Too many misunderstand Cessationism

The subject of spiritual gifts falls within one of the most controversial and debated categories within modern day Evangelicalism. When it comes to the subject of spiritual gifts, what must be plain and obvious is that God continues to gift His church in our present day. While theological debates rage on regarding the gift of pastor (elder, shepherd-teacher) — specifically related to whether or not women are gifted by God and called to this role within the local church, we must recognize that Christ’s church is gifted with pastors who lead, feed, and protect God’s sheep. 

Perhaps one of the most hotly debated issues of our day is the subject of the miraculous gifts. Does the Holy Spirit continue to gift God’s church with ongoing revelatory gifts such as tongues and prophecy? Does the Holy Spirit continue to gift God’s church in our day with individuals who possess the unique giftedness to perform instant healing of the sick? Does the Holy Spirit gift Christ’s church with the gift of an apostle? According to cessationism, the gifts typically classified as miraculous (healing, revelatory, and the gift of an apostle) served a very unique purpose within the history of God’s church and that purpose has now been fulfilled. Since that purpose has been fulfilled, those gifts that served such a purpose are no longer given to local churches. 

There is obviously another position known as continuationism which embraces the opposing view. According to continuationists, the Holy Spirit continues to gift local churches with apostles and the miraculous gifts that are typically associated with the apostles in the New Testament (healing, tongues, prophecy). While there are certainly variations to each position, these two opposing camps have serious disagreements on important theological and practical matters that impact God’s church.

With that said, there are a few ways in which the cessationist position is commonly misunderstood and misrepresented. It’s important to represent opposing positions properly in order for the sake of clarity and to avoid caricatures. In this brief article, it’s my goal to point out a couple of common misrepresentations that malign the cessationist position.

The gifts continue

Today’s church continues to be gifted by the Holy Spirit. While our time within church history differs from the days of the apostles, what we must openly acknowledge is that God’s people are gifted for unique service within the body of Christ. It is a misrepresentation and false caricature to suggest that cessationists reject the ongoing gifts of the Holy Spirit in our day.

Our God has always designed His Church to be orderly. When disorder occurs, it’s the product of sin and immaturity. As we look back to the early church period, there was an explosion of satanic opposition to the work of Christ and his apostles. As the church expanded, the devilish attacks by unclean spirits and persecution sought to push back against Christ’s church. Therefore, it was God’s design to accompany the work of Christ in His earthly ministry and His chosen apostles with miracles, wonders, and signs to validate the work of God among his people. The apostles and prophets served as the foundation of God’s Church (Eph 2:20).

Upon further examination, we find that the church on the island of Crete was greatly disorganized and disorderly. Paul gave specific directives to Titus regarding his role on the island. He was to appoint elders in every town so that God’s church would be properly equipped for the work of ministry and avoid the trappings of sinful cravings, false teaching, and perpetual immaturity. They would major on preaching and teaching the Word and making disciples which would bring order to a disordered church. Sinclair Ferguson observes:

While an eclectic grouping of these various gifts is difficult, and perhaps even the attempt is wrong-headed, a basic structure is clearly present: the revelatory word through apostle and prophet is foundational (Eph. 2:20), while all else is informed by and flows from this. Thus, whether God’s revelatory word comes immediately through apostle or prophet, or … through the exposition of the Scriptures (cf. 1 Tim. 4:13; 2 Tim. 3:16–4:5), it exercises the dominant role in the life of the church and occupies a canonical status. The Spirit who gives the word uses it to equip the people of God to employ the specific gifts they have individually received (Eph. 4:11–16).^[1]

That same purpose is ongoing in our present hour. God raises up pastors who lead, feed, equip, and protect God’s sheep. When pastors fail to execute their responsibilities faithfully, the local church suffers greatly. Not only is the leadership of the church necessary, but the other gifts operating in a synchronized fashion produce unity that results in love as the Church is built up in Christ Jesus. Apart from everyone engaging in organization, hospitality, administration, and various other service-related gifts — the local church cannot rise to the biblical design given by God from the very beginning. 

