Is “Hyper-Cessationism” a Thing?

All right, so what's been going on with Ryan Denton and this whole discussion of hyper -cessationism versus historical cessationism, so -called, and what has been your observations of this conversation, especially from guys like Ryan Denton, who has really been pushing this on Facebook and Twitter, writing articles and making various posts about the dangers of hyper -cessationism, which he seems to be identifying in the

G3 camp and places like that. What's your take on it? If what he means by that is that a hyper -cessationist believes that God doesn't do miracles today at all,

I mean, that's what I would think a hyper -cessationist is. I mean, if you take the prefix hyper, it would mean to a greater extent than other cessationists.

What he seems to be doing is saying that modern cessationism is hyper -cessationism.

I think that he's said something to that effect. Yeah, we have developed a cessationism that is different from the cessationism of the

Westminster divines, I think is largely where the thrust of his argument is coming from.

Yeah, I don't know. Are there those who have different flavors of a particular doctrine?

Yes, one could make the argument that Calvinism is different than the Calvinism of Calvin, that modern

Calvinism, that Calvin himself might not agree with every single fine point of every modern

Calvinist. I would submit that's probably true, just like I don't agree with everything that anyone says except for the

Bible and the inspired authors. Well, I might have found something that's going to shed light on how he would define hyper -cessationism.

He says that Josh Bice and him are getting to the heart of their disagreement on this certain post.

Bice, so G3, seems to think the reformed position could use some improvement in this area.

Let's call it some tightening up, and I do not, he says. Thus, you get two categories of cessationism.

He says the tightened, more restricted version of cessationism as popularized by G3 slash

MacArthurites merits the term hyper. You can disagree, but you would still need another term to distinguish.

And here is what Josh Bice says, which Ryan says is that more constricted, narrower category.

He says, first, I think that many of the historic reformers were mistaken on many things. In some cases, these brilliant soldiers of Christ came out of Rome, but not all of Rome came out of them.

They had blind spots and errors. Sure. If we are going to compare positions from history,

I'd suggest we pull from the wide array of quotes and figures available. Finally, the prophecy healing miracles and tongues as gifts given to the church, miraculous gifts and revelatory gifts as practiced today simply do not pass the test when compared to the biblical category.

First revelation. Why would we need any new revelation when we have a completed canon?

Furthermore, if such prophecy exists today, we must not allow for the Grudem definition of fallible and non -authoritative or lesser authoritative prophecy.

There was no such category in the Bible. It was prophecy or false prophecy, period. And then finally, he says, secondly, on tongues, the biblical example consists of known dialects and languages rather than gibberish.

And so Ryan seems to be calling this meriting the term hyper cessationism.

I see. Okay, so I am actually getting a little bit more understanding.

Thank you for sharing that. I had read some things that he had written. I'll say he goes a step further, though, because on the cessationist movie

Facebook page that he commented on yesterday, day before yesterday, he calls so -called hyper cessationists quasi deists.

Okay. Yeah, I don't know. I take issue with the new fad among continuationists to call cessationists deists.

Yeah, it's, I mean, it's definitely fighting words because I know, look it,

I'm not the defender of Josh Bice and I'm not the defender of Scott Aniel.

Those men can answer for themselves. And I will also say that I don't know that every person that was in the cessationist movie would wholeheartedly agree with every syllable of Josh's statement that he made there.

And here's the reason why I say that. Here's why

I say that. And again, it's not even talking about Josh Bice or G3 or any of that.

Just when it comes to the use of a term like hyper cessationist, the use in the way that Ryan Denton seems to be using this term by equating it with what he also calls quasi deism seems to indicate from his own computer typing fingers that he believes that the men whom he is talking about, though he kind of refuses,

I don't know if he has said directly that G3 guys are hyper cessationists.

I have not heard him or seen him actually name a name of a person who he would call quasi deist.

I want. Yeah, I mean, I think the closest he's come is like retweeting

Scott and saying that this is functional or quasi deism. Man, that's it's dangerous to to go that far,

I think, because I think all of us would agree that deism is actual heresy.

And yeah, yeah. So so you're saying it's. Yeah, I mean, there's more to deism than not believing that God works supernaturally in the world today.

And so if you are a cessationist and we agree that cessationism exists on a spectrum, right, not every cessationist agrees with every other cessationist about about everything pertaining to the doctrine.

And so are there hyper cessationists out there that don't believe God works supernaturally in the world or intervenes in any way in this world system today?

Maybe, but but I've never met them. And the G3 guys certainly aren't that cessationist.

