How long did God expect prophecy to function in the church?

The Duration of Prophecy: How Long Will Prophecy Be Used in the Church?  (Part 1) from the Spring 2001 issue.

The Duration of Prophecy: How Long Will Prophecy Be Used in the Church?  (Part 2) from the Summer 2001 issue.

The Duration of Prophecy: How Long Will Prophecy Be Used in the Church?  (Part 3) from the Fall 2001 issue.

“The Duration of Prophecy” is Chapter 12 from the 2000 revised edition of The Gift of Prophecy in the New Testament and Today by Wayne A. Grudem.

Part 3 and conclusion of Professor Grudem’s exegetical study of 1 Corinthians 13. The Duration of Prophecy: How Long Will Prophecy Be Used in the Church?

“The Duration of Prophecy” is Chapter 12 from The Gift of Prophecy in the New Testament and Today by Wayne A. Grudem.

The Relationship between the Gift of Prophecy and Scripture

In addition to the interpretation of 1 Corinthians 13:8-13, there is one other area of concern to the question of whether prophecy should continue being used in the church today. That area is the relationship between New Testament congregational prophecy and Scripture.

Does the continuation of prophecy challenge the sufficiency of Scripture or the closed canon?

Those who take a cessationist view of prophecy argue that once the last New Testament book was written (probably the book of Revelation around a.d. 90), then there were to be no more “words of God” spoken or written in the church. Scripture was the complete and sufficient source of God’s words for his people, and to add any more words from continuing prophetic utterances would be, in effect, either to add to Scripture or to compete with Scripture. In both cases, the sufficiency of Scripture itself would be challenged, and, in practice, its unique authority in our lives.

If New Testament congregational prophecy was like Old Testament prophecy and New Testament apostolic words in its authority, then this cessationist objection would indeed be true. If New Testament prophets today, for example, spoke words that we knew were the very words of God, then these words would be equal to Scripture in authority, and we would be obligated to write them down and add them to our Bibles whenever we heard them. But if we are convinced that God stopped causing Scripture to be written when the book of Revelation was completed, then we have to say that this kind of speech, uttering the very words of God, cannot happen today. And any claims to have new Scripture, new words of God, must be rejected as false.

This question is very important, because the claim that New Testament prophecy had authority equal to Scripture is the basis of perhaps every cessationist argument written today. Yet it must be noted that charismatics themselves do not seem to view prophecy that way. George Mallone writes, “To my knowledge no noncessationist in the mainstream of Christianity claims that revelation today is equal with Scripture.”¹⁴ Perhaps it would be good for those arguing against continuing prophecy today to give a more sympathetic hearing to the most responsible charismatic spokesmen, simply for the purpose of being able to respond to something that charismatics actually believe (even if not always expressed in theologically precise form) instead of responding to something that cessationists say that charismatics believe or say that charismatics should believe.

Part 2 of Professor Grudem’s exegetical study of 1 Corinthians 13. The Duration of Prophecy: How Long Will Prophecy Be Used in the Church?

“The Duration of Prophecy” is Chapter 12 from The Gift of Prophecy in the New Testament and Today by Wayne A. Grudem.

Objections to This Interpretation

Various objections to this conclusion have been raised, usually by those who hold that the gift of prophecy has ceased in the church and should no longer be used. In this section, we shall examine those objections one at a time. Some of them deal with 1 Corinthians 13:8-13 specifically, and others deal with broader concerns.

1. “This passage does not specify when the gifts will cease”

The first objection to our conclusion above comes from Richard Gaffin’s thoughtful study, Perspectives on Pentecost. While Gaffin agrees that “when the perfect comes” refers to the time of Christ’s return, he does not think that this verse specifies the time of the cessation of certain gifts. He thinks, rather, that Paul is just viewing “the entire period until Christ’s return, without regard to whether or not discontinuities may intervene during the course of this period.”⁴

In fact, Gaffin argues, Paul’s overall purpose is to emphasize the enduring qualities of faith, hope, and love, especially love, and not to specify the time in which certain gifts will cease. He says:

Paul is not intending to specify the time when any particular mode will cease. What he does affirm is the termination of the believer’s present, fragmentary knowledge . . . when “the perfect” comes. The time of the cessation of prophecy and tongues is an open question so far as this passage is concerned and will have to be decided on the basis of other passages and considerations.⁵

In response to this objection it must be said that it does not do justice to the actual words of the text. Evangelicals have rightly insisted (and I know that Gaffin agrees with this) that passages of Scripture are true not only in the main point of each passage, but also in the minor details that are affirmed as well. The main point of the passage may well be that love lasts forever, but another point, and certainly an important one as well, is that verse 10 affirms, not just that these imperfect gifts will cease sometime, but that they will cease “when the perfect comes.” Paul specifies a certain time: “When the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away” (1 Cor. 13:10, rsv). But Gaffin seems to claim that Paul is not actually saying this. Yet the force of the words cannot be avoided by affirming the overall theme of the larger context instead.

Part 1 of Professor Grudem’s exegetical study of 1 Corinthians 13. The Duration of Prophecy: How Long Will Prophecy Be Used in the Church?

“The Duration of Prophecy” is Chapter 12 from The Gift of Prophecy in the New Testament and Today by Wayne A. Grudem.

Introduction

Many people reading this study have never seen the gift of prophecy functioning in their local church. In fact, outside of the charismatic movement and certain traditionally Pentecostal denominations, this gift is not now used and has not been used in recent history—for many churches, it has not been used in the history of their denominations.

Why not?

Is the non-use of this gift part of God’s plan for the church? Was this gift only to be used during the New Testament time, then to fade away? Or is this gift still valid for use today, still valuable for the church—and perhaps even necessary if the church is to function the way God intends it to function?

This is the question of the duration of prophecy. Can we solve this question by examining the New Testament? In the New Testament itself, are there indications of how long God expected prophecy to function in the church?

On the one side of this question are charismatic and Pentecostal Christians who continue to use this gift, and who say it is valid for the entire church age.

On the other side are some Reformed and dispensational Christians who say that prophecy was one of the special gifts associated with the foundation of the church at the time of the apostles, and that it was expected to cease functioning at a very early date, either around the time of the deaths of the last apostles or at the time that the writing of the books of New Testament Scripture was complete. Their view is commonly called the cessationist view.

Probably in the middle are most contemporary evangelicals—neither charismatics nor cessationists but still undecided about this question, and wondering if it can be decided clearly.

The Interpretation of 1 Corinthians 13:8-13

This passage is important to the discussion because in it Paul mentions the gift of prophecy as something that is “imperfect,” and then says that what is “imperfect” will “pass away” (1 Cor. 13:10). He even says when this will happen. It will happen “when the perfect comes.” But when is that? And even if we can determine when that is, does that mean Paul had in mind something that would answer this “cessation” question for the church today?