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043 | Cessationism v. Continuationism
688 Plays4 years ago
What's the down low on spiritual gifts? In this episode we do a high level view of the two primary views on the topic: cessationism and continuationism. We talk about the main proof texts for these views, some of the implications and the dangers, and why 1 Cor 13 is the guiding principle through it all.
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Transcript
Introduction to Verity Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to Verity. I'm your host, Felicia Masonheimer, an author, speaker, and Bible teacher. This podcast will help you embrace the history and depth of the Christian faith, ask questions, seek answers, and devote yourself to becoming a disciple of Jesus Christ. You don't have to settle for watered-down Christian teaching. And if you're ready to go deeper, God is just as ready to take you there. This is Verity, where every woman is a theologian.
00:00:31
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Hey friends, so today was Ask Anything Monday on Instagram and I answered a lot of great questions today from questions about free will and hell to questions about our rabbits. Yes, we got some new rabbits and I am pretty excited about it.
00:00:51
Speaker
but that is not why you listen to this podcast.
Exploring 1 Corinthians 13 and Spiritual Gifts
00:00:54
Speaker
So today we're gonna be talking about 1 Corinthians 13 and two major theological views that spring out of this passage. This and other passages because both views look at all the passages in scripture surrounding spiritual gifts to come to their conclusion about whether or not spiritual gifts such as healing, prophecy, and tongues
00:01:20
Speaker
continue today, or whether they cease. Yes, we are going to be talking about cessationism and continuationism. When I was planning out my notes for this episode, I had some ideas for how to begin, but then I thought, you know what, let's just read 1 Corinthians 13, because we're going to really be looking at this as we discuss the two sides of this conversation, and I think it's great to begin with the text, so that's what we're going to do.
00:01:50
Speaker
If you want to follow along, 1 Corinthians 13, we're going to read the whole thing. If you've been to a wedding recently, maybe you already heard it. It's the popular love passage, so believe it or not, it talks a lot about spiritual gifts too.
00:02:23
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And it says,
00:02:24
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And if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
What is Cessationism?
00:02:29
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Love is patient and kind. Love does not envy or boast. It is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way. It is not irritable or resentful. It does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things.
00:02:48
Speaker
Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away. As for tongues, they will cease. As for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, thought like a child, and reasoned like a child. But when I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part,
00:03:17
Speaker
then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. So now faith, hope, and love abide these three, but the greatest of these is love." Okay, so that is where we're beginning. And we're going to start by looking at the cessationist argument. But before we
Scriptural Foundation of Cessationism
00:03:39
Speaker
do that, let me just define a few terms here.
00:03:43
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Cessationism comes from the root word to cease, to believe that the spiritual gifts have ceased or stopped, that they are no longer gifts that we are to practice today. We see these gifts in the book of Acts and there are some specific reasons why cessationist scholars and Christians believe that those gifts were only to be used during that period of time and not today.
00:04:12
Speaker
then there are continuationists, which common sense tells us this has to do with continuing spiritual gifts continuing until today. Now there are actually quite a few passages that talk about the spiritual gifts, and if we were to continue into 1 Corinthians 14, that is one of them talking about tongues and how they are to be used in the church, talking about orderly worship,
00:04:40
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and the point of spiritual gifts and tongues that they're for building up. They're not for distraction or for sensationalism. And we can look at other passages. I believe Romans 12 is another example that lists out different gifts and practices that we will see in the church.
Historical Context of Cessationism
00:05:00
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So clearly, if you've ever taken a spiritual gifts test, you know that there are gifts other than healing tongues and prophecy.
00:05:10
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But we see these three gifts particularly practiced in the book of Acts.
00:05:17
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right around the launch of the early church. These were things the apostles were practicing publicly, the church was practicing publicly, right from Pentecost on. And so, between cessationists and continuationist Christians, there can be some very heated arguments because both of them hold scripture in such high regard. Both of them look to scripture as the basis for their view.
00:05:46
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The cessationist would say, scripture has such great value, and we'll get into the history of this in a minute, that there should be no revelation added to it. They think that spiritual gifts would add revelation to scripture.
00:06:01
Speaker
And therefore, we are not to pursue these spiritual gifts because that period of time has ended. Whereas a continuationist would say, scripture is of such high value that we should honor what it says to do, which is to pursue these spiritual gifts and to not despise prophecy, to not quench the spirit. And so you have two people who, two Christian groups that are
00:06:25
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kind of coming at the exact same text but arriving at different conclusions, which perhaps sounds familiar from our Calvinism and Arminianism episode. If you haven't listened
Denominational Perspectives on Cessationism and Continuationism
00:06:35
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to that, you can go back and listen.