Yeah, a a cessationist may have a far more robust pneumatology than a continuationist whose doctrine of the

Holy Spirit goes no farther than the practice of spiritual gifts of tongues and prophecy and words of knowledge like that.

But at the same time, a cessationist may have a far far inferior pneumatology to a continuationist if his if his pneumatology is all bound up in his doctrine of cessationism, that all he knows about the

Holy Spirit is what is the gifts that the Holy Spirit is has stopped giving to two churches.

So here's the this is the crux of the matter that I don't know how many are actually talking about this.

I think Ryan might have mentioned this at some point or or just mentioned the

Westminster divines that that their view of cessationism was different than what so -called modern cessationism has become.

Okay, okay. I don't know that that's necessarily true, actually. What I actually believe is that that there are nuances within the doctrine of cessationism that aren't really talked about or covered very much that we did not even cover in the film that I really wanted to cover in the film.

But there's only so much we can do in a hour and a half movie that's made for people to sit and watch, you know.

So the thing that I'm specifically referring to is George Gillespie and Samuel Rutherford, and we did not talk about them in the cessationist movie.

I had long talks with Les and Tim about this, about those particular men, and my thought was we have to address it or we should address it.

We should address certain statements that those guys made that seemed to indicate that the

Lord, that they believed that the Lord actually appointed real prophets in their day who spoke things that actually came to pass, and that they believed even being cessationists and having had hands in writing the

Westminster Confession of Faith, that they also held, even though, what is it, the first paragraph or whatever of the confession talks about the fact that God doesn't speak in the way that he used to speak anymore.

Like it even specifically says that these men were - It says his former ways of speaking have now ceased.

They've ceased. 1689 says that. The Westminster Confession says that too.

Yet, nevertheless - So to be confessional is to be a cessationist, at least to some degree.

In that regard, for sure. But there is this question mark. The question mark is, what does that mean then when there's like some accounts from Puritans from like early 17th century

Puritans that seem to say that some of them anyway believed that there were actually people whom

God gave some kind of revelation to, and that they even foretold the future and the thing that they foretold in the future actually came to pass.

And that that was in accordance with their cessationism as well.

And I think if I'm going to give Ryan Denton the benefit of the doubt, even though I very strongly disagree with his sort of bombastic accusations that he seems to throw at will at whoever he wants and calling them hyper cessationists and quasi deists, though I disagree with that use of him doing that.

Yet, I'm willing to concede that, hey, that's something to wrestle with.

I think that we should. And I think that I have an answer for it. I think that I do.

I wasn't able to share it in the film, but I can share it right now. Okay.

Yeah, I'd like to hear that. And let me just preface that with his appeal to Westminster divines and their testimony.

It doesn't take much effort to find other Westminster divines who articulated what would sound like Ryan's modern category of cessationism.

We've got Edward Reynolds, Westminster divine. He wrote, though there be no prophetical or extraordinary revelations by dreams, visions, ecstasies, or enthusiasms, yet according to the measure of spiritual perspicacy.

No, it's an older form of the word. I can't say it. Perspicacy. Okay.

Perspicacity. No, I don't know. Maybe it's a typo. The diligent observation of the holy scriptures, there are still manifold revelations or manifestations of Christ unto the soul.

The secret and intimate acquaintance of the soul with God are pure, heavenly, and constant. That's immediate revelations out of the word manifested to souls of the faithful by the spirit.

So he is affirming immediate revelation through the word, but he is denying that immediate revelation.

Ah, so this is where we get to, I think, the very crux of the matter.

Okay. This, what you just said is the crux of the matter, and I had, because I was really grappling with these things, and especially like, well, what do we do?

One option is to actually say this. Hey, guess what?

You know, certain Puritans can actually be wrong about stuff. I mean, like I know within the reformed world, that's like kind of taboo to say that, but you know, they're just humans, and they're sinners like you and I, and even though I greatly respect them, their intellect is far more wonderful and better than mine, and they have

Bible knowledge better than mine, and all of that. Yet, nevertheless, they can still be wrong about something. That's one thing we could say.

Another thing we could say is that sometimes the language that was used 400 years ago actually goes through changes, and the same word that might be used at that time that's used today has actually slightly different meaning between 400 years ago and modern

English, and that sometimes things that the Puritan divines wrote, you know, mean actually something else.

How about this today? How about this? William Perkins wrote a book called

The Art of Prophesying. So like, what is he talking about, William Perkins?

Are you saying I can be Moses? Like, no, no, that's a, it's a book about preaching that he wrote.

