‘The cessationist position has no basis within the New Testament and is unhelpful in the contemporary context.’
/essay/
1. Introduction.
2. The
cessationist position.
3. Critical
assessment of Warfield’s arguments in the light of Scripture.
4. The
cessationist position and its impact in the contemporary context.
5. Conclusion.
‘The cessationist position has no basis within the
New Testament and is unhelpful in the contemporary context.’
1. Introduction
Miracles are an important theme for Christians. It is so not just
because the Christian history abounds of miracles but mainly because the whole
Christian faith rests on ‘two supreme miracles’ – the Incarnation and the
Resurrection of Christ.[1]
Take these two miracles away from Christianity and you will have nothing left.
As the apostle Paul puts it, if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is
useless and so is your faith’ (1 Cor. 15:14).
.
Although ‘belief
in miracles lies at the heart of
authentic Christian faith’,[2] throughout
the Church history there have been sceptics even within the Church. The Enlightenment,
with its focus on reason and science, deepened the gulf between the natural and
supernatural, and thus raised scepticism about the possibility of miracles.
This led to the birth of the cessationist doctrine which views miracles as
‘foundational and revelatory’[3] and
believes that ‘the church has no legitimate expectation to see such
manifestations of the Holy Spirit’[4]
after the apostolic age.
In the present
essay I will examine the cessationist position by discussing and evaluating the
views of its main proponents, Aquinas, Calvin and more recently, Warfield and
Gaffin. Then, I will try to show that the cessationist position
has no basis within the New Testament and is unhelpful in the contemporary
context.
2. The
cessationist position.
The cessationist position has a long history within
the church. As Turner points out, Augustine, Chrysostom and other Church
Fathers believed that the miraculous gifts were mostly needed at the founding
of the Church and were given in order to ‘accredit the Christian message’.[5]
Aquinas believed that miracles were ‘divine “proofs” of the truth of the
Christian doctrines’ and that they ‘had done their job and that no more were necessary’.[6]
Calvin embraced this position in order to debunk some of the wrong teachings of
the Catholic Church which were justified by its ‘counterfeit miracles’.[7]
The contemporary protestant cessationist position
was developed by B. B. Warfield, who was influenced mainly by Aquinas and the
Scottish Common Sense Philosophy.[8]
His views may be summed up in the following way: 1) miracles are ‘the mark and
credential’ of revelation,[9]
2) Christ and the apostles performed miracles ‘as signs of God’s revealing
power’,[10]
given to ‘fully accredit … Scripture’[11],
so ‘with the last revelations … miracles … ceased’[12],
3) ‘further miracles would only distract from the uniqueness of those worked by
Christ and the apostles’,[13]
4) all miracles in the post-apostolic age are as false as the Biblical miracles
are true,[14] and 5)
the divine miracles are an ‘objective evidence’ for ‘common sense’.[15]
Warfield’s position is labelled
‘hard cessationism’ as it doesn’t allow for any miracles in the sub-apostolic
age.
A more recent or ‘milder’
form of cessationism has been advocated that is ‘more typically encountered
today’. Its main proponent is Richard Gaffin, who believes that even though
miracles still can be seen today, what has ceased is the ‘gift of healing’
because it was given only ‘to attest the divinely appointed bearers of
infallible revelation’.[16]
He also states that ‘the revelatory gifts of 1 Cor. 12 have ceased’ as ‘the
continuation of … revelatory gifts would put a question mark over the authority
and sufficiency of Scripture’, and that healings ‘cannot be truly
eschatological in nature, because they have nothing to do with the resurrection
body’.[17]
According to Turner,
Warfield’s major weakness is that ‘the ‘common sense’ in question is not so
common’ because ‘if the divine nature of miracles were … transparent… then
there should be no unbelievers in the world”.[18]
Besides, he rejects the idea that ‘miracles were tied to periods of special
revelation’ as we find many other cases of miracles.[19]
Furthermore, he points out that the function of miracles was not only to
authenticate ‘God’s messengers’, but also to point to the future salvation[20]
and to facilitate the church life and individual discipleship. So, ‘they were
not … rendered significantly less ‘needed’ … by the completion of the canon’.[21]
And, if we agree with Warfield, that ‘further miracles would only distract from
the uniqueness of those worked by Christ and the apostles’,[22]
then, in the same line of argument, we could also say that there is no further
need for Christians to show love and compassion to their neighbor, as this,
instead of serving as a proof of God’s love and existence, would only distract
non-Christians from the fact that God of the Bible is love. In fact, when
combined with an oral proclamation and testimony, practical love expressed by
Christians today is the greatest proof that the God of the Bible is alive and is
love.
