The Continuationist/Cessationist Debate Part X

So far, we have surveyed various scripture from both the Old and New Testaments in order to establish the internal witness as to when the miraculous gifts were to cease. So far, we have seen that the Bible seems to point to a first century fulfillment of the gifts as a foundation of the Church. We will now leave the internal evidence and take a very quick look at the external evidence. Before we do this, I want to explain that the external evidence, that is the evidence from history is not authoritative on the issue. So then why even look at it? The reason I want to look at what history has said about the gifts is that if we are correct that the gifts have ceased, we would expect to see that reflected in history.

Again, let me say that the historical evidence is not authoritative, but serves as a reflection of Biblical truth. At the close of the Old Testament canon, and thus revelation, we see that that there was a period of “silence” where there was no manifestation of miracles and prophecy. These manifestations picked up again when there was new revelation (that of Christ Jesus). If we are correct in that the gifts were for a specific time that has passed, then history should agree with that position . Again, (can I state this enough? I’m sure someone will still say something), external evidence is NOT a primary case for cessationism, but an outcome of cessationism. With that (hopefully) being established, let us look at quotes from history on the gifts. The majority of these are quoted from Nathan Busenitz’s post A Friday Filler.

External Evidence

John Chrysostom
(c. 344–407)
Homilies on 1 Corinthians, 36.7
This whole place [speaking about 1 Corinthians 12] is very obscure: but the obscurity is produced by our ignorance of the facts referred to and by their cessation, being such as then used to occur but now no longer take place.
(also cited from Covenant-Theology.blogspot.com)

Augustine
(354–430)
Homilies on the First Epistle of John, 6.10
In the earliest times, “the Holy Ghost fell upon them that believed: and they spake with tongues,” which they had not learned, “as the Spirit gave them utterance.” These were signs adapted to the time. For there behooved to be that betokening of the Holy Spirit in all tongues, to shew that the Gospel of God was to run through all tongues over the whole earth. That thing was done for a betokening, and it passed away.
(also cited from Covenant-Theology.blogspot.com)

Theodoret of Cyrus
(c. 393–c. 466)
Commentary on the First Epistle to the Corinthians, 240, 43
In former times those who accepted the divine preaching and who were baptized for their salvation were given visible signs of the grace of the Holy Spirit at work in them. Some spoke in tongues which they did not know and which nobody had taught them, while others performed miracles or prophesied. The Corinthians also did these things, but they did not use the gifts as they should have done. They were more interested in showing off than in using them for the edification of the church. . . . Even in our time grace is given to those who are deemed worthy of holy baptism, but it may not take the same form as it did in those days.

Martin Luther
(1483–1546)
“As The Encyclopedia of Religion concludes: ‘Both Luther and Calvin wrote that the age of miracles was over and that their occurrence should not be expected.’” (Nathan adds some text from Luther’s Large Catechism that mentions what spiritual gifts were active according to Luther).

John Calvin
(1509–1564)
Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels III, 389
Though Christ does not expressly state whether he intends this gift [of miracles] to be temporary, or to remain perpetually in the Church, yet it is more probable that miracles were promised only for a time, in order to give lustre to the gospel while it was new or in a state of obscurity
Institutes of the Christian Religion, IV:19, 18
“…the gift of healing, like the rest of the miracles, which the Lord willed to be brought forth for a time, has vanished away in order to make the preaching of the Gospel marvelous for ever.”

John Owen
(1616–1683)
Works IV, 518
“Gifts which in their own nature exceed the whole power of all our faculties, that dispensation of the Spirit is long since ceased and where it is now pretended unto by any, it may justly be suspected as an enthusiastic delusion.”

Thomas Watson
(c 1620–1686)
The Beatitudes, 140
“Sure, there is as much need of ordination now as in Christ’s time and in the time of the apostles, there being then extraordinary gifts in the church which are now ceased.”

Matthew Henry
(1662–1714)
Preface to Vol. IV of his Exposition of OT & NT, vii
These and other gifts of prophecy, being a sign, have long since ceased and been laid aside, and we have no encouragement to expect the revival of them; but, on the contrary, are directed to call the scriptures the more sure word of prophecy, more sure than voices from heaven; and to them we are directed to take heed, to search them, and to hold them fast, 2 Peter 1:29.

Jonathan Edwards
(1703–1758)
“The Holy Spirit Forever To Be Communicated To The Saints, In The Grace Of Charity, Or Divine Love”; http://www.jonathanedwards.com/sermons/Charity/Charity%2015.htm.
And in consequence of this, not only here and there an extraordinary person was endowed with these extraordinary gifts, but they were common in the church, and so continued during the lifetime of the apostles, or till the death of the last of them, even the apostle John, which took place about a hundred years from the birth of Christ; so that the first hundred years of the Christian era, or the first century, was the era of miracles. But soon after that, the canon of Scripture being completed when the apostle John had written the book of Revelation, which he wrote not long before his death, these miraculous gifts were no longer continued in the church.
Charity and its Fruits, 29
Of the extraordinary gifts, they were given in order to the founding and establishing of the church in the world. But since the canon of Scriptures has been completed, and the Christian church fully founded and established, these extraordinary gifts have ceased.

Again, these have been quoted from Nathan Busenitz’s A Friday Filler, in which he continues to list several more quotes up to more contemporary theologians. I will end with one last quote from Augustine:

Retractions I xiii 7
For those that are baptized do not now receive the Spirit on the imposition of hands, so as to speak in the tongues of all the peoples; neither are the sick healed by the shadow of the preachers of Christ falling on them as they pass; and other such things as were then done, are now manifestly ceased.”

From the earliest church fathers on, cessationism rings throughout the historical writings of the church. In fact, where there were apparent manifestations of the spirit, it was usually within a heretical group such as the Montanists. For a good article on the post-apostolic church fathers and their views from 100 AD – 400 AD, check out this one by Cleon L. Rogers, Jr. Where history speaks of the gifts, it reflects the internal evidence. Where it does not speak on it, history resounds all the more.

Next, we will finally bring this series to a close with a summary and some concluding remarks.