A Case for Continuation

8/13/2019 A Case for Continuation

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A Case for Continuationism and a Call for

Spiritual Awakening

Scope

The scope of this writing is a discussion of spiritual gifts and miracles in our world today, from

the presuppositions of a Christian. That is to say, a supernaturalistic, monotheistic person whom

at the very least acknowledges the Holy Trinity as well as the validity of the Holy Bible.

Here are some definitions inside of this scope:

supernatural Event above or contrary to, but not in the way of chaos, nature.

spiritual gift A supernatural ability given to an individual or group from God.

miracle Intersection of natural and supernatural, yielding a visible effect.

Purpose

My purpose in writing this is to address the thought miracles have ceased and/or that spiritual

gifts and happenings of God are no longer among men. In doing so, I hope to challenge people

who struggle with or hold this belief to have a more full view of the Trinity and strive for a stronger

unity in our body.

My goal is not to take verses and combat them against one another to show why or why not gifts

were meant to continue beyond certain years or not, but to build a Biblical perspective that Godis still with us, speaking to us, revealing things to us and working in power. If these things can be

established, the falsehood of Cessation theology will follow on its own.


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Objections

1. According to Corinthians 13, the gifts ceased when the Perfect came. The Perfect is in

reference to the Word, or Bible, ergo spiritual gifts have ceased.

2. The spiritual gifts could only be performed by Apostles. There were only Twelve of those.

Ergo, spiritual gifts have ceased.

3. The spiritual gifts were for the communication of Gods revelation to people. There is no

longer revelation from God, as we have complete revelation. Ergo, spiritual gifts have

ceased.

4. Tongues were real languages and their only purpose was to communicate with people

who did not all speak the same language. The listeners were temporarily gifted with the

gift of interpretation, so they could hear and understand. This is no longer required. Ergo,

the spiritual gift of tongues has ceased.

5. Psalm 119, Proverbs 30 and Revelation 22 all clearly say that the Word is the whole truth

and that whoever adds to them or takes away will be cursed or removed from the book oflife. Thus, God no longer needs to reveal anything else to His people or act in any further

powerful ways. Ergo, spiritual gifts have ceased.


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A Need for Logical or Knowable Grounds

Everyone wants to make sure that assertions can be backed up. In agreeance with the scope of

this writing, our tool for verifying assertions will be canonized Scripture. This is something that

certainly no one fitting into the target audience should disagree with.

Too often charismatics have their use of the Spirit dismissed with reasons like because you are

crazy, or because you are in a cult. Charismatics will attack fundamentalists or cessationists

with similar lines, such as because you are not saved, or because you are old fashioned.

There is no basis for such statements, as this is cause and effect and sometimes (usually on

the side of charismatics) assertions that people would have no natural way of knowing. While its

possible any of the statements could be wholly or partially true, the causes are baseless and

speculative, or sometimes purely based on prejudice and this creates logical fallacy. In addition,

this type of reasoning is not founded on a Biblical basis. I keep Biblical basis and logic separated

because I believe the Bible does sometimes confound our logic, so we must leave room for God,even only in His Word and neglecting actions of the Spirit, to surpass logic and create what we

see as logical fallacies. To deny this possibility is to limit Gods power and revelation to your own

understanding.

Back on the point of logical and knowable grounds, what we require rather than baseless,

presupposed, indoctrinated or prejudiced thoughts are thoughts with logical and/or Biblical

grounds. C. S. Lewis would refer to this as Ground and Consequent, defeating Cause and Effect

because of the logical bond between the beliefs and assertions. So this is what I will try to

create, and what I encourage you to try to create for your own beliefs.


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A Brief Look at Gifts: Part 1 - Overview

Now that we have overcome any potential silliness, we can move into the meat and potatoes.

What are the spiritual gifts and what are they for? Why would anyone think that God is still doing

what He was doing with them?

For a very brief explanation, the gifts are for: edification of the body and signs to unbelievers.

The gifts have been split into three categories. I like these categories and believe they help

illustrate a point of usefulness, so I will write them here and go over them one at a time.

1. Motivational

2. Ministry

3. Manifestation

Motivational gifts are gifts that would include:

1. Prophecy

2. Service

3. Teaching

4. Generosity

5. Administration

6. Empathy

If these things are considered spiritual gifts, I cannot think of any church that should deny theyexist. I should probably clarify prophecy. Prophecy does not necessarily mean fortune telling or

revealing the future. While it certainly can hold these meanings, it only means something along

the lines of to speak truth. So lets have a look at both sides of church life and identify these

gifts.

Prophecy scenario #1: Imagine you are either an older mentoring person, or you are a younger

person who has a mentor. In a session where you are talking with the other, the mentor identifies

in the young person a certain passion and drive. The mentor suspects that if the person applies

this desire with Biblical disciplines, that it will flourish into a certain type of ministry for that

person. The mentor encourages the young person to ask God for growth in that area, becausehe thinks it could be something.

Prophecy scenario #2: A person in a church body is known to have the gift of prophecy. A young

person looking for direction approaches this prophet and asks them to pray for them, to

prophesy over them and give them a word of knowledge. The prophet prays over this young

person, and calls out gifts and callings, gives warnings specific to the person and sends them on

their way.


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I would say that both of these people have just exercised the same gift in two different ways. One

is an older person simply talking to another, seeing potential in them and following to tell them

about it and encourage them in it. What is that but speaking truth? Truth about something you

have seen as a gift from God, to edify this person.

In the second scenario, the two people are obviously very comfortable with gifts and are open tocalling them gifts and acknowledging supernatural characteristics in people due to the presence

of the Holy Spirit. Are they too comfortable? Perhaps, to try to call words when they are not

feeling lead. Yet how can we say? If these are ourgifts and were instructed to use them to

edify the body, why should it not be at our disposal?

Yet we also see the clear contrast here. The people in scenario #1 would probably never utter

the word prophecy unless they were referring to a prophetic writing in the Bible, while the

second scenario folks probably say that word multiple times per conversation and seek it out. In

both scenarios, people are utilizing community to accomplish spiritual growth. Paul tells us this

is why prophecy exists: But everyone who prophesies speaks to men for their strengthening,encouragement and comfort, (1 Corinthians 14:3). If someone was part of a body that was not

strengthening, encouraging and comforting itself via Godly communication between its

members, we might call that body stagnant. If it is taking place, I think we can say from the

definitions weve seen that the gift of prophecy is taking place in that body! And would you rather

condemn this due to it being a spiritual gift, or take part in the spiritual growth it brings?

