# Cessationalism Question



## Shaffer (Jun 9, 2006)

How does a full cessationalist respond when they hear about miracles happening today? Now, I'm not at all referring to a Benny Hinn Crusade or a Rodney Howard Browne tent meeting, but rather actual testimonies of Godly Christians who have claimed to see God heal people today. 

I work for ministry that is continuationalist and I hear many storys of the blind being healed, amputies made whole and even the dead being raised (most of these stories come from third world countries, such as India). When I hear these things I am a bit cautious about believing them. How do you cessationalists think of these things? Do you believe that God does heal today apart from the spritual gift of healing? Or do you believe that all of these stories are made up?

Personally, I am neither a continuationalist or a cessationalist. I don't believe that most of the miracle crusades in America are genuine, but at the same time I see a few holes in the biblical defense of cessationalism. Right now, I believe that God does heal people today, but I don't believe that there are any more Peters or Pauls walking around. I simply believe that it is God's prerogative whom He heals, that it is done for His glory, and that it is achieved through the diligent prayers of the saints.

I've got a feeling I just opened a huge can of worms! Sorry, if this issue has been discussed a billion times before. I'm just curious about the cessationalist perspective.

[Edited on 6-10-2006 by Shaffer]


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## Contra_Mundum (Jun 9, 2006)

"Cessation" refers to whether there are on-going extraordinary gifts possessed by men (and perhaps women). Most of us would say that the "sign gifts" were the signs of the apostles. They had a specific function: _to authenticate the revelation of the gospel message these men proclaimed, and to aid in the establishment of the New Covenant church._ This purpose was accomplished, and the gifts died naturally with the men so graced, and those few on whom they had been given permission (by Christ) to bestow the same. The power to "grant the Holy Spirit" (by which was meant grant the gifts, i.e. to BE an apostle) was never but by a direct commission from Christ himself. So, by logical implication, and the testimony of Scripture, we argue that since there are no more apostles since the 1st century, then since about the mid 2nd century there are no more "healers" (for example) of that kind.

Can God still perform miracles? Of course. He can, and I suspect he does. But that is not the same as a person possessing the signs of an apostle. I would say that it is perfectly reasonable for us to pray for God to do a "miracle" for someone, and that God may well answer that prayer according to his good pleasure. However, a person with great faith may not be healed at all. And someone with weak faith be healed whole. A person devoid of faith shouldn't expect any help from God. But someone with faith has no claim or expectation of special treatment from God based on the quality of his faith.

Not only this, but no effect of a "healing" today cannot be infallibly attributed to the "power of God". We may be completely unaware of whatever "natural factors" God (whether immediately, or by physicians, or whatever) may have used to bring about the apparently miraculous cure. We do not have the unimpeachable testimony of an apostle to reveal from heaven the nature of the cure, or the immediate source of the power that cured. All we can do is thank God for his work in our lives (whether by physic or otherwise, whether healing occured or did not!).

As for the stories of miracles (truly fantastic miracles that sound like biblical miracles)--I think it worth asking: why, if these things are real, are they isolated incidents and why do they occur almost invariably in murky circumstances? Paul and Peter raised the dead (in different places), Peter and John gave the lame man back his legs, and many other wonderful things took place besides, in the presence of hundreds of witnesses, beliving and unbelieving, in the heart of the most urbane culture of the day. Perhaps the answer is: God works more often _extraordinarily_ and immediatley in places where there is much less in the way of "ordinary" advanced medicine, such as we have in the West. But in either case, it is still his will being done, he still preserves life or takes it away at his pleasure. And let us be honest. Unverifiable claims are all too often exaggeration, misunderstanding, or contain some level of deception.

But the bottom line is, we never know how much of any healing (no matter how extraordinary, no matter how well attested) is truly fantastic, and how much is "ordinary" (albeit unusual) providence. And we know there is no more "authentication" of the gospel message going on. All the authentication necessary is already present in the reports of miracles present in the apostolic testimony--the book of Acts.

[Edited on 6-10-2006 by Contra_Mundum]


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## panta dokimazete (Jun 9, 2006)

> I would say that it is perfectly reasonable for us to pray for God to do a "miracle" for someone, and that God may well answer that prayer according to his good pleasure.



good point.

