TiL- A Defense of Cessationism part 1

Welcome to the truth and love podcast. We are going to start a new series, a defense of cessationism, and this is part one.

Stick with us. We are going to start a new series, a defense of cessationism, and this is part one.

Stick with us. What's up Dan, how are you doing? I'm doing great.

I didn't realize we were on iTunes, you should go ahead and check us out. Oh yeah, fantastic.

We definitely are on iTunes now. The audio podcast part of it,

I'm not doing as well keeping up with that. Big John has helped me put some of our episodes on the

Spotify, the iTunes, and some of the Google podcasts. And so there are a ton on there that have been put on there for months and months past and we just got to do a better job of keeping up with it.

But yeah, definitely check it out on the iTunes, on the Google podcast, on the Spotify, because we are there.

Thank you for bringing that up. Yeah, apparently we're not on the Apple podcast catcher, but there is like nine other

Truth and Love podcasts on there, so often imitated, never duplicated us over here.

I've never heard of the iTunes or Apple podcast catcher. Yeah, it's for, it comes on iPhones and stuff like that.

That's probably why I've not heard of it. I have an Android. Well, we are going to talk about cessationism.

It's been an issue in our circles that we've been talking about. There's also a documentary that has come out, coming out soon, and it's going to be interesting to watch if you can ever catch it.

I don't know what format it's going to come out in, but there's a cessationist documentary that is coming out.

And so we are going to, because in the other podcasts that we do, that format was not very, what's the word

I'm looking for? It didn't give us an opportunity to really defend our position, bring out all the different things that we want to talk about.

Was not conducive to a full discussion. Conducive, conducive, exactly. And so Dan and I decided that we wanted to be able to defend cessationism from our perspective, our opinions, the best that we have been able to understand and interpret scripture at our own pace.

So we hope you enjoy it. We know that, slow, we're going to take it slow. We know that there's going to be some that disagree, that are going to have critique, and we're open to hearing that.

If you have any verses or questions, if you're on the fence, let us know what verses you want us to look at.

Let us know what questions you have about cessationism, and we'll try to answer those questions as we go through this series.

One of the things that's been coming up in conversation amongst our group is that this is a secondary issue.

This is not a salvific issue. You don't have to believe in continuation or cessation to be saved.

It's not going to hinder your salvation. So we would consider...

Go ahead. That might be agreed upon in our bunch, the Truth and Love Network.

It's not necessarily the case everywhere though. Some folks will actually say that if you...

It's less common. But if you believe in the gifts continuing, then you've given up on historic

Christianity, and some will say that if you don't speak in tongues, you don't actually have the

Holy Spirit and you're not saved. But like you said, that's not our group. But just so people know that it's out there, we're going to bring it up.

You're exactly right. And so that's where we stand, the aforementioned position.

And so we want to speak with love. We want to speak with gentleness and kindness.

We want to speak the truth as we feel like we know it and based on our convictions.

So we want to stand firm on that, but do that with love and get along well in a gospel sense, in the unity of Christ with everyone who may believe differently than we do.

But we do want to give a defense of our position, and we feel like we are well within our rights or for lack of a better word, to do that.

We've got the platform. We've got the platform. So we're going to stand on it. We're going to stand on it.

So let's jump in here. The place that we decided to start was First Corinthians. I mean, that's going to be your go -to place for gifts.

It's where they're mentioned the most. They're not mentioned much after that in Scripture.

This is pretty much where you go. And we're going to go through those three chapters, 12, 13, and 14.

We'll do it slow. But before we get there, Dan, I wanted to share with you several verses from chapter 1, chapter 2, and chapter 3, throw them at you, because you've got to look at the book in its context.

You've got to see what Paul's talking about. You've got to see him laying the foundation for the book, for his thoughts, for his ideas, where he's going with things.

And so with that being said, I want to look at these verses and show them to you, read them with you, and talk about them before we get into chapter 12.

So in chapter 1, starting in verse 7, he says, "...so

that you are not lacking in any gift," and that's going to be brought up in chapter 12, 13, and 14, "...so

that you're not lacking in any gift, awaiting eagerly the revelation of our

Lord Jesus Christ." And so that's going to be a continuous.