Now that we have clarified the controversial one, the others are pretty simple. A gift of service?

The Bible tells us this is where we get our deacons and elders from and we get several

examples of it. The Greek word for service is diakonos, diakoneo or diakonia. This is where we

get our word deacon or minister from--perhaps we specially select these people because wesee this gift in them? We see this word used in Luke 4:39, John 12:2, Luke 10:40 and 17:8,

Romans 13:3-4 and 15:25, Acts 20:19, 1 Corinthians 12:5 and 2 Corinthians 8:3-4. I will stop

there lest I turn into a concordance. What do we see in these passages? We see people serving

meals, we see Paul and Jesus serving the body and Jesus instructing others to serve everyone.

We also see in the stories surrounding some of these passages that some people were better at

serving than others or knew how better to serve (like Mary and Martha) -- does this show

evidence that some people have a giftof serving others?

In teaching, giving, administration, we can apply the same principles as in the paragraph above.

Some people are better at these than others. Could this mean they are gifted? Empathy is a

special case -- have you ever met someone who seemed able to just connect with your feelings

and that helped you process or cope with them? To call all of these things talents or

personalities robs God of the credit of giving His children good things! We see in James 1:17

and Matthew 7:11 that every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above and that our

Father not only can give us good and perfect gifts, but desires to. Why do we want to rob God of

this and place the credit on ourselves? Why do we think God would just all of the sudden stop

having the desire to give us gifts? Now, certainly, these passages, namely Matthew, could refer


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to physical provision. But are not these gifts sometimes a means to physical provision? To say

that such things have ceased would be an arrogant affront to God, that we are somehow now

self-sufficient and no longer need His giftings and power to accomplish these things in the body

and the outside world.

Moving further on, lets look at the Ministry gifts. The gifts here would include:

1. Apostleship

2. Prophecy (again)

3. Evangelism

4. Pastoring

5. Teaching (again)

Here is a shorter and slightly less controversial list. Why are these less controversial? Probably

because 3 out of the 5 you see used in abundance in Cessation-believing churches. But if these

are listed as gifts of the spirit...what does that say? Is there a division of the mind here?

Since we have already talked about Prophecy and we are simply seeing it in a new function (I

believe that even proclaiming the gospel is prophesying), lets move to the next most

controversial, Apostleship, and look at it.

Are there still Apostles? Did the Apostles have extra power and authority? These are questions

one can study a lot on and not come to anything really conclusive, I think. In my studying I have

not been able to find anything that I believe just solves all the questions surrounding the Twelve

(it wasnt really twelve, as we know--Judas killed himself and then Paul was added. So maybe

still twelve, yes). Its worth a look, if one is curious, but I do not find myself very curious for thisreason: Whether or not full Apostles exist to this day is irrelevant to whether or not the gifts they

possessed still exist. We see every gift and authority of theirs (that we are told about) mentioned

elsewhere apart from that of writing Scripture. While I think it is a solid assumption that no one

has a right to put together Scripture any longer, lets look at apostolic gifts.

What did the Apostles do? They planted churches, created ministers and held churches

accountable. Do we have people today who do that? We sure do. We have people today who

excel at this. Leaders of leaders, filled with a vision of advancing the Kingdom of God. I think the

Catholic church is a pretty good example of what this would look like today. So again, the people

who do this--they just got picked at random because they were so talented in this area? I do not

think so. Genuine (as certainly there is corruption in any structure) selections for such offices, I

think, are from the Holy Spirits recognition of these gifts in another. Otherwise, just anyone could

do it. And if we are making decisions based off of what the Holy Spirit is telling us, that must

mean God is still revealing things to us because he is interested in our day-to-day lives.

The only other gift in this section I will write about is Evangelism. Have you ever met someone

who is just awful at Evangelism? I am. Stick me in a mall with a Roman Road tract and I bet I


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wont get a single convert. Why? Well, there are several reasons. One, Im introverted and I do

not like to talk to people very much. I love to share Jesus with someone, dont get me wrong. But

I dont have a disposition that allows me to do something like that. In addition to that, I would

rather talk to someone about strengthening their faith after they are already in the Church, than

talking to them about joining the Church. Now, has God used me to evangelize before? Yes, He

has! Is it a strong skill of mine? No, it is not.

There are people, however, who run off everywhere and instantly connect with people and love

them. They almost just have a glow to them, as they share Jesus with people and people listen.

It is built into them to share the Gospel with others. Some of these people are even introverted.

What does that mean? It probably means these people have a gift from God that I do not. Have

you ever seen someone that seems to just smash the barriers someone has built up against the

Gospel? Do you think that is just a natural talent of the person? Again, I think for a Christian to

say such a thing is robbing God of the glory and credit He deserves. With verses like Romans

7:18, how can we claim that any good actions are done on our own merit? It is heavily

emphasized that it is the active working of the Holy Spirit or God which does these things, andeven brings forth the desires in our hearts to pursue Him. Is this not still God dwelling with us and

revealing things to us?

Our progress thus far brings me aside onto a rabbit trail about denominations. Have you ever

seen someone in a denominational church that tried to fit in but just could not? Have you seen

them end up condemned by the church, thrown out, or just left out because they are not where

they should be? Why do you think this is? If a person is not where they should be, are we not

supposed to be helping them grow? This happens inside Cessationist and Continuationist

congregations alike because we think: me over the Spirit. Why else should we assume that

everyone should fit the same pattern of evangelism, or speaking in tongues? Why can we notidentify gifts in a person and send them to a place where they would flourish? Some answers

would be member count! or because they just have not seen the truth yet--were right!. Is this

not just me over the Spirit? If you have agreed with anything thus far, its probably that not

everyone is the same. Why should that change in the Body of Christ? Why do we try to force

that? I believe it is because we either ignore the Spirit because we do not acknowledge any work

of it, or we want to promote ourselves over it. Paul gives us an example of charismatic ignorance

in 1 Corinthians 14:4a: He who speaks in a tongue edifies himself--this is in the context of when

he is not doing it to edify the body. If ten, twenty, one hundred people are all doing it at once, how

can we be edifying the body? In the same way, how is ignoring a persons gifts and trying to

cram them into a certain mold edifying the body? I believe if we were to explore Scripture and

look subjectively, we could see this happening in the Church--and I believe this is a terrible

grievance of the Holy Spirit.