-JD


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## Shaffer (Jun 10, 2006)

Mr. Buchanan,

Thank you for your explanation. Have you ever read John MacArthur's "Charismatic Chaos". I learned a lot from that book and it shaped a lot of my perspectives on how I view modern day "miracle workers". I agree with all of what you said. I don't believe the gift of healing is active today but I certainly believe that God does and has healed people in our modern age. But just to answer one of the things you said, it is often true that in India, many healings occur in very public places. For example, I recently heard a pastor from India speak where I am in Texas and he told the story of a man who was healed by God and as a result his whole village came to make a profession of faith in Christ. This isn't the only story I've heard like this and it almost always happens in very poor countries that are unreached. Could it be true that God demonstrates His power to unreached nations to show His glory and bring people to fear Him (even today)? I personally believe that it could very well be true. Unless there is solid Biblical evidence to show otherwise.


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## R. Scott Clark (Jun 10, 2006)

Hi,

See Warfield's _Counterfeit Miracles_ in which he offers some healthy skepticism about claims to continuing apostolic power.

There's no doubt that God still does extraordinary things, but are they apostolic? 

Are there officers in the church today endowed with the same power as the apostles? Can they put folks to death or raise them from the dead and that in full view of the public so there's no relying on "he heard that..." That's apostolic power. Are folk being teleported here and there? No. 

There's a hunger among well-meaning evangelicals to see apostolic power. Frankly, it's misplaced.

We need to content ourselves with the Gospel, signs, and seals that Christ gave us. It's foolishness and not always very exciting, but there it is. We live between the ascension and the return, after the apostles and before the consummation. 

Having lived through the "Kansas City Prophets" and more I've learned to be a little skeptical, not of God, but of well-meaning but misguided Christians who can't tell the difference between remarkable providences and canonical redemptive-history.

rsc


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## polemic_turtle (Jun 10, 2006)

Wasn't Lloyd-Jones a continualist? I've heard Banner won't print him on this subject( got that from Piper ). I thought it was interesting to hear of a man of his stature in the reformed faith being so, as Piper put it, "non-Warfield-ian".


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## R. Scott Clark (Jun 10, 2006)

Yes, his last two books are rather strong arguments for what one might call predestinarian Pentecostalism. He argued that you can't "get" the gifts, but that God the Spirit can sovereignly give them. 

As I recall, the Toronto Blessing folks appealed to his arguments in defense of their movement.

rsc




> _Originally posted by polemic_turtle_
> Wasn't Lloyd-Jones a continualist? I've heard Banner won't print him on this subject( got that from Piper ). I thought it was interesting to hear of a man of his stature in the reformed faith being so, as Piper put it, "non-Warfield-ian".


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## Pilgrim (Jun 10, 2006)

Dr. Clark, 

What are his last two books? Are you perhaps referring to the sermons on the book of Acts that have recently been published? 

I think ML-J left the door open for charismaticism in "Prove All Things" and "Joy Unspeakable" which I think consist of messages under the general topic of assurance. In the authorised biography, Murray gives the impression that Lloyd-Jones, due to his desire for revival, was initially open to the charismatic movement in the late 50's-early 60's but turned against it once he saw its emphasis of experience over doctrine and it's tendency toward ecumenism with Rome, as with DuPlessis, etc. 

Another possibly related issue is ML-J's teaching on the Baptism of the Holy Spirit as a post-conversion experience. He did not equate that with tongues as many pentecostals do but I think thought of it as a special filling or sealing of the spirit that gives full assurance. This teaching, if I recall correctly, is subjected to some mild criticism by Murray.


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## Ranger (Jun 11, 2006)

I'd be a complete cessationist if it were not for an odd miracle that happened in my life. I mean that, and it's something that I struggle with:

When I was 14 years old I was hit by a car as a pedestrian. The car was going near 80 mph in a residential area and lost control, jumped the curb and hit me. I was very injured from head injuries, to many, many broken bones and spinal injuries. The paramedics on the scene said that they expected me to die on the way to the hospital and told the police to investigate the scene as if it were a homicide. The injuries were so severe that the police collected fragments of my bones from the scene in case they were to be used later in court.

By the grace of God alone I am alive today, which is a miracle unto itself, but that is not the weird part. While in the hospital (which was a couple months) my family was told that my orthopedic surgeon would have to remove my left leg due to a lack of circulation to my foot. They had tried a few things, but could not find any solution other than amputation. The decision was made to amputate my leg, and the surgery was to occur the next day.

This is when things got weird and I am almost embarassed at times to share this part because I fear that people will think I'm some crazed lunatic. But that evening, a doctor came into the room and spoke to my mom about how they were going to perform a surgery on my leg that evening in a last ditch effort to keep the circulation flowing. She agreed and I was taken to surgery by a doctor and nurses she had not met yet (there were so many doctors that we met, it was common to meet new ones). Once again, by God's grace, my leg's circulation returned. The next day, the morning nurse and my orthopedic surgeon came in to the room to take me off for the amputation and were shocked to see that surgery had occurred on my leg and that circulation had returned completely to my foot. They checked the logs and records and no doctor had been in the building the previous night, and according to their logs I had not had surgery. The orthopedic surgeon was also a believer and attributed it to the Lord as a miracle. Some of the staff did not believe and were concerned that someone had broken into the hospital, posed as a doctor and healed me. Of course, that's about as irrational as the actual events that occurred.