As for Gaffin’s statement
that healing has ceased, and Warfield’s desire to limit their appearance to the
apostolic age, Turner points out that ‘healings were not externally attesting
signs, but part of the scope of the salvation announced, which reached beyond
the merely spiritual to the psychological and physical’.[23]
Another prominent
commentator, John Stott, states rightly that ‘two extreme positions are often
taken … to assert that miracles either do not or cannot happen today’ or ‘to
assert that they take place with the same frequency as in the ministry of
Christ and his apostles’. According to Stott, the first position ‘denies freedom
and sovereignty to God’. The second ‘ignores the major purpose of miracles
according to Scripture, namely to authenticate a fresh stage of revelation.’[24]
This seems to me a more balanced position which shows that there is no
contradiction between the purpose of miracles in Scripture and the belief that
God still operates through miracles.
3. Critical
assessment of Warfield’s arguments in the light of Scripture.
The best way to critically
assess all the arguments and views stated above is to do a topic study on
miracles, and more specifically, on what the Bible has to say about the
possibilities of miracles in the life of the Church after the apostolic age.
The cessationist position suggests that
miracles were foundational and revelatory, and so were bound to the apostolic
period.[25]
It says that the New Testament anticipates the cessation of miraculous gifts
and that they have disappeared in church history.
Yet, the NT does not allow for such an
interpretation. The four Greek words denoting ‘miracles’[26]
describe ‘events which unmistakeably involve an immediate and powerful action
of God designed to reveal His character or purposes’. [27]
They are translated as ‘signs, wonders, works, mighty works, portents and
powers’. [28] Altogether,
the words ‘miracle’, ‘sign’, miraculous’, wonder’ and ‘power’ are met 102 times
in the Gospels, 47 times in Acts and 133 times in the rest of the New Testament.[29]
Besides, when Paul speaks of the gifts of the Spirit he also refers to
supernatural manifestations given to believers to minister to the Church. Though
many of the references are to the miracles wrought by Christ and the apostles,
there are other which point to their continuity in the life of the church in
future.
For example, in Paul’s thanksgiving in 1
Cor. 4-8 he states that the Corinthians ‘do not lack any spiritual gift’ as
they ‘eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ’. The present participle and
present infinitive of the sentence are progressive presents and indicate Paul’s
conviction that the possessing of all spiritual gifts of the Corinthians would
continue ‘to the end’ (v.8), i.e., until the parousia.[30]
In other words, Paul expects that Corinthians will experience miracles due to
the continuing work of the Holy Spirit among them.
Also, 1 Cor. 12:10 shows miraculous powers
to be among the gifts of the Spirit, listed here by Paul and there is no hint
they are going to cease to exist. Furthermore, Paul says they are given by the
Spirit to ‘each one’. i.e., believers in future will also practice and benefit
from this gift. The future availability of the miracles is also seen in 1 Cor.
12:28, where Paul says that ‘workers of miracles’ are appointed by God to serve
the Church, and they are distinguished from the apostles.[31]
On the other hand, Matt 24:24, Mark 13:22, 2 Thes. 2:9, Rev. 16:14 and Rev.
19:20 demonstrate that miracles will continue to be practiced in future by
warning that demons and false prophets, similarly to pharaoh’s magicians, can
also perform miraculous signs.