Now lets get back on track and have a look at the last section of gifts before we move on to the

main event.


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Manifestation gifts include:

1. Word of Wisdom/Knowledge

2. Faith

3. Healing

4. Miracles5. Prophecy (again)

6. Discernment

7. Tongues

8. Interpretation of Tongues

Now all the Cessationists say Oh, here are all the gifts that no longer exist. Yet what weve

already mentioned are also labeled equally as gifts, and if the gifts are ceased, why can we do

any of them? If then, we can acknowledge that God reveals to us and actively works in us to

accomplish edification or prophecy, as well as teaching, evangelism and other spiritual

actions--why can we not also acknowledge these? I believe the reasoning is in that we cannotcontrol the moves of God in these gifts, and thus we are afraid to take part in them. Lets start

out with some things that would be easiest for a Cessationist to connect with in their own

religious practices.

Faith is in this list. But Faith isnt a spiritual gift! Faith is what I have because I believe in Jesus! I

do that one all on my own! No, you dont. Again we see this assumption that we participate in the

Spirit by our own knowledge and ability, which I think is what leads us into the main thought that

the Bible is all that we need to now know and mete Gods exact will.

Romans 12:3 says that God gives each a measure of faith. Hebrews 12:2 says that Jesus is theauthor and perfecter of our faith. Perhaps this is because he is the proxy of all things physical,

being the logos, but that is just a speculation of my own--tied into the belief that faith is an action

word, not a passive belief. Then, finally, Ephesians 2:8 tells us that faith is a gift from God!Faith

is of the spirit, and faith is still active today, right? Or at least we hope that it is. So here is

Scripture taking faith--an active thing we still hold on to today--and then calling it a gift from God.

A spiritual gift, no less. If these are no longer active, then I guess we are all dead. Literally.

Have a look at Hebrews 11 and Romans 4:5 and 5:1...now we are hit with this realization that

faith is how we live out righteous lives. In Matthew 17:20, Jesus is addressing his disciples and

telling them how the current climate of Israel could be addressed if they were to live in faith (the

mountain). So faith is required of us not only to be counted as righteous but also to exercise

Gods power? James 5:16 says the prayer of a righteous man availeth much. If faith is required

to be righteous, then the prayer of a faithfulman is power and effective, who is also living

according to Gods instruction, which is outlined for us in the Bible. So here we see it: the Bible

demands use of a spiritual gift as well as Biblical instruction being followed to be a powerful and

effective Christian. Are the powerful evangelists and those led to pray in the


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Cessationist-following churches using spiritual gifts? Looks like the Bible might say they are! We

are all called to, if we are going to do the works which God has called us to.

God actively shapes us to know what His will is. Romans 12:2 is one such statement to that

effect, that we are transformed by the renewing of our minds, that we may know Gods good and

perfect will. Renewingsounds like an active process to me. Sanctification is both a one-timeaction as well as a an active process. Jesus is the author and perfecter of our faith. Are these

not all signs that God is working in us as we live, that he constantly has new revelation for us? If

there is nothing active and/or no revelation taking place in our spirits, why do we pray for God to

tell us things or do things for us? Whats the point in Communion/Eucharist besides just to pay

respects? Surely there is more to one of the sacraments Jesus made such a large display of

than a fond memory. Yet some seem to simultaneously deny and acknowledge these things. Or

where there is absolutely no fruit, I believe we can see only denial of the Spirits activity.


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A Brief Look at Gifts: Part 2 - The Flip Side

Part two!? This is not a brief look! Trust me, this is a pretty brief look. Im not taking you on an

adventure all the way through the Old and New Testaments to see workings of Gods power, am

I? Very well then.

Now, I do wish to give room to the flip side of everything I just said in Part 1. I believe in spiritual

gifts and I believe its a requirement we use them. Hopefully if youve bothered to read this far,

youve at least allowed yourself to acknowledge this possibility. For those that have yet to find

anything convincing, dont worry, Im saving the big guns for later.

Do I believe only in spiritual gifts? Certainly not. For this writer specifically, I was raised in a fairly

traditional background that focused solely on knowing the Bible (or at least the accepted pieces

of it) and that the gifts were wrong--so people familiar and comfortable with the gifts will likely find

me restrained.

Is restraining myself good? Certainly! Is it bad? Certainly! Why? This is the flip side.

I reference Mary and Martha some time earlier as an evidence of a better and worse gift of

service. Who do you think is better? Jesus says that Mary is, yet she is not the one doing a

service-oriented (from a certain perspective) task. Martha opened her home, is trying to get

things ready, needs to prepare a meal. I would say she certainly has a gift of service. Why is her

use of this gift wrong? Because shes using this gift in her flesh. She thinks she knows what is

right, and she is using her gift! However, Jesus is in her house! What are our gifts ultimately for?

To honor God, in whatever way that is accomplished with how they are used. Martha had theright heart--but she was using her gifts wrong. So do those who use their gifts today,

sometimes.

I like to use the average Pentecostal church as an example here. The gift of tongues (which we

will talk about in a second) is used incorrectly by them, typically. Paul gives specific instruction

that tongues are to have an interpretation and they should be given in an orderly manner, one or

two at a time so that people can hear and understand. To not use them in this way, is to use the

gift to glorify ourselves. As in, when this method of worship is practiced, I think the participants

are using their spiritual gifts in the flesh.

We see televangelists and big-shot healers, health and wealth advocates, all giving us false

doctrine in the name of the Holy Spirit. Wait a second, now Im starting to sound like one of those

Cessationists. No, I just recognize that this is not a black and white area. Because the majority

of Christians in America are giving Jesus a poor name, does that mean Jesus is false? No. And

so it is with spiritual gifts.


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I feel like this is an important thing to acknowledge and put out there in fairness, before I proceed

into the next section as next we are going to be looking at miraculous signs and wonders.


