Prove cessationism from the bible please.

[timmopussycat]

Even those who maintain that it is simply “a prayer language” such as an angelic tongue fail to demonstrate why every time an angel spoke in Scripture he used a human language. Secondly, v8 states that tongues “shall cease” and the verb pauo is a future middle, meaning that “tongues” would stop by themselves without a passive force acting on the subject. Therefore, they were never intended to be permanent in the Church throughout all ages.

That's one of the problems I've tackled when discussing this subject with Pentecostals/Charismatics. Whenever I stated that the "tongues" had to be a known language they would bring up the text when Paul says something along the lines of speaking in an "angelic tongue." They would then conclude that there are two types of "tongues"...the angelic and the known (somehow they were all speaking in the "angelic"). With the bold statement above that would be a good rebuttal to their claim. Thanks for posting that.

One can also point out to naive Pentecostals, charismatics etc. that Paul's statement about tongues of angels is a hypothetical. Paul could be trumping their speaking in human languages by mentioning that even IF one spoke in the language of the angels but did not have love, nothing would be gained. There is no NT evidence whatsoever that tongues were actually anything other than known human languages.

 

[lynnie]

DD...you really ought to read this as you think the subject through. Poythress is an OPC guy, cessationist, and WTS prof. Yet at the end of this he details all kinds of amazing things that were happening back with the guys who wrote the confession and their brethren in that time period. Things that today the Pentecostals would claim as their own.

Modern Pentecostalism is off in so many ways that I have no doubt your friend is saying many unbiblical things. But to reject the sovereignty of God in non canonical, non new revelation, extraordinary providences ( that are still happening all over the world today) is an opposite extreme. The Reformed community needs to deal with its history and its great forebears honestly and with scholastic integrity. They believed in this stuff. They didn't call it demonic. They thanked God for it and submitted to the Holy Spirit in it. You gonna call Sam Rutherford non confessional?

Vern Sheridan Poythress

[Published in The Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 39/1 (1996): 71-101. Used with permission.]

Modern Spiritual Gifts as Analogous to Apostolic Gifts

 

[Claudiu]

DD...you really ought to read this as you think the subject through. Poythress is an OPC guy, cessationist, and WTS prof. Yet at the end of this he details all kinds of amazing things that were happening back with the guys who wrote the confession and their brethren in that time period. Things that today the Pentecostals would claim as their own.

Modern Pentecostalism is off in so many ways that I have no doubt your friend is saying many unbiblical things. But to reject the sovereignty of God in non canonical, non new revelation, extraordinary providences ( that are still happening all over the world today) is an opposite extreme. The Reformed community needs to deal with its history and its great forebears honestly and with scholastic integrity. They believed in this stuff. They didn't call it demonic. They thanked God for it and submitted to the Holy Spirit in it. You gonna call Sam Rutherford non confessional?

Vern Sheridan Poythress

[Published in The Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 39/1 (1996): 71-101. Used with permission.]

Modern Spiritual Gifts as Analogous to Apostolic Gifts

That kind of reminds me of this book someone mentioned to me before:

Amazon.com: 2000 Years of Charismatic Christianity (9780884198727): Eddie L. Hyatt: Books

 

[MW]

DD...you really ought to read this as you think the subject through. Poythress is an OPC guy, cessationist, and WTS prof. Yet at the end of this he details all kinds of amazing things that were happening back with the guys who wrote the confession and their brethren in that time period. Things that today the Pentecostals would claim as their own.

Modern Pentecostalism is off in so many ways that I have no doubt your friend is saying many unbiblical things. But to reject the sovereignty of God in non canonical, non new revelation, extraordinary providences ( that are still happening all over the world today) is an opposite extreme. The Reformed community needs to deal with its history and its great forebears honestly and with scholastic integrity. They believed in this stuff. They didn't call it demonic. They thanked God for it and submitted to the Holy Spirit in it. You gonna call Sam Rutherford non confessional?