Apart from ongoing gifts of the Holy Spirit, the Church of Jesus Christ would shrivel up and die. Therefore, as Christ promised that the gates of hell would never prevail against His Church (Matt 16:18), it must be clearly established that it remains God’s design to continue to gift his people in our present day with unique gifts for each local church to function in a biblical and orderly manner. 

Miracles continue

One thing that must be firmly established is the fact that cessationists believe that God can perform miracles at any time or place in human history. Our God is sovereign and he always does what he pleases. The cessationist position affirms the position that the Holy Spirit no longer gifts individuals with the ability to perform miracles. Consider the definition of a miracle as a starting point. If the Holy Spirit intended to provide every local church with miraculous gifts in our day, would we view their healings and ongoing revelations from God as miraculous in nature or more normative?

It was Martin Luther who said the following:

In the early Church the Holy Spirit was sent forth in visible form. He descended upon Christ in the form of a dove (Matt. 3:16), and in the likeness of fire upon the apostles and other believers. (Acts 2:3) This visible outpouring of the Holy Spirit was necessary to the establishment of the early Church, as were also the miracles that accompanied the gift of the Holy Ghost. Paul explained the purpose of these miraculous gifts of the Spirit in I Corinthians 14:22, “Tongues are for a sign, not to them that believe, but to them that believe not.” Once the Church had been established and properly advertised by these miracles, the visible appearance of the Holy Ghost ceased.^[2]

While there were definitive eras throughout history that mark seasons of divine miracles such as Moses and Joshua, Elijah and Elisha, and Christ and His apostles — it’s a misrepresentation to suggest that cessationists reject divine miracles in our present day. Visit a cessationist church and listen to the pastors pray. Attend a prayer meeting and listen to the cessationists pray prayers of supplication as they request for divine healing and restoration of specific church members, friends, family, co-workers, and neighbors who are suffering illness and disease. The prayers of a cessationist are often indicative of the fact that they believe miracles continue in our present hour.

The problem with the continuationist position regarding miracles is that there seems to be a clear distinction between the modern gift of healing and the gift that was visible in Christ’s earthly ministry and his apostles. John MacArthur explains:

Continuationists are quick to differentiate this modern gift from the healing ministries of Christ and the apostles (as recorded in the book of Acts). Whereas those healings were clearly miraculous, immediate, public, and undeniable, the continuationist understanding of healing essentially reduces the gift of healing to a prayer for someone to get well that might be answered over an extended period of time. I wholeheartedly believe in the power of prayer. All cessationists do. But special acts of divine providence in answer to prayer are not equivalent to the miraculous gift of healing described in the New Testament. To reduce the gift in that way is to belittle what was happening in the first century of church history.^[3]

Although the three eras mentioned above (Moses and Joshua, Elijah and Elisha, and Christ and his apostles) mark unmistakable spikes in miraculous activity, cessationists do not suggest that supernatural miracles didn’t occur outside of those eras nor do cessationists believe that miracles cannot happen in our present hour. The cessationist is clearly suggesting that some of the gifts, such as the gift of healing and the revelatory gifts, have certainly ceased to be given to individuals within the body of Christ today, but the cessation of such gifts doesn’t prevent supernatural acts of God from taking place according to God’s sovereign will. The cessation of miraculous and revelatory gifts to the Church, including the gift of apostle, should never be taken as anti-supernaturalism.

Avoiding false caricatures 

It is true that cessationists embrace the idea that some (not all) of the gifts of the Holy Spirit are no longer necessary and no longer given by the Holy Spirit to his people in our day. For a cessationist to make the claim that the unique gift of an apostle has ceased or that ongoing divine revelation (the “God told me to tell you” language) is no longer given to God’s people does not mean that the cessationist rejects the ongoing active ministry of the Holy Spirit within today’s Church. 