00:06:37
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So I think that episode actually, now that I've mentioned it, would be a helpful listen before we get into this because the history of Calvinism and Arminianism actually plays a big role in understanding the controversy we see around spiritual gifts today.
00:06:57
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I think it's safe to say that cessationism, while it definitely can be found in Arminian traditions such as independent fundamental Baptists and other like Wesleyan or Methodist groups
00:07:12
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It is very universal in Calvinistic groups. Now there are exceptions. I have close friends who are continuationist Calvinists. John Piper is one. I believe Matt Chandler is another one. Sam Storms is another one. So by no means am I saying that Calvinists are not continuationists, but
00:07:33
Speaker
many Calvinists are cessationists, and the history will show you why that is when we talk about it. Also, many Arminians, or provisionists, non-Calvinists in their salvation theology, are continuationists. And so if you're like, what on earth is an Arminian? What's a Calvinist? Go back and listen to that episode so you get a little bit of background on what that is, what those theologies are, because it does impact
00:08:02
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the working out of that salvation theology when it comes to spiritual gifts. So that said, let's start by looking at
Continuationist Argument for Spiritual Gifts
00:08:11
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cessationist theology. Where does this idea come from that the spiritual gifts particularly, well really only healing, tongues, and prophecy have ceased? So some call these the revelatory gifts. So they're drawing attention to
00:08:29
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these amazing signs and wonders that God is doing through people, giving them a totally different language that they don't understand, like what happened in Acts 2 at Pentecost. When Peter stood up and he's giving the gospel and people are speaking in all of the languages of those who would have been present at Pentecost, they are speaking in their languages so they could hear the gospel. And so these revelatory gifts are drawing attention to the work of God.
00:08:58
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and a cessationist believes that they accomplished a very specific purpose in the book of Acts, where we see that they were witnessing to people from all around the world where tongues were necessary,
00:09:13
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They were showing the power of God to people and confirming the power and authority of the apostles. This is a pretty big deal. The apostle role was a person who specifically walked with Jesus and was essentially anointed by Jesus for his role. And in having that role, his signs that were accomplished were to express their apostolic authority.
00:09:44
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Another characteristic of cessationists is that prophecy is considered to be the same, for the most part, to be the same in the New Testament as
Cessationist Concerns About Modern Prophecy
00:09:56
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it was in the Old Testament. In the Old Testament, prophecy had two components, foretelling and forthtelling. And there was a test for a prophet who was prophesying falsely.
00:10:10
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And we see this test in Deuteronomy 18 turning there right now. It's kind of a bit of a serious test, one that we should take pretty seriously too, where it talks about what to do when a prophet does not speak the truth. And it says,
00:10:31
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The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me, this is Moses talking, from among you, from your brothers. And it is to him you shall listen just as you desired of the Lord your God at Horep on the day of the assembly, when you said, Let me not hear again the voice of my Lord, or see this great fire, any more or less I die. And so the Lord sends prophets to them.
00:10:51
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And so he says, The prophet who presumes to speak a word in God's name, that God has not commanded him to speak, or speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die. And if you say in your heart, how may we know the word that the Lord has not spoken? When a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the Lord has not spoken. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously, and you need not be afraid of him.
00:11:18
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So this was the test of an Old Testament prophet. They give a short-term prophecy. If it came true, they could know that he was sent from God. If it did not come true, they could know that he was a false prophet or if he was prophesying in the names of other gods.
00:11:33
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This prophet, if he was false, was to be killed because he was falsely claiming the name of God. He was offending God directly and he was leading people astray with his words. It was a capital offense in Israel's theocracy where God was the center of their society. He was their king.
00:11:53
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So knowing this, a cessationist looks forward to the mentions of prophecy in the New Testament and would say or argue, this is a big deal. Prophecy is a big deal. And in the New Testament, after the Gospels were complete, after the epistles were complete, and the New Testament church was beyond the apostolic age, all revelation from God ceased.