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A Brief Look at Gifts: Part 3 - Miraculous Signs and Wonders

Here is where everyone gets all in an untyable knot. Signs miracles can never be proven, were

forced to enter into a world of our own experiences, or phenomenology, and decide for ourselves

what we think as we come out. So I will go over a few miracles Ive heard of in my time and my

own experiences with these gifts.

As we enter into a few stories of Gods action, I feel I must remind everyone of the scope of the

writing. Christians carry with them certain presuppositions, one of those presuppositions should

be that God is active in our world, I would assert. So then why, in looking at stories of miracles,

would you ever say God didnt do that unless out of spite? I think that when hearing tales of

miracles, we should remain open and remember that with God, all things are possible.

So, my first story is actually two stories, one of which I think I heard from someone else and one

of which I heard from my mother. Both are very similar, so I tend to blur them together. Mymoms story is as such: She was driving along and all of the sudden had a problem with her car,

which was a stick shift because all cars were stick, once upon a time. It was stuck and she

could not shift it and she was headed straight for a bad situation with a ditch. Right in time, the

gear shift shifted out and she recovered the vehicle. She says she did not do the shift that

happened. The second story is such: Woman was driving down the road in a deep fog and felt

like she should switch over onto the wrong side of the road. She did, and she ended up missing

a large bale of hay that had fallen into her lane that because of the fog she could not have seen

until it was too late. She had to override her logical mind saying In the fog in the wrong lane Im

sure to have a head-on accident! -- and disobeying this logic saved her from a head-on

accident.

What do we do with such stories? They certainly make us uncomfortable, if we are

uncomfortable with God showing up in a way of power and that we dont understand. In stories

where people do not believe in gifts, we also see stories like this hushed. Why? The two things

are completely different. Does this expose something in our hearts besides a studious belief that

gifts have ceased? If we believe God had done something so extreme as save our lives, why do

we not share it like they did in the stories we read from the New Testament? In Psalm 71:16 the

author states I will come and proclaim your mighty acts, O Lord I will tell of your righteousness

and yours alone. Proclaiming Gods acts apparently had power! But of course thats the Old

Testament. Lets find something in the New Testament, so we can keep it relevant to all parties.We see this in the Gospels, as well as Acts when Peter and John heal the man by the gate

called Beautiful. Apparently such proclamations were pretty instrumental in the evangelistic

effort. I feel like the same thing that makes us shy away from such stories, is the same thing that

made the villagers in Matthew 8:34 tell Jesus to leave their village after he healed the two

demon-possessed men.


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However, in both of the above stories, is not God active and revealing things to people? Even in

an entirely mundane way, about how to drive down the road. To refute such stories is almost to

say that God has abandoned us, which is certainly contrary to the Gospel were meant to believe

in.

So then why do we run away from spiritual power? I remember when I was younger, peoplewere extremely wary of bringing up the demonic. Sure, demons do stuff and Satan is out to

confuse you and take you off track--but we dont talk about that. We word it differently, so as to

cushion it away from spiritual activity. Why? Maybe with demonic because they are evil--sure--so

then why do we do it with God? I think there are a few different reasons for this, but the main one

being we are unsure of what to do when the supernatural intersects our natural so we just ignore

it.

Lets have a look at the problem in that behavior, by looking at two hypothetical scenarios. Lets

say you have someone that is violent and/or abusive, consumed with themselves and given to

fits of rage. In addition to this, this person struggles with alcoholism and used to be a drug addict.Whats going on here? Oh, that persons crazy or messed up. Yes, they are. I do not think

that is the end of the story. When we just label the person like that, what happens? Then we

ignore them. Why? Because were afraid of whats going on there. We dont want to be involved

in it. If this person is a member of a church, they might be thrown out and in most circles will

certainly be condemned. Condemned for what? Being of the devil, most likely. So wait--are we

acknowledging a spiritual reality here as long as were in control of what happens with it? I think

so. But what happens when we cast this off like this? We miss an opportunity to set someone

free from a lot of pain and struggle. Are they demon-possessed? I would say no. But influenced

by them? Most certainly! Does the Bible not say what is not of God is of the world, and what is of

the world is demonic? Doesnt take long to get there. So what do we miss? Jesus addressesthis all the time in people. He tells us we can too. In different ways: prayer and fasting, loving the

person, hearing the Word and Jesus least favorite tactic is the power encounters--which is what

we all instantly think of when we think of confronting the demonic. This is not what spiritual

warfare looks like--it generally looks very boring. Why are we running away from it? The short

answer is that when we are scared of spiritual reality we are participating in the belief that our

God has no power.

Lets look at the second scenario. You have someone in your life or church that is exhibiting

strange behavior. They have been telling you about different books of the Bible and things they

think they might be seeing. They have been praying books of the Bible because they felt led to

certain Scriptures, in addition to their normal prayers. They are wanting to help people who are

living in hard ways, whether this is poverty and those people are behaving like the above

scenario. Theyve even started looking at why other people believe the things they do. As a

Protestant, theyve been looking in the Catholic encyclopedia! What do you do with this person?

Surely they are a heretic, breaking away from tradition. So we ignore them, too, and maybe even

throw them out of our church. Why? Because that person is crazy or messed up. Because

something spiritual is going on there that we cant wrap in a neat package, so we are going to


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ignore it--and if it gets in our face enough, dispose of it or just run away from it. This happens all

the time! This is actually the crux of why the entire view of Cessationism fails, in my opinion. But

I will get into why that is later.

Lets look at a few more real examples of the miraculous before we start going over the other

Manifestation gifts.

A family is poor and they need help. God gave them a bank error in their favor for the exact

amount of money they needed for the exact amount of time they needed until they had the

financial recovery to correct this after the bank noticed and set everything right.

People or a person littered with the other things we dont like to talk about--because it affects

everyone--like lust, anger to the point of murderous thought or maybe strong drug addictions.

Maybe someone is cutting themselves and constantly saying to themselves stuff like I hate my

life, at weird times.

I have seen and heard of all of these things being lifted all at once by prayer and use of spiritual

gifts. Do those things happen to people and do people get stuck in those ruts? Sure they do!

Why cant we see that these things are spiritual in nature? In the book of James, what causes

these quarrels among you?, You covet and you do not have, You kill because you cannot

have -- does this sound like what happens in our world? And yet James ties this to the spiritual

reality surrounding us. He is not afraid of it.

