Answering the Cessationists’ Case against Continuing Spiritual Gifts, by Jon Ruthven

For the church, then, the apostolic and prophetic gift is “foundational” not only in the sense that the apostles and prophets first announced the gospel in some areas, but that all further revelation about Christ is delineated, articulated, qualified, and offered for reduplication by its original receivers. Hence, this passage shows not that the gifts of apostleship and prophecy ceased, but rather that since these people’s experience is “foundational” and archetypal, their experience and functions therefore must continue.

Most importantly we must remember that the apostles and prophets only communicated their revelations; they did not create them, ex cathedra. They were not, after all, God. Hence their lives, experiences with Christ and ministries are, to the extent that they followed Christ, necessarily exemplary and repeatable, inviting rabbinic pedagogical imitation as do Jesus and Paul.¹⁴

At least three points support this. First, Paul lays stress on the “connection” of Jews and Gentiles via access to the Father, not simply through a funnel of apostolic authority, but “through [Christ]… by one Spirit” (the Revealer) in Eph. 2.18. Secondly, just as Paul received by revelation his gospel of reconcilia­tion between God, Jews and Gentiles (3.3), so now the whole church, by reading (3.3‑4) and by revelation by the power of the Spirit (3.1-18) is similarly to grasp the scope of God’s love (inter alia, the inclusion of the Gentiles). Thirdly, and most explicitly, Christ gave¹⁵ these apostles and prophets until (mechri) ultimate, eschatological goals of Christian upbuilding and maturity are achieved (4.13) “that we all attain to the unity of the faith” (this has happened?!); that we all attain to the knowledge of the Son of God (but to what extent?) to mature manhood to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ (has this happened to all Christians?). These goals can only be attained in heaven! Until then, apostles and prophets (however the church may have later labeled them) are envisioned to be continuously at work until these goals are met—only in heaven.

Two profound ironies on this point appear: 1) despite the insistence on the integrity of the immutable doctrinal “foundation,” conservative Protestants willingly accept the drastic reshaping of doctrines away from their biblical emphases. Oddly enough, this reshaping has happened through the acceptance of now discredited Greek philo­sophical premises and the evolution of systematic theology over two millennia. For proof of this, contrast the biblical emphases on the doctrines of the Holy Spirit and the kingdom of God against systematic theology of Protestant orthodoxy. Since we have been raised with these grotesque distortions of emphasis, we remain comfortable with them.

2) Moreover, conservative Protestants in practice hold to a continuing apostle­­ship insofar as they cite as the final authority their denominational and traditional leaders such as Luther, Calvin and Wesley. In many writings, the teachings of  these leaders appear with greater frequency and authority than even the apostles of the New Testament itself.

Tags: answering, case, cessationists, continuing, gifts, spiritual

Category: Pneuma Review, Spirit, Spring 2000