Misconceptions

The Ephesians 4 passage also contains several verses that are rather inconsistent with the Cessationist position.

7 But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ’s gift. 8 Therefore He says, “When He ascended on high, He led captivity captive, and gave gifts to men"... 11 And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, 12 for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, 13 till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the recognition of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; 14 that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, 15 but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ— 16 from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.

This truly wonderful passage is saying that the purpose of giving the gifts was for the entire body of Christ, i.e. His true spiritual body that is, to grow into the full stature of Christ as one Man together in Him, and together manifest ALL the supernatural abilities of Christ Himself as a body, with one manifesting miracles, another manifesting word of knowledge, another prophecy, another gifts of healing etc., and edifying each other into ever-increasing manifestation of that Fulness in Him. It's an amazing teaching really. The question for me is, how ON EARTH do Cessationists think we are doing this today? What do we do today aside from evangelize and that's it? How does this manifest Christ Jesus in all His Fulness, which was God's express intention in us becoming His body, with Christ as the Head, and the leadership serving as the joints and marrow (connecting and strengthening links)? Are we supposed to NOT desire to attain to the Full stature of Christ anymore?

I truly don't understand the Cessationist position. I certainly wish them well and hope they can come to see a different perspective, but their reading of scripture seems so uninspired to me. It's like we're reading two different books that contain the exact same text.

the gift for the church, for the perfecting of saints, and for personal corporate edification.

Well, all I'm saying here is there was a point at which God stopped moving in Holy men of God to pen scripture. Proof of this? Revelation is done!

So maybe a misunderstanding here.

There is nothing in scripture to say God no longer moves in Holy men of God now of course.

As per opening post-- I believe the Holy Spirit is God..is the third person of the trinity.. rebukes, empowers, guides, admonishes, directs, can be hurt, seals, etc...

But used some spiritual gifts .. sign gifts in particular and then those gifts fulfilled their purpose and God finished using them.

Faith, hope and love are spiritual gifts.. they still remain. Ministry gifts-- I am not so sure about.. I believe they have passed too but have no issue with people who are into them because they are very similar to being God given talented at something.

So only some gifts have passed.. completed their purpose.. not all. The death of the apostles, destruction of the temple and closing of the canon bringing this about.

in 14 pages nothing has changed so we have 14 pages of the op trying to illustrate his own conclusions and apply them to people who know the gifts have not ceased and only desire that those who believe they have ceased, would cease themselves in their efforts to control the Holy Spirit and attempt to prove MacArthur right

I mean if speaking in tongues has ceased and yet so many do experience and practice that gift, then we are either misguided loonies or are under the influence of demonic spirits...as per MacArthur

I don't think most of you cessationists actually think things through

you do realize you are flip-flopping all over the place?

Regardless of what I am saying.. if scripture tells us the gifts were for a time and passed .. then that is all that is needed.

You'd be right in saying the scripture doesn't explicitly say the perfect thing coming is the completed revelation of God's Word. That's because that would be a mystery to Paul. The second coming on the other hand.. was no mystery.

Anyway.. this is going around in circles. There are other cessationists that have also posted in here. There are other cessationists who reason this out far better than I can.

Main thing is tho-- gifts ceasing.. is not the work of the Holy Spirit ceasing. Even if the sign gifts have passed, God can still do miracles, heal, crush demons, inspire believers etc..

Peace

I'm not equating the movement of the Holy Spirit purely with the gifts.. is all.

I'm not equating the movement of the Holy Spirit purely with the gifts.. is all.

Regardless of what I am saying.. if scripture tells us the gifts were for a time and passed .. then that is all that is needed.

You'd be right in saying the scripture doesn't explicitly say the perfect thing coming is the completed revelation of God's Word. That's because that would be a mystery to Paul. The second coming on the other hand.. was no mystery.

Anyway.. this is going around in circles. There are other cessationists that have also posted in here. There are other cessationists who reason this out far better than I can.

Main thing is tho-- gifts ceasing.. is not the work of the Holy Spirit ceasing. Even if the sign gifts have passed, God can still do miracles, heal, crush demons, inspire believers etc..

Peace

In regards to 1 Corinthians 13 and calling the perfect as the completed revelation of Gods Word in the canon..

Reasoning purely from this chapter isn't enough for this to hold water, but together with the experience of modern tongues being quite different to what was experienced in the early churches and similarly with what a biblical miracle is compared to what it is interpreted to be now among some circles..

Plus with the death of the apostles, it becomes evident the sign gifts have passed.

I like this kind of reasoning from the likes of R.C. Sproul.

The 1 Corinthians 13 chapter isn't conclusive but other scripture and historical experience is conclusive on this.

This thread is regarding the doctrine of cessationism. It has been covered before, but I thought it was necessary to have a seperate thread for this.

There are common statements made regarding cessationism that I thought I'd like to address:

1- 'You are limiting/denying the power of the Holy Spirit.'

Generally, a cessationist still believes -- according to scripture---the Holy Spirit empowers, directs, guides, rebukes, encourages, is fully God, can be hurt and grieves, is personal, seals a believer, dwells in the midst of a local church in their various functions, and more.

They also generally believe-- according to scripture-- faith, hope and love are spiritual gifts that remain. Some also have partial cessationism with ministry gifts remaining, which altho I believe have also passed... I don't have much of an issue with if people are into these, since they are very similar to being God given talented at something.

The main thing though is the perfect thing, or that which is perfect.. causes the gifts to have been completed and finished. If this is the closed canon, with the death of the apostles and destruction of the temple.. then it isn't limiting or denying the Holy Spirit's power.

It is honouring that God has chosen to finish something He wanted for a time and completed it.


2- 'We have knowledge now, so the gifts can't have ceased.'

This one should be obvious, because the context of the spiritual gifts in 1 Corinthians 12-14 is the supernatural gift of knowledge. This is not general knowledge.. it's supernaturally empowered, special, exceptional. So we still have general knowledge now of course.

3- 'The gifts are not being readily shown now because of a lack of faith'

The fact is most churches actually are not cessationists and believe in following all the gifts. Cessationists are not the majority. So not enough faith is not linked to the gifts not being shown.

The other part of this--in scripture-- is when God was using the gifts through people, it wasn't always about the level of their faith. It was God working, objectively, through people with these gifts. Many demonstrations of power and signs to show His work through His people to accomplish particular purposes. When they operated in the gifts-- they just DID IT! Because it was God doing it!

I think there are more things people bring up.. it would be good to know more.








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Yea I'm not saying God stopped moving in holy men of God full stop...but did stop at inspiration for the scriptures.

Since the two ideas are connected, we should leave it at that. The "holy men of God" who were borne along by the Holy Ghost to write exactly what needed to be written were the prophets, evangelists, and apostles who wrote Scripture. Since the Bible is complete, there is no further divine inspiration. The book of Revelation makes that clear.

So were Nostradamus, Joseph Smith, and Ellen G. White prophets and prophetesses? Not if you take into account their false doctrines. One could add many others since Revelation was completed. None of them can claim to be genuine.

The perfect is about the second coming of Our Lord see I John 3:2