00:12:21
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the canon of scripture was closed with the revelation of John and if you're like what's the canon of scripture go back listen to the canon series of this podcast i have i think 12 episodes talking about how the bible was compiled and it will help make sense of that so for the cessationist a prophet who was like an old testament prophet
00:12:42
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after the New Testament era would be adding authoritative scripture to the closed canon, and that is a problem. Continuationists and cessationists would agree on that. If you are adding
00:12:59
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to Scripture, if you are adding on your revelation to a closed canon, then yes, we are looking at some pretty big problems here. So why would the cessationist be so concerned about this? Well, if we look at church history, the cessationist view really strongly increased right around the Reformation and after that.
00:13:24
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Now, all through church history, both sides have been discussed and held, but at the Reformation, what we saw was a correction to the Catholic churches adding on to Scripture. They were abusing church tradition and elevating it to the level of
00:13:47
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Scriptural authority adding on to scripture and so the reformers corrected and in some cases over corrected in their view to You know say solo scriptura scripture alone. We don't add on to this we don't add on traditions and say that they are equal in authority to what we see in the Bible and
00:14:10
Speaker
And so keeping that in mind, for many cessationists, the dedication to the word and preserving the word makes them very hesitant to be willing to accept the idea of prophecy or healing or tongues today because they believed it served a very specific purpose in that New Testament era.
00:14:31
Speaker
And the text that's often gone to to support this is 1 Corinthians 13, specifically in verse 8 through 10, which talks about knowing in part and prophesying in part. But when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. So what's the perfect?
00:14:54
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Well, they would say the perfect is the close of the New Testament canon. It's the close of Scripture. The perfect has come and therefore that's why prophecy and tongues have passed away. It's fulfilled and it's done. So we do not add on to that by practicing prophecy or tongues in the modern era.
00:15:15
Speaker
Now, obviously, as I say, with every single theological topic that we cover, this is a spectrum. You'll have people who maybe differ a little bit than the summary that I gave, but this is a pretty basic overview of the cessationist stance, their concerns, their desire to preserve the authority of Scripture.
00:15:33
Speaker
I think all of us have been at a women's conference where we were told, you are a beautiful daughter of the Most High King. And it's true, but it's not the whole truth. The beauty of being God's daughter has some backstory and it's left out in a lot of messages preached to women.
00:15:52
Speaker
So if you're tired of hearing the watered down Christian teaching and you're hungry for a deeper spiritual life, I have something for you. It's my brand new book, Stop Calling Me Beautiful, Finding Soul Deep Strength in a Skin Deep World. Stop Calling Me Beautiful is a book about going deeper with God.
00:16:09
Speaker
I'm going to talk about pursuing the truths of who God is and who we are in relationship to Him, how to study Scripture, how legalism, shallow theology, and false teaching keep us from living boldly as a woman of the Word. I'm so excited to put this book in your hands. You can grab your copy on Amazon or for more information head to my website FeliciaMasonheimer.com and click the book tab. So now we're going to look at the continuationist.
00:16:38
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and their desire to preserve the authority of Scripture.
Modern Prophecy and Scriptural Alignment
00:16:42
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So looking at the same passages, the continuationist looking at Acts, especially looking at Acts 2, where Peter is talking, and he quotes Joel 2, saying that in the last days your daughters and sons will prophesy.
00:17:01
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saying that it was fulfilled in their hearing. The interesting thing is that the last days is often considered by both scholars and by the apostles themselves to cover all of the days up until the second coming, the entire church age. So in saying that in the last days they will prophesy,
00:17:20
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A continuationist would argue, this means the entire church age. There was no specific ending to this. Further, if we look at other mentions of the gifts, we see that their goal in Ephesians 4, for example, was to build up the church.
00:17:36
Speaker
It was not just to give authority to the apostles. It was to be practiced by the church itself, by other members, not just the initial twelve disciples, the apostles. The whole church was practicing these things, and it was to build them up and encourage them. We see this again in 1 Thessalonians 5, where Paul is saying, do not despise prophecy. Instead of despising it, examine it carefully. Make sure that it lines up with Scripture. We don't just want to accept things willy-nilly.
00:18:04
Speaker
He also indicates that it lasts until Christ's coming, the same as we see in Acts 2. Now, 1 Corinthians 1, if we look there again, we see a similar statement about not lacking any gift until Christ comes, so a continuationist looks at this and says again, we're looking at the whole church age as far as these gifts are being practiced, at least that was the assumption of the writer.
00:18:31
Speaker
So then going back to 1 Corinthians 13, in this question of the perfect, what is the perfect? Well, if we look a little further down in the passage, we read the verse, it says, for we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. It says in verse 12, for now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face.