So he's equating prophesying, the forth telling of the word with that word, prophesy, okay?

So words can go through variations in tone and meaning, and then there might be a third possibility, and it's this, that, you know, what did those

Westminster divines actually mean when they said the things that they were saying?

And as I was wrestling with this, I called up my buddy, Jim Osmond. Now, I know

Jim is, he's just such a lovely guy, just a really great minister and faithful preacher and always right on top of his game, and when

I was talking with him about this very thing, I said, I said, if we were going to do a narration, because I was the narrator of the movie, how do you think we could narrate this, right?

This idea that we're talking about right now with like the Puritans thinking this about the, at least some of the

Puritans believing that there were people with extraordinary ability in their time that God gave to them.

And he sent me something that was not in the film, but I'm going to read it for you right now. Okay. This is

Jim Osmond. God's people in all ages have experienced incidences of extraordinary providence.

Even some within Reformed and cessationist circles have had intense experiences of unusual insights, premonitions, and uncanny coincidences.

Cessationists do not believe that God has ceased working altogether. Cessationist theology leaves room for God's extraordinary providences, his sovereign guidance, and his supernatural involvement in the lives of his people.

But we must distinguish between these unusual providences and the miraculous spiritual gifts described in the

New Testament. Given that the Holy Spirit dwells within us, that God is providentially guiding our steps according to his sovereign will, and directing our steps for our good and his glory, we should expect to see his hand in unmistakable and sovereign ways at various times.

Though this may not be the norm, cessationist theology does not rule it out. Going back to what you said about language and words taking on different meanings as time develops, is there anything to be said about a simple confusion of language at times when we're talking about the continuation or the cessation of spiritual gifts?

It seems that someone could say, you know,

I had this prophetic impulse, and God gave me the gift of faith to follow through with that prophetic impulse that he gave me in that moment, and so the

Lord was just speaking to me and confirming that and things like that. Someone could use all of those terms, you know, gift of faith and prophetic and things like that, but is it possible that another person who doesn't carry around all of the charismatic jargon and nomenclature say, yeah,

I was in a situation and the Lord granted me some wisdom. I looked at the

Word and I used biblical wisdom, simple use of biblical wisdom in this situation, and it worked out, you know.

So there's the simple use of biblical wisdom, and then there's, you know, the prophetic impulse, the manifestation, the excitement.

Over in our camp over here, we know Ryan, and we love Ryan, and we've even published a book of his.

I'm looking at it right now, The Reformed Evangelist, I believe. And so he's, I mean, he's a good brother, and he's a faithful brother.

I have all the respect in the world for him and in the evangelistic work he does and the church planning work and training of ministers, but like you,

I take significant issue with the charge of deism. As I said before, there's more to deism than anti -supernaturalism.

Deism does not worship Yahweh. Deism, they do not believe that special revelation is necessary to know the

Supreme Being. Deists believe that such knowledge is available through reason alone, without divine intervention of any kind.

Deists deny the supernatural work of God among creation. Deist's hope lies ultimately in the morality of man rather than in the blood of a

Savior. And so there's a lot more to deism than just anti -supernaturalism, and I don't know any cessationists who are functional deists.

I think that charge is ridiculous at best and slanderous at worse, and well, the effect of it is that Ryan's a voice.

He's got a platform, and a bunch of other continuationists are picking up that term now and just using it in comment sections.

I see it almost every day now, just charging their cessationist brothers with deism, and I think that's just really irresponsible and divisive because we are not deists.

Deism is heresy. Deists are hellbound, and so to say that you're functionally hellbound in a sense is ridiculous.

I was at the cessationist conference actually, and again, like you,

I'm not here to defend Scott or Josh or G3 or the cessationist conference, but who was it?

Mike Riccardi, I think. He gave a sermon on the continuing work of the

Holy Spirit in the world and in the Christian life today, and it was remarkable because it was all truth straight from the

Word about what the Holy Spirit is continuing to do. So I have a list here of nine, which is not exhaustive, obviously, nine ministries of the

Holy Spirit ongoing today. One, the Holy Spirit executes all divine operations.

Two, He baptizes us into union with Christ and His church. Three, He empowers us to serve the body.

He gives us gifts to this end. Four, He opens our eyes to behold the loveliness of Christ.

Five, He illumines our minds to understand the Scriptures. Six, He leads us in the path of holiness.

Seven, He testifies to the truth of our adoption. Eight, He intercedes for us, helping us in our weakness.

And then nine, He ensures our glorification. So the