Charismatic Gifts Discussion with Matt Slick and Andrew Rappaport CARM SFE

Debate Format and Opening Remarks

All right. With that, we'll invite Matt to come on up. As I was going to bed last night, I began to worry. Maybe not everybody knows that Matt and Andrew are great friends, because it looked like they're mortal enemies.

Did it look like that last night with all the jabs? Matt wouldn't say great. Well, they do a podcast together called Slick Answers on the Bible Thumping Wingnut. You could listen to that, but they're obviously friends because they put up with each other.

But now, if you'll notice, they disagree on a number of different things, but it's really their unity in the gospel that establishes that friendship. On all the essentials of the faith, like the Trinity, the deity of Christ, substitutionary atonement, the resurrection of Christ, all of these things, there's perfect unity and agreement on gospel issues, primary things.

But there's room for disagreement, and that's what we hope to demonstrate in what's about to unfold here. We have two guys that disagree about the charismatic gifts. So we're going to give each of them a platform.

We're going to call it a discussion. It is also a debate, but it's more of an informal debate. We don't want to make it too formal, but we also want to give some structure to it, or else it could just run wild and they'll talk over each other, and they might actually fight, and that would be bad.

So what we're going to do is we are going to give an introductory statement to each of them, and I think 15 minutes, is that enough time? He says he needs two minutes. He can prove his case in two minutes.

Yeah, that's fitting with his personality. I believe he believes that. All right. So we're going to give each of them 15 minutes to give an opening statement, and then we'll have some time to ask questions of one another.

We'll have one question one and flip it, and then we'll have closing statements as well. All right. So let me just turn it over to you guys and take it away.

Matt Slick's Opening Case for the Cessation of Certain Gifts

So I'll start with, I understand, it's an old man. It's early in the morning for him. So I have to go easy. So I actually, in the way of going easy, I actually have all these notes and I left them at home.

So I have to go from memory. It won't help you. So let me start by saying this. What you're going to end up seeing is, Matt and I have a differing view on some things. We both consider each other a brother in Christ.

It's not that either one of us is going to think that the other somehow is a heretic over this issue. He's a heretic over other issues, and so the thing that, you know, Matt and I have done these kind of discussions on, we were just talking about covenant theology, dispensationalism.

We've done this on baptism. This will be the first time doing this topic, and I think the reason that a lot of times people ask us to do this is because of the fact that we disagree. Clearly, you're going to see that, but we do it in love for one another.

Obviously, we both think we're right, because if we didn't, we would change our view. And so some of it's going to be the way that we both approach scripture. We have a little bit of different ways that we do our interpretation when it comes to some of the rules we follow, and that sometimes plays into things.

So, my position is that certain gifts, according to, I'm going to say, God's Word, ceased. All right? Now, we're speaking specifically of gifts that were in the first century, before the scriptures were completed, they were there to authenticate the messenger of scripture.

So, let me first give some definitions, some background. There's a difference between a talent and a gift. You could be born with a talent. You might have a talent to be a teacher, and yet that's a gift that you can get at salvation.

I believe gifts are at salvation. Gifts are given by the Holy Spirit, according to 1 Corinthians 12. Gifts are given by the Holy Spirit. Now, the thing here is that when I'm going to look at this, there's certain gifts that God is going to give, and if he chooses not to give gifts, he chooses that.

Every one of us has a different gifting. Matt's gifted with the gift of ugliness, I'm not. He's gifted with a radio voice, I'm not. But no, and we do the jabs because we want it to be lighthearted, by the way.

But here's the thing. How are we going to interpret differently? Here would be a way. I'm going to look at a word, and I'm going to look at it in its immediate context first, and then see how it's used elsewhere.

One of the things that you see Matt does is, Matt loves to dig into original language and words and how they're used. He'll look at a word and see how it's used everywhere else, and then apply that. That makes a difference in the way we're going to take a passage like 1 Corinthians 13.

1 Corinthians 13... Verse 8. Yeah, I know. And we both love our Logos. It's just that I use it on this beautiful Mac, and he has this Windows. One of the other things we disagree on. Oh great, it's trying to connect here.

So I'm going to have to do it this way. Need some help? Do you have internet?