Continuationist Views on Tongues and Healing
00:18:52
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Now we know in part, and then we shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.
00:18:57
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This verse is referencing a face-to-face encounter with Christ. This phrase is consistent across the canon where face-to-face, again even calling back to Exodus and Moses being face-to-face with God, here Paul is indicating that we know Christ partially, but we will know Him
00:19:21
Speaker
face when the perfect comes. Who is the perfect? Christ! So, cross-referencing this with the other passages that talk about the spiritual gifts and practicing them up until Christ's coming, we can see that 1 Corinthians 13 for a continuationist is presenting a perfect that is Christ. So, prophecy would continue until Christ. Healing tongues would continue until Christ.
00:19:51
Speaker
Okay, you might say, all right, I get that, but what does prophecy look like then? Because we cannot add on to scripture. We can't add on to the existing revelation. You are correct, and no solid continuationist should ever support the idea that modern prophecy would be on the level with authoritative scripture.
00:20:13
Speaker
Prophecy in the New Testament has changed. It's not the same as Ezekiel and Isaiah and Joel. And based on what we see and how we see it described in the New Testament, that's pretty consistent. It's talked about as an encouragement and as a building up.
00:20:30
Speaker
We're told, again, don't despise prophecy, but examine it and check it against the Word. So clearly, this prophecy was being measured against the existing work of the Old Testament prophets who would be the work they had at the time Paul was writing. They had the Old Testament, not the New.
00:20:50
Speaker
So we're comparing anything we hear, any prophetic word or word from the Lord, any upbuilding that someone says, hey, I was praying for you and I sense that the Lord said this about you. We would say, if you're a continuationist, thank you, I will pray about that and check it against scripture.
Abuse and Misuse of Spiritual Gifts
00:21:14
Speaker
We're not just accepting it, and we're certainly not writing it down and adding it as an extra book in the Bible. It's a means of upbuilding and the application of spirit-led encouragement to a specific person's life. That's what modern-day prophecy is to the continuationist. So what about tongues and healing?
00:21:37
Speaker
So most people would agree that healing can happen still today. Most Christians would agree on that. Just that it might not happen on the level that we see it in the New Testament days. So what about tongues? This question comes up a lot on Ask Anything Monday, so it's perfect for this Ask Anything theology series.
00:22:00
Speaker
tongues get a little more tricky because some continuationists would hold to the idea that tongues are an actual language given to you when you are ministering, when you don't know that language, and the people you're ministering to need to hear the gospel with those words.
00:22:22
Speaker
Other continuationists hold the idea that there's actually different types of tongues. So there's the tongues like in Acts 2 at Pentecost. And then there is what's called a prayer language. And this idea is primarily taken from Romans 8.26, which says, In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness, for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.
00:22:49
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other verses that are used are 1 Corinthians 14 which talks about speaking in a tongue to God but not to men so you're speaking a mystery and the takeaway here is that when you don't have the words to pray the Lord gives you a specific
00:23:07
Speaker
language of prayer some say it's an angelic tongue that it doesn't make sense to other people but the spirit is interceding with basically the words for you that you can't express and so they call this a prayer language other references are Jude 1 20 in Ephesians 6 18 now here's the thing with these spiritual gifts and continuationists
00:23:32
Speaker
Most people who have hesitancies with the practice of these things have had bad experiences with them. And so it's no question that if you had a strange, sensationalistic, odd experience with the practice of these gifts, that you would be hesitant and nervous about how they could possibly be grounded in Scripture.
00:23:58
Speaker
And to be honest, there are a lot of churches that abuse these concepts. They don't understand them biblically. They don't practice them biblically like 1 Corinthians 14 says to practice with orderly worship. Instead, it is a free-for-all.
00:24:14
Speaker
It's often silly or out of order and almost disrespectful. And to the observer, it doesn't look like worship of God. It looks like utter and complete chaos. And it's understandable why people would be uncomfortable with that. We should be thinking about the practice of these spiritual gifts in a way that lines up with the rest of scripture and how these gifts are portrayed in scripture itself.