Vern Sheridan Poythress

[Published in The Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 39/1 (1996): 71-101. Used with permission.]

Modern Spiritual Gifts as Analogous to Apostolic Gifts

You say the reformed community needs to deal with its history with scholarly integrity. Have you investigated the history for yourself? Should you choose to do so, I have no doubt that scholarly integrity will require you to make a great difference between what "Pentecostals would claim as their own" and what our reformed forbears saw as a matter of experiential Christianity. As a matter of historical fact, they more willingly attributed Pentecostal-type claims to the work of the Devil than modern reformed people.

 

[lynnie]

Rev Winzer, did you read Vern's historical section at the end of his essay?

I'll be honest with you, I am a continuist but am so cynical that I'd probably say 99.99%of what goes on today in charismatic and Pentecostal circles is hype or maybe clairvoyant spirits ( demons).

But I've read other history besides Poythress and these things happened in our great reformed past. I happen to think they didn't stop 300 years ago ( or 2000 years ago). I can't post on the new wading pool forum thread, but the opinion that continuists are seeking after this in every meeting is rediculous. The vast majority of what is today called prophecy is merely an exhortation or comforting or edifying reading of some scripture that is particularly applicable to the moment for one or more persons, and it is separate from the sermon. I have only on a very few occasions seen anything like what Poythress details. But it is no different than Agabus in Acts.

You want to argue with the Covenanters, Flavel, Rutherford, and Mather, go ahead. But at least let us be honest and admit that they received these things as the extraordinary workings of the holy spirit.

It is as wrong to say these things ceased totally, as it is to think they should happen every sunday in every church, in my opinion.

Vern Poythress is an OPC confessional cessationist. Please read his essay.

 

[timmopussycat]

Rev Winzer, did you read Vern's historical section at the end of his essay?

I'll be honest with you, I am a continuist but am so cynical that I'd probably say 99.99%of what goes on today in charismatic and Pentecostal circles is hype or maybe clairvoyant spirits ( demons).

But I've read other history besides Poythress and these things happened in our great reformed past. I happen to think they didn't stop 300 years ago ( or 2000 years ago). I can't post on the new wading pool forum thread, but the opinion that continuists are seeking after this in every meeting is rediculous. The vast majority of what is today called prophecy is merely an exhortation or comforting or edifying reading of some scripture that is particularly applicable to the moment for one or more persons, and it is separate from the sermon. I have only on a very few occasions seen anything like what Poythress details. But it is no different than Agabus in Acts.

You want to argue with the Covenanters, Flavel, Rutherford, and Mather, go ahead. But at least let us be honest and admit that they received these things as the extraordinary workings of the holy spirit.

It is as wrong to say these things ceased totally, as it is to think they should happen every sunday in every church, in my opinion.

Vern Poythress is an OPC confessional cessationist. Please read his essay.

Lynnie there is a difference between recognizing an extraordinary event as an extraordinary work of the Holy Spirit and recognizing the same event as the regular exercise of a "gift" given to an individual for him to use. The former, as you correctly note, is what the reformed worthies well knew, the latter is what most charismatic / pentecostalism degenerates towards. The dispute between cessationists and continuationists is not ultimately about whether or not God does extraordinary things from time to time today - both sides agree that he does. But the heart of the disagreement is over the question of which theological explanation of these events is correct, those of Rutherford et al, those of modern charismatics. or perhaps even a third alternative.

 

[Willem van Oranje]

I would like to see a proof for cessationism from the bible. I am having a hard time finding one and have been dealing with a pentacostal.

Dear brother,

Please get your hands on "Perspectives on Pentecost" by Dr. Richard Gaffin. It is a short work, a very sound biblical argument, and the best I have read on the subject. This is the most helpful thing I have read, having come from a pentecostal upbringing myself.

In addition, Dr. Gaffin spoke on this subject at a conference this past weekend, which I was privileged to attend. You can access his lectures and listen to them here: Amoskeag Presbyterian Church

 

[MW]

Please read his essay.

