Monday, March 03, 2008

One More Before We Get Back to Timothy

Here is an excellent article by Richard Gaffin, Professor of Systematic Theology at Westminster Seminary, Philadelphia that appeared in Modern Reformation magazine. I am an unabashed Cessationist and found this article in this weeks White Horse Inn e-mail quite good.

Defense of Cessationism

by Richard Gaffin


"Cessationism is a term that carries a lot of baggage. By itself it's negative, suggesting what no longer exists or, in current debate about the gifts of the Holy Spirit, what one is against. So at the outset, certain misconceptions about the "cessationist" viewpoint need to be addressed.

It's not that today God's Spirit is no longer at work in dynamic and dramatic ways. What, for instance, could be more powerful and impressive, even miraculous, than the 180-degree reversal in walk that occurs when the Spirit transforms those dead in their sins into those alive for good works? This, Paul says, involves nothing less than a work of resurrection, of (re-) creation (Eph. 2:1-10). Awesome indeed!

Nor is the point that all spiritual gifts have ceased and are no longer present in the Church today. As will become clear, at issue is the cessation of a limited number of such gifts; the continuation of the large remainder is not in dispute..."

Read the rest on the Modern Reformation website.

4 comments:

ChipB said...

How do we distinguish which "spiritual gifts" have ceased and which continue? In other words, how do we decide that tongues and prophecy have ceased but not the rest of the list that forms the context where Paul mentions tongues and prophecy.

1 Cor. 12 is a list of "spiritual gifts," and includes 1)utterance of wisdom; 2)utterance of knowledge; 3)faith; 4)gifts of healing; 5)working of miracles; 6)prophecy; 7)ability to distinguish between spirits; 7)various kinds of tongues; 8)interpretation of tongues.

With this in mind, though, I am quite skeptical of tongues and prophecy today. All spiritual gifts are for the building up of the church (1 Cor. 12:7 - To each is given the manifestaion of the Spirit for the common good) and I see the concept of tongues used in charismatic churches to divide the Body of Christ. And of course Paul has warned us not to desire these "lower gifts."

So to sum up, I can confidently and emphatically say, "I don't know."

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the article!

Benjamin P. Glaser said...

No problem Josh. Thanks for coming by...

Anonymous said...

I agree with the article. How could I disagree with MR? Unthinkable!

But I still love our charismatic and Reformed brothers and sisters! (Are you listening, Deutero Q?)