The Duration of Prophecy: How Long Will Prophecy Be Used in the Church? (Part 2) by Wayne A. Grudem
But along with this rejection of prophets who misunderstood their status there was perhaps also a rejection of the gift of prophecy altogether, so that a failure on the part of the church itself to understand the nature of the gift of prophecy might have been the cause of a fairly complete suppression of at least the public expression of the gift of prophecy in the church. This explanation is only a suggestion, and I am not offering it here as the result of investigation into the historical evidence that would be necessary to confirm or deny it.
(b) Second, it should be clear that I am not suggesting here that Paul was expressing in 1 Corinthians 13 an opinion on the relative frequency of prophesying in the history of the church. That would be subject to much variation depending on the spiritual maturity and vitality of the church in various periods, the degree to which prophecy was sought as a blessing or rejected as a heresy, the frequency with which public worship normally made provision for the exercise of this gift, and the degree to which the nature of New Testament prophecy was correctly understood.
What Paul is speaking about, however, is the total and final abolition of prophecy which is to be brought about by divine initiative at the return of Christ. And he is saying that he thinks that until the time of the return of Christ the gift of prophecy will at least to some extent remain available for use, and God will continue to give people the revelations that make prophecy possible.
With particular reference to prophecy, Calvin (Commentary on 1 Corinthians, 305) notes the abundance of spiritual gifts in Paul’s day and comments (on 1 Cor. 14:32):
Today we see our own slender resources, our poverty in fact; but this is undoubtedly the punishment we deserve, as the reward for our ingratitude. For God’s riches are not exhausted, nor has His liberality grown less; but we are not worthy of His largess, or capable of receiving all that He generously gives.
PR
Concluding in the Fall 2001 Issue:
The Relationship between the Gift of Prophecy and Scripture
Spiritual Gifts as Characteristic of the New Covenant Age
Application for Today
Notes
- Gaffin, Perspectives, 109-110.
- Ibid., 111.
- Robert L. Reymond, What About Continuing Revelations and Miracles in the Presbyterian Church Today? (Phillipsburg, N.J.: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1977), 32-34. Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr., The Charismatic Gift of Prophecy: A Reformed Analysis (Lakeland, Fla.: Whitefield Seminary Press, 1986), 31-33, lists both this view and the view of Gaffin (see objection 1, above) as acceptable options.
- Walter J. Chantry, Signs of the Apostles: Observations on Pentecostalism Old and New (Carlisle, Pa.: Banner of Truth, 1976), 51-52.
- Some argue that faith and hope will not endure in heaven, so 1 Corinthians 13:13 only means that faith and hope last until, not beyond, Christ’s return. However, if faith is dependence on God and trust in him, and if hope is a confident expectation of future blessings to be received from God, then there is no reason to think that we will cease to have faith and hope in heaven. (See Carson’s good discussion of faith, hope, and love as “eternally permanent virtues” in Showing the Spirit, 74-75.)
- Gaffin, Perspectives, 109; compare Max Turner, “Spiritual Gifts Then and Now,” Vox Evangelica 15 (1985): 38.
- D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Prove All Things, ed. Christopher Catherwood (Eastbourne, England: Kingsway, 1985), 32-33.
- John Calvin, The First Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians, trans. J. W. Fraser, ed. D. W. Torrance and T. F. Torrance (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1960), 281 (on 1 Cor. 13:10).
- This is the position of S. D. Toussaint, “First Corinthians Thirteen and the Tongues Question,” BSac 120 (1963): 311-316.
Category: Spirit, Summer 2001
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