Recent Cessationist Arguments: Has the Storm Center Moved?

 

A Leaner Cessationism?

That arguments for a cessationist reading of 1 Corinthians 13 have finally become relatively scarce is itself is a development that we should appreciate for its own significance, but it is worth noting also what the cessationists’ new strategies and concerns are, and what their strengths and weaknesses might be. I should note at the outset that the development I refer to falls well short of being a “sea change.” I would be very surprised if cessationist arguments on the basis of 1 Corinthians 13 suddenly disappeared altogether. Rather, I am talking about a remarkable absence of the traditional appeals to 1 Corinthians 13 within some recent cessationist arguments, as well as an unmistakable new focus in those arguments.

In some respects, the term “cessationist” has become less appropriate as a tag for the new arguments, as the burden has shifted somewhat from showing that the gifts of the Spirit have ceased to showing that the idea of a “private prayer language” (abbreviated by the debaters as “PPL”) is a scriptural concept. In strict terms, the new arguments would appear to concede that the gifts of the Spirit per se may still be operational, but that glossolalia in particular can still be shown (they argue) to be a thing of the past—that it was a special dispensation serving to authenticate the gospel during the first generation of the Church. It would be wrong to lump all the cessationists together (for the sake of convenience, I shall continue to call them “cessationists,” since that is what they are with respect to their understanding of glossolalia), and it may be that the silence of certain apologies was not meant to speak as loudly as it might be taken to speak. But I find it remarkable, for instance, that Malcolm Yarnell attempts, in his treatment of the book of Acts (2006: 2-4), to limit the glossolalic episodes to three watershed moments: the presenting of the gospel to the Jews (Acts 2), the presenting of the gospel to the Gentiles (Acts 10), and the presenting of the gospel to the disciples of John the Baptist (Acts 19). According to Yarnell, “there is no specific reason to assume that the verification provided by the particular spiritual gift of speaking in tongues is required beyond the verification of the incorporation of these three main communities—Jews, Gentiles, and followers of John the Baptist” (2006: 4).

In this Yarnell seems to be presenting some unfinished thoughts, as he then takes up Paul’s discussion of glossolalia without ever trying to reconcile Paul’s own frequent practice of glossolalia (see 1 Cor 14:18) with his (Yarnell’s) understanding of glossolalia as a three-time sign in Acts. (Cessationists studiously avoid mentioning that Paul wrote, “I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you” [1 Cor 14:18].) In point of fact, the disconnect between Yarnell’s explanation of tongues in Acts and his explanation of tongues in 1 Corinthians could not be more obvious. Yarnell himself acknowledges something of a disconnect, but he handles it by speaking of glossolalia in Acts as “biblical glossolalia” and of glossolalia in 1 Corinthians as “Corinthian glossolalia.” While there are problems with the idea that glossolalia in the Corinthian community comes from the continuing influence of the Corinthians’ pagan background (see below), the greater problem with Yarnell’s formulation is that it fails to address the fact that Paul himself regularly practiced glossolalia, a fact that does not fit with Yarnell’s explanation of Acts or his explanation of 1 Corinthians. Paul’s glossolalia is certainly not subsumable within the three watershed presentations of the gospel in Acts, but neither can we get away with attributing it to the supposed pagan delinquency of the Corinthians’ spirituality. It represents something that Yarnell forgot to make room for.

Tags: arguments, center, cessationist, featured, moved, storm

Category: Spirit, Winter 2008