Originally posted by Link:
If you assert that spiritual gifts ended after scripture was written, then you are taking the debate out of scripture and into the time period in which scripture was written. The fact that spiriutal gifts DID continue, historically, after scripture
You are the one asserting something unbiblical. It can be shown from the Bible that the gifts have ceased. I have already done that--many times over.
Scripture does not say that tongues and prophecy _had_ ceased, but that they will cease.
That is only in one early epistle--1Corinthians. There are many other Scriptures which indicate that they already have ceased. You fail to look at all the Scripture.
The Notice no one canshow any scripture at all that says that miracles and healing will cease, yet cessationists believe that they have. Jesus calls casting out demons a miracle or sign.
Either you fail to look at them, or to believe them, or your mind is just made up not to believe (which is probably the case).
Here are some examples:
Acts 5:16 (an example of the Apostolic gift of healing which cannot be duplicated today.
--All the sick from all the cities round about Jerusalem came to be healed--and they were all healed--everyone of them.
There is no one that can do that today. Reason? The gift of healing has ceased. Note that I did not say that God does not heal. I said the gift of healing has ceased.
The
gift of miracles has ceased. Peter walked on water. I haven't seen anyone do that lately. Have you? The gift of miracles have ceased.
Why have they ceased? Because the Scriptures tell us so.
Hebrews 2:3-4 How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him; God also bearing them witness,
both with signs and wonders, and with divers miracles, and gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to his own will?
--These were the signs of an Apostle. The Apostles were all dead by the end of the first century. No apostles; no signs and wonders. They are no longer needed. We have the completed Word of God. Jesus said that it is an evil and adulterous generation that seeks after a sign.
2 Corinthians 12:12 Truly the signs of an apostle were wrought among you in all patience, in signs, and wonders, and mighty deeds.
--Signs and wonders--the marks of an apostle.
Yet many cessationists believe that casting out demons is possible. The book of Revelation shows that the Two Witnesses will prophesy. Yet some cessationists hold to a futuristic view of Revelation. I can't see one good reason for being a cessationist.
Perhaps they have a more Biblical theology. I am a dispensationalist. In this dispensation the gifts of the spirit have ceased. They are no longer needed. I am not speaking about the Tribulation Period. I am not speaking about the Millennial Kingdom. I am speaking about the Church Age, or this day and age of grace. To bring the 2 prophets of Revelation 11 which will prophecy in the Tribulation Period is simply a red herring. It is during a different time period.
DHK wrote,
**Tongues was a sign of an apostle or one that was closely related to an apostle to affirm both the message and the messenger that they were from God. We don't need that confirmation any longer.**
First, show me scripture to support this statement. This statement of yours is just human opinion. Elsewhere in the same post, you say that tongues are for the edification of the entire church. Even if you argue that we no longer need confirmation that tongues provided (which you have yet to argue a decent case for) we are still left with the fact that the church exists and therefore this is not an argument that tongues ceased.
I have already shown you scripture for this--Heb.2:3,4 and 2Cor.12:12.
So, no; it is not an opinion. It is a Scripturally based conclusion.
--In the first century, when tongues was a valid gift, (as Paul used it) it would edify the entire church, not just Paul. That is what Paul taught.
Secondly, you cannot provide any scripture that
shows when the canon was completed, that there was no need for signs to confirm the word. The Gospel is preached for the first time all over the world. Clearly, telling about a miracle that happened 1950 years ago does not have the same impact as doing a miracle on a group of illiterate people.
The writers of the New Testament were the Apostles. When the Apostles died the gifts died with them. The gifts were to authenticate the message and the messenger--that is the Apostles. There were many claiming to be apostles. Those who had the ability to do signs and wonders demonstrated that they were from God. It set them apart from the false teachers or prophets. They authenticated their message. These were sign gifts. A sign points to an event. A sign doesn't last for 21 centuries. It points to an event and then it is over. It fills its purpose in history and then disappears from the scene. That is how a sign works. It works the same way that the sign given Isaiah 7:14 worked:
Isaiah 7:14 Therefore the Lord himself shall
give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.
--This sign was fulfilled in the virgin birth of Christ--an historical event. Yet the Charismatics would have us believe that the birth of Christ is happening as a coninuing event every day from the day he was born even up until today. Why, everyone should have "a birth of Christ." This is the ridiculous reasoning of the Charismatics. Signs cease. This sign came to a fulfillment and ceased when Christ was born and all know that very well.
Tongues was a sign. When its purpose was fulfilled at the end of the first century, the gift ceased to be. There have been many counterfeits since then, but the Biblical gift ceased.