I have Logos right here. Yeah, I have it there too. Want me to argue your position for you? You have to know it first.

Oh, I know it. Okay, so here's the thing. 1 Corinthians 13, 8 and following says, Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away. As for tongues, they will cease. As for knowledge, it will pass away.

For we know in part, and we prophesy in part, that when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke as a child. When I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.

For now I see in a mirrored dimly, but then face to face. For now I know in part, then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. So when we look at that, a couple things. Now, I'm saying there's only three gifts that are stated clearly have ceased.

Okay? So, has healing ceased? Well, if you're going to ask about that, I'm going to have to deduce that from Scripture. I'm going to have to make an argument to say, well, earlier in the Scriptures, we see guys that had a gift of healing.

They could heal everybody immediately. Okay? It wasn't one of these things that you get healed of something over time, and when Christ would heal or the apostles healed, it was immediate, and they could heal anybody.

Okay? It's different than the faith healers that Matt and I both agree are frauds. Okay? So, the thing is, is that one, I cannot say that that gift ceased. The Scripture doesn't say. If I come to that conclusion, I'm deducing it from Scripture.

Okay? So, understand that difference. The only three that Scripture says ceased are going to be those three. Interesting thing with this is, it says that the other two, wisdom and prophecies, cease because something causes it to cease with a tongue cease on their own.

That's one of the things in the Greek. It actually causes itself. So, I think that when it comes to tongues, this was a known human language that someone that didn't have the ability to speak. The example I always give, my wife is from Hong Kong.

She speaks Cantonese. If I suddenly can speak Cantonese, that would be a gift of tongues, a gift of languages. Okay? The word tongues is language. All right? It's just our, because of this whole thing when they do translations, they don't, they translated tongues because, I think, because of issues with charismatic movement.

It's actually one of the reasons Holman, who used to translate language, switched back in their Christian Standard Bible because of pressure over this issue. So, this is a thing of languages. Okay? I think they're human languages.

Now, some are going to say, well, wait a minute. 1 Corinthians 13, 1 speaks of angelic languages. Are there angelic languages? I don't know. Could there be? Sure. But was that what Paul was saying in 1 Corinthians 13?

I don't think so. I'll tell you why. Because when we look at 1 Corinthians 13, 1, he says, if, that doesn't mean he does, if I spoke of the tongues of men and of angels but have not love, I'm a noisy, clanging cymbal.

I'm a clanging cymbal. So, he's making a hypothetical. If I had this, if I could speak all the languages of all men and even of angels, but don't have love, the emphasis is on the love, how do I know that that's sarcasm?

The very next verse in context says, and if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so to remove mountains, but have not love, I'm nothing. If he had all knowledge, we would call him God.

I think he's using hyperbole in those. So, I don't think that's a proof that he could speak or did speak an angelic language. Could there be an angelic language? Sure. Is there an angelic language that people speak?

One of the things I find that most of the people that claim they speak in tongues are saying, they almost always say they speak an angelic language. I haven't met anybody in the thousands of charismatic that I've met that tell me they speak a known human language.

I've heard stories overseas, but that would be a thing. Now, Mac is going to bring up 1 Corinthians 1 .7. Well, it's his favorite verse for this. So, that says, so that you are not lacking any gift as you wait for the revealing of the Lord.

And he's going to say, the church shouldn't be lacking any gift. Now, so they start bringing some of this together. I think that the Holy Spirit gives gifts the church is not lacking. He gives the gifts that are needed.

It doesn't mean that the church needs all the gifts. We no longer have any apostles. Is the church lacking that? No, because God doesn't see a need to give us apostles today. Okay, so I would say they're not lacking.

So here's going to be the thing that we end up seeing. Mac's going to take that passage in 1 Corinthians 13, and he's going to look at face-to-face. And he's going to say that's always a personal encounter.

Okay, because one of the ways you do studies, you look at how words are used. In many places, face-to-face is referring to a personal encounter. Not everywhere. Okay, in Colossians 2 verse 1, it says, Paul is saying that he had people he's never seen before face-to-face.

