Praying in the Spirit: That Glorious Day When Tongues are Not Needed: Until Then … Part 1

Let’s look at the context of this passage. There is no hint here that Paul’s concern is the cessation of apostleship. In this passage, his actual concern is the oneness that we in Christ have. Notice the verses that Ephesians 2:20 is nestled among: “For through him [Christ] we both have access to the Father by one Spirit. Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household. … In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord” (verses 18-l9, 21). These verses are not remotely concerned with when the offices of apostle and prophet cease. Instead, Paul writes these words so that factions and inferiority might cease. We are one in the Spirit!

It should also be noted that the cessationist interpretation of this passage is self-defeating. In verse 20 Paul says that the Ephesian church was built upon the apostles and prophets, past tense. That being the case, apostleship and prophecy could no longer be in operation at the time of Paul’s writing to the Ephesians, for a building cannot be raised until the foundation is finished. If they have ceased, how can Paul continue to receive and transmit divine revelation? If the cessationist interpretation of Ephesians 2:20 is correct, Paul did not have the authority to say that apostleship and prophecy no longer existed, for he would no longer be an apostle.

Furthermore, two chapters later Paul writes that it was Christ “who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ” (4:1 l-13; emphasis added). Until we have unity, until factions cease, we will need to work to build up the Church body.

What then does Ephesians 2:20 mean? Simply put, it means that just as the early Jewish church was built upon the teachings of the apostles and prophets, so too was the Gentile church. We are one. If we must twist this verse until it seems to say something about apostles and prophets, I suppose we could claim it teaches that apostles and prophets are instrumental in founding churches, whether in Jerusalem, Corinth, Ephesus, or Atlanta, Georgia. It is Christianity’s and, therefore, the world’s loss that we do not recognize, esteem, and support men and women who have these gifts or offices. Many men and women whom the Church weakly and hesitantly sends out with the word of salvation should be boldly sent out as apostles and prophets of the Lord Jesus Christ. Let them shout it from the rooftops; let them proclaim His goodness throughout the earth; let their voices of light pierce the darkness! Or, should we listen to the voice of unbelief: “There are no apostles today, no prophets either, no healings, no miracles, no tongues”? God forbid!

Tags: day, glorious, needed, part, praying, spirit, tongues

Category: Spirit, Spring 2000