If Cessationism is not true then-

[Albion]

No hair-splitting here, of gnats or anything else. If it is a gift that has been given near and far among church members, it is not something that they have to ask God to give them thereafter. It's either a gift that's been given and received...or it is not.

 

[OrthodoxyUSA]

As if these people do not pray.

Ignorant suggestion.

Forgive me...

 

[Albion]

Nobody said that they don't pray or shouldn't pray. That, however, is not what cessationism, the gifts of the HS, and the rest of this turns on. It is a different issue altogether.

 

[jax5434]

Healing was most common in the time of Jesus earthly ministry and subsequently that of the Apostles. Healings and other miracles served the purpose of validating their authority.
Today, healings seem to be more frequent in missionary fields. I once had a missionary tell me of seeing a water buffalo raised from the dead. Again I believe miracles are used to confirm the authority of the gospel.
But if miraculous healings were routinely done in hospitals it would diminish the role of faith in our Christian faith. Is faith a virtue when there is not shred of doubt? And from Gods' point of view physical healing is not his greatest priority.
Finally, though I am hesitant to bring this up, is it possible that there is a dearth of miracles in the Western Christian Churches (Europe and North America) because there is a dearth of Christians in those churches?

God Bless
Jax

 

[AlexDTX]

Where are all the healers healing the sick and wounded in hospitals today?

Shouldn't this be a common occurrence?

Not talking about prophesying, but healing

Healing occurs, but is not often publicized. However, all the gifts are in the finished works of Jesus Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit. All who are born again and are baptized in the Holy Spirit have access to all that power. But having access is not the same as knowing how to use it. The power of God works through faith without doubt. Many believe but their faith is undermined by their doubt and gives no results.

Even when you read testimonies or hear it first hand, doubt will reject the story. The Gospel is filled with people who saw the miracles of Jesus, but their natural minds would not believe the miracles even though they saw it with their own eyes. This is the same today. People rationalize and find natural answers instead of believing the power of God.

 

[truefiction1]

Cessationists believe that God can heal today in response to prayer if he so wills. But praying for healing is not the gift of healing. The gift of healing is the instantaneous and complete healing of a disability simply by the command or touch of a gifted individual, just as the disciples did in the New Testament. If you have to pray for healing it proves you do not have the gift of healing.

All healing is by prayer to God. The Apostle's were able to command an individual because God had revealed the them that He was healing them. The Apostles had the gift of "unceasing prayer of the heart". This gift still exists in certain people, but it is because they have come to have the True Faith of the Apostles. The Problem is not cessationism. The problem is that faithlessness and perversity has grown to such an extent from the time of the Apostles that those of True Faith have been very few and far between. Thus, it is because of the "mystery of lawlessness" that has been at work throughout the Church age that there are fewer and fewer examples of wonder-working healers. Nothing has ceased. The Holy Spirit hasn't changed. We have changed.

 

[Albion]

IMO, these are two different issues.

 

[bling]

Do signs cause people to become believers who would not become believers without those signs?

Jesus raised Lazarus and the Pharisees wanted to now kill both Jesus and Lazarus, so why did they not believe?

If you had pure scientific proof of God’s existence, such as a miracle recorded and verified by many learned Doctors, you would not need “faith” in God’s existence, but would have knowledge of His existence:
Is God looking to people to acknowledge His existence?

If knowledge of God’s existence does not positively change the person behavior is it not an even great insult to God?

Does “knowledge” produce humility or does it tend to puff up the person?

The lowliest mature adult on earth can put their trust in their creator, so ‘faith” in God is actually a humbling experience and we need humility to accept God’s charity.

 

[truefiction1]

IMO, these are two different issues.

Might this be because you're of the opinion that "cessationism" has some basis in Divine reality, rather than just being another false concept of men, implanted in human minds by the false spirits of the air?

IMHO, we can't continue to listen to and agree with the enemies of our salvation if we ever hope to attain the gifts of wonder-workers, which are just as available to us now as they were to those Apostles and fathers of the Church.

 

[truefiction1]

Do signs cause people to become believers who would not become believers without those signs?

No, they don't.

 

[Albion]

Might this be because you're of the opinion that "cessationism" has some basis in Divine reality, rather than just being another false concept of men, implanted in human minds by the false spirits of the air?

It's because the term is used to describe the view which holds that the gifts were given in order to accomplish something important during the early days of the church and then they ceased except for rare occasions. History records that this is the case with tongues-speaking in particular where the debate is usually centered.

By contrast, the idea that if one prays for the ability to heal or, if not that, someone says that, when the sacrament of Holy Unction/Extreme Unction/Healing is administered, there may be physical healing following...well, those are not what the disagreement over "Cessationism" is all about.

 

[RaymondG]

God works in decency and in order. Hospitals and Medicine are a billion dollar industry. I dont believe it would go well if healers started shutting down hospitals and pharmacies with their healing.... Aside from the lose of money that would ensue, hundreds of people would lose their jobs and not be able to support their families. I would suspect that they would have "accidents" shortly after their works were made public.

Now for the spiritual....There has to be some faith on both sides.....or at least, a lack of doubt on the part of the one being healed. Even Jesus did not perform many miracles in some places because of their unbelief.

matt 13:58 "And he did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief."

 

[Albion]

When someone wrote that if the gift of healing were in operation like it was in antiquity there would be people healing all over the place and, most obviously, at the entrance to the ER, I don't think that was meant literally, just that this would be common whereas it obviously is not.

 

[mindlight]

Healing miracles are documented as occurring today. There is nothing in scripture that suggests that God has stopped performing miracles or indeed stopped giving the gift of tongues which is quite common in charismatic circles. But I would not base a health service on miracles and miracle workers. They are rarer than charismatics say and far more common than liberals recognise.