I've heard, I've listened to some continuationists, and some of them, this is one of their go -to verses for continuationism, that we are, the gifts are going to continue all the way until the end of time, when

Jesus comes back, we're in glory, because it says, "...you're not lacking in any gift, awaiting eagerly the revelation of our

Lord Jesus Christ." But then look at verse 8, "...who will also confirm you," or establish you, "...to

the end, blameless, in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ." Is that two separate times?

You've got the, they're eagerly awaiting the revelation of Jesus Christ, and then he's going to establish you, confirm you, to the end, blameless, in the day of our

Lord Jesus Christ. First, I think we should back up in verse 7, and look at that word, you.

Right. The word you there is plural. Right. So when he's saying, so that you are not lacking in any gift, what he's saying is, so that the church is not lacking in any gift, eagerly, lacking in any gift, eagerly awaiting the revelation of our

Lord Jesus Christ. What he's trying to say is, what I'm saying to you now, is to have

Christ confirmed in you, so that way you're not lacking anything as a church. So that way, what you're doing is you're waiting on him, about his coming, his revealing of himself, of the

Lord Jesus Christ, "...who will also confirm you to the end, beyond reproach, in the day of our

Lord Jesus Christ." Now the day of our Lord Jesus Christ could be a couple different things. It could be the event surrounding 70

AD. I also believe that it can refer to the end of time where Christ comes in his final judgment as well.

Now here's the thing. They may have been alive for, or they may be around for both.

We don't know. Now here's the thing. They're in Corinth, right?

Not Jerusalem. They're largely Gentile, though I'm sure there's some Jews mixed in with them.

So I would say this is probably pointing to, look at the events that you are hearing are going to happen in Jerusalem, but also remember that these things are pointing to the end where you will finally be judged by Christ.

So I think really he's talking about the end of the world, but there was such a buzz about what was going to be happening that really they would have been awaiting both.

They would have been awaiting both. Well, you and I were talking earlier about how there's Paul in Corinthians, just as in all his other books, he's using that language of this temporal language.

It's passing away. It's ending. It's coming soon. And you have Luke. We talk a lot about Matthew, who tells them to,

Jesus tells them to flee Jerusalem, but Luke tells them, those who are outside, not to come in.

So, I mean, that would be a warning, sending out books to churches outside of Jerusalem, don't come in when you see the day approach.

Right, and one of the things that we know is that, one of the things that Paul does in the

Corinthian church is he writes another letter to them. Excuse me, the second one.

And he is telling them to take up a collection that's going to go to Jerusalem. So it would be important to know, hey, we've got this collection.

Now there's an army surrounding Jerusalem. We're going to hold off on actually taking it there, or there's no army, we'll be fine to go.

Right, right. So either way, at least that second part is speaking of possibly the consummation of all things.

Possibly. Well, I really think it's talking about the consummation largely, mainly because he's starting off at the beginning of a book.

He's giving them big -picture stuff, grace to you, peace from God our Father and Lord Jesus Christ, thank my

God concerning you about the grace that was given you in Christ Jesus, that you were built up in word and in knowledge.

So they were knowing Christ and they were knowing his salvation. Right. That close to the beginning of a book, I don't think he's going to take a hard left into soon -to -happen prophecy.

He's going to keep in that vein of thought of, this is your salvation, this is your final hope, you're awaiting the coming of the

Lord to resurrect your bodies as well as your souls to everlasting life. Yeah.

But verse 7, also more than likely speaking of the 70

AD revelation. It's possible. Because we've got the book of revelation, the revelation of Jesus Christ.

And so we've got that theme in scripture. Yeah. Even in revelation, you come to the last couple chapters and it's talking about the church coming upon the world and Christ ruling and reigning and it's good stuff.

Right. All right, so my next few verses are in verse 18.

For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved is the power.

And continuationists like to use that word or refer back to that word dunamis.

It is the power. So what is the power? I underline that and took note of that.

