because you have what in System's theory is a closed system, one that cannot change at all. It is basically closed to the outside world beyond it. So you more or less doomed to a kind of "self fulfilling prophesy" of having the same conclusion of things as when you started. (Since I'm guessing you have already been through the scriptures with those same assumptions and interpretations). Anyway, if you want to do something other than "Confirmation Bias" then you need to open up your viewpoint, otherwise this thread is either just a waste of time, or something that was made just to make you feel more certain in the position that you already mapped out for yourself.
I think that's so.Well, if they've ceased, some kind of Cessationism has to be true.
Agreed. Some kind.And if they've continued, some kind of Continuationism has to be true.
Yes.So the first half of the debate is really a factual dispute about whether genuine "tongues," genuine prophecy, and the genuine "gift of healing" still exist.
That's made difficult by a certain ambiguity in meaning for all 3 of those gifts:
- tongues as foreign languages (A) vs tongues as "ecstatic speech"
- fallible (C) vs infallible (D) prophecy
- healing following prayer (E) vs commanding people to be healed (F).
On tongues, we have claims for both (A) and (B) on this thread. I'm sceptical of (A) continuing, though, and I'm not sure that "tongues" in the NT were actually (B). On prophecy, there seems a consensus that (D) has ceased. I'm sceptical whether a gift of fallible prophecy (C) ever existed, though. On healing, the claims mostly seem to be for (E), which Cessationists believe in, but with a few claims of (F).
Or that familiar fallback positionB.2) "If they're not real foreign languages or ecstatic speech, then they're a 'prayer language' or the language of angels.
The letters were written to groups and individuals to teach on various subjects the recipient needed teaching on. If this were not so, each letter would be very long and very repetitive. 1 Corinthians was written during the period covered by Acts, but then so was Galatians (no mention of tongues), Colossians (no mention of tongues), James (no mention of tongues) and 1 Peter (no mention of tongues) for example. Most important is the fact that 2 Corinthians does not mention tongues, so by your reasoning tongues had ceased completely in the period between 1 and 2 Corinthians, despite Paul teaching on how to use tongues correctly.
Further, Acts was written AFTER the Pastoral letters (unless you hold to the position that the Pastorals are pseudonymous and early 2nd century) and Luke does not downplay tongues, but actually makes it an important part of the story, but makes no mention of the gift ceasing or going to cease, despite being in a position to know that by then.
You are reading a cessation of the gifts where there is no such indication. The Letter to Philemon makes no mention of the Death and Resurrection of Jesus, are we then to suppose that it had ceased to be relevant in the church at that time?
For something to be Biblical it needs to be taught in the Bible. There is not explicit teaching on the gifts ceasing and there is explicit teaching that the gifts were expected to continue (Acts; 1 Co 12 & 14).
There is an old saying: Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
I think you need to do a lot better than saying that there is no reference to tongues in the later New Testament, particularly when historically there is reference to the gift continuing well into the 3rd century.
You said:The sign gifts WERE in operation to warn the Jew of the coming judgement on their temple as recorded in the gospels... but that is not actually the purpose of the gift of tongues and so is irrelevant to the argument that they ceased.
Bringing this up to date, with historically verifiable cases (as opposed to vague references that may or may not indicate the usage of tongues). There is Edward Irving's church in the 1800's and the Azuza Street revival of 1906 which was followed by the Pentecostal revival where the gift of tongues (as well as other gifts) spread rapidly throughout the world. Following that there is the Charismatic Renewal of the 1950's and 60's and then the Catholic Charismatic Renewal of the 1970's. From Pentecostalism onwards the gifts of the spirit, including tongues, have continued in operation in a large number of churches, whether they are using them correctly or not (and a lot are probably not).
So, if Jesus supplied proof to Thomas, why doesn't everyone believe? Proof is proof after all.What made Thomas believe? It was hard evidence, and Jesus willingly supplied it to him.
Did you not read my assessment of the Pastorals and why they don't include lots of things, so cannot be used as evidence that the gifts were no longer in operation.ou said before that you have not read anything in Acts about how the gifts have ceased. This is true. But we do get indications of the gifts not operating in Paul's life when he talked with Timothy. Paul recommended that he drink a little wine in his water for the infirmities in his stomach. Paul once healed by sending out pieces of clothing that could heal. Why didn't he make an attempt at doing this with Timothy? It's more reasonable to assume that Paul no longer had the gift of healing like he once had at one time. Meaning, the gift had ceased or it served its purpose of function within his life.
The Latter Rain began twenty years earlier than Azuza street, but also included speaking in tongues. I don't ascribe to the description provided though I have seen such things as part of the Toronto Blessing of the 1990's.Source:
Azusa Street Revival
Keep in mind that this revival is the birth of Pentecostalism (i.e. the latter rain movement). If the events described above is something you ascribe to, please take no offense, but you are not qualified to help me to find the truth on the Scriptures that talk about Continuationism (if such a position is indeed true).
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