Cessation of gifts

J. Jump, can you show me where doing those things was not God's will? It wasn't that casting out demons was something Jesus didn't want them to do; it was that they had missed the entire point: knowing Christ.

Michael

 

Did you read what I wrote?

I was in no way trying to apply it directly to the case you quoted.

I also showed you how God sometimes gave his people things he didn't want them to have, simply because they insisted.

J.Jump brought up an excellent example of people doing things in his name, good things, but they were not being obedient. They were doing good things in his name, yet he said they were working lawlessness.

Know what lawlessness is? Doing what's right in one's own eyes. Homosexuals use it to try to excuse their behavior.

So, in the example you brought up? I might be wrong about their cessation. (J.Jump is correct, they're actully just on hold, so it's a temporary cessation, and the requirements for their resumation have not yet come.)

But, this man may have been given something that was not intended for him, he may have been decieved, he may have been working lawlessness, there may have been a reason (good or bad) that the interpreter didn't show up.

All I'm saying is that experience is not always the best thing to use to determine how genuine something is. Like I said, pagans and Muslims also speak in tongues, and others understand them.

Oh, and I had experienced these sorts of things before I saw in the Scriptures what I think to be the truth about them, so it did not make me "more comfortable" thinking they were not for today.

 

Michael thanks for your question. Matthew 7:21-29 in the text of the scenario that I brought up. And in reading the text there is nothing there that would suggest that Christ rebuked them because they did not "know" Him. He rebuked them because what they did were works of lawlessness as HOG pointed out.

One of the points of the text is that Christ did not know them. They in fact "knew" Who Christ was, because they called Him Lord. The shared with Him all the works they had done in His name, but He said what they did was work lawlessness, so I'm not sure how we can say working lawlessness is a part of God's will even though they were "good" works in their eyes.

Hope that helps.

 

PastorSBC, let me see if I am understanding you correctly as to how you build your theology. You demand scriptural statements. Historical information is not relevant and logic is dangerous. It is scripture alone, oh, wait, except for the anecdote. Yes. If a missionary tells a story about something that happened to him on the field, that is a key building block of theology. I can hear Martin Luther before the Diet of Worms now: “Except I am convinced by scripture and incredible personal anecdotes, I will not recant!”

The above is stated with tongue firmly in cheek. Well, maybe not that firmly. :smilewinkgrin:

I, too, have heard stories of missionaries about miraculous events; and from missionaries who are not kooks and given to TBN-type shenanigans. The one I remember most vividly was from a chapel speaker in college days. He was in a village in Africa. The chief of the village told him that the spirits enabled him to walk on a bed of hot coals without burning his feet. Before the entire tribe the chief did what he said he could do. The missionary felt he had to show the people that the God of the gospel was as powerful as the spirit of the tribe, so he took of his shoes and socks, walked across the coals, and his feet were not burned.

To me, these stories are simply exceptions that prove the rule. The pattern in the New Testament, as I have pointed out and others have pointed out on this thread, is powerful manifestations of miraculous power in the life of Jesus and in the initial ministry of the apostles which lesson to the point of cessation in the later books included in the NT. God can do what he pleases, but he does not work through miraculous signs today. The miracles today are exceptions; they are not the norm. This is the reverse of early NT times as in both the life of Jesus and the early apostolic ministry the miracles were so powerful, so irrefutable, and so prolific that people seeking after these miracles often mobbed Jesus and the apostles.

As to your story, again, God can do anything he wills. But your story is an exception. It is not normative. Today, missionaries go to school and learn foreign languages so that they can minister in other cultures. If tongues are as readily available as in the early chapters of Acts, we are really wasting a great deal of time and effort.

 

Do you not see the contradiction in what you say?

IMO, anytime you make a statement God can do anything he pleases, but... You are in trouble theologically.

 

I see no contradiction in the context of my explanation.

PastorSBC, have you ever performed a miracle? If not, why not?

 

I don't see his statement as inconsistent at all. The gifts have ceased. Take for example the gift of healing. An example of the gift of healing is given in Acts 5:16.

Acts 5:16 There came also a multitude out of the cities round about unto Jerusalem, bringing sick folks, and them which were vexed with unclean spirits: and they were healed every one.

Notice the crowd. People, not only from Jerusalem, but from all the cities round about Jerusalem came to Peter bringing their sick folk. The last part of the verse says: they were healed every one. It was not some, not many, but every one of them that were healed. In the first century the sicknesses were visible. Cancer was not a sickness. It could not be seen nor diagnosed. They didn't have x-ray machines or cat-scans. The same held true for ulcers, and a multitude of other "inner" diseases. Luke records what he could observe. What he saw was the lame that could walk, the blind that could see again, lepers that were healed, and other visible sicknesses. They were all healed--every one of them.
Peter had the gift of healing. There multitudes, thousands of people healed that day. There is nowhere in the world where that happens today. That gift has ceased. However healing has not stopped. God still heals. God still answers prayer. His miraculous healing is done primarily through answers to prayer. The gift is gone. It was not an uncommon sight in Peter's day. It never happens in our day. Why? The sign gifts have ceased. Yet, God still does the miraculous according to his own will.

 

This topic is not about me or what I have done or not done. It is about what God does and can do.

Without clear Scripture, I refuse to make a statement that starts "God can't/doesn't...

 

Fair enough. I've made my argument as persuasively as I know how. I guess I didn't think you'd change your opinion and that's fine. For me, it's not a test of orthdoxy, fellowship, or friendship. Others will have to read what we've said and come to their own conclusion. I enjoyed the interaction.

 

I agree completely, it is not a test of anything. I have enjoyed the interaction as well. Iron sharpens Iron...

 

IMO there is clear Scripture. Signs were for the nation of Israel. The nation of Israel is not being dealt with as an entire entity. If a Jew wants salvation s/he must come through the death and shed blood of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, by faith because of God's grace just as anyone else does today.

Therefore Scripturally speaking there is no need for signs today. The whole reason for the signs in the first place is not in play, so to speak, today, so sign gifts are not present. Again I think ceased is a bad term.

The nation of Israel will return to God's focus as an entire entity, and when it does I believe Scripture shows us that signs will return to accompany that message.

Now if one rejects dispensationalism then one isn't going to believe this anyway That's the funny thing about Scripture though is that it builds on itself. Oh wait we're even told that in Scripture

 

2 Corinthians was written in 59 AD before the dispensational boundary of Acts 28:28, after which, there are no signs, wonders, and miracles performed by men in the Bible.

 

I have personal knowledge of a miraculous healing. I also know many missionaries who have marvelous stories to tell, although they are quick to admit that what happens in a third world country rarely happens here in the U.S.

Is that contrary to a cessation of gifts? I don't know. I've never even heard of a modern day incident where someone could suddenly speak in a formerly unknown language. But I know miracles happen, and I'm not just talking about childbirth.

Praise God.

 

I don't think anyone here has even suggested that miracles have stopped.

Only the signs, wonders, and miracles performed by men. (Godly men. Evil men certainly perform them, and it's documented.)

 

The one verse that clarified it for me was this: 2 Cor 12:12.

The signs and wonders and mighty works were tied to the apostles

The signs of a true apostle were performed among you(B) with utmost patience, with signs and wonders and mighty works.