historyb
Puritan Board Junior
As a continuationist I say very good post!I, like others on this thread, am a cessationist. In fact, I inserted this brief article about Wilkerson and Piper in the midst of a series of blogs I’m writing entitled, “A Humble Argument for the Cessation of NT Prophecy and Tongues.” I just posted Part 6 in which I’ll address and endeavor to refute Wayne Grudem’s attempt to distinguish OT canonical prophecy from NT congregational prophecy.
I’m sorry that Piper, an otherwise excellent preacher and theologian, has sided with Grudem on this debate. As a result, he has deprived himself of one important polemical weapon that might be employed against such self-proclaimed prophets as David Wilkerson, namely, the polemic that such revelatory gifts as prophecy have fulfilled their purpose and, therefore, have ceased.
Nevertheless, one of the purposes of this post was to demonstrate that we should resist the temptation to lump all non-cessationists together. There is, in my mind, a significant difference between a John Piper and a David Wilkerson. Piper gives a much higher place to the Scriptures as the supreme authority for matters of faith and life than does Wilkerson. Moreover, Piper, unlike some non-cessationists, is willing to “test the spirits” and to say publicly when he thinks an alleged prophecy is wrong.
Granted, as some have pointed out, Piper’s own view of prophecy, namely, that genuine NT prophecy is by nature potentially fallible, hinders him from issuing as strong a censure to Wilkerson as we might wish. But before we’re too hard on Piper, we need to thank God that He overrules many of our own inconsistencies. When I was once Arminian in my soteriology, I, nevertheless, prayed like a Calvinist because of my commitment to certain teachings in Scripture. "Thank you, God, for overruling my inconsistency!" And I’m almost 100% sure that I haven’t arrived at doctrinal perfection and consistency yet. Hopefully, God will overrule my remaining doctrinal weaknesses and cause me to be blessedly inconsistent in those areas. With that in view, I thank God that Piper’s commitment to the supremacy of Scripture has trumped his view of ongoing prophecy.
There’s more I should say. A few of you have noted Piper’s use of subjective language. Piper is uncomfortable with Wilkinson’s prophecy because it does not “resonate with [his] spirit” and “does not have the feel of authority to [him].” Two things should be noted: first, sound epistemology recognizes that there’s no such thing as a purely objective human knowledge. That is to say, knowledge, discernment, evaluation, etc., necessarily involve the engagement of one’s subjective psychological faculties. Some may not like terms like “resonate” or “feels.” But is "know" or “think” any less subjective? According to Paul, man’s been created as the imago Dei with a sense of the Deity and conscience that “resonates” with God’s self-authenticating general and special revelation. Moreover, lest we’re too quick to fault Piper for failing to use stronger and more objective language, we need to acknowledge the the NT writers themselves sometimes used terminology that has a subjective sound to it, as one brother on the PB noted. For example,“For it has seemed [Greek dokeo] good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay on you no greater burden than these requirements [emphasis added]” (Acts 15:28, ESV).Of course, the point of this text is not to render the requirements uncertain or less binding. It's just to point that language like "it seems to me" or "I feel that" or "this doesn't resonate with my spirit" is not necessarily unbiblical or mere sentimental mishmash.
Second, and this complements the first point, the title of Piper’s response to Wilkerson suggests that he’s trying to follow the biblical protocol “testing the spirits” against Scripture to see whether they’re of God (1 Thess. 5:21; 1 John 4:1-6). The fact that Piper quotes Scripture in his assessment of Wilkerson’s prophecy leads me to believe that he’s using canonical Scripture as the basis for his assessment, not a prophetic hunch or a mere personal opinion. Here I’m inclined to place the best construction on Piper’s words though I still disagree with the continuationist framework from which he operates.
If you follow the rest of my posts on cessationism, I think you’ll find that I’m not justifying Piper’s own view of prophecy. Just want to be fair to the man and encourage Christians to resist the temptation of lumping men like him together with less principled and biblical oriented non-cessationists. For a chart that illustrates differences among non-cessationists, click here.
Your servant,