Sometimes, 1 Cor. 13:8-12 is used by
the advocates of cessationism to prove that – prophecies, knowledge and tongues will cease
‘when the church should have attained its mature state’, in other words, in the
sub-apostolic age. This ‘meagre, jejune, and frigid interpretation’[32]
is rather a deductive approach to the text which has nothing to do with the true
meaning of the text, which is eschatological. The other interpretation, saying
that ‘the perfect’ is ‘the completed canon of Scripture’[33]
also sounds unrealistic, because Paul uses here ‘the language of theophany’,
and could hardly have expected ‘the formation of a canon after the death of the
apostles’.[34] So, it
turns out that this passage, rather than proving the cessationist position,
debunks it.
Obviously, the Bible
affirms that miracles have not disappeared since the post-apostolic age and would
continue till the parousia. Passages like 1 Cor. 1:4-8 and 1 Cor. 13:8-12 are
paradigmatic in that they apply to the Church in ‘universal sense, although not
always in a local sense’.[35]
That’s why I believe similar to John Stott that we should not take polarized
positions, saying that miracles are either impossible or normal today.[36]
At the same time, I believe like Turner that miracles had much wider scope than
just authenticating the revelation of the Bible.
4. The
cessationist position and its impact in the contemporary context.
I think that in general the
cessationist position is unhealthy in the contemporary context. First, it is
unhealthy because it discourages belief in God’s abilities to work miracles today,
thus shaking the foundations of the Christian’s conviction that “God is the
same yesterday, today and forever”. Another result of embracing cessationism
would be that it would demotivate prayer life of believers. If I know that God
has used miracles just to accredit his revelation, now that the ‘job has been
done’, why pray at all since whatever could be done in a natural way should be
sufficient for us? Thus, cessationism might develop a very extreme form of
Calvinism.
5. Conclusion.
So, when
we consider all the above cessationists’ opinions and interpret them in the
light of the passages discussed above, we can state the following. First, the
cessacionist position to charismata has no New Testament grounding. We have
seen that the New Testament authors preceived the role of miracles in their
writings not as mere acreditation of their message but also as pointers to the
eschatological salvation and as means for facilitating the life of the church
and the individual disciple. As Storms put it,
‘the
sufficiency of the Bible is not meant to suggest that we need no longer hear
from our heavenly Father or receive particular guidance in areas on which the
Bible is silent… the potential for God speaking beyond Scripture, whether for
guidance, exhortation, encouragement, or conviction of sin, poses no threat to
the sufficiency that Scripture claims for itself.’[37]
So, although God has ceased
to give ‘revelations which are doctrinal or universally moral and associated
with the canon’, ‘revelation involving applicatory or cirmumstantial content
that relates to individual or local church experience may still be possible’.[38]
Second, the cessationist
position has been historically and at present mainly a reaction against the
other extreme of misusing charismata with the goal of justifying all kinds of
religious teachings which have no Biblical basis. Calvin’s attacks against the
Catholic obsession with miracles and Warfield’s “Counterfeit Miracles”, used to
combat extreme Pentecostal and other charismatic churches’ teaching on the
subject are two prominent examples of the fact. Another factor for its
popularity has been the experience of the respective theologian. As Powell puts
it, ‘experience is the confirming factor in the case of either continuation or
cessationism’. Still, experience is subjective so it cannot govern our
understanding of the Bible.
Still, and that’s my third
point, rather than embracing one or the other extreme, Scripture provides a
third road. As Stott says, there is no contradiction to believe that miracles
speak of God’s character, glory and purposes in the world, and at the same time
hold that He still works out his purposes through miracles. I will conclude
with Powell’s words: ‘God can reveal Himself as He chooses. Revelations from God
should neither be demanded nor refused, although they should undergo
validation.’[39]
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Books:
Dudley-Smith,
T., ed., Authentic Christianity, From the
Writings of John Stott (Leicester: IVP, 1995)
Grudem, W., (ed.), Are Miraculous Gifts for Today? Four Views
(Leicester: IVP, 1996)
Turner, M., and A. Long, OTC304 The Holy
Spirit and Spiritual Gifts (Cheltenham : OTC, 2008)
Turner, M., The Holy Spirit and Spiritual Gifts (Peabody
The Holy Bible: New International
Version (Grand
Rapids: Zondervan, 1996)
Internet Resources:
AllFreeEssays.Com, Miracles in Christianity, [online]. Available from <http://www.allfreeessays.net/student/Miracle_in_Christianity.html>
Barnes, Commentary to the Bible, E-sword, [online]. Available from
Bible Concordance, IBS-STL Global, [online]. Available from
Cessationism, Bible.org, [online]. Available from ChristianAnswers.net,
[online].