So why do we shy away from people like this? Why does a Cessationist largely have trouble

coming to grips with these things, being set free from these things and helping others come out

of these things? I think it is because of limitations we place on the Spirit. We do not give Godroom to do a proper work. We can see from several passages in Scripture that if you do not give

the Spirit room to do work, He may very well just not do it. We see this when Jesus does not

perform any miracles in Nazareth, because they dont believe He can.

Now, Cessationists do help people in becoming free of things and they do defeat strongholds

that Satan has developed in people. The Bible is certainly a powerful tool and when someone

begins hearing, believing and reading for themselves and taking hold of the truths found in the

Bible, that is a powerful path to freedom. This same path is used by charismatics who do fruitful

work in this area--it is only accompanied by a belief in the power of the Spirit.

So hopefully we can see now that there is an active, spiritual reality to our world that we are a lot

of times uncomfortable with. But can we both believe the Bible and say that these things dont

exist, or that spiritual afflictions and blessings are not the causes? I do not think we can and hold

true to anything we see in the Bible. Nothing in the Bible says, and these things will take place

completely apart from the spiritual realm. Why do we expect them to?


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It is my belief at this point that Cessation theology is our logical justification for not taking part in

the spiritual realm. What would happen if we started looking for God in places we didnt expect?

What would happen if we reallybelieved that He can do whatever He wants? What would

happen if we took hold of these mentioned passages and stories, or likely similar stories weve

heard in our own lives, and recognized that God doesstill speak to us, He does still call us and

He doesstill use His power in our lives. When we look at a full view of God, are we still ready todeny these things? Are we really still ready to throw out spiritual gifts when there are only one or

two of them that give us a spiritual headache, now that we look at the whole list? Are we not just

bouncing around semantics to make ourselves more comfortable and then ducking whenever

something comes flying that we cannot semanticize?


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A Brief Look at Gifts: Part 4 - Healing, Tongues, Discernment and

Words

Now were entering into the deep end a little bit. Even so, some of these I believe we can connectwith semanticized Cessationism. Namely, a word of wisdom or a word of knowledge.

Have you or do you know anyone who has ever perhaps been reading their Bible, or perhaps

praying for or talking to someone and then all the sudden they felt something click in their

reading/praying/conversation. They just knew something. Then later theyre talking to people and

theyre like I really feel like he probably has a bad situation back home, or I feel like his parents

are probably divorced, and hes really having a hard time with knowing that a love can be

eternal, or something like that. Insert your experience here. What was that? I mean, maybe we

can just be good guessers, but have you ever seen it to a degree where it would just be

impossible for someone to guess it all up and hit it right on? I know I have seen this several

times. Sometimes people just know that they need to pray for you and they know what they need

to pray for. How did that happen? Words.

As a life experience of my own, Ive met people a few times and Ive just known things about

them. Ive known some areas that they are hiding from people, or one guy I knew that his parents

were separated or divorced, that he probably lived with his mom and how all of that made him

feel--before we talked! It was just as I was working and he was on the other side of the kitchen

working. Why would this sort of thing happen? Because God reveals stuff to us. He works with

those who are already His, to work out the salvation of those who are not His yet. Some things

people are never going to share. If you know about them without their help, you can pray about

those things--and through the power of your prayer can come an open door.

So--how do we know if people are saying all this crazy stuff at us if any of it is true? Ive definitely

heard some people that I think were wrong. Hey, Ive had this experience too. In a world of false

prophets, anti-christs (not to be confused with THE Anti-Christ), people just wanting our

moneydo you think God just left us to sort it all out with our massive brains? No. This is what

discernment of spirits is and this is the gift that I first started experiencing that made me realize

God was still revealing things to people.

In addition to my stories above, which you could maybe smash into discernment--Ive had

moments of clarity when people were speaking, that I could tell whether or not they werespeaking truthfully. As in, if they are trying to throw out a prophecy, a tongue, or some sort of

truth, Ive had experiences where Ive felt validation or a definite no about what they were

saying. Whats a more grounded way of looking at this? Compare what they say to the Bible. If

someone is giving you a prophecy, or telling you something (I once had someone tell me we

needed to have another Crusade and wipe Muslims from the world military-style)...test it against

the Bible! Does your discernment of what they said and the Bible match? Does what they said


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match with your discernment and the Bibles teachings? If not, disregard them! If so, listen up!

How many times have we missed something for us and the Church this way?

Another thing to point out is that we are not to do this by ourselves! Why, with so many different

things that need to be done to discern Gods will (even if its only reading the Scripture)--how

could one person hope to accomplish it? When we attempt this, we try to be self-sufficientspheres of righteousness and no wonder we either then do not do anything at all or have to

ignore most things. This path that the Church has taken is like a Christian Spiritism, or similar to

a Christian person practicing the Noble Eightfold Path. It just does not work. Theres no power in

it and ultimately it will cause us to slip into arrogance, addictions and other nonsense because

we are relying on ourselves and our understanding of Biblical rules.

Statistics say that while regular church-goers are 26% less likely to be addicted to pornography,

a fundamentalist is 91% more likely to be addicted to it. From the testimonies of some former

fundamentalist friends, apparently pornography is not the only addiction to show this pattern.

Why is that? If we run away from the Spirit and deny it any power and believe we have all thetools we need to be just Christians and understand the will of God--not only does a strong belief

in this isolate us, because if we have everything that we need, why are we going to take part in a

body? And if we do not need a body, who is going to hold us accountable about addictions? But

this belief also just deniespower. We become legalistic and self-reliant. When that happens, we

are bound to run into problems, because Mark says: For from within, out of men's hearts, come

evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy,

slander, arrogance and folly. If we are relying on ourselves, are we not doomed to fail? We

cannot deny the work of the Spirit in us or His power to overcome the world every moment of

every day. We also cannot deny his ability to reveal to us truth that will help us along our way, as

we see Jesus do with countless people. Then Jesus sends us a Helper--is the Helper silent?

Continuing on statistics for just a moment, did you know that over the last several years while

churches that focus on the Spirit and power have been growing, fundamentalist churches have

been declining steadily. This information comes from the Yearbook of Canadian and American

Churches. This decline has been happening for the last 43 years, it seems.

I read an article by a prominent fundamentalist that tried to explain why the pews were emptying.

