Dave Miller recently wrote an article titled “God told me that the Bible does NOT teach Cessationism.”
Cessationism is the belief that the miraculous spiritual gifts
detailed in Scripture have ceased, and are no longer present in the
church. I disagree with Miller’s article for many reasons:
1) He’s overly simplistic and dismissive.
It’s undeniable that for over 1600 years of church history, the
miraculous spiritual gifts were inactive in the church. They were only
present among heretics. In spite of this fact, Miller believes
cessationism is “hermeneutical wishful thinking.” There must be a lot
of wishful thinkers in church history! You cannot dismiss hundreds of
years of church history as hermeneutical wishful thinking.
2) The reason I’m a cessationist is because I believe the purpose of the miraculous gifts has ceased.
It’s not because of wishful thinking. I was raised a charismatic! The
reason I’m a cessationist is because I asked what Scripture identified
as the purpose of the miraculous spiritual gifts. The answer is that
the miraculous gifts were given for the building up of the church so
that early Christians could trust the truth being presented as coming
from God (See where Christ healed one person out of a multitude in John
5:2-9 to validate His identity: Acts 2:22-23 ; Paul speaks of the signs
of an apostle as proof for his apostleship in 2 Cor. 12:12; miracles
were random in Scripture; and spiritual gifts were given to individual
Christians to encourage and build up other Christians/the church: 1 Cor.
12:7 and the context of the chapter; Rom. 12:1-8; 1 Pet. 4:10-11).
Thus, the question is if this purpose is still needed today. Does the
message of Christ and the apostles need to be revalidated with each
generation? No. The gospel spread without repeated validation for over
1600 years. Furthermore, it’s a wicked generation who seeks a sign
beyond the signs that have already been provided (Matt. 12:39). The
person who says, “I’ll only believe the gospel if God . . .” reveals his
or her unrepentant heart. If he or she will not hear Scripture, he or
she will not hear the message accompanied by miracles either (Luke
16:31). Continue at Jared Moore