So as you can see, I had this very strange event happen in my life that I must attribute to God's grace. But it was very miraculous and has served as a sign to the grace of God for many who have heard the story.

Now, does this event stand outside of the possibilities for a cessationist? According to some cessationists that I've talked to it does. I'm still very unsure of where I stand because of it though.


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## Me Died Blue (Jun 11, 2006)

> _Originally posted by Ranger_
> Now, does this event stand outside of the possibilities for a cessationist? According to some cessationists that I've talked to it does. I'm still very unsure of where I stand because of it though.



I don't have time right at the moment to go into a thorough documentation and defense of why this is so, but the plain answer to your question here is "no" - rather, it is _completely_ within the bounds of full, classic Reformed cessationism. Simply but accurately put, the cessationism of the Westminster Standards, the 1689 London Baptist Confession and the Reformed tradition at large claims that two things have ceased: 1) All special revelation outside of Scripture, and 2) The apostolic authority and significance in redemptive history attached to each supernatural providence.

Regarding #1, that means that the Spirit still gives _illumination_ specifically through Scripture, which is the enabling of the believing mind and heart to truly understand the Scriptures in a way the hardened unbeliever cannot. It also means that God still speaks through "general" revelation, which the basic, universal revelation through nature spoken of in Romans 1.

For #2, that is why cessationists believe in the validity of events such as the one you described above just as much as the strongest Pentecostal does - but unlike the biblical and apostolic days, each of those events is not given to specifically illustrate a significant truth in redemptive history, and no one is specifically given the spiritual gift of always being able to heal or the like, but rather such events are simply a part of God's hidden providence.

The best contemporary work I have read on this issue as a whole, and that I always recommend to people, is O. Palmer Robertson's _The Final Word_. It is very concise, yet packed with exegetical defense for its helpful and to-the-point theological explanations.


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## R. Scott Clark (Jun 11, 2006)

Yes, "Prove" and "Joy" (I'm not as certain about the first, but I'm sure about the second) are the vols I have in mind.

I read them a long time ago. I'm not surprised that IM tries to tidy up a bit (he does that with the 18th and 19th centuries too!). 

I think your analysis is correct. His view of Spirit-baptism is a second blessing theology and, at the end of the day, all second blessing theologies are the same. It's like moralism (justification by sanctification). If one is a Pelagian moralist or a Predestinarian/Augustinian moralist, one is still a moralist however one gets there. The same is true with Pentecostalism. Covering it over with predestination, "sovereign grace," doesn't make it any less an error, but it seems that, in our circles, if someone invokes "sovereign grace," that's all it takes to make everything okay. That's why making an error and then covering it "predestination" is not helpful. It's like covering a bad sandwich with spun honey. I love spun honey, but it's still on a bad sandwich. 

I know some folk get testy whenever MLJ is criticized, but it has to be done. We don't help ourselves if we're not honest about the flaws of our heroes. I see it with Murray (on covenant of works) and CVT (on God as "one person"). Some folk want to defend every syllable uttered. Even Machen erred! 

Heroes are real humans who sin and err. As Reformed folk we should be the first to expect and recognize that fact in particular cases.

rsc



> _Originally posted by Pilgrim_
> Dr. Clark,
> 
> What are his last two books? Are you perhaps referring to the sermons on the book of Acts that have recently been published?
> ...


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## JonathanHunt (Jun 11, 2006)

One point on ML-J. He was aware that some of his later teachings (from the pulpit) on the Holy Spirit were very controversial, and would not meet with much acceptance among the 'reformed'. He directed that these should NOT be published in book form (as the plan was for his series on Romans) but they were indeed published in 1988 after his death.

It is perhaps because of the controversy that these publications stirred (largely in the pages of the Sword and the Trowel) that the Banner decided not to publish more in this vein.

JH


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## R. Scott Clark (Jun 11, 2006)

Kyle,

I'm glad the Lord preserved your life (!) and your leg. That was a great mercy and grace of God. 

As I wrote earlier (and as others have said) there's no doubt that God can and DOES continue to perform extraordinary providences. That is not in question.

What I question is the _INTERPRETATION_ of those providences by well-meaning Christians. 