Now, you say that's a personal encounter. Referring back to a personal encounter, yeah, you can make that face. But Mac would agree that no one's seen God face-to-face. And yet, three references to a face-to-face encounter with God is in Deuteronomy 5 .1, Deuteronomy 34 .10, and Ezekiel 20 .35.

I can't just write them off without looking like Mac can. But here's an important one for Mac. Would be Proverbs 27 .19. It says, as in water, face-to-face, so the heart of man in man. Well, there's a way that face-to-face is used referring to water.

Now, we don't have a personal encounter with water, okay? It's referring to it as a mirror. So when I look at the passage in 1 Corinthians 13, I see that as three illustrations. Teleos, the word teleos is the word that is translated complete, mature, or perfect.

It's the idea of something that's coming to maturity. And so what you end up seeing there is you end up seeing it as something that comes to completion, all right? I think that what you see is three illustrations.

A child to manhood looking in polished metal that they would call a mirror compared to looking at someone face-to-face. The polished metal is not gonna be clear. They didn't have mirrors like we have, like we have, okay?

We look in a mirror and it's like looking face-to-face. That's the thing. Knowing in part versus then knowing something fully. I think that's the idea of those passages. I think that the only thing that in its context makes sense for what this teleos is in that passage is the Bible.

When the Bible was complete, these three gifts, what we see with all those three gifts is they had to do with revelation of God's word. Prophecy, wisdom, and speaking a new language to people that didn't know the Bible or were being given the Bible, okay?

So here you have three things that are prophetic. They're revealing God's word. Once God's word was complete, I would say the church isn't lacking those gifts because it doesn't need them anymore. It has God's word.

I'm trying to remember some of the words. So the other thing is, you know, Matt will bring up, because again, how he's gonna interpret it, he's gonna look at the word charismas, which is where we have this word charismatic gift, okay?

And he's going to look at that and say, well, everywhere where that's used, the gift continues. He may reference that, and he's right that salvation is referred as charismas. But here's the thing to also note, and unfortunately I don't have the verse here because it's in my notes at home, but Paul, I think it's in Romans, refers to that same word as a gift that he could bestow.

It becomes a problem now because in 1 Corinthians 12, only God gives these gifts, but Paul says he can give this gift. I will say that there could be two different ways of using the same word, okay? So I'm gonna see that difference because Paul uses this as a gift he could bestow that's different than the spiritual gifts that we would talk about the Holy Spirit bestow.

So I'll just end it with that. I get nervous as I hear him taking away. You should be nervous. He's probably thinking,.

He's uglier than me. So I'm a covenantalist, and I believe God works based on his word. God said, let there be light. The word became flesh, dwelt among us. God makes covenants. A covenant is a binding of God by his word.

He cannot lie, Titus 1 -2. He commits himself to fulfill the prophecies and the word that he has given. The word in Latin for covenant is testamentum, old covenant, new covenant. In Romans 11 -29, the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.

The word gifts there is charisma. From the Greek charisma, we get charismatic gifts. They cannot be revoked. That's what he says. You go to 1 Corinthians 1 -7, and it's talking to the church at large, everybody.

You can go to 1 Corinthians 1 -2, and it says there, to the church and everyone everywhere who calls upon the name of the Lord Jesus. Let me get this closer so you can hear me better. I know I've got a hearing problem too.

So in 1 Corinthians 1 -7, it says that the church not lack any charisma while it's waiting for the return of Christ. Any charisma. Not lack any. So if the charismatic gifts have ceased, then the church is lacking the charismatic gifts.

But the Bible says the church will not lack any while they're waiting for the return of Christ. So I've debated this with people before. They can't get around this verse. Any charismatic gift. Does any charismatic gift mean tongues?

Yeah. Otherwise, it's not any. It's just simple. And if you guys want, I can even tell you of instances where I've exercised a gift, not on demand, but prophecy, word of knowledge, things like this. Not that those make doctrine right.

But we experience these things as well. And I always check everything against Scripture. My conversion experience was incredibly dramatic with the very presence of Jesus. I understand his presence and believe in the continuation of the gifts because of covenantal and biblical reasons.

And it cost me a great deal. I lost my pastorate over this issue. And so I've had to study it quite a bit. So Romans 6 .23, the wages of sin is death, but the free gift, charismata, of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus.