Available from <http://www.christiananswers.net/dictionary/miracle.html>
Churchill, D., Firming Your
Foundation, Modern-Day Miracles Seen Through the Bible (1): “What is a
miracle?”, [online]. Available from
Holman Bible
Dictionary, [online]. Available
from <http://www.studylight.org/dic/hbd/view.cgi?number=T4336>
Powell, C., Questions Cessationists
Should Ask: A Biblical Examination of
Mates, N., Magic,
Miracles, and Christianity, [online].
Available
from
The Holy Bible: New International
Version (Grand
Rapids: Zondervan, 1996)
[1] Miracles in Christianity, in AllFreeEssays.Com, [online].
Available from <http://www.allfreeessays.net/student/Miracle_in_Christianity.html>,
[Accessed 27 May 2008]
[2] Ibid.
[3] M. Turner, and A. Long, OTC304
The Holy Spirit and Spiritual Gifts,
p. 114
[4] Ibid.
[5] M. Turner, The Holy Spirit
and Spiritual Gifts, p. 278.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Ibid.
[8] A form of realism that
developed in the eighteenth century, maintaining that ‘God had set in the
intellectual constitution of humankind a set of self-evident principles and
logical abilities that enabled objective knowledge and true understanding of
the real world.’ – ibid., p. 279.
[9] He accepts that there are 4 main periods of revelation – the
Exodus, the time of Elijah-Elisha, the Exile, and the dawning of Christianity –
ibid., p. 280.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Ibid.
[12] Ibid.
[13] Ibid.
[14] Ibid., p. 281.
[15] Ibid.
[16] Turner and Long, p. 119, quoting from W. Grudem, (ed.), Are Miraculous Gifts for Today? Four Views
(Leicester: IVP, 1996).
[17] Ibid., p. 121.
[18] Turner, , p. 282.
[19] Namely, prophecy and ‘many other sorts of miracles scattered
throughout Genesis, Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, etc.’, ibid.
[20] Ibid.
[21] Ibid.
[22] Ibid., p. 280.
[23] Ibid., p. 285.
[24] Dudley-Smith, ed., Authentic Christianity, From the
Writings of John Stott, p. 388-9.
[25] Turner and Long, p. 114.
[26] Semeion, meaning "sign"; the seal of a higher
power, terata, "wonders," portents, dunameis,
"might works;" works of superhuman power and erga,
"works" – see ChristianAnswers.net, [online]. Available from ,
[Accessed 21 May 2008].
[27] See Holman Bible
Dictionary, [online]. Available from <http://www.studylight.org/dic/hbd/view.cgi?number=T4336>,
[Accessed 21 May 2008]
[28] Ibid.
[29] Bible Concordance, IBS-STL Global, [online]. Available from <http://www.ibs.org/bible/word/index.php>,
[Accessed 26 May 2008]
[30] C. Powell, Questions
Cessationists Should Ask: A Biblical Examination of Cessationism,
Bible.org, [online]. Available from <http://www.bible.org/page.php?page_id=394>, [Accessed 27 May 2008].
[31] So in v. 29.
[32] Barnes, Commentary to the
Bible, E-sword, [online]. Available from <http://www.e-sword.net/downloads.html>, [Accessed 27 May 2008]
[33] Turner, p. 286
[34] Ibid.
[35] Powell, [Accessed 27 May 2008]
[36] Only,
instead of ‘normal’ I would use the word ‘as frequent’.
[37] C.S. Storms, ‘A Third Wave
Response to Richard B. Gaffin’, in Are Miraculous Gifts for Today? Four Views,
ed. By W. Grudem (Leicester: IVP, 1996), p. 83, quoted in Turner and Long, p
120.
[38] Powell, [Accessed
27 May 2008].
[39] Ibid.