It's the word of the cross. That's foolishness. It's the power of God. Yep.

How interesting is that? I also just preached this last week from 2 Peter 1.

It says that God has given us all things, the power to receive all things pertaining to life and godliness.

Yeah. That power comes to the knowledge of Jesus Christ. Right. It comes to knowing him as a person, knowing him as Savior, Lord.

So the word of the cross is the word of Christ dying on the cross for the sins of men, raising up for their justification, for their, yeah,

I mean, it's the gospel. Right. It's the message of the cross and that is the power of God.

Well, and that's exactly where Paul goes in these other verses that I want to bring up exactly what you just said in verse 24, but to those who are the called, both

Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God, and the wisdom. So you've got this thing going on with the mind.

Paul, Jesus, God, the Spirit, they do not separate your spirit from your mind.

He's the power of God and the wisdom of God. There's not a separation here. Right.

And then in chapter 2, go ahead. That's one of the reasons why continuationists have the position that they do, because they're not entirely wrong that the power of God is manifested in other ways, you know, speaking in tongues, miracles, healing, stuff like that.

But since the power of God was, and this is a weird way to say it, in the minds of the

Jews, the power of God was transferring from the old covenant to the new covenant, from the

Mosaic law to Christ and the new covenant. Things were changing.

The light was dawning on the world. The scaffolding was being taken away from what was being built.

There was a change in how things were running. We weren't running on type and shadow.

We were running on reality. And so with that big change, the power of God, which comes to us through the word of the cross, through the preaching of the gospel for our salvation, was also demonstrated in power through healing and speaking in tongues and miracles.

Now, we think that at some point stopped.

Now it's on us to say why, which is why we're having the podcast. That's right. So they're not entirely wrong, but what it's talking about here is,

I believe, is the power is the gospel and confirmed by these other things that happened during the first century.

And even we hear rumblings of them happening, you know, places around the world from time to time, even today.

Which I guess we would need to define continuationism and cessationism at some point.

Right. Let me finish these verses and then we'll do that right before we jump into chapter 12.

Sounds good. So, again, you're leading us right into these next verses that I want to bring up, because Paul begins to talk about how the spirit does that, how the spirit uses the gospel.

So chapter two, verse eight, the wisdom, which none of the rulers of this age has understood for it.

If they had understood it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But just as is written, things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard and which have not entered the heart of man, all that God has prepared for those who love him.

For to us, God revealed them through the spirit. For the spirit searches all things, even the depths of God.

So it's the spirit who has revealed them. So what is revealed?

What? Verse eight, the wisdom, which none of the rulers of this age understood. He's revealed to us this wisdom.

Right. And what Paul says elsewhere, he says that the preaching of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing.

Which I believe was just in the last chapter. That's right. So he's saying that it's foolishness because they don't want to hear it.

It's foolishness to them, even though it's really wisdom and power. Right. Yep. And then verse 12.

Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God, which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the spirit.

Combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words. But a natural man does not accept the things of the spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them because they are spiritually appraised.

So what's the power of the spirit? What's the spirit doing?

He's given us this wisdom, and then we are speaking it. We are teaching it.

Combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words. Right. The power of God that's being mediated, that's being given to us by the spirit, is the salvation of Jesus Christ through his accomplished work on the cross.

Decreed by the father, accomplished by the son, and us led into it as a church through the work of the spirit.

That doesn't take away Christ's priesthood, where he applied the sacrifice. The whole

Godhead was involved in an intimate way in bringing salvation to mankind.

That's what's being spoken of here. And then my last few verses, 16, the end of chapter 2, and then the first three in chapter 3.

For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he will instruct him, but we have the mind of Christ.

Again, going back to the mind, knowledge, wisdom. In chapter 3, verse 1.

And our brethren could not speak to you, and so now he's addressing them again. I could not speak to you as to spiritual men.

Dan, I can't help but think, he's telling them how he's having to teach them, and that's carrying on throughout the rest of the book.

Even when we get to 12, 13, and 14, he says, I can't speak to you as spiritual men, but as to men of flesh, as to infants in Christ.