It mostly pointed at that megachurches and places with laser light shows and whatnot were

drawing them away and was condemning the sin and ungodliness of these places. While I

agree, this observation or argument is completely empty and misses the point. Do you think that

if people showed up to one of these churches and were met with God that they would leave to go

see laser lights, or leave to an impersonal experience? Now sure, the temptations of our flesh

want us to hear messages that say well always be happy, that we can do no wrong and that

God wants us all to be millionaires. But I think if someone really has a view of the power of God,

they will realize such things as false and have no desire to leave the God they say for empty

promises. What then, is the cause? Why are the pews emptying? Because the Church is weak.

What should be a roaring flame is naught but a candle. Where is the power of God in Church?


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Thats what people come to see, whether it is proclaimed in a fundamental or a radical way.

People want to see God show up in their lives. When instead they are met with a powerless

religion, they will walk away. Again referencing the flip side--when we edify only ourselves with

these promises of power without doing it in a way God is interested in, we also create a

powerless religion. If God is not for us, anyone can oppose us and probably do moderately well.

It reminds me of a quote by Thomas Erskine: Those who make religion their god will not haveGod for their religion. While I think it is easier for a Cessationist to fall into this particular trap,

they are certainly not alone in it. The Church as a whole is anemic--but that is a different writing.

Did you know, coming out of New York and spreading across the country is a church that is

calling itself The Atheist Church but admittedly has spiritual goals--of course they do, because

as Ive already asserted things do not just happen. It was uncovered by an internal debate by the

Atheist Churchs council that this was actually a universalist spiritualism. They hold the same

form as a church service, but they promote godlessness. A realAtheist Church then started in

New York, to take off across the country to again mimic a church service but just to promote

living life to the fullest. Why is this church taking off? Because there is no power to challenge it.Even though this is true across the Church, with a Cessationist theology what power can we

cling to that will halt the march of evil in its tracks? People who denounce the Bible as myth and

fairy tales--what other resource is there to convict, convert the marchers and edify those who

oppose? The Holy Spirit. However, if we demand that He is absent and no longer reveals

anything to us or works in power, then we are without hope when the dark rises. As the dark

becomes darker, so must the light become lighter and so must we throw off theologies that limit

the power of God to address evil.

The above unintentionally provides me with a perfect segue into talking about signs for

unbelievers and gifts of power.

Let us address healing first. I would like to look at healing in a way that addresses arguments

that say they are no more healings. This did not make it into my objections, but it is an important

one to respond to for the overall message of Continuationism. One teaching of Cessation

theology is that we can see the end of spiritual gifts in Scripture. Healing is targeted as a key way

of seeing it. In Acts we see people healed and then by the time we make it to James, James is

saying that healing takes place just from elders praying. It can even go as far as to say that the

oil and laying on of hands in James is not to be taken literally. Is it so bad to anoint someone and

then to touch them? I do not see the issue here, other than more fear of spiritual hocus pocus.

However, on the track of the Scripture showing the loss of the gifts in this way, this simply does

not hold water. James may be after Acts in the Bible, but it is not after Acts in writing.

James is written to the twelve tribes of Israel, as we see in its introduction and we can surmise

that it is written while they were scattered around. Most scholars place this books completion

between 42 AD and 60 AD, while many believe it had to be before 50 AD or so as that is when

the Jerusalem Council came about. So why does that matter? Because Acts was written from

62 AD to 70 AD, and the events of James could land somewhere around Acts 11. All this to say,


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that does not provide any sufficient proof whatsoever that the gifts declined over time between

the two books, because there is no between the two books--it only shows that Luke and James

had different objectives in their writings. James is far more practical and more concerned about

Christian duty.

So, now that we have overcome a language and historical barrier to believing in healing, lets lookat another. Paul prayed for the healing of a few people toward the end of Acts, and the healing

did not happen. Thus, the ability of healing had left from man. I have a strong suspicion that this

argument was formed from inductive reasoning, as in already with the idea that healing was

gone--now how can we prove it? Rather than deductive reasoning and Biblical evidence,

because that is extremely poor evidence.

Romans 9:15 shows us that God will have mercy on whom He will have mercy and compassion

on whom He will have compassion. While this verse gets used for a great many things, I believe

the one absolute we can draw from it is Gods sovereignty. We can argue against this--and

people often do. Paul addresses this in Romans 9:19-20, to say who are you to talk back toGod?--again showing that God is sovereign. While we may not like His decisions and what He

allows to happen, the fact that He neglected to do something is not conclusive evidence that

thing that is no longer done.

Now, venturing into semantics again--I believe we have at least established that God has not

necessarily stopped healing people. If He had, why would we bother to pray for peoples

healings? Would that not be a pointless endeavor? So we can see with some evidence and

probably already presuppose that God does in fact heal. Why, then, are we afraid of a gift of

healing?

What is a gift of healing? I would answer that a gift of healing is a ministry gifted to a person by

God (as we have seen that all good things come from God) for the purpose of healing His

children. For what purpose? To show the love He has for His children and to also be signs to

unbelievers. When people catch wind that there are healings going on--do you not think it piques

their interest? Yet going back to seeing that faith is also a spiritual gift--if we cease it--James tells

us we must have faith to see healing and that we must be righteous. We must confess our sins

to one another and forgive one another. John 20:21-23 shows Jesus giving the disciples such

commands, as well, and then James, likely the brother of Jesus, passes this command on to us.

Is it because of a neglect of these things, then, that is built into Cessation theology, that we do

not see God work in this way? With what we have looked at so far, that would seem to make

sense and many theologians have agreed to this idea.

There is a prayer conference that takes place known as International House of Prayer (IHOP).

Here, you will find people completely devoted to Jesus and consumed in the faith that He is going

to change the world. What you will also find here, is people who have been praying 24 hours a

day, 7 days a week, for the last 10 years. Finally, what you will find here is people being healed.

Eye witness accounts of thousands of people come back and say that Jesus is healing people in


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radical ways. Do the reports coming out of such a consecrated place give weight to the thought

that our own unbelief grieves the Spirit in a way that He will not work His power freely? I do not

think we will always see healing when we ask for it. But I do think God is wanting to give us more

than we will allow him to give us.

