Spiritual Gifts Ceased? Arguments for Cessationism
Some Christians say spiritual gifts like tongues and healings have ceased. Others say these gifts are still available to the church today. Both sides say their view is biblical.
What I’m going to do is give you the best arguments from both sides. And then let you decide which one you think is biblical.
By the way, I’m Dr. Shawn Nelson with Geeky Christian. And this is the place for Christian’s who have questions.
What is Cessationism?
Cessationism is the view that certain spiritual gifts have ceased. We’re talking about gifts like prophecy, tongues, word of knowledge, healings, and miracles. Some say God was only using these gifts during the apostolic age. When that age ended, the miracles associated with that age also ended—or ceased. Hence Cessationism.
Top 6 reasons for cessationsim
One, the Bible says the revelatory gifts like prophecy, tongues, and interpretation of tongues would cease once the New Testament was finished.
1 Corinthians 13 says “where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled… 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes” in other words, the New Testament letters “what is in part disappears.” (emphasis mine)
Two, signs gifts were only meant to authenticate the apostles living during the apostolic age. The apostles were laying the foundation of the church. Once the foundation was laid, there was no more need for these miraculous gifts. The foundation of the church only had to be laid one time.
Ephesians 2:20, says the church was “built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone.” (emphasis mine)
Three, there are seven lists in the New Testament of the spiritual gifts. Earlier lists contain miraculous gifts, while the later ones do not.
This chart shows the seven lists and where they’re found. The blue items are the miraculous gifts. Notice how there’s more blue with the earlier texts on the left.
But there’s little to no mention of miraculous gifts in the lists on the right side. You can see prophecy on the right. But people say this is expounding the Word, like preaching.
Also, Paul doesn’t mention any spiritual gifts to Timothy and Titus when discussing church matters (1 Tim. 3:1-13; Titus 1:5-9). The reason for this is the miraculous gifts weren’t even something to talk about at that time.
Four, there’s evidence inside the Bible that the supernatural gifts had ceased in practice.
There are many miracles earlier in Acts. But they became rare in later New Testament letters.
God did many miracles through Paul at the beginning of his ministry. But Paul couldn’t do miracles towards end of ministry. For example, at first Paul could heal an entire island of people (Acts 28:9) but later could not even heal Timothy from a simple stomach problem (1 Tim. 5:23).[1] At first he raised the dead, but later he could not even raise Trophimus from a sick bed (2 Tim. 4:20). And he also couldn’t heal Epaphroditus (Phil. 2:26).
Five, later New Testament letters speak about the sign gifts in the past tense.
Hebrews 2 says “This salvation, which was first announced by the Lord, was confirmed [past tense] to us by those who heard him. God also testified [past tense] to it by signs, wonders and various miracles, and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.”
Hebrews was written in early 60s or 80s.[2] And we see that the sign gifts had served their purpose to confirm the gospel of salvation in the past. But they had ceased.
Six, there’s evidence outside the Bible that the supernatural gifts ceased. Prominent church writers like Augustine said God seemed to use the supernatural gifts in the early days of the church. But he wasn’t using them anymore. For example, he talked about miracles when he said “Even though such things happened at that time, manifestly these ceased later.”[3] He even reasoned that “miracles were not allowed to continue till our time, lest the mind should always seek visible things…”[4]
Conclusion
These 6 arguments convince cessationists that the charismatic or sign gifts are invalid for today.
But before you agree or disagree, you need to watch my next video!
I’ll give you the top arguments for the other position: why the supernatural gifts are valid for today.
Watch that video and then decide which position you think is most biblical.
Gentleness and respect
Also remember that there are many secondary issues that Christians disagree about. And both sides are trying to use Scripture to back up their position. It’s important to show grace, love, gentleness and respect towards people who have different views from our own.
References
- Norman L. Geisler, Signs and Wonders (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 1988), 137. ↑
- D. Guthrie, “Hebrews, Epistle to the,” ed. Geoffrey W Bromiley, The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, Revised (Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1979–1988), 668. ↑
- Augustine in The Fathers of the Church: St. Augustine, The Retractions, ed. Roy Joseph Deferrari (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1968), 55. ↑
- Ibid. ↑