Building Theology Beyond Extremes
00:24:45
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these extremes that we see things like holy laughter or doing really extreme things to incite the Holy Spirit or to drum him up in a way we have to be cautious and we have to check these things against scripture and say where do we see these or these things taking continuationism way beyond the bounds that scripture expresses and any truth continuationist
00:25:14
Speaker
would be uncomfortable with those kinds of extremes. We also have to be careful on the cessationist side not to build a theology reactively. Don't look at these extreme examples of continuationism, decide that that reflects the whole, and build your argument against that. That's a very, very poor hermeneutic, and it would be like
00:25:37
Speaker
You know, building an argument against Calvinism based on high Calvinism, the idea that God created an authored sin. No one would be okay with that. Don't build a reactive theology. Look at the actual biblical argument for both cessationism and continuationism and go from there. Which is more consistent? We need to think about that. Now remember, spiritual gifts in the practice of them is a secondary issue.
00:26:03
Speaker
I touched on this in my discernment episode. I've talked about it in my discernment webinars that I host. This is a secondary issue. You could even be in the same church and have different views on the practice of these gifts. But the important thing to keep in mind as we navigate this is, of course,
00:26:23
Speaker
the biblical basis for our view, but also the very passage that talks about spiritual gifts also talks about the importance of love. That love is patient and kind. It is not nbs, it is not boastful, it is not arrogant or rude. So if we are arrogant and rude in our defense of our view on spiritual gifts, we've totally missed the point. We've actually undercut our own argument and made ourselves hypocrites. We don't want to do that.
00:26:50
Speaker
So let's make sure that as we talk about these things we keep them grounded in the context of graciousness because that is what God expects from us. A few last things on this. When it comes to continuationism and the extremes that we see, one of the dangers for those who are in a charismatic or Pentecostal type context, which I'm very familiar with having grown up in it, one of the dangers is to systemize the spirits
00:27:19
Speaker
gifts to create a system of practicing them or trying to achieve them as if his gifts are something that we can work for, which is not what scripture teaches.
Prioritizing Love in Theological Discussions
00:27:32
Speaker
The Holy Spirit's gifts are to be practiced as the Holy Spirit leads. The Bible does not say that healing, tongues, and prophecy would be practiced all the time everywhere. The Holy Spirit provided those gifts at specific times for a really specific reason. That's what we see in the book of Acts.
00:27:54
Speaker
And remember, they're writing select instances. I am sure there were so many instances of people getting saved, and we don't know if people spoke in tongues in those instances. We just have certain examples in the book of Acts. It is so vital that we not systemize what the Bible does not systemize.
00:28:15
Speaker
So deciding that we need to have training to learn how to prophesy or we need to have classes on dream interpretation. That is getting into some dangerous ground because we don't see that in scripture. We don't see this need to train people in the pursuit of a spiritual gift. We see that the gift is a gift. It's given to someone as needed.
00:28:40
Speaker
as the Lord equips them. And it also says that people who are teachers and people who are pastors and people who are speaking for the upbuilding of the body, there are many different ways that they will be practicing their gifts. Now, the response often is, well, a teacher needs to practice teaching, so why wouldn't a prophet need to practice prophesying? Why shouldn't we be training these people?
00:29:07
Speaker
The difference, I think, is this. The teacher is specifically teaching a text from scripture, and that is something that should be practiced. The prophet, if they're getting a word from the Lord, from a continuationist stance, that is to up-build the body, not to add on to scripture,
00:29:25
Speaker
The prophet does not need to be practicing getting words from the Lord because the Lord will give those words when he chooses to, but he should be practicing being in the Word of God itself. Practice being in prayer. Practice seeking his face so that you know that what you're speaking lines up with the truth. That would be the thing to practice instead of these extra more sensational sounding pursuits.
00:29:56
Speaker
Is it not as exciting? Probably not. But the beauty of what God does is that it's God's work, not ours. We don't work for a gift. It's something that he grants to us.
00:30:09
Speaker
So hopefully this little summary of the two different views, cessationism and continuationism, is a little bit helpful. As always, these are just jumping off points for further study. Once this is up on the blog, I will include some different links of the different perspectives so you can dive into them and dig in a little bit. I do recommend looking at these passages. Look at the book of Acts. Read 1 Corinthians 12 through 14. Look at 1 Thessalonians 5 and Ephesians 4. And just remember that
00:30:39
Speaker
We want to talk about these things in the light of a love that is patient and kind, that is not envious or boastful, that is not arrogant or rude. Instead, we bear all things, believe all things, hope all things, and endure all things, even when we disagree.
00:30:59
Speaker
Thank you for joining us for today's episode of Verity. You can connect with fellow listeners by following me on Instagram at Felicia Masonheimer or on our Facebook page by the same name. Also visit FeliciaMasonheimer.com for links to each episode and the show notes.