We will find, though, that healing is allowed more liberally than the next gift we are going to talkabout. Again I link this to the desire for us to understand and that if we cannot understand

something then our pride will not allow it to be true. We limit God in this fashion. But as long as

we can find a new way of looking at the same thing (which happens with

healing--fundamentalists believe that God heals people, but by prayer, not by the gift of healing),

we will do so, to avoid spiritual disruption of our lives.

Can you see holding the belief that the Spirit no longer moves in power also creating a lifestyle

that does not allow the Holy Spirit to disrupt it? Which means we just participate in more of our

own systems, and ignore the promptings of God.

So now let us move into the most controversial of gifts--tongues and the interpretation of

tongues. I recently had a conversation about tongues with a small group of people. It ended in

this group of people denouncing tongues as no longer present and saying that clucking like

chickens made no sense or had no purpose for God. Being that I find no need to beat a dead

horse, I could see that trying to prove a case of tongues in that setting would have no benefit or

fruit, so I just left it alone.

However, I will address those statements here. One, it is obvious that anyone who would say the

above has never experienced tongues. While I have heard tongues, and there are in fact

sometimes clucks or clicks--there are clucks or clicks in real languages, as well. Are theselanguages then fake means of communication? I bet the people who use them would say no.

To explain the other point, the belief here that tongues had ended were because they are real

languages that were used to communicate to a variety of people and to be a sign to Jews.

People were given interpretation to understand these signs and then tongues vanished.

However, this view of tongues does come from Isaiah in a prophecy, but it is not the complete

Biblical description of tongues, so to have our logical and Biblical ground and consequent, we

must look further.

Paul gives us instruction in 1 Cortinthians 12, 13 and 14 about tongues. So let us exercise logic

a bit here. The Bible is meant to be instruction for everyone, past and present, so why dedicated

so much language to something that is just going to be gone? A stronger argument still, is that

the people Paul was advising on tongues were Corinthians--which means two things. One, that

yes, tongues did happen, and possibly persist, apart from the few times mentioned in Acts and

two, Im fairly certain these people could all understand each other. So then why speak in

tongues? As stated earlier, gifts are for the edification of the body, tongues are no different as

Paul shows us in 1 Corinthians 14. They can also be used in prayer, it looks like. While I may not


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be able to understand the full reason of tongues, which probably therein again lies the

Cessationist dismissal of it, I can certainly give the Biblical grounds that it is not as boxed in as

this theology would have you believe.

I am fine with tongues being real languages, I do not see that that disproves anything. Then to

say that when tongues are heard it is not a real language--thus real tongues have ceased. Lasttime I researched it, which was just now, there were somewhere around 7,000 languages in the

world. If someone is fluent in all of these and would like to verify that the tongues that are spoken

are not one of them, then feel free. But until that occurs that assertion holds little merit.

Next we see the possibility that tongues are in fact an angelic language sometimes. If we believe

in angels, then this should be a real enough language to us. The Bible supports the existence of

angels without much question. Angels can also apparently either speak the tongues of men, gift

the people they are talking to with interpretation of the angelic tongue or communicate

telepathically somehow because we see them speak to people several times throughout the

Bible. So, it seems feasible enough that this gift has either been going around for a lot longerthan the New Testament would even show us or that angelic languages are real. Or still the

possibility that they just do some sort of telepathy which I am also fine with, because I do not

know how angels communicate.

The assertion that Paul saying men and angels is purely hypothetical and thus tongues cannot

be an angelic language at any point in time I find no Biblical or logical ground for. Thus, I think we

can safely dismiss that and just read the Bible as it is there. If the Bible, after all, is our only

method of seeing God and understanding His power and will then we should treat it with more

respect than to just remove or ignore parts we do not understand. This would reach again into

the fallacy of limiting the Christian God, I am who I am, to our own understanding. He isobviously beyond our understanding, or he would have given Moses a more sufficient

explanation, most likely.

Finally with this, I would like to point out the sometimes-circulated belief that God COULD use

tongues if he wanted to, but he does not. Although it might be acceptable if it was a group that

was witnessing to a group of people who had never heard of God or Jesus. To say this just

completely defeats the whole stance, in my opinion. To this I would say, you cant have it both

ways. And thus I feel we make a fairly solid case that tongues are at least possible and have not

necessarily completely ceased, other than fabricated doctrine saying so.

Still, I have not covered my main issue with Cessation theology. I will now do so.


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The Cardinal Difficulty of Cessation Theology

I stole The Cardinal Difficulty from a C.S. Lewis work, because he is such an awesome writer.

Cardinal is much more beautiful of a word than main or some such.

In the writing so far, I have given a description of the gifts along with cases that I find for them to

still be in operation and primarily a sound position through Biblical teaching and prophecy as well

as that of our own, modern experiences to say that God is still working in revelation and still

dwells among His people. However, following is what I believe to be the complete dispelling of

Cessation theology, in several points.

While there are several strong Bible-logic issues with Cessation that I will cover following this,

the main issue with Cessation is such: In Cessation theology, it is claimed that the spiritual gifts

have ceased, in some cases that miracles have ceased and in following that any use of spiritual

gifts is not a genuine use, thus not of God, thus worldly and even labeled as demonic. This is anextremely dangerous doctrine that I believe is literally killing the Church. Allow me to show you

why.

We do need to be careful in the charismatic stream and participate as a body, holding one

another accountable and seeing that the whole body is hearing the same revelation as an

individual. In this, we avoid gnosticism and false teachings. 1 John gives us instruction on how to

test the spirits, when were hearing teaching and the like in chapter four. What it says is this:

Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for

many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit

that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that doesnot confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was

coming and now is in the world already. Little children, you are from God and have overcome

them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. They are from the world

therefore they speak from the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God. Whoever

knows God listens to us whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the

Spirit of truth and the spirit of error.

By what things confess, our own discernment and lining messages up with the Bible, we know

the Spirit of Truth and the Spirit of Error. Now, in the confession is the following: whoever

confesses Jesus came in the Flesh, that Jesus is savior, that Jesus is Risen, the Gospel, etc, isfrom God and whoever says to the contrary is from the world, Satan, demonic.

