I'm certainly not Dr. Clark and I hope to hear from him on this as well but I will offer what I have learned of the subject.
I think part of the disconnect on the thread has been on the use of the term
miracle.
Many are careful to distinguish between the redemptive-historical use of signs and wonders (Miracles with a capital M) and special acts of Providence where God might supernaturally heal someone as an answer to prayer (miracles with a little m). I know John Frame has a problem with some of the hard lines that some draw between normal and special acts of Providence but I can't articulate them as well as he, nor will I try.
It is ironic that I was catching up on my Tape of the Month messages from Ligonier Ministries this week and R.C. Sproul was lecturing on the issue of miracles so I have some information at my fingertips that I have read and learned over a few years on the subject.
Joseph - If you're looking for the "killer verse" that is going to state "charismatic gifts have ceased" then there is no such verse. If you're speaking with charismatic or pentecostals there are deeper issues than the cessation of gifts to deal with. The discussion of gifts is a bit downstream. I'll try and move from my understanding of "Miracles" (capital M) and then discuss neo-Pentecostalism and its erroneous understanding of Pentecost and Acts with respect to charismatic gifts.
First, signs and wonders are clustered around certain epochs in Redemptive History. If you charted miracles on a timeline you will see miracles clustered around Moses and Joshua, Elijah and Elisha, and Jesus and the Apostles.
Moses is called by God to lead His people out of bondage but will he merely walk up to Pharaoh and state "Let my people go"? Will the people just follow him out of the desert?
"Yeah right Moses. God told you to leave here on consequence of death at the hands of the Egyptians..."
Then Moses answered, "But behold, they will not believe me or listen to my voice, for they will say, 'The LORD did not appear to you.'" Ex 4:1
A reasonable question. The answer:
SIGNS - making his hand leprous, turning his staff into a snake, water into blood, and, eventually, the plagues.
Moses represents the epoch of the Law. His authority is confirmed by signs and wonders. He is confirmed by Miracles with a capital M. His deputy, Joshua, is confirmed as successor by lesser wonders as he leads the people to capture the Promised Land.
Signs and wonders are then virtually silent for centuries.
Elijah bursts on the scene. Elijah represents the epoch of the Prophets. Through the Word spoken by him a 3 year draught ensues. A widow's oil and flour do not run out. He raises the dead. He calls down fire on the prophets of Baal. His deputy Elisha performs Miracles.
Signs and wonders are then virtually silent for centuries.
Christ comes and His ministry is literally ablaze with Miracles. Jesus confirms His ministry to John:
(Matthew 11:2-5) Now when John heard in prison about the deeds of the Christ, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, "Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?"
And Jesus answered them, "Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them.
Nicodemus says to Christ:
(John 3:2) This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, "Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him."
Christ's ministry was confirmed by His Miracles. His chief miracle, His resurrection, authenticated Him as the Son of God:
(Romans 1:4) and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord,
Miracles (with a capital M) continue with the Apostles as foundation layers. It is their foundational teaching that completes the Word of God.
The question is now: Have signs and wonders ceased?
Well nobody ever says so but the question, with respect to the type of signs and wonders that I'm talking about, would be this: To what end?
Signs and wonders have a definite purpose in Scripture of the type I'm talking about. If a person has been given a gift of healing and is correlating their gift to the miraculous power that Christ or the Apostles or Prophets had then I would have a problem with that correlation. Christ and the Apostles could have healed everybody they touched but there were specific reasons for the healings. Certainly I do not want to downplay the mercy and compassion that attended them but chief among the reasons was to authenticate authority.
Thus, the question of cessation has less to do with the question: "Does God still heal?" and more with the question "Are there Miracle workers?"
Reformed theology does not teach that God doesn't answer prayer or even still heal in what we might call supernatural ways. There are two issues with this though. First, I don't really believe He endows healers that channel healing power from Him. There just isn't a warrant for that idea from Scripture independent of any "meaning" behind why God is moving in such a way. Secondly, if you or I never witness a Miracle again in our entire lifetime, do we have sufficient reason to trust God based on what He has already proven through whom He has authenticated? Absolutely!
The issue is one of pattern. Signs and wonders are not continuous in Redemptive History and have specific purposes and accompany epochs. Nowhere are we given reason to expect that such Miracle working will just be given arbitrarily to people to work wonders apart from any redemptive historical purpose. That's the closest thing I can do to proving to you that Miracles (with a capital M) have ceased. I'm certain others could do a far better job. I do believe, however, that a person who claims that such things are normative today because they're normative in Exodus, Kings, the Gospel, and Acts have more work to do to show that modern day signs, wonders, or displays of charismatic gifts have little more purpose than making people happy.
My fingers are getting tired but I do want to proceed to the issue of neo-Pentecostalism and their misunderstanding with respect to charismatic gifts. It is very reductionistic but my time is short.
Neo-Pentecostals look at the narrative history presented in Acts and form doctrinal conclusions based on what they witness in Acts beginning with Pentecost:
Ah, these disciple of Christ had been baptized but now they are sitting in a room and are baptized with the Holy Spirit and speak in tongues.
Peter goes to Cornelius' house:
As Peter is preaching Cornelius and his household begin speaking in tongues.
Tongue speaking then occurs, en masse, among Samaritan believers and later Gentile believers in Acts.
Conclusion: Charismatic gifts are normative and there is a second baptism of the Holy Spirit. We have four instances of this.
That's not the interpretation given for the display of gifts in Acts itself:
(Acts 11:17) If then God gave the same gift to them as he gave to us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could stand in God's way?" When they heard these things they fell silent. And they glorified God, saying, "Then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life."
In other words, everybody receives the same gift so God could wake everybody up and say "...yeah they're one of you!!" There is neither Jew nor Greek.
Looking at narratives to form a teaching, as the neo-Pentecostals do, leads to a false conclusion from the pattern they detect. Narratives are not always the best place to form doctrine as compared to didactic teaching.
So much of this debate becomes charged with the "...you're quenching the Spirit..." claim by those who think we're tying God's hands. In the end my purpose was to show:
1. That Miracles served a particular purpose in Scripture and we ought to be careful in looking at what an Apostle did and saying "Yeah that's normal so we should expect that..."
2. God answers prayer in exceptional and "ordinary" ways as the one who governs and upholds all things. It is not exceptional for Him but out of the ordinary for us when a cancer disappears. We can seek God in prayer for these special acts of providence and healing and glorify Him when He answers it. I would not call it a miracle only because I prefer to protect the status given to signs and wonders as in 1.
3. If God never displays a sign or wonder in my life I have sufficient reason to trust and obey that which has already been authenticated. I believe the ultimate Miracle - the resurrection that confirmed Christ as the Son of God!
4. Much of charismatic or pentecostal theology is formed on faulty assumptions based on narrative and inference rather than didactic teaching.
5. If tongues or prophecy or other extraordinary gifts exist then I have not witnessed them truly exercised. I used to be a charismatic Christian. I believe God has the power to do such things but I also believe that gifts exist for an edifying purpose and I've never seen them exercised in a way that edifies. If somebody can give me Scriptural reasons to believe what purpose tongue-speaking or Prophesying (with a capital P though I believe that preaching is a form of it I'm talking about the "God's going to do this..." variety) would have in this Church epoch.
In Christ,
[Edited on 1-12-2006 by SemperFideles]
Please tell us WHY understanding the Day of Pentecost affects our understanding of cessationism.