Miracle Hunter: Lourdes - List of Approved Miracles

Ten healing miracles

Does God still heal the sick? Was healing just for the Apostles?

 

[~Anastasia~]

But this is not the issue identified in the OP at the start of the thread. Almost all of us would agree that miracles occur and that God may gift people, at his choosing, as he wills. The issue is whether or not what is called Cessationism is correct or not. The early church experienced all the gifts identified in Corinthians and in great and ongoing numbers. Then it died away EXCEPT for occasional reports. That is what cessationists, so called, point to.

That it is no longer a standard part of Christian life. If it were, there would have been people everywhere available to fix the broken arm or cure leukemia without physicians, etc., not just one person somewhere. But the account that you gave isn't even of this sort, anyway, but instead attributes the healing to the administration of a sacrament.

True it is not the issue at the start of the thread.

Why doesn't someone empty out the hospitals today?

Well, is that what the Apostles did? When they healed the man at the Beautiful Gate, why didn't they heal everyone?

It has never been done in this way. Why hold people today to a stricter standard of proof than for the Apostles?

Scripture tells us ... have the elders of the Church anoint them and pray for them - it addresses individuals, Christians - is any among you sick?

(Non-Christians are healed within Christian Churches sometimes too, but it is by the same means as Christians.)

 

[tansy]

15+ years ago it was a few days before I was to leave for a mission trip to Brazil. I was barefoot, about to put on my socks and cleats to help coach my highschool soccer team. A ball came towards me, I reached out to stop it not noticing the assistant coach running full steam towards the ball. He missed the ball. He didn't miss my foot.

Crushed. Multiple fractures.

The right side of my foot was the beneficiary of his metal cleats. The doctor didn't want to cast it that evening due to the swelling. He told me I wouldn't be able to walk for a few weeks. I told him about my trip to Brazil. He laughed and said there's no way.

I went home, told my team about it. We prayed.

In the morning I was healed. I went back to the doctor, he was in disbelief. We took more x-rays. More disbelief.

That Spring Break I went to Brazil, it was incredible.

Summer.

I took my graduation money and bought a plane ticket and went back to Brazil for the summer to live with the missionary and his family. We were going to go to the jungle and make contact with an unreached people group.

We found them.

Not 5 hours after we had been in the village there was a commotion and the village people came in carrying a young boy who had been injured and his foot had been severed. Gone.

We felt the Holy Spirit. The missionary looked at me, and we went to the boy. The villagers consented. The village shaman, who we instantly knew to be demon possessed felt the Spirit and fled. We put our hands on his foot and prayed. It grew back. We saw it.

The entire village confessed and converted.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

I feel that as a white American I can say this. To be honest, the only cessasionists that I have ever met or read material from have been either white Americans or white Europeans that have not been on a mission trip to a third world country where the primary purpose was evangelism.

Wow, that's amazing

 

[tansy]

Forgive me... is a closing in written letters used by clergy in my order. I took it up as a habit many years ago. It reminds me that I am, for the most part, a cause of trouble to the cosmos. I am always in need of it...

Forgive me...

Oh, that's interesting...I also had wondered why you put 'forgive me' at the end of your posts . One of life's mysteries cleared up

 

[Albion]

True it is not the issue at the start of the thread.

Why doesn't someone empty out the hospitals today?

Well, is that what the Apostles did? When they healed the man at the Beautiful Gate, why didn't they heal everyone?

It has never been done in this way. Why hold people today to a stricter standard of proof than for the Apostles?

In fact, Cessationists are not holding anyone to any unusual standard. We merely have noted an indisputable fact of history--these things ceased to occupy the position that they held during the early days of the church. The opponents of Cessationism--and these opponents are the ones who concocted the term in order to be condescending towards anyone who's not a Pentecostal--have had to struggle to find some way to theorize that what history records as happening, somehow actually did not happen!

 

[tansy]

True it is not the issue at the start of the thread.

Why doesn't someone empty out the hospitals today?

Well, is that what the Apostles did? When they healed the man at the Beautiful Gate, why didn't they heal everyone?

It has never been done in this way. Why hold people today to a stricter standard of proof than for the Apostles?

Scripture tells us ... have the elders of the Church anoint them and pray for them - it addresses individuals, Christians - is any among you sick?

(Non-Christians are healed within Christian Churches sometimes too, but it is by the same means as Christians.)

Precisely - even Jesus didn't heal everybody.

 

[tansy]

Healing was most common in the time of Jesus earthly ministry and subsequently that of the Apostles. Healings and other miracles served the purpose of validating their authority.
Today, healings seem to be more frequent in missionary fields. I once had a missionary tell me of seeing a water buffalo raised from the dead. Again I believe miracles are used to confirm the authority of the gospel.
But if miraculous healings were routinely done in hospitals it would diminish the role of faith in our Christian faith. Is faith a virtue when there is not shred of doubt? And from Gods' point of view physical healing is not his greatest priority.
Finally, though I am hesitant to bring this up, is it possible that there is a dearth of miracles in the Western Christian Churches (Europe and North America) because there is a dearth of Christians in those churches?

God Bless
Jax

Perhaps, in some ways, there's less belief in the West. I mean, whilst there are plenty of believers and adherents to various religions, also Spiritualists, New Ageists and so on, possibly we don't really act on things in quite the same way as those in other countries? I don't know, but perhaps they really believe and act upon their beliefs (whether they be false gods or not). Maybe they are much more inclined to come to Jesus for healing etc, humbly and like a little child. Perhaps we are too sophisticated here and put all kinds of unconscious blockages in the way. Not saying that this is the case, but just perhaps...