When you have perhaps seen the gifts exercised, what has been proclaimed? When I have seen

them used, largely Jesus message of salvation, His love for His children, is preached via the

gifts. Prophecies center around living through Christs sufferings. Prophecies proclaim the

Gospel. Interpreted tongues send a message of love and hope consistent with the Gospel.


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The danger of living in the Spirit is real. We can hear things that are not from God, because

spirits besides God are active. This, as it 1 John says, is the spirit of the antichrist which is in the

world already, as I noted before. 1 Peter 5:8 warns us of this danger: Be of sober spirit, be on

the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to

devour. Surely the spirit of the antichrist wants to mimic God, and thus mimic the gifts of

God--this is a real thing. So we discern with the gift of discernment, the Bible, and what theyprofess. The fact that the devil prowls likea roaring lion, I believe, can give us testimony to the

fact he will imitate God, in addition to the warnings from Jude and other prophets, that tell us not

to believe people when they call themselves the Christ. From these scriptures we can see that

people who come in power like this will not be able to profess Jesus.

So then, I wrap back around to say, if the use of the spiritual gifts we see in healings, tongues,

prophecy and the like isprofessing Jesus, how then, while remaining in agreeance with the

Word, do we say that it has ceased and these things are not from God? I do not think we can.

Even more, in Marks 3 and Matthew 12, along the lines of what Cessation advocates and theabove, we see this warning: Therefore I say to you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven

men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven men. Anyone who speaks a word

against the Son of Man, it will be forgiven him but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it will

not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come. Here I think we can extract that its

dangerous business to call something that matches the description in 1 John demonic

because we are now in the era of the Holy Spirit--the Helper was sent to us. If we call the works

of the Holy Spirit demonic, where does that put us?

I am not an advocate of damnation, but I do believe in the he who has ears let him hear, being

valuable for seeing dangerous areas of theology. Hear what Scripture says, and look at whatCessation theology says. Which one was divinely inspired? There is a very grave danger to

Cessation. This is one reason why I feel like Cessation theology has played a part in killing the

Church.

Beyond this, into logic of the Bible now--how, in addition to the above, can we say that spiritual

gifts are of the world, or Satan? For these gifts oppose the worlds message and Jesus clearly

points out to the Pharisees, who hold a view much similar to what I am refuting in this writing,

that it does not make sense for Satan to drive away Satan, or for Satan to fight Satan because a

house divided against itself cannot stand (this also is in Matthew 12).

And so my plea is made to leave behind doubt in the Spirit and take up faith--our spiritual gift

from God. Arm yourselves with the Spirit in the Armor of God. It is only in this way that we can

have a renewed church of power to stand against the darkness sweeping the world. Put aside

the division that this man-made doctrine has caused and take part in the ontological reality that

the Gospel and Paul preach to us: that when we accept Christ, Christ dwells in us and we dwell

in Christ. We become one being, the Body of Christ. There is an actual change of being that

happens to us, when we take off the old man and put on the new. We become part of Christ,


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this is consistent with all passages in the Gospels, Romans and otherwise and in so doing we

become co-heirs with him. We also join one another, with Christ in us and so we are to

participate in unity and respect with one another, out of reverence for Christ in one another and

so that we do not grieve the Spirit by dividing Christ.


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Responses to Objections

I will now directly respond to the specific objections. While all of it I believe is covered in my

writing, it might be beneficial to some to have the concise reference here.

1. In Corinthians 13, we do see Paul mention a time where the gifts cease. For those that

believe the perfect is the Bible--the Bible was inspired and written through use of

spiritual gifts. If then, the spiritual gifts are the imperfect, why is something perfect

created from imperfection? It is also important to realize if you translate this Word that

Jesus IS the Word, logos. We see this in John and Genesis clearly. What is more, this

prophetic bit of language says we will see face to face, where we now only have

shadows when the perfect comes and then we will be complete, mature, finished,

perfect. The Bible has certainly not made us these things. In Revelation 22 we see that

after Christ has come and taken the believers away, whether you believe this happens

pre, mid, or post-tribulation, we will at that point be complete, mature, finishedandperfect. In addition we see the language here finally in Revelation that we will then see

God face to face which is the same language Paul uses here. It is with these few

reasons that I believe we can safely say that the completion of the Bible did notresult in

cessation of spiritual gifts or revelation to man.

2. We see quite simply in Acts that the spiritual gifts were held by people other than the

Twelve who were not Apostles. This assertion holds no Scriptural basis.

3. The spiritual gifts were for Gods revelation, as it is how the Scriptures were written.

However, the gifts are also much more than that, as we have explored in the writing. As

long as the Church is active, so must the gifts be for the hearing of God in specifics as

the Bibles prophecies unfold and for the bodys edification.4. We see examples of tongues being used where this is not the case. While I think a sign

to the Jews was probably the big use of tongues where God gave it its real power, we do

see tongues used elsewhere as described in the writing and amongst people who all

speak the same language. Paul does tell the Corinthians to not be consumed by tongues,

as they are the least of all gifts, but to aspire to prophesy. We can draw from this that

tongues are still active among us, but their main purpose may have been served. This

does not mean that they are useless or gone, however. I myself believe that just as the

Scriptures can communicate the manifold(multi-layered) wisdom of God to us through

our faithful living of it (not just our reading) that tongues can also communicate a

multi-layered message to a body, as interpretations always have the same message, butcommunicate different intricacies. That specifically, however, is my own speculation out

of my experience with interpreting the gift, and I do not have any Biblical ground for it.

5. I think if we are honest with ourselves as I challenged above, we can most certainly see

that God reveals things to his people. In addition, if my cardinal difficulty of Cessation

holds true, God definitely still reveals things to his body. I think an important distinction for

our society and Church today would be to recognize to his body rather than to me, as I

think our unity is a requirement. To answer the question directly, those passages do say


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those things, yet, if someone provides you with a personal revelation or a direction for the

Church to go that matches with 1 John, discernment and the overarching prophecy of the

Bible, I do not believe that to be adding or taking away from any book. That is merely us

participating in wherever we currently are in Scripture. Do you not think that people heard

God that is not recorded in Scripture and communicated this to their bodies? Look at the

early church, which was gifted with the Spirit by anyones theology--and yet we do notsee all of their revelation for day-to-day or yearly activity recorded in Scripture. Why are

we held to a different standard of not being able to speak Gods words?

Documents

A Case for Continuation