The charismatic gift of eternal life is there. If the charismatic gifts have ceased, eternal life has ceased. Of course, that's not a profound statement. But if the charismatic gifts have ceased, we've got a problem.

Now, when people say apostles are a gift, yeah, they're a gift, doron, not charisma. They're different words. And in my debate in Houston with Sam Waldron over this, he brought this up. And the issue is that, yeah, there's gifts generically, but charismatic gifts are operated by the Holy Spirit.

And the apostolate is never considered a charismatic gift. It's a gift of the church. The charismatic gift is operated by the Holy Spirit. I would suggest you look in your own lives. You'll find the Holy Spirit's working through you charismatically.

You'll find things. We can talk about that if you want. Let's go to 1 Corinthians 13 .8. Love never fails, but there's gifts of prophecy. They shall be done away with. There'll be tongues they'll see, so if there's knowledge, they'll be done away with.

He's not listing every gift. There's just a representative gift issue here. We know in part, we shall prophesy in part. But when the perfect comes, what is the perfect? There's only two positions that are really promoted here.

One is the return of Christ, and the other is the completion of the canon. When the perfect comes. So let's just work with the completion of the canon. When the Bible's completed, the partial will be done away.

When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child. When I became a man, I did away with childish things. Verse 12. So we can skip 11 when we do the exegesis here, because there's nothing in here that refers to what's called the antecedent.

I'll explain. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then, face to face. So then, what's the antecedent of then? What is the word then referring to? It's referring to verse 10. When the perfect comes. So if the perfect is the completion of the canon, then we'll see God face to face.

Now, he's right. Not every instance of the word face to face means a personal encounter, except basically it does. Proverbs 27 .19, you just go through the Bible and you look. NASB says, the water face reflects the face.

ESV, as in water, the face reflects the face. King James, in the water, the face anthrists to faith. What we see in the Greek New Testament, and we see in the Old Testament encounters, God spoke face to face to Moses as a man speaks with his friend, Exodus 33 .11.

He says that. It's a personal encounter. When I speak face to face with you, it's a personal encounter. When the Bible is completed, is that when we're going to see Jesus face to face? When we see the Bible, and I'm not knocking the Bible, I defend it, of course.

When the Bible is completed, are we having a personal face to face encounter with Jesus? No, we're not. When he returns, are we going to have a personal encounter with him? Yes. Well, I don't know if I'll see him face to face.

My face is going to be on the ground. You guys ever seen that video where they're going to have the news guy interviewing God? You ever seen that? Raise your hand. I'm just curious. They're going to interview God.

He says, we've got God here on schedule in the next few minutes. He should show up any minute now. He's going to suit and tie in a little bit. We're going to be interviewing God. It took a while to get him in here.

All of a sudden, I think he's approaching now. There's light and wind. He's going, I'm sorry. It's really good because that's what's going to happen. God, I've got a question for you. No, you're on your face begging.

That was a really good thing. I don't know if I'll see him face to face because my face will be on the ground, but nevertheless. Now I see in verse 12, I see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall be fully known.

Let me ask you a question. If God's on the day of judgment, God says to you, I don't know you. Is that a good thing or a bad thing for you? It's a bad thing. Matthew 7, 22, 23, many will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord, do we not prophesy in your name?

Do we not cast out demons in your name? Perform many miracles in your name? And I will say to them, I never knew you. Get away from me, you who practice lawlessness. In Galatians 4, 8, 9, when you did not know God, you served by nature those which are not God's.

But now that you've come to know God, or rather are known by him, now you've come to serve the true and living God. So Paul makes a statement now that you've come to know God, but then he says, but rather that you are known by him to be known by God.

Jesus just says in John 10, 27, 28, my sheep hear my voice, and I know them. Alright? So the pattern of scripture when God says, I know you, whew, good. If he says, I don't know you, huh, you're in trouble.

Now check this out. Verse 12, for now we see in a mirror dimly, but then, face to face, now I know in part, but then I shall be fully known as I have been, I shall know as I'm fully known. This is a salvation statement.

Do we, do we, are we fully known by God when the Bible's completed? The fully known issue here has to do with an intense personal encounter, relationship with the Lord. I'm known by the Lord, he's indwelling in my heart.