Why can't they simply be wonderful, extraordinary providences? In the providence of God, I've had some significant health "issues" in the last 4-5 years and God has graciously preserved my life and health, but I don't think there was anything apostolic about it and that's the question with Pentecostalism/continuationism etc. 

Does anyone today have PENTECOSTAL (i.e., the book of Acts) power? Why is this healing of your leg and preservation of your life the SAME THING (caps for attention) as the Apostolic phenomena? That is the connection I do not understand. 

As I said, putting people to death and raising them from the dead is apostolic power. Speaking foreign languages without having learned them, being teleported (or whatever) from place to place. That's apostolic. 

Being wonderfully, unexpectedly healed in a hospital (the stories are myriad) either before or AFTER treatment isn't apostolic.

Why doesn't God get credit for all the "good work" he does through physicians? He gets all the blame when things don't go as planned or hoped but he rarely gets the credit for incredibly skilled and physicians and wonderful technology and medicine -- I think we too often have a "God of the gaps" theology whereby we only "see" God's hand when we can't explain things otherwise.

Anyway, I've heard lots of stories and many of them may be true. Cessationists are not deists (it was a Reformed theologian, Peter Viret, who coined the term to criticize it!). We do distinguish, however, between ordinary and extraordinary providence and we distinguish them from apostolic miracles/wonders. The latter were canonical and fulfilled a function in redemptive history. 

Being healed in a hospital may well confirm our faith, but what if we weren't healed? What then? That's why faith must be centered on Christ and not on what God has "done" (outside of Christ) or not done "for us." When is God not "doing"? Don't we confess the "everywhere present power of God, whereby as it were, he upholds and governs all things..."?

Sure we do. I think a lot of our (with no reference to this particular case) predestinarian Pentecostalism is grounded in a poor doctrine of God and theology of providence.

There's a reason that almost (wiggle room - I don't know of any) none (before the 18th century) of our orthodox theologians were "charismatic" or "Pentecostal." In the 16th century (1555), Guy DeBres (primary author of the Belgic Confession) wrote a critique of the Anabaptists that was largely concerned with their claims to ongoing apostolic power/ministry. They accused him of, in effect, deism or a "dead faith." This argument has been going on for centuries. DeBres' critique was echoed through Reformed orthodoxy and it was one of the first (perhaps the first) European book translated in the New World in the 17th century. Our Reformed forebears had categories of explanation that we do not or that we've forgotten.

Have a blessed Sabbath.

rsc


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## VirginiaHuguenot (Jun 11, 2006)

Ambroise Pare on Healing


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## polemic_turtle (Jun 11, 2006)

It just occured to me as unusual to hear of such a thing in MLJ, because I had been ragging one of my friends at work for not having a Biblical reason for rejecting continualism, but after a while realized that I had nothing solid, either. Maybe the folks I know that do it do it wrongly, but it would seem that until we had to fight against the Pentecostals, we didn't use the arguement that that "which is perfect" was the canon. I browsed through Calvin, Gill, JFB, Barnes, Clarke, etc and that wasn't something they entertained; rather, I believe they all interpreted it as referring to heaven.

We know that the Reformers drifted further and further away from Romanism while they were alive, but they still had a lot of the same left when they died that we have hence gotten rid of and regret to see still in them when we read them( "compel them to come in" et cetera ). It would seem that if MLJ tried to say that the gifts were extinguished by "Spirit Quenchers", the Romanists would be quite sufficient to have done so in the 1000 years or so that they were dominant. Perhaps my logic is backwards and unmerited by the circumstances, but doesn't it sound a bit dispensational when we hear verses like James 5:14 cut out of the verses relevant to us and anyone beyond 100AD because of a theory which, as far as I know, has more of a pragmatic / historical basis rather than one in Scripture( we _know_ the gifts stopped after xxAD because, well, we can't think of a Reformer who did it or thought it possible! ).

Perhaps I just need to read some more. Whatever else is true, I need to stop using an arguement I myself don't accept to ignore some of claims made by my co-workers.


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## Scott (Jun 19, 2006)

This is indirectly related but useful of the reformers who received extyraordinary predictive prophecies:
A Reformation Discussion of Extraordinary Predictive Prophecy Subsequent to the Closing of the Canon of Scripture.

Richard Baxter in his Christian Directory has a section on how to distinguish true prophecy from false, and what limitations there are on modern prophecy (sounds similar to Chris' comments).


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## Puritanhead (Jun 19, 2006)

Miracles do happen!!!

It's just that _charismatic faith healers_ hold a monopoly on the summoning of such miracles, in our time.


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## turmeric (Jun 19, 2006)

Dr. Clark, do you have a link to DeBres' critique? It would make interesting reading.


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