If telling or reading about a past miracle had the same impact, why didn't the apostles just ell about Jesus' miracles, and use that as their evidence. Why didn't Paul just tell about Peter's miracles among the Hebrews when he preached to the Gentiles. Or why didn't Jesus just tell about the miracles Moses' did, since Moses wrote about Christ. He could say Moses' miracles confirmed his ministry. That may have been a valid argument, but it is not very persuasive to the unbeliever.
You are not even being logical here.
First, the miracles that Jesus did, no one had ever seen before. They attested to his deity. No one could do the miracles he did; not before, not during, and not after his ministry. He alone could control the forces of nature. He demonstrated that he was God come in the flesh through his miracles.
Secondly, Jesus gave some of that power: first to the twelve when he sent them out; then to the seventy when he sent them out two by two, and then finally to the 120 on the day of Pentecost--all that he had left after three years of ministry. But generally speaking the signs and wonders were confined to the Apostles.
By the time the Word of God was completed there was no more need for miracles and signs and wonders. Everything we need to know about God is contained in the Word of God. One might ask the same type of question to Charismatics. Why do all the Charismatic missionaries, who believe in speaking in tongues, have to sit down and study the foreign language of the nation that they are going to? Some contradiction there isn't it? If you really believed in the gift of tongues then you would pray or seek for the gift as you say you do, and God would give all your missionaries the gift of tongues (languages) of the nation that they were going to. That was one of the purposes of tongues. But unfortunately your experiences don't match with your theology.
If you really believed in healing, then why do most Charismatics still where eye-glasses? Another glaring contradiction.
The idea that the function of miracles as a sign ceased because they already confirmed scriptures is lacking for two reasons.
1. The Bible does not teach this concept.
Opinions don't count for much. The Bible teaches that signs (miracles) ceased with the apostles. They were the signs of an apostle, and we don't have them today. The last one to die was the Apostle John. Would you like to greet him for me if you see him around?
2. It does not make sense since unbelievers hearing or reading about past miracles does not have the same effect as seeing miracles themselves.
This is "a bunch of baloney." Miracles never saved anyone or caused anyone to believe.
What did Christ say on the matter.
Matthew 12:39 But he answered and said unto them, An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas:
--Who seeks after miracles (signs)? What will be given to them? Only the gospel. That is all the sign or miracles that they need.
Luke 16:31 And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.
--If they don't believe the Scriptures, then no amount of miracles will convince them either. It is the Word of God that must convince them.
Jesus himself said that he could do no miracles in Capernaum because of their unbelief, meaning that there was so much unbelief in that city that no amount of miracles that he would do would ever convince any one there to believe. It was a wicked city.
Pay careful attention to number 1. Since the Bible does not teach this concept, you are using extra-scriptural doctrine to persuade people to disobey direct commands of scripture like 'despise not prophesyings.'
No, I have used over and over again different portions of the Bible. You just don't like what I say. You have a different opinion, and no matter what Scripture I present--even if it were 500 or more Scriptures on the topic, you would still not believe because your mind is made up.
Even if tongues served as a sign 'for the Jews', it is clear from I Corinthians that they had a 'non-sign' function for the church-- edification. The church has not ceased to exist and still needs edification. Tongues with interpretation were used to edify the church in the first century, without serving as a sign to believers. If their function as a sign ceased, it makes no sense to say tongues ceased because they served a non-sign function with believers. This is overlooking the fact that I Corinthians 14 says that tongues are a sign 'to them that believe not' and not Jews per se. It also says nothing about the judgment of Israel in 70 AD.
You must consider the primary purposes of tongues:
1.
As a sign to the unbelieving Jews.
2.
As a sign to authenticat the Apostles and their message.
These were the two primary reasons. All other purposes were secondary to these. Though there may have been secondary blessings associated with tongues these were the two major reasons for the gifts--a sign to the Jews, and a sign to authenticate the Apostles. Once these signs were fulfilled, not matter what other purposes one can find, they are irrelevant for the gift of tongues has ceased because the main function for them has ceased.
You are making a really weak argument. I asked a PhD in Greek and Latin about this once, who had worked at a center set up by Harvard and read Greek for decades. He could think of a few examples from the New Testament of a case or two where nouns and their referents did not match up in terms of case off the top of his head. This was several years ago, but I recall he mentioned a feminine and a nueter form referring to the same thing in one of the epistles to the Thessalonians.
I have studied a number of languages now, znc zm in fluent in three. Unlike English, most of the languages that I have studied genders must agree or grievous errors are made in grammar. Gender is very important and cannot be over-looked despite what others have told you. Feminine nouns have no place when trying to be forced into the statement where masculine pronouns are being used. Likewise masculine nouns won't work either. Those are the plain facts. Neuter genders will take neuter objects. That is the plain sense of grammar.
DHK