John 17, 23. God says that he will make his abode in us. This, this is how I interpret, this is how I see it to mean as I went through and did this. I studied face to face. What does it mean to be known by God?

These things aren't made true by the completion of the canon. It just doesn't work, alright? But if Jesus is returning, face to face makes sense. To be known as I'm fully known makes sense. I'm not loyal to any denomination, and this did cost me a very great deal.

I have stories about it. I'm not angry about it. The men who examined me were godly men, but I was forced to really dig into this to keep my pastorate after nine years of work. Four years college, three years seminary, two years internship.

And it cost me a great deal. Now God in his great sovereignty has put me into apologetics instead of pastoring. I know this topic well. I know that God says that the church will not lack any charismatic gift while it's waiting for the return of Christ.

I'm going to say something that I hope doesn't offend anybody, but we have a tendency sometimes to sit in our armchairs and make theological pronouncements upon others about what is and is not biblical.

I do that. Hopefully I'm not doing it incorrectly. Andrew does that, and hopefully he's not doing it incorrectly. So we're both going to be corrected when we get to heaven. We have to be careful though that we are not those of us who are those who are not out on the streets doing and moving out there in the jungles, out there, whatever.

And then the gifts don't work or don't occur. And we say, they don't work. And they use the scriptures, in my opinion, to justify a preconception. I think that's a problem. Scripturally speaking, the church is not to lack any charismata while it's waiting for the apocalypsis of Christ.

If anybody's going to say that the gifts are gone, then they're saying that the gifts have ceased, that the gifts are revocable, which Romans 11 .29 says is not the case. They're saying then that the church does lack gifts.

Now some people will say what they mean by, well, the church doesn't lack any gifts, is they used to have it, so the church as a whole didn't lack it. That's nice. But it says that you not lack, present tense, continuation in the present.

Not lack any gifts. The church. When Jesus comes back, things are going to happen. Things are going to change. 1 Corinthians 13, 8 -12, that's called a pericope. A pericope is a section of scripture, long or short.

That pericope of scripture, from what I see, does not necessitate in any way the cessation of the gifts. That's the only place the cessationist can go to. It's the only place. But when you look at the antecedent of then, face to face, it seems to imply a personal encounter.

Then it shall be fully known, personal encounter. The completion of the canon doesn't lend itself to those options. We only have two options, and one's negated. The other one, by default, is basically verified, called a disjunctive syllogism.

It doesn't exactly apply here with perfect logic, but the basic principle is we only have two options. One of them is negated. The other one has to be true. Not necessarily, because both could be false.

Unless you have a proper disjunctive syllogism. I won't get into that now. So the issue here is we only have two options, the completion of the canon or the return of Christ. The completion of the canon does not make this make sense.

Particularly when Paul, earlier in the same book, says that the church is not to lack any charismata. Any charismata. Does that include speaking in tongues? Yes. Word of knowledge? Yes. Word of wisdom?

Yes. Prophecy? Yes. Alright. So I'll give you an example of something. I'll give you two, and then we'll be done with this. We can debate. Not that charismatic gifts or that experience make something true.

I used to have a swap meet ministry where in 1980, 81, 82, I went out to a swap meet with my friend and I, Dave Kimball, great guy. Retired border patrol agent. We were roommates. We'd go out at O-Dark 30, go out there on Saturday, spend all day out there.

One day, I'm talking to a guy and Dave is sitting six, eight feet behind me. And you were there when he was recounting the story. And so, folks, look, my experience doesn't make it true. I'm just giving you something.

Two things I'm going to tell you about. So this man is talking to me, and I still remember it very clearly, and all of a sudden, I don't know how I knew, but I knew. I knew what his problem was. And I told him what his problem was.

I had an assurance and a knowledge about his own thoughts with God. And I told him for 30 seconds, 45 seconds, his rebellion against God in that specific area. His jaw dropped. He stumbled backwards. And this presence stopped.

I had this presence over me. This presence stopped. And he stared at me. And he stumbled away. He was stunned. It was obvious. Dave said that later when he was watching, he said he could see waves that looked like heat around me when this was happening.