You are asking me to read an essay that I read a number of years ago and have commented on numerous times. If you do a search on this board you should find a couple of the comments.

On the historical side of things, there are a number of important factors which beg to be considered. First, that some of the accounts are prime examples of hagiography. Secondly, the reformed system already has mechanisms for explaining the phenomenon -- the witness of the Spirit, faith and prayer. E.g., Rutherford says, "where faith is, it has the gift of prophesying and foresight there" (Quaint Sermons, 4). In knowing God through the Bible and the Spirit one develops an expectation of what God will do in particular moral circumstances. The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him. Thirdly, as Tim Cunningham has mentioned, there is a world of difference between extraordinary phenomenon exercised as a spiritual gift and the same phenomenon taking place in the course of providence. The reformed confessions are very strong on "ordinary means of grace," and make no allowance for extraordinary phenomena in the building up of the saints.

 

[lynnie]

Lynnie there is a difference between recognizing an extraordinary event as an extraordinary work of the Holy Spirit and recognizing the same event as the regular exercise of a "gift" given to an individual for him to use. The former, as you correctly note, is what the reformed worthies well knew, the latter is what most charismatic / pentecostalism degenerates towards. The dispute between cessationists and continuationists is not ultimately about whether or not God does extraordinary things from time to time today - both sides agree that he does. But the heart of the disagreement is over the question of which theological explanation of these events is correct, those of Rutherford et al, those of modern charismatics. or perhaps even a third alternative.

Thirdly, as Tim Cunningham has mentioned, there is a world of difference between extraordinary phenomenon exercised as a spiritual gift and the same phenomenon taking place in the course of providence.

Thank you for the replies. Actually, both sides do NOT agree that God does these things, in my conversational experience. I know TRs who would perhaps accept a miracle of healing but nothing in the Poythress essay; it would all be considered demonic or occult psychic. I appreciate your balanced replies and can see that my tone to Rev Winzer was overreacting....for what it is worth I have enormous respect for your posting so please forgive the heat of my response. I get tired of those who relegate anything and everything extraordinary to the realm of the demonic.

The charismatic movement has gone off the deep end with elevating the subjective over the objective word, with expecting extraordinary every Sunday, with the concept of "my gift", and then of course Arminian dispensationalism. But I've seen many of them, myself included, end up in Reformed doctrine, and one of the biggest barriers to that is the idea they have that the Reformed are cessationist and don't believe in any supernatural workings of the holy spirit at all, ever. It is so hard to explain the middle ground. I don't think cessationism is a good term if you do believe miracles can still happen, like healing, but it is the catch all phrase to reject authoritative new revelation. I wish we could find a better term that admits some extraordinary level of holy spirit activity, without sounding like Benny Hinn.

 

[jogri17]

Logically according to that (false) argument, nothing in Scripture could be a proof text?

Besides, the Confession is clear on this point, of which you are outside the bounds, when it says, "I. Although the light of nature, and the works of creation and providence do so far manifest the goodness, wisdom, and power of God, as to leave men unexcusable; yet are they not sufficient to give that knowledge of God, and of His will, which is necessary unto salvation.Therefore it pleased the Lord, at sundry times, and in divers manners, to reveal Himself, and to declare that His will unto His Church; and afterwards for the better preserving and propagating of the truth, and for the more sure establishment and comfort of the Church against the corruption of the flesh, and the malice of Satan and of the world, to commit the same wholly unto writing; which makes the Holy Scripture to be most necessary; those former ways of God's revealing His will unto His people being now ceased."

The proof text used is Hebrews 1:1-2.


You might just want to go to the link on the PB that Bob linked to...

Maybe the confession is wrong exegetically and out to be modified to say '' those former ways of God's revealing His wil unto His people being now ceased as the ordinary means. '' We changed the confession on civil government why not that?