I gave you milk to drink, not solid food, for you were not yet able to receive food, for you were not yet able to receive it.

Indeed, even now you are not yet able. For you are still fleshly, for since there is jealousy and strife among you, and you are not, are you not fleshly, and are you not walking like mere men?

So yeah, I feel like he's setting them up, explaining to them, this is how

I'm having to teach you. Right, because he says, you've got the gospel, but that's about it. Yeah.

We're going to have to make some major course corrections here. Right, so when we get to 12, and 13, and 14,

Dan, should we be looking at this as Paul teaching a seminary course?

Oh no, even in the first few verses, he tells them exactly why he's telling them what he's telling them.

It's because they need some instruction, they need some course correction.

Right, yeah. They're fleshly, and they're still infants. Yeah. This is,

I guess, children's classes. We're going back to children's church.

We're not ready for big church yet. It's for sure remedial, because in the next few chapters you've got, here we should be servants of Christ.

Therefore, stop suing each other. Stop protecting the guy who is sleeping with his mother -in -law.

I mean, clearly violations of the law of God, and he's having to go back to square one with them.

Right, right. Well, and I can see myself reflected in some of these things.

I'm not where I need to be as a husband. You know, you get to chapter 7. Yeah, you get to chapter 7, talking about marriage.

I'm not where I need to be as a husband. Oh man, I'm going to go back to thinking about when I was first saved. I was a

Corinthian, like right out of paganism, and here we go. Paul could have been writing this to me.

But hey dude, not cool. Stop that. So as we turn to chapter 12, let's define continuation and cessation.

All right. So, continuationism is a belief that the spiritual gifts, especially ones listed in 1

Corinthians 12, especially the ones listed in 1

Corinthians 12, there's other places where gifts are listed, especially in 1 Corinthians 12, that all of them have continued to be normative in the church throughout history, and that we should expect these things to be normative in the church today.

Normative meaning we should expect to see them. It should be normal practice for these things to be alive, well, and visible in the church today.

Or at least they should have been normative. Sure. Cessationism, on the other hand, is the belief that these gifts were given for a particular reason.

They were given to bear witness to the fact that the change in the covenant was real and true.

The change in the covenant from the Old Covenant to the New Covenant was in fact from God. He was bearing witness that Christ was actually the

Messiah that He claimed He was. And that after, generally speaking, 70

AD, 120 AD, somewhere after that change had taken place, that those gifts ceased to be normative in the church because their purpose had been fulfilled.

Now, what that doesn't mean is that we never see healing or never see legitimate uses of tongues.

It doesn't mean that we never see miracles or even prophecy from time to time.

What it does mean is that those things are no longer normative. We're not expecting to see them up front and center in the church.

We shouldn't expect them to be the normal practice of the church today. It doesn't mean that we don't believe they happen just because God does whatever

He wants to. But that it ceases to be the normal practice of the church somewhere around 70

AD, the closing of the canon. Depending on when you date Revelation and some other stuff.

Right. Let me ask you this concerning the definition of cessation. Do you think that there is a difference between, or Scripture itself makes a distinction between the gifts given to the apostles and then that same gift given to, say, a

Gentile or someone that had just been baptized but not saved. They received the

Spirit and they spoke in tongues. Does Scripture make a distinction between an apostolic gifting and a gifting from somebody else?

I don't think so. I might be a minority on that one from our side.

But I don't think so. I don't think so because of what we're going to go through here in chapters 12 through 14.

Because it's one spirit who gives the gifts to people as he sees fit.

If he sees fit to give it to apostles more frequently, whatever. I don't see necessarily a distinction between apostleship and say eldership and laity.

I don't see that distinction. I see God giving out the gifts as he sees fit for his purposes.

And one of those purposes is the building up of the church. Building up of the church, which includes the apostles and the prophets, the teachers, and just everyday

Joe who has other gifts that are mentioned. Well, not here, but let's say like Romans 12 or Ephesians 4.

He has some of those gifts. Gifts. Gifts. Gifts. My mouse is not working.