Does that make it true? Does not. Is it against Scripture? I don't see how it's against Scripture any more than when a girl named Tony I was at a Bible study, and I was going to take her home. And she said, oh, I have this one book I want to get.

And we stopped at my apartment, and I had this book for her, and we're talking. And she said, in two weeks, I'm going to go to Australia for a mission. Presence. You're not going to go. What's going to happen is you're going to stay.

In five months, you're going to meet a guy. He's going to become your spiritual mentor. In 18 months, you and he are going to have a special bond, and then you're going to go do mission work together.

This presence left. I don't know why I said it, but I did. Two weeks later, she went to Australia. Okay, I'm a false prophet. Must have been the pizza. Next day, I get a phone call. Hey, did you hear?

Tony's back. What do you mean? Tony's back. Oh, she got off the plane in Australia and knew she wasn't supposed to be there. Five months later, she met a guy. He became her spiritual mentor. 18 months later, they were married.

They went to England together on a mission. Prophecy came to pass. I got other stories like this. Now, does it mean that I put my faith and hope in those things? No, I do not. If they contradict Scripture, they're wrong.

But what do we do with someone who is not hearsay? I heard, I heard. What do you do? He'll say, you can't exegete someone's experience, and you can't. But the thing is, when you are out there moving and grooving in the world, and you're doing, and you're trusting in the Lord, the Spirit of God can move through you.

The Spirit of God can use you. The Spirit of God can get you to say something that you don't even know you've got to say. You guys have done this. You've been out witnessing. You've been talking to people, and all of a sudden, your mind is filled with stuff.

And then when someone says, what did you say? I don't remember. Well, that's the Spirit working on you and through you. Now, this has been taken to a ridiculous, stupid end by the charismatic wackos. And it has.

Exegetically speaking, I put all my faith and my hope in the words of Christ. Covenantally, God's covenanted with His church to give them gifts. He has not retracted on that promise because the gifts are irrevocable.

Romans 11 .29. The church is not to lack any charismatic gift while waiting for the return of Christ. The return of Christ. 1 Corinthians 1 .7. When the perfect comes, the completion of all things, when Christ returns, that's when we'll know fully as we are fully known.

That's when we'll see Him face-to-face. That's why I believe in the continuation of the gifts. Right on top.

Andrew Rappaport's Opening Case for the Continuation of Charismatic Gifts

Alright, at this point, we are going to give Andrew a chance to question Matt about 15 -20 minutes. We can be more informal than that. We can dialogue, yeah. We'll do it informally, but examine what he's saying.

So, first off, let me say something I meant to say earlier, and I really want to make sure anyone that agrees with my position hears this clearly. Okay? Matt does not believe in the charismatic gifts continuing today because of his experiences.

You guys hear that? Alright? I don't, because this is the thing that people will say. Well, you just had some experience and therefore you believe that's not what he's saying. He believes in these gifts because of his interpretation of Scripture.

Now, if he was to give a prophecy that was false, I just want to know if he's stoned. I'm joking. So, but here's the thing, okay, so this is, and you're seeing how we come to different views based on how we interpret it, okay?

He's going to say that there's no lack. In other words, that all the gifts must continue, otherwise there's this assumed lack. I'm going to say that's an assumption, that there's a need somehow that requires these gifts to continue.

I don't think there's a lack. If the Holy Spirit felt there was a lack, he'd continue to give the gifts. That would be the view. If he doesn't think there's a lack, there's no need for it. And I'm saying that I think that the, he's saying these gifts cease when the Bible's complete, then there's no more lack because we have a Bible.

Okay? Now, if he's going to say with the, and I agree with the, gifts are irrevocable, that's going to be.

Romans 11 .29.

But Romans 11 .1, Paul says, for I long to see you, that I may impart to you some charismas. If you're going to see this as this word being the same everywhere,.

Well, that's because he's an apostle. He has that special privilege to do things like that.

No, to impart charismatic gifts. But in Romans Romans 11 .12, that's speaking of salvation. Right? To impart.

A gift, Romans 11 .12? Yeah. 11 .12. 11 .29, sorry. Okay. I don't have that. Romans 11, I know, because it has to do with intelligence. Then how do you have that ability? Obviously, if the attributes of X equal the attributes of Y, then X equals Y.