Ryan Denton has published an article at Reformation21 on the subject of hyper-cessationism. In his attempt to define the term, he suggests the following:

We could define it as the following: a person who is not just a cessationist, but who also aggressively tries to undermine or disprove anything abnormal in the Christian life; who is automatically skeptical of the miraculous, including but not limited to revival, healing, dreams, and visions; and whose worldview is closer to functional deism or rationalism despite theoretically denying such.^[4]

The problem with that definition is that I would fall within the category of being immediately skeptical of people who are claiming to receive dreams and visions as direct revelation from God. I would never classify myself as a hyper-cessationist, but I do think it would be wise and prudent to be immediately skeptical of anyone claiming to receive direct revelation from God. Claims of direct revelation from God through visions and dreams serve as an assault upon the authority and sufficiency of God’s Word. According to the 1689 London Baptist Confession, in Chapter one and paragraph one devoted to the holy Scripture, we find the following statement:

The Holy Scripture is the only sufficient, certain, and infallible rule of all saving knowledge, faith, and obedience, although the light of nature, and the works of creation and providence do so far manifest the goodness, wisdom, and power of God, as to leave men inexcusable; yet they are not sufficient to give that knowledge of God and His will which is necessary unto salvation. Therefore it pleased the Lord at sundry times and in diversified manners to reveal Himself, and to declare (that) His will unto His church; and afterward for the better preserving and propagating of the truth, and for the more sure establishment and comfort of the church against the corruption of the flesh, and the malice of Satan, and of the world, to commit the same wholly unto writing; which makes the Holy Scriptures to be most necessary, those former ways of God’s revealing His will unto His people being now completed.

In like manner, the Westminster Confession of Faith concludes the first paragraph of chapter one which is likewise devoted to the holy Scriptures with this statement, “those former ways of God’s revealing His will unto His people being now ceased.” To suggest that people who are immediately skeptical of dreams and visions as direct revelation from God should be classified as hyper-cessationists is a bit of a stretch at the least. That broad brushing definition would include a large group of Reformed Evangelicals across denominational lines. The issue I have with Denton’s definition is that it uses an old tactic that falsely labels an opponent as “hyper” in order to discredit them. That has been the play of many anti-Calvinists who have sought to falsely label Calvinists as hyper-Calvinists which typically means they’re simply five-point Calvinists. We have to be cautious of falsely branding opponents.

Furthermore, if the gift of healing was clearly operative in God’s church today, there would be no need to be skeptical of the gift. It would be obvious to everyone and it would result in praise to our sovereign God. However, that’s simply not what we clearly see in our day, especially within this information era with smartphones and video cameras on every corner.

It’s important that we do not falsely brand people as hyper-cessationists or suggest that an immediate skeptical posture toward people claiming direct revelation from God or miraculous gifting is improper. I would argue that we should be more skeptical when such claims are made rather than less. Furthermore, when real genuine miracles take place, there is no hiding the light. It’s obvious to everyone. We see this happening in the ministry of Christ which angered the Pharisees and legalists who rejected him as their Messiah. Miracles also served as a validation to the apostolic ministry of Jesus’ official representatives.

There are real serious theological issues that must be addressed by cessationists and continuationists alike, but it’s important to properly represent each opposing position. It’s not true that cessationists put God is in a box where he is unable to perform miracles today. Who can shut God in a box? He will do with his world (and act within it) as he so desires (Psalm 113; Psalm 115). We must never forget the fact that our God is absolutely sovereign and he acts according to His plan and purpose to glorify Himself. It could be said that throughout history God withholds a miracle to accomplish His purposes. At rare times and for mysterious purposes that remain veiled to us, God does perform miracles. Cessationists are not anti-supernatural. That’s simply a false caricature. 

This is our Father’s World.

References

1. Sinclair B. Ferguson, The Holy Spirit, ed. Gerald Bray, Contours of Christian Theology (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1996), 208–209.
2. Martin Luther, Commentary on Galatians 4, Trans. by Theodore Graebner [Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 1949], pp. 150-172.
3. John MacArthur, Strange Fire, Kindle Version, 245.
4. Ryan Denton, What Is Hyper-Cessationism, published by Reformation21 on 8-21-24.

Originally published at G3 Ministries.