Well, the reason I potentially can see a difference is because what

I've seen in Scripture is the disciples, the apostles. I need to work on how to phrase this and formulate these thoughts.

But when you look at the disciples and the apostles, it seems like they received the ability to administer the gifts.

When you see the other folks in Scripture, they receive that particular gift from the

Holy Spirit, and they were able to speak in tongues. Whereas the apostles, they had the ability to administer that gift to someone else.

That's kind of where I was feeling healing or laying on the hands, and they received the spirit and they spoke in tongues.

Whereas everyone else just received it. They received it from the apostles or directly from the

Holy Spirit. Kind of how we see it happening more today. Well, I don't think that they did receive it from the apostles.

I think they received it directly from the Holy Spirit. The grace that we receive in baptism or the

Lord's Supper isn't given by the pastor. It's given to us by the Holy Spirit.

I think it's the same thing here. Even if God may have used the laying on of hands by Paul or Matthew or Silas or one of the other ones.

I know I picked the ones that most people wouldn't. I don't know why. But even if it was one of them, he may have used them as a medium, not in the mystic new age sense, as a tool to pass that on.

I think it was still coming directly from the Holy Spirit himself. Oh, absolutely. I agree with that.

I keep going back to where Jesus sent them out to heal all diseases and sickness.

I think there was probably some folks in the church that had the gift of healing that could go out and do that.

I just think that it wasn't necessarily recorded for us that they did it. Because even when

Jesus sent out the apostles, he was sending them out in order to do something. Jesus was giving them the gift of the

Holy Spirit. Right. So let me throw this. Go ahead. No, it's good. Go ahead. Well, we're about at our 30 minute mark, and I wanted to ask you.

We haven't even started yet. We haven't even started yet, but that's OK. It's good. We won't take it slow. Let me ask you one more question, because this was

I brought this up in a conversation with somebody the other night. And I see this in Scripture, this terminology used in Scripture elsewhere.

So as as a Calvinist, someone who believes in and performs soteriology, we would look at passages like how do we receive repentance?

Well, it is. How does it how does it. How does it say that we receive repentance?

It's a gift. It's it's a gift. I think it's faith. Is it faith? It's a gift and repentance is granted.

It's one or the other. They're both gifts. Yeah. So if I use that as an example of.

We don't go to a grace, we don't have a tent revival and and somebody is the graced, you know, grace.

Giver like you don't you have a faith healer. We don't have a grace giver or repentance giver.

So I see. The Holy Spirit. Grants us and gifts us faith and repentance as he would healing or tongues when he wants to.

Sure. The spirit blows where he may. And we can't see it blowing, but we can see the results of it.

Does that make sense? Absolutely. But but one in the same spirit works all things, distributing each one individually, just as he wills.

Just as he wills. That's right. That's we're coming up on that one here in about eleven, eleven verses.

Nice. Well, we we desire that if you do not know

Christ as your Lord and Savior and honor him, submit to him as king, that it will behoove you to to do that.

Just as there's a warning for these folks that armies are going to be surrounding

Jerusalem and Jerusalem is going to be slaughtered, the temple is going to be destroyed. Get out.

Don't come in. There's impending doom called eternal hell or sinning against God.

And Scripture calls us to. Call out as a warning to those who do not believe in Jesus Christ.

So we call out to you through truth and love podcast to repent of your sins, put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ before it's too late, because he's so kind to save us, that you that you would repent of your sins and put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ.

And that that believing and that repenting, like we just said, then is going to be evidence that the

Holy Spirit has gifted gifted you that ability, because apart from him, we can do nothing.

So, Dan, you want to close us in prayer? Sure. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for all of your your gifts for the

Holy Spirit who gives them out as he sees fit. Pray that you would help us in the study. We would do well.

We would be accurate and handle your text with reverence and respect and that you would be honored and glorified in Christ.

And we pray. Amen. Amen. Thank you all for watching. We really appreciate the support and prayers.

Remember that Jesus is king. Go live in the victory of Christ. Go speak with the authority of Christ.